Dick arose at the first flash of dawn. All the men of the Winchester
regiment were on their feet. The officers had sent their horses to the
rear, knowing that they would be worse than useless among the rocks and
in the forest in front of them.
A mist arising from the two rivers floated over everything, but Dick
knew that the battle was at hand. The Northern trumpets were calling,
and in the haze in front of them the Southern trumpets were calling,
too.
The fog lifted, and then Dick saw the Confederate lines stretched
through forest, rock and ploughed ground. Near the front was a rail
fence with lines of skirmishers crouching behind it. As the last bit of
mist rolled away the fence became a twisted line of flame. The fire of
the Southern skirmishers crashed in the Union ranks, and the Northern
skirmishers, pressing in on the right replied with a fire equally swift
and deadly. Then came the roar of the Southern cannon, well aimed and
tearing gaps in the Union lines.
“Its time to charge!” exclaimed Pennington. “It scares me, standing
still under the enemy's fire, but I forget about it when I'm rushing
forward.”
The Winchester regiment did not move for the present, although the
battle thickened and deepened about it. The fire of the Confederate
cannon was heavy and terrible, yet the Union masses on either wing had
begun to press forward. Hooker hurled in two divisions, one under Meade,
and one under Doubleday, and another came up behind to support them.
The western men were here and remembering how they had been decimated at
Manassas, they fought for revenge as well as patriotism.
At last the Winchester regiment in the center moved forward also. They
struck heavy ploughed land, and as they struggled through it they met a
devastating fire. It seemed to Dick that the last of the little regiment
was about to be blown away, but as he looked through the fire and smoke
he saw Warner and Pennington still by his side, and the colonel a little
ahead, waving his sword and shouting orders that could not be heard.
Dick saw shining far before him the white walls of the Dunkard church,
and he was seized with a frantic desire to reach it. It seemed to him if
they could get there that the victory would be won. Yet they made little
progress. The cannon facing them fairly spouted fire, and thousands of
expert riflemen in front of them lying behind ridges and among rocks
and bushes sent shower after shower of leaden balls that swept away the
front ranks of the charging Union lines. The shell and the shrapnel and
the grape and the round shot made a great noise, but the little bullets
coming in swarms like bees were the true messengers of death.
Jackson and four thousand of his veterans formed the thin line between
the Dunkard church and the Antietam. They were ragged and worn by war,
but they were the children of victory, led by a man of genius, and they
felt equal to any task. Near Jackson stood his favorite young aide,
Harry Kenton, and on the other side was the thin regiment of the
Invincibles, led by Colonel Leonidas Talbot, and Lieutenant-Colonel
Hector St. Hilaire.
Around the church itself were the Texans under Hood, stalwart, sunburned
men who could ride like Comanches, some of whom when lads had been
present at San Jacinto, when the Texans struck with such terrible might
and success for liberty.
“Are we winning? Tell me, that we are winning!” shouted Dick in Warner's
ear.
“We're not winning, but we will! Confound that fog! It's coming up
again!” Warner shouted back.
The heavy fog from the Potomac and the Antietam which the early and
burning sunrise had driven away was drifting back, thickened by the
smoke from the cannon and rifles. The gray lines in front disappeared
and the church was hidden. Yet the Northern artillery continued to pour
a terrible fire through the smoke toward the point where the Confederate
infantry had been posted.
Dick heard at the same time a tremendous roar on the left, and he knew
that the Union batteries beyond the Antietam had opened a flanking fire
on the Southern army. He breathed a sigh of triumph. McClellan, who
could organize and prepare so well, was aroused at last to such a point
that he could concentrate his full strength in battle itself, and push
home with all his might until able to snatch the reward, victory. As
the lad heard the supporting guns across the Antietam, he suddenly found
himself shouting with all his might. His voice could not be heard in the
uproar, but he saw that the lips of those about him were moving in like
manner.
The two corps on the peninsula had a good leader that morning. Hooker,
fiery, impetuous, scorning death, continually led his men to the attack.
The gaps in their ranks were closed up, and on they went, infantry,
cavalry and artillery. The fog blew away again and they beheld once more
the gray lines of the Southerners, and the white wooden walls of the
church.
So fierce and overwhelming was the Northern rush that all of Jackson's
men and the Texans were borne back, and were driven from the ridges
and out of the woods. Exultant, the men in blue followed, their roar of
triumph swelling above the thunder of the battle.
