Harry knew, too, the temper and resolution of the North, the slow, cold wrath that could not be checked by one defeat or half a dozen. Antietam, as he saw it, had merely been a temporary check to the Confederate arms, where the forces of Lee and Jackson had fought off at least double their number. The Northern men could not yet boast of a single clean-cut victory in the battles of the east, but they were coming on again as stern and resolute as ever. Defeat seemed to serve only as an incentive to them. After every one, recruits poured down from the north and west to lift anew the flag of the Union.

There was something in this steady, unyielding resolve that sent a chill through Harry. It was possible that men who came on and who never ceased coming would win in the end. The South—and he was sanguine that such men as Lee and Jackson could not be beaten——might wear itself out by the very winning of victories. The chill came again when he counted the resources pitted against his side. He was a lad of education and great intelligence, and he had no illusions now about the might of the North and its willingness to fight.

But youth, in spite of facts, can forget odds as well as loss. The doubts that would come at times were always dispelled when he looked upon the glorious Army of Northern Virginia. It was now nearly eighty thousand strong, with an almost unbroken record of victory, trusting absolutely in its leadership and supremely confident that it could whip any other army on the planet. Its brilliant generals were gathered with Jackson or with Lee and Longstreet. They were as confident as their soldiers and no movement of the enemy escaped them. Stuart, with his plume and sash, at which no man now dared to scoff, hung with his horsemen like a fringe on the flank of Burnside's own army, cutting off the Union scouts and skirmishers and hiding the plans of Lee.

Messengers brought news that Burnside would certainly cross the Rappahannock, covered by the Union artillery, which was always far superior in weight and power to that of the South. Harry heard that the passage of the river would not be opposed, because the Southern army could occupy stronger positions farther back, but he did not know whether the rumors were true.

The word now came, and they went forward from Orange Court House toward Fredericksburg to join Lee and Longstreet. When they marched toward the Second Manassas they had suffered from an almost intolerable heat and dust. Now they advanced through a winter that seemed to pour upon them every variety of discomfort. Heavy snows fell, icy rains came and fierce winds blew. The country was deserted, and the roads beneath the rain and snow and the passage of great armies disappeared. Vast muddy trenches marked where they had been, and the mud was deep and sticky, covering everything as it was ground up, and coloring the whole army the same hue. Somber and sullen skies brooded over them continually. Not even Jackson's foot cavalry could make much progress through such a sea of mud.

"A battle would be a relief," said Harry, as he rode with the Invincibles, having brought some order to Colonel Talbot. "There's nothing like this to take the starch out of men. Isn't that so, Happy?"

"It depresses ordinary persons like you, Harry," replied Langdon, "but a soul like mine leaps up to meet the difficulties. Mud as an obstacle is nothing to me. As I was riding along here I was merely thinking about the different kinds we have. I note that this Virginia mud is tremendously sticky, inclined to be red in color, and I should say that on the whole it's not as handsome as our South Carolina mud, especially when I see our product at its best. What kind of mud do you have in Kentucky, Harry?"

"All kinds, red, black, brown and every other shade."

"Well, there's a lot of snow mixed with this, too. I think that at the very bottom there is a layer of snow, and then the mud and the snow come in alternate layers until within a foot of the top, after which it's all mud. Harry, Old Jack doesn't believe it's right to fight on Sunday, but do you believe it's right to fight in winter, when the armies have to waste so much strength and effort in getting at one another?"

He was interrupted by the mellow tones of a bugle, and a brilliant troop of horsemen came trotting toward them through a field, where the mud was not so deep. They recognized Stuart in his gorgeous panoply at their head and behind him was Sherburne.

Stuart rode up to the Invincibles. Colonel Leonidas Talbot and Lieutenant-Colonel Hector St. Hilaire gravely saluted the brilliant apparition.

"I am General Stuart," said Stuart, lifting the plumed hat, "and I am glad to welcome the vanguard of General Jackson. May I ask, sir, what regiment is this?"

"It is the South Carolina regiment known as the Invincibles," said Colonel Talbot proudly, as he lifted his cap in a return salute, "although it does not now contain many South Carolinians. Alas! most of the lads who marched so proudly away from Charleston have gone to their last rest, and their places have been filled chiefly by Virginians. But the Virginians are a brave and gallant people, sir, almost equal in fire and dash to the South Carolinians."

Stuart smiled. He knew that it was meant as a compliment of the first class, and as such he took it.

"I think, sir," he said, "that I am speaking to Colonel Leonidas Talbot?"

"You are, sir, and the gentleman on my right is the second in command of this regiment, Lieutenant-Colonel Hector St. Hilaire, a most noble gentleman and valiant and skillful officer. We have met you before, sir. You saved us before Bull Run when we were beleaguered at a fort in the Valley."

"Ah, I remember!" exclaimed Stuart. "And a most gallant fight you were making. And I recognize this young officer, too. He was the messenger who met me in the fields. Your hand, Mr. Kenton."

He stretched out his own hand in its long yellow buckskin glove, and Harry, flushing with pride, shook it warmly.

"It's good of you, General," he said, "to remember me."

"I'm glad to remember you and all like you. Is General Jackson near?"

"About a quarter of a mile farther back, sir. I'm a member of his staff, and I'll ride with you to him."

"Thanks. Lead the way."

Harry turned with Stuart and Sherburne and they soon reached General Jackson, who was plodding slowly on Little Sorrel, his chin sunk upon his breast as usual, the lines of thought deep in his face. General Stuart bowed low before him and the plumed hat was lifted high. The knight paid deep and willing deference to the Puritan.

Jackson's face brightened. He wished plain apparel upon himself, but he did not disapprove of the reverse upon General Stuart.

"You are very welcome, General Stuart," he said.

"I thank you, sir. I have come to report to you, sir, that General Burnside's army is gathering in great force on the other side of the Rappahannock, and that we are massed along the river and back of Fredericksburg."

"General Burnside will cross, will he not?"

"So we think. He can lay a pontoon bridge, and he has a great artillery to protect it. The river, as you know, sir, has a width of about two hundred yards at Fredericksburg, and the Northern batteries can sweep the farther shore."

"I'm sorry that we've elected to fight at Fredericksburg," said General Jackson thoughtfully. "The Rappahannock will protect General Burnside's army."

Stuart gazed at him in astonishment.

"I don't understand you, sir," he said. "You say that the Rappahannock will protect General Burnside when it seems to be our defense."

"My meaning is perfectly clear. When we defeat General Burnside at Fredericksburg he will retreat across the river over his bridge or bridges and we shall not be able to get at him. We will win a great victory, but we will not gather the fruits of it, because of our inability to reach him."

"Oh, I see," said Stuart, the light breaking on his face. "You consider the victory already won, sir?"

"Beyond a doubt."

"Then if you think so, General Jackson, I think so, too," said Stuart, as he saluted and rode away.



CHAPTER IV

ON THE RAPPAHANNOCK

The division of Jackson reached Fredericksburg the next day and went into camp, partly in the rear of the town, and a portion of it further down the Rappahannock. Harry, as an aide, rode back and forth on many errands while the troops were settling into place. Once more he saw General Lee on his famous white horse, Traveler, conferring with Jackson on Little Sorrel. And the stalwart and bearded Longstreet was there, too.

But Harry's heart bled when he rode into the ancient town of Fredericksburg, a place homelike and picturesque in peaceful days, but now lying between two mighty armies, directly within their line of fire, and abandoned for a time by its people, all save a hardy few.

The effect upon him was startling. He rode along the deserted streets and looked at the closed windows, like the eyeless sockets of a blind man. In the streets mud and slush and snow had gathered, with no attempt of man to clean them away, but the wheels of the cannon had cut ruts in them a foot deep. The great white colonial houses, with their green shutters fastened tightly, stood lone and desolate amid their deserted lawns. No smoke rose from the chimneys. The shops were closed. There was no sound of a child's voice in the whole town. It was the first time that Harry had ever ridden through a deserted city, and it was truly a city of the dead to him.

"It's almost as bad as a battlefield after the battle is over," he said to Dalton, who was with him.

"It gives you a haunted, weird feeling," said Dalton, looking at the closed windows and smokeless chimneys.

But the people of Fredericksburg had good cause to go. Two hundred thousand men, hardened now to war, faced one another across the two hundred yards of the Rappahannock. Four hundred Union cannon on the other side of the river could easily smash their little city to pieces. The people were scattered among their relatives in the farmhouses and villages about Fredericksburg, eagerly awaiting the news that the invincible Lee and Jackson had beaten back the hated invader.

But the Southern army, save for a small force, did not occupy Fredericksburg itself.

Along the low ridge, a mile or so west of the town, Longstreet had been posted and he had dug trenches and gunpits. The crest of this ridge, called Marye's Hill, was bare, and here, in addition to the pits and trenches, Longstreet threw up breastworks. Down the slopes were ravines and much timber, making the whole position one of great strength. Harry gazed at it as he carried one of his messages from general to general, and he was enough of a soldier to know that an enemy who attacked here was undertaking a mighty task.

But Burnside did not move, and the somber blanket of winter thickened. More snows fell and the icy rains came again. Then the mercury slid down until it reached zero. Thick ice formed over everything and some of the shallower brooks froze solidly in their beds. The Southern lads were not nearly so well equipped against the winter as their foes. Not many had heavy overcoats, and blankets and shoes were thin and worn.

The forest was now their refuge. The river was lined thickly with it, running for a long distance, and thousands of axes began to bite into the timber. Hardy youths, skilled in such work, they rapidly built log huts or shelters for themselves, and within these or outside under the trees innumerable fires blazed along the Rappahannock, the crackling flames sending a defiance to other such flames beyond the frozen river.

