The Tree of Appomattox Part 36

They intended to move on the next day, and they heard that night that Rosser, a brave Confederate general, had gathered a small Confederate force and was hastening forward to burn all the bridges over the middle fork of the Shenandoah, in order that he might impede Sheridan's progress. Then it was the call of the trumpet and boots and saddles early in the morning in order that they might beat Rosser to the bridges.

"I hope for their own sake that they won't try to fight us," said d.i.c.k.

"I'm with you on that," said Pennington. "They can't be more than a few hundreds, and it would take thousands, even with a river to help, to stop an army like ours."

It was not raining now and the roads growing dryer thundered with the hoofs of ten thousand horses. The Winchesters had an honored place in the van, and, as they approached the middle fork of the Shenandoah, the three young captains raised themselves in their saddles to see if the bridge yet stood. It was there, but on the other side of the stream a small body of cavalrymen in gray were galloping forward, and some had already dismounted for the attempt to destroy it. The arrival of the two forces was almost simultaneous, but the Union army, overwhelming in numbers, exulting in victory, swept forward to the call of the trumpets.

"They're not more than five or six hundred over there," said Warner, "too few to put up a fight against us. I feel sorry for 'em, and wish they'd go away."

The Southerners nevertheless were sweeping the narrow bridge with a heavy rifle fire, and Sheridan drew back his men for a few minutes. Then followed a series of mighty splashes, as two West Virginia regiments sent their horses into the river, swam it, and, as they emerged dripping on the farther sh.o.r.e, charged the little Confederate force in flank, compelling it to retreat so swiftly that it left behind prisoners and its wagons.

It was all over in a few minutes, and the whole army, crossing the river, moved steadily on toward Staunton, where Early had been in camp, and where Sheridan hoped to find him. The little victory did not bring d.i.c.k any joy. He knew that the Confederacy could now make no stand in the Valley of Virginia, and it was like beating down those who were already beaten. He sincerely hoped that Early would not await them at Staunton or anywhere else, but would take his futile forces out of the valley and join Lee.

The heavy rains began again. Winter was breaking up and its transition into spring was accompanied by floods. The last snow on the mountains melted and rushed down in torrents. The roads, already ruined by war, became vast ruts of mud, but Sheridan was never daunted by physical obstacles. The great army of cavalry, scarcely slacking speed, pressed forward continually, and d.i.c.k knew that Early did not have the shadow of a chance to withstand such an army.

The next day they entered Staunton, another of the neat little Virginia cities devoted solidly and pa.s.sionately to the Southern cause. Here, they were faced again by blind doors and windows, but Early and his force were gone. Shepard brought news that he had prepared for a stand at Waynesborough, although he had only two thousand men.

"Our general will attack him at once," said Warner, when he heard of it.

"He sweeps like a hurricane."

"He is surely the general for us at such a time," said Pennington, who began to feel himself a military authority.

"It's humane, at least," said d.i.c.k. "The quicker it's over the smaller the toll of ruin and death."

Nor had they judged Sheridan wrongly. His men advanced with speed, hunting Early, and they found him fortified with his scanty forces on a ridge near the little town of Waynesborough. The daring young leader, Custer, and Colonel Winchester, riding forward, found his flank exposed, and it was enough for Sheridan. He formed his plan with rapidity and executed it with precision. The Custer and Winchester men were dismounted and a.s.sailed the exposed flank at once, while the remainder of the army made a direct and violent charge in front.

It seemed to d.i.c.k that Early was swept away in an instant, and the attack was so swift and overwhelming that there was but little loss of life on either side. Four fifths of the Southern men and their cannon were captured, while Early, several of his generals and a few hundred soldiers escaped to the woods. His army, however, had ceased to exist, and Sheridan and his muddy victors rode on to the ancient town of Charlottesville, which, having no forces to defend it, the mayor and the leading citizens surrendered.

d.i.c.k, Warner and Pennington walked through the silent halls of the University of Virginia, the South's most famous inst.i.tution of learning, founded by Thomas Jefferson, one of the republic's greatest men.

"I hope they will re-open it next year," said Warner generously, "and that it will grow and grow, until it becomes a rival of Harvard. We want to defeat the South, but not to destroy it. Since it is to be a part of the Union again, and loyal forever I hope and believe, we want it strong and prosperous."

"I'm with you in that," said d.i.c.k, "and I feel it with particular strength while I am here. There have been many great Virginians and I hope there'll be many more."

