Chapter V. Fredericksburg

The Star of Gettysburg

by Joseph A. Altsheler

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 he
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.