Harry had a letter from Dr. Russell, which had come by the way of the mountains and Richmond. He had already heard of the terrible day of Perryville in Kentucky, and the doctor had been able to confirm his earlier news that his father, Colonel Kenton, had passed through it safely. But the hostile armies in the west had gone down into Tennessee, and there were reports that they would soon move toward each other for a great battle. It seemed that the rival forces in both east and west would meet at nearly the same time in terrible conflict.

Dr. Russell told that Dick Mason had been wounded in the combat at Perryville, but had been nursed back to health by his mother, who with others had found him upon the field. He had since gone into Tennessee to rejoin the Union army, and his mother had returned to Pendleton.

Harry folded the letter, put it in his pocket, and for a while he was very thoughtful.

It was a great relief to be sure that his father had gone safely through Perryville, and that Dick Mason, although wounded there, was well again. His heart yearned over both. His devotion to his father had always been strong and Dick Mason had stood in the place of a brother. They were alive for the present at least, but Harry knew of the sinister threat that hung over the west. The terrible battle that was to be fought at Stone River was already sending forth its preliminary signals, and for a little while Harry thought more of those marching forces in Tennessee than of the great army to which he belonged and of the one yet more numerous that faced it.

But these thoughts could not last long. The events in which he was to have a part were too imminent and mighty for anyone to detach himself from them more than a few minutes. He quickly returned, heart and soul, to his duties, which in these days took all his time. Many messages were passing between Lee and Jackson and Longstreet and the commanders next to them in rank, and Harry carried his share.

A few days after the letter from Dr. Russell the cold abated considerably. The ice in the river broke, the melting snows made the country a sea of mud and slush and horses often became mired so deeply that it took a dozen soldiers to drag them out again. It was on such a day as this that Dalton came to him, his grave face wearing a look of importance.

"General Jackson has just told me," he said, "to take you and join General Stuart, who is going with his horse to the neighborhood of Port Royal on the river."

"What's up?"

"Nothing's up yet. But we understand that some of the Yankee gunboats are trying to get up, now that they have a clear passage through the ice."

"Cavalry can't stop them."

"No, but Stuart is taking horse artillery with him, and he's likely to make it warm for the enemy in the water. Harry, if we only had a navy, too, this war wouldn't be doubtful."

"But, as we haven't got a navy, it is doubtful, very doubtful."

They quickly joined General Stuart, who was eager for the duty, and falling in line with the troop of Sherburne rode swiftly toward Port Royal, the cavalrymen carrying with them several light guns.

As they galloped along, mixed mud and snow flew in every direction, but most of them had grown so used to it that they paid little attention. The river flowed a deep and somber stream, and all the hills about were yet white with snow. At that time, colored too, as it was by his feelings, it was the most sinister landscape that Harry had ever looked upon. Black winter and red war, neither of which spared, were allied against man.

But his pulses began to leap when they saw coils of black smoke blown a little to one side by the wind. He knew that the smoke came from gunboats. They must be endeavoring to land troops, and Stuart was no man to allow a detached force to pass the Rappahannock and appear in their rear.

As the cavalry burst into a gallop from the snowy forest Harry saw that he was right. A fleet of gunboats was gathered in the stream and on the far shore they were embarking troops. But his quick eye caught a horseman on their own side of the river who was galloping away. He was already too distant for a rifle shot, but Harry instinctively knew that it was Shepard. He had seen the man under such extraordinarily vivid circumstances that the set of his figure was familiar.

Nor was he surprised to behold Shepard now. He merely wondered that he had not seen him earlier, so great was his activity and daring, and he had no doubt that he had brought the gunboats and the Union troops warning that Stuart was coming. He was sure of it the moment the cavalry emerged from the woods, because one of the gunboats instantly turned loose with two heavy guns which sent shells whistling and screaming over their heads. Had they been a little better aimed they would have done much destruction, and Harry saw at once that they were going to have an ugly time with these saucy little demons of the water.

Another boat fired. One of the cavalrymen was killed and several wounded. Stuart promptly drew his men back to the edge of the wood, unlimbered and posted his cannon. Quick as they were, the black wasps on the river buzzed and stung as fast. Shells and solid shot were whistling among them and about them. They were good gunners on those boats and the men in gray acknowledged it by the rapidity with which they took to shelter.

But Stuart's blood was at its utmost heat. He had no intention of being driven off, and soon his own light guns were sending shell and solid shot toward the boats, which had relanded their troops on the other side, and which were now puffing up and down the river like the angry little demons they were, sending shells, solid shot, grape and canister into the woods and along the slopes where the horsemen had disappeared.

Harry and Dalton were glad to dismount and to get behind both the trees and the curve of the embankment. Harry, despite a pretty full experience now, could not repress involuntary shivers as the deadly steel flew by. He and Dalton had nothing to do but hold their horses and watch the combat, which they did with the keenest interest.

Stuart's cannon had unlimbered in a good place, where they were protected partly by a ridge, and their deep booming note soon showed the gunboats that they had an enemy worthy of their fire. Dalton and Harry looked on with growing excitement. Dalton, for once, grew garrulous, talking in an excited monotone.

"Look at that, Harry!" he cried. "See the water spurt right by the bow of that boat! A shell broke there! And there goes another! That struck, too! See the fallen men on the boat! Look at that little black fellow coming right out in the middle of the stream! And it got home, too, with that shot! By George, how the shell raked our ranks! Ah, but, you saucy little creature, that shell paid you back! See, Harry, its wheel is smashed, and it's floating away with the stream! Guns on land have an advantage over guns on the water! As the negro said, 'When the boat blows up, whar are you? But if the explosion is on dry land, dar you are!' Ah, another has caught it, and is going out of action! Oh my, little boats, you're brave and saucy, but you can't stand up to Stuart's guns."

Dalton was right. The gunboats, sinkable and fully exposed, were rapidly getting the worst of it. Stuart's guns, protected by the ridge, were inflicting so much damage that they were compelled to drop down the stream, two or three of them disabled and in tow of the others.

A covering Union battery of much heavier guns opened fire from a hill beyond the river, but it was unable either to protect the gunboats or to demolish Stuart's horse artillery, which was sheltered well by the ridge. The men in gray began to cheer. It soon became obvious that they would win. Gradually all of the gunboats, having suffered much loss, dropped down the stream and passed out of range. The heavy battery was also withdrawn from the hill and the detached attempt to cross the Rappahannock had failed.

Stuart and his men rode back exultant, but Dalton said to Harry that he thought it merely a forerunner.

"A good omen, you mean?" said Harry.

"Good, I hope, but I meant chiefly a sign of much greater things to come. I'm thinking that Burnside will attack in a day or two now. Lots of Northern newspapers find their way into our lines, and the whole North is urging him on. They demand that a great victory be won in the east right away."

"I feel sorry for a general who is pushed on like that."

"So do I, because he hasn't a ghost of a chance. He'll be able to cross the river under cover of his great batteries, but look, Harry, look at those frowning heights around Fredericksburg, covered with the finest riflemen in the world, the ditches and trenches sown with artillery, and the best two military brains on the globe there to direct. What chance have they, Harry? What chance have they?"

"Very little that I can see, but a battle is never won or lost until it's fought. We'd better report now to General Jackson."

They saluted General Stuart, and rode away over the icy mud. General Jackson received their report with pleasure.

"Excellent! Excellent!" he said. "General Stuart has routed them with horse artillery! A capable man! A most wonderful man!"

He said the last words to himself, rather than to Harry, and Stuart soon proved that his horse artillery was not underrated by winning a second encounter with the gunboats a day or two later. Early also beat back an attempt to cross the river at a third place, and it became apparent now that the Union army could make no flanking attack upon its enemy south of the Rappahannock. It must be made, if at all, directly on its front at Fredericksburg.

But Harry had no doubt that it would be made. The reports of their numerous scouts and spies told with detail of the immense preparations going on in the Union camp. He could often watch them himself with his glasses from the hills. He did not see much of St. Clair and Langdon these days, as they remained closely with their regiment, the Invincibles, but Dalton and he were much together.

It was well into December when they were watching through the glasses the concentration of Union cannon on Stafford Heights across the river. One hundred and fifty great guns were in position there and they could easily blow Fredericksburg to pieces. Harry looked down again at this little city which had jumped suddenly into fame by getting itself squarely between the two armies arrayed for battle.

He felt the old sensation of pity as he gazed at the closed shutters and the smokeless chimneys. Nobody was stirring in the streets, except some Mississippi soldiers who had been placed there to oppose the passage, and who were fortifying themselves in the houses and cellars along the river front.

"It's no good looking any more," Harry said to Dalton. "There's nothing to do now but wait. That's what General Jackson is doing. I saw him in his tent to-day, reading a book on theology that Dr. Graham has just sent him."

"You're right, Harry. If the general can rest, so can we. Well, not much of this day is left. See how the Yankee batteries are fading away in the twilight."

"Yes, Harry, fading now, but they'll come back again, massive metal and as sinister as ever, in the morning."

"Which won't keep me from sleeping soundly to-night. Funny how you get used to anything. Neither the presence nor the absence of the Yankee army will interfere with my sleep unless the general wants to send me on an errand."

"And we also grow used to sights so tremendous in their nature that they turn the whole current of our history. Look at that winter sun setting there over the western hills. It may be my fancy, Harry, but it seems to have the colors of bronze and steel in it, a sort of menace, one might call it."

"I see the same colors, George, but I suppose it's fancy. The whole sky is one of steel to me. I see the gleaming of steel everywhere, over the hills, the river and the armies."

"Our imaginations are too vivid, Harry. But look how that darkness closes in on everything! Now the Yankee cannon and the Yankee army are gone! The river itself is fading, and there goes the town! Now, see the lights spring up on the far shore!"

