The Shades of the Wilderness: A Story of Lee's Great Stand

by Joseph A. Altsheler

  CHAPTER XIV

  THE GHOSTLY RIDE

  Harry and Dalton kept close together during the long hours of theghostly ride. Just ahead of them were Taylor and Marshall and Peyton,and in front Lee rode in silence. Now and then they passed regiments,and at other times they would halt and let regiments pass them. Thenthe troops, seeing the man sitting on the white horse, would start tocheer, but always their officers promptly subdued it, and they marchedon feeling more confident than ever that their general was leading themto victory.

  Many hours passed and still the army marched through the forests. Thetrees, however, were dwindling in size and even in the night they sawthat the earth was growing red and sterile. Dense thickets greweverywhere, and the marching became more difficult. Harry felt asudden thrill of awe.

  "George," he whispered, "do you know the country into which we'reriding?"

  "I think I do, Harry. It's the Wilderness."

  "It can't be anything else, George, because I see the ghosts."

  "What are you talking about, Harry? What ghosts?"

  "The thousands and thousands who have fallen in that waste. Why theWilderness is so full of dead men that they must walk at night to giveone another room. I only hope that the ghost of Old Jack will ridebefore us and show us the way."

  "I almost feel like that, too," admitted Dalton, who, however, was of aless imaginative mind than Harry. "As sure as I'm sitting in thesaddle we're bound for the Wilderness. Now, what is the day going togive us?"

  "Marching mostly, I think, and with the next noon will come battle.Grant doesn't hesitate and hold back. We know that, George."

  "No, it's not his character."

  Morning came and found them still in the forests, seeking the deepthickets of the Wilderness, and Grant, warned by his scouts and spies,and most earnestly by one whose skill, daring and judgment wereunequaled, turned from his chosen line of march to meet his enemy.Once more Lee had selected the field of battle, where his inferiorityin numbers would not count so much against him.

  It was nearly morning when the march ceased, and officers and troops,save those on guard, lay down in the forest for rest. Harry, aseasoned veteran, could sleep under any conditions and with a blanketover 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 thearmy of Northern Virginia. He knew all the pass words and told theofficers commanding the watch that the wing under Ewell was advancingmore rapidly than any of the others. Inside the line he could go aboutalmost as he chose, and one could see little of him, save that he waslarge 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 sleepingleader. But Shepard knew that it was the great Confederate chieftainwho lay in the shadow of the oak and he could identify him by theglances of the sentinels so often directed toward the figure.

  There were wild thoughts for a moment or two in the mind of Shepard. Asingle bullet fired by an unerring hand would take from the Confederacyits arm and brain, and then what happened to himself afterward wouldnot matter at all. And the war would be over in a month or two. Buthe put the thought fiercely from him. A spy he was and in his heartproud of his calling, but no such secret bullet could be fired by him.

  He turned away from the little opening, wandered an hour through thecamp and then, diving into the deep bushes, vanished like a shadowthrough the Confederate lines, and was gone to Grant to report thatLee's army was advancing swiftly to attack, and that the command ofEwell would come in touch with him first.

  Not long after dawn Harry was again on the march, riding behind hisgeneral. From time to time Lee sent messengers to the variousdivisions of his army, four in number, commanded by Longstreet, Early,Hill and Stuart, the front or Stuart's composed of cavalry. Harry'sown time came, when he received a dispatch of the utmost importance totake 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 wasto go to Ewell. In the great campaign in the valley he had been secondto Jackson, his right arm, as Jackson had been Lee's right arm. Ewellhad lost a leg since then, and his soldiers had to strap him in thesaddle when he led them into battle, but he was as daring and cheerfulas ever, trusted implicitly by Lee.

  Harry with a salute to his chief rode away. Part of the country wasfamiliar to him and in addition his directions were so explicit that hecould not miss the way.

  The four divisions of the army were in fairly close touch, but in acountry of forests and many waters Northern scouts might come between,and he rode with caution, his hand ever near the pistol in his belt.The midday sun however clouded as the afternoon passed on. Thethickets and forests grew more dense. From the distance came now andthen the faint, sweet call of a trumpet, but everything was hidden fromsight by the dense tangle of the Wilderness, a wilderness as wild anddangerous as any in which Henry Ware had ever fought. How it all cameback to him! Almost exactly a year ago he had ridden into it withJackson and here the armies were gathering again.

  Imagination, fancy, always so strong in him, leaped into vivid life.The year had not passed and he was riding to meet Stonewall Jackson,who was somewhere ahead, preparing for his great curve about Hooker andthe lightning stroke at Chancellorsville. Rabbits sprang out of theundergrowth and fled away before his horse's hoofs. In the lonelywilderness, which nevertheless had little to offer to the hunter, birdschattered from every tree. Small streams flowed slowly between densewalls of bushes. Here and there in the protection of the thickets wildflowers were in early bloom.

  It was spring, fresh spring everywhere, but the bushes and the grassalike were tinged with red for Harry. The strange mental illusion thathe was riding to Chancellorsville remained with him and he did not seekto shake it off. He almost expected to see Old Jack ahead on a hill,bent over a little, and sitting on Little Sorrel, with the old slouchhat drawn over his eyes. They had talked of the ghost of Jacksonleading them in the Wilderness. He shivered. Could it be so? All thetime he knew it was an illusion, but he permitted it to cast its spellover him, as one who dreams knowingly.

  And Harry was dreaming back. Old Jack, the earlier of his two heroes,was leading them. He foresaw the long march through the thickets ofthe Wilderness, Stonewall forming the line of battle in the deep roadslate in the evening, almost in sight of Hooker's camp, the sudden rushof his brigades and then the terrible battle far into the night.

  He shook himself. It was uncanny. The past was the past. Dreams werethin and vanished stuff. Once more he was in the present and sawclearly. Old Jack was gone to take his place with the great heroes ofthe past, but the Army of Northern Virginia was there, with Lee leadingthem, and the most formidable of all the Northern chiefs with the mostformidable of all the Northern armies was before them.

  He heard the distant thud of hoofs and with instinctive caution drewback into a dense clump of bushes. A half-dozen horsemen were near andtheir eager looks in every direction told Harry that they were scouts.There was little difference then between a well worn uniform of blue orgray, and they were very close before Harry was able to tell that theybelonged to Grant's army.

  He was devoutly glad that his horse was trained thoroughly and stoodquite still while the Northern scouts passed. A movement of the busheswould have attracted their attention, and he did not wish to becaptured at any time, least of all on the certain eve of a greatbattle. After a battle he always felt an extra regret for those whohad fallen, because they would never know whether they had won or lost.

  They were alert, keen and vigorous men, or lads rather, as young ashimself, and they rode as if they had been Southern youths almost bornin the saddle. Harry was not the only one to notice how the Northe
rncavalry under the whip hand of defeat had improved so fast that it wasnow a match, man for man, for that of the South.

  The young riders rode on and the tread of their hoofs died in theundergrowth. Then Harry emerged from his own kindly clump of bushesand increased his speed, anxious to reach Ewell, without any more ofthose encounters. He made good progress through the thickets, and soonafter sundown saw a glow which he took to be that of campfires. Headvanced cautiously, met the Southern sentinels and knew that he wasright.

  The very first of these sentinels was an old soldier of Jackson, whoknew him well.

  "Mr. Kenton!" he exclaimed.

  "Yes, Thorn! It's you!" said Harry without hesitation.

  The soldier was pleased that he should be recognized thus in the dusk,and he was still more pleased when the young aide leaned down and shookhis hand.

  "I might have known, Thorn, that I'd find you here, rifle on your arm,watching," he said.

  "Thank you, Mr. Kenton. You'll find the general over there on a log bythe fire."

  Harry dismounted, gave his horse to a soldier and walked into theglade. Ewell sat alone, his crutch under his arms, his one foot kickingback the coals, his bald head a white disc in the glow.

  "General Ewell, sir," said Harry.

  General Ewell turned about and when he saw Harry his face clearlyshowed gladness. He could not rise easily, but he stretched out awelcoming hand.

  "Ah! Kenton," he said, "you're a pleasant sight to tired eyes likemine. You bring back the glorious old days in the valley. So it's amessage from the commander-in-chief?"

  "Yes, sir. Here it is."

  Ewell read it rapidly by the firelight and smiled.

  "He tells us we're nearest to the enemy," he said, "and to hold fast,if we're attacked. You're to remain with us and report what happens,but doubtless you knew all this."

  "Yes, I had to commit it to memory before I started."

  "Then stay here with me. I may want to report to General Lee at anytime. The enemy is in our front only three or four miles away. Heknows we're here and it was a villainous surprise to him to find us inhis way. They say this man Grant is a pounder. So is Lee, when thetime comes to pound, but he's that and far more. I tell you, youngman, that General Lee has had to trim a lot of Northern generals.McClellan and Pope and Burnside and Hooker and Meade have been going toschool to him, and now Grant is qualifying for his class."

  "But Grant is a great general. So our men in the West themselves say."

