FREDERICKSBURG
Before night the Union army had three bridges across the Rappahannock,
and before morning it had six. The regiment that had crossed held the
right bank of the river, that is, the side of the South, and the boats
moved freely back and forth in the stream.
Yet the main army itself did not yet begin the crossing. Harry slept a
few hours before and after midnight, lying in the lee of a little ridge
and wrapped in a pair of heavy blankets, but as he wakened from time to
time he heard little from the river. There were no sounds to indicate
that great streams of armed men with their cannon were pouring over the
bridges. After the tremendous cannonade of the afternoon the night
seemed very quiet and peaceful.
Fires were burning here and there, but they were not many. The
Confederate generals did not care to furnish beacons for the enemy.
When Harry stood up he could catch glimpses of the river, the color of
steel again, but the farther bank, where the great army of the foe yet
lay, was buried in darkness. He wondered why Burnside was not using
every hour of the night for crossing, but he remembered how the same
general had delayed so long at Antietam that Lee and Jackson were able
to save themselves.
He became conscious that it was growing much colder again. The zero
weather of a few days since was returning. Every light puff of wind was
like the stab of an icicle. He was glad that he had a pair of blankets
and that they were heavy ones, too. But he did not ask anything more.
It was remarkable how fast the youth of both North and South became
inured to every form of privation. They lived almost like the primitive
man, and many thrived on it.
When he last awoke, about four o'clock in the morning, he did not lie
down to sleep again; he walked to the edge of the slope and stared once
more toward the river and the Union camp. He found Dalton already there,
closely examining the river and the shores with his glasses.
"What do you see, George?" Harry asked.
"Not much; they've got all the bridges now they need, but they're not
using them. Why, Harry, the battle's won already. Lee and Jackson
don't merely fight. Plenty of generals are good fighters, but our
leaders measure and weigh the generals who are coming against them,
look right inside of them, and read their minds better than those
generals can read them themselves."
"I believe you're right, George. And since Burnside is not crossing
to-night, he can't attack in the morning."
"Of course not. Lee and Jackson knew all the time that he'd waste a
day. They knew it by the way he delayed at Antietam, and they've been
reading his mind all the time he's been sitting here on the banks of the
Rappahannock. They knew just where he'd attack, just when, too, and
they'll have everything ready at the right point and at the right time."
"Of course they will."
They were but boys, and the great tactics and brilliant victories of Lee
and Jackson had overwhelmed the imaginations of both. In their minds
all things seemed possible to their leaders, and they had not the least
fear about the coming battle.
They walked back toward their general's tent and saw him sitting on a
log outside. The night was not so dark as the one before. A fair moon
and clusters of modest stars furnished some light. The general was
gazing toward Stafford Heights, tapping his bootleg at times with a
little switch. But he turned his gaze upon the two boys as they came
forward and saluted respectfully.
"Well, lads," he said in a voice of uncommon gentleness, "what have you
seen?"
"Nothing, sir, but the river and the dark shore beyond," replied Dalton.
"But the enemy will cross to-morrow, and they say they will annihilate
us."
"I think, sir, that they will recross the Rappahannock as fast as they
will cross it."
Dalton spoke boldly, because he saw that Jackson was leading him on.
"The right spirit," said Jackson quietly. "I see it throughout the army,
and so long as it prevails we cannot lose."
Then he turned his glasses again toward the river and paid them no
further attention. Officers of greater age and much higher rank came
near, but he ignored them also. His whole soul seemed to be absorbed
in the searching examination that he was making of the river and the
opposite shore. Harry and Dalton watched him a little while and then
went back to the shelter of the ridge, where, sitting with their backs
against the earth, they, too, took up the task of watching.
The earth was frozen hard now, but toward morning they saw the fog
rising again.
"It will cover the river, the far shore, and what's left of the town,"
said Dalton, "but what do we care? They'll be protected by it as they
advance on the bridges, but they wouldn't dare move through it to attack
us here on the heights."
"Here's the dawn again," said Harry. "I can see the ghost of the sun
over there trying to break through, but as there's no wind now the fog's
going to hang heavy and long."
Breakfast was served once more to the waiting army on the heights,
and then the youths in gray saw that the Union army, having let the
night pass, was beginning to cross the river. When the dawn finally
came many regiments were already over and the wheels of the heavy cannon
were thundering on the bridges. But the Confederate army lay quiet on
the heights, although before morning it had drawn itself in somewhat,
shortening the lines and making itself more compact.
"Look how they pour over the bridges!" said Harry, who stood glass to
eye. "They come in thousands and thousands, regiments, brigades and
whole divisions. Why, George, it looks as if the whole North were
swarming down upon us!"
