XXVII
_AGATHA'S WONDER-STORY_
Agatha had been for more than a week at Baillie Pegram's bedside beforehe manifested any consciousness of her presence. But from the very firsther ministrations had seemed to soothe him.
Even when his fever brought active delirium with it, a word from hissoft-voiced French nurse quieted him, and each day showed less of feverand more of strength.
At last one day he lay quiet, and Agatha sat stitching at something nearthe foot of the bed. Her face was bent over her work, so that she didnot see when he opened his eyes and gazed steadily at her for a time.Not until she looked up, as she was accustomed watchfully to do everylittle while, did he fully recognise her. Then, in a feeble voice, hespoke her name--nothing more.
She gently readjusted his pillows, and he fell into a more naturalsleep than he had known since his relapse had befallen him.
When he waked again, Sam was sitting by, Agatha having left the room fora brief while.
"Who has been here, Sam?" the sick man asked.
"Nobody, Mas' Baillie, on'y de French lady what's a-nussin' of yo',"replied Sam, lying with the utmost equanimity, in accordance with whathe believed to be the spirit of his instructions.
"I dreamed it, then. Tell me where I am, Sam."
"I ain't Sam an' yo' ain't Mas' Baillie; I'se jes' _garshong_, an' yo'sea French gentleman, an' yo' cawn't talk nuffin' but French, an' so'tain't no use fer yo' to try to talk to me. Yo' mus' jes' go to sleep,now, an' when de French nuss comes back, yo' kin ax her in French likewhatsomever yo' wants to know."
Baillie's bewildered wits struggled for a moment with the problem of hisown identity, but before the French nurse returned he had fallen asleepagain. It was not until the next day, therefore, that he had opportunityto ask Agatha anything, but his fever had abated by that time, and hismind was rapidly clearing.
"Tell me about it all, please," he said to her.
"Sh--speak only in French," she replied, herself speaking in thattongue. "It is very necessary, and address me as Mademoiselle Roland."
Then she told him so much as was necessary to prevent him fromexercising his imagination in an exciting way. When she had explainedthat he was still in the house of the doctor who had aided him in hisescape, and that the pretence of his being a French gentleman and she aFrench nurse was necessary for safety, she added:
"I came to you when you were very ill and needed me, and I shall staywith you so long as you need me. You mustn't talk now. Wait a few days,and you will be strong enough."
The prediction was fulfilled, and a few days later Agatha told him thewhole story of her own and Sam's search for him, dwelling particularlyupon Sam's devotion and the ingenuity he had brought to bear upon theproblem of rescue. For at times when there was no possibility thatanybody should overhear, Agatha had made Sam tell her all the detailsof that affair, until she knew as well as he did every word he hadspoken and every step he had taken in the execution of his purpose.
Baillie's progress toward recovery was necessarily slow, but it wassteady and continuous, and after many weeks, when he was permitted tosit up for awhile each day, he begged to hear about the progress of thewar.
It was now September, 1862, and what she had to tell him was one of themost dramatic stories that the history of our American war has torelate.
McClellan had proved himself to be a great organiser and a masterfulengineer, and he had at last tried to prove himself to be also a greatgeneral.
He had so perfectly fortified the city of Washington that a brigade or adivision or two might easily hold it against the most determined hosts.He had organised the "regiments cowering upon the Potomac," and thescores of other regiments that had come pouring into the capital, intoone of the finest armies that had ever taken the field in anycountry in the world. He had multiplied his artillery, andswelled his cavalry force to proportions that rendered it numericallysuperior to Stuart's "Mamelukes." He had so perfected his supplydepartments--quartermaster's, commissary's, medical, and ordnance--thattheir work was accomplished with the precision, the certainty, and thesmoothness of well-ordered machinery.
He had brought under his immediate command a perfectly organised army,numbering nearly or quite two hundred thousand men.[1] The Confederateshad in Virginia about one-fourth that number available for the defenceof Richmond. Nor could this army of defence be reinforced from otherparts of the South, for during the long waiting-time in Virginia, eventsof the most vital importance had been occurring at the West. Chief ofthese in importance, though the government at Washington was slow torecognise the fact, was the discovery there of a really capablecommander--General Grant. He had captured Forts Henry and Donelson, thusgaining control of the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers, breaking theConfederate line of defence, and pushing the Southern armies completelyout of Kentucky, and almost out of Tennessee. He was preparing, whenMcClellan moved, to complete that part of his work by fighting thetremendous battle of Shiloh.
