AT THE HOSPITAL OF MORGAN'S MEN
In May, Grant simply said--Forward! The day he crossed the Rapidan, he
said it to Sherman down in Georgia. After the battle of the Wilderness
he said it again, and the last brutal resort of hammering down the
northern buttress and sea-wall of the rebellion--old Virginia--and
Atlanta, the keystone of the Confederate arch, was well under way.
Throughout those bloody days Chad was with Grant and Harry Dean was
with Sherman on his terrible trisecting march to the sea. For, after
the fight between Rebels and Yankees and Daws Dillon's guerilla band,
over in Kentucky, Dan, coming back from another raid into the
Bluegrass, had found his brother gone. Harry had refused to accept a
parole and had escaped. Not a man, Dan was told, fired a shot at him,
as he ran. One soldier raised his musket, but Renfrew the Silent struck
the muzzle upward.
In September, Atlanta fell and, in that same month, Dan saw his great
leader, John Morgan, dead in Tennessee. In December, the Confederacy
toppled at the west under Thomas's blows at Nashville. In the spring of
'65, one hundred and thirty-five thousand wretched, broken-down rebels,
from Richmond to the Rio Grande, confronted Grant's million men, and in
April, Five Forks was the beginning of the final end everywhere.
At midnight, Captain Daniel Dean, bearer of dispatches to the great
Confederate General in Virginia, rode out of abandoned Richmond with
the cavalry of young Fitzhugh Lee. They had threaded their way amid
troops, trains, and artillery across the bridge. The city was on fire.
By its light, the stream of humanity was pouring out of town--Davis and
his cabinet, citizens, soldiers, down to the mechanics in the armories
and workshops. The chief concern with all was the same, a little to eat
for a few days; for, with the morning, the enemy would come and
Confederate money would be as mist. Afar off the little fleet of
Confederate gunboats blazed and the thundering explosions of their
magazines split the clear air. Freight depots with supplies were
burning. Plunderers were spreading the fires and slipping like ghouls
through red light and black shadows. At daybreak the last retreating
gun rumbled past and, at sunrise, Dan looked back from the hills on the
smoking and deserted city and Grant's blue lines sweeping into it.
Once only he saw his great chief--the next morning before day, when he
rode through the chill mist and darkness to find the head-quarters of
the commanding General--two little fires of rubbish and two
ambulances--with Lee lying on a blanket under the open sky. He rose, as
Dan drew near, and the firelight fell full on his bronzed and mournful
face. He looked so sad and so noble that the boy's heart was wrenched,
and as Dan turned away, he said, brokenly:
"General, I am General Dean's son, and I want to thank you--" He could
get no farther. Lee laid one hand on his shoulder.
"Be as good a man as your father was, my boy," he said, and Dan rode
back the pitiable way through the rear of that noble army of
Virginia--through ranks of tattered, worn, hungry soldiers, among the
broken debris of wagons and abandoned guns, past skeleton horses and
skeleton men.
All hope was gone, but Fitz Lee led his cavalry through the Yankee
lines and escaped. In that flight Daniel Dean got his only wound in the
war--a bullet through the shoulder. When the surrender came, Fitz Lee
gave up, too, and led back his command to get Grant's generous terms.
But all his men did not go with him, and among the cavalrymen who went
on toward southwestern Virginia was Dan--making his way back to Richard
Hunt--for now that gallant Morgan was dead, Hunt was general of the old
command.
Behind, at Appomattox, Chad was with Grant. He saw the surrender--saw
Lee look toward his army, when he came down the steps after he had
given up, saw him strike his hands together three times and ride
Traveller away through the profound and silent respect of his enemies
and the tearful worship of his own men. And Chad got permission
straightway to go back to Ohio, and he mustered out with his old
regiment, and he, too, started back through Virginia.
Meanwhile, Dan was drawing near the mountains. He was worn out when he
reached Abingdon. The wound in his shoulder was festering and he was in
a high fever. At the camp of Morgan's Men he found only a hospital
left--for General Hunt had gone southward--and a hospital was what he
most needed now. As he lay, unconscious with fever, next day, a giant
figure, lying near, turned his head and stared at the boy. It was Rebel
Jerry Dillon, helpless from a sabre cut and frightfully scarred by the
fearful wounds his brother, Yankee Jake, had given him. And thus,
Chadwick Buford, making for the Ohio, saw the two strange messmates, a
few days later, when he rode into the deserted rebel camp.
