The Iron Game: A Tale of the WarKeenan, Henry F. (Henry Francis)
History
The Iron Game: A Tale of the War
Keenan, Henry F. (Henry Francis)
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Fiction
"At two o'clock on Sunday we would have cried quits to McDowell to hold
his ground and let us alone. But just as we were on our heel to turn,
Joe Johnston came piling in here, right where you see that gully yonder,
with ten thousand fresh men, and in twenty minutes we were three to one,
and then your folks had the worst of it. President Davis got off the
train at the junction yonder, and as he rode across this field, where we
are now, the woods yonder were full of our men, flying from the Henry
House Hill, where Sherman had cut General Bee's brigade to pieces and
was routing Jackson--'Stonewall,' we call him now, because General
Bonham, when he brought up the reserves, shouted, 'See, there, where
Jackson stands like a stone wall!' He's a college professor and very
pious; he makes his men pray before fighting, and has 'meetings' in the
commissary tent twice a week."
"Did Mr. Davis join in the battle?" Olympia asked, more to seem
interested in the garrulous warrior's narrative than because she really
had her mind on the story.
"Oh, dear, no. Old Johnston had finished the job before the President
(Olympia noticed that all Southerners dwelt upon this title with
complacent insistence) could reach the field. He was barely in time to
see the cavalry of 'Jeb' Stuart charge the regulars on the
Warrenton road."
The train came to a halt, and the young man said, cheerfully:
"Here we are. The hospital's still right smart over yonder in the
trees."
"But you will go with us, will you not?" Olympia asked in alarm, for it
was wearing toward night.
"Oh, yes; I'm detailed to remain with you until you have found out about
your kinsfolk."
In the mellow sunset the three women followed the orderly across the
fields strewed with armaments, supplies, and the rough depot
paraphernalia of an army at rest. The hospital consisted of a large tent
for the slightly hurt, and a few old buildings and a barn for the more
serious cases. The search was futile. There were two or three of the
Caribees in the place, but they knew nothing of their missing comrades.
Indeed, Jack's detail by Colonel Sherman had effectually cut off all
trace of his movements after the battle began.
Mrs. Sprague's tears were falling softly as the orderly led them to the
surgeon's office. They were there shown the records of all who had been
buried on the field. Many, he informed them, sympathetically, had been
buried where they fell, in great ditches dug by the sappers. In every
case the garments had been stripped from the bodies before burial, so
that there was absolutely no means of identification. Most of the
wounded had, however, been sent to Richmond with the prisoners. "It
would not do," he added, kindly, "to give up all hope of the lost ones,
until they had seen the roster of the prisoners and the wounded in the
Richmond prisons and hospitals."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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