The Sword of Antietam: A Story of the Nation's CrisisAltsheler, Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander)
History
The Sword of Antietam: A Story of the Nation's Crisis
Altsheler, Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander)
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Juvenile fiction
“An' I don't, either, so I guess it's hoss an' hoss with you an' me.
But, sonny, I'll bet you a cracker ag'in a barrel of beef that none of
them that did start the rumpus are a-layin' on this field to-night. What
kind of lookin' feller did you say your young friend was?”
“Very tall, very thin, and about my age or perhaps a year or two older.”
“Take a good look, an' see if this ain't him.”
He held up the lantern and the beams fell upon a long figure half
raised upon an elbow. The figure was turned toward the light and stared
unknowing at Dick and the Southerner. There was a great clot of blood
upon his right breast and shoulder, but it was Warner. Dick swallowed
hard.
“Yes,” he said, “it's my comrade, but he's hurt badly.”
“So bad that he don't know you or anybody else. He's clean out of his
head.”
They leaned over him, and Dick called:
“George! George! It's Dick Mason, your comrade, come to help you back to
camp!”
But Warner merely stared with feverish, unseeing eyes.
“He's out of his head, as I told you, an' he's like to be for many
hours,” said the lantern bearer. “It's a shore thing that I won't shoot
him to-morrow, nor he won't shoot me.”
He leaned over Warner and carefully examined the wound.
“He's lucky, after all,” he said, “the bullet went in just under the
right shoulder, but it curved, as bullets have a way of doin' sometimes,
an' has come out on the side. There ain't no lead in him now, which is
good. He was pow'ful lucky, too, in not bein' hit in the head, 'cause he
ain't got no such skull as Sam has, not within a mile of it. His skull
wouldn't have turned no bullet. He has lost a power of blood, but if you
kin get him back to camp, an' use the med'cines which you Yanks have in
such lots an' which we haven't, he may get well.”
“That's good advice,” said Dick. “Help me up with him.”
“Take him on your back. That's the best way to carry a sick man.”
He set down his lantern, took up Warner bodily and put him on Dick's
back.
“I guess you can carry him all right,” he said. “I'd light you with the
lantern a piece of the way, but I've been out here long enough. Marse
Bob an' old Stonewall will get tired waitin' fur me to tell 'em how to
end this war in a month.”
Dick, holding Warner in place with one hand, held out the other, and
said:
“You're a white man, through and through, Johnny Reb. Shake!”
“So are you, Yank. There's nothin' wrong with you 'cept that you
happened to get on the wrong side, an' I don't hold that ag'in you. I
guess it was an innercent mistake.”
“Good-bye.”
“Good-bye. Keep straight ahead an' you'll strike that camp of yourn that
we're goin' to take in the mornin'. Gosh, how it rains!”
Dick retained his idea of direction, and he walked straight through the
darkness toward the Northern camp. George was a heavy load, but he did
not struggle. His head sank down against his comrade's and Dick felt
that it was burning with fever.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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