[Footnote 1: Rossiter Johnson, in his "History of the War of Secession,"says that 121,000 were sent to Fortress Monroe and seventy thousand leftat Washington, besides McDowell's corps and Bleuker's division.]
Thus the Confederates could not afford to draw so much as a singleregiment or battery from that field for the strengthening of Johnston'sforce in Virginia. Finally, early in March, Johnston had withdrawn fromCentreville and Manassas to the immediate neighbourhood of Richmond.
It was in such circumstances that McClellan at last undertook to use thegreat army he had created, for the purpose it was meant to accomplish.Early in the spring, he transferred 120,000 men by water to FortressMonroe, leaving seventy thousand at and near Washington, to hold thatcapital secure. Somewhat more than half of this force at Washington wasto advance upon Richmond by way of Fredericksburg, and add fortythousand men to McClellan's great army when he should sit down beforethe Confederate capital. He, meanwhile, was to march up the peninsulaformed by the York and James Rivers, supported by the navy on eitherside.
Richmond was seemingly doomed, and everywhere at the North theexpectation was that McClellan, with his overwhelming forces and hiswell-nigh perfect organisation, would make an end of the war before thefirst anniversary of the battle of Manassas.
If McClellan had been half as capable in the field as he had provedhimself to be in the work of organisation, this might easily havehappened. But he was cautious to a positively paralysing degree. It washis habit of mind to overestimate his enemy's strength to his ownundoing. Thus when he began his advance up the peninsula, with nearlysixty thousand men, to be almost immediately reinforced to one hundredthousand and more, he found a Confederate line stretched across thepeninsula at Yorktown. It consisted of thirteen thousand men underMagruder, and with his enormous superiority of numbers, McClellan mighthave run over it in a day, while with his transports, protected bygunboats, he might easily have carried his army by it on either side,compelling its retreat or surrender. But in his excessive caution heassumed that the entire Confederate force was concentrated there, andhis imagination doubled the strength of that force. He confidentlybelieved that the Yorktown lines were defended by an army of eightythousand or more, and instead of finding out the facts by an assault, hewasted nearly a month in scientifically besieging the little force ofthirteen thousand men, with an army six or eight times as great, and asiege train of enormous strength.
When at last he had pushed his siege parallels near enough for anassault, he found his enemy gone, and discovered that the great frowningcannon in their works were nothing more than wooden logs, painted black,and mounted like heavy guns.
The North had not yet found a general capable of commanding the superbarmy it had created, or of making effective use of those enormouslysuperior resources which from the beginning had been at its disposal.Grant had splendidly demonstrated his capacity at Shiloh, but Halleckhad immediately superseded him, and completely thrown away theopportunity there presented. Grant was still denied any but volunteerrank, and for many
weeks after Shiloh he was left, as he has himselfrecorded, with none but nominal command, and was not even consulted byhis immeasurably inferior superior.
McClellan at last reached the neighbourhood of Richmond, and placed hisgreat army on the eastern and northern fronts of the Confederatecapital. But still permitting his imagination to mislead him, heconfidently believed the Confederate forces to be quite twice asnumerous as they were in fact. So instead of pressing them vigorously,as a more enterprising and less excessively cautious commander wouldhave done, he proceeded to fortify and for weeks kept his splendid armyidle in a pestilential swamp, whose miasms were far deadlier thanbullets and shells could have been.
At the end of May the Confederates assailed his left wing, believingthat a flood in the river had isolated it from the rest of the army, anda bloody five days' battle ensued, with no decisive results, except todemonstrate the fighting quality of the troops under McClellan'scommand.
Still he hesitated and fortified, and urgently called forreinforcements. These to the number of forty thousand were on their wayto join him, marching directly southward from Washington.
