And flags, flags, flags, were streaming in billowy waves of red, white and blue, as far as the eye could reach!
"Isn"t that pretty, boys!" Ned sighed admiringly.
Tom lifted his solemn eyes from the gra.s.s.
"Lord, Lord, look at them new warm clothes, an" my elbows a-freezin" in this cold wind!"
"Ain"t it a picture?"
"What a pity to spile it!"
A ripple of admiration ran along the crouching lines as fingers softly felt for the triggers of their guns.
A quick order from John Vaughan"s Colonel sent their battery of artillery rattling and bounding into position. The cannoneers sprang to their mounts. A handsome young fellow missed his foothold and fell beneath the wheels. The big iron tire crushed his neck and the blood from his mouth splashed into John"s face. The men on the guns didn"t turn their heads to look back. Their eyes were searching the brown hills before them.
The long roll beat from a thousand drums, the call of the buglers rang over the valley--and then the strange, solemn silence that comes before the shock--the moment when cowards collapse and the brave falter.
John Vaughan"s soul rose in a fierce challenge to fate. If he died it was well; if he lived it was the same. He had ceased to care.
At exactly eight-thirty, General Meade hurled his division, supported by Doubleday and Gibbon, against Jackson"s weakest point, the right of the Confederate lines. Their aim was to seize an opposing hill. The curving lines of grey were silent until the charging hosts were well advanced in deadly range and then the brown hills flamed and roared in front and on their flanks.
The blue lines were mowed down in swaths as though the giant figure of Death had suddenly swung his scythe from the fog banks in the sky.
Again and again came those awful volleys of musketry and artillery cross-firing on the rushing lines. The men staggered and recovered, reformed and charged again over the dead bodies of their comrades carrying the crest for a moment. They captured a flag and a handful of prisoners only to be driven back down the hill with losses more frightful in retreat than when they breasted the storm.
In the centre the tragedy was repeated with results even more terrible.
As the charging lines fell back, staggering, bleeding and cut to pieces, fresh brigades threw down their knapsacks, fixed their bayonets and charged through their own melting ranks into the jaws of Death to fall back in their turn.
With a mighty shout the blue line swept across the railroad, took the ditches at the point of the bayonet and captured two hundred grey prisoners. But only for a moment. From the supporting line rang the rebel yell and they were hurled back, shattered and cut to pieces.
These retreats were veritable shambles of slaughter. The curved lines on the hills raking them with their deadly accurate cross-fire.
John Vaughan"s regiment leaped to the support of the falling blue waves.
A wounded soldier had propped himself against a stone and smiled as the cheering men swept by. He could rest a while now.
A battery of artillery suddenly blazed from the hill-crest and his Colonel threw his command flat on their stomachs until the storm should slacken. John heard the shrill deadly swish of the big shots pa.s.sing two feet above.
He lifted his eyes to the hill and a frightened pigeon suddenly swooped straight down toward his head. He ducked quickly, sure he had escaped a cannon ball until the laugh of the man at his side told of his mistake.
They rose to charge. The knapsack of the man who had laughed was struck by a ball and a deck of cards sent flying ten feet in the air.
"Deal me a winning hand!" John shouted.
A shot cut the sword belt of the first lieutenant, left him uninjured, glanced and killed the captain. The lieutenant picked up his sword, took his captain"s place and led the charge.
Men were falling on the right and left and John Vaughan loaded and fired with steady, dogged nerve without a scratch.
Four times the blue billows had dashed against the hills only to fall back in red confusion. The din and roar were indescribable. The color-bearer of the regiment confused by conflicting orders paused and asked for instructions. The Colonel, mistaking his act for retreat, tore the colors from his hand and gave them to another man. The boy burst into tears. The new color-bearer had scarcely lifted the flag above his head when he fell. The disgraced soldier s.n.a.t.c.hed the tottering flagstaff and, lifting it on high, dashed up the hill ahead of his line of battle.
The men were ducking their heads low beneath the fierce hail of lead and staggering blindly.
John saw this boy waving his flag and shaking his fist back at the halting line. He was not a hundred feet from the Confederate trenches.
"Come on there!" he shouted. "d.a.m.n it, what"s the matter with you?"
Ned Vaughan and his grey men behind the little mound of red dirt were watching this drama with flashing eyes. Beside him crouched a boy whose early piety had marked him for the ministry. But he had wandered from the fold in the stress of army life. Ned heard his voice now in low, eager prayer:
"O Lord, drive "em back! Drive "em back, O Lord!"
He fired his musket down the hill and prayed harder:
"Lord, drive "em back! I"ve sinned and come short, but drive "em, O Lord!"
He paused and whispered to Ned as he reached for another cartridge:
"Are they comin" or goin"?"
"Coming!"
Again he prayed with fervor:
"Drive "em back, Lord G.o.ddermighty, we"re weak and you"re strong--help us now! Drive "em--just this time, O Lord, and you can have me--I"ll be good!"
He paused for breath and turned to Ned:
"Now look!--Comin" or goin"?"
"That follow with the flag cussin" the men has dropped----"
"Thank G.o.d!"
"Another"s lifted it----"
"Lord, save us!"
"Why don"t you lie down, ye d.a.m.n fool," Tom shouted. "I"m huggin" the ground so close now I don"t want a piece of paper under me, and if there"s got to be a piece I don"t want no writin" on it!"
"Now look, are they comin"?" the pious boy gasped.
Ned made no answer. His wide set eyes were staring at the man who had caught that color-bearer in his arms and was carrying him to the rear.
It was John Vaughan!
His lips were moving now in silent prayer and his sword hung limp in his hands.
Through chattering teeth he cried:
"Don"t shoot that fellow carrying his friend down the hill, boys!"