"They're a hundred and twenty thousand strong. We know that positively,
and they're as brave as anybody. But we're eighty thousand strong,
just sitting here on the heights and waiting. Harry, they'll cross
that river again soon, and when they go back they'll be far less than a
hundred and twenty thousand!"
He spoke with no sign of exultation. Instead it was the boding tone of
an old prophet, rather than the sanguine voice of youth.
The fog deepened for a little while, and then some of the marching
columns were hidden. Out of the mists and gloom came the quick music
of many bands, playing the Northern brigades on to death. Then the fog
lifted again, and along the heights ran the blaze of the Southern cannon
as they sent shot and shell into the black masses of the Union troops
crowding by Fredericksburg.
But as the echoes of the shots died away, Harry heard again the bands
playing, and from the great Northern army below came mighty rolling
cheers.
"The battle is here now, Harry," said Dalton, "and this is the biggest
army we've ever faced."
The Union brigades, black in the somber winter dawn, seemed endless to
Harry. From the point where he stood the advancing columns as they
crossed the river looked almost solid. He knew that men must be falling,
dead or wounded, beneath the fire of the Southern guns, but the living
closed up so fast that he could not see any break in the lines.
"You can't see any sign of hesitation there," said Dalton. "The
Northern generals may doubt and linger, but the men don't when once they
get the word. What a tremendous and thrilling sight! It may be wicked
in me, Harry, but since there is a war and battles are being fought,
I'm glad I'm here to see it."
"So am I," said Harry. "It's something to feel that you're at the heart
of the biggest things going on in the world. Now we've lost 'em!"
His sudden exclamation was due to a shift of the wind, bringing back the
fog again and covering the river, the town and the advancing Union army.
The Confederate cannon then ceased firing, but Harry heard distinctly
the sounds made by scores of thousands of men marching, that measured
tread of countless feet, the beat of hoofs, the rumbling of cannon
wheels over roads now frozen hard, and the music of many bands still
playing. The thrill was all the keener when the great army became
invisible in the fog, although the mighty hum and murmur of varied
sounds proved that it was still marching there.
Jackson was on the right of Lee's line. He would be, as usual, in the
thick of it. His fighting line ran through deep woods, and he was
protected, moreover, by the slope up which the Union troops would
have to come, if they got near enough. Fourteen guns, guarded by two
regiments, were on Prospect Hill at his extreme right, and on his left
the ravine called Deep Run divided him from the command of Longstreet,
which spread away toward Marye's Hill.
Jackson's own line was a mile and a half long and he had thirty thousand
men, while Longstreet and the others had fifty thousand more. Lee
himself, directing the whole, rode along the lines on his white horse,
and whenever the men saw him cheers rolled up and down. But Lee had
little to say. All that needed to be said had been said already.
Harry saw the great commander riding along that morning as calmly as if
he were going to church. Lee, grave, imperturbable, was the last man
to show emotion, but Harry thought once that he caught a gleam from the
blue eye as he spoke a word or two with Jackson and went on. As he
passed near them, Harry, Dalton and all the other young officers took
off their hats, saluted and stood in silence. General Lee raised his
own hat in return, and rode back toward the division of Longstreet.
Harry glanced toward General Jackson, who was also mounted. But he did
not move and the reins lay loose on the animal's neck. Once the horse
dropped his head and nuzzled under some leaves for a few blades of
sheltered grass that had escaped the winter. But the general took no
notice. He kept his glasses to his eyes and watched every movement of
the enemy, when the fog lifted enough for him to see. Presently he
beckoned to Harry.
"Ride over to General Stuart," he said, "and see if he has made any
change in his lines. It is important that our formation be preserved
intact and that no gaps be left."
Then General Jackson himself rode to another elevation for a different
view, and the soldiers, from whom he had been hidden before by the fog,
gazed at him in amazement. The gorgeous uniform that Stuart had sent
him, worn only once before, and which they had thought discarded forever,
had been put on again. The old slouch hat was gone, and another,
magnificent with gold braid, looped and tasseled, was in its place.
Instead of the faithful pony, Little Sorrel, he rode a big charger.
Usually cheers ran along the line whenever he appeared upon the eve of
battle, but for a little space there was silence as the men gazed at him,
many of them not even knowing him. Jackson flushed and looked down
apologetically at the rich cloth and gold braid he wore. His eyes
seemed to say, "Boys, I've merely put these on in honor of the victory
we're going to win. But I won't do it again."
