Joseph A Altsheler – Civil War 05 – Star Of Gettysburg. Chapter 13

The night was clear and bright, and they saw many men coming and going from a cold spring under the shadow of the trees. Some of them were wounded and limped painfully. Others carried away water in their hats and caps for comrades too badly wounded to move. Harry observed that some wore the blue, and some the gray. Both he and Dalton were assailed by a burning thirst at the sight of the water, and they went to the spring.

Here men who an hour or two ago had been striving their utmost to kill one another were gathered together and spoke as friends. When one went away another took his place. No thought of strife occurred to them, although there would be plenty of it on the morrow. They even jested and foes complimented foes on their courage. Harry and Dalton drank, and paused a few moments to hear the talk.

The moon rode high, and it has looked down upon no more extraordinary scene than this, the enemies drinking together in friendship at the spring, and all about them the stony ramparts of the hills, bristling with cannon, and covered with riflemen, ready for a red dawn, and the fields and ridges on which thirty thousand had already fallen, dead or wounded.

“Another meeting, Mr. Kenton,” said a man who had been bent down drinking. As he rose the moonlight shone full upon his face and Harry was startled. And yet it was not strange that he should be there. The face revealed to Harry was one of uncommon power. It seemed to him that the features had grown more massive. The powerful chin and the large, slightly curved nose showed indomitable spirit and resolution. The face was tanned almost to blackness by all kinds of weather. Harry would not have known him at first, had it not been for his voice.

“We do meet in unexpected places and at unexpected times, Mr. Shepard,” he said.

“I’m not merely trying to be polite, when I tell you that I’m glad to find you alive. You and I have seen battles, but never another like this.”

“And I can truthfully welcome you, Mr. Shepard, as an old acquaintance and no real enemy.”

It was an impulse but a noble one that made the two, different in years and so unlike, shake hands with a firm and honest grip.

“Your army will come again in the morning,” said Shepard, not as a question, but as a statement of fact.

“Can you doubt it?”

“No, I don’t, but to-morrow night, Mr. Kenton, you will recall what I told you at our first meeting in Montgomery more than two years ago.”

“You said that we could not win.”

“And you cannot. It was never possible. Oh, I know that you’ve won great victories against odds! You’ve done better than anybody could have expected, but you had genius to help you, while we were led by mediocrity in the saddle. But you have reached your zenith. Mark how the Union veterans fought today. They’re as brave and resolute as you are, and we have the position and the men. You’ll never get beyond Gettysburg. Your invasion is over. Hereafter you fight always on the defensive.”

Harry was startled by his emphasis. The man spoke like an inspired prophet of old. His eyes sparkled like coals of fire in the dark, tanned face. The boy had never before seen him show so much emotion, and his heart sank at the appalling prophecy. Then his courage came back.

“You predict as you hope, Mr. Shepard,” he said.

Shepard laughed a little, though not with mirth, and said:

“It is well that it should be settled here. There will be death on a greater scale than any the war has yet seen, but it will have to come sooner or later, and why not at Gettysburg? Good-bye, I go back to the heights. May we both be alive to-morrow night to see which is right.”

“The wish is mine, too,” said Harry sincerely.

Shepard turned away and disappeared in the darkness. Harry rejoined Dalton who was on the other side of the spring, and the two returned to Seminary Ridge, where they walked among sleeping thousands. They found their way to their comrades of the staff, and their physical powers collapsing at last they fell on the ground where they soon sank into a heavy sleep. The great silence came again. Sentinels walked back and forth along the hostile lines, but they made no noise. There was little moving of brigades or cannon now. The town itself became a town of phantom houses in the moonlight, nearly all of them still and deserted. On all the slopes of the hostile ridges lay the sleeping soldiers, and on the rocks and fields between lay the dead in thousands. But from the crest of Little Round Top, the precious hill so hardly won, the Union officers watched all through the night, and, now and then, they went through the batteries for which they were sure they were going to have great use.

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