“Victory!” cried Dick, but Warner shouted:
“Look out!”
The keen eyes of the young Vermonter had seen masses of infantry and
cavalry on their flank. Hooker, fierce and impetuous, had gone too
far, and now the Southern trumpets sang the charge. Stuart, fiery and
dauntless, his saber flashing, led his charging horsemen, and Hill threw
his infantry upon the Northern flank.
It seemed to Dick that he was in a huge volcano of fire and smoke.
Men who, in their calm moments, did not hate one another, glared into
hostile eyes. There was often actual physical contact, and the flash
from the cannon and rifles blazed in Dick's face. The Southerners
in front who had been driven back returned, and as Stuart and Hill
continued to beat hard upon their flanks, the troops of Hooker were
compelled to retreat. Once more the white church faded in the mists and
smoke.
But Hooker and his generals rallied their men and advanced anew. The
ground around the Dunkard church became one of the most sanguinary
places in all America. One side advanced and then the other, and
they continually reeled to and fro. Even the young soldiers knew the
immensity of the stake. This was the open ground, elsewhere the Antietam
separated the fighting armies. But victory here would decide the whole
battle, and the war, too. The Northern troops fought for a triumph that
would end all, and the Southern troops for salvation.
So close and obstinate was the conflict that colonels and generals
themselves were in the thick of it. Starke and Lawton of the South were
both killed. Mansfield, who led one of the Northern army corps fell dead
in the very front line, and the valiant Hooker, caught in the arms of
his soldiers, was borne away so severely wounded that he could no longer
give orders.
Scarcely any generals were left on either side, but the colonels and
the majors and the captains still led the men into the thick of the
conflict. Dick felt a terrible constriction. It was as if some one were
choking him with powerful hands, and he strove for breath. He knew that
the masses pressed upon their flank by Stuart and Hill, were riddling
them through and through.
The Union men were giving ground, slowly, it is true, and leaving heaps
of dead and wounded behind them, but nobody could stand the terrible
rifle fire that was raking them at short range from side to side, and
they were no longer able to advance. Now Dick heard once more that
terrible and triumphant rebel yell, and it seemed to him that they were
about to be destroyed utterly, when shell and shot began to shriek and
whistle over their heads. The woods behind them were alive with the
blaze of fire, and the great Union batteries were driving back the
triumphant and cheering Confederates.
The Union generals on the other side of the Antietam saw the fate that
was about to overtake Hooker's valiant men, and Sumner, with another
army corps, had crossed the river to the rescue, coming just in time.
They moved up to Hooker's men and the united masses returned to the
charge.
The battle grew more desperate with the arrival of fresh troops. Again
it was charge and repulse, charge and repulse, and the continuous
swaying to and fro by two combatants, each resolved to win. There were
the Union men who had forced the passes through the mountains to reach
this field, and they were struggling to follow up those successes by
a victory far greater, and there were the Confederates resolved upon
another glorious success.
The fire became so tremendous that the men could no longer hear orders.
Here was a field of ripe corn, the stems and blades higher than a man's
head, forty acres or so, nearly a quarter of a mile each way, but the
corn soon ceased to hide the combatants from one another. The fire from
the cannon and rifles came in such close sheets that scarcely a stalk
stood upright in that whole field.
Long this mighty conflict swayed back and forth. Dick had seen nothing
like it before, not even at the Second Manassas. It was almost hand to
hand. Cannons were lost and retaken by each side. Stuart, finding the
ground too rough for his cavalry, dismounted them and put them at
the guns. Jackson, with an eye that missed nothing, called up Early's
brigade and hurled it into the battle. The North replied with fresh
troops, and the combat was as much in doubt as ever. Every brigade
commander on the Southern side had been killed or wounded. Nearly all
the colonels had fallen, but Jackson's men still fought with a fire and
spirit that only such a leader as he could inspire.
It seemed to Dick that the whole world was on fire with the flash of
cannon and rifles. The roar and crash came from not only in front and
around him, but far down the side, where the main army of McClellan was
advancing directly upon the Antietam, and the stone bridges which the
Confederates had not found time to tear down.
There stood Lee, supremely confident that if his lieutenant, Jackson,
could not hold the Northern opening into the peninsula nobody could.
His men, who knew the desperate nature of the crisis, said that they had
never seen him more confident than he was that day.
