Chapter VIII: Part 8

The physician's knowledge of the French language was scant, and his pronunciation was execrably bad, but he managed to greet the nurse in that tongue on her arrival, and to say, very gallantly:

"Now my patient should surely get well. Under care of such a nurse even a dead man might be persuaded back to life."

XXVII

_AGATHA'S WONDER-STORY_

Agatha had been for more than a week at Baillie Pegram's bedside before he manifested any consciousness of her presence. But from the very first her ministrations had seemed to soothe him.

Even when his fever brought active delirium with it, a word from his soft-voiced French nurse quieted him, and each day showed less of fever and more of strength.

At last one day he lay quiet, and Agatha sat stitching at something near the foot of the bed. Her face was bent over her work, so that she did not see when he opened his eyes and gazed steadily at her for a time. Not until she looked up, as she was accustomed watchfully to do every little while, did he fully recognise her. Then, in a feeble voice, he spoke her name--nothing more.

She gently readjusted his pillows, and he fell into a more natural sleep than he had known since his relapse had befallen him.

When he waked again, Sam was sitting by, Agatha having left the room for a brief while.

"Who has been here, Sam?" the sick man asked.

"Nobody, Mas' Baillie, on'y de French lady what's a-nussin' of yo'," replied Sam, lying with the utmost equanimity, in accordance with what he believed to be the spirit of his instructions.

"I dreamed it, then. Tell me where I am, Sam."

"I ain't Sam an' yo' ain't Mas' Baillie; I'se jes' _garshong_, an' yo'se a French gentleman, an' yo' cawn't talk nuffin' but French, an' so 'tain't no use fer yo' to try to talk to me. Yo' mus' jes' go to sleep, now, an' when de French nuss comes back, yo' kin ax her in French like whatsomever yo' wants to know."

Baillie's bewildered wits struggled for a moment with the problem of his own identity, but before the French nurse returned he had fallen asleep again. It was not until the next day, therefore, that he had opportunity to ask Agatha anything, but his fever had abated by that time, and his mind was rapidly clearing.

"Tell me about it all, please," he said to her.

"Sh--speak only in French," she replied, herself speaking in that tongue. "It is very necessary, and address me as Mademoiselle Roland."

Then she told him so much as was necessary to prevent him from exercising his imagination in an exciting way. When she had explained that he was still in the house of the doctor who had aided him in his escape, and that the pretence of his being a French gentleman and she a French nurse was necessary for safety, she added:

"I came to you when you were very ill and needed me, and I shall stay with you so long as you need me. You mustn't talk now. Wait a few days, and you will be strong enough."

The prediction was fulfilled, and a few days later Agatha told him the whole story of her own and Sam's search for him, dwelling particularly upon Sam's devotion and the ingenuity he had brought to bear upon the problem of rescue. For at times when there was no possibility that anybody should overhear, Agatha had made Sam tell her all the details of that affair, until she knew as well as he did every word he had spoken and every step he had taken in the execution of his purpose.

Baillie's progress toward recovery was necessarily slow, but it was steady and continuous, and after many weeks, when he was permitted to sit up for awhile each day, he begged to hear about the progress of the war.

It was now September, 1862, and what she had to tell him was one of the most dramatic stories that the history of our American war has to relate.

McClellan had proved himself to be a great organiser and a masterful engineer, and he had at last tried to prove himself to be also a great general.

He had so perfectly fortified the city of Washington that a brigade or a division or two might easily hold it against the most determined hosts. He had organised the "regiments cowering upon the Potomac," and the scores of other regiments that had come pouring into the capital, into one of the finest armies that had ever taken the field in any country in the world. He had multiplied his artillery, and swelled his cavalry force to proportions that rendered it numerically superior to Stuart's "Mamelukes." He had so perfected his supply departments--quartermaster's, commissary's, medical, and ordnance--that their work was accomplished with the precision, the certainty, and the smoothness of well-ordered machinery.

He had brought under his immediate command a perfectly organised army, numbering nearly or quite two hundred thousand men.[1] The Confederates had in Virginia about one-fourth that number available for the defence of Richmond. Nor could this army of defence be reinforced from other parts of the South, for during the long waiting-time in Virginia, events of the most vital importance had been occurring at the West. Chief of these in importance, though the government at Washington was slow to recognise the fact, was the discovery there of a really capable commander--General Grant. He had captured Forts Henry and Donelson, thus gaining control of the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers, breaking the Confederate line of defence, and pushing the Southern armies completely out of Kentucky, and almost out of Tennessee. He was preparing, when McClellan moved, to complete that part of his work by fighting the tremendous battle of Shiloh.

[Footnote 1: Rossiter Johnson, in his "History of the War of Secession," says that 121,000 were sent to Fortress Monroe and seventy thousand left at Washington, besides McDowell's corps and Bleuker's division.]

Thus the Confederates could not afford to draw so much as a single regiment or battery from that field for the strengthening of Johnston's force in Virginia. Finally, early in March, Johnston had withdrawn from Centreville and Manassas to the immediate neighbourhood of Richmond.