"It's supper and sleep for me," said Harry. "It doesn't do to let your imagination run away with you. You know that Lee and Old Jack and Jim Longstreet have arranged for everything."

They ate their suppers, and, the general giving them leave, they lay down in the tent next to his, wrapped in their blankets. Harry slept soundly, but while the pitchy darkness of a winter night still enclosed the land he was awakened by a heavy rumbling noise. His nerves had been attuned so highly by exciting days that he was awake in an instant and sprang to his feet, Dalton also springing up with equal promptness.

They saw General Jackson standing in front of his tent and peering down in the darkness toward the river. Other officers were already gathering near him. Harry and Dalton stood at attention, where he could see them, if he wished to send them on any errand. But Jackson was silent and listening.

The heavy rumbling reports—cannon shots—came again, but they were fired on their side of the river.

"Gentlemen," said General Jackson, "the enemy has begun the passage. Those are our guns giving the signal to the army."

Harry's pulses began to throb. But, although fires flared up here and there, little was to be seen in the darkness. Fortune seemed to have shifted suddenly to the side of the Union. Not night alone protected the bridge builders, but a thick, impenetrable fog, rising from the river and the muddy earth, covered the stream and its shores. The Southerners could not see just where the bridge head was and their cannon must fire at random through the heavy darkness. Sixteen hundred Mississippians were stationed in Fredericksburg below, well concealed in cellars and rifle pits, but they could not see either, and for the present their rifles were silent.

But Harry's imagination immediately became intensely vivid again. He fancied that he could hear through all the shifting gloom the sound of axes and hammers and saws at work upon that bridge. These army engineers could throw a bridge across a river in half a day. He recognized at all times the great resources and the mechanical genius of the North. The South had good bridge builders herself, but she had bent all her powers to the development of public men and soldiers. Harry felt more intensely all the time the one-sided character of her growth and its defects.

Dalton stood by Harry's side, and the darkness was so intense that he seemed but a shadow. A little further away was Jackson. No fires had been lighted in his camp, but nevertheless he was not a shadow. That personality, quiet and modest, was so intense, so powerful that it seemed to Harry to become luminous, to radiate light in the blackness of the night. It was imagination, he knew, at work again, but it was Jackson who had loosed its springs.

"Can you see your watch, George?" he whispered to Dalton.

"Yes, and its says only twenty minutes past three in the morning."

"And our signal guns began about twenty minutes ago. They will have nearly four hours in which to work before the sun rises and we can see them well enough to take good aim."

"And maybe longer than that, Harry. The whole night is permeated with the heaviest inland fog I ever knew. Maybe it will take the sun a long time to strike through it or drive it away. It's bad for us."

"But we'll win anyhow. I tell you, we'll win anyhow! Do you hear me, George?"

"Yes, Harry, I hear you. You're excited. So am I. There are mighty few who wouldn't be at such a time; but look at the general! He stands like a statue!"

General Jackson did not move, save to lift his glasses now and then, as if with their magnifying powers he could pierce the dark. But the night and the swollen fog still hid everything going on beyond the river from those on the heights. Down by the shore the Mississippians in their rifle pits might see a little, and the scouts undoubtedly had seen much, else the signal guns would not be firing.

Harry's pulses, after a while, began to beat more smoothly and there was not such a painful and insistent drumming in his head. Emotions yielded now to will and he waited patiently. General Jackson for the first time told some of his young officers that they could lie down and rest.

"There can be no action before daylight," he said, "and it's best to be fresh and ready."

He spoke to them with the grave kindness that he always used, save when some great fault was committed, and then his words burned like fire. Harry and Dalton procured their blankets from their tents, wrapped them about their bodies and lay down on the dryest spots they could find, but they had no thought of sleep. They permitted their limbs to relax, and that was a help to the nerves, but neither closed his eyes.

Those dark hours seemed an eternity to Harry. The floating fog seemed to grow thicker and to enter his very bones. He shivered and drew the blanket close. Now, with his ears close to the earth, he was sure that he could hear the axes and the saws and the hammers beating on steel rivets on the other side of the Rappahannock.

The Confederate cannon still fired the signals of alarm at regular intervals, but the night and the fog always closed in again quickly over the flash that the discharge had made. After a while a murmur came from the long Southern line along the heights and on the ridges. Horses stirred here and there, cannon, moved to new positions, made sighing sounds as their wheels sank in the mud; sabres and bayonets clanked, thousands of men whispered to one another. All these varying sounds united into one great soft voice which was like the murmur of a wind through the summer night.

Toward five o'clock in the morning, when the darkness had not diminished a whit, a messenger from General Lee rode up with a note for General Jackson. It merely stated that all was ready and to hold the positions that he had taken up the night before. Jackson wrote a brief reply by the light of a lantern that an orderly held, and the messenger galloped away with it. It was the only incident that had occurred in a long time.

"They're not using many lights on the other side of the river," said Harry, although he noted an occasional flame in the darkness. "Of course, they want to hide their bridge building, but you'd think they'd have fires burning elsewhere."

"They've learned the value of caution," said Dalton. "I'm bound to say they're going about the first part of their work with skill."

He spoke with the calm superiority of a young Officer.

Harry took out his own watch, and by holding it close to his eyes was able to read its face.

"A quarter to six," he said. "According to the watch it is less than three hours since we first heard those alarm guns, but my five known senses and all the unknown tell me that it has been at least a week."

"In an hour we should see something," said Dalton. "Confound this fog. If it weren't so thick we could see now."

Harry's pulses began to beat hard again in the next hour. He strove with glasses even for a glimpse of the winter sun which he knew would come so late, but as yet the fog showed nothing save a faint luminous tinge low down in the east. An orderly brought food to them, and while they ate they saw the luminous tinge broaden and deepen.

"The sun's rising behind that fog," said Dalton, "but here comes a little wind that will drive away the fog or thin it out so we can see."

"Yes, I feel it," said Harry, "and you can see the dull, somber red of the sun trying to break through. Look, George, unless I'm mistaken the fog's moving down the river!"

"So it is, there's the flash of the stream, the color of steel, and by all the stars, there's their bridge two-thirds of the way across!"

Heavier puffs of wind came and the fog billowed off down the river. The whole gigantic theater of action sprang at once into the light. There were the two great armies clustered on opposing ridges, there was the deserted town, there was the deep river, the color of lead, flowing between the foes, two-thirds of its width already spanned by the Union bridge, the bridge itself covered with workmen, and boats swarming by its side.

Harry felt a thrill and a shudder which were almost simultaneous. Then came a deep muffled roar from the two armies on the ridges looking at each other. But as the roar died it was succeeded by the rapid, stinging fire of rifles. The Mississippians in their pits and cellars near the bank of the river were sending a hail of bullets upon the bridge builders.

The rest of the Southern army stood by and watched. Harry knew that Lee and Jackson would make their chief defense on the ridges, but the Mississippians were there to keep the enemy from being too forward. So deadly were their rifles that every workman fled off the bridge to the Union shore, save those who were struck down upon it, falling into the water.

Then came a pause, a period of intense waiting, short, but seemingly long, even to the veteran generals, after which the gallant builders, who truly deserved the name of the bravest of the brave, ventured again upon the bridge in the face of those terrible Mississippi rifles. A blast of death again blew upon them. Bullets in hundreds struck upon bodies or rattled on timbers. The workmen could not live in the face of such a fire, and those who had not been slain retreated again to their own side of the stream. A third time the heroic bridge builders returned to their work, and a third time they were driven back by the deadly Mississippi hail. Harry felt pity for them.

"I never saw anything braver," he said to Dalton.

"Nor did I, Harry, nor anything more useless. The bridge builders never had a chance before the rifles. But now their supports, which should have been there all the time, are coming up."

Heavy columns of Union riflemen moved forward to the edge of the river and replied to the Mississippians. But the Southerners, in the shelter of the cellars and pits, held their ground. But few of them were hit and they kept up that deadly hail which swept the uncompleted bridge clear of every workman who attempted to go upon it.

The rapid fire of the rifles crashed up and down both sides of the river, two sheets of flame seeming to reach out as if they would meet each other. The wind that had driven away the fog also carried off the smoke, and the river still gleamed like steel between. Then, as the rifle fire died again, there was another silence for a while.

"It will take more than rifles," said Harry, "to drive out those intrenched Mississippians."

"So it will, Harry," said Dalton, who was watching through glasses, "and here it comes. Their great batteries are about to open."

The next instant the whole earth seemed to be shaken by the roar of heavy cannon. The opposing hills and ridges fairly poured forth flame, and shells and solid shot crashed upon the whole devoted town. Nor did this tremendous fire from a hundred and fifty great guns cease for an instant. The roar and crash were appalling. Harry saw houses crumbling in Fredericksburg, with flames leaping up from others.

The artillery of Longstreet immediately facing the Union batteries was too light and weak to reply, and the gunners remained quiet in their trenches while the storm rained its showers of steel upon the town. Yet the Mississippians in the rifle pits held fast, their earthen shelters protecting them. While the bombardment was at its very height workmen ran out on the bridge for the fourth time to complete it, and while the shells and solid shot were whistling over their heads, the rifles of the Mississippians once more swept it clean. Harry groaned. He could not help it at the sight of men so brave who were cut down like grass by the scythe. Then his attention turned away from the bridge to the mighty cannonade which seemed to be growing in volume. The wind took much of the smoke across the river and it floated in a great cloud over Fredericksburg, through which shot the flames of the burning buildings.

But the main army of the South, stretched along a front of six miles, remained silent. Jackson on the right scarcely moved, but all the while he attentively watched through his glasses the great cannonade. Nearly all the soldiers were lying down, and to most of them the earth seemed to heave with the shock of all those blazing cannon.

