Victory, won for a little while, had been lost. Night protected their retreat, and they fought with a valor that made Jackson and all his generals cautious. But this knowledge was little compensation to the Northern troops. They knew that behind them was a great army, that Pope might have been present with fifty thousand men, sufficient to overwhelm Jackson. Instead of the odds being more than two to one in their favor, they had been two to one against them.
It was a sullen army that lay in the woods in the first hour or two of the night, gasping for breath. These men had boasted that they were a match for those of Jackson, and they were, if they could only have traded generals. Dick and his comrades from the west began to share in the awe that the name of Stonewall Jackson inspired.
“He comes up to his advertisements. There ain’t no doubt of it,” said Sergeant Whitley. “I never saw anybody fight better than our men did, an’ that charge of the little troop of cavalry was never beat anywhere in the world. But here we are licked, and thirty or forty thousand men of ours not many miles away!”
He spoke the last words with a bitterness that Dick had never heard in his voice before.
“It’s simple,” said Warner, who was binding up his little wound with his own hand. “It’s just a question in mathematics. I see now how Stonewall Jackson won so many triumphs in the Valley of Virginia. Give Jackson, say, fifteen thousand men. We have fifty thousand, but we divide them into five armies of ten thousand apiece. Jackson fights them in detail, which is five battles, of course. His fifteen thousand defeat the ten thousand every time. Hence Jackson with fifteen thousand men has beaten our side. It’s simple but painful. In time our leaders will learn.”
“After we’re all killed,” said Pennington sadly.
“And the country is ripped apart so that it will take half a century to put the pieces back together again and put ’em back right,” said Dick, with equal sadness.
“Never mind,” said Sergeant Whitley with returning cheerfulness. “Other countries have survived great wars and so will ours.”
Some food was obtained for the exhausted men and they ate it nervously, paying little attention to the crackling fire of the skirmishers which was still going on in the darkness along their front. Dick saw the pink flashes along the edges of the woods and the wheat field, but his mind, deadened for the time, took no further impressions. Skirmishers were unpleasant people, anyway. Let them fight down there. It did not matter what they might do to one another. A minute or two later he was ashamed of such thoughts.
Colonel Winchester, who had been to see General Banks, returned presently and told them that they would march again in half an hour.
“General Banks,” he said with bitter irony, “is afraid that a powerful force of the rebels will gain his rear and that we shall be surrounded. He ought to know. He has had enough dealings with Jackson. Outmaneuvered and outflanked again! Why can’t we learn something?”
But he said this to the young officers only. He forced a cheerfulness of tone when he spoke to the men, and they dragged themselves wearily to their feet in order to begin the retreat. But though the muscles were tired the spirit was not unwilling. All the omens were sinister, pointing to the need of withdrawal. The vicious skirmishers were still busy and a crackling fire came from many points in the woods. The occasional rolling thunder of a cannon deepened the somberness of the scene.
All the officers of the regiment had lost their horses and they walked now with the men. A full moon threw a silvery light over the marching troops, who strode on in silence, the wounded suppressing their groans. A full moon cast a silvery light over the pallid faces.
“Do you know where we are going?” Dick asked of the Vermonter.
“I heard that we’re bound for a place called Culpeper Court House, six or seven miles away. I suppose we’ll get there in the morning, if Stonewall Jackson doesn’t insist on another interview with us.”