It was in such circumstances that McClellan at last undertook to use the great army he had created, for the purpose it was meant to accomplish. Early in the spring, he transferred 120,000 men by water to Fortress Monroe, leaving seventy thousand at and near Washington, to hold that capital secure. Somewhat more than half of this force at Washington was to advance upon Richmond by way of Fredericksburg, and add forty thousand men to McClellan's great army when he should sit down before the Confederate capital. He, meanwhile, was to march up the peninsula formed by the York and James Rivers, supported by the navy on either side.

Richmond was seemingly doomed, and everywhere at the North the expectation was that McClellan, with his overwhelming forces and his well-nigh perfect organisation, would make an end of the war before the first anniversary of the battle of Manassas.

If McClellan had been half as capable in the field as he had proved himself to be in the work of organisation, this might easily have happened. But he was cautious to a positively paralysing degree. It was his habit of mind to overestimate his enemy's strength to his own undoing. Thus when he began his advance up the peninsula, with nearly sixty thousand men, to be almost immediately reinforced to one hundred thousand and more, he found a Confederate line stretched across the peninsula at Yorktown. It consisted of thirteen thousand men under Magruder, and with his enormous superiority of numbers, McClellan might have run over it in a day, while with his transports, protected by gunboats, he might easily have carried his army by it on either side, compelling its retreat or surrender. But in his excessive caution he assumed that the entire Confederate force was concentrated there, and his imagination doubled the strength of that force. He confidently believed that the Yorktown lines were defended by an army of eighty thousand or more, and instead of finding out the facts by an assault, he wasted nearly a month in scientifically besieging the little force of thirteen thousand men, with an army six or eight times as great, and a siege train of enormous strength.

When at last he had pushed his siege parallels near enough for an assault, he found his enemy gone, and discovered that the great frowning cannon in their works were nothing more than wooden logs, painted black, and mounted like heavy guns.

The North had not yet found a general capable of commanding the superb army it had created, or of making effective use of those enormously superior resources which from the beginning had been at its disposal. Grant had splendidly demonstrated his capacity at Shiloh, but Halleck had immediately superseded him, and completely thrown away the opportunity there presented. Grant was still denied any but volunteer rank, and for many weeks after Shiloh he was left, as he has himself recorded, with none but nominal command, and was not even consulted by his immeasurably inferior superior.

McClellan at last reached the neighbourhood of Richmond, and placed his great army on the eastern and northern fronts of the Confederate capital. But still permitting his imagination to mislead him, he confidently believed the Confederate forces to be quite twice as numerous as they were in fact. So instead of pressing them vigorously, as a more enterprising and less excessively cautious commander would have done, he proceeded to fortify and for weeks kept his splendid army idle in a pestilential swamp, whose miasms were far deadlier than bullets and shells could have been.

At the end of May the Confederates assailed his left wing, believing that a flood in the river had isolated it from the rest of the army, and a bloody five days' battle ensued, with no decisive results, except to demonstrate the fighting quality of the troops under McClellan's command.

Still he hesitated and fortified, and urgently called for reinforcements. These to the number of forty thousand were on their way to join him, marching directly southward from Washington.

But the Confederates had been more fortunate than their foes. They had found their great commander, a piece of good fortune which did not happen to the Federal armies until nearly two years later. After the battle of Seven Pines at the end of May and the beginning of June, Robert E. Lee assumed personal command of the forces defending Richmond, and from that hour the great game of war was played by him with a sagacity and a boldness that had not been seen before.

Lee's problem was to drive McClellan's army away from Richmond, and transfer the scene of active hostilities to some more distant point. To that end he must prevent the coming of McDowell with his army to McClellan's assistance. Accordingly he ordered Jackson to sweep down the Shenandoah valley, threatening an advance upon Washington in its rear, thus putting the Federals there upon their defence. He rightly believed that the excessive concern felt at the North for the safety of the capital would make Jackson's operations an occasion of great alarm.

The result was precisely what Lee had intended. Jackson swept like a hurricane through the valley, moving so rapidly and appearing so suddenly at unexpected and widely separated points as to seem both ubiquitous and irresistible. The Federal army which was marching to reinforce McClellan was promptly turned aside and sent over the mountains to meet and check Jackson. While it was hurrying westward, Jackson suddenly slipped out of the valley and carried his "foot cavalry"--as his rapidly marching corps had come to be called--to the neighbourhood of Richmond, where Lee was ready to fall upon his adversary in full force, striking his right flank like a thunderbolt, pushing into his rear, pressing him back in successive encounters, threatening his base of supplies on the York River, and finally compelling him to retreat to the cover of his gunboats at Harrison's Landing on the James.

All this constituted what is known as the "Seven Days' Battles." It was a brilliant operation, attended at every step by heroic fighting on both sides, and by consummate skill on both--for if Lee's successful operation for his enemy's dislodgment was good strategy, McClellan's successful withdrawal of his army from its imperilled position to one in which it could not be assailed, was scarcely less so.

