Dick had found another horse belonging to a slain owner, and, in the darkness, his heart full of bitterness, he rode back beside Colonel Winchester toward Manassas. Could they never win a big victory in the east? The men were brave and tenacious. They had proved it over and over again, but they were always mismanaged. It seemed to him that they were never sent to the right place at the right time.
Nevertheless, many of the Northern generals, able and patriotic, achieved great deeds before the dawn of that momentous morning. Messengers were riding in the darkness in a zealous attempt to gather the forces together. There was yet abundant hope that they could crush Jackson before Lee came, and in the darkness brigade after brigade marched toward Warrenton.
Dick, after tasting all the bitterness of retreat, felt his hopes rise again. They had not really been beaten. They had fought a superior force of Jackson’s own men to a standstill. He could never forget that. He cherished it and rolled it under his tongue. It was an omen of what was to come. If they could only get leaders of the first rank they would soon end the war.
He found himself laughing aloud in the anticipation of what Pope’s Army of Virginia would do in the coming day to the rebels. It might even happen that McClellan with the Army of the Potomac would also come upon the field. And then! Lee and Jackson thought they had Pope in a trap! Pope and McClellan would have them between the hammer and the anvil, and they would be pounded to pieces!
“Here, stop that foolishness, Dick! Quit, I say, quit it at once!”
It was Warner who was speaking, and he gripped Dick’s arm hard, while he peered anxiously into his face.
“What’s the matter with you?” he continued. “What do you find to laugh at? Besides, I don’t like the way you laugh.”
Dick shook himself, and then rubbed his hand across his brow.
“Thanks, George,” he said. “I’m glad you called me back to myself. I was thinking what would happen to the enemy if McClellan and the Army of the Potomac came up also, and I was laughing over it.”
“Well, the next time, don’t you laugh at a thing until it happens. You may have to take your laugh back.”
Dick shook himself again, and the nervous excitement passed.
“You always give good advice, George,” he said. “Do you know where we are?”
“I couldn’t name the place, but we’re not so far from Warrenton that we can’t get back there in a short time and tackle Jackson again. Dick, see all those moving lights to right and left of us. They’re the brigades coming up in the night. Isn’t it a weird and tremendous scene? You and I and Pennington will see this night over and over again, many and many a time.”
“It’s so, George,” said Dick, “I feel the truth of what you say all through me. Listen to the rumble of the cannon wheels! I hear ’em on both sides of us, and behind us, and I’ve no doubt, too, that it’s going on before us, where the Southerners are massing their batteries. How the lights move! It’s the field of Manassas again, and we’re going to win this time!”
All of Dick’s senses were excited once more, and everything he saw was vivid and highly colored. Warner, cool of blood as he habitually was, had no words of rebuke for him now, because he, too, was affected in the same way. The fields and plains of Manassas were alive not alone with marching armies, but the ghosts of those who had fallen there the year before rose and walked again.
Despite the darkness everything swelled into life again for Dick. Off there was the little river of Manassas, Young’s Branch, the railway station, and the Henry House, around which the battle had raged so fiercely. They would have won the victory then if it had not been for Stonewall Jackson. If he had not been there the war would have been ended on that sanguinary summer day.
But Jackson was in front of them now, and they had him fast. Lee and Jackson had thought to trap Pope, but Jackson himself was in the trap, and they would destroy him utterly. His admiration for the great Southern general had changed for the time into consuming rage. They must overwhelm him, annihilate him, sweep him from the face of the earth.