Harry, rising up in his stirrups, tried to see over the dense undergrowth, but patches of saplings and scrub oaks farther on hid the view. Nevertheless he caught the flash of heavy guns and saw many columns of smoke rising. It was toward their left now, and they would soon be parallel with it, whence their own guns would open a flanking fire, if any open spot or elevation could be found.
They had gone about a half mile, when Stuart uttered an exclamation and pointed to a hillock. It was not necessary to say anything, because everyone knew that this was the place for the guns.
"Now we"ll drop a few sh.e.l.ls of our own among those Yankee gunners and see how they like it," said Dalton.
The cannon were unlimbering rapidly, but the open s.p.a.ce on the hillock was so small that only one gun could be brought up, and it sent a shot toward the Union lines. The Union artillery, superb as always, marked the spot whence the shot came, and in an instant two batteries, masked by the woods, poured a terrible fire upon the hillock and those about it.
So deadly was the steel rain that the little force was put out of action at once. Harry had never beheld a more terrifying scene. Most of the horses and men around the first cannon were killed. One horse and one gunner fell dead across its wheels. Other horses, wounded and screaming with pain and fright, rushed into the dense undergrowth and were caught by the trailing vines and thrown down. Some of the cavalrymen themselves were knocked out of the saddle by the fleeing horses, but they quickly regained their seats.
A second discharge from many guns sent another rain equally as deadly upon the hillock and its vicinity. More men and horses fell, and a scene of wild confusion followed. Attempting to turn about and escape from that spot of death, the cannon crashed together. There was not room for all the men and horses and guns. Most of them were compelled to plunge into the undergrowth and struggle desperately through it for shelter.
But Harry did not forget the two generals who were worth so much to the South. It would be fate"s bitterest irony if Jackson and Stuart were killed in a small flanking movement, when, as was obvious to everyone, a battle of the first magnitude was just before them. And yet, while fragments of steel, hot and hissing, fell all around them, Jackson and Stuart and all the members of their staffs escaped without hurt.
The deadly fire followed them as they retreated, but the two generals rode on, unharmed. Harry and Dalton breathed deep sighs of relief when they were out of range.
"If a bullet had gone through my left side," said Dalton, "it wouldn"t have come near my heart."
"Why not?"
"Because my heart was in my mouth. In fact, I don"t think it has gone back yet to its natural place. The Yankees certainly have the guns."
"And the gunners who know how to use them. But doesn"t it feel good, George, to be back on the plank road?"
"It does. I"ll take my chance in open battle, but when I"m tangled up among bushes and vines and briars, I do hate to have a hundred-pound sh.e.l.l fired from an invisible gun burst suddenly on the top of my head. What"s all that firing off there to the left and farther on?"
"It means that some of our people have got deeper into the Wilderness than we have, and are feeling out Hooker. I imagine we won"t go much farther. Look how the night"s dropping down. I"d hate to pa.s.s a night alone in such a place as this Wilderness. It would be like sleeping in a graveyard."
"You won"t have to spend the night alone here. I wish I was as sure of Heaven as that. You"ll have something like two hundred thousand near neighbors."
The sun set and darkness swept over the Wilderness, but it was still lighted at many points by the flash of the firing and, after that ceased, by the campfires. Jackson"s advance was at an end for the time. He was fully in touch with his enemy and understood him. Hooker had retreated as far as he would go. When the fog cleared away in the morning the men in the captive balloons had informed him that heavy Southern columns were marching toward Chancellorsville. He was sure now that the full strength of the Southern army was before him, and he continued to fortify the Chancellor House and the plateau of Hazel Grove. He also threw up log breastworks through the heavily wooded country, and his lines, bristling with artillery and defended now by six score thousand men, extended along a front of six miles.
Jackson"s division lay in the Wilderness before Hooker, but out of cannon shot. All along that vast front hundreds and hundreds of pickets and riflemen on either side were keeping a vigilant watch. Jackson and his staff had dismounted and were eating their suppers around one of the campfires. The general was again impa.s.sive.
After the supper Harry walked a little distance and found the Invincibles, resting comfortably on the trodden undergrowth. The two colonels had preserved the neatness of their attire, and whatever they felt, neither showed any anxiety. But St. Clair and Langdon were free of speech.
"Well, Harry," said Happy Tom, "is Old Jack going to send us up against intrenchments and four to one?"
"He hasn"t confided in me, but I don"t think he means to do any such thing. He remembers, as even a thick-head like you, Happy, would remember, how the splendid army of Burnside beat itself to pieces against our works at Fredericksburg."
"Well, then, why are we here?"
"There"s sense in your question, Tom, but I can"t answer it."
"No, there isn"t any sense in it," interrupted St. Clair. "Do you suppose for an instant that Lee and Jackson would bring us here if they didn"t have a mighty good reason for it?"
"That"s so," admitted Happy Tom; "but General Lee isn"t here. Yes, he is! Listen to the cheering!"
They sprang to their feet and saw Lee coming through the woods on his white horse, Traveler, a roar of cheers greeting him as he advanced. Behind him came new brigades, and Harry believed that the whole Southern army was now united before Hooker.
Lee dismounted and Jackson went forward to meet his chief. The staffs stood at a respectful distance as the two men met and began to talk, glancing now and then toward the distant lights that showed where the army of Hooker stood.