But the Confederates had been more fortunate than their foes. They hadfound their great commander, a piece of good fortune which did nothappen to the Federal armies until nearly two years later. After thebattle of Seven Pines at the end of May and the beginning of June,Robert E. Lee assumed personal command of the forces defending Richmond,and from that hour the great game of war was played by him with asagacity and a boldness that had not been seen before.
Lee's problem was to drive McClellan's army away from Richmond, andtransfer the scene of active hostilities to some more distant point. Tothat end he must prevent the coming of McDowell with his army toMcClellan's assistance. Accordingly he ordered Jackson to sweep down theShenandoah valley, threatening an advance upon Washington in its rear,thus putting the Federals there upon their defence. He rightly believedthat the excessive concern felt at the North for the safety of thecapital would make Jackson's operations an occasion of great alarm.
The result was precisely what Lee had intended. Jackson swept like ahurricane through the valley, moving so rapidly and appearing sosuddenly at unexpected and widely separated points as to seem bothubiquitous and irresistible. The Federal army which was marching toreinforce McClellan was promptly turned aside and sent over themountains to meet and check Jackson. While it was hurrying westward,Jackson suddenly slipped out of the valley and carried his "footcavalry"--as his rapidly marching corps had come to be called--to theneighbourhood of Richmond, where Lee was ready to fall upon hisadversary in full force, striking his right flank like a thunderbolt,pushing into his rear, pressing him back in successive encounters,threatening his base of supplies on the York River, and finallycompelling him to retreat to the cover of his gunboats at Harrison'sLanding on the James.
All this constituted what is known as the "Seven Days' Battles." It wasa brilliant operation, attended at every step by heroic fighting on bothsides, and by consummate skill on both--for if Lee's successfuloperation for his enemy's dislodgment was good strategy, McClellan'ssuccessful withdrawal of his army from its imperilled position to onein which it could not be assailed, was scarcely less so.
But still more dramatic events were to follow. McClellan had been drivenaway from the immediate neighbourhood of the Confederate capital, buthis new position at Harrison's Landing was one from which he might atany moment advance again either upon Richmond or upon Petersburg, whichwas afterward proved to be the military key to the capital. His army wasstill numerically stronger than Lee's, and it might be reinforced at anytime, and to any desired extent, while Lee had already under his commandevery man that could be spared from other points. More important still,the fighting strength of McClellan's forces had been bettered by thebattling they had done. The men were inured to war work now, and hadimproved in steadiness and discipline under the tutelage of experience.
Except that its confidence in its general was somewhat impaired, theArmy of the Potomac was a stronger and more trustworthy war implementthan it had been at the beginning. So long as it should remain where itwas, Lee must keep the greater part of his own force in theintrenchments in front of Richmond, and the seat of war must remaindiscouragingly near the Confederate capital. In the meanwhile a newFederal force, called the Army of Virginia, had been sent out fromWashington under General John Pope, to assail Richmond from the northand west, while securely covering Washington. Pope's base was atManassas, and his army had been pushed forward to the line of theRappahannock, where there was no army to meet it and check its advanceupon Richmond.
Lee must act quickly. For should Pope come within striking-distance ofRichmond on the northwest, McClellan's army would very certainly advancefrom the east, and Richmond would be threatened by a stronger force thanever before.
But Lee could not move in adequate force to meet and check Pope'sadvance, without leaving Richmond undefended against any advance thatMcClellan might see fit to make. His perplexing problem was to compelthe withdrawal of McClellan, and the transfer of his army to Washington.
To effect this, Lee again played upon the nervous apprehension felt inWashington for the safety of that city. He detached Jackson, and senthim to the Rappahannock to threaten Pope, while remaining within reachof Richmond in case of need. This movement increased the apprehension inWashington, and a considerable part of McClellan's force was withdrawnby water. Thereupon Lee sent another corps to the Rappahannock, aproceeding which led to the withdrawal of pretty nearly all thatremained of McClellan's army, to reinforce Pope, and the abandonment ofthe campaign by way of the peninsula. Lee instantly transferred theremainder of his army to the Rappahannock, leaving only a small garrisonin the works at Richmond.
