The Star of Gettysburg: A Story of Southern High TideAltsheler, Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander)
History
The Star of Gettysburg: A Story of Southern High Tide
Altsheler, Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander)
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Juvenile fiction
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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