The Shades of the Wilderness | Page 9

open
air, his blankets spread upon soft boughs. Harry and Dalton, having
slept all day, would be on night duty, and after supper they sat at a little
distance, awaiting orders.
Coolness had come with the dark. A good moon and swarms of bright
stars rode in the heavens, turning the skies to misty silver, and
softening the scars of the army, which now lay encamped over a great
space. Lee was talking with Stuart, who evidently had just arrived from
a swift ride, as an orderly near by was holding his horse, covered with
foam. The famous cavalryman was clothed in his gorgeous best. His
hat was heavy with gold braid, and the broad sash about his waist was
heavy with gold, also. Dandy he was, but brilliant cavalryman and great
soldier too! Both friend and foe had said so.
Harry, sitting on the grass, with his back against a tree, watched the two
generals as they talked long and earnestly. Now and then Stuart
nervously switched the tops of his own high riding boots with the little
whip that he carried, but the face of Lee, revealed clearly in the near

twilight, remained grave and impassive.
After a long while Stuart mounted and rode away, and Sherburne, who
had been sitting among the trees on the far side of the fire, came over
and joined Harry and Dalton. He too was very grave.
"Do you know what has happened?" he said in a low tone to the two
lads.
"Yes, there was a big battle at Gettysburg, and as we failed to win it
we're now retreating," replied Harry.
"That's true as far as it goes, but it's not all. We've heard--and the news
is correct beyond a doubt--that Grant has taken Vicksburg and
Pemberton's army with it."
"Good God, Sherburne, it can't be so!"
"It shouldn't be so, but it is! Oh, why did Pemberton let himself be
trapped in such a way! A whole army of ours lost and our greatest
fortress in the West taken! Why, the Yankee men-of-war can steam up
the Mississippi untouched, all the way from the Gulf to Minnesota."
Harry and Dalton were appalled, and, for a little while, were silent.
"I knew that man Grant would do something terrible to us," Harry said
at last. "I've heard from my people in Kentucky what sort of a general
he is. My father was at Shiloh, where we had a great victory on, but
Grant wouldn't admit it, and held on, until another Union army came up
and turned our victory into defeat. My cousin, Dick Mason, has been
with Grant a lot, and I used to get a letter from him now and then, even
if he is in the Yankee army. He says that when Grant takes hold of a
thing he never lets go, and that he'll win the war for his side."
"Your cousin may be right about Grant's hanging on," said Dalton with
sudden angry emphasis, "but neither he nor anybody else will win this
war for the Yankees. We've lost Vicksburg, and an army with it, and
we've retreated from Gettysburg, with enough men fallen there to make

another army, but they'll never break through the iron front of Lee and
his veterans."
"Hope you're right," said Sherburne, "but I'm off now. I'm in the saddle
all night with my troop. We've got to watch the Yankee cavalry. Custer
and Pleasanton and the rest of them have learned to ride in a way that
won't let Jeb Stuart himself do any nodding."
He cantered off and the lads sat under the trees, ready for possible
orders. They saw the fire die. They heard the murmur of the camp sink.
Lee lay down on his bed of boughs, other generals withdrew to similar
beds or to tents, and the two boys still sat under the trees, waiting and
watching, and never knowing at what moment they would be needed.

CHAPTER II
THE NORTHERN SPY
But the night remained very quiet. Harry and Dalton, growing tired of
sitting, walked about the camp, and looked again to their horses, which,
saddled and bridled, were nevertheless allowed to nip the grass as best
they could at the end of their lariats. The last embers of the fire went
out, but the moon and stars remained bright, and they saw dimly the
sleeping forms of Lee and his generals. Harry, who had seen nothing
strange in Meade's lack of pursuit, now wondered at it. Surely when the
news of Vicksburg came the exultant Army of the Potomac would
follow, and try to deliver a crushing blow.
It was revealed to him as he stood silent in the moonlight that a gulf
had suddenly yawned before the South. The slash of Grant's sword