THE COMING OF GRANT
The little dinner ended. Despite his disapproval of General Early's
swearing, General Lee laughed heartily at further details of the
strange Yankee spy's exploits. But it was well known that in this
particular General Early was the champion of the East. Harry did not
know that in the person of Colonel Charles Woodville, his cousin, Dick
Mason, had encountered one of equal ability in the Southwest.
Presently General Lee and his two young aides mounted their horses for
the return. The commander-in-chief seemed gayer than usual. He was
always very fond of Stuart, whose high spirits pleased him, and before
his departure he thanked him for his thoughtfulness.
"Whenever we get any particularly choice shipments from the North I
shall always be pleased to notify you, General, and send you your
share," said Stuart, sweeping the air in front of him again with his
great plumed hat. With his fine, heroic face and his gorgeous uniform
he had never looked more a knight of the Middle Ages.
General Lee smiled and thanked him again, and then rode soberly back,
followed at a short distance by his two young aides. Although the view
of hills and mountains and valleys and river and brooks was now
magnificent, the sumach burning in red and the leaves vivid in many
colors, Lee, deeply sensitive, like all his rural forbears, to rural
beauty, nevertheless seemed not to notice it, and soon sank into deep
thought.
It is believed by many that Lee knew then that the Confederacy had
already received a mortal blow. It was not alone sufficient for the
South to win victories. She must keep on winning them, and the failure
at Gettysburg and the defeat at Vicksburg had put her on the defensive
everywhere. Fewer blockade runners were getting through. Above all,
there was less human material upon which to draw. But he roused
himself presently and said to Harry:
"There was something humorous in the exploits of the man who held up
General Early's messengers, but the fellow is dangerous, exceedingly
dangerous at such a time."
"I've an idea who he is, sir," said Harry.
"Indeed! What do you know?"
Then Harry told nearly all that he knew about Shepard, but not
all--that struggle in the river, and his sparing of the spy and the
filching of the map at the Curtis house, for instance--and the
commander-in-chief listened with great attention.
"A bold man, uncommonly bold, and it appears uncommonly skilled, too.
We must send out a general alarm, that is, we must have all our own
scouts and spies watching for him."
Harry said nothing, but he did not believe that anybody would catch
Shepard. The man's achievements had been so startling that they had
created the spell of invincibility. His old belief that he was worth
ten thousand men on the Northern battle line returned. No movement of
the Army of Northern Virginia could escape him, and no lone messenger
could ever be safe from him.
Lee returned to his camp on Clarke's Mountain, and, a great revival
meeting being in progress, he joined it, sitting with a group of
officers. Fitzhugh Lee, W. H. F. Lee, Jones, Rosser, Wickham, Munford,
Young, Wade Hampton and a dozen others were there. Taylor and Marshall
and Peyton of his staff were also in the company.
The preacher was a man of singular power and earnestness, and after the
sermon he led the singing himself, in which often thirty or forty
thousand voices joined. It was a moving sight to Harry, all these men,
lads, mostly, but veterans of many fields, united in a chorus mightier
than any other that he had ever heard. It would have pleased Stonewall
Jackson to his inmost soul, and once more, as always, a tear rose to
his eye as he thought of his lost hero.
Harry and Dalton left their horses with an orderly and came back to the
edge of the great grove, in which the meeting was being held. They had
expected to find St. Clair and Happy Tom there, but not seeing them,
wandered on and finally drifted apart. Harry stood alone for a while
on the outskirts of the throng. They were all singing again, and the
mighty volume of sound rolled through the wood. It was not only a
singular, it was a majestic scene also to Harry. How like unto little
children young soldiers were! and how varied and perplexing were the
problems of human nature! They were singing with the utmost fervor of
Him who had preached continuously of peace, who was willing to turn one
cheek when the other was smitten, and because of their religious zeal
they would rush the very next day into battle, if need be, with
increased fire and zeal.