  "He may be, but Lee is greater, greatest. And, Harry, you and I, whoknew him and loved him, wish that another who alone was fit to ride byhis side was here with him."

  "I wish it from the bottom of my heart," said Harry.

  "Well, well, regrets are useless. Help me up, Harry. I'm only part ofa man, but I can still fight."

  "We saw you do that at Gettysburg," said Harry, as he put his arm underEwell's shoulder. Then Ewell took his crutch and they walked to thefar side of the glade, where several officers of his staff gatheredaround him.

  "Lieutenant Kenton, whom you all know," said General Ewell, "hasbrought a message from the commander-in-chief that we will be attackedfirst, and to be on guard. We consider it an honor, do we not, mylads?"

  "Yes, let them come," they said.

  "Harry, you may want to see the enemy. Clayton, you and Campbell takehim forward through the pickets. But don't go too far. We don't wantto lose three perfectly good young officers before the battle begins.After that it may be your business to get yourselves shot."

  The two rode nearly two miles to the crest of a hill and then, usingtheir strong glasses in the moonlight, they were able to see the lightsof a vast camp.

  "We hear that it is Warren's corps," said Clayton. "As General Ewelldoubtless has told you, the enemy know that we're in front, but I don'tbelieve they know our exact location. I believe we'll be in battlewith those men in the morning."

  Harry thought so too. In truth, it was inevitable. Warren wouldadvance and Ewell would stand in his way. Yet he slept soundly when hewent back to camp, although he was awakened long before dawn the nextday. Then he ate breakfast, mounted and sat his horse not far awayfrom Ewell, whom two soldiers had strapped into his saddle, and who waswatching with eager eyes for the sunrise.

  Harry, listening intently, heard no sound in front of them, save thewind rippling through the dwarfed forests of the Wilderness, and heknew that no battle had yet begun elsewhere. Sound would come far onthat placid May morning, and it was a certainty that Ewell was nearestto contact with the enemy.

  But Ewell did not yet move. All his men had been served with earlybreakfast, such as it was, and remained in silent masses, partly hiddenby the forest and thickets. The dawn was cold, and Harry felt a littlechill, but it soon passed, as the red edge of the sun showed over theeastern border of the Wilderness. Then the light spread toward thezenith, but the golden glow failed to penetrate the somber thickets.

  "It's going to be a good day," said Harry to an aide.

  "A good day for a battle."

  "We'll hear from the Yankees soon. They can't fail to discover ourexact location by sunrise, and they'll fight. Be sure of that."

  It was now nearly six o'clock, and General Ewell, growing impatient,rode forward a little. Harry followed with his staff. A half-dozenSouthern sharpshooters rose suddenly out of the thickets, and one ofthem dared to lay his hands on the reins of the general's horse. ButEwell was not offended. He looked down at the man and said:

  "What is it, Strother?"

  "Riflemen of the enemy are not more than three or four hundred yardsaway. If you go much farther, General, they will certainly see you andfire upon you."

  "Thanks, Strother. So they've located us?"

  "They're about to do it. They're feeling around. We've seen 'em inthe bushes. We ask you not to go on, General. We wouldn't know whatto do without you. There, sir! They're firing on our pickets!"

  A half-dozen shots came from the front, and then a half-dozen or so inreply. Harry saw pink flashes, and then spirals of smoke rising. Moreshots were fired presently on their right, and then others on theirleft. The Northern riflemen were evidently on a long line, andintended to make a thorough test of their enemy's strength. Harry hadno doubt that Shepard was there. He would surely come to the pointwhere his enemy was nearest, and his eyes and ears would be the keenestof all.

  The little skirmish continued for a few minutes, extending along awinding line of nearly a mile through the thickets. Only two or threewere wounded and nobody killed on the Southern side. Harry understoodthoroughly, as Ewell had said, that the sharpshooters of the enemy weremerely feeling for them. They wanted to know if a strong force wasthere, and now they knew.

  The firing ceased, not in dying shots, but abruptly. The Wilderness infront of them returned to silence, broken only by the rippling leaves.Harry knew that the Northern sharpshooters had discovered all theywanted, and were now returning to their leaders.

  Ewell turned his horse and rode back toward the main camp, his stafffollowing. The cooking fires had been put out, the lines were formedand every gun was in position. As little noise as possible wasallowed, while they waited for Grant; not for Grant himself, but forone of his lieutenants, pushed forward by his master hand.

  Harry and most of the staff officers dismounted, holding their horsesby the bridle. The young lieutenant often searched the thickets withhis glasses, but he saw nothing. Nevertheless he knew that the enemywould come. Grant having set out to find his foe, would never drawback when he found him.

