The Star of Gettysburg: A Story of Southern High Tide

Mail forwarded from Richmond was distributed in the camp the next day and Harry was in the multitude gathered about the officers distributing it. The delivery of the mail was always a stirring event in either army, and as the war rolled on it steadily increased in importance.

There were men in this very group who had not heard from home since they left it two years before, and there were letters for men who would never receive them. The letters were being given out at various points, but where Harry stood a major was calling them in a loud, clear voice.

"John Escombe, Field's brigade."

Escombe, deeply tanned and twenty-two, ran forward and received a thick letter addressed in a woman's handwriting, that of his mother, and, amid cheering at his luck, disappeared in the crowd.

"Thomas Anderson, Gregg's brigade. Girl's handwriting, too. Lucky boy, Tom."

"Hey, Tom, open it and show it to us! Maybe her picture's inside it! I'll bet she's got red hair!"

But Tom fled, blushing, and opened his letter when he was at a safe distance.

"Carlton Ives, Thomas' brigade."

"In hospital, Major, but I'll take the letter to him. He's in my company."

"Stephen Brayton, Lane's brigade."

There was a silence for a moment, and then some one said:

"Dead, at Antietam, sir."

The major put the letter on one side, and called:

"Thomas Langdon, the Invincibles."

Langdon darted forward and seized his letter.

"It's from my father," he said as he glanced at the superscription, although it was half hidden from him by a mist that suddenly appeared before his eyes.

"Here, Tom, stand behind us and read it," said Harry, who was waiting in an anxiety that was positively painful for a letter to himself.

"Henry Lawton, Pender's brigade," called the major. "This is from a girl, too, and there is a photograph inside. I can feel it. Wish I could get such a letter myself, Henry."

Lawton, his letter in his hand, retreated rapidly amid envious cheers.

"Charles Carson, Lane's brigade."

"Dead at Fredericksburg, sir; I helped to bury him."

"Thomas Carstairs, Field's brigade."

"Killed at the Second Manassas, sir."

"Richard Graves, Archer's brigade."

"Died in hospital after Antietam, sir."

"David Moulton, Field's brigade."

"Killed nearly a year ago, in the valley, sir."

"William Fitzpatrick, Lane's brigade."

"Taken prisoner at Antietam. Not yet exchanged, sir."

"Herbert Jones, Pender's brigade."

"Killed at South Mountain, sir."

Harry felt a little shiver. The list of those who would never receive their letters was growing too long. But this delivery of the mail seemed to run in streaks. Presently it found a streak of the living. It was a great mail that came that day, the largest the army had yet received, but the crowd, hungry for a word from home, did not seem to diminish. The ring continually pressed a little closer.

St. Clair received two letters, and, a long while afterwards, there was one for Dalton, who, however, had not been so long a time without news, as the battlefield was his own state, Virginia. Harry watched them with an envy that he tried to keep down, and after a while he saw that the heap of letters was becoming very small.

His anxiety became so painful that it was hard to bear. He knew that his father had been in the thick of the great battle at Stone River, but not a word from him or about him had ever come. No news in this case was bad news. If he were alive he would certainly write, and there was Confederate communication between Eastern Tennessee and Northern Virginia.

It was thus with a sinking heart that he watched the diminishing heap. Many of the disappointed ones had already gone away, hopeless, and Harry felt like following them, but the major picked up a thick letter in a coarse brown envelope and called:

"Lieutenant Henry Kenton, staff of Lieutenant-General Thomas Jonathan Jackson."

Harry sprang forward and seized his letter. Then he found a place behind a big tree, where St. Clair, Langdon and Dalton were reading theirs, and opened it. He had already seen that the address was in his father's handwriting and he believed that he was alive. The letter must have been written after the battle of Stone River or it would have arrived earlier. He took a hurried glance at the date and saw that it was near the close of January, at least three weeks after the battle. Then all apprehension was gone.