Then the cheers burst forth, spontaneous and ringing, proving a devotion
that few men have ever been able to command. Stern and unflinching as
Jackson invariably was in inflicting punishment, his soldiers always
regarded him as one of themselves, the best man among them, one fitted
by nature to lead democratic equals. After the cheers were over they
watched him as he looked through the glasses from his new position.
But he stayed there only a minute or two, going back then to his old
point of vantage.
Harry meanwhile had reached Stuart, who, mounted upon a magnificent
horse and clad in a uniform that fairly glittered through the fog itself,
was waiting restlessly. But he had not changed any part of his line.
Everything remained exactly as Jackson had ordered. He now knew Harry
well and always called him by his first name.
"Have you an order?" he exclaimed eagerly. "Does General Jackson want
us to advance?"
"He has said nothing about an advance," replied Harry tactfully.
"He merely wanted me to ride down the line and report to him on the
spirit of the soldiers as far as I could judge. He knew that your men,
General, would be hard to hold."
Stuart threw back his head, shook his long yellow hair and laughed in a
pleased way.
"General Jackson was right about my men," he said. "It's hard to keep
them from galloping into the battle, and my feelings are with them.
Yet we'll have all the fighting we want. Look at the great masses of
the Union army!"
The fog had lifted again and the Northern columns were still advancing,
marching boldly against the intrenched foe, although nearly every one of
their generals save Burnside himself knew that it was a hopeless task.
In all the mighty events of the war that Harry witnessed few were as
impressive to him as this solemn and steady march of the Union army,
heads erect and bands playing, into the jaws of death.
He stayed only a few moments with Stuart, returning direct to Jackson.
On his way he passed Sherburne, who, with his troop, was on Stuart's
extreme left flank. Harry leaned over, shook hands with him, nothing
more, and rode on. With the lifting of the fog the Southern guns were
again sending shot and sell into the blue masses. Then, from the other
side of the river, the great Union batteries left on Stafford Heights
began to hurl showers of steel toward the hostile ridges a little more
than a mile and a half away. It was long range for those days, but the
Union gunners, always excellent, rained shot and shell upon the Southern
position.
Harry, used now to such a fire, went calmly on until he rejoined Jackson,
who accepted with a nod his report that Stuart had not changed his lines
anywhere. The general signed to him and the rest of the staff as they
rode toward the center of the Southern line. Harry did not know their
errand, but he surmised that they were to meet General Lee for the final
conference. The general said no word, but rode steadily on. Union
skirmishers, under cover of the fog and bushes, had crept far in advance
of their columns, and, as the fog continued to thin away and the day to
brighten, they saw Jackson and his staff.
Harry heard bullets whistling sinister little threats in his ear as they
passed, and he heard other bullets pattering on the trees or the earth.
They alarmed him more than the huge cannon thundering away from the
other side of the river. But the fog, although thin, was still enough
to make the aim of the skirmishers bad, and General Jackson and his
staff went on their way unhurt.
They reached a little hill near the middle of the Southern bent bow.
It had no name then, but it is called Lee's Hill now, because at nine
o'clock that morning General Lee, mounted on his white horse, was upon
its crest awaiting his generals, to give them his last instructions.
Longstreet was already there, and, just as Jackson came, the fog thinned
away entirely and the sun began to blaze with a heat almost like that
of summer, rapidly thawing the hard earth.
The young officers on the different staffs reined back, while their
chiefs drew together. Yet for a few moments no one said anything.
Harry always believed that the veteran generals were moved as he was by
the sight below. The great banks of white fog were rolling away down
the river before the light wind and the brilliant sun.
Now Harry saw the Army of the Potomac in its full majesty. On the wide
plain that lay on the south bank of the Rappahannock nearly a hundred
thousand men were still advancing in regular order, with scores and
scores of cannon on their flanks or between the columns. The army which
looked somber black in the misty dawn now looked blue in the brilliant
sun. The stars and stripes, the most beautiful flag in the world,
waved in hundreds over their heads. The bands were still playing,
and the great batteries which they had left on Stafford Heights across
the river continued that incessant roaring fire over their heads at the
Southern army on its own heights. The smoke from the cannon, whitish in
color, drifted away down the river with the fog, and the whole spectacle
still remained in the brilliant sunlight.
Harry's respect for the Union artillery, already high, increased yet
further. The field was now mostly open, where all could see, and the
gunners not only saw their targets, but were able to take good aim.
The storm of shot and shell from Stafford Heights was frightful.
It seemed to Harry--again his imagination was alive--that the very air
was darkened by the rush of steel. Despite their earthworks and other
shelter the Southern troops began to suffer from that dreadful sleet,
but the little conference on Lee's Hill went on.
