The Guns of Bull Run: A Story of the Civil War's Eve by Joseph A. Altsheler (ebook reader for pc txt) 📗

can go anywhere. But we will not rely upon cavalry alone. I will send two men at full speed to the main army for infantry reinforcements. Meanwhile, we will hurry forward."

Mounted on a good horse, Harry felt like a new being, and his spirits rose rapidly as the whole troop set off at a swift pace. He rode by the side of Stuart, who asked him many questions. Harry saw that he was not only brilliant and dashing, but thorough. He was planning to relieve Colonel Talbot, but he had no intention of dashing into a trap.

Soon they were deep in the hills and here they picked up a weary youth, dodging about among the trees. It was St. Clair. He had run the gauntlet, but he had been pursued so hotly that he had been forced to lie hidden in the forest a long time. He had made his uniform look as spruce as possible and he held himself with dignity when the horsemen approached, but he could not conceal the fact that he was exhausted.

"I congratulate you, Harry," he said, when he also was astride a horse. "It is likely that you are the only one who has got through so far. I'm quite sure that Langdon was driven back, and I don't know what has become of the others. But it was great luck to find such a command as this."

He looked somewhat enviously at Jeb Stuart's magnificent raiment, and again pulled and brushed at his own.

"You cannot expect to equal it," said Harry, smiling.

"Not unless my opportunities improve greatly. I must say, also, that the colors are a little too bright for me, although they suit him. Everything must be in harmony, Harry, and it is certainly true of Stuart and his uniform that they are in perfect accord. Good clothes, Harry, give one courage and backbone."

Stuart and his men continued to advance rapidly, although they were now deep in the hills, and Harry realized to the full that it was a splendid command, splendid men and splendid horses, led by a cavalryman of genius. Stuart neglected no precaution. He sent scouts ahead and threw out flankers. When they reached the forest the ranks opened out, and, without losing touch, a thousand men rode among the trees as easily as they had ridden in the open fields.

They reached the crest of the last slope and Stuart, sitting his horse with Harry and St. Clair on either side, looked through his glasses at the valley below.

"Our people still hold it," he said. "I can see their gray uniforms and I have no doubt the besiegers are still in the forest. Yes, there's their signal!"

The heavy report of a cannon shot rolled up the valley and Harry saw a shell burst over the fort. Carrington was still at work, playing upon the nerves of the defenders.

"While we have ridden through the forest," said Stuart, "a cavalry charge here is not possible. We must dismount, leaving one man in every ten to hold the horses, signal to Colonel Talbot that help has come, and then attack on foot."

A bugler advanced on horseback at Stuart's command, blew a long and thrilling call, and then another man beside him broke out an immense Confederate flag.

"They see us in the fort and recognize us," said Stuart. "Hark to the cheer!"

The faint sound of many voices in unison came up from the valley, and Harry knew it to be the Invincibles expressing joy that help had come. The fort then opened with its own guns, and Stuart's dismounted horsemen, who were armed with carbines, advanced through the forest, using the trees for shelter, and attacking the Northern force on the flank. They and the Invincibles together were not strong enough to drive off the enemy, but the heavy skirmishing lasted until the middle of the afternoon, when a whole brigade of infantry came up from the main army. Then the Northern troops retreated slowly and defiantly, carrying with them all their wounded and every gun.

"I've got to take my hat off to the mill hands and mechanics," said St. Clair. "I think, Harry, that if it hadn't been for your skill and luck in getting through we would soon have been living our lives according to their will."

Colonel Talbot congratulated Harry, but his words were few.

"Lad," he said, "you have done well."

Then he and Stuart consulted. Harry, meanwhile, found Langdon, who had been driven back, as St Clair had suspected. He had also sustained a slight wound in the arm, but he was rejoicing over their final success.

"Everything happens for the best," he said. "You might have been driven back, Harry, as I was. You might not have met Stuart. This little wound in my arm might have been a big one in my heart. But none of those things happened. Here I am almost unhurt, and here we are victorious."

"Victorious, perhaps, but without spoils," said St. Clair. "We've got this fort, but we know it will take a big force to keep it. I don't like the way these mill hands and mechanics fight. They hang on too long. After we drove them out of the fort they ought to have retreated up the valley and left us in peace. If they act this way when they're raw, what'll they do when they are seasoned?"

After the conference with Colonel Talbot, Stuart and his cavalry pursued the Northern force up the valley, not for attack, but for observation. Stuart came back at nightfall and reported that their retreat was covered by the heavy guns, and, if they were attacked with much success, it must be done by at least five thousand men.

"Carrington again," said Colonel Talbot, smiling and rubbing his hands. "You and your horsemen, Stuart, could never get a chance at the Northern recruits, unless you rode first over Carrington's guns. From whatever point you approached their muzzles would be sure to face you."