But still more dramatic events were to follow. McClellan had been driven away from the immediate neighbourhood of the Confederate capital, but his new position at Harrison's Landing was one from which he might at any moment advance again either upon Richmond or upon Petersburg, which was afterward proved to be the military key to the capital. His army was still numerically stronger than Lee's, and it might be reinforced at any time, and to any desired extent, while Lee had already under his command every man that could be spared from other points. More important still, the fighting strength of McClellan's forces had been bettered by the battling they had done. The men were inured to war work now, and had improved in steadiness and discipline under the tutelage of experience.

Except that its confidence in its general was somewhat impaired, the Army of the Potomac was a stronger and more trustworthy war implement than it had been at the beginning. So long as it should remain where it was, Lee must keep the greater part of his own force in the intrenchments in front of Richmond, and the seat of war must remain discouragingly near the Confederate capital. In the meanwhile a new Federal force, called the Army of Virginia, had been sent out from Washington under General John Pope, to assail Richmond from the north and west, while securely covering Washington. Pope's base was at Manassas, and his army had been pushed forward to the line of the Rappahannock, where there was no army to meet it and check its advance upon Richmond.

Lee must act quickly. For should Pope come within striking-distance of Richmond on the northwest, McClellan's army would very certainly advance from the east, and Richmond would be threatened by a stronger force than ever before.

But Lee could not move in adequate force to meet and check Pope's advance, without leaving Richmond undefended against any advance that McClellan might see fit to make. His perplexing problem was to compel the withdrawal of McClellan, and the transfer of his army to Washington.

To effect this, Lee again played upon the nervous apprehension felt in Washington for the safety of that city. He detached Jackson, and sent him to the Rappahannock to threaten Pope, while remaining within reach of Richmond in case of need. This movement increased the apprehension in Washington, and a considerable part of McClellan's force was withdrawn by water. Thereupon Lee sent another corps to the Rappahannock, a proceeding which led to the withdrawal of pretty nearly all that remained of McClellan's army, to reinforce Pope, and the abandonment of the campaign by way of the peninsula. Lee instantly transferred the remainder of his army to the Rappahannock, leaving only a small garrison in the works at Richmond.

Pope was alert to meet Lee at every point, and he was being strengthened by daily reinforcements from what had been McClellan's army. But in Pope, with all his energy and dash and extraordinary self-confidence, the Federal government had not found a leader capable of playing the great war game on equal terms with Robert E. Lee. Grant and Sherman were still in subordinate commands at the West, while Halleck, who believed in neither of them, had been brought to Washington and placed in supreme control of all the Union armies.

Lee quickly proved himself greatly more than a match for Pope in the art of war. Making a brave show of intending to force his way across the river at a point where Pope could easily hold his own, Lee detached Jackson and sent him around Bull Run Mountains and through Thoroughfare Gap to fall upon his adversary's base at Manassas. As soon as Jackson was well on his way, Lee sent other forces to join him, while still keeping up his pretence of a purpose to force a crossing.

It was not until the head of Jackson's column appeared near Manassas that Pope suspected his adversary's purpose. He then hastily fell back from the river, and concentrated all his forces at Manassas, while Lee, with equal haste, moved, with the rest of his army, to join Jackson.

His strategy had completely succeeded, and he promptly assailed Pope, with his entire force, on the very field where the first great battle of the war had been fought, a little more than a year before.

Pope struggled desperately, but after two days of battle, he was completely beaten and forced to take refuge behind the defences of Washington.

This was at the beginning of September, just three months after Lee had taken personal command of the Army of Northern Virginia. Within that brief time he had done things, the simplest statement of which reads like a wonder-story. At the beginning of June a Federal army of 120,000 men lay almost within cannon-shot of the Confederate capital, while another Federal force about one-third as large was marching unopposed to form a junction with it, and still other Federal armies occupied the valley and sent raiders at will throughout Northern Virginia. At the beginning of September there remained no Federal army at all in Virginia to oppose Lee's will, whatever it might chance to be. McClellan with his grand army had been beaten in battle, and driven into a retreat which ended in his complete withdrawal, after a disastrous campaign, which at its beginning had seemed certain of success. Jackson had cleared the valley of armies superior to his own in numbers. Pope had been outwitted in strategy, beaten in battle, and driven to cover at Washington.

That was the story that Agatha related to Baillie early in September, when he was fit to hear it. It stirred his blood with enthusiasm, and bred in him an eagerness almost dangerous, to be at the head of his battery again, and a sharer in this splendid work of war.

"Your story is not ended yet," he said, when Agatha had finished. "It is 'to be continued,'--be very sure of that. Lee will not rest content with what he has done, marvellous as it is. He took the offensive as soon as he had disposed of McClellan. He will surely not now assume the defensive again, as our army did a year ago after the battle of Manassas. He is obviously made of quite other stuff than that of his predecessors in command. And here am I losing my share in it all,--a convalescent in charge of a nurse, and in hiding in the enemy's country. I tell you, Agatha, I must break out of this. As soon as I have strength enough to ride a horse, I must find a way of getting back to Virginia. And with the stimulus of strong desire, I shall not be long now in regaining that much of strength. In the meanwhile, I must think out a plan by which I can pass the Potomac without falling into the enemy's hands."

