Joseph A. Altsheler – The Complete Collection

Chapter 34

But it is different when you come to the Wilderness. Here you really walk with ghosts. There are no monuments, no sunshine, no green grass, no voices; all is silent, somber and lonely, telling of desolation and decay. To many it is a more real monument than the clustering shafts of Gettysburg. All this silence, all this abandonment tell in solemn and majestic tones that here not one great battle was fought, but many; that here in one year shone the most brilliant triumph of the South; and here, in another year, she fought her death struggle.

When you walk among the bushes and the scrub oaks and listen to the desolate wind you need no inscription to tell you that you are in the Wilderness.

CHAPTER XVIII

DAY IN THE WILDERNESS

Helen Harley saw the sun rise in a shower of red and gold on a May morning, and then begin a slow and quiet sail up a sky of silky blue. It even touched the gloomy shades of the Wilderness with golden gleams, and shy little flowers of purple, nestling in the scant grass, held up their heads to the glow. From the window in the log house in which she had nursed her brother she looked out at the sunrise and saw only peace, and the leaves of the new spring foliage moving gently in the wind.

The girl's mind was not at rest. In the night she had heard the rumbling of wheels, the tread of feet, and many strange, muffled sounds. Now the morning was here and the usual court about her was missing. Gone were the epaulets, the plumes and the swords in sheath. The generals, Raymond and Winthrop, who had come only the day before. Talbot, Prescott and Wood, were all missing.

The old house seemed desolate, abandoned, and she was lonely. She looked through the window and saw nothing that lived among the bushes and the scrub oaks only the scant grass and the new spring foliage waving in the gentle wind. Here smouldered the remains of a fire and there another, and yonder was where the tent of the Commander had stood; but it was gone now, and not a sound came to her ears save those of the forest. She was oppressed by the silence and the portent.

Her brother lay upon the bed asleep in full uniform, his coat covering his bandages, and Mrs. Markham was in the next room, having refused to return to Richmond. She would remain near her husband, she said, but Helen felt absolutely alone, deserted by all the world.

No, not alone! There, coming out of the forest, was a single horseman, the grandest figure that she had ever seen--a man above six feet in height, as strong and agile as a panther, his head crowned with magnificent bushy black hair, and his face covered with a black beard, through which gleamed eyes as black as night. He rode, a very king, she thought.

The man came straight toward the window of the log house, the feet of his horse making no sound upon the turf. Here was one who had come to bid her good-by.

She put her hand through the open window, and General Wood, the mountaineer, bending low over his horse's neck, kissed it with all the grace and gallantry of an ancient knight.

"I hope that you will come back," she said softly.

"I will, I must, if you are here," he said.

He kissed her hand again.

"Your brother?" he added.

"He is still asleep."

"What a pity his wounds are so bad! We'll need him to-day."

"Is it coming? Is it really coming to-day, under these skies so peaceful and beautiful?" she asked in sudden terror, though long she had been prepared for the worst.

"Grant is in the Wilderness."

She knew what that meant and asked no more.

Wood's next words were those of caution.

"There is a cellar under this house," he said. "If the battle comes near you, seek shelter in it. You promise?"

"Yes, I promise."

"And now good-by."

"Good-by," she said.

He kissed her hand again and, without another word, turned and rode through the forest and away. She watched him until he was quite out of sight, and then her eyes wandered off toward the east, where the new sun was still piling up glowing bands of alternate red and gold.

Her brother stirred on the bed and awoke. He was fretful that morning.

"Why is the place so silent?" he asked, with the feeling of a vain man who does not wish to be left alone.

"I do not know," she replied, though well she knew.

There was a knock at the door and Mrs. Markham entered, dressed as if for the street--fresh, blonde and smiling.

"You two are up early, Helen," she said. "What do you see there at the window?"

"Nothing," replied Helen. She did not tell any one of the parting with Wood. That belonged to her alone.

A coloured woman came with the breakfast, which was served on a little table beside Harley's bed. He propped himself up with a pillow and sat at the table with evident enjoyment. The golden glory of the new sun shone there through the window and fell upon them.

"How quiet the camp is!" said Mrs. Markham after awhile. "Surely the army sleeps late. I don't hear any voices or anything moving."

"No," said Helen.

"No, not a thing!" exclaimed Mrs. Markham.

"Eh?" cried Harley.

His military instinct leaped up. Silence where noise has been is ominous.

"Helen," he said, "go to the window, will you?"

"No. I'll go," said Mrs. Markham, and she ran to the window, where she uttered a cry of surprise.

"Why, there is nothing here!" she exclaimed. "There are no tents, no guns, no soldiers! Everything is gone! What does it mean?"

The answer was ready.

