Gettysburg! Gettysburg! He had never heard the name before and it had absolutely no significance to him now. But he saluted, withdrew, procured his blankets and joined Dalton.
“The General tells me, George, that I’m to go to Gettysburg,” he said. “What’s Gettysburg, and why does he want me to go there?”
“I’m to be with you, Harry, and we’re both going with a flying column, in order that we may report upon its conduct and achievements. So I’ve made inquiries. It’s a small town surrounded by hills, but it’s a great center for roads. We’re going there because it’s got a big shoe factory. Our role is to be that of shoe buyers. Harry, stick out your feet at once!”
Harry thrust them forward.
“One sole worn through. The heel gone from the other shoe, and even then you’re better off than most of us. Lots of the privates are barefooted. So you needn’t think that the role of shoe buyer is an ignominious one.”
“I’ll be ready,” said Harry. “Call me early in the morning, George. We’re a long way from home, and the woods are not full of friends. Getting up here in these Pennsylvania hills, one has to look pretty hard to look away down South in Dixie.”
“That’s so, Harry. A good sleep to you, and tomorrow, as shoe buyers, we’ll ride together to Gettysburg.”
He lay between his blankets, went quickly to sleep and dreamed nothing of Gettysburg, of which he had heard for the first time that day.
CHAPTER XII. THE ZENITH OF THE SOUTH
The sun of the first day of July, which was to witness the beginning of the most tremendous event in the history of America, dawned hot and clouded with vapors. They hung in the valleys, over the steep stony hills and along the long blue slopes of South Mountain. The mists made the country look more fantastic to Harry, who was early in the saddle. The great uplifts and projections of stone assumed the shapes of castles and pyramids and churches.
Over South Mountain, on the west, heavy black clouds floated, and the air was close and oppressive.
“Rain, do you think?” said Harry to Dalton.
“No, just a sultry day. Maybe a wind will spring up and drive away all these clouds and vapors. At least, I hope so. There’s the bugle. We’re off on our shoe campaign.”
“Who leads us?”
“We go with Pettigrew, and Heth comes behind. In a country so thick with enemies it’s best to move only in force.”
The column took up its march and a cloud of dust followed it. The second half of June had been rainy, but there had been several days of dry weather now, allowing the dust to gather. Harry and Dalton soon became very hot and thirsty. The sun did not drive away the vapors as soon as they had expected, and the air grew heavier.
“I hope they’ll have plenty of good drinking water in Gettysburg,” said Harry. “It will be nearly as welcome to me as shoes.”
They rode on over hills and valleys, and brooks and creeks, the names of none of which they knew. They stopped to drink at the streams, and the thirsty horses drank also. But it remained hard for the infantry. They were trained campaigners, however, and they did not complain as they toiled forward through the heat and dust.
They came presently to round hillocks, over which they passed, then they saw a fertile valley, watered by a creek, and beyond that the roofs of a town with orchards behind it.
“Gettysburg!” said Dalton.
“It must be the place,” said Harry. “Picturesque, isn’t it? Look at those two hills across there, rising so steeply.”
One of the hills, the one that lay farther to the south, a mass of apparently inaccessible rocks, rose more than two hundred feet above the town. The other, about a third of a mile from the first, was only half its height. They were Round Top and Little Round Top. In the mists and vapors and at the distance the two hills looked like ancient towers. Harry and George gazed at them, and then their eyes turned to the town.