Harry and Dalton walked once to the point where the Invincibles lay. That is, all but Colonel Leonidas Talbot and Lieutenant-Colonel St. Hilaire were lying down. They stood rigidly erect, their eyes on the great cannonade, and as Harry approached they were exchanging brief comments with each other.

"What harm does that cannonade do, Hector?" asked Colonel Talbot.

"Much to the town, little to us."

"What a pity we don't have an artillery equal to theirs."

"A great pity, Leonidas."

"They will presently move forward in much greater force to finish the bridge."

"Undoubtedly, Leonidas. They have shown folly, wasting the lives of such brave men in small efforts one after another. They will try something else."

"I see a great many boats against the bank on their side of the river. I fancy they will use them in their next attempt, whatever it may be."

"I agree with you. Good morning, Lieutenant Kenton. A mighty and appalling sight."

"Truly it is, sir," said Harry, saluting the two officers.

"The Yankees will force the passage," said Colonel Talbot. "Our artillery is not strong enough to reply to their covering cannonade. We are glad to see you safe and whole, Harry. You'll find your friends lying in that ravine just behind us."

It was a rather deep ravine, and when Harry looked over its edge, St. Clair and Langdon greeted him gladly.

"Come down, Harry," said Langdon, "and be joyful. This gully is pretty well dried out and you can rest. We've got a West Point fellow here and he's humming one of his old songs to about the biggest chorus a song ever had. Captain Swayne, Lieutenant Kenton, once of the Invincibles, but now of General Jackson's personal staff. Swayne's from Tennessee, Harry, and you two are well met. Swayne belongs to a regiment a few yards beyond the gully. He was at the Seven Days and the Second Manassas. We three thought we won those battles ourselves, but it seems that Swayne was at both all the time, helping us. Take off your cap, Harry, and thank the gentleman."

Swayne, a slender, fair man, not over twenty-three, smiled and extended a hearty hand, which Harry received with equal heartiness. The smile turned into a slight twinkle.

"I've been glad to meet your friends here, Mr. Kenton," he said, "but the meeting has brought a disappointment with it."

"How's that?"

"Until we began talking I thought I had won the Seven Days and the Second Manassas all by myself. Now, it seems that I have to share the honors with you fellows."

"So you do," said Langdon, and then he sang:

"There comes a voice from Florida, From Tampa's lonely shore, It speaks of one we've lost, O'Brien is no more. In the land of sun and flowers, His head lies pillowed low, No more he'll drink the gin cocktail, At Benjamin Haven's, Oh! At Benny Haven's, Oh! At Benny Haven's, Oh!"

"Do I get it right, Swayne? Remember that I heard you sing it only three times."

"Fine! Fine!" said Swayne with enthusiasm. "You have it right, or as near right as need be, and you're using it in a much better voice than I can."

"I'm a great soldier, but my true place is on the operatic stage," said Langdon modestly.

"It's an old West Point song of ours, Kenton," said Swayne. "While I was lying here listening to the continued roar of all those great guns, I couldn't keep from humming it as a sort of undernote."

"This gully has a queer effect," said St. Clair, who, lying on a blanket, was dusting every minute particle of dried mud from his uniform. "It seems to soften the sounds of all those guns—and they must be a couple of hundred at least. It produces a kind of harmony."

"It's the old god Vulcan and a thousand assistants of his hammering away on their anvils," said Harry, "and they hammer out a regular tune."

"Besides hammering out a tune," said St. Clair, "they're also hammering out swords and bayonets to be used against us."

As he spoke he drew from his pocket a tiny round mirror, not more than three inches in diameter, and carefully examined the collar of his coat.

"Have you found a speck, Arthur?" asked Langdon. "If I hadn't seen you risk your life fifteen or twenty thousand times I'd say you're a dandy."

"I am a dandy," said St. Clair. "At least, I mean to be one, if I come out of the war alive."

"What do you intend to wear?" asked Harry.

"Depends upon what I can afford. If I have the money, it's going to be the best, the very best any market can afford."

"A dozen suits, I suppose."

"At least as many, with hats, shoes, overcoats, cloaks, shirts and all the et ceteras to match. Why shouldn't I wear fine clothes if I want 'em? Do you demand that instead I spend it on fiery whisky to pour down me, as so many public men and leading citizens do? The clothes at least don't burn me out and finally burn me to death."

Langdon put up his hands in defense.

"I haven't jumped on you, Arthur," he said. "I admire you, though I can't equal you. And as I'm not willing to be second even to you, I'm going to our sea island, near the Carolina coast, when this war is over, lie down under the shade of a live oak, have our big colored man, Sam, to bring me luxurious food about once every three hours, and between these three-hour periods I'll be fanned by Julius, another big colored man of ours, and I won't make any exertion except to tell day by day to admiring visitors how I whipped the Yankees every time I could get near enough to see 'em, and how a lot more were scared to death just because they heard me crashing through the brush."

"You'll do the bragging part, all right, Happy," said St. Clair. "I believe you could keep up the sort of existence you describe for a year at least."

"I'd like to try. Now, what under the stars is that?"

Nothing had happened. Something had merely ceased to happen. The great cannonade had stopped in an instant, as if by a preconcerted signal, and their nerves, attuned so long to such a continuous roar, seemed to collapse, because some support was withdrawn. Harry's face turned white and his heart beat very fast, but in a few moments he recovered himself.

"I suppose they've given it up for the time being," he said, "but they're sure to try it again in some other way."

"That's a safe prediction," said St. Clair. "Burnside is trying to get across the Rappahannock to attack us, because the whole North is driving him on, and he hasn't got the moral courage to hold back until he can choose his time and place. Funny how this silence oppresses one."

The whole Southern army, along its six miles of length, was now standing up and looking toward the point on the other shore of the Rappahannock where the Union batteries were massed. All work seemed to have been abandoned there, although the troops were still clustered along the shore and about the bridge head. Clouds of smoke from the great batteries floated down the river.

"A Yankee failure so far, Harry," said Colonel Leonidas Talbot. "The bridge has advanced no further, and I should say that our shore is now enriched by about fifty thousand pounds of steel hurled from those batteries and with little harm to us."

"I've no doubt you're right, sir," said Harry, "and now that a period of rest has come, I shall hurry back to General Jackson, who may need me to carry some order."

"A moment, please, Harry, my boy," said Colonel Talbot, twirling his mustaches. "You are near to General Jackson, of course, being his personal aide. If it should fall out conveniently, would you do myself and my most excellent friend and second, Lieutenant-Colonel St. Hilaire, a small favor?"

"Of course, Colonel. Gladly. What is it?"

"If the enemy should cross the river, as he probably will, and if you should be near enough to Lieutenant-General Thomas Jonathan Jackson, and if the moment should be propitious, would you kindly whisper in his ear that the skeleton regiment, known as the Invincibles, Leonidas Talbot, Colonel, and Hector St. Hilaire, Lieutenant-Colonel, would be overjoyed at the honor of leading the attack upon the intrusive and invading Yankee army?"

"Promise, Harry, promise!" seconded Lieutenant-Colonel Hector St. Hilaire in his softest and most persuasive South Carolina accent. "You really owe that to us."

"I promise gladly," replied Harry; "but you know what General Jackson is. He makes his plans without telling anybody what they are, and he carries them out. If it is a part of his plan for the Invincibles to lead the attack, so far as his division is concerned, you'll lead it. If not, you won't."

"But still a word in his ear might have some influence," persisted Colonel Talbot. "It might come at the very moment when he was hesitating over a choice, and it would probably decide him in our favor."

"Then I shall do my best, sir," said Harry. "You can rely upon me"

He returned to General Jackson, but found that his commander was yet inactive. He was still waiting and watching with a patience that seemed equal to that of the Sphinx. Noon came, food was served, and the hours trailed their slow length on.

Then they saw a great movement in the Union army. The Northern generals were about to make their supreme effort. Hooker, who had shown such desperate courage at Antietam and who had won the name of Fighting Joe, called for men who would cross the river in boats under the fire of the Mississippi rifles. It looked like certain death, but four entire regiments came forward at once. They entered the boats, which promptly pulled for the right bank, and the great batteries at once opened a covering fire.

The Mississippians once more sent forth their hail of bullets, but the boats were so numerous that, although some were stopped, the majority came on. Man after man, shot through, fell over the sides into the deep river. Sometimes a boat itself sank, but the main force rapidly approached the Southern side.

"They have lost many men, but they will make the crossing at last, Harry," said Dalton.

"So it seems," said Harry. "I suppose our generals could bring up enough men to drive them back, but it looks as if they don't want to do it."

"It may be that they're holding the trap open for the victim to walk in."

"However it may be, they're across. See, they're landing in thousands, and the Mississippians, leaving their rifle pits, are retreating. Now they can finish the bridge and as many more as they need at their leisure."

The retreating Mississippians rejoined their comrades, and still the Southern army did not stir. The Northern army, almost unmolested, continued its bridge building, and the afternoon and a dark night passed.



CHAPTER V

FREDERICKSBURG

Before night the Union army had three bridges across the Rappahannock, and before morning it had six. The regiment that had crossed held the right bank of the river, that is, the side of the South, and the boats moved freely back and forth in the stream.

Yet the main army itself did not yet begin the crossing. Harry slept a few hours before and after midnight, lying in the lee of a little ridge and wrapped in a pair of heavy blankets, but as he wakened from time to time he heard little from the river. There were no sounds to indicate that great streams of armed men with their cannon were pouring over the bridges. After the tremendous cannonade of the afternoon the night seemed very quiet and peaceful.

Fires were burning here and there, but they were not many. The Confederate generals did not care to furnish beacons for the enemy. When Harry stood up he could catch glimpses of the river, the color of steel again, but the farther bank, where the great army of the foe yet lay, was buried in darkness. He wondered why Burnside was not using every hour of the night for crossing, but he remembered how the same general had delayed so long at Antietam that Lee and Jackson were able to save themselves.

He became conscious that it was growing much colder again. The zero weather of a few days since was returning. Every light puff of wind was like the stab of an icicle. He was glad that he had a pair of blankets and that they were heavy ones, too. But he did not ask anything more. It was remarkable how fast the youth of both North and South became inured to every form of privation. They lived almost like the primitive man, and many thrived on it.

When he last awoke, about four o'clock in the morning, he did not lie down to sleep again; he walked to the edge of the slope and stared once more toward the river and the Union camp. He found Dalton already there, closely examining the river and the shores with his glasses.

"What do you see, George?" Harry asked.

"Not much; they've got all the bridges now they need, but they're not using them. Why, Harry, the battle's won already. Lee and Jackson don't merely fight. Plenty of generals are good fighters, but our leaders measure and weigh the generals who are coming against them, look right inside of them, and read their minds better than those generals can read them themselves."

"I believe you're right, George. And since Burnside is not crossing to-night, he can't attack in the morning."

"Of course not. Lee and Jackson knew all the time that he'd waste a day. They knew it by the way he delayed at Antietam, and they've been reading his mind all the time he's been sitting here on the banks of the Rappahannock. They knew just where he'd attack, just when, too, and they'll have everything ready at the right point and at the right time."

"Of course they will."

They were but boys, and the great tactics and brilliant victories of Lee and Jackson had overwhelmed the imaginations of both. In their minds all things seemed possible to their leaders, and they had not the least fear about the coming battle.

They walked back toward their general's tent and saw him sitting on a log outside. The night was not so dark as the one before. A fair moon and clusters of modest stars furnished some light. The general was gazing toward Stafford Heights, tapping his bootleg at times with a little switch. But he turned his gaze upon the two boys as they came forward and saluted respectfully.

"Well, lads," he said in a voice of uncommon gentleness, "what have you seen?"

"Nothing, sir, but the river and the dark shore beyond," replied Dalton.

"But the enemy will cross to-morrow, and they say they will annihilate us."

"I think, sir, that they will recross the Rappahannock as fast as they will cross it."

Dalton spoke boldly, because he saw that Jackson was leading him on.

"The right spirit," said Jackson quietly. "I see it throughout the army, and so long as it prevails we cannot lose."

Then he turned his glasses again toward the river and paid them no further attention. Officers of greater age and much higher rank came near, but he ignored them also. His whole soul seemed to be absorbed in the searching examination that he was making of the river and the opposite shore. Harry and Dalton watched him a little while and then went back to the shelter of the ridge, where, sitting with their backs against the earth, they, too, took up the task of watching.

The earth was frozen hard now, but toward morning they saw the fog rising again.

"It will cover the river, the far shore, and what's left of the town," said Dalton, "but what do we care? They'll be protected by it as they advance on the bridges, but they wouldn't dare move through it to attack us here on the heights."

"Here's the dawn again," said Harry. "I can see the ghost of the sun over there trying to break through, but as there's no wind now the fog's going to hang heavy and long."

Breakfast was served once more to the waiting army on the heights, and then the youths in gray saw that the Union army, having let the night pass, was beginning to cross the river. When the dawn finally came many regiments were already over and the wheels of the heavy cannon were thundering on the bridges. But the Confederate army lay quiet on the heights, although before morning it had drawn itself in somewhat, shortening the lines and making itself more compact.

"Look how they pour over the bridges!" said Harry, who stood glass to eye. "They come in thousands and thousands, regiments, brigades and whole divisions. Why, George, it looks as if the whole North were swarming down upon us!"

"They're a hundred and twenty thousand strong. We know that positively, and they're as brave as anybody. But we're eighty thousand strong, just sitting here on the heights and waiting. Harry, they'll cross that river again soon, and when they go back they'll be far less than a hundred and twenty thousand!"

He spoke with no sign of exultation. Instead it was the boding tone of an old prophet, rather than the sanguine voice of youth.

The fog deepened for a little while, and then some of the marching columns were hidden. Out of the mists and gloom came the quick music of many bands, playing the Northern brigades on to death. Then the fog lifted again, and along the heights ran the blaze of the Southern cannon as they sent shot and shell into the black masses of the Union troops crowding by Fredericksburg.

But as the echoes of the shots died away, Harry heard again the bands playing, and from the great Northern army below came mighty rolling cheers.

"The battle is here now, Harry," said Dalton, "and this is the biggest army we've ever faced."

The Union brigades, black in the somber winter dawn, seemed endless to Harry. From the point where he stood the advancing columns as they crossed the river looked almost solid. He knew that men must be falling, dead or wounded, beneath the fire of the Southern guns, but the living closed up so fast that he could not see any break in the lines.

"You can't see any sign of hesitation there," said Dalton. "The Northern generals may doubt and linger, but the men don't when once they get the word. What a tremendous and thrilling sight! It may be wicked in me, Harry, but since there is a war and battles are being fought, I'm glad I'm here to see it."

"So am I," said Harry. "It's something to feel that you're at the heart of the biggest things going on in the world. Now we've lost 'em!"

His sudden exclamation was due to a shift of the wind, bringing back the fog again and covering the river, the town and the advancing Union army. The Confederate cannon then ceased firing, but Harry heard distinctly the sounds made by scores of thousands of men marching, that measured tread of countless feet, the beat of hoofs, the rumbling of cannon wheels over roads now frozen hard, and the music of many bands still playing. The thrill was all the keener when the great army became invisible in the fog, although the mighty hum and murmur of varied sounds proved that it was still marching there.

Jackson was on the right of Lee's line. He would be, as usual, in the thick of it. His fighting line ran through deep woods, and he was protected, moreover, by the slope up which the Union troops would have to come, if they got near enough. Fourteen guns, guarded by two regiments, were on Prospect Hill at his extreme right, and on his left the ravine called Deep Run divided him from the command of Longstreet, which spread away toward Marye's Hill.

Jackson's own line was a mile and a half long and he had thirty thousand men, while Longstreet and the others had fifty thousand more. Lee himself, directing the whole, rode along the lines on his white horse, and whenever the men saw him cheers rolled up and down. But Lee had little to say. All that needed to be said had been said already.

Harry saw the great commander riding along that morning as calmly as if he were going to church. Lee, grave, imperturbable, was the last man to show emotion, but Harry thought once that he caught a gleam from the blue eye as he spoke a word or two with Jackson and went on. As he passed near them, Harry, Dalton and all the other young officers took off their hats, saluted and stood in silence. General Lee raised his own hat in return, and rode back toward the division of Longstreet.

Harry glanced toward General Jackson, who was also mounted. But he did not move and the reins lay loose on the animal's neck. Once the horse dropped his head and nuzzled under some leaves for a few blades of sheltered grass that had escaped the winter. But the general took no notice. He kept his glasses to his eyes and watched every movement of the enemy, when the fog lifted enough for him to see. Presently he beckoned to Harry.

"Ride over to General Stuart," he said, "and see if he has made any change in his lines. It is important that our formation be preserved intact and that no gaps be left."

Then General Jackson himself rode to another elevation for a different view, and the soldiers, from whom he had been hidden before by the fog, gazed at him in amazement. The gorgeous uniform that Stuart had sent him, worn only once before, and which they had thought discarded forever, had been put on again. The old slouch hat was gone, and another, magnificent with gold braid, looped and tasseled, was in its place. Instead of the faithful pony, Little Sorrel, he rode a big charger.

Usually cheers ran along the line whenever he appeared upon the eve of battle, but for a little space there was silence as the men gazed at him, many of them not even knowing him. Jackson flushed and looked down apologetically at the rich cloth and gold braid he wore. His eyes seemed to say, "Boys, I've merely put these on in honor of the victory we're going to win. But I won't do it again."

Then the cheers burst forth, spontaneous and ringing, proving a devotion that few men have ever been able to command. Stern and unflinching as Jackson invariably was in inflicting punishment, his soldiers always regarded him as one of themselves, the best man among them, one fitted by nature to lead democratic equals. After the cheers were over they watched him as he looked through the glasses from his new position. But he stayed there only a minute or two, going back then to his old point of vantage.

Harry meanwhile had reached Stuart, who, mounted upon a magnificent horse and clad in a uniform that fairly glittered through the fog itself, was waiting restlessly. But he had not changed any part of his line. Everything remained exactly as Jackson had ordered. He now knew Harry well and always called him by his first name.

"Have you an order?" he exclaimed eagerly. "Does General Jackson want us to advance?"

"He has said nothing about an advance," replied Harry tactfully. "He merely wanted me to ride down the line and report to him on the spirit of the soldiers as far as I could judge. He knew that your men, General, would be hard to hold."

Stuart threw back his head, shook his long yellow hair and laughed in a pleased way.

"General Jackson was right about my men," he said. "It's hard to keep them from galloping into the battle, and my feelings are with them. Yet we'll have all the fighting we want. Look at the great masses of the Union army!"

The fog had lifted again and the Northern columns were still advancing, marching boldly against the intrenched foe, although nearly every one of their generals save Burnside himself knew that it was a hopeless task. In all the mighty events of the war that Harry witnessed few were as impressive to him as this solemn and steady march of the Union army, heads erect and bands playing, into the jaws of death.

He stayed only a few moments with Stuart, returning direct to Jackson. On his way he passed Sherburne, who, with his troop, was on Stuart's extreme left flank. Harry leaned over, shook hands with him, nothing more, and rode on. With the lifting of the fog the Southern guns were again sending shot and sell into the blue masses. Then, from the other side of the river, the great Union batteries left on Stafford Heights began to hurl showers of steel toward the hostile ridges a little more than a mile and a half away. It was long range for those days, but the Union gunners, always excellent, rained shot and shell upon the Southern position.

Harry, used now to such a fire, went calmly on until he rejoined Jackson, who accepted with a nod his report that Stuart had not changed his lines anywhere. The general signed to him and the rest of the staff as they rode toward the center of the Southern line. Harry did not know their errand, but he surmised that they were to meet General Lee for the final conference. The general said no word, but rode steadily on. Union skirmishers, under cover of the fog and bushes, had crept far in advance of their columns, and, as the fog continued to thin away and the day to brighten, they saw Jackson and his staff.

Harry heard bullets whistling sinister little threats in his ear as they passed, and he heard other bullets pattering on the trees or the earth. They alarmed him more than the huge cannon thundering away from the other side of the river. But the fog, although thin, was still enough to make the aim of the skirmishers bad, and General Jackson and his staff went on their way unhurt.

They reached a little hill near the middle of the Southern bent bow. It had no name then, but it is called Lee's Hill now, because at nine o'clock that morning General Lee, mounted on his white horse, was upon its crest awaiting his generals, to give them his last instructions. Longstreet was already there, and, just as Jackson came, the fog thinned away entirely and the sun began to blaze with a heat almost like that of summer, rapidly thawing the hard earth.

The young officers on the different staffs reined back, while their chiefs drew together. Yet for a few moments no one said anything. Harry always believed that the veteran generals were moved as he was by the sight below. The great banks of white fog were rolling away down the river before the light wind and the brilliant sun.

Now Harry saw the Army of the Potomac in its full majesty. On the wide plain that lay on the south bank of the Rappahannock nearly a hundred thousand men were still advancing in regular order, with scores and scores of cannon on their flanks or between the columns. The army which looked somber black in the misty dawn now looked blue in the brilliant sun. The stars and stripes, the most beautiful flag in the world, waved in hundreds over their heads. The bands were still playing, and the great batteries which they had left on Stafford Heights across the river continued that incessant roaring fire over their heads at the Southern army on its own heights. The smoke from the cannon, whitish in color, drifted away down the river with the fog, and the whole spectacle still remained in the brilliant sunlight.

Harry's respect for the Union artillery, already high, increased yet further. The field was now mostly open, where all could see, and the gunners not only saw their targets, but were able to take good aim. The storm of shot and shell from Stafford Heights was frightful. It seemed to Harry—again his imagination was alive—that the very air was darkened by the rush of steel. Despite their earthworks and other shelter the Southern troops began to suffer from that dreadful sleet, but the little conference on Lee's Hill went on.

Longstreet, sitting his horse steadily, looked long at the dense masses below.

"General," he said to General Jackson, "doesn't that myriad of Yankees frighten you?"

"It won't be long before we see whether we shall frighten them," replied Jackson.

General Lee said a few words, and then Jackson and Longstreet returned to their respective divisions, Jackson, as Harry noted, showing not the least excitement, although the resolute Union general, Franklin, with nearly sixty thousand men and one hundred and twenty guns, was marching directly against his own position.

But Harry felt excitement, and much of it. In front of Jackson in a great line of battle, a mile and a half long, they were moving forward, still in perfect array. But there was something wanting in that huge army. It was the lack of a great animating spirit. There was no flaming flag, like the soul of Jackson, to wave in the front of a fiery rush that could not be stopped.

The blue mass hesitated and stopped. Out of it came three Pennsylvania brigades led by Meade, who was to be the Meade of Gettysburg, and less than five thousand strong they advanced against Jackson. Harry was amazed. Could it be possible that they did not know that Jackson with his full force was there?

The Pennsylvanians charged gallantly. The young General Pelham, who had been sent forward with two pieces of artillery, opened on them fiercely, but the heavy batteries covering the advance of the Pennsylvanians drove Pelham out of action, although he held the whole force at bay for half an hour. In his retreat he lost one of his own guns, and then Franklin brought up more batteries to protect the further advance of Meade and the Pennsylvanians. The batteries across the river helped them also, never ceasing to send a rain of steel over their troops upon the Southern army.

But Jackson's men still lay close in the woods and behind their breastworks. Nearly all that rain of steel flew over their heads. A shower of twigs and boughs fell on them, but so long as they stayed close the great artillery fire created terror rather than damage. The men were panting with eagerness, but not one was allowed to pull trigger, nor was a cannon fired.

"Burnside must think there's but a small force here," said Dalton, "or he wouldn't send so few men against us. Harry, when I look down at those brigades of Yankees I think of the old Roman salute—it was that of the gladiators, wasn't it?—'Morituri salutamus.'"

"They're doomed," said Harry.

Jackson, like the others, had dismounted, and he walked forward with a single aide to observe more closely the Union advance. A Northern sharpshooter suddenly rose out of high weeds, not far in front, and fired directly at them. The bullet whistled between Jackson and his aide. Jackson turned to the young man and said:

"Suppose you go to the rear. You might get shot."

The young man, of course, did not go, and Harry, who was not far behind them in an earthwork, watched them with painful anxiety. He had seen the sudden uprising of the Northern skirmisher in the weeds and the flame from the muzzle. The man might not have known that it was Jackson, but he must have surmised from the gorgeous uniform that it was a general of importance.

Harry, with the trained eye of a country boy, saw a rippling movement running among the weeds. The sharpshooter would reload and fire upon his general from another point. The second bullet might not miss.

But the second shot did not come. The marksman, doubtless thinking that another shot was too dangerous a hazard, had retreated into the plain. General Jackson walked on calmly, inspecting the whole Northern advance, and then returning took up his station on Prospect Hill, where he waited with the singular calmness that was always his, for the fit time to open fire.

The leader of the Army of the Potomac was watching from the other side of the Rappahannock with a terrible eagerness. The man who had not wished the command of the splendid Union army, who had deemed himself unequal to the task, was now proving the correctness of his own intuitions. He had taken up his headquarters in a fine colonial residence on one of the highest points of the bank. He was surrounded there by numerous artillery, and the officers of his staff crowded the porches, many of them already sad of heart, although they would not let their faces show it.

But Burnside, now that his men had forced the river in such daring fashion, began to glow with hope. Such magnificent troops as he had, having crossed the deep, tidal Rappahannock in the face of an able and daring foe, were bound to win. He swept every point of the field with his glasses, and from his elevated position he and his officers could see what the troops in the plain below could not see, the long lines of the Confederates waiting in the trenches or in the woods, their cannon posted at frequent intervals.

But Burnside hoped. Who would not have hoped with such troops as his? Never did an army, and with full knowledge of it, too, advance more boldly to a superhuman task. He saw the gallant advance of the Pennsylvanians and he saw them drive off Pelham. Hope swelled into confidence. With an anxiety beyond describing he watched the further advance of Meade and his Pennsylvanians.

Stonewall Jackson also was watching from his convenient hill, and his small staff, mostly of very young men, clustered close behind him. Jackson no longer used his glasses, as Burnside was doing. Meade and his Pennsylvanians were coming close to him now. The great Union batteries on Stafford Heights must soon cease firing or their shells and shot would be crashing into the blue ranks.

"It cannot be much longer," said Harry.

"No, not much longer," said Dalton. "We'll unmask mighty soon. How far away would you say they are now, Harry?"

"About a thousand yards."

"Over a half mile. Then I'll say that when they come within a half mile Old Jack will give the word to the artillery to loosen up."

Harry and George, in their intense absorption, had forgotten about the other parts of the line. In their minds, for the present at least, Jackson was fighting the battle alone. Longstreet was forgotten, and even Lee, for a space, remained unremembered. They were staring at the brigades which were coming on so gallantly, when the jaws of death were already opened so wide to receive them.

"They're at the half mile," said Dalton, who had a wonderful eye for distance, "and still Old Jack does not give the word."

"The closer the better," said Harry. Glancing up and down the lines he saw the men bending over their guns and the riflemen in line after line rising slowly to their feet and looking to their arms. In spite of himself, in spite of all the hard usage of war through which he had been, Harry shuddered. He did not hate any of those men out there who were coming toward them so boldly; no, there was not in all those brigades, nor in all the Union army, nor in all the North a single person whom he wished to hurt. Yet he knew that he would soon fight against them with all the weapons and all the power he could gather.

"Eight hundred yards," said Dalton.

"Fire!" was the word that ran like an electric blaze along the whole Southern front; and Jackson's fifty cannon, suddenly pushing forward from the forest, poured a storm of steel upon the devoted Pennsylvanians. Harry felt the earth rocking beneath him, and his ears were stunned by the roaring and crashing of the cannon all about him.

The Union officers on the porches of the colonial mansion across the river saw that terrible blaze leap from the Confederate line, and their hearts sank within them like lead. Alarmed as they had been before, they were in consternation now. Some had said that Jackson was not there, that it was merely a detachment guarding the woods, but now they knew their mistake.

Harry and Dalton stayed close to their general. Shells and shot from the batteries below on the plain were crashing along the trees, but, like those from the great guns on Stafford Heights, they passed mostly over their heads. The two youths at that moment had little to do but watch the battle. The Southern riflemen crept forward in the woods, and now their bullets in sheets were crashing into the hostile ranks. The Union division commander hurried up reinforcements, and the Pennsylvanians, despite their frightful losses and shattered ranks, still held fast. But the Southern batteries never ceased for a moment to pour upon them a storm of death. With red battle before him and the fever in his blood running high, Harry now forgot all about wounds and death. He had eye and thought only for the tremendous panorama passing before him, where everything was clear and visible, as if it were an act in some old Roman circus, magnified manifold.

Then came a message from Jackson to hurry to the left with an order for a brigadier who lay next to Longstreet. As he ran through the trees, he heard now the roar of the battle in the center, where the stalwart Longstreet was holding Marye's Hill and the adjacent heights. A mighty Union division was attacking there, and out of the south from the embers of Fredericksburg came another great division in column after column.

