The Sword of Antietam: A Story of the Nation's Crisis Part 1

The Sword of Antietam.

by Joseph A. Altsheler.

FOREWORD

"The Sword of Antietam" tells a complete story, but it is one in the chain of Civil War romances, begun in "The Guns of Bull Run" and continued through "The Guns of s.h.i.+loh" and "The Scouts of Stonewall."

The young Northern hero, d.i.c.k Mason, and his friends are in the forefront of the tale.

CHAPTER I. CEDAR MOUNTAIN

The first youth rode to the crest of the hill, and, still sitting on his horse, examined the country in the south with minute care through a pair of powerful gla.s.ses. The other two dismounted and waited patiently. All three were thin and their faces were darkened by sun and wind. But they were strong alike of body and soul. Beneath the faded blue uniforms brave hearts beat and powerful muscles responded at once to every command of the will.

"What do you see, d.i.c.k?" asked Warner, who leaned easily against his horse, with one arm over the pommel of his saddle.

"Hills, valleys, mountains, the August heat s.h.i.+mmering over all, but no human being."

"A fine country," said young Pennington, "and I like to look at it, but just now my Nebraska prairie would be better for us. We could at least see the advance of Stonewall Jackson before he was right on top of us."

d.i.c.k took another long look, searching every point in the half circle of the south with his gla.s.ses. Although burned by summer the country was beautiful, and neither heat nor cold could take away its picturesqueness. He saw valleys in which the gra.s.s grew thick and strong, cl.u.s.ters of hills dotted with trees, and then the blue loom of mountains clothed heavily with foliage. Over everything bent a dazzling sky of blue and gold.

The light was so intense that with his gla.s.ses he could pick out individual trees and rocks on the far slopes. He saw an occasional roof, but nowhere did he see man. He knew the reason, but he had become so used to his trade that at the moment, he felt no sadness. All this region had been swept by great armies. Here the tide of battle in the mightiest of all wars had rolled back and forth, and here it was destined to surge again in a volume increasing always.

"I don't find anything," repeated d.i.c.k, "but three pairs of eyes are better than none. George, you take the gla.s.ses and see what you can see and Frank will follow."

He dismounted and stood holding the reins of his horse while the young Vermonter looked. He noticed that the mathematical turn of Warner's mind showed in every emergency. He swept the gla.s.ses back and forth in a regular curve, not looking here and now there, but taking his time and missing nothing. It occurred to d.i.c.k that he was a type of his region, slow but thorough, and sure to win after defeat.

"What's the result of your examination?" asked d.i.c.k as Warner pa.s.sed the gla.s.ses in turn to Pennington.

"Let x equal what I saw, which is nothing. Let y equal the result I draw, which is nothing. Hence we have x + y which still equals nothing."

Pennington was swifter in his examination. The blood in his veins flowed a little faster than Warner's.

"I find nothing but land and water," he said without waiting to be asked, "and I'm disappointed. I had a hope, d.i.c.k, that I'd see Stonewall Jackson himself riding along a slope."

"Even if you saw him, how would you know it was Stonewall?"

"I hadn't thought of that. We've heard so much of him that it just seemed to me I'd know him anywhere."

"Same here," said Warner. "Remember all the tales we've heard about his whiskers, his old slouch hat and his sorrel horse."

"I'd like to see him myself," confessed d.i.c.k. "From all we hear he's the man who kept McClellan from taking Richmond. He certainly played hob with the plans of our generals. You know, I've got a cousin, Harry Kenton, with him. I had a letter from him a week ago--pa.s.sing through the lines, and coming in a round-about way. Writes as if he thought Stonewall Jackson was a demiG.o.d. Says we'd better quit and go home, as we haven't any earthly chance to win this war."

"He fights best who wins last," said Warner. "I'm thinking I won't see the green hills of Vermont for a long time yet, because I mean to pay a visit to Richmond first. Have you got your cousin's letter with you, d.i.c.k?"

"No, I destroyed it. I didn't want it bobbing up some time or other to cause either of us trouble. A man I know at home says he's kept out of a lot of trouble by 'never writin' nothin' to n.o.body.' And if you do write a letter the next best thing is to burn it as quick as you can."

"If my eyes tell the truth, and they do," said Pennington, "here comes a short, thick man riding a long, thick horse and he--the man, not the horse--bears a startling resemblance to our friend, ally, guide and sometime mentor, Sergeant Daniel Whitley."

"Yes, it's the sergeant," said d.i.c.k, looking down into the valley, "and I'm glad he's joining us. Do you know, boys, I often think these veteran sergeants know more than some of our generals."

"It's not an opinion. It's a fact," said Warner. "Hi, there, sergeant!

Here are your friends! Come up and make the same empty report that we've got ready for the colonel."

