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
It was nearly morning when the march ceased, and officers and troops,
save those on guard, lay down in the forest for rest. Harry, a
seasoned veteran, could sleep under any conditions and with a blanket
over him and a saddle for a pillow closed his eyes almost immediately.
Lee and his older aides, Taylor and Peyton and Marshall, slept also.
Around them the brigades, too, lay sleeping.
A while before dawn a large man in Confederate uniform, using the soft,
lingering speech of the South, appeared almost in the center of the
army of Northern Virginia. He knew all the pass words and told the
officers commanding the watch that the wing under Ewell was advancing
more rapidly than any of the others. Inside the line he could go about
almost as he chose, and one could see little of him, save that he was
large of figure and deeply tanned, like all the rest.
He approached the little opening in which Lee and his staff lay,
although he kept back from the sentinels who watched over the sleeping
leader. But Shepard knew that it was the great Confederate chieftain
who lay in the shadow of the oak and he could identify him by the
glances of the sentinels so often directed toward the figure.
There were wild thoughts for a moment or two in the mind of Shepard. A
single bullet fired by an unerring hand would take from the Confederacy
its arm and brain, and then what happened to himself afterward would
not matter at all. And the war would be over in a month or two. But
he put the thought fiercely from him. A spy he was and in his heart
proud of his calling, but no such secret bullet could be fired by him.
He turned away from the little opening, wandered an hour through the
camp and then, diving into the deep bushes, vanished like a shadow
through the Confederate lines, and was gone to Grant to report that
Lee's army was advancing swiftly to attack, and that the command of
Ewell would come in touch with him first.
Not long after dawn Harry was again on the march, riding behind his
general. From time to time Lee sent messengers to the various
divisions of his army, four in number, commanded by Longstreet, Early,
Hill and Stuart, the front or Stuart's composed of cavalry. Harry's
own time came, when he received a dispatch of the utmost importance to
take to Ewell. He memorized it first, and, if capture seemed probable,
he was to tear it into bits and throw it away. Harry was glad he was
to go to Ewell. In the great campaign in the valley he had been second
to Jackson, his right arm, as Jackson had been Lee's right arm. Ewell
had lost a leg since then, and his soldiers had to strap him in the
saddle when he led them into battle, but he was as daring and cheerful
as ever, trusted implicitly by Lee.
Harry with a salute to his chief rode away. Part of the country was
familiar to him and in addition his directions were so explicit that he
could not miss the way.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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