CHAPTER IX
CHANCELLORSVILLE
Harry and Dalton sat down on a tiny hillock and waited while the two generals carried on their long conference, to which now and then they summoned McLaws, Anderson, Pender and other division or brigade commanders. The two lads even then felt the full import of that memorable night.
Nature herself had stripped away all softness, leaving only sternness and desolation for the terrible drama which was about to be played in the Wilderness. The night was dark, and to Harry"s imaginative mind the forest turned to some vast stretch of the ancient, primitive world.
Naturally cheerful and usually alive with the optimism of youth, the air seemed to him that night to be filled with menacing signals. Often he started at familiar sounds. The clank of arms to which he had been so long used sent a chill down his spine. As the campfires died, the gloom that hung over the Wilderness became for him heavier and more ominous.
"What"s the matter, Harry?" asked Dalton, catching a glimpse of his face in the moonlight.
"I don"t know, George. I suppose this war is getting on my nerves. I must be looking too much into the future. Anyway, I"m oppressed to-night, and I don"t know what it is that"s oppressing me so much."
"I don"t feel that way. Maybe I"m becoming blunted. But the generals are talking a long time."
"I suppose they have need to do a lot of talking, George. You know how small our army is, and we can"t rush Hooker behind the strong intrenchments they say he has thrown up. Oh, if only Longstreet and his corps were back with us!"
"Well, Longstreet and his men are not here, and we"ll have to do the best we can without them. Hold up your head, Harry. Lee and Jackson will find a way."
While Lee and Jackson and their generals conferred, another conference was going on three miles away at the Chancellor House in the depths of the Wilderness. Hooker, a brave man, who had proved his courage more than once, was bewildered and uneasy. He lacked the experience in supreme command in which his great antagonist, Lee, was so rich. The field telegraph had broken down just before sunset, and his subordinates, Sedgwick and Reynolds, brave men too, who had divisions elsewhere, were vague and uncertain in their movements. Hooker did not know what to expect from them.
Some of the generals, chafing at retreat before a force which they knew to be smaller than their own, wanted to march out and attack in the morning. Hooker, suddenly grown prudent, awed perhaps by his great responsibilities, wished to contract his camp and build intrenchments yet stronger. He compromised at last amid varying counsels, and decided to hold his present intrenched lines along their full length. His gallant officers on the extended right and left were indignant at the thought of withdrawing before the enemy, sure that they could beat him back every time.
But there were bolder spirits at the Southern headquarters, three miles away. Lee and Jackson always saw clearly and were always able to decide upon a course. Besides, their need was far more desperate. The Southern army did not increase in numbers. Victories brought few new men to its standards. Winning, it held its own, and losing, it lost everything. Before it stood the Army of the Potomac, outnumbering it two to one, and behind that army stood a great nation ready to pour forth more men by the hundreds of thousands and more money by the hundreds of millions to save the Union.
Harry, leaning against a bush, fell into a light doze, from which Dalton aroused him bye and bye. But the habit of war made him awake fully and instantly. Every faculty was alive. He arose to his feet and saw that Lee and Jackson were just parting. A faint moon shone over the Wilderness, revealing but little of the great army which lay in its thickets.
"I fancy that the plan which will give us either victory or defeat is arranged," said Dalton.
But neither Harry nor Dalton was called, and bye and bye they sank into another doze. They were awakened toward morning by Sherburne, who stood before them holding his horse by the bridle. The horse was wet with foam, and it was evident that he had been ridden far and hard.
"What is it?" asked Harry, springing to his feet. "I"ve been riding with General Stuart," replied Sherburne, who looked worn and weary, but nevertheless exultant. "How many miles we"ve ridden I"ll never know, but we"ve been along the whole Northern front and around their wings. With the help of Fitz Lee we"ve discovered their weak point. The Northern left, fortified in the thickets, is impossible. We"d merely beat ourselves to pieces against it; but their right has no protection at all, that is, no trenches or breastworks. I thought you boys might be wanted presently, and, as I saw you sleeping here, I"ve awakened you. Look down there and you"ll see something that I think the Northern army has cause to dread."
Harry and Dalton looked at a little open s.p.a.ce in the center of which Lee and Jackson sat, having met for another talk, each on an empty cracker box, taken from a heap which the Northern army had left behind when it withdrew the day before. The generals faced each other and two or three men were standing by. One of them was a major named Hotchkiss, whom Harry knew.
Harry and Dalton did not hear the words said, but one of those present subsequently told them much that was spoken at this last and famous conference. A man named Welford had recently cut a road toward the northwest through the Wilderness in order that he might haul wood and iron ore to a furnace that he had built. He had certainly never dreamed of the far more important purpose to which this road would be put, but he had been found at his home by Hotchkiss, the major, and, zealous for the South, he had given him the information that was of so much value. He had also volunteered to guide the troops along his road and he had marked it on a map which the major carried.
"What is your report, Major Hotchkiss?" asked General Lee.
The major took a cracker box from the heap, put it between the two generals, and spread his map upon it, pointing to Welford"s road. The two generals studied it attentively, and then Lee asked Jackson what he would suggest. Jackson traced the road with his finger and replied that he would like to follow it with his whole corps and fall upon the Northern flank. He suggested that he leave his commander with only a small force to make a noisy demonstration in the Northern front, while Jackson was executing his great turning movement.
Lee considered it only a few moments and agreed. Then he wrote brief and crisp instructions, and when he finished, General Jackson rose to his feet, his face illumined with eagerness. He was absolutely confident that he would succeed in the daring deed he was about to undertake.