The Federal troops, with successive charges, had now pushed the enemy
from their first position, and the torn battalions were still being
hurled against the batteries that swept their ranks. The excellent
generalship of the Confederate leaders availed itself of the valor and
impetuosity of their assailants to lure them, by consecutive advance and
backward movement, into the deadly range of their well planted guns. It
was then that, far to the right, a heavy column could be seen moving
rapidly in the rear of the contending hosts. Was it a part of Hunter's
division that had turned the enemy's rear? Such was the thought at
first, and with the delusion triumphant cheers rang from the parched
throats of the weary Federals. They were soon to be undeceived. The
stars and bars flaunted amid those advancing ranks, and the constant
yells of the Confederates proclaimed the truth. Johnston was pouring his
fresh troops upon the battle-field. The field was lost, but still was
struggled for in the face of hope. It was now late in the afternoon, and
the soldiers, exhausted with their desperate exertions, fought on,
doggedly, but without that fiery spirit which earlier in the day had
urged them to the cannon's mouth. There was a lull in the storm of
carnage, the brief pause that precedes the last terrific fury of the
tempest. The Confederates were concentrating their energies for a
decisive effort. It came. From the woods that skirted the left centre of
their position, a squadron of horsemen came thundering down upon our
columns. Right down upon Carlisle's battery they rode, slashing the
cannoneers and capturing the guns. Then followed their rushing ranks of
infantry, and full upon our flank swooped down another troop of cavalry,
dashing into the road where the baggage-train had been incautiously
advanced. Our tired and broken regiments were scattered to the right and
left. In vain a few devoted officers spurred among them, and called on
them to rally; they broke from the ranks in every quarter of the field,
and rushed madly up the hillsides and into the shelter of the trees.
The magnificent army that had hailed the rising sun with hopes of
victory was soon pouring along the road in inextricable confusion and
disorderly retreat. Foot soldier and horseman, field-piece and wagon,
caisson and ambulance, teamster and cannoneer, all were mingled together
and rushing backward from the field they had half won, with their backs
to the pursuing foe. That rout has been traced, to our shame, in
history; the pen of the novelist shuns the disgraceful theme.
Harold, although faint with loss of blood, which oozed from a
flesh-wound in his shoulder, was among the gallant few who strove to
stem the ebbing current; struck at last by a spent ball in the temple,
he fell senseless to the ground. He would have been trampled upon and
crushed by the retreating column, had not a friendly hand dragged him
from the road to a little mound over which spread the branches of an
oak. Here he was found an hour afterward by a body of Confederate troops
and lifted into an ambulance with others wounded and bleeding like
himself.
While the vehicle, with its melancholy freight, was being slowly
trailed over the scene of the late battle, Harold partially recovered
his benumbed senses. He lay there as in a dream, striving to recall
himself to consciousness of his position. He felt the dull throbbing
pain upon his brow and the stinging sensation in his shoulder, and knew
that he was wounded, but whether dangerously or not he could not judge.
He could feel the trickling of blood from the bosom of a wounded comrade
at his side, and could hear the groans of another whose thigh was
shattered by the fragment of a shell; but the situation brought no
feeling of repugnance, for he was yet half stunned and lay as in a
lethargy, wishing only to drain one draught of water and then to sleep.
The monotonous rumbling of the ambulance wheels sounded distinctly upon
his ear, and he could listen, with a kind of objectless curiosity, to
the casual conversation of the driver, as he exchanged words here and
there with others, who were returning upon the same dismal errand from
the scene of carnage. The shadows of night spread around him, covering
the field of battle like a pall flung in charity by nature over the
corpses of the slain. Then his bewildered fancies darkened with the
surrounding gloom, and he thought that he was coffined and in a hearse,
being dragged to the graveyard to be buried. He put forth his hand to
push the coffin lid, but it fell again with weakness, and when his
fingers came in contact with the splintered bone that protruded from his
neighbor's thigh, and he felt the warm gushing of the blood that welled
with each throb of the hastily bound artery, he puzzled his dreamy
thoughts to know what it might mean. At last all became a blank upon his
brain, and he relapsed once more into unconsciousness.
And so, from dreamy wakefulness to total oblivion he passed to and fro,
without an interval to part the real from the unreal. He was conscious
of being lifted into the arms of men, and being borne along carefully by
strong arms. Whither? It seemed to his dull senses that they were
bearing him into a sepulchre, but he was not terrified, but careless and
resigned; or if he thought of it at all, it was to rejoice that when
laid there, he should be undisturbed. Presently a vague fancy passed
athwart his mind, that perhaps the crawling worms would annoy him, and
he felt uneasy, but yet not afraid. Afterward, there was a sensation of
quiet and relief, and his brain, for a space, was in repose. Then a
bright form bent over him, and he thought it was an angel. He could feel
a soft hand brushing the dampness from his brow, and fingers, whose
light touch soothed him, parting his clotted hair. The features grew
more distinct, and it pleased him to look upon them, although he strove
in vain to fix them in his memory, until a tear-drop fell upon his
cheek, and recalled his wandering senses; then he knew that Oriana was
bending over him and weeping.
He was in the cottage where Beverly had last parted from his sister; not
in the same room, for they feared to place him there, where Miranda was
lying in a shroud, with a coffin by her bed-side, lest the sad spectacle
should disturb him when he woke. But he lay upon a comfortable bed in
another room, and Beverly and Oriana stood beside, while the surgeon
dressed his wounds.