Harry, riding with Dalton and some others to inspect the enemy’s front through their glasses, saw this gloomy forest, destined to such a terrible fame not alone from the coming battle, but from others as great. Nature could have chosen no more fitting spot for the mighty sacrifice to save the Union, because here everything is dark, solemn and desolate.
For twenty miles one way and fifteen the other the Wilderness stretched its somber expanse. The ancient forest had been cut away long since and the thin, light soil had produced a sea of scrub and thickets in its place, in which most of the houses were the huts of charcoal burners. The undergrowth and jungle were often impenetrable, save by some lone hunter or wild animal. The gnarled and knotted oaks were distorted and the bushes, even in the flush of a May morning, were black and ugly. At evening it was indescribably desolate, and save when the armies came there was no sound but the lone cry of the whip-poor-will, one of the saddest of all notes.
It was upon this forest that Harry looked, and he wondered, as many officers much older and much higher in rank than he wondered, that Hooker, with forces so much superior, should draw back into its shades. And many of the Union generals, too, had protested in vain against Hooker’s orders. They knew, as the Confederate generals knew, that Hooker was a brave man, and they never understood it then or afterwards.
“It gives us our chance,” said Dalton, with sudden intuition, to Harry. “We’ll carry the battle to them in the forest, and there numbers will not count so much.”
“Look!” exclaimed Harry. “They’re withdrawing farther into the Wilderness. There go the last bayonets!”
“It’s so,” said Dalton. “I can still see a few of them moving among the trees and thickets. Now they’re all gone. What does it mean?”
“It means that Old Jack will follow into the Wilderness, as sure as you and I are here. He isn’t the man to let an enemy retreat in peace.”
“That’s so. There are the bugles calling, and it’s time for us to rejoin Old Jack.”
Jackson was not more than a hundred yards away, and they were soon just behind him, riding slowly forward, while he swept the forest with his glasses. Riflemen sent far in advance began to fire, and from the forest came replies. Harry saw bits of earth and grass kicked up by the bullets, and now and then a man fell or, wounded, limped to the rear. There was no fog here and the day had become beautiful and brilliant, as became the first morning in May. The little white puffs of smoke arose all along the edges of the Wilderness, and, sailing above the trees and bushes, dissolved into the blue sky. It was yet only a skirmish between the Southern vanguard and the Northern vanguard, but the riflemen increased to hundreds and they made a steady volume of sound. Now and then the lighter guns were fired and the like replied from the thickets.
Harry gazed intently at Jackson. Would he with his relatively small force follow Hooker into the Wilderness, despising the dangers of ambush and the possibility that his foe might turn upon him in overwhelming numbers? Lee was with the troops elsewhere, and Jackson for the present must rely upon his own judgment.
But Jackson never hesitated. While the fire of the riflemen deepened he plunged into the Wilderness in pursuit of Hooker, who for some inscrutable reason was concentrating his masses about the Chancellor House for pitched battle. They advanced by two ways, a pike and a plank road, with Jackson himself on the plank road.
Harry felt a strange prickling at the roots of his hair as the Wilderness closed in on pursuer and pursued, but it was only for a moment. The enemy far down the plank road held his attention. Many riflemen were there and they were sending back bullets, most of which fell short. Now and then a curving shell struck among the bushes, burst, and hurt no one.
It had grown darker when they entered the Wilderness. The scrub forest, not lofty enough for dignity and nobility, was nevertheless dense enough to shut out most of the sunlight. Despite the blaze of the firing, both pursuer and pursued were enveloped in heavy shadows.