Warren Harding - "State of the Union Addresses of Warren Harding"

James B. Stetson - "San Francisco During the Eventful Days of April, 1906"

Richard Brinsley Sheridan - "St. Patrick's Day"

James Polk - "State of the Union Addresses of James Polk"

The Guns of Shiloh

J >> Joseph A. Altsheler >> The Guns of Shiloh




"It's Old Fuss and Feathers his very self," said Whitley.

"General Scott. It can be no other," said Dick, who had divined at once
the man's identity. His eyes followed the retreating figure with the
greatest interest. This was the young hero of the War of 1812 and the
great commander who had carried the brilliant campaign into the capital
of Mexico. He had been the first commander-in-chief of the Northern
army, and, foreseeing the great scale of the coming war, had prepared
a wide and cautious plan. But the public had sneered at him and had
demanded instant action, the defeat at Bull Run being the result.

Dick felt pity for the man who was forced to bear a blame not his own,
and who was too old for another chance. But he knew that the present
cloud would soon pass away, and that he would be remembered as the man
of Chippewa and Chapultepec.

"McClellan is already here to take his place," said Whitley. "He's
the young fellow who has been winning successes in the western part of
Virginia, an' they say he has genius."

Only a day or two later they saw McClellan walking down the same avenue
with the President. Dick had never beheld a more striking contrast.
The President was elderly, of great height, his head surmounted by a
high silk hat which made him look yet taller, while his face was long,
melancholy, and wrinkled deeply. His collar had wilted with the heat
and the tails of his long black coat flapped about his legs.

The general was clothed in a brilliant uniform. He was short and stocky
and his head scarcely passed the President's shoulder. He was redolent
of youth and self confidence. It showed in his quick, eager gestures
and his emphatic manner. He attracted the two boys, but the sergeant
shook his head somewhat solemnly.

"They say Scott was too old," he said, "and now they've gone to the
other end of it. McClellan's too young to handle the great armies that
are going into the field. I'm afraid he won't be a match for them old
veterans like Johnston and Lee."

"Napoleon became famous all over the world when he was only twenty-six,"
said Warner.

"That's so," retorted Whitley, "but I never heard of any other Napoleon.
The breed began and quit with him."

But the soldiers crowding the capital had full confidence in "Little
Mac," as they had already begun to call him. Those off duty followed
and cheered him and the President, until they entered the White House
and disappeared within its doors. Dick and his friends were in the
crowd that followed, although they did not join in the cheers, not
because they lacked faith, but because all three were thoughtful.
Dick had soon discovered that Whitley, despite his lack of education,
was an exceedingly observant man, with a clear and reasoning mind.

"It was a pair worth seeing," said the sergeant, as they turned away,
"but I looked a lot more at Old Abe than I did at "Little Mac." Did you
ever think, boys, what it is to have a big war on your hands, with all
sorts of men tellin' you all sorts of things an' tryin' to pull you in
all sorts of directions?"

"I had not thought of it before, but I will think of it now," said
Warner. "In any event, we are quite sure that the President has a great
task before him. We hear that the South will soon have a quarter of a
million troops in the field. Her position on the defensive is perhaps
worth as many more men to her. Hence let x equal her troops, let y
equal her defensive, and we have x plus y, which is equal to half a
million men, the number we must have before we can meet the South on
equal terms."

"An' to conquer her completely we'll need nigh on to a million." said
the sergeant.

Shrewd and penetrating as was Sergeant Whitley he did not dream that
before the giant struggle was over the South would have tripled her
defensive quarter of a million and the North would almost have tripled
her invading million.

A few days later their regiment marched out of the capital and joined
the forces on the hills around Arlington, where they lay for many days,
impatient but inactive. There was much movement in the west, and they
heard of small battles in which victory and defeat were about equal.
The boys had shown so much zeal and ability in learning soldierly duties
that they were made orderlies by their colonel, John Newcomb, a taciturn
Pennsylvanian, a rich miner who had raised a regiment partly at his
own expense, and who showed a great zeal for the Union. He, too, was
learning how to be a soldier and he was not above asking advice now and
then of a certain Sergeant Whitley who had the judgment to give it in
the manner befitting one of his lowly rank.