On the ridge just south of the village was a huge limestone bowlder,
and Lee, field glasses in hand, stood on it. He listened a while to the
growing thunder of the battle in the north--the Dunkard church, around
which Jackson and Hooker were fighting so desperately, was a mile
away--but he soon turned his attention to the blue masses across the
Antietam.
The Southern commander faced the Antietam with the hard-hitting
Longstreet on his right, his left being composed of the forces of
Jackson, already in furious conflict. Nothing escaped him. As he
listened to the thunder of the dreadful battle in the north, he never
ceased to watch the great army in front of him on the other side of the
little river.
While Hooker and his men were fighting with such desperate courage, why
did not McClellan and the main body of the Union army move forward to
the attack? Doubtless Lee asked himself this question, and doubtless
also he had gauged accurately the mind of the Union leader, who always
saw two or even three enemies where but one stood. Relying so strongly
upon his judgment he dared to strip himself yet further and send more
men to Jackson. A messenger brought him news that more of Jackson's men
had come to his aid and that he was now holding the whole line against
the attacks of Meade and Hooker and all the rest.
Lee nodded and turned his glasses again toward the long blue line across
the Antietam. McClellan himself was there, standing on a hill and also
watching. Around him was a great division under the command of Burnside,
and his time to win victory had come. He sent the order to Burnside to
move forward and force the Antietam. It is said that at this moment Lee
had only five thousand men with him, all the rest having been sent to
Jackson, and, if so, time itself fought against the Union, as it was a
full two hours before Burnside carried out his order and moved forward
on the Antietam.
But Dick, on the north, did not know that it was as yet only cannon
fire, and not the charge of troops to the south and west. In truth, he
knew little of his own part of the battle. Once he was knocked down, but
it was only the wind from a cannon ball, and when he sprang to his feet
and drew a few long breaths he was as well as ever.
From muttered talk around him, talk that he could hear under the thunder
of the battle, he learned that Sumner, who had come with the great
reinforcement, was now leading the battle, with Hooker wounded and
Mansfield dying.
Sumner, as brave and daring as any, had gathered twenty thousand men,
and they were advancing in splendid order over the wreck of the dead and
the dying, apparently an irresistible force.
Jackson, standing at the edge of a wood, saw the magnificent advance,
and while the officers around him despaired, he did not think of
awaiting the Northern attack, but prepared instead for an attack of his
own. There was word that McLaws and the Harper's Ferry men had come.
Jackson galloped to meet them, formed them quickly with his own, and
then the Southern drums rolled out the charge. The weary veterans,
gathering themselves anew for another burst of strength, fell with all
their might on the Northern flank.
Dick felt the force of that charge. Men seemed to be driven in upon him.
He was hurled down, how he knew not, but he sprang up again, and then he
saw that their advance was stopped. Long lines of bayonets advanced upon
them, and a terrible artillery fire crashed through and through their
ranks. Two or three thousand men in blue fell in a moment or so. Fortune
in an instant had made a terrible change of front.
Dick shouted aloud in despair as the brigades steadily gave back. The
great Union batteries were firing over their heads again, but even they
could not arrest the Southern advance. Their regiments were coming now
across the shorn cornfield. Dick saw the galloping horses drawing their
batteries up closer and around the flanks. And the rebel yell of victory
which he had heard too often was now swelling from thousands of throats,
as the fierce sons of the South rushed upon their foe.
But the North refused to abandon the battle here. These were splendid
troops, so tenacious and so much bent upon victory that they scarcely
needed leaders. Sedgwick, another of their gallant generals, fell and
was carried off the field, wounded severely. Richardson, yet another,
was killed a little later, but heavy reinforcements arrived, and the
Southerners were driven back in their turn.
These were picked troops who met here, veterans almost all of them, and
neither would yield. The superior weight and range of the Northern guns
gave them an advantage in artillery, and it was used to the utmost. Dick
did not see how men could live under such a horrible fire, but there
were the gray lines replying, and wherever they yielded, yielding but
little.
Noon came and then one o'clock. They had been fighting since dawn, and
a combat so impetuous and terrible could not be maintained forever,
particularly when the awful demon of war was eating up men so fast. Many
of the regiments on either side had lost more than half their number and
would lose more. They were human beings, and even the unwounded began to
collapse from mere physical exhaustion. Some dropped to the ground from
sheer inability to stand, and as they lay there, they heard to the south
and west the rolling thunder that told of Burnside's belated advance
upon the Antietam.