"I have already thought of all that," returned his companion, "and I have had others thinking of it, too,--all the friends in Maryland with whom I am in correspondence. After studying the conditions minutely we are agreed in the positive conviction that it will be impossible for you to get through the Federal lines, which are more rigidly drawn and more vigilantly guarded now than ever before. You cannot even start on such a journey without being arrested and imprisoned, and that would completely defeat your purpose."

"I must take the chances, then. For I simply will not sit idly here after I get well enough to sit in a saddle."

"Listen," commanded Agatha. "You are exciting yourself, and that is very bad for you. Besides, it is wholly unnecessary, for I have thought myself not into despair, but into hopefulness, rather. I have devised a plan, the success of which is practically assured in advance, by which you and I are going back into the Confederacy. No, I will not tell you what it is just now. You have excited and wearied yourself too much already. You must go back to your bed now, and sleep for several hours. When you wake, you shall have something to eat, and after that, if I find you sufficiently calm, I will tell you all about it. In the meantime, you may rest easy in your mind, for my plan is sure to succeed, and it will not be difficult of execution."

XXVIII

_WHEN A MAN TALKS TOO MUCH_

When Baillie had had his rest, he asked Agatha again to tell him of her plans. She explained that it was understood in the little town that he was a French gentleman who had suffered a severe hemorrhage; that as soon as he should be sufficiently recovered, it was his purpose to return to his own country in charge of his French nurse; that she planned in that way to sail with him from New York for Liverpool, where he would be free, as soon as his health should return, to go to the Bahamas and sail thence for Charleston, Wilmington, or some other Southern port, in one of the English blockade-runners that were now making trips almost with the regularity of packets.

Baillie approved the plan, though he lamented the length of time its execution must consume.

"Agatha," he said,--for since that morning at Fairfax Court-house he had addressed her only by her first name,--"I owe you my life, and I shall owe you my liberty, too, as soon as this admirable plan of yours can be carried out. I owe you, even now, such liberty as I have, for but for you--"

"You mustn't forget Sam," she interrupted; "it was he and not I who rescued you from the prison hospital."

"O, my appreciation of Sam's devotion is limitless, and my gratitude to him will last so long as I live. But it was you who brought him North; it was you who planned my rescue at terrible risk to yourself, and put Sam in the way of accomplishing it. And the doctor tells me without any sort of qualification that but for your coming to me as a nurse when you did, I should have died certainly and quickly. Don't interrupt me, please, I'm not going to embarrass you with an effort to thank you for what you have done. There is a generosity so great that expressions of thanks in return for it are a mockery--almost an insult, just as an offer to pay for it would be. I shall not speak of these things again--not now at least, not until time and place and circumstance shall be fit. I only want you to know that silence on my part does not signify indifference."

Baillie made no reference to that occasion when an untimely declaration of his love had been wrung from him only to be met by a passionless reminder that the time and place were inappropriate. He felt instinctively that any reference to that utterance of his would be in effect a new declaration of his love. In this spirit of chivalry, Baillie scrupulously guarded both his manner and his words at this time, lest his feelings should betray him into some expression that might embarrass the woman whose care of him must continue for some time to come. Feeling, on this occasion, that he had approached dangerously near to some utterance which might subject his companion to embarrassment, he resolutely turned the conversation into less hazardous channels.

"Your plan is undoubtedly the best that could be made under the circumstances," he said, "and as for the waste of time, we must simply reconcile ourselves to that. After all, I cannot hope to be strong enough for several months to come, to resume command of my battery in such campaigns as this great leader of ours will surely give us. For he is really and truly a great leader, Agatha. Only a great general could have wrought the marvels he has achieved. He would have proved himself great if he had done nothing more than prevent McClellan's reinforcement by sending Jackson to the valley. That was a great thought. And the next was greater. Having compelled the Federals to divert their reinforcing army from its purpose, he brought Jackson to Richmond, and fell upon McClellan with a fury that compelled his vastly superior army to abandon its campaign and retreat to the cover of its gunboats. There was a second achievement of the kind that only great generals accomplish. And even that did not fulfil the measure of his greatness. With a truly Napoleonic impulse, and by truly Napoleonic methods, he instantly converted his successful defence of Richmond into an offence which has been equally successful, so far. By his prompt movement against Pope he has compelled the complete abandonment of McClellan's campaign and the withdrawal of his army from Virginia. By his crushing defeat of Pope, he has cleared Virginia of its enemies, and changed the aspect of the war, from one of timorous defence on the part of the Confederates to one of confident aggression."

"What a pity it is," answered Agatha, "that some such man was not in command when the first battle of Manassas was won!"