Sergeant Daniel Whitley looked at the three lads, and his face brightened. He had a good intellect under his thatch of hair, and a warm heart within his strong body. The boys, although lieutenants, and he only a sergeant in the ranks, treated him usually as an equal and often as a superior.

Colonel Winchester's regiment and the remains of Colonel Newcomb's Pennsylvanians had been sent east after the defeat of the Union army at the Seven Days, and were now with Pope's Army of Virginia, which was to hold the valley and also protect Was.h.i.+ngton. Grant's success at s.h.i.+loh had been offset by McClellan's failure before Richmond, and the President and his Cabinet at Was.h.i.+ngton were filled with justifiable alarm. Pope was a western man, a Kentuckian, and he had insisted upon having some of the western troops with him.

The sergeant rode his horse slowly up the slope, and joined the lads over whom he watched like a father.

"And what have the hundred eyes of Argus beheld?" asked Warner.

"Argus?" said the sergeant. "I don't know any such man. Name sounds queer, too."

"He belongs to a distant and mythical past, sergeant, but he'd be mighty useful if we had him here. If even a single one of his hundred eyes were to light on Stonewall Jackson, it would be a great service."

The sergeant shook his head and looked reprovingly at Warner.

"It ain't no time for jokin'," he said.

"I was never further from it. It seems to me that we need a lot of Arguses more than anything else. This is the enemy's country, and we hear that Stonewall Jackson is advancing. Advancing where, from what and when? There is no Argus to tell. The country supports a fairly numerous population, but it hasn't a single kind or informing word for us. Is Stonewall Jackson going to drop from the sky, which rumor says is his favorite method of approach?"

"He's usin' the solid ground this time, anyway," said Sergeant Daniel Whitley. "I've been eight miles farther south, an' if I didn't see cavalry comin' along the skirt of a ridge, then my eyes ain't any friends of mine. Then I came through a little place of not more'n five houses. No men there, just women an' children, but when I looked back I saw them women an' children, too, grinnin' at me. That means somethin', as sh.o.r.e as we're livin' an' breathin'. I'm bettin' that we new fellows from the west will get acquainted with Stonewall Jackson inside of twenty-four hours."

"You don't mean that? It's not possible!" exclaimed d.i.c.k, startled.

"Why, when we last heard of Jackson he was so far south we can't expect him in a week!"

"You've heard that they call his men the foot cavalry," said the sergeant gravely, "an' I reckon from all I've learned since I come east that they've won the name fair an' true. See them woods off to the south there. See the black line they make ag'inst the sky. I know, the same as if I had seen him, that Stonewall Jackson is down in them forests, comin' an' comin' fast."

The sergeant's tone was ominous, and d.i.c.k felt a tingling at the roots of his hair. The western troops were eager to meet this new Southern phenomenon who had suddenly shot like a burning star across the sky, but for the first time there was apprehension in his soul. He had seen but little of the new general, Pope, but he had read his proclamations and he had thought them bombastic. He talked lightly of the enemy and of the grand deeds that he was going to do. Who was Pope to sweep away such men as Lee and Jackson with mere words!

d.i.c.k longed for Grant, the stern, unyielding, unbeatable Grant whom he had known at s.h.i.+loh. In the west the Union troops had felt the strong hand over them, and confidence had flowed into them, but here they were in doubt. They felt that the powerful and directing mind was absent.

Silence fell upon them all for a little s.p.a.ce, while the four gazed intently into the south, strange fears a.s.sailing everyone. d.i.c.k never doubted that the Union would win. He never doubted it then and he never doubted it afterward, through all the vast hecatomb when the flag of the Union fell more than once in terrible defeat.

But their ignorance was mystifying and oppressive. They saw before them the beautiful country, the hills and valleys, the forest and the blue loom of the mountains, so much that appealed to the eye, and yet the horizon, looking so peaceful in the distance, was barbed with spears.

Jackson was there! The sergeant's theory had become conviction with them. Distance had been nothing to him. He was at hand with a great force, and Lee with another army might fall at any time upon their flank, while McClellan was isolated and left useless, far away.

d.i.c.k's heart missed a beat or two, as he saw the sinister picture that he had created in his own mind. Highly imaginative, he had leaped to the conclusion that Lee and Jackson meant to trap the Union army, the hammer beating it out on the anvil. He raised the gla.s.ses to his eyes, surveyed the forests in the South once more, and then his heart missed another beat.

He had caught the flash of steel, the sun's rays falling across a bayonet or a polished rifle barrel. And then as he looked he saw the flash again and again. He handed the gla.s.ses to Warner and said quietly:

"George, I see troops on the edge of that far hill to the south and the east. Can't you see them, too?"

"Yes, I can make them out clearly now, as they pa.s.s across a bit of open land. They're Confederate cavalry, two hundred at least, I should say."