The summer days passed slowly on. The heat was intense. The Virginia
hills and plains fairly shimmered under the burning rays of the sun.
But still they delayed. Congress had shown the greatest courage,
meeting on the very day that the news of Bull Run had come, and
resolving to fight the war to a successful end, no matter what happened.
But while McClellan was drilling and preparing, the public again began
to call for action. "On to Richmond!" was the cry, but despite it the
army did not yet move.

European newspapers came in, and almost without exception they sneered
at the Northern troops, and predicted the early dissolution of the
Union. Monarchy and privileged classes everywhere rejoiced at the
disaster threatening the great republic, and now that it was safe to do
so, did not hesitate to show their delight. Sensitive and proud of his
country, Dick was cut to the quick, but Warner was more phlegmatic.

"Let 'em bark," he said. "They bark because they dislike us, and they
dislike us because they fear us. We threatened Privilege when our
Revolution succeeded and the Republic was established. The fact of our
existence was the threat and the threat has increased with our years and
growth. Europe is for the South, but the reason for it is one of the
simplest problems in mathematics. Ten per cent of it is admiration
for the Southern victory at Bull Run, and ninety per cent of it is
hatred--at least by their ruling classes--of republican institutions,
and a wish to see them fall here."

"I suspect you're right," said Dick, "and we'll have to try all the
harder to keep them from being a failure. Look, there goes our balloon!"

Every day, usually late in the afternoon, a captive balloon rose from
the Northern camp, and officers with powerful glasses inspected the
Southern position, watching for an advance or a new movement of any kind.

"I'm going up in it some day," said Dick, confidently. "Colonel Newcomb
has promised me that he will take me with him when his turn for the
ascension comes."

The chance was a week in coming, a tremendously long time it seemed to
Dick, but it came at last. He climbed into the basket with Colonel
Newcomb, two generals, and the aeronauts and sat very quiet in a corner.
He felt an extraordinary thrill when the ropes were allowed to slide and
the balloon was slowly going almost straight upward. The sensation was
somewhat similar to that which shook him when he went into battle at
Bull Run, but pride came to his rescue and he soon forgot the physical
tremor to watch the world that now rolled beneath them, a world that
they seemed to have left, although the ropes always held.

Dick's gaze instinctively turned southward, where he knew the
Confederate army lay. A vast and beautiful panorama spread in a
semi-circle before him. The green of summer, the green that had been
stained so fearfully at Bull Run, was gone. The grass was now brown
from the great heats and the promise of autumn soon to come, but--from
the height at least--it was a soft and mellow brown, and the dust was
gone.

The hills rolled far away southward, and under the horizon's rim.
Narrow ribbons of silver here and there were the numerous brooks and
creeks that cut the country. Groves, still heavy and dark with foliage,
hung on the hills, or filled some valley, like green in a bowl. Now
and then, among clumps of trees, colonial houses with their pillared
porticoes appeared.

It was a rare and beautiful scene, appealing with great force to Dick.
There was nothing to tell of war save the Northern forces just beneath
them, and he would not look down. But he did look back, and saw the
broad band of the Potomac, and beyond it the white dome of the Capitol
and the roof of Washington. But his gaze turned again to the South,
where his absorbing interest lay, and once more he viewed the quiet
country, rolling away until it touched the horizon rim. The afternoon
was growing late, and great terraces of red and gold were heaping above
one another in the sky until they reached the zenith.

"Try the glasses for a moment, Dick," said Colonel Newcomb, as he passed
them to the boy.

Dick swept them across the South in a great semi-circle, and now new
objects rose upon the surface of the earth. He saw distinctly the
long chain of the Blue Ridge rising on the west, then blurring in the
distance into a solid black rampart. In the south he saw a long curving
line of rising blue plumes. It did not need Colonel Newcomb to tell him
that these were the campfires of the army that they had met on the field
of Bull Run, and that the Southern troops were now cooking their suppers.

No doubt his cousin Harry was there and perhaps others whom he knew.
The fires seemed to Dick a defiance to the Union. Well, in view of
their victory, the defiance was justified, and those fires might come
nearer yet. Dick, catching the tone of older men who shared his views,
had not believed at first that the rebellion would last long, but his
opinion was changing fast, and the talk of wise Sergeant Whitley was
helping much in that change.

While he yet looked through the glasses he saw a plume of white smoke
coming swiftly towards the Southern fires. Then he remembered the two
lines of railroad that met on the battlefield, giving it its other name,
Manassas Junction, and he knew that the smoke came from an engine
pulling cars loaded with supplies for their foes.