"Yes. Such a man, with such an opportunity, would have made a speedy end of the trouble. He would never have given McClellan a chance to organise such an army as that which has been besieging Richmond. However, that is not what I was thinking of. I was going to say that a man capable of doing what Lee has done, will not rest content with that. He will continue in the aggressive way in which he has begun, and we shall hear presently of other battles and other campaigns. Agatha, I simply _must_ bear a part in all this. I am getting stronger every day now, and can sit up two hours at a time. Why can we not now carry out your plan? Why can we not go at once to New York in our assumed personalities, and sail immediately, so as to save all the time we can?"

"I have thought of that," the young woman answered, "but the doctor peremptorily forbids it for the present. He hopes you will be well enough two or three weeks hence to make the effort, but to make it short of that time, he says, would be almost certainly to spoil all by bringing on a relapse. You must be patient; we shall in that way make our success a certainty, and the war will last long enough for you to have your part in it, surely."

"Yes, unhappily for our country, it will last long enough."

The next morning brought news of a startling character. Lee was already beginning to fulfil Baillie's prediction by an aggressive campaign. Having driven the enemy out of Virginia, he now undertook to transfer the scene of the fighting to the region north of the Potomac. He had sent Jackson again to clear the valley, and was marching another corps northward upon a parallel line east of the mountains, while holding the remainder of his small but potent army in readiness to form a junction with either of the detached corps when necessary. The movement clearly foreshadowed a campaign in Maryland which, if it should prove successful, would place the Confederates in rear of Washington, and render that capital untenable, if Lee should win a single decisive battle north of the Potomac.

The alarm in Washington was such as almost to precipitate a panic. For had not Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia proved themselves far more than a match for every general and every army that had tried conclusions with them? Moreover, as they were advancing, full of the enthusiasm of recent victory, and free to pursue whatever routes they pleased, there was nobody to meet them except one or the other of two generals already discredited by defeat at Lee's hands, and an army drawn from those that the Army of Northern Virginia had so recently overthrown in the field.

Pope was no longer thought of as a leader fit for the task of meeting Lee. His campaign in Virginia had ended so disastrously, that men forgot all his former achievements, at Island Number Ten in the Mississippi, and elsewhere. He had already been removed from command and sent to fight Indians in the Northwest. There remained only McClellan, whom Lee had already outmanoeuvred and outfought, and both the government and the army had lost confidence in him. But the emergency was great, and McClellan, who had been removed, was again ordered to take command.

From the two armies that had been driven out of Virginia, a new one was quickly organised, which greatly outnumbered Lee's force. But instead of moving quickly to the assault, as Grant, or Sherman, or Thomas would have done under like circumstances, McClellan moved at a tortoise-like pace, giving his adversary ample time in which to unite his three columns, pass the Potomac unmolested, and push forward into Maryland.

All this was to come a little later, however. On the morning when Agatha read the newspapers to Baillie, all that was known was that Lee was rapidly moving northward, with evident intent to invade Maryland and push his columns into the rear of Washington.

"This is good news for us, Agatha," Baillie said, when the despatches had been read. "Unless Lee receives a check, the Army of Northern Virginia will be swarming all about us here within three or four days. If that occurs, you and I and Sam will have no difficulty in going to Virginia by a much more direct route than the one we have been planning to follow. An ambulance ride with liberty for its objective will do me no harm, while you and Sam shall be provided with good horses. Stuart will take care of that, even if he has to capture the horses from the enemy."

"We may safely trust him for so much of accommodation," answered the girl. "But if you excite yourself as you are doing now, you'll be ill again, and spoil all. You must go back to bed at once and go to sleep. That is your shortest road to rescue, now, whether Lee comes this way or is beaten back. In either case you will need all of strength that you can manage to accumulate."

The sick man obeyed, so far at least as going to bed was concerned. But he found it impossible to comply with his nurse's further injunction by going to sleep. His pulses were throbbing violently with the excitement of hope, and his nerves were tense almost to the verge of collapse. When the doctor returned from his round of visits he found his patient in a fever that, in one so weak, was dangerous. During the following night Baillie grew worse, and by the next morning the physician was convinced that he had lost most if not all of the ground that he had gained during three weeks of convalescence.

"Mademoiselle Roland," he said, "I must command you to forbid him to talk hereafter, even in French."

Baillie heard the remark, and came instantly to Agatha's defence.

"It was not her fault, Doctor," he said. "It was all my own."

"O, I know that," answered the physician. "She's the discreetest nurse I ever knew, while you are without question the most obstinate, cantankerous, and unruly patient a nurse was ever called upon to keep in subjection."

"Am I all that?" Baillie asked Agatha, when the doctor had left the room; "all that he said?"

"No, certainly not. But you mustn't talk. Go to sleep."

"Thank you!" was all that he could say in the stupor which the physician had induced with a sleeping potion.

XXIX

_A STRUGGLE OF GIANTS_

When Baillie woke from his drug-compelled sleep, his condition was far better than the doctor had anticipated. Lee was coming now, and the sick man was buoyed and strengthened by a confident hope of speedy rescue. The Army of Northern Virginia was in Maryland, and Baillie was sure that it would push rapidly eastward to and beyond the town where he had so long lain ill.