It was a long letter, dated from headquarters near Chattanooga, Tennessee. Colonel Kenton had just heard of the battle of Fredericksburg and he was rejoicing in the glorious victory. He hoped and believed that his son had passed through it safely. The Southern army had not been so successful in the west as in the east, but he believed that they had met tougher antagonists there, the men of the west and northwest, used to all kinds of hardships, and, alas! their own Kentuckians. At both Perryville and Stone River they had routed the antagonists who met them first, but they had been stopped by their own brethren.

Harry smiled and murmured to himself:

"You can never put down dad's state pride. With him the Kentuckians are always first."

He had a good deal of this state pride himself, although in a less accentuated form, and, after the momentary thought, he went on. The colonel was looking for a letter from his son—Harry had written twice since Fredericksburg, and he knew now that the letters would arrive safely. He himself had been wounded slightly in a skirmish just after Stone River, but he was now entirely well. The Southern forces were gathering and General Bragg would have a great army with which they were confident of winning a victory like that of the Second Manassas or Fredericksburg. He was glad that his son was on the staff of so great a genius as General Jackson and that he was also under the command of that other great genius, Lee.

Harry stopped reading for a moment or two and smiled with satisfaction. The impression that Lee and Jackson had made upon the South was as great in the west as in the east. The hero-worship which the fiery and impressionable South gives in such unstinted measure to these two men had begun already. Harry was glad that his father recognized the great Virginians so fully, men who allied with genius temperate and lofty lives.

He resumed his reading, but the remainder of the letter was occupied with personal details. The colonel closed with some good advice to his son about caring for himself on the march and in camp, drawn from his own experience both in the Mexican war and the present strife.

Harry read his letter three times. Then he folded it carefully and put it in an inside pocket of his tunic.

"Is it good news, Harry?" asked Happy Tom, who had already finished with his own letter.

"Yes, it's cheerful."

"So's mine. I'm glad to hear that your father's all right. Mine didn't go to the war. I wish you could meet my father, Harry. I get my cheerful disposition and my good manners from him. When the war was about to begin and I went over to Charleston in about the most splendid uniform that was ever created, he said: 'You fellows will get licked like thunder, and maybe you'll deserve it. As for you, you'll probably get a part of your fool head shot off, but it's so thick and hard that it will be a benefit to you to lose some of it and have the rest opened up. But remember, Tom, whenever you do come back, no matter how many legs and arms and portions of your head you've left behind, there'll be a welcome in the old house for you. You're the fatted calf, but you're sure to come back a lot leaner and maybe with more sense.'"

"He certainly talked to you straight."

"So he did, Harry; but those words were not nearly so rough as they sound, because when I came away I saw tears in his eyes. Father's a smart man, a money-maker as good as the Yankees themselves. He's got sea island cotton in warehouses in more than one place along the coast, and he writes me that he's already selling it to the blockade runners for unmentionable prices in British and French gold. Harry, if your fortunes are broken up by the war, you and your father will have to come down and share with us."

"Thanks for your invitation, Tom; but from what you say about your father we'd be about as welcome as a bear in a kitchen."

"Don't you believe it. You come."

"Arthur, what do you hear?" asked Harry.

"My people are well and they're sending me a lot of things. My mother has put in the pack a brand new uniform. She sewed on the gold lace herself. I hope the next battle won't be fought before it gets here."

"Impossible," said Harry gravely. "General Hooker is too polite a man to push us before Lieutenant St. Clair receives his new clothes."

"I hope so," said St. Clair seriously.

The new uniform, in fact, came a few days later, and as it even exceeded its promise, St. Clair was thoroughly happy. Harry also received a second letter from Colonel Kenton, telling of the receipt of his own, and wishing him equally good fortune in the new battle which they in the west heard was impending in the east.

Harry believed they would surely close with Hooker soon. They had been along the Rappahannock for many weeks now, and the winter of cold rain had not yet broken up, but spring could not be far away. Meanwhile he was drawn closer than ever to Jackson, his great commander, and was almost constantly in his service.

It was, perhaps, the difference in their natures that made the hero-worship in the boy so strong. Jackson was quiet, reserved and deeply religious. Harry was impulsive, physically restless, and now and then talkative, as the young almost always are. Jackson's impassive face and the few words—but always to the point—that he spoke, impressed him. In his opinion now Stonewall Jackson could do no wrong nor make any mistake of judgment.