Pope was alert to meet Lee at every point, and he was being strengthenedby daily reinforcements from what had been McClellan's army. But inPope, with all his energy and dash and extraordinary self-confidence,the Federal government had not found a leader capable of playing thegreat war game on equal terms with Robert E. Lee. Grant and Sherman werestill in subordinate commands at the West, while Halleck, who believedin neither of them, had been brought to Washington and placed insupreme control of all the Union armies.
Lee quickly proved himself greatly more than a match for Pope in the artof war. Making a brave show of intending to force his way across theriver at a point where Pope could easily hold his own, Lee detachedJackson and sent him around Bull Run Mountains and through ThoroughfareGap to fall upon his adversary's base at Manassas. As soon as Jacksonwas well on his way, Lee sent other forces to join him, while stillkeeping up his pretence of a purpose to force a crossing.
It was not until the head of Jackson's column appeared near Manassasthat Pope suspected his adversary's purpose. He then hastily fell backfrom the river, and concentrated all his forces at Manassas, while Lee,with equal haste, moved, with the rest of his army, to join Jackson.
His strategy had completely succeeded, and he promptly assailed Pope,with his entire force, on the very field where the first great battle ofthe war had been fought, a little more than a year before.
Pope struggled desperately, but after two days of battle, he wascompletely beaten and forced to take refuge behind the defences ofWashington.
This was at the beginning of September, just three months after Lee hadtaken personal command of the Army of Northern Virginia. Within thatbrief time he had done things, the simplest statement of which readslike a wonder-story. At the beginning of June a Federal army of 120,000men lay almost within cannon-shot of the Confederate capital, whileanother Federal force about one-third as large was marching unopposed toform a junction with it, and still other Federal armies occupied thevalley and sent raiders at will throughout Northern Virginia. At thebeginning of September there remained no Federal army at all in Virginiato oppose Lee's will, whatever it might chance to be. McClellan with hisgrand army had been beaten in battle, and driven into a retreat whichended in his complete withdrawal, after a d
isastrous campaign, which atits beginning had seemed certain of success. Jackson had cleared thevalley of armies superior to his own in numbers. Pope had been outwittedin strategy, beaten in battle, and driven to cover at Washington.
That was the story that Agatha related to Baillie early in September,when he was fit to hear it. It stirred his blood with enthusiasm, andbred in him an eagerness almost dangerous, to be at the head of hisbattery again, and a sharer in this splendid work of war.
"Your story is not ended yet," he said, when Agatha had finished. "It is'to be continued,'--be very sure of that. Lee will not rest content withwhat he has done, marvellous as it is. He took the offensive as soon ashe had disposed of McClellan. He will surely not now assume thedefensive again, as our army did a year ago after the battle ofManassas. He is obviously made of quite other stuff than that of hispredecessors in command. And here am I losing my share in it all,--aconvalescent in charge of a nurse, and in hiding in the enemy's country.I tell you, Agatha, I must break out of this. As soon as I have strengthenough to ride a horse, I must find a way of getting back to Virginia.And with the stimulus of strong desire, I shall not be long now inregaining that much of strength. In the meanwhile, I must think out aplan by which I can pass the Potomac without falling into the enemy'shands."
"I have already thought of all that," returned his companion, "and Ihave had others thinking of it, too,--all the friends in Maryland withwhom I am in correspondence. After studying the conditions minutely weare agreed in the positive conviction that it will be impossible for youto get through the Federal lines, which are more rigidly drawn and morevigilantly guarded now than ever before. You cannot even start on such ajourney without being arrested and imprisoned, and that would completelydefeat your purpose."
"I must take the chances, then. For I simply will not sit idly hereafter I get well enough to sit in a saddle."
"Listen," commanded Agatha. "You are exciting yourself, and that is verybad for you. Besides, it is wholly unnecessary, for I have thoughtmyself not into despair, but into hopefulness, rather. I have devised aplan, the success of which is practically assured in advance, by whichyou and I are going back into the Confederacy. No, I will not tell youwhat it is just now. You have excited and wearied yourself too muchalready. You must go back to your bed now, and sleep for several hours.When you wake, you shall have something to eat, and after that, if Ifind you sufficiently calm, I will tell you all about it. In themeantime, you may rest easy in your mind, for my plan is sure tosucceed, and it will not be difficult of execution."
The Master of Warlock: A Virginia War Story Page 27