WAR!
All day, along the steep banks of Antietam Creek, the battle had roared
and bellowed and done its wholesale murdering.
All day, that red 17th of September, 1862--“the bloodiest single day’s
fighting of the Civil War”--the Army of the Potomac had flung itself in
dogged fury upon the V-shaped position of the Confederates on the
creek’s farther side.
It was the second day of the battle of Antietam; the first day having
been consumed in a more or less ineffectual artillery duel, and in
maneuvering for positions of strategic advantage.
Thanks to his foreknowledge of Lee’s plans--and, incidentally, thanks to
Dad and Battle Jimmie--McClellan had been able to take advantage of
Lee’s moment of comparative weakness by forcing battle upon him before
Stonewall Jackson’s force could return from the raid on Harper’s Ferry.
Thanks, also, to a delay that has never been explained, McClellan had
held off from the attack long enough to let Jackson’s vanguard of ten
thousand men join Lee.
Still, the bulk of Jackson’s soldiers--the flower of the Southern
host--were still absent when the battle was waged. Jackson, too, whose
presence and whose counsels at such a moment would have been worth more
than fifty thousand additional men, was still absent at Harper’s Ferry.
Lee was thus coerced by McClellan into giving battle, with his ablest
leader and his best fighters far away.
So much for the historic carelessness of the Confederate major-general,
D. H. Hill, in losing an all-important paper on the way from Frederick;
a carelessness that did untold harm to his cause; and that perhaps might
have done far more had McClellan seized all his opportunities instead of
merely part of them.
Yet, as historians agree, the finding of the lost paper, and its falling
into McClellan’s hands, turned the whole tide of the invasion and
changed Lee’s most brilliant campaign into a costly failure. A failure
that smote the Confederacy a well-nigh mortal blow on the bare heart.
On the morning of the seventeenth Hooker’s corps was entrenched on the
far side of the Antietam, the creek between him and the main Army of the
Potomac. On the preceding afternoon, at McClellan’s orders, Fighting Joe
had crossed one of the creek’s four stone bridges, defeated a
Confederate detachment under Hood, and had seized on a position.
Now, on the seventeenth, Hooker received further orders to attack the
Confederate line, engaging it closely; while the bulk of the main army
should cross the creek under cover of the fighting and throw itself on
the Confederates.
The plan met with only fair success. General Mansfield was killed early
in the action. Hooker was wounded.
The embattled Confederates stood firm as a rock; and all day long, at
close quarters, the mutual slaughter raged.
Four times with his regiment in Hooker’s corps Dad led his men against
the Confederate center. Four times the murderous volleys of the
Southerners sent back the assailants, almost cut to pieces.
Once more, Battle Jimmie far to the fore, clanging on his deafening
drum, the regiment charged with its brigade.
Half-way up the slope, Dad found himself senior officer, not only of his
regiment, but of his brigade.
Battles make field-promotion very swift.
Bare-headed, sword in hand, Dad toiled upward, calling to his
fast-thinning ranks to close up and follow. At his side drummed Jimmie,
crazy with excitement; screaming mingled insults, praise and
encouragement to the survivors.
Like some gaunt old war spirit, Dad raged at the head of his men; a
cyclone of lead roaring and whistling around him. His example, and that
of the howling, drumming boy at his side, proved infectious.
With a gasping cheer the depleted ranks staggered forward in the wake of
the gray-haired man and the drummer. Against the Confederate batteries
they crashed, headlong.
There was a mêlée of hand-to-hand fighting for an instant; then a break
and a scrambling run on the part of the defenders.
And the hill was won.
Dad whirled about on the handful of blue-coated victors who clustered
around him, yelling ecstatically.
“Bully!” cried Dad. “Good boys! We’ve got the hill. Now to hold it until
the support can come up. Captain Fitch, deploy--”
Dad saw ten million sparks leap into crackling life. A billion more
exploded within his brain.
He fell from a great, great height into a cool darkness that lovingly
wrapped itself about soul and mind and body.
Somewhere, he vaguely remembered, a battle was raging. But it had ceased
to interest him.