The months had not been unpleasant. The Southern army was recuperating from great battles, and, used to farm or forest life, the soldiers easily made shelter for themselves against the rain and mud. The Southern pickets along the river also established good relations with the pickets on the other side. Why not? They were of the same blood and the same nation. There was no battle now, and what was the use of sneaking around like an Indian, trying to kill somebody who was doing you no harm? That was assassination, not war.

The officers winked at this borderline friendship. A Yankee picket in a boat near the left shore could knot a newspaper into a tight wad and throw it to the Johnny Reb picket in another boat near the right bank, and there were strong-armed Johnny Reb pickets who could throw a hunk of chewing tobacco all the way to the Yankee side. Already they were sowing the seeds of a good will which should follow a mighty war.

Harry often went to the bank on the warmer and more sunny days and leisurely watched the men on the other side. St. Clair, Langdon and Dalton usually joined him, if their duties allowed. It was well into March, a dry and warm day, when they sat on a little hillock and gazed at four of the men in blue who were fishing from a small boat near their shore. St. Clair was the last to join the little party, and when he came he was greeted with a yell by the men on the left bank. One of them put up his hands, trumpet-shaped, to his mouth and called:

"Is that President Davis who has just joined you?"

"No," replied Harry, using his hands in like fashion. "What makes you think so?"

"Because Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like him. I've got to put my hands over my eyes to protect them from the blaze of that uniform."

St. Clair, who wore his new uniform, which was modelled somewhat after the brilliant fashion of Stuart's, smiled with content. He was making a great hit.

"You can do all the talking, Harry," he said.

"As I told you, he isn't President Davis," Harry called, "but he's sure, when he's old enough, to be one of his successors."

"Bet you a dollar, Johnny Reb, that President Davis has no successor."

"Take you, Yank, and I'll collect that bet from you when I ride down Pennsylvania Avenue in my Confederate uniform at the head of the Army of Northern Virginia."

"Oh, no, you won't; you'll pay it to me before the State House in Richmond, with the Army of the Potomac looking on and the Stars and Stripes waving gracefully over your head."

"Both of you are betting on things too far off," said Langdon, who could keep out of the conversation no longer. "I'll bet you two dollars that not one of those four men in the boat catches a fish inside of ten minutes."

"In Confederate bills or in money?" was called back.

Roars of laughter, from both sides of the Rappahannock, crossed one another above the middle of the stream.

"What's this?" exclaimed a sharp voice behind the four. "Conversation with the enemy! It's against all the rules of war!"

They looked around and saw Bertrand, his face flushed and his eyes sparkling. Harry leaned back lazily, but St. Clair spoke up quickly.

"We've been having conversations off and on with the enemy for two years," he said. "We've had some mighty hot talks with bullets and cannon balls, and some not so hot with words. Just now we were having one of the class labelled 'not so hot.'"

"What's the matter with you Johnnies?" was called across. "You've broken off the talk just when it was getting interesting. Are you going to back out on that bet? We thought you had better manners. We know you have."

"You're right, we have," said St. Clair, shouting across the stream, "but we were interrupted by a man who hasn't."

"Oh, is that so?" was called back. "If you've troubles of your own, we won't interfere. We'll just look on."

Bertrand was pallid with rage.

"I'm a captain in the Invincibles, Mr. St. Clair," he said, "and you're only a lieutenant. You'll return to your regiment at once and prepare a written apology to me for the words that you've just used to those Yankees."

"Oh, no, I won't do either," drawled St. Clair purposely. "It is true that a captain outranks a lieutenant, but you're a company commander and I'm a staff officer. I take no orders from you."

"Nevertheless you have insulted me, and there is another and perhaps better way to settle it."

He significantly touched the hilt of his sword.

"Oh, if you mean a duel, it suits me well enough," said St. Clair, who was an expert with the sword.

"Early to-morrow morning in the woods back of this point?"

"Suits me."

"Your seconds?"

Then Harry jumped to his feet in a mighty wrath and indignation.

"There won't be any duel! And there won't be any seconds!" he exclaimed.

"Why not?" asked Bertrand, his face livid.

