THE CLASH
Thanks to Dad’s foresight, or to the Confederate leader’s confidence in
his flank movement’s power to detain his proposed prey, the hilltop was
gained by the Yankee vanguard while the Confederates were still slowly
toiling up its farther and far-steeper slope.
Before the advancing Confederates could clearly realize what was
happening the Federal vanguard was bearing down upon them.
This ruse of Dad’s (gleaned by him from the tale of a battle of
Frederick the Great) took the enemy wholly and dumfoundedly by surprise.
By every modern tradition of warfare the force on the hilltop, at sight
of the approaching enemy, should have halted and thrown up some sort of
defenses, or at the least should have awaited the foe’s approach.
Instead the leading Yankee regiments, moving in semi-open formation,
started down the hill at the double, straight at the climbing foes.
And other regiments and yet others appearing over the summit joined in
the charge. The crest and the upper slope of the hill were alive with
running men.
And five yards in advance of the foremost line leaped and ran and
yelled and drummed a deliriously excited small boy.
When a man, toiling laboriously up a steep hill, collides with a man
running down the same hill, which is the more apt to be bowled over by
the impact?
The runner is reënforced by his own great impetus, the climber
handicapped by his own fatigue and the sloping of the ground behind.
And what is true of two men is true of two hundred or of two thousand or
of any larger number of men.
The Federal line crashed down upon the slow-moving Confederates, smashed
their ranks and tore through them with scarce a halt. The Confederates,
reeling from the collision, were sent in every direction, with no
earthly chance to reform or to battle against the resistless onrush.
The trap, so well planned and so badly sprung, was no longer a trap. For
the proposed victims had torn their way out of it ere its proposed iron
jaws could close relentlessly upon them.
Straight on moved the Federals; slowly as they neared the hillfoot, to
keep their whole depth intact and guard their baggage and heavy guns.
But by this time the Confederates on either side of the advancing column
were scattered beyond rallying.
And the Confederate center, which had given back before the rush, was
running for shelter toward a group of rambling houses that made up a
creek-side village a half-mile behind and a bit to the left of the
routed lines of gray.
“Straight on,” advised Dad, “closing your formation. Three hours’ march
should put us in touch with the main body of the Army of the Potomac.
Leave a couple of regiments to make a demonstration against that
village, so that the rest can get well out of reach without fear of a
flank attack. Then when we have moved past, let them retreat and join
us.”
The corps commander, with just sense enough left not to tamper with his
own unbelievable good luck, issued orders accordingly, leaving Dad
behind as his staff representative with the two regiments and the
mountain battery detailed to hold the village’s defenders in play.
Jimmie, the fun being over, found his way back to his grandfather’s
side, a very tired, very happy, very flushed little hero.
Dad gripped both the perspiring and weary hands in silent gratitude for
the lad’s safety.
Then, as he was not on active duty for the moment, he drew aside under a
big tree out of the line of fire, sat down, and lighted his pipe.
The boy dropped with a full sigh of content at his feet.
“The real work is done. You and your drum can take a little holiday,”
said Dad. “All these two regiments and the battery are to do is to keep
up some sort of fire on the village, and pretend, if necessary, to rush
it. Just to keep those fellows on the defensive till the rest of our
line is well past.
“One of those is an Ohio regiment, by the way. It joined our corps only
yesterday. I’ve been wanting to ride over to its quarters, about three
miles from ours. Because it was recruited at Columbus, and may have some
of our Ideala boys in it.”
He had been speaking lightly, for several officers were loitering within
earshot. Now, as the last of them passed out of hearing, Dad laid his
hand lovingly on his grandson’s shoulder.
“Jimmie, lad,” he said, “tell me about everything. I’ve wanted so to
know. And it’s the first minute when we’ve been alone together and that
I’ve had the right to ask. First of all, how do you happen to be here
and not in the Ideala high school where you belong?”
“I stood it for a couple of months after you left,” began Jimmie.
“And--say, mother was as mad as wrath about your going. I told her,
after a while, that you’d enlisted. But I don’t quite think she believed
it. Mother said she was going to Europe for a year, now that there was
nothing to hold her at home; and she fixed it for me to board with Uncle
Cyrus and go to high school while she was gone. And--and--”
“I see,” murmured Dad, readily visualizing the lonely boy’s plight and
his yearning to desert such a humdrum, boresome existence as had been
mapped out for him in favor of joining the excitement at the front.
“I wrote to you,” said Jimmie, “a lot of letters. But they all came back
to me. I didn’t know what department or regiment to address. I wasn’t
even sure you’d taken the name ‘James Dadd’ that I’d picked out for
you.”
“Why, _I_ wrote to _you_, son. A dozen times. Telling you--”
The boy flushed uncomfortably.
“I--I s’pose mother has a right to do whatever she likes with letters
that come to our house,” he mumbled. “It’s _her_ house, you know. And
after she left--well, I wasn’t there either.”
“Yes. Yes. It’s all right. No one’s to blame. Go on.”