He saw a heavily built, powerful man on the outskirts, but some
distance away, singing in a deep rolling voice, but something vaguely
familiar in the figure drew his glance again. He looked long and well
and then began to edge quietly toward the singer, who was clothed in
the faded butternut uniform that so many of the Confederate soldiers
wore.
The fervor of the singer did not decrease, but Harry noticed that he
too was moving, moving slowly toward the eastern end of the grove, the
same direction that Harry was pursuing. Now he was sure. He would
have called out, but his voice would not have been heard above the vast
volume of sound. He might have pointed out the singer to others, but,
although he felt sure, he did not wish to be laughed at in case of
mistake. But strongest of all was the feeling that it had become a duel
between Shepard and himself.
He walked slowly on, keeping the man in view, but Shepard, although he
never ceased singing, moved away at about the same pace. Harry
inferred at once that Shepard had seen him and was taking precautions.
The temptation to cry out at the top of his voice that the most
dangerous of all spies was among them was almost irresistible, but it
would only create an uproar in which Shepard could escape easily,
leaving to him a load of ridicule.
He continued his singular pursuit. Shepard was about a hundred yards
away, and they had made half the circuit of this huge congregation.
Then the spy passed into a narrow belt of pines, and when Harry moved
forward to see him emerge on the other side he failed to reappear. He
hastened to the pines, which led some distance down a little gully, and
he was sure that Shepard had gone that way. He followed fast, but he
could discover no sign. He had vanished utterly, like thin smoke swept
away by a breeze.
He returned deeply stirred by the appearance and disappearance--easy,
alike--of Shepard. His sense of the man's uncanny powers and of his
danger to the Confederacy was increased. He seemed to come and go
absolutely as he pleased. It was true that in the American Civil War
the opportunities for spies were great. All men spoke the same
language, and all looked very much alike. It was not such a hard task
to enter the opposing lines, but Shepard had shown a daring and success
beyond all comparison. He seemed to have both the seven league boots
and the invisible cloak of very young childhood. He came as he
pleased, and when pursuit came he vanished in thin air.
Harry bit his lips in chagrin. He felt that Shepard had scored on him
again. It was true that he had been victorious in that fight in the
river, when victory meant so much, but since then Shepard had
triumphed, and it was bitter. He hardened his determination, and
resolved that he would always be on the watch for him. He even felt a
certain glow, because he was one of two in such a conflict of skill and
courage.
The meeting having been finished, he went down one of the streets of
tents to the camp of the Invincibles. Colonel Leonidas Talbot and
Lieutenant-Colonel Hector St. Hilaire were not playing chess. Instead
they were sitting on a pine log with Happy Tom and St. Clair and other
officers, listening to young Julien de Langeais, who sat on another
log, playing a violin with surpassing skill. Lieutenant-Colonel St.
Hilaire, knowing his prowess as a violinist, had asked him to come and
play for the Invincibles. Now he was playing for them and for several
thousand more who were gathered in the pine woods.
Young de Langeais sat on a low stump, and the great crowd made a solid
mass around him. But he did not see them, nor the pine woods nor the
heavy cannon sitting on the ridges. He looked instead into a region of
fancy, where the colors were brilliant or gay or tender as he imagined
them. Harry, with no technical knowledge of music but with a great
love of it, recognized at once the touch of a master, and what was
more, the soul of one.
To him the violin was not great, unless the player was great, but when
the player was great it was the greatest musical instrument of all. He
watched de Langeais' wrapt face, and for him too the thousands of
soldiers, the pines and the cannon on the ridges melted away. He did
not know what the young musician was playing, probably some old French
air or a great lyric outburst of the fiery Verdi, whose music had
already spread through America.
"A great artist," whispered Lieutenant-Colonel St. Hilaire in his ear.
"He studied at the schools in New Orleans and then for two years in
Paris. But he came back to fight. Nothing could keep Julien from the
army, but he brought his violin with him. We Latins, or at least we
who are called Latins, steep our souls in music. It's not merely
intellectual with us. It's passion, fire, abandonment, triumph and all
the great primitive emotions of the human race."
Harry's feelings differed somewhat from those of Lieutenant-Colonel St.
Hilaire--in character but not in power--and as young de Langeais played
on he began to think what a loss a stray bullet could make. Why should
a great artist be allowed to come on the battle line? There were
hundreds of thousands of common men. One could replace another, but
nobody could replace the genius, a genius in which the whole world
shared. It was not possible for either drill or training to do it, and
yet a little bullet might take away his life as easily as it would that
of a plowboy. They were all alike to the bullets and the shells.
De Langeais finished, and a great shout of applause arose. The
cheering became so insistent that he was compelled to play again.
"His family is well-to-do," said Lieutenant-Colonel St. Hilaire just
before he began playing once more, "and they'll see that he goes back
to Paris for study as soon as the war is over. If they didn't I would."
It did not seem to occur to Lieutenant-Colonel St. Hilaire that young
de Langeais could be killed, and Harry began to share his confidence.
De Langeais now played the simple songs of the old South, and there was
many a tear in the eyes of war-hardened youth. The sun was setting in
a sea of fire, and the pine forests turned red in its blaze. In the
distance the waters of the Rapidan were crimson, too, and a light wind
out of the west sighed among the pines, forming a subdued chorus to the
violin.
De Langeais began to play a famous old song of home, and Harry's mind
traveled back on its lingering note to his father's beautiful house and
grounds, close by Pendleton, and all the fine country about it, in
which he and Dick Mason and the boys of their age had roamed. He
remembered all the brooks and ponds and the groves that produced the
best hickory nuts. When should he see them again and would his father
be there, and Dick, and all the other boys of their age! Not all!
Certainly not all, because some were gone already. And yet this
plaintive note of the homes they had left behind, while it brought a
tear to many an eye, made no decrease in martial determination. It
merely hardened their resolution to win the victory all the sooner, and
bring the homecoming march nearer.
De Langeais ended on a wailing note that died like a faint sigh in the
pine forest. Then he came back to earth, sprang up, and put his violin
in its case. Applause spread out and swelled in a low, thunderous
note, but de Langeais, who was as modest as he was talented, quickly
hid himself among his friends.
The sun sank behind the blue mountains, and twilight came readily over
the pine and cedar forests. Colonel Talbot and Lieutenant-Colonel St.
Hilaire, who had a large tent together, invited the youths to stay
awhile with them as their guests and talk. All the soldiers dispersed
to their own portions of the great camp, and there would be an hour of
quiet and rest, until the camp cooks served supper.
It had been a lively day for Harry, his emotions had been much stirred,
and now he was glad to sit in the peace of the evening on a stone near
the entrance of the tent, and listen to his friends. War drew comrades
together in closer bonds than those of peace. He was quite sure that
St. Clair, Dalton and Happy Tom were his friends for life, as he was
theirs, and the two colonels seemed to have the same quality of youth.
Simple men, of high faith and honor, they were often childlike in the
ways of the world, their horizons sometimes not so wide as those of the
lads who now sat with them.
"As I told Harry," said Lieutenant-Colonel St. Hilaire to Julien, "you
shall have that talent of yours cultivated further after the war. Two
years more of study and you will be among the greatest. You must know,
lads, that for us who are of French descent, Paris is the world's
capital in the arts."
"And for many of English blood, too," said Colonel Talbot.
Then they talked of more immediate things, of the war, the armies and
the prospect of the campaigns. Harry, after an hour or so, returned to
headquarters and he found soldiers making a bed for the
commander-in-chief under the largest of the pines. Lee in his
campaigns always preferred to sleep in the open air, when he could, and
it required severe weather to drive him to a tent. Meanwhile he sat by
a small fire--the October nights were growing cold--and talked with
Peyton and other members of his staff.
Harry and Dalton decided to imitate his example and sleep between the
blankets under the pines. Harry found a soft place, spread his
blankets and in a few minutes slept soundly. In fact, the whole Army
of Northern Virginia was a great family that retired early, slept well
and rose early.