Down where Lee stood watching, the battle blazed up with extraordinary
rapidity. The men who had been held in leash so long by McClellan were
anxious to get at the foe. Burnside's brigades charged directly for one
of the stone bridges, and Lee, watching from his bowlder, hurried the
Southern troops forward to meet them. Again the Northern artillery
proved its worth. The great batteries sent a hurricane of death over the
heads of the men in blue and toward the town of Sharpsburg. Despite all
the valor of the Southern veterans, the heavy masses of the Union men
forced their way across the bridge to the peninsula. Lee's batteries and
infantry regiments could not hold them.
It seemed now that Lee's own force was to be destroyed and that
victory was won, but fortune had in store yet another of those
dazzling recoveries for the South. At the very moment when Lee seemed
overwhelmed, A. P. Hill, as valiant and vigorous as the other Hill,
arrived with the last of the Harper's Ferry veterans, having marched
seventeen miles, almost on a dead run. They crossed the Potomac at a
ford below the mouth of the Antietam, then crossed the Antietam on the
lowest bridge back into the peninsula, and without waiting for orders
rushed upon the Northern flank.
The attack was so sudden and fierce that Burnside's entire division
reeled back. Here, as in the north, the face of the battle had been
changed in an instant. Not only could Colonel Winchester mourn over
those lost two days, but he could mourn over every lost half hour in
them. Had Hill come a half hour later Lee's whole center would have been
swept away.
Lee and his great lieutenants, Jackson and Longstreet, were still
confident. Despite the disparity in numbers they had beaten back every
attack.
A. P. Hill was a man who corresponded in fire and impetuosity to Hooker.
The number of his veterans was not so great, but their rush was so
fierce, and they struck at such a critical time that the Northern
brigades were unable to hold the ground they had gained. More troops
from the dying battle on the north came to Lee's aid, and every attempt
of McClellan to take Sharpsburg failed.
Dick, fighting with his comrades on the north, knew little of what was
passing on the peninsula in the south, but he became conscious after a
while that the appalling fury of the battle around him was diminishing.
He had not seen such a desperate hand-to-hand battle at either Shiloh or
the Second Manassas, and they were terrible enough. But he felt as the
Confederates themselves had felt, that the Southern army was fighting
for existence.
But as the day waned, Dick believed that they would never be able to
crush Jackson. The Union troops always returned to the attack, but the
men in gray never failed to meet it, and actual physical exhaustion
overwhelmed the combatants. Pennington went down, and Dick dragged him
to his feet, fearing that he was wounded mortally, but found that his
comrade had merely dropped through weakness.
The long day of heat and strife neared its close. Neither Northern
tenacity nor Southern fire could win, and the sun began to droop over
the field piled so thickly with bodies. As the twilight crept up the
battle sank in all parts of the peninsula. McClellan, who had lost those
two most precious days, and who had finally failed to make use of all
his numbers at the same time, now, great in preparation, as usual, made
ready for the emergency of the morrow.
All the powerful and improved artillery which McClellan had in such
abundance was brought up. The mathematical minds and the workshops of
the North bore full fruit upon this sanguinary field of Antietam. The
shattered divisions of Hooker, with which Dick and his comrades lay,
were sheltered behind a great line of artillery. No less than thirty
rifled guns of the latest and finest make were massed in one battery to
command the road by which the South might attack.
To the south the Northern artillery was equally strong, and beyond the
Antietam also it was massed in battery after battery to protect its men.
But the coming twilight found both sides too exhausted to move. The
sun was setting upon the fiercest single day's fighting ever seen in
America. Nearly twenty-five thousand dead or wounded lay upon the field.
More than one fourth of the Southern army was killed or wounded, yet it
was in Lee's mind to attack on the morrow.
After night had come the weary Southern generals--those left
alive--reported to Lee as he sat on his horse in the road. The shadows
gathered on his face, as they told of their awful losses, and of the
long list of high officers killed or wounded. Jackson was among the
last, and he was gloomy. The man who had always insisted upon battle did
not insist upon it now. Hood reported that his Texans, who had fought so
valiantly for the Dunkard church, were almost destroyed.
The scene in the darkness with the awful battlefield around them was one
which not even the greatest of painters could have reproduced. When the
last general had told his tale of slaughter and destruction, they sat
for a while in silence. They realized the smallness of their army, and
the immense extent of their losses. The light wind that had sprung
up swept over the dead faces of thousands of the bravest men in the
Southern army. They had held their ground, but on the morrow McClellan
could bring into line three to one and an artillery far superior alike
in quality, weight and numbers to theirs.
