The Tree of Appomattox by Joseph A. Altsheler (most inspirational books txt) 📗

Early and what was left of his army had no choice but the flight they made. The sun had nearly set when the deadly charge issued from the wood, and, by the time it had set, the pursuit was thundering along the valley, the Winchester men in the very forefront of it. Long after dark it continued. Several miles from the field the fragments of the Invincibles and some others rallied on a hill, posted two cannon and made a desperate resistance. But the attack upon them was so fierce that they were compelled to retreat again, and they did not have time to take the guns with them.

It was a strange night to Dick, alike joyous and terrible. He believed that the army of the enemy was practically destroyed, and yet he had a great sympathy for some who were in it. He was in constant fear lest he should find them dead, or wounded mortally. But he had no time to look for them. Sheridan was pressing the pursuit to the utmost. Midnight did not stop it. Fugitives were captured continually. Here and there an abandoned cannon was taken. Rifles flashed all through the darkness, and the horses of the Union cavalry were driven to the utmost.

Neither Dick nor his companions felt exhaustion. Their excitement was too great, and the taste of triumph was too strong. They had seen no such victory before, and eager and willing they still led the advance. Midnight passed and the pursuit never ceased until it reached Woodstock, ten miles from Fisher's Hill. By that time Sheridan's infantry was exhausted, and as Early was beginning to draw together the remains of his force he would prove too strong for the cavalry alone.

At dawn the army of Sheridan stopped, the troopers almost falling from their horses in exhaustion, while Early used the opportunity to escape with what was left of his men, leaving behind many prisoners and twenty cannon. Yet the triumph had been great, and again, when the telegraph brought the news of it, the swell of victory passed through the North.

The Winchester regiment was drawn up near Woodstock, already dismounted, the men standing beside their horses. The camp cooks were lighting the fires for breakfast, but many of the young cavalrymen fell asleep first. Dick managed to keep awake long enough for his food, and then, at the order of the colonel, he slept on the ground, awaiting the command of Sheridan which might come at any moment.

CHAPTER X AN UNBEATEN FOE

Dick's belief that he would not be allowed to sleep long was justified. In three or four hours the whole Winchester regiment was up, mounted and away again. Early and his army left the great valley pike, and took a road leading toward the Blue Ridge, where he eventually entered a gap, and fortified to await supplies and fresh men from Richmond, leaving all the great Valley of Virginia, where in former years the Northern armies had suffered so many humiliations, in the possession of Sheridan. It was the greatest and most solid triumph that the Union had yet achieved and Dick and the youths with him rejoiced.

After many days of marching and fighting they lay once more in the shadow of the mountains, within a great grove of oak and beech, hickory and maple. The men and then the horses had drunk at a large brook flowing near by, and both were content. The North, as always, sent forward food in abundance to its troops, and now, just as the twilight was coming, the fires were lighted and the pleasant aromas of supper were rising. Colonel Winchester and his young staff sat by one of the fires near the edge of the creek. They had not taken off their clothes in almost a week, and they felt as if they had been living like cave-men. Nevertheless the satisfaction that comes from deeds well done pervaded them, and as they lay upon the leaves and awaited their food and coffee they showed great good humor.

"Have you any objection, sir, to my taking a census?" said Warner to Colonel Winchester.

"No, Warner, but what kind of a census do you mean?"

"I want to count our wounds, separately and individually and then make up the grand total."

"All right, George, go ahead," said Colonel Winchester, laughing.

"Dick," said Warner, "what hurts have you sustained in the past week?"

"A bullet scratch on the shoulder, another on the side, a slight cut from a saber on my left arm, about healed now, a spent bullet that hit me on the head, raising a lump and ache for the time being, and a kick from one of our own horses that made me walk lame for a day."

"The kick from a horse, as it was one of our horses, doesn't go."

"I didn't put it forward seriously. I withdraw my claim on its account."

"That allows you four wounds. Now, Pennington, how about you?"

"First I had a terrible wound in the foot," replied the Nebraskan. "A bullet went right through my left shoe and cut the skin off the top of my little toe."

"Leave out the 'terrible.' That's no dreadful wound."

"No, but it burned like the sting of a wasp and bled in a most disgraceful manner all over my sock. Then my belt buckle was shot away."

"That doesn't count either. A wound's a wound only when you're hit yourself, not when some piece of your clothing is struck."

"All right. The belt buckle's barred, although it gave me a shock when the bullet met it. A small bullet went through the flesh of my left arm just above the elbow. It healed so fast that I've hardly noticed it, due, of course, to the very healthy and temperate life I've led. I suppose, George, it would have laid up a fellow of your habits for a week."

"Never mind about my habits, but go on with the list of your wounds. A great beauty of mathematics is that it compels you to keep to your subject. When you're solving one of those delightful problems in mathematics you can't digress and drag in irrelevant things. Algebra is the very thing for a confused mind like yours, Frank, one that doesn't coordinate. But get on with your list."