Longstreet, sitting his horse steadily, looked long at the dense masses
below.
"General," he said to General Jackson, "doesn't that myriad of Yankees
frighten you?"
"It won't be long before we see whether we shall frighten them," replied
Jackson.
General Lee said a few words, and then Jackson and Longstreet returned
to their respective divisions, Jackson, as Harry noted, showing not the
least excitement, although the resolute Union general, Franklin, with
nearly sixty thousand men and one hundred and twenty guns, was marching
directly against his own position.
But Harry felt excitement, and much of it. In front of Jackson in a
great line of battle, a mile and a half long, they were moving forward,
still in perfect array. But there was something wanting in that huge
army. It was the lack of a great animating spirit. There was no
flaming flag, like the soul of Jackson, to wave in the front of a fiery
rush that could not be stopped.
The blue mass hesitated and stopped. Out of it came three Pennsylvania
brigades led by Meade, who was to be the Meade of Gettysburg, and less
than five thousand strong they advanced against Jackson. Harry was
amazed. Could it be possible that they did not know that Jackson with
his full force was there?
The Pennsylvanians charged gallantly. The young General Pelham, who had
been sent forward with two pieces of artillery, opened on them fiercely,
but the heavy batteries covering the advance of the Pennsylvanians drove
Pelham out of action, although he held the whole force at bay for half
an hour. In his retreat he lost one of his own guns, and then Franklin
brought up more batteries to protect the further advance of Meade and
the Pennsylvanians. The batteries across the river helped them also,
never ceasing to send a rain of steel over their troops upon the
Southern army.
But Jackson's men still lay close in the woods and behind their
breastworks. Nearly all that rain of steel flew over their heads.
A shower of twigs and boughs fell on them, but so long as they stayed
close the great artillery fire created terror rather than damage.
The men were panting with eagerness, but not one was allowed to pull
trigger, nor was a cannon fired.
"Burnside must think there's but a small force here," said Dalton,
"or he wouldn't send so few men against us. Harry, when I look down at
those brigades of Yankees I think of the old Roman salute--it was that
of the gladiators, wasn't it?--'Morituri salutamus.'"
"They're doomed," said Harry.
Jackson, like the others, had dismounted, and he walked forward with
a single aide to observe more closely the Union advance. A Northern
sharpshooter suddenly rose out of high weeds, not far in front, and
fired directly at them. The bullet whistled between Jackson and his
aide. Jackson turned to the young man and said:
"Suppose you go to the rear. You might get shot."
The young man, of course, did not go, and Harry, who was not far behind
them in an earthwork, watched them with painful anxiety. He had seen
the sudden uprising of the Northern skirmisher in the weeds and the
flame from the muzzle. The man might not have known that it was Jackson,
but he must have surmised from the gorgeous uniform that it was a
general of importance.
Harry, with the trained eye of a country boy, saw a rippling movement
running among the weeds. The sharpshooter would reload and fire upon
his general from another point. The second bullet might not miss.
But the second shot did not come. The marksman, doubtless thinking that
another shot was too dangerous a hazard, had retreated into the plain.
General Jackson walked on calmly, inspecting the whole Northern advance,
and then returning took up his station on Prospect Hill, where he waited
with the singular calmness that was always his, for the fit time to open
fire.
The leader of the Army of the Potomac was watching from the other side
of the Rappahannock with a terrible eagerness. The man who had not
wished the command of the splendid Union army, who had deemed himself
unequal to the task, was now proving the correctness of his own
intuitions. He had taken up his headquarters in a fine colonial
residence on one of the highest points of the bank. He was surrounded
there by numerous artillery, and the officers of his staff crowded the
porches, many of them already sad of heart, although they would not
let their faces show it.
But Burnside, now that his men had forced the river in such daring
fashion, began to glow with hope. Such magnificent troops as he had,
having crossed the deep, tidal Rappahannock in the face of an able and
daring foe, were bound to win. He swept every point of the field with
his glasses, and from his elevated position he and his officers could
see what the troops in the plain below could not see, the long lines of
the Confederates waiting in the trenches or in the woods, their cannon
posted at frequent intervals.
But Burnside hoped. Who would not have hoped with such troops as his?
Never did an army, and with full knowledge of it, too, advance more
boldly to a superhuman task. He saw the gallant advance of the
Pennsylvanians and he saw them drive off Pelham. Hope swelled into
confidence. With an anxiety beyond describing he watched the further
advance of Meade and his Pennsylvanians.