"Because I won't allow it."

"How can you help it?"

"It's a piece of thunderation foolishness! Two good Southern soldiers trying to kill each other, when they've sworn to use all their efforts killing Yankees. It's a breach of faith and it's silliness on its own account. You've received the hospitality of my father's house, Captain Bertrand, and he's helped you and been kind to you elsewhere. You owe me enough at least to listen to me. Unless I get the promise of you two to drop this matter, I swear I'll go straight to General Jackson and tell all about it. He'll save you the trouble of shooting each other. He'll have you shot together. You needn't frown, either of you. It's not much fun breaking the rules of a Presbyterian elder who is also one of the greatest generals the world has ever seen."

"You're talking sound sense, Harry," said Happy Tom, an unexpected ally. "I've several objections to this duel myself. We'll need both of these men for the great battle with Hooker. Arthur would be sure to wear his new uniform, and a bullet hole through it would go far toward spoiling it. Besides, there's nothing to fight about. And if they did fight, I'd hate to see the survivor standing up before one of Old Jack's firing squads and then falling before it. You go to General Jackson, Harry, and I'll go along with you, seconding every word you say. Shut up, Arthur; if you open your mouth again I'll roll you and your new uniform in the mud down there. You know I can do it."

"But such conduct would be unparalleled," said Bertrand.

"I don't care a whoop if it is," said Harry, who had been taught by his father to look upon the duel as a wicked proceeding. "General Jackson wouldn't tolerate such a thing, and in his command what he says is the Ten Commandments. Isn't that so, Dalton?"

"Undoubtedly, and you can depend upon me as a third to you and Happy Tom."

"Now, Captain," continued Harry soothingly, "just forget this, won't you? Both of you are from South Carolina and you ought to be good friends."

"So far as I'm concerned, it's finished," said St. Clair.

But Bertrand turned upon his heel without a word and walked away.

"Hey, there, you Johnnies!" came a loud hail from the other side of the river. "What's the matter with your friend who's just gone away? I was watching with glasses, and he didn't look happy."

"He had a nightmare and he hasn't fully recovered from it yet."

There was a sudden tremendous burst of cheering behind them.

"On your feet, boys!" exclaimed Happy Tom, glancing back. "Here comes Old Jack on one of his tours of inspection."

Jackson was riding slowly along near the edge of the river. He could never appear without rolling cheers from the thirty thousand veteran troops who were eager to follow wherever he led. The mighty cheering swept back and forth in volumes, and when a lull came, one among their friends, the Yankee pickets on the other side of the river, called at the top of his voice:

"Hey, Johnnies, what's the racket about?"

"It's Stonewall Jackson!" Harry roared back, pointing to the figure on the horse.

Then, to the amazement of all, a sudden burst of cheering came from the far bank of the Rappahannock, followed by the words, shouted in chorus: "Hurrah for Stonewall Jackson! Hurrah for Jackson!" Thus did the gallant Northern troops show their admiration for their great enemy whose genius had defeated them so often. Some riflemen among them lying among the bushes at the water's edge might have picked him off, but no such thought entered the mind of anyone.

Jackson flushed at the compliment from the foe, but rode quietly on, until he disappeared among some woods on the left.

"We'd better be going back to headquarters," said Harry to Dalton. "It'll be wise for us to be there when the general arrives."

"That's right, lazy little boys," said Happy Tom. "Wash your faces, run to school, and be all bright and clean when teacher comes."

"It's what we mean to do," said Harry, "and if Arthur says anything more about this silly dueling business, send for us. We'll come back, and we three together will pound his foolish head so hard that he won't be able to think about anything at all for a year to come."

"I'll behave," said St. Clair, "but you fellows look to Bertrand."

Dalton and Harry walked to the headquarters of their general, who now occupied what had been a hunting lodge standing in the grounds of a large mansion. The whole place, the property of an orderly in his service, had been offered to him, but he would only take the hunting lodge, saying that he would not clutter up so fine and large a house.

Now Harry and Dalton walked across the lawn, which was beginning to turn green, and paused for a little while under the budding boughs of the great trees. The general had not yet arrived, but the rolling cheers never ceasing, but coming nearer, indicated that he would soon be at hand.

