Colonel Talbot happened to look up and saw the boys.
“Come down,” he said, “and join us. It is pleasant to see you again, Harry. I heard of your mission, its success and your safe return. Hector, I suppose we’ll have to postpone the next stage of our game until we whip the Yankees again or are whipped by them. I believe I can yet rescue that red king.”
“Perhaps so, Leonidas. Undoubtedly you’ll have plenty of time to think over it.”
“Which is a good thing, Hector.”
“Which is undoubtedly a good thing, Leonidas.”
They put the chess men carefully in a box, which they gave to an orderly with very strict injunctions. Then both, after heaving a deep sigh, transformed themselves into men of energy, action, precision and judgment. Every soldier and officer in the trim ranks of the Invincibles was ready.
But action did not come as soon as Harry and his friends had thought. Lee made preliminary movements to mass his army for battle, and then stopped. The spies reported that political wire-pulling, that bane of the North, was at work. McClellan’s enemies at Washington were active, and his indiscreet utterances were used to the full against him. Attention was called again and again to his great overestimates of Lee’s army and to the paralysis that seemed to overcome him when he was in the presence of the enemy. Lincoln, the most forgiving of men, could not forgive him for his failure to use his full opportunity at Antietam and destroy Lee.
The advance of McClellan stopped. His army remained motionless while October passed into November. The cold winds off the mountains swept the last leaves from the trees, and Harry wondered what was going to happen. Then St. Clair came to him, precise and dignified in manner, but obviously anxious to tell important news.
“What is it, Arthur?” asked Harry.
“We’ve got news straight from Washington that McClellan is no longer commander of the Army of the Potomac.”
“What! They’ve nobody to put in his place.”
“But they have put somebody in his place, just the same.”
“Name, please.”
“Burnside, Ambrose E. Burnside, with a beautiful fringe of whiskers along each side of his face.”
“Well, we can beat any general who wears side whiskers. After all, I’m glad we don’t have McClellan to deal with again. Wasn’t this Burnside the man who delayed a part of the Union attack at Antietam so long that we had time to beat off the other part?”
“The same.”
“Then I’m thinking that he’ll be caught between the hammer and the anvil of Lee and Jackson, just as Pope was.”
“Most likely. Anyhow, our army is rejoicing over the removal of McClellan as commander-in-chief of the Army of the Potomac. That’s something of a tribute to McClellan, isn’t it?”
“Yes, good-bye, George! We’ve had two good fights with you, Seven Days and Antietam, with Pope in between at the Second Manassas, and now, ho! for Burnside!”
The reception of the news that Burnside had replaced McClellan was the same throughout the Army of Northern Virginia. The officers and soldiers now felt that they were going to face a man who was far less of a match for Lee and Jackson than McClellan had been, and McClellan himself had been unequal to the task. They were anxious to meet Burnside. They heard that he was honest and had no overweening opinion of his own abilities. He did not wish to be put in the place of McClellan, preferring to remain a division or corps commander.
“Then, if that’s so,” said Sherburne, “we’ve won already. If a man thinks he’s not able to lead the Army of the Potomac, then he isn’t. Anyhow, we’ll quickly see what will happen.”
But again it was not as soon as they had had expected. The Northern advance was delayed once more, and Jackson with his staff and a large part of his force moved to Winchester, the town that he loved so much, and around which he had won so much of his glory. His tent was pitched beside the Presbyterian manse, and he and Dr. Graham resumed their theological discussions, in which Jackson had an interest so deep and abiding that the great war rolling about them, with himself as a central figure, could not disturb it.