The Sword of Antietam | Page 3

the green hills of Vermont for a long time yet, because I mean to pay a
visit to Richmond first. Have you got your cousin's letter with you,
Dick?"
"No, I destroyed it. I didn't want it bobbing up some time or other to
cause either of us trouble. A man I know at home says he's kept out of a
lot of trouble by 'never writin' nothin' to nobody.' And if you do write a
letter the next best thing is to burn it as quick as you can."
"If my eyes tell the truth, and they do," said Pennington, "here comes a
short, thick man riding a long, thick horse and he--the man, not the
horse--bears a startling resemblance to our friend, ally, guide and
sometime mentor, Sergeant Daniel Whitley."
"Yes, it's the sergeant," said Dick, looking down into the valley, "and
I'm glad he's joining us. Do you know, boys, I often think these veteran
sergeants know more than some of our generals."
"It's not an opinion. It's a fact," said Warner. "Hi, there, sergeant! Here
are your friends! Come up and make the same empty report that we've
got ready for the colonel."
Sergeant Daniel Whitley looked at the three lads, and his face
brightened. He had a good intellect under his thatch of hair, and a warm
heart within his strong body. The boys, although lieutenants, and he
only a sergeant in the ranks, treated him usually as an equal and often
as a superior.
Colonel Winchester's regiment and the remains of Colonel Newcomb's
Pennsylvanians had been sent east after the defeat of the Union army at

the Seven Days, and were now with Pope's Army of Virginia, which
was to hold the valley and also protect Washington. Grant's success at
Shiloh had been offset by McClellan's failure before Richmond, and the
President and his Cabinet at Washington were filled with justifiable
alarm. Pope was a western man, a Kentuckian, and he had insisted upon
having some of the western troops with him.
The sergeant rode his horse slowly up the slope, and joined the lads
over whom he watched like a father.
"And what have the hundred eyes of Argus beheld?" asked Warner.
"Argus?" said the sergeant. "I don't know any such man. Name sounds
queer, too."
"He belongs to a distant and mythical past, sergeant, but he'd be mighty
useful if we had him here. If even a single one of his hundred eyes were
to light on Stonewall Jackson, it would be a great service."
The sergeant shook his head and looked reprovingly at Warner.
"It ain't no time for jokin'," he said.
"I was never further from it. It seems to me that we need a lot of
Arguses more than anything else. This is the enemy's country, and we
hear that Stonewall Jackson is advancing. Advancing where, from what
and when? There is no Argus to tell. The country supports a fairly
numerous population, but it hasn't a single kind or informing word for
us. Is Stonewall Jackson going to drop from the sky, which rumor says
is his favorite method of approach?"
"He's usin' the solid ground this time, anyway," said Sergeant Daniel
Whitley. "I've been eight miles farther south, an' if I didn't see cavalry
comin' along the skirt of a ridge, then my eyes ain't any friends of mine.
Then I came through a little place of not more'n five houses. No men
there, just women an' children, but when I looked back I saw them
women an' children, too, grinnin' at me. That means somethin', as shore
as we're livin' an' breathin'. I'm bettin' that we new fellows from the

west will get acquainted with Stonewall Jackson inside of twenty-four
hours."
"You don't mean that? It's not possible!" exclaimed Dick, startled.
"Why, when we last heard of Jackson he was so far south we can't
expect him in a week!"
"You've heard that they call his men the foot cavalry," said the sergeant
gravely, "an' I reckon from all I've learned since I come east that
they've won the name fair an' true. See them woods off to the south
there. See the black line they make ag'inst the sky. I know, the same as
if I had seen him, that Stonewall Jackson is down in them forests,
comin' an' comin' fast."
The sergeant's tone was ominous, and Dick felt a tingling at the roots of
his hair. The western troops were eager to meet this new Southern
phenomenon who had suddenly shot like a burning star across the sky,
but for the first time there was apprehension in his soul. He had seen
but little of the new general, Pope, but he had read his proclamations
and he had thought them bombastic. He talked lightly of the