Stonewall Jackson also was watching from his convenient hill, and his
small staff, mostly of very young men, clustered close behind him.
Jackson no longer used his glasses, as Burnside was doing. Meade and
his Pennsylvanians were coming close to him now. The great Union
batteries on Stafford Heights must soon cease firing or their shells
and shot would be crashing into the blue ranks.
"It cannot be much longer," said Harry.
"No, not much longer," said Dalton. "We'll unmask mighty soon. How far
away would you say they are now, Harry?"
"About a thousand yards."
"Over a half mile. Then I'll say that when they come within a half mile
Old Jack will give the word to the artillery to loosen up."
Harry and George, in their intense absorption, had forgotten about the
other parts of the line. In their minds, for the present at least,
Jackson was fighting the battle alone. Longstreet was forgotten,
and even Lee, for a space, remained unremembered. They were staring at
the brigades which were coming on so gallantly, when the jaws of death
were already opened so wide to receive them.
"They're at the half mile," said Dalton, who had a wonderful eye for
distance, "and still Old Jack does not give the word."
"The closer the better," said Harry. Glancing up and down the lines he
saw the men bending over their guns and the riflemen in line after line
rising slowly to their feet and looking to their arms. In spite of
himself, in spite of all the hard usage of war through which he had been,
Harry shuddered. He did not hate any of those men out there who were
coming toward them so boldly; no, there was not in all those brigades,
nor in all the Union army, nor in all the North a single person whom he
wished to hurt. Yet he knew that he would soon fight against them with
all the weapons and all the power he could gather.
"Eight hundred yards," said Dalton.
"Fire!" was the word that ran like an electric blaze along the
whole Southern front; and Jackson's fifty cannon, suddenly pushing
forward from the forest, poured a storm of steel upon the devoted
Pennsylvanians. Harry felt the earth rocking beneath him, and his ears
were stunned by the roaring and crashing of the cannon all about him.
The Union officers on the porches of the colonial mansion across the
river saw that terrible blaze leap from the Confederate line, and their
hearts sank within them like lead. Alarmed as they had been before,
they were in consternation now. Some had said that Jackson was not
there, that it was merely a detachment guarding the woods, but now they
knew their mistake.
Harry and Dalton stayed close to their general. Shells and shot from
the batteries below on the plain were crashing along the trees, but,
like those from the great guns on Stafford Heights, they passed mostly
over their heads. The two youths at that moment had little to do but
watch the battle. The Southern riflemen crept forward in the woods,
and now their bullets in sheets were crashing into the hostile ranks.
The Union division commander hurried up reinforcements, and the
Pennsylvanians, despite their frightful losses and shattered ranks,
still held fast. But the Southern batteries never ceased for a moment
to pour upon them a storm of death. With red battle before him and the
fever in his blood running high, Harry now forgot all about wounds and
death. He had eye and thought only for the tremendous panorama passing
before him, where everything was clear and visible, as if it were an
act in some old Roman circus, magnified manifold.
Then came a message from Jackson to hurry to the left with an order for
a brigadier who lay next to Longstreet. As he ran through the trees,
he heard now the roar of the battle in the center, where the stalwart
Longstreet was holding Marye's Hill and the adjacent heights. A mighty
Union division was attacking there, and out of the south from the embers
of Fredericksburg came another great division in column after column.
Harry heard the fire of Jackson slackening behind him, and he knew it
was because Meade had been stopped or was retreating, and he stayed a
little with the brigadier to see how Longstreet received the enemy.
The hill and all the ridges about it seemed to be in one red blaze,
and every few minutes the triumphant rebel yell, something like the
Indian war-whoop, but poured from thirty thousand throats, swelled above
the roar of the cannon and the crash of the rifles and made Harry's
pulses beat so hard that he felt absolute physical pain.
He hurried to Jackson, where the battle, which had died for a little
space, was swelling again. As the Pennsylvanians were compelled to draw
back, leaving the ground covered with their dead, the Union batteries
on Stafford Heights reopened, firing again over the heads of the men in
blue. The Southern batteries, weaker and less numerous, replied with
all their energy. A far-flung shot from their greatest gun, at the
extreme southern end of the line, killed the brave Union general, Bayard,
as he was sitting under a tree watching his troops.
Gregg, one of the best of the Southern generals, was mortally wounded.
A great body of the Pennsylvanians, charging again, reached the shelter
of the woods and burst through the Southern line. At another point,
Hancock, always cool and brilliant on the field of battle, rallied
shattered brigades and led them forward in person to new attacks.
