The Shades of the Wilderness Part 47

The firing was rapid and furious to an extraordinary degree. The air rained sh.e.l.l and bullets. Areas of forest between the two armies were mowed down. More than one large tree was cut through entirely by rifle bullets. Other trees here, as in the Wilderness, caught fire and flamed high.

Midnight put an end to the battle, with neither gaining the victory and both claiming it. Harry had lost another horse, killed under him, and now he walked almost dazed over the terrible field of Spottsylvania, where nearly thirty thousand men had fallen, and nothing had yet been decided.

Yet in Harry's heart the fear of the grim and silent Grant was growing.

The Northern general had fought within a few days two battles, each the equal of Waterloo, and Harry felt sure that he was preparing for a third.

The combat of the giants was not over, and with an anxious soul he waited the next dawn. They remained some days longer in the Wilderness, or the country adjacent to it, and there was much skirmis.h.i.+ng and firing of heavy artillery, but the third great pitched battle did not come quite as soon as Harry expected. Even Grant, appalled by the slaughter, hesitated and began to maneuver again by the flank to get past Lee. Then the fighting between the skirmishers and heavy detached parties became continuous.

During the days that immediately followed Harry was much with Sherburne.

The brave colonel was one of Stuart's most trusted officers. Despite the forests and thickets there was much work for the cavalry to do, while the two armies circled and circled, each seeking to get the advantage of the other.

Sheridan, they heard, was trying to curve about with his hors.e.m.e.n and reach Richmond, and Stuart, with his cavalry, including Sherburne's, was sent to intercept him, Harry riding by Sherburne's side. It was near the close of May, but the air was cool and pleasant, a delight to breathe after the awful Wilderness.

Stuart, despite his small numbers, was in his gayest spirits, and when he overtook the enemy at a little place called Yellow Tavern he attacked with all his customary fire and vigor. In the height of the charge, Harry saw him sink suddenly from his horse, shot through the body.

He died not long afterward and the greatest and most brilliant horseman of the South pa.s.sed away to join Jackson and so many who had gone before.

Harry was one of the little group who carried the news to Lee, and he saw how deeply the great leader was affected. So many of his brave generals had fallen that he was like the head of a family, bereft.

Nevertheless the lion still at bay was great and terrible to strike.

It was barely two weeks after Spottsylvania when Lee took up a strong position at Cold Harbor, and Grant, confident in his numbers and powerful artillery, attacked straightaway at dawn.

Harry was in front during that half-hour, the most terrible ever seen on the American continent, when Northern brigade after brigade charged to certain death. Lee's men, behind their earthworks, swept the field with a fire in which nothing could live. The charging columns fairly melted away before them and when the half-hour was over more than twelve thousand men in blue lay upon the red field.

Grant himself was appalled, and the North, which had begun to antic.i.p.ate a quick and victorious end of the war, concealed its disappointment as best it could, and prepared for another campaign.

Grant and Lee, facing each other, went into trenches along the lines of Cold Harbor, and the hopes of the young Southern soldiers after the victory there rose anew. But Harry was not too sanguine, although he kept his thoughts to himself.

The officers of the Invincibles had recovered from their wounds, and Colonel Leonidas Talbot and Lieutenant-Colonel Hector St. Hilaire, sitting in a trench, resumed their game of chess.

Colonel Talbot took a p.a.w.n, the first man captured by either since early spring.

"That was quite a victory," he said.

"Not important! Not important, Leonidas!"

"And why not, Hector?"

"Because you've left the way to your king easier. I shall promptly move along that road."

"As Grant moved through the Wilderness."

"Don't depreciate Grant, Leonidas. He never stops pounding. We've fought two great battles with him in the Wilderness and a third at Cold Harbor, but he's still out there facing us. Can't you see the Yankees with your gla.s.ses, Harry?"

"Yes, sir, quite clearly. They're about to fire a shot from a big gun in a wood. There it goes!"

The deep note of the cannon came to them, pa.s.sed on, and then rolled back in echoes like a threat.