"When we were in pursuit my horse stumbled in a gully and fell so hard that I was thrown over his shoulder, giving my own shoulder a painful bruise that's just getting well."

"We'll allow that, since it happened in battle. What else now? Speak up!"

"That's all. Three good wounds, according to your own somewhat severe definition of a wound. I'm one behind Dick, but I believe that when I was thrown over my horse's head I was hurt worse than he was at any time."

"Frank Pennington, you're a good comrade, but you're a liar, an unmitigated liar."

"George, if I weren't so tired and so unwilling to be angry with anybody I'd get up and belt you on the left ear for that."

"But you're a liar, just the same. You're holding something back."

"What are you driving at, you chattering Green Mountaineer?"

"Why don't you tell something about the time the trooper fell from his horse wounded, and you, dismounting under the enemy's fire, helped him on your own horse, although you got two wounds in your body while doing it, and brought him off in safety? Didn't I say that you were a liar, a convicted liar from modesty?"

Pennington blushed.

"I didn't want to say anything about that," he muttered. "I had to do it."

"Lots of men wouldn't have had to do it. You go down for five good wounds, Frank Pennington."

"Now, then, what about yourself, George?" asked Dick.

"One in the arm, one on the shoulder and one across the ankle. I don't waste time in words, like you two, my verbose friends. That gives the three of us combined twelve wounds, a fair average of four apiece."

"And it's our great good luck that not one of the twelve is a disabling hurt," said Dick.

"But we get the credit for the full twelve, all the same," said Warner, "and we maintain our prestige in the army. Our consciences also are satisfied. But the last two or three weeks of battles and marches have fairly made me dizzy. I can't remember them or their sequence. All I know is that we've cleaned up the valley, and here we are ready at last to take a couple of minutes of well earned rest."

"Do you know," said Pennington, "there were times when I clear forgot to be hungry, and I've been renowned in our part of Nebraska for my appetite. But nature always gets even. For all those periods of forgetfulness memory is now rushing upon me. I'm hungry not only for the present but from the past. It'll take a lot to satisfy me."

The briskness of the night also sharpened Pennington's appetite. They were deep in autumn, and the winds from the mountains had an edge. The foliage had turned and it glowed in vivid reds and yellows on the slopes, although the intense colors were hidden now by the coming of night.

The wind was cold enough to make the fires feel good to their relaxed systems, and they spread out their hands to the welcome flames, as they had often done at home on wintry nights, when children. Beyond the trees the horses, under guard, were grazing on what was left of the late grass, but within the wood the men themselves, save those who were preparing food, were mostly lying down on the dry leaves or their blankets, and were talking of the things they had done, or the things they were going to do.

"I wonder what the bill of fare will be tonight," said Pennington, who was growing hungrier and hungrier.

"I had several engraved menus," said Warner, "but I lost them, and so we won't be able to order. We'll just have to take what they offer us."

"A month or so later they'll be having fresh sausage and spare ribs in old Kentucky," said Dick, "and I wish we had 'em here now."

"And a month later than that," said Pennington, "they'll be having a roasted bull buffalo weighing five thousand pounds for Christmas dinner in Nebraska."

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Warner. "No buffalo ever weighed five thousand pounds."

Pennington looked at him pityingly.

"You have no romance or poetry after all, George," he said. "Why can't you let me put on an extra twenty-five hundred or three thousand pounds for the sake of effect?"

"Besides, you don't roast buffaloes whole and bring them in on a platter!"

"No, we don't, but that's no proof that we can't or won't. Now, what would you like to have, George?"

"After twelve or fifteen other things, I'd like to finish off with a whole pumpkin pie, and a few tin cups of cider would go along with it mighty well. That's the diet to make men, real men, I mean."

"Any way," said Dick, raising a tin cup of hot coffee, "here's to food. You may sleep without beds, and, in tropical climates, you may go without clothes, but in whatever part of the world you may be, you must have food. And it's best when you've ridden hard all day, and, in the cool of an October evening, to sit down by a roaring fire in the woods with the dry leaves beneath you, and the clear sky above you."

"Hear! hear!" said Warner. "Who's dithyrambic now? But you're right, Dick. War is a terrible thing. Besides being a ruthless slaughter it's an economic waste,—did you ever think of that, you reckless youngsters?—but it has a few minor compensations, and one of them is an evening like this. Why, everything tastes good to us. Nothing could taste bad. Our twelve wounds don't pain us in the least, and they'll heal absolutely in a few days, our blood being so healthy. The air we breathe is absolutely pure and the sky over our heads is all blue and silver, spangled with stars, a canopy stretched for our especial benefit, and upon which we have as much claim of ownership as anybody else has. We've lived out of doors so much and we've been through so much hard exercise that our bodies are now pretty nearly tempered steel. I doubt whether I'll ever be able to live indoors again, except in winter."

"I'm the luckiest of all," said Pennington. "Out