Hooker, who had shown such courage at Antietam, equally brave on this
occasion, rushed forward with his men at another point. Franklin,
Sumner, Doubleday and many other of the best Union generals showed
themselves reckless of death, cheering on their men, galloping up and
down the lines when they were mounted, and waving their swords aloft
after their horses were killed, but always leading.
The Pennsylvanians who had cut into the Southern line were attacked in
flank, but they held on to their positions. Jackson did not yet know
of Meade's success. He still stood on Prospect Hill with his staff,
which Harry had rejoined. The forest and vast clouds of smoke hid from
his view the battle, save in his front. Harry saw a messenger coming at
a gallop toward the summit of the hill, and he knew by his pale face and
bloodshot eyes that he brought bad news.
Jackson turned toward the messenger, expectant but calm.
"What is it?" he asked.
"The enemy have broken through General Archer's division, and he
directed me to say to you that unless help is sent, both his position
and that of General Gregg will be lost."
Jackson showed no excitement. His calm and composure in the face of
disaster always inspired his men with fresh courage.
"Ride back to General Archer," he said, "and tell him that the division
of Early and the Stonewall Brigade are coming at once."
He turned his horse as if he would go with the relief, but in a moment
he checked himself, put his field glasses back to his eyes, and
continued to watch heavy masses of the enemy who were coming up in
another quarter.
Harry did not see what happened when Early and Taliaferro, who now led
the Stonewall Brigade, fell upon the Pennsylvanians, but the Invincibles
were in the charge and St. Clair told him about it afterward. The Union
men had penetrated so far that they were entangled in the forest and
thickets, and nobody had come up to support them. They were much
scattered, and as their officers were seeking to gather them together
the men in gray fell upon them in overpowering force and drove them back
in broken fragments. Wild with triumph, the Southern riflemen rushed
after them and also hurled back other riflemen that were coming up to
their support. But on the plain they encountered the matchless Northern
artillery. A battery of sixteen heavy guns met their advancing line
with a storm of canister, before which they were compelled to retreat,
leaving many dead and wounded behind.
Yet the entire Union attack on Jackson had been driven back, the
Northern troops suffering terrible losses. The watchers on the Phillips
porch on the other side of the river saw the repulse, and again their
hearts sank like lead.
The watchers turned their field glasses anew to the Southern center and
left, where the battle raged with undiminished ferocity. Marye's Hill
was a formidable position and along its slope ran a heavy stone wall.
Behind it the Southern sharpshooters were packed in thousands, and every
battery was well placed.
Hancock, following Burnside's orders, led the attack upon the
ensanguined slopes. Forty thousand men, almost the flower of the Union
army, charged again and again up those awful slopes, and again and again
they were hurled back. The top of the hill was a leaping mass of flame
and the stone wall was always crested with living fire. No troops ever
showed greater courage as they returned after every repulse to the
hopeless charge.
At last they could go forward no longer. They had not made the
slightest impression upon Marye's Hill and the slopes were strewn with
many thousands of their dead and wounded, including officers of all
ranks, from generals down. The Union army was now divided into two
portions, each in the face of an insuperable task.
But Burnside, burning with chagrin, was unwilling to draw off his army.
The reserve troops, left on the other side of the river, were sent
across, and Fighting Joe Hooker was ordered to lead them to a new
attack. Hooker, talking with Hancock, saw that it merely meant another
slaughter, and sent such word to his commander-in-chief. But Burnside
would not be moved from his purpose. The attack must be made, and
Hooker--whose courage no one could question--still trying to prevent it,
crossed the river himself, went to Burnside and remonstrated.
Men who were present have told vivid stories of that scene at the
Phillips House. Hooker, his face covered with dust and sweat, galloping
up, leaping from his horse, and rushing to Burnside; the
commander-in-chief striding up and down, looking toward Marye's Hill,
enveloped in smoke, and repeating to himself, as if he were scarcely
conscious of what he was saying: "That height must be taken! That
height must be taken! We must take it!"
He turned to Hooker with the same words, "That height must be taken
to-day," repeating it over and over again, changing the words perhaps,
but not the sense. The gallant but unfortunate man had not wanted to be
commander-in-chief, foreseeing his own inadequacy, and now in his agony
at seeing so many of his men fall in vain he was scarcely responsible.
Hooker, his heart full of despair, but resolved to obey, galloped
back and prepared for the last desperate charge up Marye's Hill. The
advancing mists in the east were showing that the short winter day would
soon draw to a close. He planted his batteries and opened a heavy fire,
intending to batter down the stone wall. But the wall, supported by an
earthwork, did not give, and Longstreet's riflemen lay behind it waiting.