He whispered of the train as he handed the glasses back to Colonel
Newcomb, and then the colonel and the generals alike made a long
examination.

"Beauregard will certainly have an abundance of supplies," said one of
the generals. "I hear that arms and provisions are coming by every
train from the South, and meanwhile we are making no advance."

"We can't advance yet," said the other general emphatically. "McClellan
is right in making elaborate preparations and long drills before moving
upon the enemy. It was inexperience, and not want of courage, that beat
us at Bull Run."

"The Southerners had the same inexperience."

"But they had the defensive. I hear that Tom Jackson saved them,
and that they have given him the name Stonewall, because he stood so
firm. I was at West Point with him. An odd, awkward fellow, but one of
the hardest students I have ever known. The boys laughed at him when
he first came, but they soon stopped. He had a funny way of studying,
standing up with his book on a shelf, instead of sitting down at a desk.
Said his brain moved better that way. I've heard that he walked part of
the way from Virginia to reach West Point. I hear now, too, that he is
very religious, and always intends to pray before going into battle."

"That's a bad sign--for us," said the other general. "It's easy enough
to sneer at praying men, but just you remember Cromwell. I'm a little
shaky on my history, but I've an impression that when Cromwell, the
Ironsides, old Praise-God-Barebones, and the rest knelt, said a few
words to their God, sang a little and advanced with their pikes, they
went wherever they intended to go and that Prince Rupert and all the
Cavaliers could not stop them."

"It is so," said the other gravely. "A man who believes thoroughly in
his God, who is not afraid to die, who, in fact, rather favors dying on
the field, is an awful foe to meet in battle."

"We may have some of the same on our side," said Colonel Newcomb.
"We have at least a great Puritan population from which to draw."

One of the generals gave the signal and the balloon was slowly pulled
down. Dick, grateful for his experience, thanked Colonel Newcomb and
rejoined his comrades.




CHAPTER II

THE MOUNTAIN LIGHTS


When Dick left the balloon it was nearly night. Hundreds of campfires
lighted up the hills about him, but beyond their circle the darkness
enclosed everything. He still felt the sensations of one who had been
at a great height and who had seen afar. That rim of Southern campfires
was yet in his mind, and he wondered why the Northern commander allowed
them to remain week after week so near the capital. He was fully aware,
because it was common talk, that the army of the Union had now reached
great numbers, with a magnificent equipment, and, with four to one,
should be able to drive the Southern force away. Yet McClellan delayed.

Dick obtained a short leave of absence, and walked to a campfire,
where he knew he would find his friend, George Warner. Sergeant Whitley
was there, too, showing some young recruits how to cook without waste,
and the two gave the boy a welcome that was both inquisitive and hearty.

"You've been up in the balloon," said Warner. "It was a rare chance."

"Yes," replied Dick with a laugh, "I left the world, and it is the only
way in which I wish to leave it for the next sixty or seventy years.
It was a wonderful sight, George, and not the least wonderful thing in
it was the campfires of the Southern army, burning down there towards
Bull Run."

"Burnin' where they ought not to be," said Whitley--no gulf was yet
established between commissioned and non-commissioned officers in either
army. "Little Mac may be a great organizer, as they say, but you can
keep on organizin' an' organizin', until it's too late to do what you
want to do."

"It's a sound principle that you lay down, Mr. Whitley," said Warner
in his precise tones. "In fact, it may be reduced to a mathematical
formula. Delay is always a minus quantity which may be represented by
y. Achievement is represented by x, and, consequently, when you have
achievement hampered by delay you have x minus y, which is an extremely
doubtful quantity, often amounting to failure."

"I travel another road in my reckonin's," said Whitley, "I don't know
anything about x and y, but I guess you an' me, George, come to the same
place. It's been a full six weeks since Bull Run, an' we haven't done a
thing."

Whitley, despite their difference in rank, could not yet keep from
addressing the boys by their first names. But they took it as a matter
of course, in view of the fact that he was so much older than they and
vastly their superior in military knowledge.

"Dick," continued the sergeant, "what was it you was sayin' about a
cousin of yours from the same town in Kentucky bein' out there in the
Southern army?"