So it would have done if all had gone well. But there was a Federal force of eleven thousand men at Harper's Ferry. By all the principles of strategy it ought to have retired as soon as Lee crossed the Potomac above or below that point. To remain was to be cut off and to invite capture. McClellan, as a trained and scientific soldier, understood this perfectly, and he wished the force at Harper's Ferry to be withdrawn and added to his army. He was overruled by the civilian authorities at Washington, and the detached force remained in its entrenchments, completely isolated and helpless.

But in the meanwhile its presence at Harper's Ferry completely blocked Lee's only secure route of retreat in case of disaster. It was absolutely necessary for him to reduce it before continuing his progress northward or eastward. To that end he was obliged to send Jackson back across the Potomac, with orders to assail Harper's Ferry from the south, while other forces, detached for that purpose, should hold positions north and east of the town, thus preventing the garrison's escape.

Jackson did his part promptly and perfectly, as it was his custom to do. He carried the place, capturing the entire garrison of eleven thousand men, and all the guns, ammunition, and military stores, which had been accumulated there in vast quantities.

This was a very important capture, but in order to accomplish it, Lee had been compelled to scatter his forces in a dangerous fashion, besides losing the advantage that would have attended a rapid advance against an enemy who could not know whither he purposed to go, but must guard all roads at once. For from Lee's position after he had crossed the river it was open to him to advance upon Washington or Baltimore or Philadelphia as he might elect, keeping his adversary in the meanwhile in a state of embarrassing uncertainty as to his purposes.

But when he sent Jackson back and detached other strong forces to hold the avenues of escape from Harper's Ferry, his army was badly scattered, its several parts lying at too great a distance from each other for ready coöperation.

During the consequent days of waiting, McClellan was advancing in leisurely fashion to meet the Confederate movement, and his army was every day adding to its strength by the hurrying forward of fresh regiments and brigades to its reinforcement.

Finally Lee issued an order setting forth in detail his plan for concentrating his scattered forces. Copies of this order, showing the exact location of each part of the army and the movements to be made by each, were sent to all of the corps commanders. One of those copies was lost, and fell into McClellan's hands.

For once that most leisurely of generals was in a hurry. His opportunity had come to destroy the Army of Northern Virginia by beating it in detail. He threw a strong force forward to assail certain of its positions. The assault proved successful, but the success did not come so quickly as it should have done. By determined fighting Lee gained time in which to bring his scattered forces together again at Sharpsburg before his adversary could fall upon him in force. There, on Antietam Creek, on the 17th of September, 1862, was fought a battle which is reckoned the bloodiest of all the war, in proportion to the numbers engaged.

McClellan had seventy thousand men in line, Lee forty thousand. The struggle began early in the morning and continued until after nightfall. The fighting on both sides was as heroic and as determined as any that was ever done in the world. At the end of it all both sides claimed the victory, and neither had in fact won it. Neither had been able to drive the other from his position. Neither had broken the other's lines or gained any decisive advantage. And when morning came again neither side was willing to renew the contest, and neither would retire from the field.

For a whole day the two armies lay facing each other in grim defiance, each ready to receive the other should it attack, but neither venturing to make the assault.

After twenty-four hours of defiant waiting, Lee slowly retired to the Potomac, while McClellan lay still, not venturing to follow his adversary. Lee crossed unmolested into Virginia and took up a position within easy striking distance, but his adversary made no attempt to strike. McClellan presently advanced and stretched his great army along the Potomac. But he assumed an attitude of defence, calling insistently for reinforcements, though his army outnumbered Lee's about two to one.

He had succeeded in checking Lee's invasion of the North and turning it back. He was content with that, and in spite of President Lincoln's urgency he refused to do more, till at last General Burnside was ordered to assume command in his stead.

It was confidently expected both at the North and at the South, after Lee's withdrawal to Virginia, that as soon as his army should be rested, he would again take the offensive, assail McClellan at some point, and attempt a new march northward. This expectation was strengthened when Stuart, early in October, plunged across the river with his cavalry, galloped over the country, penetrated into Pennsylvania, and saucily rode entirely round McClellan's army, just as he had done a few months before at Richmond, in preparation for Lee's seven days' battle.

XXX

_THE LAST STRAW_

When the news came to Baillie and Agatha that Lee and McClellan had met in a great battle, and that the Army of Northern Virginia had retraced its steps across the Potomac, both lost heart a little.

But Baillie was now regaining strength at a surprising rate, and his eagerness to carry out Agatha's plan of escape, by way of England, Nassau, and a blockaded Southern port, became importunate.

Yielding to it, early in October, Agatha hurriedly made her final preparations. Through her friend in New York she engaged passage for herself, Baillie, and Sam, on a Cunard steamer appointed to sail on the 15th of the month. She made all necessary arrangements for the sick French gentleman, his French nurse, and his negro valet to make the journey to New York on the 14th, in order that they might sail the next morning.

But a few days before the time set for their departure a great excitement arose in the town where Baillie had so long lain ill. The Confederates were coming again; they had destroyed McClellan in a great battle, current rumour reported, and were now marching upon Washington unopposed. So the rumours ran.