The next morning there was frost on the grass, but the lads were so
hardy that they took no harm. The autumn deepened. The leaves blazed
for a while in their most vivid colors and then began to fall under the
strong west winds. Brown and wrinkled, they often whirled past in
clouds. The air had a bite in it, and the soldiers built more and
larger fires.
The Army of Northern Virginia never before had been quiescent so long.
The Army of the Potomac was not such a tremendous distance away, but it
seemed that neither side was willing to attack, and as the autumn
advanced and began to merge into winter the minds of all turned toward
the Southwest.
For the valiant soldiers encamped on the Virginia hills the news was
not good. Grant, grim and inflexible, was deserving the great name
that was gradually coming to him. He had gathered together all the
broken parts of the army defeated at Chickamauga and was turning Union
defeat into Union victory.
Winter closed in with the knowledge that Grant had defeated the South
disastrously on Lookout Mountain and all around Chattanooga.
Chickamauga had gone for nothing, the whole flank of the Confederacy
was turned and the Army of Northern Virginia remained the one great
barrier against the invading legions of the North. Yet the confidence
of the men in that army remained undimmed. They felt that on their own
ground, and under such a man as Lee, they were invincible.
In the course of these months Harry, as a messenger and often as a
secretary, was very close to Lee. He wrote a swift and clear hand, and
took many dispatches. Almost daily messages were sent in one direction
or another and Harry read from them the thoughts of his leader, which
he kept locked in his breast. He knew perhaps better than many an
older officer the precarious condition of the Confederacy. These
letters, which he took from dictation, and the letters from Richmond
that he read to his chief, told him too plainly that the limits of the
Confederacy were shrinking. Its money declined steadily. Happy Tom
said that he had to "swap it pound for pound now to the sutlers for
groceries." Yet it is the historical truth that the heart of the Army
of Northern Virginia never beat with more fearless pride, as the famous
and "bloody" year of '63 was drawing to its close.
The news arrived that Grant, the Sledge Hammer of the West, had been
put by Lincoln in command of all the armies of the Union, and would
come east to lead the Army of the Potomac in person, with Meade still
as its nominal chief, but subject, like all the others, to his command.
Harry heard the report with a thrill. He knew now that decisive action
would come soon enough. He had always felt that Meade in front of them
was a wavering foe, and perhaps too cautious. But Grant was of another
kind. He was a pounder. Defeats did not daunt him. He would attack
and then attack again and again, and the diminishing forces of the
Confederacy were ill fitted to stand up against the continued blows of
the hammer. Harry's thrill was partly of apprehension, but whenever he
looked at the steadfast face of his chief his confidence returned.
Winter passed without much activity and spring began to show its first
buds. The earth was drying, after melting snows and icy rains, and
Harry knew that action would not be delayed much longer. Grant was in
the East now. He had gone in January to St. Louis to visit his
daughter, who lay there very ill, and then, after military delays, he
had reached Washington.
Harry afterward heard the circumstances of his arrival, so
characteristic of plain and republican America. He came into
Washington by train as a simple passenger, accompanied only by his son,
who was but fourteen years of age. They were not recognized, and
arriving at a hotel, valise in hand, with a crowd of passengers, he
registered in his turn: "U. S. Grant and son, Galena, Ill." The clerk,
not noticing the name, assigned the modest arrival and his boy to a
small room on the fifth floor. Then they moved away, a porter carrying
the valise. But the clerk happened to look again at the register, and
when he saw more clearly he rushed after them with a thousand
apologies. He did not expect the victor of great battles, the
lieutenant-general commanding all the armies of the Union, a battle
front of more than a million men, to come so modestly.
When Harry heard the story he liked it. It seemed to him to be the
same simple and manly quality that he found in Lee, both worthy of
republican institutions. But he did not have time to think about it
long. The signs were multiplying that the advance would soon come.
