CHAPTER XVII.
DOWN IN TENNESSEE.
IT was four months before Captain Somers was able to visit Boston, so severely had his constitution been shattered by the fatigues of the service, and by the strain of exciting events upon his nervous system. Lilian Ashford and her father visited Pinchbrook several times during this period, and an excellent understanding was established between the captain and the young lady. The visit was returned in the spring, when Somers was able to endure the fatigue; and as his health gradually improved, he repeated his calls till they occurred as often as once a week.
Grandmother Ashford had abundant opportunity now to tell all about the “last war,” and Somers listened with the attention which so interesting a narrative deserved. Perhaps it was fortunate for the venerable lady that her eyesight was impaired, or she might have been wounded to observe that her patient auditor looked more at Lilian than at herself. On one of these occasions the old lady was so imprudent as to leave the young couple in the parlor, and something passed between them which seemed to make Somers very much pleased with himself and with Lilian, and to make Lilian equally well pleased with herself and with Somers. What this was, the experienced reader may possibly be able to divine; but as our story relates mainly to the military history of our hero, it cannot properly be introduced.
Captain Somers was certainly improving in health, but so slowly that there was no present prospect of his being able to join his regiment, or report on the staff of his beloved general, now commanding the grand army of the Potomac. His physician positively refused to permit him even to visit the scene of active operations; and after communicating with “Fighting Joe” by letter, he decided to resign his position in the —th Massachusetts, for his continued absence not only deprived the regiment of his services, but prevented some deserving officer, who performed his duties, from receiving the pay and promotion to which he was justly entitled. But he did not take this decisive step till he was assured by the general that he could have an appointment on the staff as soon as he was able to discharge the duties of the position.
While Somers was absent from the army, the great battle of Fredericksburg had been fought; and the brave, noble, and Christian Burnside, perplexed by the treachery of seeming friends, by the over-zealous movements of real ones, and by the machinations of envious and jealous officers, who should have been foremost to support him, was badly defeated. The rank and file behaved nobly, fought well, and the day ought to have been won; but the parts of the grand army were disjointed; they did not act in concert; and portions of the force were left to be mercilessly slaughtered. The devoted and unselfish Burnside shouldered the responsibility, and stepped down from the exalted military pinnacle to which he had been raised without ambition, and against his own desires.
He was succeeded by Major General Hooker, the “bravest of the brave,” and one of the ablest soldiers which the war had developed. He had fought and lost the great battle of Chancellorsville; but he, too, was a victim of jealousy and indecision on the part of men whose purposes were their own, instead of their suffering country’s.
The culminating battle of the war was fought at Gettysburg by his successor. It was a decisive victory; for the defiant foe was penetrating the heart of the North, and there could be no trifling with the terrible fact that stared the nation full in the face. The generals and the army fought nobly, and the exulting rebels were hurled back, shattered and discomfited, to the soil of Virginia.
The battle of Gettysburg was immediately followed by the surrender of Vicksburg and Port Hudson; and operations in the West and South-west attracted the attention of the country during the remainder of the year, while the army of the Potomac was comparatively quiet in Virginia. The battle of Chickamauga Creek was fought, and the Union army defeated, and only saved from disaster by the skill and firmness of General Thomas.