Later tidings corrected all this to some extent. It was learned that there had been no battle as yet, and that the invading force was only the vanguard of Lee's advance.

"I think I understand what it means," said Agatha, who had followed Stuart's operations in the past with close attention, learning to appreciate his methods. "This is simply one of General Stuart's splendidly audacious raids. He rode around McClellan at Richmond, you remember; he rode around Pope, and captured his baggage, and his uniform, and all his mules at Manassas two months ago. I suspect that he is simply riding around McClellan again in search of forage and stores and glory."

"That is probably what the movement means," answered Baillie, "though it may be made in preparation for another advance of the whole army, just as each of his former exploits was. In either case, if he comes this way it will answer our purpose. I shall escape with him. If it is only a cavalry raid, of course Stuart will have to force his way back through or over whatever obstacles McClellan may throw in his path, and in that case there will be a continual running fight with no secure rear for you to take shelter with. Of course, if the whole army advances, a secure way will be open, but if only the cavalry come, there will be no line of communication. In that case it will be necessary for you to remain here, or rather go on to New York and sail for Liverpool as we have both intended."

"You are forgetful, Captain Pegram. I have ridden with General Stuart before, and as to placing myself under fire, I think you know I am not without experience. No. If General Stuart comes this way, I shall ask him for a horse and play outrider to the ambulance in which you are to travel."

"But, Agatha!" he pleaded, "I am unwilling to have you expose yourself thus needlessly. Think of the danger and the hardship, and think too of the discomfort you must suffer as a solitary woman in company with a horde of rough-riding cavalrymen!"

"Hush! I will not hear one word even in suspicion of our Virginia cavaliers. I know those superb fellows, and I trust them. They may be rough as riders, and they are certainly rough fellows for the enemy to encounter, but they are gallant gentlemen; they are as gentle as only giants of courage can be, in their attitude toward a defenceless woman. If the opportunity comes, I shall certainly ride with them."

At that moment there was a scurrying in the streets, a hurried closing of the little shops, and a scampering of juvenile chronic offenders to points of secure observation.

A minute or two later some gray-clad regiments of cavalry trotted into the town, taking temporary possession of it. They created no more of disorder, and made far less noise than a Sunday-school picnic might have done. Not a man of them was permitted to quit his place in the ranks even for a single moment, for Stuart had given strict orders, and his lieutenants enforced them relentlessly.

There were very valuable commissary and ordnance stores belonging to the United States government in the town, and the advance squadron of the cavalry quietly took possession of these military supplies, quickly loading them into wagons, but touching no single cent's worth of private property of any kind, and molesting no citizen. So the orders ran.

Half an hour sufficed for this work, and at the end of that time the column moved out of the town in silence and good order.

Captain Baillie Pegram accompanied it in an ambulance, with Sam riding at its tail, and Agatha, mounted upon a stout and war-seasoned cavalry horse, preceding the vehicle.

At nightfall the detachment joined the main column, and there was a brief pause for supper. Agatha, in her capacity of nurse, questioned Baillie closely as to his condition, and found that he had seemingly taken no harm from excitement or weariness. When she had satisfied herself on that point, she ventured to tell him that his own battery lay around the ambulance. He promptly sat up and asked to see his subalterns and certain of his men.

"You may see a few of them," answered his nurse, "if you will receive them lying down. If you insist upon sitting up, I'll not permit a single one of them even to grasp your hand."

He yielded to her authority, and during the remainder of the brief halting time, there was a cheering reunion of comrades and a hasty interchange of personal news between men who loved each other as only those men do who have stood together under an enemy's fire and together endured the hardships of campaigning.

The enemy's cavalry was by this time approaching in considerable force, and Stuart, whose plan did not include any purpose of unnecessary fighting, set his column in motion again. But he did not take the line of march which he had been following all day. That had been intended as a blind. By threatening several points in directions quite other than the one he meant to take, he had accomplished two important purposes. He had gained time for all his scattered detachments to rejoin the column, and he had compelled the enemy to scatter his forces in many directions for the defence of the threatened points.

Having thus shaken off the greater part of the force pursuing him, he began his march that night in such a direction as to suggest that he meant to return if possible by the route by which he had come. For this his enemy was of course prepared. As soon as the cavalry forces that were observing his movement discovered what they took to be his purpose, they withdrew for a space and planted themselves across his pathway. Infantry and artillery forces were hurried forward in support, and the enemy confidently believed that at last the wily cavalier was securely entrapped.

To encourage this mistaken belief, Stuart threw forward a small force of men armed with carbines, and instructed them to maintain a scattering fire upon the enemy's pickets during the night as if feeling of the position in preparation for an attempt to break through it on the morrow.

No sooner was this disposition made than the main body of the Confederates was turned into the by-roads that led toward the Potomac at a point far east of McClellan's position and farther down the river.

By a rapid march it reached the river at daylight and crossed it by sunrise. In the meanwhile, just before the dawn, the detachment which had been left behind to maintain a show of intended battle during the night, quietly withdrew, and rode at a gallop to rejoin the escaping column. The enemy did not discover their withdrawal until sunrise, by which time they were many miles away, galloping toward the river, which they crossed without molestation.