The North had never ceased to resound with preparations, and Grant
would march with veterans. All the spies and scouts brought in the
same report. Butler would move up from Fortress Monroe toward Richmond
with thirty thousand men and Grant with a hundred and fifty thousand
would cross the Rapidan, moving by the right flank of Lee until they
could unite and destroy the Confederacy. Such was the plan, said the
scouts and spies in gray.
Longstreet with his corps had returned from the West and Lee gathered
his force of about sixty thousand men to meet the mighty onslaught--he
alone perhaps divined how mighty it would be--and when he was faced by
the greatest of his adversaries his genius perhaps never shone more
brightly.
May and the full spring came. It was the third day of the month, and
the camp of the Army of Northern Virginia was as usual. Many of the
young soldiers played games among the trees. Here and there they lay
in groups on the new grass, singing their favorite songs. The cooks
were preparing their suppers over the big fires. Several bands were
playing. Had it not been for the presence of so many weapons the whole
might have been taken for one vast picnic, but Harry, who sat in the
tent of the commander-in-chief, was writing as fast as he could
dispatch after dispatch that the Southern leader was dictating to him.
He knew perfectly well, of course, that the commander-in-chief was
gathering his forces and that they would move quickly for battle. He
knew, too, how inadequate was the equipment of the army. Only a short
time before he had taken from the dictation of his chief a letter to
the President of the Confederacy a part of which ran:
My anxiety on the subject of provisions for the army is so great that I
cannot refrain from expressing it to your Excellency. I cannot see how
we can operate with our present supplies. Any derangement in their
arrival or disaster to the railroad would render it impossible for me
to keep the army together and might force a retreat into North
Carolina. There is nothing to be had in this section for men or
animals. We have rations for the troops to-day and to-morrow. I hope
a new supply arrived last night, but I have not yet had a report.
Harry had thought long over this letter and he knew from his own
observation its absolute truth. The depleted South was no longer able
to feed its troops well. The abundance of the preceding autumn had
quickly passed, and in winter they were mostly on half rations.
Lee, better than any other man in the whole South, had understood what
lay before them, and his foes both of the battlefield and of the spirit
have long since done him justice. Less than a week before this eve of
mighty events he had written to a young woman in Virginia, a relative:
I dislike to send letters within reach of the enemy, as they might
serve, if captured, to bring distress on others. But you must
sometimes cast your thoughts on the Army of Northern Virginia, and
never forget it in your prayers. It is preparing for a great struggle,
but I pray and trust that the great God, mighty to deliver, will spread
over it His Almighty arms and drive its enemies before it.
Harry had seen this letter before its sending, and he was not surprised
now when Lee was sending messengers to all parts of his army. With all
the hero-worshiping quality of youth he was once more deeply grateful
that he should have served on the staffs and been brought into close
personal relations with two men, Stonewall Jackson and Lee, who seemed
to him so great. As he saw it, it was not alone military greatness but
greatness of the soul, which was greater. Both were deeply
religious--Lee, the Episcopalian, and Jackson, the Presbyterian, and it
was a piety that contained no trace of cant.
Harry felt that the crisis of the great Civil War was at hand. It had
been in the air all that day, and news had come that Grant had broken
up his camps and was crossing the Rapidan with a huge force. He knew
how small in comparison was the army that Lee could bring against him,
and yet he had supreme confidence in the military genius of his chief.
He had written a letter with which an aide had galloped away, and then
he sat at the little table in the great tent, pen in hand and ink and
paper before him, but Lee was silent. He was dressed as usual with
great neatness and care, though without ostentation. His face had its
usual serious cast, but tinged now with melancholy. Harry knew that he
no longer saw the tent and those around him. His mind dwelled for a
few moments upon his own family and the ancient home that he had loved
so well.
The interval was very brief. He was back in the present, and the
principal generals for whom he had sent were entering the tent. Hill,
Longstreet, Ewell, Stuart and others came, but they did not stay long.
