An Unofficial Patriot

by Helen H. Gardener

CHAPTER XVIII.

"Into the jaws of death,

Into the mouth of hell."

Tennyson.

It had rained in torrents. The stiff day of the muddy roads was ankle deep. Roy's regiment in camp near the Tennessee river was whiling away its time as best it could. It was generally understood that they were to be Joined in a day or two by reinforcements, and then march on to Corinth. Roy knew that Beverly was to be with the expected command. The young lieutenant—a first lieutenant now—was proud and eager. He thought it would be a fine thing for him and Beverly to fight side by side. He meant to show Beverly that he was no longer a boy. A soft silken mustache had come to accent his fresh complexion, and he was as handsome and tall and graceful and erect as a young soldier need be. He carried himself with peculiar grace, and he was an inch taller than Beverly, now. He hoped that he would be taller than his brother, and he walked very erect, indeed, as he thought about it. Then he smiled to himself and said half aloud, "He will be here to-morrow, and I shall give him a great welcome—and a surprise." This was his last thought as he turned on his side, and fell into a soldier's dreamless sleep, in spite of rain and mud, in spite of noise and confusion, in spite of danger and anxiety.

It was the night of the fifth of April. Roy had planned to appear very splendid to his brother on the morrow. He had shaved freshly and brushed his uniform, and rubbed up his new shoulder straps. His sword was burnished, and the boy had smiled to himself many times as he worked over these details, to think how vain he was, and how anxious that Beverly should look pleased and proud when he should see him at his best. He seemed to have slept only a little while when there straggled into his consciousness the sound of a shot, then another and another; then a sudden indescribable noise and confusion roused him wholly. He sprang to his feet.

The gray of the dawning day was here. Bugles were sounding. Confusion, noise, action was on all sides. The camp had been surprised! The enemy was upon them! Grape, canister and Enfield balls tore through the tents. Shells burst; the first vision that met his eyes as he rushed forth, was a horse of one of their own batteries, struggling, moaning, whinnying pitifully with both fore-legs torn away, and the cannon half overturned. An onrushing force of Confederates shouting in triumph. As his own regiment tried to form in line, three terrified horses tore past dragging their fellow, and what was left of the dismantled cannon. They were wounding each other cruelly in their mad frenzy of pain and fright. They fell in one mass of struggling, suffering, panic-stricken flesh into the river and drowned, with their harness binding them together, and to the wreck of their dismantled burden. Everything was confusion. Each regiment was doing its best to form and repulse the terrible onslaught. The surprise had been complete. The scouts had been surrounded and captured, and the pickets killed or driven in at the first charge which had awakened the sleeping camp. The horrors, the disasters and the triumphs of Shiloh had begun!

There was no time to think. Action, alone, was possible—the intuitive action of the soldier. The men formed as best they could, and fought as they fell back, or as they advanced a step, with dogged determination to retrieve lost ground. Some were driven into the river, and when wounded, fell beneath its waves to rise no more. The intrepid Confederates followed up their first dash with persistent determination, in spite of the forced march which had preceded the surprise, and in spite of hunger and uncertainty when their supplies might come. They aimed at nothing short of capture. Then supplies would be theirs without delay. But every foot of ground was being stubbornly contested. Now a gain was made, now a loss. Both sides were fighting with that desperation which makes certain only one thing as the issue of the battle—the certainty of an awful carnage. At Such a time it does not seem possible, and yet it is true, that a sense of reckless humor finds place and material to feed its fancy. A good-natured badinage held possession of many of the men.

Roy's regiment had been driven back by the first sudden onrush. It had formed and fought as it went, but it had undoubtedly been forced from its position of advantage on the rise of the hill. They were struggling desperately to regain it. Every man seemed determined to stand again where he had stood an hour before or die in the attempt. A large piece of paper pinned to a tree with a bayonet, attracted Roy's attention as the smoke was lifted for a moment, while they pushed forward inch by inch. The boys had seen its like before. They understood and it acted like a stimulant upon them. Some of the boys laughed outright. The smoke hid the paper. The next volley had driven the Confederates a step farther back. The ground was strewn with their men, lying side by side with those who had fallen from the Northern ranks at the first dash of the enemy. The tree with the paper was a trifle nearer.

"Charge for that challenge, boys! Charge!" shouted Roy, and they responded with a yell and a murderous volley as they ran. It was almost within reach now, but the men who had posted it fought like tigers to hold their ground.