The Shades of the Wilderness: A Story of Lee's Great StandAltsheler, Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander)
History
The Shades of the Wilderness: A Story of Lee's Great Stand
Altsheler, Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander)
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Juvenile fiction
"That bein' settled," said Jones, "what do you gen'rals reckon to do
jest now, after havin' finished your big sleep?"
"Your wagon is about to lose the first two passengers it has ever
carried," replied Harry. "Orderlies have our horses somewhere. We
belong on the staff of General Lee."
"An' you see him an' hear him talk every day? Some people are pow'ful
lucky. I guess you'll say a lot about it when you're old men."
"We're going to say a lot about it while we're young men. Good-by, Mr.
Jones. We've been in some good hotels, but we never slept better in
any of them than we have in this moving one of yours."
"Good-by, you're always welcome to it. I think Marse Bob is on ahead."
The two left the wagon and took to a path beside the road, which was
muddy and rutted deeply by innumerable hoofs and wheels. But grass and
foliage were now dry after the heavy rains that followed the Battle of
Gettysburg, and the sun was shining in late splendor. The army, taking
the lack of pursuit and attack as proof that the enemy had suffered as
much as they, if not more, was in good spirits, and many of the men
sang their marching songs. A band ahead of them suddenly began to play
mellow music, "Partant Pour La Syrie," and other old French songs. The
airs became gay, festive, uplifting to the soul, and they tickled the
feet of the young men.
"The Cajun band!" exclaimed Harry. "It never occurred to me that they
weren't all dead, and here they are, playing us into happiness!"
"And the Invincibles, or what's left of them, won't be far away," said
Dalton.
They walked on a little more briskly and beside them the vast length of
the unsuccessful army still trailed its slow way back into the South.
The sun was setting in uncommon magnificence, clothing everything in a
shower of gold, through which the lilting notes of the music came to
Harry and Dalton's ears. Presently the two saw them, the short, dark
men from far Louisiana, not so many as they had been, but playing with
all the fervor of old, putting their Latin souls into their music.
"And there are the Invincibles just ahead of them!" exclaimed Dalton.
"The two colonels have left the wagon and are riding with their men.
See, how erect they sit."
"I do see them, and they're a good sight to see," said Harry. "I hope
they'll live to finish that chess game."
"And fifty years afterward, too."
A shout of joy burst from the road, and a tall young man, slender, dark
and handsome, rushed out, and, seizing the hands of first one and then
the other, shook them eagerly, his dark eyes glittering with happy
surprise.
"Kenton! Dalton!" he exclaimed. "Both alive! Both well!"
It was young Julien de Langeais, the kinsman of Lieutenant-Colonel
Hector St. Hilaire, and he too was unhurt. The lads returned his grasp
warmly. They could not have kept from liking him had they tried, and
they certainly did not wish to try.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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