The Sword of Antietam: A Story of the Nation's Crisis by Joseph A. Altsheler (little bear else holmelund minarik txt) 📗
- Author: Joseph A. Altsheler
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“I believe every word of it,” said Warner warmly. “Our friend here, who I see can see, despite the dim light, has a countenance which one could justly say indicates a doubtful and disputatious nature, wishes to discredit it because he has not heard of such a thing before. Now, I ask you, gentlemen, intelligent and fair-minded as I know you are, where would we be, where would civilization be if we assumed the attitude of our friend here. If a thing is ever seen at all somebody sees it first, else it would never be seen. Quod erat demonstrandum. You remember your schooldays, of course. I thank you for your applause, gentlemen, but I'm not through yet. We have passed the question of things seen, and we now come to the question of things done, which is perhaps more important. It is obvious even to the doubtful or carping mind that if a new thing is done it is done by somebody first. Others will do it afterward, but there must and always will be a first.
“Nobody ever swallowed a river before, beginning at its mouth and swallowing it clean down to its source, but a division of gallant young troops from Ohio have done so. They are the first, and they must and always will be the first. Doubtless, other rivers will be swallowed later on. As the population increases, larger rivers will be swallowed, but the credit for initiating the first and greatest pure-water drinking movement in the history of the world will always belong to a brave army division from the state of Ohio.”
A roar of applause burst forth, and Warner, standing up, bowed gracefully with his hand upon his heart. Then came a dead silence, as a hand fell upon the Vermonter's shoulder. Warner looked around and his jaw fell. General McCook, who commanded this part of the army, was standing beside him.
“Excuse me, sir, I—” began Warner.
“Never mind,” said the general. “I had come for a drink of water, and hearing your debate I stopped for a few moments behind a tree to listen. I don't know your name, young gentleman.”
“Warner, sir, George Warner, first lieutenant in the regiment of Colonel Winchester.”
“I merely wished to say, Lieutenant Warner, that I listened to your speech from the first word to the last, and I found it very cogent and powerful. As you say, things must have beginnings. If there is no first, there can be no second or third. I am entirely convinced by your argument that our army swallowed a river as it marched southward. In fact, I have often felt so thirsty that I felt as if I could have swallowed it myself all alone.”
There was another roar of applause, and as a dozen cups filled with water were pushed at the general, he drank deeply and often, and then retired amid further applause.
“They'll fight well for him, to-morrow,” said Dick.
“No doubt of it,” said Warner.
They went into the edge of the wood and sought sleep and rest. But there was much merry chatter first among these lads, for many of whom death had already spread its somber wings.
CHAPTER XIII. PERRYVILLE
Dick slept very well that night. The water from the little spring, gushing out from under the rock, had refreshed him greatly. He would have rejoiced in another bath, such as one as they had luxuriated in that night before Frankfort, but it was a thing not be dreamed of now, and making the best of things as they were, he had gone to sleep among his comrades.
The dryness of the ground had at least one advantage. They had not colds and rheumatism to fear, and, with warm earth beneath them and fresh air above, they slept more soundly than if they had been in their own beds. But while they were sleeping the wary Sergeant Whitley was slipping forward among the woods and ravines. He had received permission from Colonel Winchester, confirmed by a higher officer, to go on a scout, and he meant to use his opportunity. He had made many a scouting trip on the plains, where there was less cover than here, and there torture and death were certain if captured, but here it would only be imprisonment among men who were in no sense his personal enemies, and who would not ill-treat him. So the sergeant took plenty of chances.
He passed the Union pickets, entered a ravine which led up between two hills and followed it for some distance. In a cross ravine he found a little stream of water, flowing down from some high, rocky ground above, and, at one point, he came to a pool several yards across and three or four feet deep. It was cool and fresh, and the sergeant could not resist the temptation to slip off his clothes and dive into it once or twice. He slipped his clothes on again, the whole not consuming more than five minutes, and then went on much better equipped for war than he had been five minutes before.
Then he descended the hills and came down into a valley crossed by a creek, which in ordinary times had plenty of water, but which was now reduced to a few muddy pools. The Southern pickets did not reach so far, and save for the two tiny streams in the hills this was all the water that the Northern army could reach. Farther down, its muddy and detached stream lay within the Confederate lines.
Crossing the creek's bed the sergeant ascended a wooded ridge, and now he proceeded with extreme caution. He had learned that beyond this ridge was another creek containing much more water than the first. Upon its banks at the crossing of the road stood the village of Perryville, and there, according to his best information and belief, lay the Southern army. But he meant to see with his own eyes and hear with his own ears, and thus return to McCook's force with absolute certainty.
The sergeant, as he had expected, found cover more plentiful than it was on the plains, but he never stalked an Indian camp with more caution. He knew that the most of the Southern scouts and skirmishers were as wary as the Indians that once hunted in these woods, and that, unless he used extreme care, he was not likely to get past them.
He came at last to a point where he lay down flat on his stomach and wormed himself along, keeping in the thickest shadow of woods and bushes. The night was bright, and although his own body was blended with the ground, he could see well about him. The sergeant was a very patient man. Life as a lumberman and then as a soldier on the plains had taught him to look where he was crawling. He spent a full hour worming himself up to the crest of that ridge and a little way down on the other side. In the course of the last fifteen minutes he passed directly between two alert and vigilant Southern pickets. They looked his way several times, but the sergeant was so much in harmony with the color scheme of the earth on which he crept, that no blame lay upon them for not seeing him.
The sergeant was already hearing with his own ears. He heard these pickets and others talking in low voices of the Northern army and of their own. They knew that
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