From afar in the forest, low down under the horizon's rim, came the sullen note of a great gun--a dull, sinister sound that seemed to roll across the Wilderness and hang over the log house and those within it.

Harley threw himself on the bed with a groan of grief and rage.

"Oh, God," he cried, "that I should be tied here on such a day!"

Helen ran to the window but saw nothing--only the waving grass, the somber forest and the blue skies and golden sunshine above. The echo of the cannon shot died and again there was silence, but only for a moment. The sinister note swelled up again from the point under the horizon's rim far off there to the left, and it was followed by another, and more and more, until they blended into one deep and sullen roar.

Unconsciously Constance Markham, the cynical, the worldly and the self-possessed, seized Helen Harley's hand in hers.

"The battle!" she cried. "It is the battle!"

"Yes," said Helen; "I knew that it was coming."

"Ah, our poor soldiers!"

"I pity those of both sides."

"And so do I. I did not mean it that way."

The servant was cowering in a corner of the room. Harley sprang to his feet and stood, staggering.

"I must be at the window!" he said.

Helen darted to his support.

"But your wounds," she said. "You must think of them!"

"I tell you I shall stay at the window!" he exclaimed with energy. "If I cannot fight, I must see!"

She knew the tone that would endure no denial, and they helped him to the window, where they propped him in a chair with his eyes to the eastern forest. The glow of battle came upon his face and rested there.

"Listen!" he cried. "Don't you hear that music? It's the big guns, not less than twenty. You cannot hear the rifles from here. Ah if I were only there!"

The three looked continually toward the east, where a somber black line was beginning to form against the red-and-gold glow of the sunrise. Louder and louder sounded the cannon. More guns were coming into action, and the deep, blended and violent note seemed to roll up against the house until every log, solid as it was, trembled with the concussion. Afar over the forest the veil of smoke began to grow wider and thicker and to blot out the red-and-gold glory of the sunrise.

Harley bent his head. He was listening--not for the thunder of the great guns, but for the other sounds that he knew went with it--the crash of the rifles, the buzz and hiss of the bullets flying in clouds through the air, the gallop of charging horsemen, the crash of falling trees cut through by cannon shot, and the shouts and cries. But he heard only the thunder of the great guns now, so steady, so persistent and so penetrating that he felt the floor tremble beneath him.

He searched the forest with eyes trained for the work, but saw no human being--only the waving grass, the somber woods, and a scared lizard rattling the bark of a tree as he fled up it.

In the east the dull, heavy cloud of smoke was growing, spreading along the rim of the horizon, climbing the concave arch and blotting out all the glory of the sunrise. The heavy roar was like the sullen, steady grumbling of distant thunder, and the fertile fancy of Harley, though his eyes saw not, painted all the scene that was going on within the solemn shades of the Wilderness--the charge, the defense, the shivered regiments and brigades; the tread of horses, cannon shattered by cannon, the long stream of wounded to the rear, and the dead, forgotten amid the rocks and bushes. He had beheld many such scenes and he had been a part of them. But who was winning now? If he could only lift that veil of the forest!

Every emotion showed on the face of Harley. Vain, egotistic, and often selfish, he was a true soldier; his was the military inspiration, and he longed to be there in the field, riding at the head of his horsemen as he had ridden so often, and to victory. He thought of Wood, a cavalry leader greater than himself, doing a double part, and for a moment his heart was filled with envy. Then he flushed with rage because of the wounds that tied him there like a baby. What a position for him, Vincent Harley, the brilliant horseman and leader! He even looked with wrath upon his sister and Mrs. Markham, two women whom he admired so much. Their place was not here, nor was his place here with them. He was eaten with doubt and anxiety. Who was losing, who was winning out there beyond the veil of the forest where the pall of smoke rose? He struck the window-sill angrily with his fist.

"I hate this silence and desolation here around us," he exclaimed, "with all that noise and battle off there where we cannot see! It chills me!"

But the two women said nothing, still sitting with their hands in each other's and unconscious of it; forgetting now in this meeting of the two hundred thousand the petty personal feelings that had divided them.

Louder swelled the tumult. It seemed to Helen, oblivious to all else, that she heard amid the thunder of the cannon other and varying notes. There was a faint but shrill incessant sound like the hum of millions of bees flying swiftly, and another, a regular but heavier noise, was surely the tread of charging horsemen. The battle was rolling a step nearer to them, and she began to see, low down under the pall of smoke, flashes of fire like swift strokes of lightning. Then it rolled another step nearer and its tumult beat heavily and cruelly on the drums of her ears. Yet the deathly stillness in the scrub oaks around the house continued. They waved as peacefully as ever in the gentle wind from the west. It was still a battle heard but not seen.