The Victim: A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis Part 63

"I understand, dear--and I'll arrange it for you. I'll hire a schooner to set you across Lake Pontchartrain."

The old Colonel looked on the face of his dead wife and went to bed. He made no complaints. He asked no questions. The book of life was closed.

Within a week he died as peacefully as a child.

Ten days later Jennie had pa.s.sed the Federal lines and was whirling through the Carolinas, her soul aflame with a new deathless courage.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE IRREPARABLE LOSS

Jefferson Davis not only refused to remove Albert Sidney Johnston from his command in answer to the clamor of his critics, he wrote his general letters expressing such unbounded confidence in his genius that he inspired him to begin the most brilliant campaign on which the South had yet entered.

Grant, flushed with victory, had encamped his army along the banks of the Tennessee, then at flood and easily navigable for gunboats and transports. The bulldog fighter of Fort Donelson had allowed his maxim of war to lead him into a situation which the eye of Johnston was quick to see.

Grant's famous motto was:

"Never be over anxious about what your enemy is going to do to you; make him anxious about what you are going to do to him."

In accordance with this principle the Union General was busy preparing his Grand Army for a triumphant march into the far South. He was drilling and training his men for their attack on the Confederates at Corinth. His army was not in a position for defense. It was, in fact, strung out into a long line of camps for military instruction, preparing to advance on the foe he had grown to despise.

Sherman's division occupied a position near s.h.i.+loh Church. A half mile further was B. M. Prentiss with newly arrived regiments, one of which still had no ammunition. Near the river McClernand was camped behind Sherman and Hurlbert still farther back. Near them lay W. H. L.

Wallace's division, and at Crump's Landing, Lew Wallace was stationed with six thousand men.

Grant himself was nine miles down the river at Savannah, a point at which he expected to form a junction with Buell's army approaching from the east.

Grant sat at breakfast on a beautiful Sunday morning quietly sipping his coffee while he planned his conquest of the vast territory which now lay at the mercy of his army the moment the juncture should be effected.

With swift stealthy tread, Johnston was moving through the dense forests of the wild region to the south. His army had been rapidly recruited to approximately forty thousand effective men. Beauregard had been detached from the East and was second in command.

The night before this beautiful spring Sabbath morning the Confederate army had bivouacked within two miles of the Federal front. Johnston had so baffled the scouts and reconnoitering parties of Grant that his presence was not suspected.

In the gray mists of the dawn his divisions silently deployed and formed in line of battle. General Leonidas Polk on the left, Braxton Bragg in the center, William J. Hardee on the right and John C. Breckinridge in reserve.

The men were alert and eager to avenge the defeats of Forts Henry and Donelson. With chuckles of exhilaration they had listened that night to the rolling of the drums in Grant's camps.

A mist from the river valley hung low over the fresh budding trees. With swift elastic tread the gray lines moved forward through the shadows of the dawn.

So complete was the surprise that not a picket was encountered. Not a single company of cavalry guarded the flanks of the sleeping army.

The mists lifted and the sheen of white tents could be seen through the trees.

Only a few of the blue soldiers had risen. They were was.h.i.+ng and cooking their morning meal. Some had sat down to eat at generous mess-chests.

Thousands were yet soundly sleeping in their tents.

On Prentiss' division from flank to flank with sudden fury the gray host fell. Even the camp sentinels were taken completely by surprise and barely had time to discharge their guns. On their heels rushed the Confederates cheering madly.

Officers and men were killed in their beds and many fled in confusion without their arms. Hildebrand's brigade of Sherman's division was engulfed by the cyclone and swept from existence, appearing no more in the battle.

In vain the broken lines of the Federal camps were formed and re-formed.

Charge followed charge in swift and terrible succession.

By half past ten o'clock the Confederates had captured and demolished three great military encampments and taken three batteries of artillery.

Storehouses and munitions of war in rich profusion were captured at every turn. The demoralized Union army was retreating at every point.

When Grant reached the field, the lines both of attack and defense were lost in confusion. The battle raged in groups. Sometimes mere squads of men surged back and forth over the broken, tangled, blood-soaked arena, now in ravines and swamps, now for a moment emerging into clearings and then buried again in the deep woods.

The stolid Federal commander sat his horse, keen-eyed, vigilant and imperturbable in the storm of ruin. His early efforts counted for little in the blind confusion and turmoil of his crushed army. Lew Wallace had been ordered to the field in post haste. The bridge across Owl Creek, held by Sherman in the morning, was now in the hands of the Confederates. Wallace marched and countermarched his army in a vain effort to reach the field.

At two o'clock Johnston had brought up his reserves and ordered the entire gray army to charge and sweep the field. His fine face flushed with victory, he rose in his saddle, addressed a few eloquent words to Breckinridge's division, placed himself at the head of his army and his sword flashed in the sunlight as he shouted to the line:

"Charge!"

d.i.c.k Welford had been detached from Forrest's cavalry on staff duty by his Chief's side. Forrest had been marked by Johnston for promotion for his work at Donelson, and d.i.c.k had grown to wors.h.i.+p his gallant Commanding General. He had watched his plan of battle grow with boyish pride. He knew his Chief was going to crush the two divisions of Grant's army in detail before they could be united. And he had done it. Such complete and overwhelming victory would lift the South from her slough of despair.

With a shout of triumph he spurred his horse neck to neck with his General.

At two o'clock the blue lines were still rolling back on the river in hopeless confusion, the gray lines cheering and charging and crus.h.i.+ng without mercy.

A ball pierced Johnston's right leg. d.i.c.k saw his hand drop the rein for an instant and a look of pain sweep his handsome face.

"You're wounded, sir?" he asked.

"It's nothing, boy," he answered, "only a flesh cut--drive--drive--drive them!"

Without pause he rode on and on.

He was riding the white horse of Death--an artery had been cut and his precious life was slowly but surely ebbing away.

He swayed in his saddle and d.i.c.k dashed forward:

"General, your wound must be dressed!"

Governor Harris of Tennessee, his aide, observed him at the same moment and spurred his horse to his side.

The General turned his dim eyes to the Governor and gasped:

"I fear I'm mortally wounded--"

He reeled in his saddle and would have fallen had not d.i.c.k caught him and tenderly lowered him to the ground.

The brave war Governor of Tennessee received the falling Commander in his arms and helped d.i.c.k bear him a short distance from the field into a deep ravine.

d.i.c.k took the flask of whiskey from his pocket and pressed it to his lips in vain. A moment and he was dead.

In a pa.s.sion of grief the boy threw his arms around his beloved Chief and called through his tears and groans: