CHAPTER XIII. IN THE FOREST
Dick spent a week or more in Nashville and he saw the arrival of one ofGeneral Grant's divisions on the fleet under Commodore Foote. Once morehe appreciated the immense value of the rivers and the fleet to theNorth.
He and the two lads who were now knitted to him by sympathy, andhardships and dangers shared, enjoyed their stay in Nashville. It waspleasant to sleep once more in houses and to be sheltered from rain andfrost and snow. It was pleasant, too, for these youths, who were devotedto the Union, to think that their armies had made such progress in thewest. The silent and inflexible Grant had struck the first great blowfor the North. The immense Confederate line in the west was drivenfar southward, and the capital of one of the most vigorous of thesecessionist states was now held by the Union.
But a little later, news not so pleasant came to them. The energyand success of Grant had aroused jealousy. Halleck, his superior, thegeneral of books and maps at St. Louis, said that he had transcendedthe limits of his command. He was infringing upon territory of otherNorthern generals. Halleck had not found him to be the yieldingsubordinate who would win successes and let others have the credit.
Grant was practically relieved of his command, and when Dick heard it hefelt a throb of rage. Boy as he was, he knew that what had been won mustbe held. Johnston had stopped at Murfreesborough, thirty or forty milesaway. His troops had recovered from their panic, caused by the fall ofDonelson. Fresh regiments and brigades were joining him. His army wasrising to forty thousand men, and officers like Colonel Winchester beganto feel apprehensive.
Now came a period of waiting. The Northern leaders, as happened sooften in this war, were uncertain of their authority, and were atcross-purposes. They seldom had the power of initiative that waspermitted to the Southern generals, and of which they made such gooduse. Dick saw that the impression made by Donelson was fading. The Northwas reaping no harvest, and the South was lifting up its head again.
While he was in Nashville he received a letter from his mother in replyto one of his that he had written to her just after Donelson. She wasvery thankful that her son had gone safely through the battle, and sincehe must fight in war, which was terrible in any aspect, she was gladthat he had borne himself bravely. She was glad that Colonel Kenton hadescaped capture. Her brother-in-law was always good to her and wasa good man. She had also received a letter from his son, her nephew,written from Richmond, She loved Harry Kenton, too, and sympathized withhim, but she could not see how both sides could prevail.
Dick read the letter over and over again and there was a warm glow abouthis heart. What a brave woman his mother was! She said nothing about hiscoming back home, or leaving the war. He wrote a long reply, and hetold her only of the lighter and more cheerful events that they hadencountered. He described Warner, Pennington, and the sergeant, and saidthat he had the best comrades in the world. He told, too, of his gallantand high-minded commander, Colonel Arthur Winchester.
He was sure that the letter would reach her promptly, as it passed allthe way through territory now controlled by the North. The next dayafter sending it he heard with joy that Grant was restored to hiscommand, and two days later Colonel Winchester and his men were orderedto join him at Pittsburg Landing, on the Tennessee River. They heardalso that Buell, with his whole division, was soon to march to the sameplace, and they saw in it an omen of speedy and concentrated action.
"I imagine," said Warner, "that we'll soon go down in Mississippihunting Johnston. We must outnumber the Johnny Rebs at least two to one.I'm not a general, though any one can see that I ought to be, and if wewere to follow Johnston's army and crush it the war would soon be endedin the west."
"You've got a mighty big 'if'," said Dick. "If we march into Mississippiwe get pretty far from our base. We'll have to send a long distancethrough hostile country for fresh supplies and fresh troops, while theSoutherners will be nearer to their own. Besides, it's not so certainthat we can destroy Johnston when we find him."
"Your talk sounds logical, and that being the case, I'll leave ourfuture movements to General Grant. Anyway, it's a good thing not to haveso much responsibility on your shoulders."
They came in a few days to the great camp on the Tennessee. Springwas now breaking through the crust of winter. Touches of green wereappearing on the forests and in the fields. Now and then the wonderfulpungent odor of the wilderness came to them and life seemed to havetaken on new zest. They were but boys in years, and the terrible scenesof Donelson could not linger with them long.
They found Colonel Newcomb and the little detachment of Pennsylvanianswith Grant, and Colonel Winchester, resuming command of his regiment,camped by their side, delighted to be with old friends again. ColonelWinchester had lost a portion of his regiment, but there were excuses.It had happened in a country well known to the enemy and but littleknown to him, and he had been attacked in overwhelming force bythe rough-riding Forrest, who was long to be a terror to the Uniondivisions. But he had achieved the task on which he had been sent, andhe was thanked by his commander.
Dick, as he went on many errands or walked about in the course of hisleisure hours with his friends, watched with interest the growth of agreat army. There were more men here upon the banks of the Tennesseethan he had seen at Bull Run. They were gathered full forty thousandstrong, and General Buell's army also, he learned, had been put undercommand of General Grant and was advancing from Nashville to join him.
Dick also observed with extreme interest the ground upon which they wereencamped and the country surrounding it. There was the deep Tennessee,still swollen by spring rains, upon the left bank of which they lay,with the stream protecting one flank. In the river were some of thegunboats which had been of such value to Grant. All about them wasrough, hilly country, almost wholly covered with brushwood and tallforest. There were three deep creeks, given significant names by thepioneers. Lick Creek flowed to the south of them into the Tennessee,and Owl Creek to the north sought the same destination. A third, SnakeCreek, was lined with deep and impassable swamps to its very junctionwith the river.
Some roads of the usual frontier type ran through this region, and at apoint within the Northern lines stood a little primitive log churchthat they called Shiloh. It was of the kind that the pioneers builteverywhere as they moved from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Shilohbelonged to a little body of Methodists. Dick went into it more thanonce. There was no pastor and no congregation now, but the little churchwas not molested. He sat more than once on an uncompromising woodenbench, and looked out through a window, from which the shutter was gone,at the forest and the army.
Sitting here in this primitive house of worship, he would feel a certainsadness. It seemed strange that a great army, whose purpose was todestroy other armies, should be encamped around a building erected inthe cause of the Prince of Peace. The mighty and terrible nature of thewar was borne in upon him more fully than ever.
But optimism was supreme among the soldiers. They had achieved the greatvictory of Donelson in the face of odds that had seemed impossible. Theycould defeat all the Southern forces that lay between them and the Gulf.The generals shared their confidence. They did not fortify their camp.They had not come that far South to fight defensive battles. It wastheir place to attack and that of the men in gray to defend. They hadadvanced in triumph almost to the Mississippi line, and they would soonbe pursuing their disorganized foe into that Gulf State.
Several new generals came to serve under Grant. Among them was one namedSherman, to whom Dick bore messages several times, and who impressed himwith his dry manner and curt remarks which were yet so full of sense.
It was Sherman's division, in fact, that was encamped around the littlechurch, and Dick soon learned his opinions. He did not believe that theywould so easily conquer the South. He did not look for any triumphalparade to the Gulf. In the beginning of the war he had brought greatenmity and criticism upon himself by saying that 200,000 men at leastwould be needed at once to crush the Confedera
cy in the west alone. Andyet it was to take more than ten times that number four bitter years toachieve the task in both west and east.
But optimism continued to reign in the Union army. Buell would arrivesoon with his division and then seventy thousand strong they wouldresume their march southward, crushing everything. Meanwhile it waspleasant while they waited. They had an abundance of food. They werewell sheltered from the rains. The cold days were passing, nature wasbursting into its spring bloom, and the crisp fresh winds that blew fromthe west and south were full of life and strength. It was a joy merelyto breathe.
One rainy day the three boys, who had met by chance, went intothe little church for shelter from a sudden spring rain. From theshutterless window Dick saw Sergeant Whitley scurrying in search of arefuge, and they called to him. He came gladly and took a seat in one ofthe rough wooden pews of the little church of Shiloh. The three boys hadthe greatest respect for the character and judgment of the sergeant, andDick asked him when he thought the army would march.
"They don't tell these things to sergeants," said Whitley.
"But you see and you know a lot about war."
"Well, you've noticed that the army ain't gettin' ready to march. WhenGeneral Buell gets here we'll have nigh onto seventy thousand men, andseventy thousand men can't lift themselves up by their bootstraps an'leave, all in a mornin'."
"But we don't have to hurry," said Pennington. "There's no Southern armywest of the Alleghanies that could stand before our seventy thousand menfor an hour."
"General Buell ain't here yet."
"But he's coming."
"But he ain't here yet," persisted the sergeant, "an' he can't be herefor several days, 'cause the roads are mighty deep in the spring mud.Don't say any man is here until he is here. An' I tell you that GeneralJohnston, with whom we've got to deal, is a great man. I wasn't withhim when he made that great march through the blizzards an' across theplains to Salt Lake City to make the Mormons behave, but I've servedwith them that was. An' I've never yet found one of them who didn't sayGeneral Johnston was a mighty big man. Soldiers know when the right kindof a man is holdin' the reins an' drivin' 'em. Didn't we all feel thatwe was bein' driv right when General Grant took hold?"
"We all felt it," said the three in chorus.
"Of course you did," said the sergeant, "an' now I've got a kind ofuneasy feelin' over General Johnston. Why don't we hear somethin' fromhim? Why don't we know what he's doin'? We haven't sent out any scoutin'parties. On the plains, no matter how strong we was, we was alwayson the lookout for hostile Indians, while here we know there is a bigConfederate army somewhere within fifty miles of us, but don't take thetrouble to look it up."
"That's so," said Warner. "Caution represents less than five per cent ofour effectiveness. But I suppose we can whip the Johnnies anyway."
"Of course we can," said Pennington, who was always of a most buoyanttemperament.
Sergeant Whitley went to the shutterless window, and looked out at theforest and the long array of tents.
"The rain is about over," he said. "It was just a passin' shower. Butit looks as if it had already added a fresh shade of green to the leavesand grass. Cur'us how quick a rain can do it in spring, when everythingis just waitin' a chance to grow, and bust into bloom. I've rid on theplains when everything was brown an' looked dead. 'Long come a big rainan' the next day everything was green as far as the eye could reach an'you'd see little flowers bloomin' down under the shelter of the grass."
"I didn't know you had a poetical streak in you, sergeant," said Dick,who marked his abrupt change from the discussion of the war to a fardifferent topic.
"I think some of it is in every man," replied Sergeant Whitley gravely."I remember once that when we had finished a long chase after someNorthern Cheyennes through mighty rough and dry country we came to alittle valley, a kind of a pocket in the hills, fed by a fine creek,runnin' out of the mountains on one side, into the mountains on theother. The pocket was mebbe two miles long an' mebbe a mile across, an'it was chock full of green trees an' green grass, an' wild flowers. Weenjoyed its comforts, but do you think that was all? Every man among us,an' there was at least a dozen who couldn't read, admired its beauties,an' begun to talk softer an' more gentle than they did when they was outon the dry plains. An' you feel them things more in war than you do atany other time."
"I suppose you do," said Dick. "The spring is coming out now in Kentuckywhere I live, and I'd like to see the new grass rippling before thewind, and the young leaves on the trees rustling softly together."
"Stop sentimentalizing," said Warner. "If you don't it won't be a minutebefore Pennington will begin to talk about his Nebraska plains, and howhe'd like to see the buffalo herds ten million strong, rocking the earthas they go galloping by."
Pennington smiled.
"I won't see the buffalo herds," he said, "but look at the wild fowlgoing north."
They left the window as the rain had ceased, and went outside. All thisregion was still primitive and thinly settled, and now they saw flocksof wild ducks and wild geese winging northward. The next day the heavensthemselves were darkened by an immense flight of wild pigeons. Thecountry cut up by so many rivers, creeks and brooks swarmed with wildfowl, and more than once the soldiers roused up deer from the thickets.
The second day after the talk of the four in the little church Dick, whowas now regarded as a most efficient and trusty young staff officer, wassent with a dispatch to General Buell requesting him to press forwardwith as much speed as he could to the junction with General Grant.Several other aides were sent by different routes, in order to make surethat at least one would arrive, but Dick, through his former ride withColonel Winchester to Nashville, had the most knowledge of the country,and hence was likely to reach Buell first.
As the boy rode from the camp and crossed the river into the forest helooked back, and he could not fail to notice to what an extent itwas yet a citizen army, and not one of trained soldiers. The veteransergeant had already called his attention to what he deemed graveomissions. In the three weeks that they had been lying there they hadthrown up no earthworks. Not a spade had touched the earth. Nor wasthere any other defense of any kind. The high forest circled close aboutthem, dense now with foliage and underbrush, hiding even at a distanceof a few hundred yards anything that might lie within. The cavalry inthese three weeks had made one scouting expedition, but it was slightand superficial, resulting in nothing. The generals of divisions postedtheir own pickets separately, leaving numerous wide breaks in the line,and the farmer lads, at the change of guard, invariably fired theirrifles in the air, to signify the joy of living, and because it was goodto hear the sound.
Now that he was riding away from them, these things impressed Dick morethan when he was among them. Sergeant Whitley's warning and pessimisticwords came back to him with new force, but, as he rode into the depthsof the forest, he shook off all depression. Those words, "Seventythousand strong!" continually recurred to him. Yes, they would beseventy thousand strong when Buell came up, and the boys were right.Certainly there was no Confederate force in the west that could resistseventy thousand troops, splendidly armed, flushed with victory and ledby a man like Grant.
Seventy thousand strong! Dick's heart beat high at the unuttered words.Why should Grant fortify? It was for the enemy, not for him, to do sucha thing. Nor was it possible that Johnston even behind defenses couldresist the impact of the seventy thousand who had been passing from onevictory to another, and who were now in the very heart of the enemy'scountry.
His heart continued to beat high and fast as he rode through the greenforest. Its strong, sweet odors gave a fillip to his blood, and hepressed his horse to new speed. He rode without interruption night andday, save a few hours now and then for sleep, and reached the army ofBuell which deep in mud was toiling slowly forward.
Buell was not as near to Shiloh as Dick had supposed, but his march hadsuffered great hindrances. Halleck, in an office far away in St. Louis,had underta
ken to manage the campaign. His orders to Buell and hiscommand to Grant had been delayed. Buell, who had moved to the town ofColumbia, therefore had started late through no fault of his.
Duck River, which Buell was compelled to cross, was swollen like all theother streams of the region, by the great rains and was forty feetdeep. The railway bridge across it had been wrecked by the retreatingConfederates and he was compelled to wait there two weeks until hisengineers could reconstruct it.
War plays singular chances. Halleck in St. Louis, secure in his plan ofcampaign, had sent an order after Dick left Shiloh, for Buell to turnto the north, leaving Grant to himself, and occupy a town that he named.Through some chance the order never reached Buell. Had it done so thewhole course of American history might have been changed. Grant himself,after the departure of the earlier messengers, changed his mind andsent messengers to Nelson, who led Buell's vanguard, telling him not tohurry. This army was to come to Pittsburg Landing or Shiloh partly bythe Tennessee, and Grant stated that the vessels for him would not beready until some days later. It was the early stage of the war whengenerals behaved with great independence, and Nelson, a rough, stubbornman, after reading the order marched on faster than ever. It seemedafterward that the very stars were for Grant, when one order was lost,and another disobeyed.
But Dick was not to know of these things until later. He delivered inperson his dispatch to General Buell, who remembered him and gave him afriendly nod, but who was as chary of speech as ever. He wrote a briefreply to the dispatch and gave it sealed to Dick.
"The letter I hand you," he said, "merely notifies General Grant that Ihave received his orders and will hurry forward as much as possible.If on your return journey you should deem yourself in danger of fallinginto the hands of the enemy destroy it at once."
Dick promised to do so, saluted, and retired. He spent only two hoursin General Buell's camp, securing some fresh provisions to carry in hissaddle bags and allowing his horse a little rest. Then he mountedand took as straight a course as he could for General Grant's camp atPittsburg Landing.