"The colonel is undoubtedly right about his friend Carrington," said St. Clair to Harry and Langdon. "I guess those guns scared us more than anything else."

Stuart and his command left them about midnight. A brilliant moon and a myriad of stars made the night so bright that Harry saw for a long time the splendid man on the splendid horse, leading his men to some new task. Then he lay down and slept heavily until dawn. They remained in the fort two days longer, and then came an order from Beauregard for them to abandon it, and rejoin the main army. The shifting of forces had now made the place useless to either side, and the Invincibles and their new comrades gladly marched back over the mountain and into the lowlands.

Harry found a letter from his father awaiting him. Colonel Kenton was now in Tennessee, where he had been joined by a large number of recruits from Kentucky. He would have preferred to have his son with him, but he was far from sure of his own movements. The regiment might yet be sent to the east. There was great uncertainty about the western commanders, and the Confederate resistance there had not solidified as it had in the east.

Harry expected prompt action on the Virginia field, but it did not come. The two armies lay facing each other for many days. June deepened and the days grew hot. Off in the mountains to the west there were many skirmishes, with success divided about equally. So far as Harry could tell, these encounters meant nothing. Their own battle at the fort meant nothing, either. The fort was now useless, and the two sides faced each other as before. Some of the Invincibles, however, were gone forever. Harry missed young comrades whom he had learned to like. But in the great stir of war, when one day in its effects counted as ten, their memories faded fast. It was impossible, when a boy was a member of a great army facing another great army, to remember the fallen long. Although the long summer days passed without more fighting, there was something to do every hour. New troops were arriving almost daily and they must be broken in. Intrenchments were dug and abandoned for new intrenchments elsewhere, which were abandoned in their turn for intrenchments yet newer. They moved to successive camps, but meanwhile they became physically tougher and more enduring.

The life in the open air agreed with Harry wonderfully. He had already learned from Colonel Talbot and Lieutenant-Colonel St. Hilaire how to take care of himself, and he and St. Clair and Langdon suffered from none of the diseases to which young soldiers are so susceptible. But the long delays and uncertainties preyed upon them, although they made no complaint except among themselves, and then they showed irony rather than irritation.

"Sleeping out here under the trees is good," said Langdon, "but it isn't like sleeping in the White House at Washington, which, as I told you before, I've chosen as my boarding house for the coming autumn."

"There may be a delay in your plans, Tom," said Harry. "I'd make them flexible if I were you."

"I intend to carry 'em out sooner or later. What's that you're reading, Arthur?"

"A New York newspaper. I won't let you see it, Tom, but I'll read portions of it to you. I'll have to expurgate it or you'd have a rush of blood to the head, you're so excitable. It makes a lot of fun of us. Tells that old joke, 'hay foot, straw foot,' when we drill. Says the Yankees now have three hundred thousand men under the best of commanders, and that the Yankee fleet will soon close up all our ports. Says a belt of steel will be stretched about us."

"Then," said Langdon, "just as soon as they get that belt of steel stretched we'll break it in two in a half dozen places. But go on with those feats of fancy that you're reading from that paper."

"Makes fun of our government. Says McDowell will be in Richmond in a month."

"Just the time that Tom gives himself to get into Washington," interrupted Harry. "But go on."

"Makes fun of our army, too, especially of us South Carolinians. Says we've brought servants along to spread tents for us, load our guns for us, and take care of us generally. Says that even in war we won't work."

"They're right, so far as Tom is concerned," said Harry. "We're going to give him a watch as the laziest man among the Invincibles."

"It's not laziness, it's wisdom," said Langdon. "What's the use of working when you don't have to, especially in a June as hot as this one is? I conserve my energy. Besides, I'm going to take care of myself in ways that you fellows don't know anything about. Watch me."

He took his clasp-knife and dug a little hole in the ground. Then he repeated over it solemnly and slowly:

"God made man and man made money;
God made the bee and the bee made honey;
God made Satan and Satan made sin;
God made a little hole to put the devil in."

"What do you mean by that, Tom?" asked Harry. "I learned it from some fellows over in a Maryland company. It's a charm that the children in that state have to ward off evil. I've a great belief in the instincts of children, and I'm protecting myself against cannon and rifles in the battle that's bound to come. Say, you fellows do it, too. I'm not superstitious, I wouldn't dream of depending on such things, but anyway, a charm don't hurt. Now go ahead; just to oblige me."

Harry and St. Clair dug their holes and repeated the lines. Langdon sighed with relief.

"It won't do any harm and it may do some good," he said.

They were interrupted by an orderly who summoned Harry to Colonel Talbot's tent. The colonel had complimented the boy on his energy and courage in bringing Stuart to his relief, when he was besieged in the fort, and he had also received the official thanks of General Beauregard. Proud of his success, he was anxious for some new duty of an active nature, and he hoped that it was at hand.