  A much longer period of silence than he had expected passed. The sun,flaming red, was moving on toward the zenith, and no sounds of battlecame from either right or left. The suspense became acute, almostunbearable, and it was made all the more trying by the blindness ofthat terrible forest. Harry felt at times as if he would rather fightin the open fields; but he knew that his commander-in-chief was rightwhen he drew Grant into the shades of the
Wilderness.

  When the suspense became so great that heavy weights seemed to bepressing upon his nerves, rifle shots were fired in front, andskirmishers uttered the long, shrill rebel yell. Then above both shotsand shouts rose the far, clear call of a bugle.

  "Here they come!" Harry heard Ewell say to himself, and the next momentthe sound of human voices was drowned in the thunder of great guns andthe crash of fifty thousand rifles. The battle was so sudden and thecharge so swift that it seemed to leap into full volume in an instant.Warren, a resolute and daring general, led the Northern column and itstruck with such weight and force that the Southern division was drivenback. Harry felt it yielding, as if the ground were sliding under hisfeet.

  There was so much flame and smoke that he could not see well, but thesensation of slipping was distinct. General Ewell was near him,shouting orders. His hat had fallen off, and his round, bald head hadturned red, either from the rush of blood or the cannon's glare. Itshone like a red dome, but Harry knew that there was no better man insuch a crisis than this veteran lieutenant of Stonewall Jackson.

  The Wilderness, usually so silent, was an inferno now. The battle,despite its tremendous beginning, increased in violence and fury.Although Grant himself was not there, the spirit that had animated himat Shiloh and Vicksburg was. He had communicated it to his generals,and Warren brought every ounce of his strength into action. The longline of his bayonets gleamed through the thickets and the Northernartillery, superb as usual, rained shells upon the Southern army.

  Ewell's men, fighting with all the courage and desperation that theyhad shown on so many a field, were driven back further and further.Ewell, strapped in his saddle, flourishing his sword, his round, baldhead glowing, rode among them, bidding them to stand, that help wouldsoon come. They continued to go backward, but those veterans of somany campaigns never lost cohesion nor showed sign of panic. Their ownartillery and rifles replied in full volume. The heads of the chargingcolumns were blown away, but other men took their places, and Warren'sforce came on with undiminished fire and strength.

  Harry wondered if the attack at other points had been made with suchimpetuosity, but there was such a roar and crash about him that it wasimpossible to hear sounds of battle elsewhere. Men were falling veryfast, but the general was unharmed, and neither the young lieutenantnor his horse was touched.

  A sudden shout arose, and it was immediately followed by the piercingrebel yell, swelling wild and fierce above the tumult of the battle.Help was coming. Regiments in gray were charging down the paths and onthe left flank rose the thunder of hoofs as a formidable body ofcavalry under Sherburne, sabers aloft, swept down on the Northern flank.

  Ewell's entire division stopped its retreat and, reinforced by the newmen, charged directly upon the Northern bayonets. Men met almost faceto face. The saplings and bushes were mown down by cannon and riflesand the air was full of bursting shells. From time to time Ewell's menuttered their fierce, defiant yell, and with a great bound of the heartHarry saw that they were gaining. Warren was being driven back. Twoof his cannon were captured already, and the Southern men, feeling theglow of the advance after retreat, charged again and again, reckless ofdeath. But Harry soon saw that ultimate victory here would rest withthe South. The troops of Warren, exhausted by their early rush, weredriven from one position to another by the seasoned veterans who facedthem. The Confederates retained the captured cannon and thrust harderand harder. It became obvious that Warren must soon fall back to themain Northern line, and though the battle was still raging with greatfury Ewell beckoned Harry to him.

  "Don't stay here any longer," he shouted in his ear. "Ride to GeneralLee and tell him we're victorious at this point for the day at least!"

  Harry saluted and galloped away through the thickets. Behind him thebattle still roared and thundered. A stray shell burst just in frontof him, and another just behind him, but he and his horse wereuntouched. Once or twice he glanced back and it looked as if theWilderness were on fire, but he knew that it was instead the blaze ofbattle. He saw also that Ewell was still moving forward, winning moreground, and his heart swelled with gladness.

  How proud Jackson would have been had he been able to see the valor andskill of his old lieutenant! Perhaps his ghost did really hover overthe Wilderness, where a year before he had fallen in the moment of hisgreatest triumph! Harry urged his horse into a gallop. All hisfaculties now became acute. He was beyond the zone of fire, but theroar of the battle behind him seemed as loud as ever. Yet it wassteadily moving back on the main Union lines, and there could be nodoubt of Ewell's continued success.

