Part 16 (2/2)
”I was about as much of a soldier as the majority, from the generals down,” was the laughing reply.
”I don't see how you could have been a worse one, if you had tried,”
was his friend's rejoinder. ”I may do no better; but I should be less than a man if I did not make an effort to wipe out the disgrace as soon as possible. No reflection on you, Graham. Your wounds exonerate you; and I know you did not get them in running away.”
”Yes, I did--two of them, at least--these in my arm. As to 'wiping out this disgrace as soon as possible,' I think that is a very secondary matter.”
”Well! I don't understand it at all,” was Hilland's almost savage answer. ”But I can tell you from the start you need not enter on your old prudent counsels that I should serve the government as a stay-at-home quartermaster and general supply agent. In my opinion, what the government needs is men--men who at least won't run away. I now have Grace's permission to go--dear, brave girl!--and go I shall.
To stay at home because I am rich seems to me the very sn.o.bbishness of wealth; and the kind of work I have been doing graybeards can do just as well, and better.”
Graham turned a grave look of inquiry upon the wife. She answered it by saying with a pallid face: ”I had better perish a thousand times than destroy Warren's self-respect.”
”What right have you to preach caution,” continued Hilland, ”when you went far enough to be struck by half a dozen bullets?”
”The right of a retreat which scarcely slackened until I was under my aunt's roof.”
”Come, Graham, you are tantalizing us,” said Hilland, impatiently.
”There, forgive me, old fellow. I fear you are still a little out of your head,” he added, with a slight return of his old good-humor. ”Do give us, then, if you can, some account of your impetuous advance on Was.h.i.+ngton, instead of Richmond.”
”Yes, Mr. Graham,” added the major, ”if you are able to give me some reason for not blus.h.i.+ng that I am a Northern man, I shall be glad to hear it.”
”Mrs. Hilland,” said Graham, with a smiling glance at the young wife's troubled face, ”you have the advantage of us all. You can proudly say, 'I'm a Southerner.' Hilland and I are nothing but 'low-down Yankees.'
Come, good friends, I have seen enough tragedy of late; and if, I have to describe a little to-night, let us look at matters philosophically.
If I received some hard knocks from your kin, Mrs. Hilland--”
”Don't say 'Mrs. Hilland,'” interrupted his friend. ”As I've told you before, my wife is 'Grace' to you.”
”So be it then. The hard knocks from your kin have materially added to my small stock of sense; and I think the entire North will be wiser as well as sadder before many days pa.s.s. We have been taught that taking Richmond and marching through the South will be no holiday picnic.
Major St. John has been right from the start. We must encounter brave, determined men; and, whatever may be true of the leaders, the people are as sincere in their patriotism as we are. They don't even dream that they are fighting in a bad cause. The majority will stand up for it as stoutly and conscientiously as your husband for ours. Have I not done justice to your kin, Grace?”
”Yes,” she replied, with a faint smile.
”Then forgive me if I say that until four o'clock last Sunday afternoon, and in a fair, stand-up fight between a Northern mob and a Southern mob, we whipped them.”
”But I thought the men of the North prided themselves on their 'staying power.'”
”They had no 'staying power' when they found fresh regiments and batteries pouring in on their flank and rear. I believe that retreat was then the proper thing. The wild panic that ensued resulted naturally from the condition of the men and officers, and especially from the presence of a lot of nondescript people that came to see the thing as a spectacle, a sort of gladiatorial combat, upon which they could look at a safe distance. Two most excellent results have been attained: I don't believe we shall ever send out another mob of soldiers; and I am sure that a mob of men and women from Was.h.i.+ngton will never follow it to see the fun.”
”I wish Beauregard had corralled them all--the mob of sight-seers, I mean,” growled the major. ”I must say, Mr. Graham, that the hard knocks you and others have received may result in infinite good. I think I take your meaning, and that we shall agree very nearly before you are through. You know that I was ever bitterly opposed to the mad 'On to Richmond' cry; and now the cursed insanity of the thing is clearly proved.”
”I agree with you that it was all wrong--that it involved risks that never should have been taken at this stage of the war; and I am told that General Scott and other veteran officers disapproved of the measure. Nevertheless, it came wonderfully near being successful. We should have gained the battle if the attack had been made earlier, or if that old m.u.f.f, Patterson, had done his duty.”
”If you are not too tired, give us the whole movement, just as you saw it,” said Hilland, his eyes glowing with excitement.
”Oh, I feel well enough for another retreat tonight. My trouble was chiefly fatigue and lack of sleep.”
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