The Scouts of Stonewall: The Story of the Great Valley CampaignAltsheler, Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander)
History
The Scouts of Stonewall: The Story of the Great Valley Campaign
Altsheler, Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander)
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Juvenile fiction
He found the chief, still sitting before one of the fires and reported
to him fully. Jackson listened without comment, but at the end he said
to two of the brigadiers who were sitting with him:
“We march again at earliest dawn. We will not wait for the wagons.”
Then he added to Harry:
“You've done good service. Join the sleepers, there.”
He pointed to a group of young officers rolled in their blankets, and
Harry obeyed quickly.
CHAPTER IV. WAR AND WAITING
Harry slept like one dead, but he was awakened at dawn, and he rose yet
heavy with sleep and somewhat stiff from the severe exertions of the day
before. But it all came back in an instant, the army, the march, and the
march yet to come.
They had but a scanty breakfast, the wagons not yet having come up,
and in a half hour they started again. They grumbled mightily at first,
because the day was bleak beyond words, heavy with clouds, and sharp
with chill. The country seemed deserted and certainly that somber air
was charged with no omens of victory.
But in spite of everything the spirits of the young troops began to
rise. They took a pride in this defiance of nature as well as man. They
could endure cold and hunger and weariness as they would endure battle,
when it came. They went on thus three days, almost without food and
shelter. Higher among the hills the snow sometimes beat upon them in a
hurricane, and at night the winds howled as if they had come down fresh
from the Arctic.
The spirits of the young troops, after rising, fell again, and their
feet dragged. Jackson, always watching, noticed it. Beckoning to several
of his staff, including Harry, he rode back along the lines, giving a
word of praise here and two words of rebuke there. They came at last
to an entire brigade, halted by the roadside, some of the men leaning
against an old rail fence.
Jackson looked at the men and his face darkened. It was his own
Stonewall Brigade, the one of which he was so proud, and which he had
led in person into the war. Their commander was standing beside a tree,
and riding up to him he demanded fiercely:
“What is the meaning of this? Why have you stopped?”
“I ordered a stop of a little while for the men to cook their rations,”
replied General Garnett.
Jackson's face darkened yet further, and the blue eyes were menacing.
“There is no time for that,” he said sharply.
“But the men can't go any farther without them. It's impossible.”
“I never found anything impossible with this brigade.”
Jackson shot forth the words as if they were so many bullets, gave
Garnett a scornful look and rode on. Harry followed him, as was his
duty, but more slowly, and looked back. He saw a deep red flush show
through Garnett's sunburn. But the preparations for cooking were stopped
abruptly. Within three minutes the Stonewall Brigade was in line again,
marching resolutely over the frozen road. Garnett had recognized that
the impossible was possible--at least where Jackson led.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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