The Secretary at that moment was riding slowly toward the house, turning now and then to look at the battle which yet hung in doubt, in its vast canopy of smoke. He studied it with keen eyes and a keener mind, but he could yet make nothing of it, and could give no news upon his arrival at the house.
The long day waned at last, but did not bring with its shadows any decrease in the violence of the battle. Its sound was never absent for a moment from the ears of those in the house, and the women at the windows saw the great pyramid of flame from the forest fire, but their anxiety was as deep as ever. No word came to indicate the result. Night fell, close, heavy and black, save where the forest burned, and suddenly the battle ceased.
News came at length that the South had held her lines. Grant had failed to break through the iron front of Lee. A battle as bloody as Gettysburg had been fought and nothing was won; forty thousand men had been struck down in the Wilderness, and Grant was as far as ever from Richmond.
The watchers in the house said little, but they rejoiced—all save Lucia Catherwood, who sat in silence. However the day might have ended, she did not believe the campaign had ended with it, and her hope continued.
A messenger arrived in haste the next day. The house must be abandoned by all who could go. Grant had turned on his left flank and was advancing by a new road. The Southern army must also turn aside to meet him.
It was as Lucia Catherwood expected. Meade, a victor at Gettysburg, had not attacked again. Grant, failing in the Wilderness, moved forward to fight within three days another battle as great.
The story of either army was the same. The general in his tent touched the spring that set all things in motion. The soldiers rose from the hot ground on which they lay in a stupor rather than sleep. Two streams of wounded poured to the rear, one to the North and one to the South. The horses, like their masters, worn and scarred like them, too, were harnessed to cannon and wagon; the men ate as they worked; there was no time for delay. This was to be a race, grand and terrible in its nature, with great battles as incidents. The stakes were high, and the players played with deadly earnestness.
Both Generals sent orders to hurry and themselves saw that it was done. The battle of yesterday and the day before was as a thing long past; no time to think of it now. The dead were left for the moment in the Wilderness as they had fallen. The air was filled with commands to the men, shouts to the horses, the sough of wheels in the mud, the breaking of boughs under weight, and the clank of metal. The Wilderness, torn now by shells and bullets and scorched by the fires, waved over two armies gloomier and more somber than ever, deserving to the full its name.
They were still in the Wilderness, and it had lost none of its ominous aspects. Far to left and right yet burned the forest fires set by the shells, flaring luridly in the intense blackness that characterized those nights. The soldiers as they hurried on saw the ribbons and coils of flame leaping from tree-top to tree-top, and sometimes the languid winds blew the ashes in their faces. Now and then they crossed parts of the forest where it had passed, and the earth was hot to their feet. Around them lay smouldering logs and boughs, and from these fallen embers tongues of flame arose. Overhead, the moon and stars were shut out by the clouds and smoke and vapour.