"A man must feel tremendous pride when his very appearance draws such cheers from his men," said Harry.

The lawn was not cut up by the feet of horses—Jackson would not allow it. Everything about the house and grounds was in the neatest order. Beside the hunting lodge stood a great tent, in which his staff messed.

"Were you here the day General Jackson came to these quarters, Harry?" asked Dalton.

"No, I was in service at the bank of the river, carrying some message or other. I've forgotten what it was."

"Well, I was. We didn't know where we were going to stay, and a lady came from the big house here down to the edge of the woods, where we were still sitting on our horses. 'Is this General Jackson?' asked she. 'It is, madame,' he replied, lifting his hat politely. 'My husband owns this house,' she said, pointing toward it, 'and we will feel honored and glad if you will occupy it as your headquarters while you are here.' He thanked her and said he'd ride forward with a cavalry orderly and inspect the place. The rest of us waited while he and the orderly rode into the grounds, the lady going on ahead.

"The general wouldn't take the house. He said he didn't like to see so fine a place trodden up by young men in muddy military boots. Besides, he and his staff would disturb the inmates, and he didn't want that to happen. At last he picked the hunting lodge, and as he and the orderly rode back through the gate to the grounds, the orderly said: 'General, do you feel wholly pleased with what you have chosen?' 'It suits me entirely,' replied General Jackson. 'I'm going to make my headquarters in that hunting lodge.' 'I'm very glad of that, sir, very glad indeed.' 'Why?' asked General Jackson. 'Because it's my house,' replied the orderly, 'and my wife and I would have felt greatly disappointed if you had gone elsewhere.'"

"And so all this splendid place belongs to an orderly?" said Harry.

"Funny you didn't hear that story," said Dalton. "Most of us have, but I suppose everybody took it for granted that you knew it. As you say, that grand place belongs to one of our orderlies. After all, we're a citizen army, just as the great Roman armies when they were at their greatest were citizen armies, too."

"Ah, here comes the general now," said Harry, "and he looks embarrassed, as he always does after so much cheering. A stranger would think from the way he acts that he's the least conspicuous of our generals, and if you read the reports of his victories you'd think that he had less than anybody else to do with them."

General Jackson, followed by an orderly, cantered up. The orderly took the horse and the general went into the house, followed by the two young staff officers. They knew that he was likely to plunge at once into work, and were ready to do any service he needed.

"I don't think I'll want you boys," said the general in his usual kindly tone, "at least not for some time. So you can go out and enjoy the sunshine and warmth, of which we have had so little for a long time."

"Thank you, sir," said Harry, but he added hastily:

"Here come some officers, sir."

Jackson glanced through the window of the hunting lodge and caught sight of a waving plume, just as its wearer passed through the gate.

"That's Stuart," he said, with an attempt at severity in his tone, although his smiling eye belied it. "I suppose I might as well defer my work if Jeb Stuart is coming to see me. Stay with me, lads, and help me to entertain him. You know Stuart is nothing but a joyous boy—younger than either of you, although he is one of the greatest cavalry leaders of modern times."

Harry and Dalton were more than willing to remain. Everybody was always glad when Jeb Stuart came. Now he was in his finest mood, and he and the two staff officers with him rode at a canter. They leaped from their horses at Jackson's door, throwing the reins over their necks and leaving them to the orderly. Then they entered boldly, Stuart leading. He was the only man in the whole Southern army who took liberties with Jackson, although his liberties were always of the inoffensive kind.

If St. Clair was gorgeous in his new clothes, he would have been pale beside Stuart, who also had new raiment. A most magnificent feather looped and draped about his gold-braided hat. His uniform, of the finest cloth, was heavy with gold braid and gold epaulets, and the great yellow silk sash about his waist supported his gold-hilted sword.

"What new and splendid species of bird is this?" asked General Jackson, as Stuart and his men saluted. "I have never before seen such grand plumage."

Stuart complacently stroked the gold braid on his left sleeve and looked about the hunting lodge, the walls of which had been decorated accordingly long since by its owner.