The boy felt satisfied with himself. He had done his mission quickly andexactly, and he would have a pleasant ride back. On his strong, swifthorse, and with a good knowledge of the road, he could go several timesfaster than Buell's army. He anticipated a pleasant ride. The forestseemed to him to be fairly drenched in spring. Little birds flamingin color darted among the boughs and others more modest in garb pouredforth a full volume of song. Dick, sensitive to sights and sounds,hummed a tune himself. It was the thundering song of the sea that he hadheard Samuel Jarvis sing in the Kentucky Mountains:
They bore him away when the day had fled, And the storm was rolling high, And they laid him down in his lonely bed By the light of an angry sky. The lightning flashed and the wild sea lashed The shore with its foaming wave, And the thunder passed on the rushing blast, As it howled o'er the rover's grave.
He pressed on, hour after hour, through the deep woods, meeting no one,but content. At noon his horse suddenly showed signs of great weariness,and Dick, remembering how much he had ridden him over muddy roads, gavehim a long rest. Besides, there was no need to hurry. The Southern armywas at Corinth, in Mississippi, three or four days' journey away, andthere had been no scouts or skirmishers in the woods between.
After a stop of an hour he remounted and rode on again, but the horsewas still feeling his great strain, and he did not push him beyond awalk. He calculated that nevertheless he would reach headquarters notlong after nightfall, and he went along gaily, still singing to himself.He crossed the river at a point above the army, where the Union troopshad made a ferry, and then turned toward the camp.
About sunset he reached a hill from which he could look over theforest and see under the horizon faint lights that were made by Grant'scampfires at Pittsburg Landing. It was a welcome sight. He would soon bewith his friends again, and he urged his horse forward a little faster.
"Halt!" cried a sharp voice from the thicket.
Dick faced about in amazement, and saw four horsemen in gray riding fromthe bushes. The shock was as great as if he had been struck by a bullet,but he leaned forward on his horse's neck, kicked him violently withhis heels and shouted to him. The horse plunged forward at a gallop. Theboy, remembering General Buell's instructions, slipped the letter fromhis pocket, and in the shelter of the horse's body dropped it to theground, where he knew it would be lost among the bushes and in thetwilight.
"Halt!" was repeated more loudly and sharply than ever. Then a bulletwhizzed by Dick's ear, and a second pierced the heart of his good horse.He tried to leap clear of the falling animal, and succeeded, but he fellso hard among the bushes that he was stunned for a few moments. When herevived and stood up he saw the four horsemen in gray looking curiouslyat him.
"'Twould have been cheaper for you to have stopped when we told you todo it," said one in a whimsical tone.
Dick noticed that the tone was not unkind--it was not the custom totreat prisoners ill in this great war. He rubbed his left shoulder onwhich he had fallen and which still pained him a little.
"I didn't stop," he said, "because I didn't know that you would be ableto hit either me or my horse in the dusk."
"I s'pose from your way of lookin' at it you was right to take thechance, but you've learned now that we Southern men are tol'able goodsharpshooters."
"I knew it long ago, but what are you doing here, right in the jaws ofour army? They might close on you any minute with a snap. You ought tobe with your own army at Corinth."
Dick noticed that the men looked at one another, and there was silencefor a moment or two.
"Young fellow," resumed the spokesman, "you was comin' from thedirection of Columbia, an' your hoss, which I am sorry we had to kill,looked as if he was cleaned tuckered out. I judge that you was bearin' amessage from Buell's army to Grant's."
"You mustn't hold me responsible for your judgment, good or bad."
"No, I reckon not, but say, young fellow, do you happen to have a chawof terbacker in your clothes?"
"If I had any I'd offer it to you, but I never chew."
The man sighed.
"Well, mebbe it's a bad habit," he said, "but it's powerful grippin'.I'd give a heap for a good twist of old Kentucky. Now we're goin' tosearch you an' it ain't wuth while to resist, 'cause we've got youwhere we want you, as the dog said to the 'coon when he took him by thethroat. We're lookin' for letters an' dispatches, 'cause we're shore youcome from Buell, but if we should run across any terbacker we'll have tohe'p ourselves to it. We ain't no robbers, 'cause in times like these itain't no robbery to take terbacker."
Dick noticed that while they talked one of the men never ceased to coverhim with a rifle. They were good-humored and kindly, but he knew theywould not relax an inch from their duty.
"All right," he said, "go ahead. I'll give you a good legal title toeverything you may find."
He knew that the letter was lying in the bushes within ten feet of themand he had a strong temptation to look in that direction and see if itwere as securely hidden as he had thought, but he resisted the impulse.
Two of the men searched him rapidly and dexterously, and much to theirdisappointment found no dispatch.
"You ain't got any writin' on you, that's shore," said the spokesman."I'd expected to find a paper, an' I had a lingerin' hope, too, that wemight find a little terbacker on you 'spite of what you said."
"You don't think I'd lie about the tobacco, would you?"
"Sonny, it ain't no lyin' in a big war to say you ain't got noterbacker, when them that's achin' for it are standin' by, ready to grabit. If you had a big diamond hid about you, an' a robber was to ask youif you had it, you'd tell him no, of course."
"I think," said Dick, "that you must be from Kentucky. You've got ouraccent."
"I shorely am, an' I'm a longer way from it than I like. I noticed fromthe first that you talked like me, which is powerful flatterin' to you.Ain't you one of my
brethren that the evil witches have made take upwith the Yankees?"
"I'm from the same state," replied Dick, who saw no reason to concealhis identity. "My name is Richard Mason, and I'm an aide on the staff ofColonel Arthur Winchester, who commands a Kentucky regiment in GeneralGrant's army."
"I've heard of Colonel Winchester. The same that got a part of hisregiment cut up so bad by Forrest."
"Yes, we did get cut up. I was there," confessed Dick a littlereluctantly.
"Don't feel bad about it. It's likely to happen to any of you whenForrest is around. Now, since you've introduced yourself so nice I'llintroduce myself. I'm Sergeant Robertson, in the Orphan Brigade. It's aKentucky brigade, an' it gets its nickname 'cause it's made up of boysso young that they call me gran'pa, though I'm only forty-four. Theseother three are Bridge, Perkins, and Connor, just plain privates."
The three "just plain privates" grinned.
"What are you going to do with me?" asked Dick.
"We're goin' to give you a pleasant little ride. We killed your hoss,for which I 'pologize again, but I've got a good one of my own, andyou'll jump up behind me."
A sudden spatter of rifle fire came from the direction of the Northernpickets.
"Them sentinels of yours have funny habits," said Robertson grinning."Just bound to hear their guns go off. They're changin' the guard now."
"How do you know that?" asked Dick.
"Oh, I know a heap. I'm a terrible wise man, but bein' so wise I don'ttell all I know or how I happen to know it. Hop up, sonny."
"Don't you think I'll be a lot of trouble to you," said Dick, "ridingbehind you thirty or forty miles to your camp?"
The four men exchanged glances, and no one answered. The boy felt asudden chill, and his hair prickled at the roots. He did not know whathad caused it, but surely it was a sign of some danger.
The night deepened steadily as they were talking. The twilight had gonelong since. The last afterglow had faded. The darkness was heavy withwarmth. The thick foliage of spring rustled gently. Dick's sensationthat something unusual was happening did not depart.
The four men, after looking at one another, looked fixedly at Dick.
"Sonny," said Robertson, "you ain't got no call to worry 'bout ourtroubles. As I said, this is a good, strong hoss of mine, an' it willcarry us just as far as we go an' no further."
It was an enigmatical reply, and Dick saw that it was useless to askthem questions. Robertson mounted, and Dick, without another word,sprang up behind him. Two of the privates rode up close, one on eitherside, and the other kept immediately behind. He happened to glance backand he saw that the man held a drawn pistol on his thigh. He wondered atsuch extreme precautions, and the ominous feeling increased.
"Now, lads," said Robertson to his men, "don't make no more noise thanyou can help. There ain't much chance that any Yankee scoutin' partywill be out, but if there should be one we don't want to run into it.An' as for you, Mr. Mason, you're a nice boy. We all can see that, butjust as shore as you let go with a yell or anything like it at any timeor under any circumstances, you'll be dead the next second."
A sudden fierce note rang in his voice, and Dick, despite all hiscourage, shuddered. He felt as if a nameless terror all at oncethreatened not only him, but others. His lips and mouth were dry.
