THE STAR OF GETTYSBURG

CONTENTS

I. THE HEAD OF THE FAMILY
II. AHORSE WITH SHERBURNE
III. JACKSON MOVES
IV. ON THE RAPPAHANNOCK
V. FREDERICKSBURG
VI. A CHRISTMAS DINNER
VII. JEB STUART'S BALL
VIII. IN THE WILDERNESS
IX. CHANCELLORSVILLE
X. THE NORTHERN MARCH
XI. THE CAVALRY COMBAT
XII. THE ZENITH OF THE SOUTH
XIII. GETTYSBURG




THE STAR OF GETTYSBURG




CHAPTER I

THE HEAD OF THE FAMILY


A youth sat upon a log by a clear stream in the Valley of Virginia,
mending clothes.

He showed skill and rapidity in his homely task. A shining needle
darted in and out of the gray cloth, and the rent that had seemed
hopeless was being closed up with neatness and precision. No one
derided him because he was engaged upon a task that was usually
performed by women. The Army of Northern Virginia did its own sewing.

"Will the seam show much, Arthur?" asked Harry Kenton, who lay
luxuriously upon the leafy ground beside the log.

"Very little when I finish," replied St. Clair, examining his work with
a critical eye. "Of course I can't pass the uniform off as wholly new.
It's been a long time since I've seen a new one in our army, but it will
be a lot above the average."

"I admire your care of your clothes, Arthur, even if I can't quite
imitate it. I've concluded that good clothes give a certain amount of
moral courage, and if you get killed you make a much more decent body."

"But Arthur St. Clair, of Charleston, sir, has no intention of getting
killed," said Happy Tom Langdon, who was also resting upon the earth.
"He means after this war is over to go back to his native city, buy the
most magnificent uniforms that were ever made, and tell the girls how
Lee and Jackson turned to him for advice at the crisis of every great
battle."

"We surely needed wisdom and everything else we could get at
Antietam--leadership, tenacity and the willingness to die," said Dalton,
the sober young Virginia Presbyterian. "Boys, we were in the deepest
of holes there, and we had to lift ourselves out almost by our own boot
straps."

Harry's face clouded. The field of Antietam often returned to him,
almost as real and vivid as on that terrible day, when the dead lay
heaped in masses around the Dunkard church and the Southern army called
forth every ounce of courage and endurance for its very salvation.

"Antietam is a month away," he said, "and I still shudder at the name.
We didn't think McClellan would come up and attack Lee while Jackson was
away at Harper's Ferry, but he did. How did it happen? How did he know
that our army was divided?"