“What is it, Mr. Shepard?” asked Colonel Winchester.
“I've just reported to General McClellan that our whole command at Harper's Ferry, thirteen thousand strong, surrendered early this morning and that Jackson with picked men has already started to join Lee!”
“My God! My God!” cried the colonel. “Oh, that lost day! We ought to have fought yesterday and destroyed Lee, while Harper's Ferry was still holding out! What a day! What a day! Nothing can ever pay us back for the losing of it!”
Dick, too, felt a sinking of the heart, but despair was not written on his face as it was on that of his colonel. Jackson might come, but it would only be with a part of his force, that which marched the swiftest, and the victory of the Army of the Potomac would be all the grander. The more enemies crushed the better it would be for the Union.
“Why, colonel!” he exclaimed, “we can beat them anyhow!”
“That's so, my lad, so we can! And so we will! It was childish of me to talk as I did. Here, Johnson, blow your best on that trumpet. I want our regiment to be the first to reach the Antietam.”
Johnson blew a long and mellow tune and the Winchester regiment swung forward at a more rapid gait. The weather, after a day or two of coolness, had grown intensely hot again, and the noon sun poured down upon them sheaves of fiery rays. Dick looked back, and he saw once more that vast billowing cloud of dust made by the marching army. But in front he saw only quiet and peace, save for a few distant horsemen who seemed to be riding at random.
“There's a little town called Sharpsburg in the peninsula formed by the Potomac and the Antietam,” said Shepard, who stayed with them, his immediate work done, “and the Potomac being very low, owing to the dry season, there is one ford by which Lee can cross and go back to Virginia. But he isn't going to cross without a battle, that's sure. The rebels are flushed with victory, they think they have the greatest leaders ever born and they believe, despite the disparity of numbers, that they can beat us.”
“And I believe they can't,” said Dick.
“If it were not for that lost day we'd have 'em beaten now,” said Shepard, “and we'd be marching against Jackson.”