Then he fell quietly asleep.
* * * * *
Dad shook off the sweet lethargy and opened his eyes.
There was work to do. He recalled everything now. The senior officers of
his brigade were dead or incapacitated.
He had led his men up a hill that vomited fire and shot. They had barely
won the summit.
This surely was no moment for their leader to drop into a doze. He felt
heartily ashamed of himself.
With an effort he gripped at his sword-hilt--and his fingers closed
weakly over the folds of a hospital sheet.
His newly opened eyes focused at last--not on the blue sky, with its
hell of flame and smoke, but on the dingy gray canvas ceiling of a tent.
This was all wrong. He raised himself on one elbow to peer about him.
A sharp dizziness well-nigh made him swoon. At the same instant he was
aware that the unbearable din of musketry and artillery had ceased and
that soothing quiet reigned everywhere.
Exhausted, he fell back, his head sinking into the depths of a soft
pillow. Someone crossed the tent hastily and stood beside him.
It was Battle Jimmie.
For the briefest interval, as he lay blinking at his grandson, Dad
believed they were back at Ideala, and that the boy had crept into his
room, as had been his wont, for a good-night chat. Then he noted the
lad’s ill-fitting uniform, and reason came to its own again.
For a full minute they remained, without speech, looking into each
other’s eyes, while slowly Dad’s brain cleared and he began to realize
where he was.
“Dad!” whispered Jimmie at last. “Dad, do you know me?”
“Know you?” repeated Dad, in a weak but honestly surprised voice. “Why
shouldn’t I know you? What a crazy question, son, to ask me!”
Jimmie gripped one of Dad’s hands in both his own.
“You’re all right!” he exulted. “You’re all right! The surgeon said if
your mind was clear when you came to you’d be out of danger. Oh, gee,
but it’s grand to have you alive again!”
“Alive? What on earth do you mean?”
“Why--why, nothing,” ended the boy.
“What do you mean, dear lad?” insisted his grandfather. “Why shouldn’t I
be alive? I’ve been alive ever since I can remember. It’s a kind of
habit I got into ever so many years ago.”
Jimmie giggled in sheer relief; a shaky giggle, but vibrant with joy.
His grandfather’s voice was very weak and it faltered; but his
grandfather’s spirit still burned bright and strong.
And Jimmie rejoiced.
“Go ahead and tell me how I got here, and what’s the matter with me,”
murmured Dad haltingly. “I’m in a hospital tent, I suppose.”
“Yes, sir. Been here a week. Senseless all the time. Concussion of the
brain, the sawbones called it. Said if you came out of it sane you’d be
all right in just a few days. Oh, but it’s been a rotten time, Dad! They
let me stay, because I wouldn’t keep out. But you kept looking so--so
_dead_!”
The boy shuddered violently, then grinned again and squeezed Dad’s hand.
“Tell me all about it, son,” begged Dad. “Everything. From--from--”
“We’d just taken the hill,” answered Jimmie, seeking to marshal his
facts in correct order. “They were shelling us from a couple of
batteries to the left. Some shells burst over us. A piece of one hit
you in the head and over you went. Say, but I wished ’most a hundred
times that it had been me instead.”
Dad lifted a fractiously unsteady hand to his head. It was swathed in
cold, wet cloths.
Jimmie went on:
“They didn’t send us support and we couldn’t hold the hill, but we toted
you back with us.”
“The battle?” asked Dad in sudden anxiety.
“It lasted till after dark. We didn’t know who had won. Nobody did.
“But next morning Lee was gone. Helter-skelter back across the Potomac
into Virginia again. Invasion busted up for good.
“Some of the fellers say the folks in Washington are giving Little Mac
blazes for letting Lee get back safe into Virginia instead of catching
him before he could get to the Potomac. But I kind of guess it would
have been just a little bit like catching a rattlesnake by the tail.
“Anyhow, campaign’s over, and Johnnie Reb won’t stable his horses in
Faneuil Hall _this_ trip. Say, Dad, they’re talking a whole lot about
you everywhere--about how you--”
The boy checked himself. Through sheer weakness Dad had fallen asleep.