The Sword of Antietam: A Story of the Nation's Crisis by Joseph A. Altsheler (little bear else holmelund minarik txt) 📗

a desperate hand-to-hand battle at either Shiloh or the Second Manassas, and they were terrible enough. But he felt as the Confederates themselves had felt, that the Southern army was fighting for existence.

But as the day waned, Dick believed that they would never be able to crush Jackson. The Union troops always returned to the attack, but the men in gray never failed to meet it, and actual physical exhaustion overwhelmed the combatants. Pennington went down, and Dick dragged him to his feet, fearing that he was wounded mortally, but found that his comrade had merely dropped through weakness.

The long day of heat and strife neared its close. Neither Northern tenacity nor Southern fire could win, and the sun began to droop over the field piled so thickly with bodies. As the twilight crept up the battle sank in all parts of the peninsula. McClellan, who had lost those two most precious days, and who had finally failed to make use of all his numbers at the same time, now, great in preparation, as usual, made ready for the emergency of the morrow.

All the powerful and improved artillery which McClellan had in such abundance was brought up. The mathematical minds and the workshops of the North bore full fruit upon this sanguinary field of Antietam. The shattered divisions of Hooker, with which Dick and his comrades lay, were sheltered behind a great line of artillery. No less than thirty rifled guns of the latest and finest make were massed in one battery to command the road by which the South might attack.

To the south the Northern artillery was equally strong, and beyond the Antietam also it was massed in battery after battery to protect its men.

But the coming twilight found both sides too exhausted to move. The sun was setting upon the fiercest single day's fighting ever seen in America. Nearly twenty-five thousand dead or wounded lay upon the field. More than one fourth of the Southern army was killed or wounded, yet it was in Lee's mind to attack on the morrow.

After night had come the weary Southern generals—those left alive—reported to Lee as he sat on his horse in the road. The shadows gathered on his face, as they told of their awful losses, and of the long list of high officers killed or wounded. Jackson was among the last, and he was gloomy. The man who had always insisted upon battle did not insist upon it now. Hood reported that his Texans, who had fought so valiantly for the Dunkard church, were almost destroyed.

The scene in the darkness with the awful battlefield around them was one which not even the greatest of painters could have reproduced. When the last general had told his tale of slaughter and destruction, they sat for a while in silence. They realized the smallness of their army, and the immense extent of their losses. The light wind that had sprung up swept over the dead faces of thousands of the bravest men in the Southern army. They had held their ground, but on the morrow McClellan could bring into line three to one and an artillery far superior alike in quality, weight and numbers to theirs.

The strange, intense silence lasted. Every eye was upon Lee. When the generals were making their reports he had shown more emotion than they had ever seen on his face before. Now he was quiet, but he drew his lips close together, his eyes shone with blue fire, and rising in his stirrups he said:

“We will not cross the Potomac to-night, gentlemen.”

Then while they still waited in silence, he said:

“Go to your commands! Reform and strengthen your lines. Collect all your stragglers. Bring up every man who is in the rear. If McClellan wants a battle again in the morning, he shall have it. Now go!”

Not a general said a word in objection, in fact, they did not speak at all, but rode slowly away, every one to his command. Yet they were, without exception, against the decision of their great leader.

Even Stonewall Jackson did not want a second battle. He had shown through the doubtful conflict a most extraordinary calmness. While the combat in the north, where he commanded, was at its height, he had sat on Little Sorrel, now happily restored to him, eating from time to time a peach that he took from his pocket. Nothing had escaped his observation; he watched every movement, and noticed every rise and fall in the tide of success. His silence now indicated that he concurred with the others in his belief that the remains of the Confederate army should withdraw across the Potomac, but his manner indicated complete acquiescence in the decision of his leader.

But in the north of the peninsula the remnants of either side had scarce a thought to bestow upon victory or defeat. It was a question that did not concern them for the present, so utter was their exhaustion. As night came and the battle ceased they dropped where they were and sank into sleep or a stupor that was deeper than sleep.

But Dick this time did neither. His nervous system had been strained so severely that it was impossible for him to keep still. He had found that all of his friends had received wounds, although they were too slight to put them out of action. But the Winchester regiment had suffered terribly again. It did not have a hundred men left fit for service, and even at that it had got off better than some others. In one of the Virginia regiments under Longstreet only fourteen men had been left unhurt.

Dick stood beside his colonel—Warner and Pennington were lying in a stupor—and he was appalled. The battle had been fought within a narrow area, and the tremendous destruction was visible in the moonlight, heaped up everywhere. Colonel Winchester was as much shaken as he, and the two, the man and the boy, walked toward the picket line, drawn by a sort of hideous fascination, as they looked upon the area of conflict.

The dead lay in windrows between the two armies which were waiting to fight on the dawn. Dick and the colonel walked toward the field where the corn had been waving high that morning, and where it was now mown by cannon and rifles to the last stalk. In the edge of the wood the boy paused and grasping the man suddenly by the arm pulled him back.

“Look! Look!” he exclaimed in a sharp whisper. “The Confederate skirmishers! The woods are full of them! They are making ready for a night attack!” Both he and Colonel Winchester sprang back behind a big tree, sheltering themselves from a possible shot. But no sound came, not even that of men creeping forward through the undergrowth. All they heard was the moaning of the wind through the foliage. They waited, and then the two looked at each other. The true reason for the extraordinary silence had occurred to both at the same instant, and they stepped from the shelter of the tree.

Awed and appalled, the man and the boy gazed at the silent forms which lay row on row in the woods and in the shorn cornfield. It seemed as if they slept, but Dick knew that all were dead. He and Colonel Winchester gazed again at each other and shuddering turned away lest they disturb the sleep of the dead.

When they returned to a position behind the guns they heard others coming in with equally terrible tales. A sunken lane that ran between the hostile lines was filled to the brim with dead. Boys, yet