Warner’s welcome was in truth warm. He seemed more phlegmatic than ever, but he opened his eyes wide when they told him of the dispatch that had been lost and found.
“General McClellan must have been waiting for me,” he said. “Tell him I’ve come.”
But General McClellan did not yet move. The last long hour of the day passed. The sun set in red and gold behind the western mountains, and the Army of the Potomac still rested in its camp, although privates even knew that precious hours were being lost, and that booming cannon might already be telling the defenders of Harper’s Ferry that Jackson was at hand.
Nor were they far wrong. While McClellan lingered on through the night, never moving from his camp, Jackson and his generals were pushing forward with fiery energy and at dawn the next day had surrounded Harper’s Ferry and its doomed garrison of more than twelve thousand men.
But these were things that Dick could not guess that night. One small detachment had been sent ahead by McClellan, chiefly for scouting purposes, and in the darkness the boy who had gone a little distance forward with Colonel Winchester heard the booming of cannon. It was a faint sound but unmistakable, and Dick glanced at his chief.
“That detachment has come into contact with the rebels somewhere there in the mountains,” he said, “and the ridges and valleys are bringing us the echoes. Oh, why in Heaven’s name are we delayed here through all the precious moments! Every hour’s delay will cost the lives of ten thousand good men!”
And it is likely that in the end Colonel Winchester’s reckoning was too moderate. He and Dick gazed long in the direction in which Harper’s Ferry lay, and they listened, too, to the faint mutter of the guns among the hills. Before dawn, scouts came in, saying that there had been hard fighting off toward Harper’s Ferry, and that Lee with the other division of the Southern army was retreating into a peninsula formed by the junction of the river Antietam with the Potomac, where he would await the coming of Jackson, after taking Harper’s Ferry.
“Jackson hasn’t taken Harper’s Ferry yet,” said Dick, when he heard the news. “Many of Banks’ veterans of the valley are there, and, our men instead of being crushed by defeat, are always improved by it.”
“Still, I wish we’d march,” said Warner. “I didn’t come here merely to go into camp. I might as well have stayed in the hospital.”
Nevertheless they moved at daylight. McClellan had made up his mind at last, and the army advanced joyfully to shut down the trap on Lee. Dick’s spirits rose with the sun and the advance of the troops. They had delayed, but they would get Lee yet. There was nothing to tell them that Harper’s Ferry had fallen, and Jackson’s force must still be detained there far away. They ought to strike Lee on the morrow and destroy him, and then they would destroy Jackson. Oh, Lee and Jackson had been reckless generals to venture beyond the seceding states!
They marched fast now, and the fiery Hooker soon to be called Fighting Joe led the advance. He was eager to get at Lee, who some said did not now have more than twenty thousand men with him, although McClellan insisted on doubling or tripling his numbers and those of Jackson. Scouts and skirmishers came in fast now. Yes, Lee was between the Antietam and the Potomac and they ought to strike him on the morrow. The spirits of the Army of the Potomac continually rose.
Dick remained in a joyous mood. He had been greatly uplifted by the return of his comrade, Warner, for whom he had formed a strong attachment, and he could not keep down the thought that they would now be able to trap Lee and end the war. The terrible field of the Second Manassas was behind him and forgotten for the time. They rode now to a new battle and to victory.
Another great cloud of dust like that at Manassas rolled slowly on toward the little river or creek of Antietam, but the heat was not so great now. A pleasant breeze blew from the distant western mountains and cooled the faces of the soldiers. The country through which they were passing was old for America. They saw a carefully cultivated soil, good roads and stone bridges.