They talked earnestly with their leader for a little while, and then
every one departed to lead his brigades.
The secretaries put away pen, ink and paper. Twilight was advancing in
the east and night suddenly fell outside. The songs ceased, the bands
played no more, and there was only the deep rumble of marching men and
moving cannon.
"We'll ride now, gentlemen," said Lee to his staff.
Traveller, saddled and bridled, was waiting and the commander-in-chief
sprang into the saddle with all the agility of a young man. The others
mounted, too, Harry and Dalton as usual taking their places modestly in
the rear.
A regiment, small in numbers but famous throughout the army for valor,
was just passing, and its colonel and its lieutenant-colonel, erect
men, riding splendidly, but gray like Lee, drew their swords and gave
the proud and flashing salute of the saber as they went by. Lee and
his staff almost with involuntary impulse returned the salute in like
fashion. Then the Invincibles passed on, and were lost from view in
the depths of the forest.
Harry felt a sudden constriction of the heart. He knew that he might
never see Colonel Leonidas Talbot nor Lieutenant-Colonel Hector St.
Hilaire again, nor St. Clair, nor Happy Tom either.
But his friends could not remain long in his mind at such a time. They
were marching, marching swiftly, the presence of the man on the great
white horse seeming to urge them on to greater speed. As the stars
came out Lee's brow, which had been seamed by thought, cleared. His
plan which he had formed in the day was moving well. His three corps
were bearing away toward the old battlefield of Chancellorsville.
Grant would be drawn into the thickets of the Wilderness as Hooker had
been the year before, although a greater than Hooker was now leading
the Army of the Potomac.
Harry, who foresaw it all, thrilled and shuddered at the remembrance.
It was in there that the great Jackson had fallen in the hour of
supreme triumph. Not far away were the heights of Fredericksburg,
where Burnside had led the bravest of the brave to unavailing
slaughter. As Belgium had been for centuries the cockpit of Europe, so
the wild and sterile region in Virginia that men call the Wilderness
became the cockpit of North America.
While Lee and his army were turning into the Wilderness Grant and the
greatest force that the Union had yet assembled were seeking him. It
was composed of men who had tasted alike of victory and defeat,
veterans skilled in all the wiles and stratagems of war, and with
hearts to endure anything. In this host was a veteran regiment that
had come East to serve under Grant as it had served under him so
valiantly in the West. Colonel Winchester rode at its head and beside
him rode his favorite aide, young Richard Mason. Not far away was
Colonel Hertford, with a numerous troop of splendid cavalry.
Grant, alert and resolved to win, carried in his pocket a letter which
he had received from Lincoln, saying:
Not expecting to see you before the spring campaign opens, I wish to
express in this way my entire satisfaction with what you have done up
to this time, so far as I understand it. The particulars of your plans
I neither know nor seek to know. You are vigilant and self-reliant,
and, pleased with this, I wish not to obtrude any constraints or
restraints upon you. While I am very anxious that any great disaster
or the capture of our men in great numbers should be avoided, I know
these points are less likely to escape your attention than they would
mine. If there is anything wanting which is within my power to give,
do not fail to let me know it. And now, with a brave army and a just
cause, may God sustain you.
A noble letter, breathing the loftiest spirit, and showing that moral
grandeur which has been so characteristic of America's greatest men. He
had put all in Grant's hands and he had given to him an army, the like
of which had never been seen until now on the American continent. Never
before had the North poured forth its wealth and energy in such
abundance.
Four thousand wagons loaded with food and ammunition followed the army,
and there was a perfect system by which a wagon emptied of its contents
was sent back to a depot to be refilled, while a loaded wagon took its
place at the front. Complete telegram equipments, poles, wires,
instruments and all were carried with every division. The wires could
be strung easily and the lieutenant-general could talk to every part of
his army. There were, also, staffs of signalmen, in case the wires
should fail at any time. Grant held in his hand all the resources of
the North, and if he could not win no one could.
All through the night the hostile armies marched, and before them went
the spies and scouts.