“Two fellers on our block, only a year older’n I was, went away to
Columbus to enlist,” pursued Jimmie. “They were pretty big. And they
swore they were eighteen. So they got accepted. That was too much for
me. Nobody needed me at Uncle Cyrus’s. And I missed you such a lot. And
all the time I could hear the war whispering and calling to me the way
you said it always does to men who love their country. So--I ran away to
Columbus, the way the other fellers had, too.”
“Yes? But you weren’t even fifteen yet, let alone eighteen. How could--”
“That was the trouble. The recruiting sergeant sized me up the minute he
set eyes on me--for all I’d stuffed hay in my shoes to make me taller
and walked on my toes. But he got a bounty for all the fellers he put
through, so he just shoved the Bible at me and told me to put my hand on
it and say I was eighteen and it would be all right. And--and--I
couldn’t.”
“Of course not, Jimmie,” assented Dad softly. “We’re the fighting
Brintons. Not the perjuring Brintons. It’s a terrible thing at best to
have to lay your hand on the Book and swear to anything. But when
there’s any shadow of doubt about the truth of the thing you swear
to--why, a real _man_ can’t.”
“How about the two other fellers? Aren’t they guilty of--”
“‘Guilty’s’ a pretty big word for anybody except God to use. What
happened next?”
“I had eighteen dollars in my window-bank. I bought a second-hand
uniform, cut it down myself, and then bought a second-hand drum. And I
lit out for the Mississippi, where I heard some of the Ohio regiments
were fighting. I had a kind of hope I’d find you.
“I got to a place where our men were trying to storm a battery. I--I
couldn’t wait, the way I meant to, to ask some drum major to take me on
as drummer-boy. First thing I knew I was in front of our line, banging
the drum and telling the men to come on. And--they came.”
“Good boy! Fighting Brinton!”
“After that they kind of adopted me in the army of the West. Let me come
and go as I would. And called me ‘Battle Jimmie’ and tried to make a pet
of me. Gee! Do _I_ look like a pet?
“I asked everywhere for you, and I got hold of all the army lists I
could. There wasn’t any news of you in the army of the West. But I saw a
man there--a man those Western soldiers say is a wonder--who may be the
same man you used to tell me about. The one you used to know in Mexico
as Captain Grant. I guess he’s the same one, because he was a captain
in the Mexican War. He’s general now. A man without a word in his mouth,
but with all the military sense there is.
“One day last month I came across a list of commissioned officers of the
Army of the Potomac. It had your name. So here I came.
“I got to the army’s headquarters yesterday and I found what corps you
were with and where it was. I borrowed an artillery horse and cut across
country to look for you. I got here just as you fellers were charging
the woods.
“That’s all about me. Now, how about _you_, Dad? You’ve succeeded.
You’re a captain. Isn’t it wonderful? How did it happen? I knew it
would.”
Briefly, Dad sketched his adventures; the hot little hand in his,
thrilling with the recital, the boy’s light eyes raised to his in stark
hero-worship.
As Dad came to the scene in the old Virginia homestead his voice shook a
little with embarrassment. He glossed over all that part of the tale
save the little widow’s surpassing goodness to himself. He congratulated
himself on the tactful secrecy wherein he was shrouding any hint of
sentiment.
Jimmie made no comment, and Dad went on with the rest of the story. At
its close the boy said, as though picking up the thread of a
long-discussed theme:
“Yes, I shed think she’d make a bully grandmother for any feller.”
“She?” rasped Dad. “Who? What on earth are you bleating about?”
“About Mrs. Sessions, of course, Dad. Why, don’t you?”
“Son,” coldly declaimed his grandfather, “there’s things a fool boy has
no right to--to--Oh, Jimmie, lad, how’d you guess? She’s a wonderful
little woman. And I told her all about you. And she feels just like a
mother to you already. She says so, son, and--
“My lad,” Dad caught himself up pompously, “this is not a subject I care
to discuss. Have you heard anything from your father? Or have you seen
him?”
“N--no, sir,” said the boy, strangling a laugh at his grandfather’s
abrupt change of tone, and wisely humoring the whim of reticence. “I
haven’t seen him. I was afraid to look him up for fear he might want to
pack me off out of this back to that old school.”
“He might,” agreed Dad. “A year ago he would. But perhaps this past year
he’s learned something himself in this war-school that will make him
understand you better. It will be great when we are all three home again
and can have camp-fires and yarn over our exploits. I make no doubt
Joseph is a commissioned officer long ago. He is bound to become one,
yes. Unquestionably, a man of his solid wisdom--”
A crackle of musketry broke in on the talk.
The two Federal regiments, in fan-formation, were moving slowly forward
toward the village. Advancing a few yards under fire, they would halt,
drop to earth, and let fly at the village walls and windows; crawling
forward once more and repeating the maneuvers.
“It’s a good move,” Dad approved. “It would be crazy for them to try to
carry the village by storm. But they just want to keep the Confeds
amused and hold them where they are for a half-hour or so. Our boys will
fall back presently, and start the same tactics over again.”
The rippling fire from the Federals was answered by a truly vicious
outpour of smoke and flame-jet from the doors and windows and angles of
the little village.
Back ran the maneuvering Federals to cover. And as they did so, Dad
jumped to his feet with an involuntary cry of dismay.