"He's certainly there," replied Dick, "if he wasn't killed in the battle,
which I feel couldn't have happened to a fellow like Harry. We're from
the same little town in Kentucky, Pendleton. He's descended straight
from one of the greatest Indian fighters, borderers and heroes the
country down there ever knew, Henry Ware, who afterwards became one of
the early governors of the State. And I'm descended from Henry Ware's
famous friend, Paul Cotter, who, in his time, was the greatest scholar
in all the West. Henry Ware and Paul Cotter were like the old Greek
friends, Damon and Pythias. Harry and I are proud to have their blood
in our veins. Besides being cousins, there are other things to make
Harry and me think a lot of each other. Oh, he's a grand fellow,
even if he is on the wrong side!"

Dick's eyes sparkled with enthusiasm as he spoke of the cousin and
comrade of his childhood.

"The chances of war bring about strange situations, or at least I have
heard so," said Warner. "Now, Dick, if you were to meet your cousin
face to face on the battlefield with a loaded gun in your hand what
would you do?"

"I'd raise that gun, take deliberate aim at a square foot of air about
thirty feet over his head and pull the trigger."

"But your duty to your country tells you to do otherwise. Before you is
a foe trying to destroy the Union. You have come out armed to save that
Union, consequently you must fire straight at him and not at the air,
in order to reduce the number of our enemies."

"One enemy where there are so many would not count for anything in the
total. Your arithmetic will show you that Harry's percentage in the
Southern army is so small that it reaches the vanishing point. If I can
borrow from you, George, x equals Harry's percentage, which is nothing,
y equals the value of my hypothetical opportunity, which is nothing,
then x plus y equals nothing, which represents the whole affair, which
is nothing, that is, worth nothing to the Union. Hence I have no more
obligation to shoot Harry if I meet him than he has to shoot me."

"Well spoken, Dick," said Sergeant Whitley. "Some people, I reckon,
can take duty too hard. If you have one duty an' another an' bigger one
comes along right to the same place you ought to 'tend to the bigger
one. I'd never shoot anybody that was a heap to me just because he
was one of three or four hundred thousand who was on the other side.
I've never thought much of that old Roman father--I forget his name--who
had his son executed just because he wasn't doin' exactly right.
There was never a rule that oughtn't to have exceptions under
extraordinary circumstances."

"If you can establish the principle of exceptions," replied the young
Vermonter very gravely, "I will allow Dick to shoot in the air when he
meets his cousin in the height of battle, but it is a difficult task to
establish it, and if it fails Dick, according to all rules of logic and
duty, must shoot straight at his cousin's heart."

The other two looked at Warner and saw his left eyelid droop slightly.
A faint twinkle appeared in either eye and then they laughed.

"I reckon that Dick shoots high in the air," said the sergeant.

Dick, after a pleasant hour with his friends, went back to Colonel
Newcomb's quarters, where he spent the entire evening writing despatches
at dictation. He was hopeful that all this writing portended something,
but more days passed, and despite the impatience of both army and public,
there was no movement. Stories of confused and uncertain fighting still
came out of the west, but between Washington and Bull Run there was
perfect peace.

The summer passed. Autumn came and deepened. The air was crisp and
sparkling. The leaves, turned into glowing reds and yellows and browns,
began to fall from the trees. The advancing autumn contained the
promise of winter soon to come. The leaves fell faster and sharp winds
blew, bringing with them chill rains. Little Mac, or the Young Napoleon,
as many of his friends loved to call him, continued his preparations,
and despite all the urgings of President and Congress, would not move.
His fatal defect now showed in all its destructiveness. To him the
enemy always appeared threefold his natural size.

Reliable scouts brought back the news that the Southern troops at
Manassas, a full two months after their victory there, numbered only
forty thousand. The Northern commander issued statements that the
enemy was before him with one hundred and fifty thousand soldiers. He
demanded that his own forces should be raised to nearly a quarter of
a million men and nearly five hundred cannon before he could move.

The veteran, Scott, full of triumphs and honors, but feeling himself out
of place in his old age, went into retirement. McClellan, now in sole
command, still lingered and delayed, while the South, making good use of
precious months, gathered all her forces to meet him or whomsoever came
against her.

Youth chafed most against the long waiting. It seemed to Dick and his
mathematical Vermont friend that time was fairly wasting away under
their feet, and the wise sergeant agreed with them.

The weather had grown so cold now that they built fires for warmth as
well as cooking, and the two youths sat with Sergeant Whitley one cold
evening in late October before a big blaze. Both were tanned deeply by
wind, sun and rain, and they had grown uncommonly hardy, but the wind
that night came out of the northwest, and it had such a sharp edge to
it that they were glad to draw their blankets over their backs and
shoulders.

