“I’m getting along all right, Dick, old man,” said Warner. “What’s all that firing off toward the woods?”
“A battle, but it won’t stop us. We retreated in time.”
“And we’ve been defeated. Well, we can stand it. It takes a good nation to stand big defeats. You know I taught school once, Dick, and I learned that the biggest nation the world has ever known was the one that suffered the biggest defeats. Look at the terrible knocks the Romans got! Why the Gauls nearly ate ’em alive two or three times, and for years Hannibal whipped ’em every time he could get at ’em. But they ended by whipping everybody who had whipped them. They whipped the whole world, and they kept it whipped until they played out from old age.”
Dick laughed cheerily.
“Now, you shut up, George,” he said. “You’ve talked too much. What’s the use of going back as far as the old Romans for comfort. We can win without having to copy a lot of old timers.”
He dropped the flap of canvas and rode on listening to the sounds of the combat. A powerful figure stepped out of the bushes and stood beside his horse. It was Sergeant Whitley, who had passed through the battle without a scratch.
“What has happened, Sergeant?” asked Dick, as he sat in the rain and listened to the dying fire.
“There has been a fight, and both are quitting because they can’t see enough to carry it on any longer. But General Kearney has been killed.”
The retreat continued until they reached the Potomac and were in the great fortifications before Washington. Then Pope resigned, and the star of McClellan rose again. The command of the armies about Washington was entrusted to him, and the North gathered itself anew for the mighty struggle.
CHAPTER VII. ORDERS NO. 191
When the Union army, defeated at the Second Manassas fell back on Washington, Dick was detached for a few days from the regiment by Colonel Winchester, partly that he might have a day or two of leave, and partly that he might watch over Warner, who was making good progress.
Warner was in a wagon that contained half a dozen other wounded men, or rather boys, and they were all silent like stoics as they passed over the bridge to a hospital in Washington. His side and shoulder pained him, and he had recurrent periods of fever, but he was making fine progress.
Dick found his comrade on a small cot among dozens of others in a great room. But George’s cot was near a window and the pleasant sunshine poured in. It was now the opening of September, and the hot days were passing. There was a new sparkle and crispness in the air, and Warner, wounded as he was, felt it.
“We’re back in the capital to enjoy ourselves a while,” he said lightly to Dick, “and I’m glad to see that the weather will be fine for sight-seeing.”
“Yes, here we are,” said Dick. “The Johnnies beat us this time. They didn’t outfight us, but they had the best generals. As soon as you’re well, George, we’ll start out again and lick ’em.”
“I’m glad you told ’em to wait for me, Dick. That’s what you ought to do. I hear that McClellan is at the head of things again.”
“Yes, the Army of the Potomac is to the front once more, and it’s taken over the Army of Virginia. We hear that Pope is going out to the northwest to fight Indians.”
“McClellan is not likely to be trapped as Pope was, but he’s so tremendously cautious that he’ll never trap anything himself. Now, which kind of a general would you choose, Dick?”
“As between those two I’ll take McClellan. The soldiers at least like him and believe in him. And George, our man in the east hasn’t come yet. The generals we’ve had don’t hammer. They don’t concentrate, rush right in and rain blows on the enemy.”
“Do you think you know the right man, Dick?”
“I’m making a guess. It’s Grant. We saw him at Donelson and Shiloh. Surprised at both places, he won anyhow. He wouldn’t be beat. That’s the kind of man we want here in the east.”