“But it isn’t morning,” growled Ben Lethbridge.
“I haven’t been asleep more than an hour or two,” snarled Fred Pemberton.
“Shut up your heads, and turn out!” said the sergeant.
It was the morning of the eventful twenty-first of July, and it was only two o’clock when the regiment was roused from its slumbers; but there was no great hardship in this fact, for most of the men had been sleeping the greater portion of the time during the preceding two days. Tom Somers was ready to take his place in the line in a few moments.
“Come, fellows, hurry up,” said he to his tardy companions. “The time has come, and, I tell you, there’ll be music before many hours.”
“Where are we going, Tom? Have you any idea?” asked Fred.
“Going down to Manassas Junction, I suppose. That’s where the rebels are.”
“Do you suppose we shall get into a fight?” asked Ben.
“I don’t know; I hope so.”
“So do I,” returned Ben, faintly; “but I don’t like to be broke of my rest in this way.”
Tom, full of excited anticipations in regard to the events of the day, laughed heartily at this reply, and left the tent. The regiment was formed in line, but there were two vacancies in the section to which he belonged. Fred and Ben had answered to their names at roll call. On some pretence they had asked permission to leave the line for a few moments, and that was the last that had been seen of them.
“Where do you suppose they are?” said Tom to Hapgood.
“I don’t know. I hain’t got much confidence in Ben’s pluck, and I shouldn’t wonder if he had run away.”
“But that is desertion.”
“That’s just what you may call it; and I’ve seen men shot for it.”
The regiment remained in line several hours before the order came to move. At daylight, while the men were still standing in the road, four soldiers, attended by a staff officer, conducted the two missing men of Company K into the presence of the regiment.
“These men say they belong to your regiment,” said the officer, saluting the little colonel.
Captain Benson immediately claimed them, and Fred and Ben were ordered into the ranks.
“Cowards—are you?” said the captain. “You shall take your places in the ranks, and at the right time we will settle this case.”
“I enlisted without my father’s consent, and you can’t hold me if I don’t choose to stay,” replied Fred Pemberton.
“Next time you must ask your father before you come. It is too late to repent now.”
“I’m going home.”
“No, you’re not. Sergeant, if either of those men attempt to leave the ranks again, shoot them!” said the captain.
Fred and Ben took their places in the ranks amid the laughter and jeers of the company.
“Who’s the baby now?” said Bob Dornton.
“You have disgraced the company,” added old Hapgood. “I didn’t think you would run away before the battle commenced.”
“I shall keep both eyes on you, my boys, and if you skulk again, I’ll obey orders—by the Lord Harry, I will!” said the sergeant, as he glanced at the lock of his musket. “Company K isn’t going to be laughed at for your cowardice.”
At six o’clock the order came for the brigade to march. It now consisted of only three regiments, for the time of one, composed of three months’ men, had expired while at Centreville; and though requested and importuned to remain a few days longer, they basely withdrew, even while they were on the very verge of the battlefield. This regiment left, and carried with it the scorn and contempt of the loyal and true men, who were as ready to fight the battles of their country on one day as on another.
The men knew they were going to battle now, for the enemy was only a few miles distant. The soldier boy’s heart was full of hope. He knew not what a battle was; he could form no adequate conception of the terrible scene which was soon to open upon his view. He prayed and trusted that he might be able to do his duty with courage and fidelity. To say that he had no doubts and fears would be to say that he was not human.
As the brigade toiled slowly along, he tried to picture the scene which was before him, and thus make himself familiar with its terrors before he was actually called to confront them. He endeavored to imagine the sounds of screaming shells and whistling bullets, that the reality, when it came, might not appall him. He thought of his companions dropping dead around him, of his friends mangled by bayonets and cannon shot; he painted the most terrible picture of a battle which his imagination could conjure up, hoping in this manner to be prepared for the worst.
The day was hot, and the sun poured down his scorching rays upon the devoted soldiers as they pursued their weary march. They were fatigued by continued exertion, and some of the weary ones, when the sun approached the meridian, began to hope the great battle would not take place on that day. Tom Somers, nearly worn out by the tedious march, and half famished after the scanty breakfast of hard bread he had eaten before daylight, began to feel that he was in no condition to face the storm of bullets which he had been imagining.
No orders came to halt at noon, though the crowded roads several times secured them a welcome rest: but on marched the weary soldiers, till the roar of cannon broke upon their ears; and as they moved farther on, the rattling volleys of musketry were heard, denoting that the battle had already commenced. These notes of strife were full of inspiration to the loyal and patriotic in the columns. A new life was breathed into them. They were enthusiastic in the good cause, and their souls immediately became so big that what had been body before seemed to become spirit now. They forgot their empty stomachs and their weary limbs. The music of battle, wild and terrible as it was to these untutored soldiers, charmed away the weariness of the body, and, to the quickstep of thundering cannon and crashing musketry, they pressed on with elastic tread to the horrors before them.