All was over. Red Mars had passed beyond the horizon and the white Star
of Peace already shone faintly on the ravaged South. The shattered
remnants of Morgan's cavalry, pall-bearers of the Lost Cause--had gone
South--bare-footed and in rags--to guard Jefferson Davis to safety, and
Chad's heart was wrung when he stepped into the little hospital they
had left behind--a space cleared into a thicket of rhododendron. There
was not a tent--there was little medicine--little food. The drizzling
rain dropped on the group of ragged sick men from the branches above
them. Nearly all were youthful, and the youngest was a mere boy, who
lay delirious with his head on the root of a tree. As Chad stood
looking, the boy opened his eyes and his mouth twitched with pain.
"Hello, you damned Yankee." Again his mouth twitched and again the old
dare-devil light that Chad knew so well kindled in his hazy eyes.
"I said," he repeated, distinctly, "Hello, you damned Yank. DAMNED Yank
I said." Chad beckoned to two men.
"Go bring a stretcher."
The men shook their heads with a grim smile--they had no stretcher.
The boy talked dreamily.
"Say, Yank, didn't we give you hell in--oh, well, in lots o' places.
But you've got me." The two soldiers were lifting him in their arms.
"Goin' to take me to prison? Goin' to take me out to shoot me, Yank?
You ARE a damned Yank." A hoarse growl rose behind them and the giant
lifted himself on one elbow, swaying his head from side to side.
"Let that boy alone!" Dan nodded back at him confidently.
"That's all right, Jerry. This Yank's a friend of mine." His brow
wrinkled. "At any rate he looks like somebody I know. He's goin' to
give me something to eat and get me well--like hell," he added to
himself--passing off into unconsciousness again. Chad had the lad
carried to his own tent, had him stripped, bathed, and bandaged and
stood looking down at him. It was hard to believe that the broken, aged
youth was the red-cheeked, vigorous lad whom he had known as Daniel
Dean. He was ragged, starved, all but bare-footed, wounded, sick, and
yet he was as undaunted, as defiant, as when he charged with Morgan's
dare-devils at the beginning of the war. Then Chad went back to the
hospital--for a blanket and some medicine.
"They are friends," he said to the Confederate surgeon, pointing at a
huge gaunt figure.
"I reckon that big fellow has saved that boy's life a dozen times. Yes,
they're mess-mates."
And Chad stood looking down at Jerry Dillon, one of the giant
twins--whose name was a terror throughout the mountains of the middle
south. Then he turned and the surgeon followed.
There was a rustle of branches on one side when they were gone, and at
the sound the wounded man lifted his head. The branches parted and the
oxlike face of Yankee Jake peered through. For a full minute, the two
brothers stared at each other.
"I reckon you got me, Jake," said Jerry.
"I been lookin' fer ye a long while," said Jake, simply, and he smiled
strangely as he moved slowly forward and looked down at his enemy--his
heavy head wagging from side to side. Jerry was fumbling at his belt.
The big knife flashed, but Jake's hand was as quick as its gleam, and
he had the wrist that held it. His great fingers crushed together, the
blade dropped on the ground, and again the big twins looked at each
other. Slowly, Yankee Jake picked up the knife. The other moved not a
muscle and in his fierce eyes was no plea for mercy. The point of the
blade moved slowly down--down over the rebel's heart, and was thrust
into its sheath again. Then Jake let go the wrist.
"Don't tech it agin," he said, and he strode away. The big fellow lay
blinking. He did not open his lips when, in a moment, Yankee Jake
slouched in with a canteen of water. When Chad came back, one giant was
drawing on the other a pair of socks. The other was still silent and
had his face turned the other way. Looking up, Jake met Chad's
surprised gaze with a grin.
A day later, Dan came to his senses. A tent was above him, a heavy
blanket was beneath him and there were clothes on his body that felt
strangely fresh and clean. He looked up to see Chad's face between the
flaps of the tent.
"D'you do this?"
"That's all right," said Chad. "This war is over." And he went away to
let Dan think it out. When he came again, Dan held out his hand
silently.