They also visited Monticello, the famous colonial mansion which the great Jefferson had built, and in which he had lived and planned for the republic. They trod there with light steps, feeling that his spirit was still present. Virginia was the greatest of the border states, but it seemed to d.i.c.k that here he was in the very heart of the South. Virginia was the greatest of the Southern fighting states too, and it had furnished most of the great Southern leaders, at least two of her sons ranking among the foremost military geniuses of modern times. For nearly four years they had barred the way to every Northern advance, and had won great victories over numbers, but d.i.c.k was sure as he stood on a portico at Monticello, in the very heart of valiant Virginia, that the fate of the South was sealed.

They did not stay long at Charlottesville and Monticello, but a portion of the army, including the Winchester men, went on, tearing up the railroad, while another column demolished a ca.n.a.l used for military purposes. Then the two forces united at a town called New Market, but they could go no farther. The heavy rains and the melting snows had swollen the rivers enormously, all the bridges before them were destroyed, and their own pontoons proved inadequate in face of the great rus.h.i.+ng streams. Then they turned back.

d.i.c.k and his comrades were secretly glad. The rising of the waters had prevented them from going into North Carolina and joining Sherman. Hence, they deduced that so active a man as Sheridan would march for a junction with Grant, and that was where they wanted to go. They did not believe that the Confederacy was to be finished in North Carolina, but at Richmond. They knew that Lee's army yet stood between Grant and the Southern capital, and, there, would be the heart of great affairs.

Spring was now opening and Sheridan's army marched eastward. Men and horses were covered with mud, but they still had the flush of victories won, and the incentive of others expected. They were even yet worn by hard marching and some fighting, but it was a healthy leanness, making their muscles as tough as whipcord, while their eyes were keen like those of hawks.

d.i.c.k did not rejoice now in the work they were doing, although he saw its need. Theirs was a task of destruction. For a distance of more than fifty miles they ruined a ca.n.a.l important to the Confederacy. Boats, locks, everything went, and they also made cuts by which the swollen James poured into the ca.n.a.l, flooding it and thrusting it out of its banks. They met no resistance save a few distant shots, and Sheridan rejoiced over his plan to join the Army of the Potomac, although he had not yet been able to send word of it to Grant.

But the omens remained propitious. They saw now that there were no walls in the rear of the Confederacy and they had little to do but march. The heavy rains followed them, roads disappeared, and it seemed to the young captains that they lived in eternal showers of mud. Horses and riders alike were caked with it, and they ceased to make any effort to clean themselves.

"This is not a white army," said Warner, looking down a long column, "it's brown, although it would be hard to name the shade of brown."

"It's not always brown," said Pennington. "Lots of the Virginia mud is a rich, ripe red. Bet you anything that before tomorrow night we will have turned to some hue of scarlet."

"We won't take the wager," said d.i.c.k, "because you bet on a certainty."

That afternoon the scouts surprised a telegraph station on the railroad, and found in it a dispatch from General Early. To the great amazement of Sheridan, Early was not far away. He had only two hundred men, but with them the grim old fighter prepared to attack the Union army. Sheridan himself felt a certain pity for his desperate opponent, but he promptly sent Custer in search of him. The young cavalryman quickly found him and scattered or captured the entire band.

Early escaped from the fight with a lone orderly as his comrade, and the next day the general who had lost all through no fault of his own, rode into Richmond with his single companion, and from him Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy, heard the full tale of Southern disaster in the Valley of Virginia.

Meanwhile Sheridan and his victorious army rode on to a place called White House, where they found plenty of stores, and where they halted for a long rest, and also to secure new mounts, if they could. Their horses were worn out completely by the great campaign and were wholly unfit for further service. But it was hard to obtain fresh ones and the delay was longer than the general had intended. Nevertheless his troops profited by it. They had not realized until they stopped how near they too had come to utter exhaustion, and for several days they were in a kind of physical torpor while their strength came back gradually.

"I think I've removed the last trace of the Virginia mud from my clothes and myself," said Warner on the morning of the second day, "but I've had to work hard to do it, as time seemed to have made it almost a part of my being."

"I've spent most of my time learning to walk again, and getting the bows out of my legs," said d.i.c.k. "I've been a-horse so long that I felt like a sailor coming ash.o.r.e from a three years' cruise."

"Agreed with me pretty well, all except the mud, since I was born on horseback," said Pennington. "But I don't like to ride in a brown plaster suit of armor. What do you think is ahead, boys?"

"Junction with General Grant," said d.i.c.k. "They say, also, that General Sherman, after completing his great work in Georgia and North Carolina, is coming to join them too. It will be a great meeting, that of the three successful generals who have destroyed the Confederacy, because there's nothing of it left now but Lee's army, and that they say is mighty small."

It was in reality a triumphant march that they began after they left White House, refreshed, remounted and ready for new conquests. They soon came into touch with the Army of the Potomac, and the great meeting between Grant, Sherman and Sheridan took place, Sherman having come north especially for the purpose. Then Sheridan's force became attached to the Army of the Potomac, and his cavalry columns advanced into the marshes about Petersburg. All fear that they would be sent to cooperate with Sherman pa.s.sed, and d.i.c.k knew that the Winchester men would be in the final struggle with Lee, a struggle the success of which he felt a.s.sured.