At a signal the Union cannon ceased firing and the bugles blew the
charge. The Union brigades swarmed forward and then rushed up the
slopes. The volume of fire poured upon them was unequalled until
Pickett led the matchless charge at Gettysburg. Pickett himself was
here among the defenders, having just been sent to help the men on
Marye's Hill.
Up went the men through the winter twilight, lighted now by the blaze
of so many cannon and rifles pouring down upon them a storm of lead and
steel, through which no human beings could pass. They came near to the
stone wall, but as their lines were now melting away like snow before
the sun, they were compelled to yield and retreat again down the slopes,
which were strewed already with the bodies of so many of those who had
gone up in the other attacks.
Every charge had broken in vain on the fronts of Jackson and Longstreet,
and the Union losses were appalling. Harry knew that the battle was won
and that it had been won more easily than any of the other great battles
that he had seen. He wondered what Jackson would do. Would he follow
up the grand division of Franklin that he had defeated and which still
lay in front of them?
But he ceased to ask the question, because when the last charge,
shattered to pieces, rolled back down Marye's Hill, the magnificent
Northern artillery seemed to Harry to go mad. The thirty guns of the
heaviest weight that had been left on Stafford Heights, and which had
ceased firing only when the Northern men charged, now reopened in a
perfect excess of fury. Harry believed that they must be throwing
tons of metal every minute.
Nor was Franklin slack. Hovering with his great division in the plain
below and knowing that he was beaten, he nevertheless turned one hundred
and sixteen cannon that he carried with him upon Jackson's front and
swept all the woods and ridges everywhere. The Union army was beaten
because it had undertaken the impossible, but despite its immense losses
it was still superior in numbers to Lee's force, and above all it had
that matchless artillery which in defeat could protect the Union army,
and which in victory helped it to win.
Now all these mighty cannon were turned loose in one huge effort.
Along the vast battle front and from both sides of the river they roared
and crashed defiance. And the Army of the Potomac, which had wasted
so much valor, crept back under the shelter of that thundering line
of fire. It had much to regret, but nothing of which to be ashamed.
Sent against positions impregnable when held by such men as Lee, Jackson
and Longstreet, it had never ceased to attack so long as the faintest
chance remained. Its commander had been unequal to the task, but the
long roll of generals under him had shown unsurpassed courage and daring.
Harry thought once that General Jackson was going to attack in turn,
but after a long look at the roaring plain he shrugged his shoulders and
gave no orders. The beaten Army of the Potomac preserved its order,
it had lost no guns, the brigadiers and the major-generals were full of
courage, and it was too formidable to be attacked. Three hundred cannon
of the first class on either side of the river were roaring and crashing,
and the moment the Southern troops emerged for the charge all would be
sure to pour upon them a fire that no troops could withstand.
General Lee presently appeared riding along the line. The cheers which
always rose where he came rolled far, and he was compelled to lift his
hat more than once. He conferred with Jackson, and the two, going
toward the left, met Longstreet, with whom they also talked. Then they
separated and Jackson returned to his own position. Harry, who had
followed his general at the proper distance, never heard what they said,
but he believed that they had discussed the possibility of a night
attack and then had decided in the negative.
When Jackson returned to his own force the twilight was thickening into
night, and as darkness sank down over the field the appalling fire of
the Union artillery ceased. Thirteen thousand dead or wounded Union
soldiers had fallen, and the Southern loss was much less than half.
All of Harry's comrades and friends had escaped this battle uninjured,
yet many of them believed that another battle would be fought on the
morrow. Harry, however, was not one of these. He remembered some words
that had been spoken by Jackson in his presence:
"We can defeat the enemy here at Fredericksburg, but we cannot destroy
him, because he will escape over his bridges, while we are unable to
follow."
Nevertheless the young men and boys were exultant. They did not look so
far ahead as Jackson, and they had never before won so great a victory
with so little loss. Harry, sent on a message beyond Deep Run, found
the Invincibles cooking their suppers on a spot that they had held
throughout the day. They had several cheerful fires burning and they
saluted Harry gladly.
"A great victory, Harry," said Happy Tom.
"Yes, a great victory," interrupted Colonel Leonidas Talbot; "but,
my friends, what else could you have expected? They walked straight
into our trap. But I have learned this day to have a deep respect for
the valor of the Yankees. The way they charged up Marye's Hill in
the face of certain death was worthy of the finest troops that South
Carolina herself ever produced."
"That is saying a great deal, Leonidas," said Lieutenant-Colonel Hector
St. Hilaire, "but it is true."