Harry heard the fire of Jackson slackening behind him, and he knew it was because Meade had been stopped or was retreating, and he stayed a little with the brigadier to see how Longstreet received the enemy. The hill and all the ridges about it seemed to be in one red blaze, and every few minutes the triumphant rebel yell, something like the Indian war-whoop, but poured from thirty thousand throats, swelled above the roar of the cannon and the crash of the rifles and made Harry's pulses beat so hard that he felt absolute physical pain.

He hurried to Jackson, where the battle, which had died for a little space, was swelling again. As the Pennsylvanians were compelled to draw back, leaving the ground covered with their dead, the Union batteries on Stafford Heights reopened, firing again over the heads of the men in blue. The Southern batteries, weaker and less numerous, replied with all their energy. A far-flung shot from their greatest gun, at the extreme southern end of the line, killed the brave Union general, Bayard, as he was sitting under a tree watching his troops.

Gregg, one of the best of the Southern generals, was mortally wounded. A great body of the Pennsylvanians, charging again, reached the shelter of the woods and burst through the Southern line. At another point, Hancock, always cool and brilliant on the field of battle, rallied shattered brigades and led them forward in person to new attacks. Hooker, who had shown such courage at Antietam, equally brave on this occasion, rushed forward with his men at another point. Franklin, Sumner, Doubleday and many other of the best Union generals showed themselves reckless of death, cheering on their men, galloping up and down the lines when they were mounted, and waving their swords aloft after their horses were killed, but always leading.

The Pennsylvanians who had cut into the Southern line were attacked in flank, but they held on to their positions. Jackson did not yet know of Meade's success. He still stood on Prospect Hill with his staff, which Harry had rejoined. The forest and vast clouds of smoke hid from his view the battle, save in his front. Harry saw a messenger coming at a gallop toward the summit of the hill, and he knew by his pale face and bloodshot eyes that he brought bad news.

Jackson turned toward the messenger, expectant but calm.

"What is it?" he asked.

"The enemy have broken through General Archer's division, and he directed me to say to you that unless help is sent, both his position and that of General Gregg will be lost."

Jackson showed no excitement. His calm and composure in the face of disaster always inspired his men with fresh courage.

"Ride back to General Archer," he said, "and tell him that the division of Early and the Stonewall Brigade are coming at once."

He turned his horse as if he would go with the relief, but in a moment he checked himself, put his field glasses back to his eyes, and continued to watch heavy masses of the enemy who were coming up in another quarter.

Harry did not see what happened when Early and Taliaferro, who now led the Stonewall Brigade, fell upon the Pennsylvanians, but the Invincibles were in the charge and St. Clair told him about it afterward. The Union men had penetrated so far that they were entangled in the forest and thickets, and nobody had come up to support them. They were much scattered, and as their officers were seeking to gather them together the men in gray fell upon them in overpowering force and drove them back in broken fragments. Wild with triumph, the Southern riflemen rushed after them and also hurled back other riflemen that were coming up to their support. But on the plain they encountered the matchless Northern artillery. A battery of sixteen heavy guns met their advancing line with a storm of canister, before which they were compelled to retreat, leaving many dead and wounded behind.

Yet the entire Union attack on Jackson had been driven back, the Northern troops suffering terrible losses. The watchers on the Phillips porch on the other side of the river saw the repulse, and again their hearts sank like lead.

The watchers turned their field glasses anew to the Southern center and left, where the battle raged with undiminished ferocity. Marye's Hill was a formidable position and along its slope ran a heavy stone wall. Behind it the Southern sharpshooters were packed in thousands, and every battery was well placed.

Hancock, following Burnside's orders, led the attack upon the ensanguined slopes. Forty thousand men, almost the flower of the Union army, charged again and again up those awful slopes, and again and again they were hurled back. The top of the hill was a leaping mass of flame and the stone wall was always crested with living fire. No troops ever showed greater courage as they returned after every repulse to the hopeless charge.

At last they could go forward no longer. They had not made the slightest impression upon Marye's Hill and the slopes were strewn with many thousands of their dead and wounded, including officers of all ranks, from generals down. The Union army was now divided into two portions, each in the face of an insuperable task.

But Burnside, burning with chagrin, was unwilling to draw off his army. The reserve troops, left on the other side of the river, were sent across, and Fighting Joe Hooker was ordered to lead them to a new attack. Hooker, talking with Hancock, saw that it merely meant another slaughter, and sent such word to his commander-in-chief. But Burnside would not be moved from his purpose. The attack must be made, and Hooker—whose courage no one could question—still trying to prevent it, crossed the river himself, went to Burnside and remonstrated.

Men who were present have told vivid stories of that scene at the Phillips House. Hooker, his face covered with dust and sweat, galloping up, leaping from his horse, and rushing to Burnside; the commander-in-chief striding up and down, looking toward Marye's Hill, enveloped in smoke, and repeating to himself, as if he were scarcely conscious of what he was saying: "That height must be taken! That height must be taken! We must take it!"

He turned to Hooker with the same words, "That height must be taken to-day," repeating it over and over again, changing the words perhaps, but not the sense. The gallant but unfortunate man had not wanted to be commander-in-chief, foreseeing his own inadequacy, and now in his agony at seeing so many of his men fall in vain he was scarcely responsible.

Hooker, his heart full of despair, but resolved to obey, galloped back and prepared for the last desperate charge up Marye's Hill. The advancing mists in the east were showing that the short winter day would soon draw to a close. He planted his batteries and opened a heavy fire, intending to batter down the stone wall. But the wall, supported by an earthwork, did not give, and Longstreet's riflemen lay behind it waiting.

At a signal the Union cannon ceased firing and the bugles blew the charge. The Union brigades swarmed forward and then rushed up the slopes. The volume of fire poured upon them was unequalled until Pickett led the matchless charge at Gettysburg. Pickett himself was here among the defenders, having just been sent to help the men on Marye's Hill.

Up went the men through the winter twilight, lighted now by the blaze of so many cannon and rifles pouring down upon them a storm of lead and steel, through which no human beings could pass. They came near to the stone wall, but as their lines were now melting away like snow before the sun, they were compelled to yield and retreat again down the slopes, which were strewed already with the bodies of so many of those who had gone up in the other attacks.

Every charge had broken in vain on the fronts of Jackson and Longstreet, and the Union losses were appalling. Harry knew that the battle was won and that it had been won more easily than any of the other great battles that he had seen. He wondered what Jackson would do. Would he follow up the grand division of Franklin that he had defeated and which still lay in front of them?

But he ceased to ask the question, because when the last charge, shattered to pieces, rolled back down Marye's Hill, the magnificent Northern artillery seemed to Harry to go mad. The thirty guns of the heaviest weight that had been left on Stafford Heights, and which had ceased firing only when the Northern men charged, now reopened in a perfect excess of fury. Harry believed that they must be throwing tons of metal every minute.

Nor was Franklin slack. Hovering with his great division in the plain below and knowing that he was beaten, he nevertheless turned one hundred and sixteen cannon that he carried with him upon Jackson's front and swept all the woods and ridges everywhere. The Union army was beaten because it had undertaken the impossible, but despite its immense losses it was still superior in numbers to Lee's force, and above all it had that matchless artillery which in defeat could protect the Union army, and which in victory helped it to win.

Now all these mighty cannon were turned loose in one huge effort. Along the vast battle front and from both sides of the river they roared and crashed defiance. And the Army of the Potomac, which had wasted so much valor, crept back under the shelter of that thundering line of fire. It had much to regret, but nothing of which to be ashamed. Sent against positions impregnable when held by such men as Lee, Jackson and Longstreet, it had never ceased to attack so long as the faintest chance remained. Its commander had been unequal to the task, but the long roll of generals under him had shown unsurpassed courage and daring.

Harry thought once that General Jackson was going to attack in turn, but after a long look at the roaring plain he shrugged his shoulders and gave no orders. The beaten Army of the Potomac preserved its order, it had lost no guns, the brigadiers and the major-generals were full of courage, and it was too formidable to be attacked. Three hundred cannon of the first class on either side of the river were roaring and crashing, and the moment the Southern troops emerged for the charge all would be sure to pour upon them a fire that no troops could withstand.

General Lee presently appeared riding along the line. The cheers which always rose where he came rolled far, and he was compelled to lift his hat more than once. He conferred with Jackson, and the two, going toward the left, met Longstreet, with whom they also talked. Then they separated and Jackson returned to his own position. Harry, who had followed his general at the proper distance, never heard what they said, but he believed that they had discussed the possibility of a night attack and then had decided in the negative.

When Jackson returned to his own force the twilight was thickening into night, and as darkness sank down over the field the appalling fire of the Union artillery ceased. Thirteen thousand dead or wounded Union soldiers had fallen, and the Southern loss was much less than half.

All of Harry's comrades and friends had escaped this battle uninjured, yet many of them believed that another battle would be fought on the morrow. Harry, however, was not one of these. He remembered some words that had been spoken by Jackson in his presence:

"We can defeat the enemy here at Fredericksburg, but we cannot destroy him, because he will escape over his bridges, while we are unable to follow."

Nevertheless the young men and boys were exultant. They did not look so far ahead as Jackson, and they had never before won so great a victory with so little loss. Harry, sent on a message beyond Deep Run, found the Invincibles cooking their suppers on a spot that they had held throughout the day. They had several cheerful fires burning and they saluted Harry gladly.

"A great victory, Harry," said Happy Tom.

"Yes, a great victory," interrupted Colonel Leonidas Talbot; "but, my friends, what else could you have expected? They walked straight into our trap. But I have learned this day to have a deep respect for the valor of the Yankees. The way they charged up Marye's Hill in the face of certain death was worthy of the finest troops that South Carolina herself ever produced."