The strange, intense silence lasted. Every eye was upon Lee. When the
generals were making their reports he had shown more emotion than they
had ever seen on his face before. Now he was quiet, but he drew his
lips close together, his eyes shone with blue fire, and rising in his
stirrups he said:
“We will not cross the Potomac to-night, gentlemen.”
Then while they still waited in silence, he said:
“Go to your commands! Reform and strengthen your lines. Collect all your
stragglers. Bring up every man who is in the rear. If McClellan wants a
battle again in the morning, he shall have it. Now go!”
Not a general said a word in objection, in fact, they did not speak
at all, but rode slowly away, every one to his command. Yet they were,
without exception, against the decision of their great leader.
Even Stonewall Jackson did not want a second battle. He had shown
through the doubtful conflict a most extraordinary calmness. While the
combat in the north, where he commanded, was at its height, he had sat
on Little Sorrel, now happily restored to him, eating from time to
time a peach that he took from his pocket. Nothing had escaped his
observation; he watched every movement, and noticed every rise and fall
in the tide of success. His silence now indicated that he concurred with
the others in his belief that the remains of the Confederate army
should withdraw across the Potomac, but his manner indicated complete
acquiescence in the decision of his leader.
But in the north of the peninsula the remnants of either side had scarce
a thought to bestow upon victory or defeat. It was a question that did
not concern them for the present, so utter was their exhaustion. As
night came and the battle ceased they dropped where they were and sank
into sleep or a stupor that was deeper than sleep.
But Dick this time did neither. His nervous system had been strained so
severely that it was impossible for him to keep still. He had found that
all of his friends had received wounds, although they were too slight
to put them out of action. But the Winchester regiment had suffered
terribly again. It did not have a hundred men left fit for service,
and even at that it had got off better than some others. In one of the
Virginia regiments under Longstreet only fourteen men had been left
unhurt.
Dick stood beside his colonel--Warner and Pennington were lying in a
stupor--and he was appalled. The battle had been fought within a narrow
area, and the tremendous destruction was visible in the moonlight,
heaped up everywhere. Colonel Winchester was as much shaken as he, and
the two, the man and the boy, walked toward the picket line, drawn by a
sort of hideous fascination, as they looked upon the area of conflict.
The dead lay in windrows between the two armies which were waiting to
fight on the dawn. Dick and the colonel walked toward the field where
the corn had been waving high that morning, and where it was now mown
by cannon and rifles to the last stalk. In the edge of the wood the boy
paused and grasping the man suddenly by the arm pulled him back.
“Look! Look!” he exclaimed in a sharp whisper. “The Confederate
skirmishers! The woods are full of them! They are making ready for a
night attack!” Both he and Colonel Winchester sprang back behind a big
tree, sheltering themselves from a possible shot. But no sound came,
not even that of men creeping forward through the undergrowth. All they
heard was the moaning of the wind through the foliage. They waited, and
then the two looked at each other. The true reason for the extraordinary
silence had occurred to both at the same instant, and they stepped from
the shelter of the tree.
Awed and appalled, the man and the boy gazed at the silent forms which
lay row on row in the woods and in the shorn cornfield. It seemed as if
they slept, but Dick knew that all were dead. He and Colonel Winchester
gazed again at each other and shuddering turned away lest they disturb
the sleep of the dead.
When they returned to a position behind the guns they heard others
coming in with equally terrible tales. A sunken lane that ran between
the hostile lines was filled to the brim with dead. Boys, yet in
their teens, with nerves completely shattered for the time, chattered
hysterically of what they had seen. The Antietam was still running red.
Both Lee and Stonewall Jackson had been killed and the whole Confederate
army would be taken in the morning. Some said, on the other hand, that
the Southerners still had a hundred thousand men, and that McClellan
would certainly be beaten the next day, if he did not retreat in time.
None of the talk, either of victory or defeat, made any impression upon
Dick. His senses were too much dulled by all through which he had gone.
Words no longer meant anything. Although the night was warm he began to
shiver, as if he were seized with a chill.
“Lie down, Dick,” said Colonel Winchester, who noticed him. “I don't
think you can stand it any longer. Here, under this tree will do.”