Tom felt that he had suddenly and miraculously been made over anew. He could not explain the reason, but his legs had ceased to ache, his feet to be sore, and his musket and his knapsack were deprived of their superfluous weight.
“God be with me in this battle!” he exclaimed to himself a dozen times. “God give me strength and courage!”
Animated by his trust in Him who will always sustain those who confide in him, the soldier boy pressed on, determined not to disgrace the name he bore. The terrible sounds became more and more distinct as the regiment advanced, and in about two hours after the battle had opened, the brigade arrived at the field of operations. One regiment was immediately detached and sent off in one direction, while the other two were ordered to support a battery on a hill, from which it was belching forth a furious storm of shells upon the rebels.
The little colonel’s sword gleamed in the air, as he gave the order to march on the double-quick to the position assigned to him.
“Now, Tom, steady, and think of nothing but God and your country,” said old Hapgood, as the regiment commenced its rapid march. “I know something about this business, and I can tell you we shall have hot work before we get through with it.”
“Where are the rebels? I don’t see any,” asked Tom, who found that his ideas of the manner in which a battle is fought were very much at fault.
“You will see them very soon. They are in their breastworks. There! Look down there!” exclaimed the veteran as the regiment reached a spot which commanded a full view of the battle.
Tom looked upon the fearful scene. The roar of the artillery and the crash of the small arms were absolutely stunning. He saw men fall, and lie motionless on the ground, where they were trampled upon by the horses, and crushed beneath the wheels of cannon and caisson. But the cry was, that the army of the union had won the field, and it inspired him with new zeal and new courage.
Scarcely had the remnant of the brigade reached the right of the battery, before they were ordered to charge down the valley, by Colonel Franklin, the acting brigadier. They were executing the command with a dash and vigor that would have been creditable to veterans, when they were ordered to cross the ravine, and support the Eire Zouaves. The movement was made, and Tom soon found himself in the thickest of the fight. Shot and shell were flying in every direction, and the bullets hissed like hailstones around him.
In spite of all his preparations for this awful scene, his heart rose up into his throat. His eyes were blinded by the volumes of rolling smoke, and his mind confused by the rapid succession of incidents that were transpiring around him. The pictures he had painted were sunlight and golden compared with the dread reality. Dead and dying men strewed the ground in every direction. Wounded horses were careering on a mad course of destruction, trampling the wounded and the dead beneath their feet. The hoarse shouts of the officers were heard above the roar of battle. The scene mocked all the attempts which the soldier boy had made to imagine its horrors.
In front of the regiment were the famous Eire Zouaves, no longer guided and controlled by the master genius of Ellsworth. They fought like tigers, furiously, madly; but all discipline had ceased among them, and they rushed wildly to the right and the left, totally heedless of their officers. They fought like demons, and as Tom saw them shoot down, hew down, or bayonet the hapless rebels who came within their reach, it seemed to him as though they had lost their humanity, and been transformed into fiends.
As soon as the regiment reached its position, the order was given to fire. Tom found this a happy relief; and when he had discharged his musket a few times, all thoughts of the horrors of the scene forsook him. He no longer saw the dead and the dying; he no longer heard the appalling roar of battle. He had become a part of the scene, instead of an idle spectator. He was sending the bolt of death into the midst of the enemies of his country.
“Bravo! Good boy, Tom,” said old Hapgood, who seemed to be as much at ease as when he had counselled patience and resignation in the quiet of the tent. “Don’t fire too high, Tom.”
“I’ve got the idea,” replied the soldier boy. “I begin to feel quite at home.”
“O, you’ll do; and I knew you would from the first.”
The shouts of victory which had sounded over the field were full of inspiration to the men; but at the moment when the laurels seemed to be resting securely upon our banners, the rebel line moved forward with irresistible fury. Tom, at one instant, as he cast his eye along the line, found himself flanked on either side by his comrades; at the next there was a wild, indescribable tramp and roar, and he found himself alone. The regiment was scattered in every direction, and he did not see a single man whom he knew. There was a moving mass of Federal soldiers all around him. The Zouaves had been forced back, and the cry of victory had given place to the ominous sounds which betokened a defeat, if not a rout.
The rebels had been reënforced, and had hurled their fresh legions upon our exhausted troops, who could no longer roll back the masses that crowded upon them. The day was lost.
Tom, bewildered by this sudden and disastrous result, moved back with the crowds around him. Men had ceased to be brave and firm; they were fleeing in mortal terror before the victorious battalions that surged against them.
“It’s all up with us, my lad,” said a panting Zouave. “Run for your life. Come along with me.”
Tom followed the Zouave towards the woods, the storm of bullets still raining destruction around them.
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