"That is saying a great deal, Leonidas," said Lieutenant-Colonel Hector St. Hilaire, "but it is true."

Harry talked a little with the two colonels, and also with Langdon and St. Clair. Then he returned to his own headquarters. Both armies, making ready for battle to-morrow, if it should come, slept on their arms, while the dead and the wounded yet lay thick in the forest and on the slopes and plain.

But Harry was not among those who slept, at least not until after midnight. He and Dalton sat at the door of Jackson's tent, awaiting possible orders. Jackson knew that Burnside, with a hundred thousand men yet in line and no artillery lost, was planning another attack on the morrow, despite his frightful losses of the day.

The news of it had been sent to him by Lee, and Lee in turn had learned it from a captured orderly bearing Burnside's dispatches. But neither Harry nor Dalton knew anything of Burnside's plans. They were merely waiting for any errand upon which Jackson should choose to send them. Several other staff officers were present, and as Jackson wrote his orders, he gave them in turn to be taken to those for whom they were intended.

Harry, after three such trips of his own, sat down again near the door of the tent and watched his great leader. Jackson sat at a little table, on a cane-bottomed chair, and he wrote by the light of a single candle. His clothing was all awry and he had tossed away the gold-braided cap. His face was worn and drawn, but his eyes showed no signs of weariness. The body might have been weak, but the spirit of Jackson was never stronger.

Harry knew that Jackson after victory wasted no time exulting, but was always preparing for the next battle. The soldiers, both in his own division and elsewhere, were awakened by turns, and willing thousands strengthened the Southern position. More and deeper trenches were constructed. New abatis were built and the stone wall was strengthened yet further. Formidable as the Southern line had been to-day, Burnside would find it more so on the morrow.

After midnight, Jackson, still in his gorgeous uniform and with boots and spurs on, too, lay down on his bed and slept about three hours. Then he aroused himself, lighted his candle and wrote an hour longer. Then he went to the bedside of the dying Gregg and sat a while with him, the staff remaining at a respectful distance.

When they rode back—they were mounted again—they passed along the battle front, and the sadness which was so apparent on Jackson's face affected them. It was far toward morning now and the enemy was lighting his fires on the plain below. The dead lay where they had fallen, and no help had yet been given to those wounded too seriously to move. It had been a tremendous holocaust, and with no result. Harry knew now that the North would never cease to fight disunion. The South could win separation only at the price of practical annihilation for both.

The night was very raw and chill, and not less so now that morning was approaching. The mists and fogs, which as usual rose from the Rappahannock, made Harry shiver at their touch. In the hollows of the ridges, which the wintry sun seldom reached, great masses of ice were packed, and the plain below, cut up the day before by wheels and hoofs and footsteps, was now like a frozen field of ploughed land.

The staff heard enough through the fogs and mists to know that the Army of the Potomac was awake and stirring. The Southern army also arose, lighted its fires, cooked and ate its food and waited for the enemy. Before it was yet light Harry, on a message to Stuart, rode to the top of Prospect Hill with him, and, as they sat there on their horses, the sun cleared away the fog and mist, and they saw the Army of the Potomac drawn up in line of battle, defiant and challenging, ready to attack or to be attacked.

Harry felt a thrill of admiration that he did not wish to check. After all, the Yankees were their own people, bone of their bone, and their courage must be admired. The Army of the Potomac, too, was learning to fight without able chiefs. The young colonels and majors and captains could lead them, and there they were, after their most terrible defeat, grim and ready.

"The lion's wounded, but he isn't dead, by any means," said Harry to Stuart.

"Not by a great deal," said Stuart.

There was much hot firing by skirmishers that day and artillery duels at long range, but the Northern army, which had fortified on the plain, would not come out of its intrenchments, and the Southern soldiers also stuck to theirs. Burnside, who had crossed the river to join his men, had been persuaded at last that a second attack was bound to end like the first.

The next day Burnside sent in a flag of truce, and they buried the dead. The following night Harry, wrapped to the eyes in his great cloak, stood upon Prospect Hill and watched one of the fiercest storms that he had ever seen rage up and down the valley of the Rappahannock. Many of the Southern pickets were driven to shelter. While the whole Southern army sought protection from the deluge, the Army of the Potomac, still a hundred thousand strong, and carrying all its guns, marched in perfect order over the six bridges it had built, breaking the bridges down behind it, and camping in safety on the other side. The river was rising fast under the tremendous rain, and the Southern army could find no fords, even though it marched far up the stream.

Fredericksburg was won, but the two armies, resolute and defiant, gathered themselves anew for other battles as great or greater.



CHAPTER VI

A CHRISTMAS DINNER

After the great battle at Fredericksburg both armies seemed to suffer somewhat from reaction. Besides, the winter deepened. There was more snow, more icy rain, and more hovering of the temperature near the zero mark. The vast sea of mud increased, and the swollen Rappahannock, deep at any time, flowed between the two armies. Pickets often faced one another across the stream, sometimes firing, but oftener exchanging the news, when the river was not too wide for the shouted voice to reach.

Harry, despite his belief that the North would hold out, heard now that the hostile section had sunk into deep depression. The troops had not been paid for six months. Desertion into the interior went on on a great scale. One commander-in-chief after another had failed. After Antietam it had seemed that success could be won, but the South had come back stronger than ever and had won Fredericksburg, inflicting appalling loss upon the North. Yet he heard that Lincoln never flinched. The tall, gaunt, ugly man, telling his homely jokes, had more courage than anybody who had yet led the Union cause.

Harry often went down to Fredericksburg, where some houses still stood among the icy ruins. A few families had returned, but as the town was still practically under the guns of the Northern army, it was left chiefly to the troops.

The Invincibles were stationed here, and Harry and Dalton got leave to spend Christmas day with its officers. Nothing could bring more fully home to him the appalling waste and ruin of war than the sight of Fredericksburg. Mud, ice and snow were deeper than ever in the streets. Many of the houses had been demolished by cannon balls and fire, and only fragments of them lay about the ground. Others had been wrecked but partially, with holes in the roofs and the windows shot out. The white pillars in front of colonnaded mansions had been shattered and the fallen columns lay in the icy slough. Long icicles hung from the burned portions of upper floors that still stood.

Used to war's ruin as he had become, Harry's eyes filled with tears at the sight. It seemed a city dead, but not yet buried. But on Christmas day his friends and he resolutely dismissed gloom, and, first making a brave pretence, finally succeeded in having real cheerfulness in a fine old brick house which had been pretty well shot up, but which had some sound rooms remaining. Its owner had sent word that, while he could not yet come back to it with his family, he would be glad if the Southern army would make use of it in his absence.

It was in this house that the little colony of friends gathered, everyone bringing to the dinner what he could. Colonel Leonidas Talbot and Lieutenant-Colonel Hector St. Hilaire occupied the great sitting room on the ground floor, and here the dinner would be spread, as a part of the dining-room had been shot away and was still wet from snow and rain.

But the sitting room gladdened the eye. A heavy imported carpet covered the central portion of the polished oaken floor. Old family portraits lined its walls and those of the parlor adjoining it. Curtains hung at the windows. They were more or less discolored by smoke and other agencies, but they were curtains. All about the chamber were signs of wealth and cultivation, and a great fire of wood was burning in a huge chimney under a beautifully carved oaken mantelpiece.

The room seemed to remain almost as it had been left by the owner, save that two one-hundred-pound cannon balls, fired by the Union guns into Fredericksburg, were lying by either side of the door.

"Tickets, sir," said Langdon, as Harry appeared at the door.

Harry drew from under his cloak two boxes of sardines which he had taken from a deserted sutler's wagon on the field of Fredericksburg. He handed them to Langdon, who said:

"Pass in, most welcome guest."

Harry was the first arrival, but Dalton was next.

"Tickets double price to all Virginia Presbyterians," said Langdon.

"Instead of a double ticket here are two singles," said Dalton, as he drew from under his cloak two fine dressed chickens. "Don't these take me in?"

"They certainly do. Go in on the jump, Dalton."

The next arrival was Sherburne, who brought a five-pound bag of coffee. Then came the two colonels together, one with the half of a side of bacon, and the other with a twenty-pound bag of flour. More followed, bringing like tickets that were perfectly good, and it seemed that all the invited ticket holders were in, when a big black man on a big black horse rode up and saluted Langdon respectfully. He held out a pass.

"This pass am from Gen'ral Jackson," he said.

"Am it?" said Langdon, looking at the pass, "Yes, it am."

"Is you the orf'cer in command of this yere house?" asked the colored man, his wide mouth parting in an enormous grin that showed his magnificent white teeth.

"For the present I am, Sir Knight of the Dark but Kind Countenance. What wouldst thou?"

The man scratched his head and looked doubtfully at Langdon.

"Guess you're asking me some kind of a question, sah?"

"I am. Who art thou? Whence comest thou, Sir Knight of Nubia? Bearest thou upon thy person some written token, or, as you would say in your common parlance, what's your business?"

"Oh, I see, sah. Yes, sah, I done got a lettah from Mr. Theophilus Moncrieffe. That's the owner of this house, and I belong to him. I'se Caesar Moncrieffe. Here's the lettah, sah."

He handed a folded paper to Harry, who opened and read it. It was addressed to the chief of whatever officers might be occupying his house, and it ran thus, somewhat in the old-fashioned way:

SIRS AND GENTLEMEN:

The bearer of this is Caesar Moncrieffe. He and his ancestors have been servants of my family and my ancestors in the State of Virginia for more than two hundred years. He is a good man, as were his father and grandfather before him. He will not steal unless he should think it for his benefit or yours. He will not lie unless convinced of its necessity. He will work if you make him.