Dick threw himself down and Colonel Winchester, finding a blanket,
spread it over him. Then the boy closed his eyes, and, for a while,
phase after phase of the terrible conflict passed before him. He could
see the white wall of the Dunkard church, the Bloody Lane, and most
ghastly of all, those dead men in rows lying on their arms, like
regiments asleep, but his nerves grew quiet at last, and after midnight
he slept.
Dawn came and found the two armies ready. Dick and the sad remnant
of the Winchester regiment rose to their feet. Although food had been
prepared for them very few in all these brigades had touched a bite the
night before, sinking into sleep or stupor before it could be brought to
them. But now they ate hungrily while they watched for their foes, the
skirmishers of either army already being massed in front to be ready for
any movement by the other.
As on the morning before, a mist arose from the Potomac and the
Antietam. The sun, bright and hot, soon dispersed it. But there was no
movement by either army. Dick did not hear the sound of a single shot.
Warner and Pennington, recovered from their stupor, stood beside him
gazing southward toward the rocks and ridges, where the Confederate army
lay.
“I'm thinking,” said Warner, “that they're just as much exhausted as we
are. We're waiting for an attack, and they're waiting for the same. The
odds are at least ninety per cent in favor of my theory. Their losses
are something awful, and I don't think they can do anything against us.
Look how our batteries are massed for them.”
Dick was watching through his glasses, and even with their aid he
could see no movement within the Southern lines. Hours passed and still
neither army stirred. McClellan counted his tremendous losses, and he,
too, preferred to await attack rather than offer it. His old obsession
that his enemy was double his real strength seized him, and he was not
willing to risk his army in a second rush upon Lee.
While Dick and his comrades were waiting through the long morning hours,
Lee and Jackson and his other lieutenants were deciding whether or not
they should make an attack of their own. But when they studied with
their glasses the Northern lines and the great batteries, they decided
that it would be better not to try it.
When noon came and still no shot had been fired, Colonel Winchester
shook his head.
“We might yet destroy the Southern army,” he said to Dick, “but I'm
convinced that General McClellan will not move it.”
The hot afternoon passed, and then the night came with the sound of
rumbling wheels and marching men. Dick surmised that Lee was leaving the
peninsula, and, crossing the Potomac in to Virginia, and that therefore
tactical victory would rest with the Northern side. The noises continued
all night long, but McClellan made no advance, nor did he do so the next
day, while the whole Confederate army was crossing the Potomac, until
nearly night.
But the Winchester regiment and several more of the same skeleton
character, pushing forward a little on the morning of that day, found
that the last Confederate soldier was gone from Sharpsburg. Colonel
Winchester and other officers were eager for the Army of the Potomac to
attack the Army of Northern Virginia, while it dragged itself across the
wide and dangerous ford.
But McClellan delayed again, and it was sunset when Dick saw the first
sign of action. A strong division with cannon crossed the river and
attacked the batteries which were covering the Southern rearguard. Four
guns and prisoners were taken, but when Lee heard of it he sent back
Jackson, who beat off all pursuit.
Dick and his comrades did not see this last fight, which was the dying
echo of Antietam. They felt that they had defeated the enemy's purpose,
but they did not rejoice over any victory. The sword of Antietam had
turned back Lee and Jackson for a time and perhaps had saved the Union,
but Dick was gloomy and depressed that so little had been won when they
seemed to hold so much in the hollow of their hands.
This feeling spread through the whole army, and the privates, even,
talked of it openly. Nobody could forget those precious two days lost
before the battle. Orders No. 191 had put all the cards in their hands,
but the commander had not played them.
“I feel that we've really failed,” said Warner, as they sat beside a
camp fire. “The Southerners certainly fought like demons, but we ought
to have been there long before Jackson came, and we ought to have
whipped them, even after Jackson did come.”
“But we didn't,” said Pennington, “and so we've got the job to do all
over again. You know, George, we're bound to win.”
“Of course, Frank; but while we're doing it the country is being ripped
to pieces. I'll never quit mourning over that lost chance at Antietam.”
“At any rate we came off better than at the Second Manassas,” said Dick.
“What's ahead of us now?”
“I don't know,” replied Warner. “I saw Shepard yesterday, and he says
that the Southerners are recuperating in Virginia. We need restoratives
ourselves, and I don't suppose we'll have any important movements along
this line for a while.”
“But there'll be big fighting somewhere,” said Dick.