April was not far away. The fierce winter was broken up completely, but the spring rains were uncommonly heavy and much of the low country about Petersburg was flooded, making it difficult for cavalry and impossible for infantry. Nevertheless the army of Grant, with Sheridan now as a striking arm, began to close in on the beleaguered men in gray. Lee had held the trenches before Petersburg many months, keeping at bay a resolute and powerful army, led by an able and tenacious general, but it was evident now that he could not continue to hold them. Sheridan's victorious force on his flank made it impossible.

The Winchester men were in a skirmish or two, but for a few days most of their work was maneuvering, that is, they were continually riding in search of better positions. At times, the rain still poured, but the three young captains were so full of expectancy that they scarcely noticed it. d.i.c.k often heard the trumpets singing across the marshes, and now and then he saw the Confederate skirmishers and the roofs of Petersburg. He beheld too with his own eyes the circle of steel closing about the last hope of the Confederacy, and he felt every day, with increasing strength, that the end was near.

But the outside world did not realize that the great war was to close so suddenly. It had raged with the utmost violence for four years and it seemed the normal condition in America. Huge battles had been fought, and they had ended in nothing. Three years before, McClellan had been nearer to Richmond than Grant now was, and yet he had been driven away. Lee and Jackson had won brilliant victories or had held the Union numbers to a draw, and to those looking from far away the end seemed as distant as ever. At that very moment, they were saying in Europe that the Confederacy was invincible, and that it was stronger than it had been a year or two years earlier.

d.i.c.k, all unconscious of distant opinion, watched the tightening of the steel belt, and helped in the task. He and his comrades never doubted. They knew that Sherman had crushed the Southeast, and that Thomas, that stern old Rock of Chickamauga, had annihilated the Southern army of Hood at Nashville. d.i.c.k was glad that the triumph there had gone to Thomas, whom he always held in the greatest respect and admiration.

He often saw Grant in those days, a silent, resolute man, thinner than of old and stooped a little with care and responsibility. d.i.c.k, like the others, felt with all the power of conviction that Grant would never go back, and Shepard, who had entered Petersburg twice at the imminent risk of his life, a.s.sured him that Lee's force was wearing away. There was left only a fraction of the great Army of Northern Virginia that had fought so brilliantly at Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, the Wilderness and on many another battlefield.

"Only we who are here and who can see with our own eyes know what is about to happen," said the spy. "Even our own Northern states, so long deluded by false hopes, can't yet believe, but we know."

"Did you hear anything of the Invincibles when you were in Petersburg?" asked d.i.c.k.

"I heard of them, and I also saw them, although they did not know I was near. I suppose Harry Kenton could scarcely have contained himself had he known it was my sister who filched that map from the Curtis house in Richmond and that it was to me she gave it."

"But he was all right? He escaped unhurt from the Valley?"

"Yes, or if he took a hurt it was but a slight one, from which he soon recovered. He and his comrades, Dalton, St. Clair and Langdon, and the two Colonels, Talbot and St. Hilaire, are back with Lee, and they've organized another regiment called the Invincibles, which Talbot and St. Hilaire lead, although your cousin and Dalton are on Lee's staff again."

"I suppose we'll come face to face again, and this time at the very last," said d.i.c.k. "I hope they'll be reasonable about it, and won't insist on fighting until they're all killed. Have you heard anything of those two robbers and murderers, Slade and Skelly?"

"Not a thing. But I didn't expect it. They'd never leave the mountains.

Instead they'll go farther into 'em."

That night many messengers rode with dispatches, and the lines of the Northern army were tightened. d.i.c.k saw all the signs that portended a great movement, signs with which he had long since grown familiar. The big batteries were pushed forward, and heavy ma.s.ses of infantry were moved closer to the Confederate trenches. He felt quite sure that the final grapple was at hand.

CHAPTER XVI

THE CLOSING DAYS

Within the Southern lines and just beyond the range of the Northern guns, two men sat playing chess. They were elderly, gray and thin, but never had the faces of the two colonels been more defiant. With the Confederacy crumbling about them it was characteristic of both that they should show no despair, if in truth they felt it. Their confidence in Lee was sublime. He could still move mountains, although he had no tools with which to move them, and the younger officers, mere boys many of them, would come back to them again and again for encouragement. Spies had brought word that Grant, after nine months of waiting, and with Sheridan and a huge cavalry force on his flank, was about to make his great attack. But the dauntless souls of Colonel Leonidas Talbot and Lieutenant Colonel Hector St. Hilaire remained unmoved.