Dick was re-reading a letter from his mother, a widow who lived on the
outskirts of Pendleton. It had come that morning, and it was the only
one that had reached him since his departure from Kentucky. But she had
received another that he had written to her directly after the Battle of
Bull Run.

She wrote of her gratitude because Providence had watched over him in
that dreadful conflict, all the more dreadful because it was friend
against friend, brother against brother. The state, she said, was all
in confusion. Everybody suspected everybody else. The Southerners were
full of victory, the Northerners were hopeful of victory yet to come.
Colonel Kenton was with the Southern force under General Buckner,
gathered at Bowling Green in that state, but his son, her nephew Harry,
was still in the east with Beauregard. She had heard that the troops
of the west and northwest were coming down the Ohio and Mississippi in
great numbers, and people expected hard fighting to occur very soon in
western and southern Kentucky. It was all very dreadful, and a madness
seemed to have come over the land, but she hoped that Providence would
continue to watch over her dear son.

Warner and the sergeant knew that the letter was from Dick's mother,
but they had too much delicacy to ask him questions. The boy folded the
sheets carefully and returned them to their place in the inside pocket
of his coat. Then he looked for a while thoughtfully into the blaze and
the great bed of coals that had formed beneath. As far as one could see
to right and left like fires burned, but the night remained dark with
promise of rain, and the chill wind out of the northwest increased in
vigor. The words just read for the fifth time had sunk deep in his mind,
and he was feeling the call of the west.

"My mother writes," he said to his comrades, "that the Confederate
general, Buckner, whom I know, is gathering a large force around Bowling
Green in the southern part of our state, and that fighting is sure to
occur soon between that town and the Mississippi. An officer named
Grant has come down from Illinois, and he is said to be pushing the
Union troops forward with a lot of vigor. Sergeant, you are up on army
affairs. Do you know this man Grant?"

Sergeant Whitley shook his head.

"Never heard of him," he replied. "Like as not he's one of the officers
who resigned from the army after the Mexican War. There was so little
to do then, and so little chance of promotion, that a lot of them quit
to go into business. I suppose they'll all be coming back now."

"I want to go out there," said Dick. "It's my country, and the
westerners at least are acting. But look at our army here! Bull Run
was fought the middle of summer. Now it's nearly winter, and nothing
has been done. We don't get out of sight of Washington. If I can get
myself sent west I'm going."

"And I'm going with you," said Warner.

"Me, too," said the sergeant.

"I know that Colonel Newcomb's eyes are turning in that direction,"
continued Dick. "He's a war-horse, he is, and he'd like to get into the
thick of it."

"You're his favorite aide," said the calculating young Vermonter.
"Can't you sow those western seeds in his mind and keep on sowing them?
The fact that you are from this western battle ground will give more
weight to what you say. You do this, and I'll wager that within a week
the Colonel will induce the President to send the whole regiment to the
Mississippi."

"Can you reduce your prediction to a mathematical certainty?" asked Dick,
a twinkle appearing in his eye.

"No, I can't do that," replied Warner, with an answering twinkle,
"but you're the very fellow to influence Colonel Newcomb's mind.
I'm a mathematician and I work with facts, but you have the glowing
imagination that conduces to the creation of facts."

"Big words! Grand words!" said the sergeant.

"Never let Colonel Newcomb forget the west," continued Warner, not
noticing the interruption. "Keep it before him all the time. Hint
that there can be no success along the Mississippi without him and his
regiment."

"I'll do what I can," promised Dick faithfully, and he did much.
Colonel Newcomb had already formed a strong attachment for this zealous
and valuable young aide, and he did not forget the words that Dick
said on every convenient occasion about the west. He made urgent
representations that he and his regiment be sent to the relief of the
struggling Northern forces there, and he contrived also that these
petitions should reach the President. One day the order came to go,
but not to St. Louis, where Halleck, now in command, was. Instead they
were to enter the mountains of West Virginia and Kentucky, and help the
mountaineers who were loyal to the Union. If they accomplished that
task with success, they were to proceed to the greater theatre in
Western Kentucky and Tennessee. It was not all they wished, but they
thought it far better than remaining at Washington, where it seemed
that the army would remain indefinitely.

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