  The curves of the low hills and the thick bushes hid everything fromHarry's sight, as he rode swiftly through the winding paths of theWilderness. When the tumult sank at last he heard a new thunder infront of him, and now he knew that the Southern center under Hill hadbeen attacked also, and with the greatest fierceness.

  As Harry approached, the roar of the second battle became terrific.Uncertain where General Lee would now be, he rode through the sleet ofsteel, and found Hill engaged with the very flower of the Northernarmy. Hancock, the hero of Gettysburg, was making desperate exertionsto crush him, pouring in brigade after brigade, while Sheridan,regardless of thickets, made charge after charge with his numerouscavalry.

  Harry remained in the rear on his horse, watching this furiousstruggle. The day had become much darker, either from clouds or thevast volume of smoke, and the thickets were so dense that the officersoften could not see their enemy at all, only their own men who stoodclose to them. The struggle was vast, confused, carried on underappalling conditions. The charging horsemen were sometimes swept fromthe saddle by bushes and not by bullets. Infantrymen stepped into adark ooze left by spring rains, and pulling themselves out, charged,black to the waist with mud. Sometimes the field pieces became mired,and men and horses together dragged them to firmer ground.

  Grant here, as before Ewell, continually reinforced his veterans, butHill, although he was not able to advance, held fast. The difficultnature of the ground that Lee had chosen helped him. In marsh andthickets it was impossible for the more numerous enemy to outflank him.Harry saw Hill twice, a slender man, who had suffered severe wounds butone of the greatest fighters in the Southern army. He had been orderedto hold the center, and Harry knew now that he would do it, for the dayat least. Night was not very far away, and Grant was making noprogress.

  He rode on in search of Lee and before he was yet beyond the range offire he met Dalton, mounted and emerging from the smoke.

  "The commander-in-chief, where is he?" asked Harry.

  "On a little hill not far from here, watching the battle. I'm justreturning with a dispatch from Hill."

  "I saw that Hill was holding his ground."

  "So my dispatch says, and it says also that he will continue to holdit. You come from Ewell?"

  "Yes, and he has done more than stand fast. He was driven back atfirst, but when reinforcements came he drove Warren back in his turn,and took guns and prisoners."

  "The chief will be glad to hear it. We'll ride together. Look out foryour horse! He may go knee deep into mire at any time. Harry, theWilderness looks even more somber to me than it did a year ago when wefought Chancellorsville."

  "I feel the same way about it. But see, George, how they're fighting!General Hill is making a great resistance!"

  "Never better. But if you look over those low bushes you can seeGeneral Lee on the hill."

  Harry made out the figure of Lee on Traveller, outlined against thesky, with about a dozen men sitting on their horses behind him. Hehurried forward as fast as he could. The commander-in-chief wasreading a dispatch, while the fierce struggle in the thickets was goingon, but when Harry saluted and Marshall told him that he had come toreport the general put away the dispatch and said:

  "What news from General Ewell?"

  "General Ewell was at first borne back by the enemy's numbers, but whenhelp came he returned to t
he charge, and has been victorious. He hasgained much ground."

  A gleam of triumph shot from Lee's eyes, usually so calm.

  "Well done, Ewell!" he said. "The loss of a leg has not dimmed hisardor or judgment. I truly believe that if he were to lose the otherone also he would still have himself strapped into the saddle and leadhis men to victory. We thank you for the news you have brought,Lieutenant Kenton."

  He put his glasses to his eyes and Harry and Dalton as usual withdrewto the rear of the staff. But they used their glasses also, bringingnearer to them the different phases of the battle, which now ragedthrough the Wilderness. They saw at some points the continuous blazeof guns, and the acrid powder smoke, lying low, was floating throughall the thickets.

  But Harry now knew that the combat, however violent and fierce, wasonly a prelude. The sun was already setting, and they could not fightat night in those wild thickets, where men and guns would become miredand tangled beyond extrication. The great struggle, with both leadershurling in their full forces, would come on the morrow.

  The sun already hung very low, and in the twilight and smoke thesavagery of the Wilderness became fiercer than ever. The dusk gatheredaround Lee, but his erect figure and white horse still showeddistinctly through it. Harry, his spirit touched by the tremendousscenes in the very center of which he stood, regarded him with a freshmeasure of respect and admiration. He was the bulwark of theConfederacy, and he did not doubt that on the morrow he would stopGrant as he had stopped the others.

  The darkness increased, sweeping down like a great black pall over theWilderness. The battle in the center and on the left died. Lee andhis staff dismounting, prepared for the labors of the night.