Before the Dawn Part 38

The fiercest and bloodiest campaign recorded since history rose from the past was about to begin.

CHAPTER XVII

THE WILDERNESS

There is in Virginia a grim and sterile region the name of which no American ever hears without a shudder. When you speak to him of the Wilderness, the phantom armies rise before him and he hears the thunder of the guns as the vast struggle sweeps through its shades. He sees, too, the legions of the dead strewn in the forest, a mighty host, and he sighs to think so many of his countrymen should have fallen in mutual strife.

It is a land that deserves its name. Nature there is cold and stern. The rock crops up and the thin red soil bears only scrub forest and weary bushes. All is dark, somber and lonely, as if the ghosts of the fallen had claimed it for their playground.

The woodchopper seeks his hut early at night, and builds high the fire for the comfort of the blaze. He does not like to wander in the dark over the ground where vanished armies fought and bled so long. He sees and hears too much. He knows that his time--the present--has pa.s.sed with the day, and that when the night comes it belongs again to the armies; then they fight once more, though the battle is soundless now, amid the shades and over the hills and valleys.

Now and then he turns from the fire and its comrades.h.i.+p and looks through the window into the darkness. He, too, shudders as he thinks of the past and remembers the long roll, Chancellorsville, the Wilderness, Spottsylvania and the others. Even the poor woodchopper knows that this melancholy tract of ground has borne more dead men's bones than any other of which history tells, and now and then he asks why, but no one can give him the answer he wishes. They say only that the battles were fought, that here the armies met for the death struggle which both knew was coming and which came as they knew.

The Wilderness has changed but little in the generation since Grant and Lee met there. The sullen soil is sullen and unyielding still. As of old it crops up here in stone and there turns a thin red tint to the sun.

The sa.s.safras bushes and the scrub oaks moan sadly in the wind, and few human beings wander over the desolate hills and valleys.

At Gettysburg there is a city, and the battlefield is covered with monuments in scores and scores, and all the world goes to see them. The white marble and granite shafts and pillars and columns, the green hills and fields around, the suns.h.i.+ne and the sound of many voices are cheerful and tell of life; you are not with the dead--you are simply with the glories of the past.

But it is different when you come to the Wilderness. Here you really walk with ghosts. There are no monuments, no suns.h.i.+ne, no green gra.s.s, no voices; all is silent, somber and lonely, telling of desolation and decay. To many it is a more real monument than the cl.u.s.tering shafts of Gettysburg. All this silence, all this abandonment tell in solemn and majestic tones that here not one great battle was fought, but many; that here in one year shone the most brilliant triumph of the South; and here, in another year, she fought her death struggle.

When you walk among the bushes and the scrub oaks and listen to the desolate wind you need no inscription to tell you that you are in the Wilderness.

CHAPTER XVIII

DAY IN THE WILDERNESS

Helen Harley saw the sun rise in a shower of red and gold on a May morning, and then begin a slow and quiet sail up a sky of silky blue. It even touched the gloomy shades of the Wilderness with golden gleams, and shy little flowers of purple, nestling in the scant gra.s.s, held up their heads to the glow. From the window in the log house in which she had nursed her brother she looked out at the sunrise and saw only peace, and the leaves of the new spring foliage moving gently in the wind.

The girl's mind was not at rest. In the night she had heard the rumbling of wheels, the tread of feet, and many strange, m.u.f.fled sounds. Now the morning was here and the usual court about her was missing. Gone were the epaulets, the plumes and the swords in sheath. The generals, Raymond and Winthrop, who had come only the day before. Talbot, Prescott and Wood, were all missing.

The old house seemed desolate, abandoned, and she was lonely. She looked through the window and saw nothing that lived among the bushes and the scrub oaks only the scant gra.s.s and the new spring foliage waving in the gentle wind. Here smouldered the remains of a fire and there another, and yonder was where the tent of the Commander had stood; but it was gone now, and not a sound came to her ears save those of the forest. She was oppressed by the silence and the portent.

Her brother lay upon the bed asleep in full uniform, his coat covering his bandages, and Mrs. Markham was in the next room, having refused to return to Richmond. She would remain near her husband, she said, but Helen felt absolutely alone, deserted by all the world.

No, not alone! There, coming out of the forest, was a single horseman, the grandest figure that she had ever seen--a man above six feet in height, as strong and agile as a panther, his head crowned with magnificent bushy black hair, and his face covered with a black beard, through which gleamed eyes as black as night. He rode, a very king, she thought.

The man came straight toward the window of the log house, the feet of his horse making no sound upon the turf. Here was one who had come to bid her good-by.

She put her hand through the open window, and General Wood, the mountaineer, bending low over his horse's neck, kissed it with all the grace and gallantry of an ancient knight.

"I hope that you will come back," she said softly.

"I will, I must, if you are here," he said.

He kissed her hand again.

"Your brother?" he added.

"He is still asleep."

"What a pity his wounds are so bad! We'll need him to-day."

"Is it coming? Is it really coming to-day, under these skies so peaceful and beautiful?" she asked in sudden terror, though long she had been prepared for the worst.

"Grant is in the Wilderness."

She knew what that meant and asked no more.

Wood's next words were those of caution.

"There is a cellar under this house," he said. "If the battle comes near you, seek shelter in it. You promise?"

"Yes, I promise."

"And now good-by."

"Good-by," she said.

He kissed her hand again and, without another word, turned and rode through the forest and away. She watched him until he was quite out of sight, and then her eyes wandered off toward the east, where the new sun was still piling up glowing bands of alternate red and gold.

Her brother stirred on the bed and awoke. He was fretful that morning.

"Why is the place so silent?" he asked, with the feeling of a vain man who does not wish to be left alone.

"I do not know," she replied, though well she knew.

There was a knock at the door and Mrs. Markham entered, dressed as if for the street--fresh, blonde and smiling.

"You two are up early, Helen," she said. "What do you see there at the window?"

"Nothing," replied Helen. She did not tell any one of the parting with Wood. That belonged to her alone.

A coloured woman came with the breakfast, which was served on a little table beside Harley's bed. He propped himself up with a pillow and sat at the table with evident enjoyment. The golden glory of the new sun shone there through the window and fell upon them.

"How quiet the camp is!" said Mrs. Markham after awhile. "Surely the army sleeps late. I don't hear any voices or anything moving."

"No," said Helen.

"No, not a thing!" exclaimed Mrs. Markham.