Dick felt very grateful. Pennington had been up some time, and as they sat down in the sun he gave Dick the news.
“It was a bad night,” he said. “After you staggered in with George, the rebels, in spite of the rain, harassed us. I was waked up after midnight, and the colonel began to believe that we would have to fight again before morning, though the need didn’t come, so far as we were concerned. But we were terribly worried on the flanks. They say it was Stuart and his cavalry who were bothering us.”
“What’s the outlook for to-day?”
“I don’t know. I hear that General Pope has sent a dispatch saying that the enemy is badly whipped, and that we’ll hold our own here. But between you and me, Dick, I don’t believe it. We’ve been driven out of all our positions, so we can hardly call it a victory for our side.”
“But we may hold on where we are and win a victory yet. McClellan and the Army of the Potomac may come. Anyway, we can get big reinforcements.”
Pennington clasped his arms over his knees and sang:
“The race is not to him that’s got
The longest legs to run,
Nor the battle to those people
That shoot the biggest gun.”
“Where did you get that song?” asked Dick. “I’ll allow, under the circumstances, that there seems to be some sense in it.”
“A Texan that we captured last night sang it to us. He was a funny kind of fellow. Didn’t seem to be worried a bit because he was taken. Said if his own people didn’t retake him that he’d escape in a week, anyhow. Likely enough he will, too. But he was good company, and he sang us that song. Impudent, wasn’t he?”
“But true so far, at least in the east. I fancy from what you say, Frank, that we’ll be here a day longer anyhow. I hope so, I want to rest.”
“So do I. I won’t fight to-day, unless I’m ordered to do it. But I’m thinking with you, Dick, that we’ll retreat. We were outmaneuvered by Lee and Jackson. That circuit of Jackson’s through Thoroughfare Gap and the attack from the rear undid us. It comes of being kept in the dark by the enemy, instead of your keeping him in the dark. We never knew where the blow was going to fall, and when it fell a lot of us weren’t there. But, Dick, old boy, we’re going to win, in the end, aren’t we, in spite of Lee, in spite of Jackson, and in spite of everybody and everything?”
“As surely as the rising and setting of the sun, Frank.”
Although Dick had little to do that day, events were occurring. It was in the minds of Lee and Jackson that they might yet destroy the army which they had already defeated, and heavy divisions of the Southern army were moving. Dick heard about night that Jackson had marched ten miles, through fields deep in mud, and meant to fall on Pope’s flank or rear again. Stuart and his unresting cavalry were also on their right flank and in the rear, doing damage everywhere. Longstreet had sent a brigade across Bull Run, and at many points the enemy was pressing closer.
The next morning, Pope, alarmed by all the sinister movements on his flanks and in his rear, gathered up his army and retreated. It was full time or the vise would have shut down on him again. Late that day the division under Kearney came into contact with Jackson’s flanking force in the forest. A short but fierce battle ensued, fought in the night and amid new torrents of driving rain. General Kearney was killed by a skirmisher, but the night and the rain grew so dense, and they were in such a tangle of thickets and forests that both sides drew off, and Pope’s army passed on.
Dick was not in this battle, but he heard it’s crash and roar above the sweep of the storm. He and the balance of the regiment were helping to guard the long train of the wounded. Now and then, he leaned from his horse and looked at Warner who lay in one of the covered wagons.