Harry talked a little with the two colonels, and also with Langdon and
St. Clair. Then he returned to his own headquarters. Both armies,
making ready for battle to-morrow, if it should come, slept on their
arms, while the dead and the wounded yet lay thick in the forest and
on the slopes and plain.
But Harry was not among those who slept, at least not until after
midnight. He and Dalton sat at the door of Jackson's tent, awaiting
possible orders. Jackson knew that Burnside, with a hundred thousand
men yet in line and no artillery lost, was planning another attack on
the morrow, despite his frightful losses of the day.
The news of it had been sent to him by Lee, and Lee in turn had learned
it from a captured orderly bearing Burnside's dispatches. But neither
Harry nor Dalton knew anything of Burnside's plans. They were merely
waiting for any errand upon which Jackson should choose to send them.
Several other staff officers were present, and as Jackson wrote his
orders, he gave them in turn to be taken to those for whom they were
intended.
Harry, after three such trips of his own, sat down again near the door
of the tent and watched his great leader. Jackson sat at a little table,
on a cane-bottomed chair, and he wrote by the light of a single candle.
His clothing was all awry and he had tossed away the gold-braided cap.
His face was worn and drawn, but his eyes showed no signs of weariness.
The body might have been weak, but the spirit of Jackson was never
stronger.
Harry knew that Jackson after victory wasted no time exulting, but was
always preparing for the next battle. The soldiers, both in his own
division and elsewhere, were awakened by turns, and willing thousands
strengthened the Southern position. More and deeper trenches were
constructed. New abatis were built and the stone wall was strengthened
yet further. Formidable as the Southern line had been to-day, Burnside
would find it more so on the morrow.
After midnight, Jackson, still in his gorgeous uniform and with boots
and spurs on, too, lay down on his bed and slept about three hours.
Then he aroused himself, lighted his candle and wrote an hour longer.
Then he went to the bedside of the dying Gregg and sat a while with him,
the staff remaining at a respectful distance.
When they rode back--they were mounted again--they passed along the
battle front, and the sadness which was so apparent on Jackson's face
affected them. It was far toward morning now and the enemy was lighting
his fires on the plain below. The dead lay where they had fallen,
and no help had yet been given to those wounded too seriously to move.
It had been a tremendous holocaust, and with no result. Harry knew now
that the North would never cease to fight disunion. The South could win
separation only at the price of practical annihilation for both.
The night was very raw and chill, and not less so now that morning
was approaching. The mists and fogs, which as usual rose from the
Rappahannock, made Harry shiver at their touch. In the hollows of the
ridges, which the wintry sun seldom reached, great masses of ice were
packed, and the plain below, cut up the day before by wheels and hoofs
and footsteps, was now like a frozen field of ploughed land.
The staff heard enough through the fogs and mists to know that the Army
of the Potomac was awake and stirring. The Southern army also arose,
lighted its fires, cooked and ate its food and waited for the enemy.
Before it was yet light Harry, on a message to Stuart, rode to the top
of Prospect Hill with him, and, as they sat there on their horses,
the sun cleared away the fog and mist, and they saw the Army of the
Potomac drawn up in line of battle, defiant and challenging, ready to
attack or to be attacked.
Harry felt a thrill of admiration that he did not wish to check.
After all, the Yankees were their own people, bone of their bone,
and their courage must be admired. The Army of the Potomac, too,
was learning to fight without able chiefs. The young colonels and
majors and captains could lead them, and there they were, after their
most terrible defeat, grim and ready.
"The lion's wounded, but he isn't dead, by any means," said Harry to
Stuart.
"Not by a great deal," said Stuart.
There was much hot firing by skirmishers that day and artillery duels
at long range, but the Northern army, which had fortified on the plain,
would not come out of its intrenchments, and the Southern soldiers also
stuck to theirs. Burnside, who had crossed the river to join his men,
had been persuaded at last that a second attack was bound to end like
the first.
The next day Burnside sent in a flag of truce, and they buried the dead.
The following night Harry, wrapped to the eyes in his great cloak,
stood upon Prospect Hill and watched one of the fiercest storms that he
had ever seen rage up and down the valley of the Rappahannock. Many of
the Southern pickets were driven to shelter. While the whole Southern
army sought protection from the deluge, the Army of the Potomac, still a
hundred thousand strong, and carrying all its guns, marched in perfect
order over the six bridges it had built, breaking the bridges down
behind it, and camping in safety on the other side. The river was
rising fast under the tremendous rain, and the Southern army could find
no fords, even though it marched far up the stream.
Fredericksburg was won, but the two armies, resolute and defiant,
gathered themselves anew for other battles as great or greater.