It was not until the column halted in Virginia for a breakfast that might be taken in security, that Stuart met Baillie and Agatha in person. He insisted upon hearing the whole story, even making Sam take part in its telling. At parting he sought a word apart with Agatha, and said to her:

"I suppose you and Captain Pegram have quite ceased to be 'almost strangers' by this time."

The girl flushed crimson, but managed to answer:

"No, General. I have simply been his nurse, you know, and--and--well, he has been very ill."

"Nevertheless," answered the cavalier, "I'll court-martial him when he returns to duty, if I hear no better report than that of his conduct."

This bit of playfulness on Stuart's part had the effect of making Agatha exceedingly uncomfortable in her mind. She had so long been caring for Baillie as a man ill nigh unto death, that she had ceased to think of conventionalities in connection with her relations to him. But Stuart's jest reminded her that others might not be equally forgetful, especially now that her patient was rapidly regaining his strength.

"My work is done," she said to herself, "and I must no longer intrude myself upon Captain Pegram or his affairs. As soon as he can be sent off to Warlock in Sam's care, I must bid him a final adieu and go back to my loneliness at Willoughby. After all, I shall have enough to do there, caring for the poor negroes and managing the plantation so that it shall yield enough for them to live upon. I wonder if everything has fallen into complete neglect there during my absence? Now that Chummie has gone to the angels, I am needed there. And besides I must look after my underground railroad affairs. I wonder if the line is in good working order, and if it is carrying as much freight as it ought."

She realised, too, now that the parting was drawing near, how much Baillie Pegram's presence had come to mean to her, how necessary a part of her life he had become, and how barren and desolate that life must be when they two should have spoken a final good-bye. For during her period of nursing, he and she had come to be the best of comrades, and at such times as his condition had permitted, they had fallen into habits of intimate converse. Their talks, it is true, had never been personal in character. They had talked of books and travel and life; now and then they had discussed philosophy, ethics, æsthetics, and a hundred other subjects external to themselves. But although their converse had not been personal in character, it had taught each to know the impulses, the sentiments, and the convictions of the other in a degree that purely personal intercourse never could have done.

Agatha understood all this now, as she had not understood it before, and the understanding saddened her. For she was resolutely determined now to take herself as completely out of this man's life as if she had never known him at all. She proudly realised her duty, and she would not flinch from its doing.

"Did I not break off the acquaintance at that Christmas-time nearly two years ago?" she argued with herself. "Was I not strong and resolute, the moment I learned what my duty was? Why then should I not do the same again?"

She let her thoughts wander at will. "It is true there was war between us then, and there is none now. There never has been since Chummie talked with me that last night of his life. And it seems harder now in other ways. Since I have come to know Captain Pegram so well, and especially since I have taken care of him in a time of helplessness, it seems harder to send him away and tell him that we are mere acquaintances, not likely to see much of each other hereafter."

Then she generalised in this fashion:

"Life is very hard on women in any case--much harder than it is on men, in every way. And the worst of it is that men do not want it to be so, and nothing they can do can prevent. Even in that restriction of our lives which petty conventionality forces upon us, men cannot come to our relief. It is women who hold women to such restrictions. Men would laugh them away, if we would let them, but we never will. We hold each other to the rigidest standards of propriety, even when propriety makes needless and foolish exactions of us. Men never do that. They want us to be innocently as free as they are, but we are afraid to be so. We are afraid of other women. Even Chummie could not succeed in setting me free. I was too much afraid of other women's opinions, too much a slave to other women's standards to accept the freedom he tried so hard to force upon me.

"No, that isn't just it. I am not really afraid of other women's opinions; I am afraid of my own. I have laughed at and defied other women's standards, many a time, and I shall go on doing so to the end, whenever I am convinced that their opinions are unsound and their standards wrong. I did that when I went North to find and rescue Captain Pegram. I knew perfectly that my good aunts would look upon my conduct with positive horror, and that the least any other woman of my acquaintance would say about my conduct would be 'How could she?' in tones that meant all that is possible of condemnation. But I did not care for all that, and I do not care for it now, because I know that what I did was right, and that Chummie would have said so if he had lived till now. The trouble is that in the main I share those opinions of other women which so restrict the liberty of all women. I am afraid of those opinions because they are my own as well as others'; I submit myself to those standards of feminine conduct because I share the opinion that sets them up and enforces obedience to them."

At this point Agatha "shied" away from the thought that had in fact suggested all this introspective meditation. She would not admit, even to herself, that she was strongly moved by a perfectly natural impulse, to bridge the chasm that lay between her and Baillie Pegram, to remind him of what he had said to her that far-away morning on the picket-line at Fairfax Court-house, and so give him opportunity to say it again. When that thought intruded itself upon her, she was shocked and startled by it. It seemed to her immodest in an extreme degree, unwomanly, almost atrocious. She would not harbour it for a moment. She cast it out of her mind, and was bitterly resentful against herself for having permitted it even to suggest itself.