Robertson spoke softly to his horse, and then rode slowly forwardthrough the deep forest. The others rode with him, never breaking theircompact formation, and preserving the utmost silence. Dick did not askanother question. Talk and fellowship were over. Everything before himnow was grim and menacing.
The dense woods and the darkness hid them so securely that they couldnot have been seen twenty yards away, but the men rode on at a surepace, as if they knew the ground well. The silence was deep and intense,save for the footsteps of the horses and now and then a night bird inthe tall trees calling.
Before they had gone far a man stepped from a thicket and held up arifle.
"Four men from the Orphan Brigade with a prisoner," said Robertson.
"Advance with the prisoner," said the picket, and the four men rodeforward. Dick saw to both left and right other pickets, all in the grayuniform of the South, and his heart grew cold within him. The hair onhis head prickled again at its roots, and it was a dreadful sensation.What did it mean? Why these Southern pickets within cannon shot of theNorthern lines?
The men rode slowly on. They were in the deep forest, but the youngprisoner began to see many things under the leafy canopy. On his rightthe dim, shadowy forms of hundreds of men lay sleeping on the grass. Onhis left was a massed battery of great guns, eight in number.
Further and further they went, and there were soldiers and cannoneverywhere, but not a fire. There was no bed of coals, not a singletorch gleamed anywhere. Not all the soldiers were sleeping, but thosewho were awake never spoke. Silence and darkness brooded over a greatarmy in gray. It was as if they marched among forty thousand phantoms,row on row.
The whole appalling truth burst in an instant upon the boy. The Southernarmy, which they had supposed was at Corinth, lay in the deep woodswithin cannon shot of its foe, and not a soul in all Grant's thousandsknew of its presence there! And Buell was still far away! It seemed toDick that for a little space his heart stopped beating. He foresaw itall, the terrible hammer-stroke at dawn, the rush of the fiery Southupon her unsuspecting foe, and the cutting down of brigades, beforesleep was gone from their eyes.
Not in vain had the South boasted that Johnston was a great general. Hehad not been daunted by Donelson. While his foe rested on his victoryand took his ease, he was here with a new army, ready to strike theunwary. Dick shivered suddenly, and, with a violent impulse, clutchedthe waist of the man in front of him. It may have been some sort ofphysical telepathy, but Robertson understood. He turned his head andsaid in a whisper:
"You're right. The whole Southern army is here in the woods, an' we'drather lose a brigade tonight than let you escape."
Dick felt a thrill of the most acute agony. If he could only escape!There must be some way! If he could but find one! His single word wouldsave the lives of thousands and prevent irreparable defeat! Again heclutched the waist of the man in front of him and again the man divined.
"It ain't no use," he said, although his tone was gentle, and in a waysympathetic. "After all, it's your own fault. You blundered right in ourway, an' we had to take you for fear you'd see us, an' give the alarm.It was your unlucky chance. You'd give a million dollars if you hadit to slip out of our hands and tell Ulysses Grant that Albert SidneyJohnston with his whole army is layin' in the woods right alongside ofhim, ready to jump on his back at dawn, an' he not knowin' it."
"I would," said Dick fervently.
"An' so would I if I was in your place. Just think, Mr. Mason, that ofall the hundreds of thousands of men in the Northern armies, of all thetwenty or twenty-five million people on the Northern side, there's justone, that one a boy, and that boy you, who knows that Albert SidneyJohnston is here."
"Held fast as I am, I'm sorry now that I do know it."
"I can't say that I blame you. I said you'd give a million dollars to beable to tell, but if you're to measure such things with money it wouldbe worth a hundred million an' more, yes, it would be cheap at threeor four hundred millions for the North to know it. But, after all, youcan't measure such things with money. Maybe you think I talk a heap, butI'm stirred some, too."
They rode on a little farther over the hilly ground, covered with thickforest or dense, tall scrub. But there were troops, troops, everywhere,and now and then the batteries. They were mostly boys, like theirantagonists of the North, and the sleep of most of them was the sleepof exhaustion, after a forced and rapid march over heavy ground fromCorinth. But Dick knew that they would be fresh in the morning when theyrose from the forest, and rushed upon their unwarned foe.