CHAPTER XXV

THE TUG OF WAR

Betty Winter, having made up her mind to put John Vaughan out of her life for all time, volunteered for field service as a nurse and by permission of the President joined Burnside's army before Fredericksburg.

The General had brought its effective fighting force to a hundred and thirteen thousand. Lee's army confronted him on the other side of the Rappahannock with seventy-five thousand men. A great battle was impending.

Burnside had reluctantly assumed command. He was a gallant, genial, cultured soldier, a gentleman of the highest type, a pure, unselfish patriot with not a trace of vulgar ambition or self-seeking. He saw the President hounded and badgered by his own party, assaulted and denounced in the bitterest terms by the opposition, and he knew that the remedy could be found only in a fighting, victorious army. A single decisive victory would turn the tide of public opinion, unite the faction-ridden army and thrill the Nation with enthusiasm.

He determined to fight at once and risk his fate as a commander on the issue of victory or defeat. His council of war had voted against an attack on Lee's army in Fredericksburg. Burnside brushed their decision aside as part of the quarrel McClellan has left.

Even the men in the ranks were fighting each other daily in these miserable bickerings and intrigues. A victory was the remedy for their troubles, and he made up his mind to fight for it.

The General received Betty with the greatest courtesy:

"You're more than welcome at this moment, Miss Winter. The surgeons won't let you in some of their field hospitals. But there's work to be done preparing our corps for the battle we're going to fight. You'll have plenty to do."

"Thank you, General," she gravely answered.

Burnside read for the second time the gracious letter from the President which Betty presented.

"You're evidently pretty strong with this administration, Miss Betty," he remarked.

"Yes. The patience and wisdom of the President is a hobby of mine."

"Then I'll ask you to review the army with me. You can report to him."

Within an hour they were passing in serried lines. before the Commander. Betty watched them march with a thrill of patriotic pride, a hundred and thirteen thousand men, their dark blue uniforms pouring past like the waters of a mighty river, the December sun gleaming on their polished bayonets as on so many icicles flashing on its surface.

Her heart suddenly stood still. There before her marched John Vaughan in the outer line of a regiment, his eyes straight in front, looking neither to the right nor the left. He was a private in the ranks, clean and sober, his face rugged, strong and sun-tanned.

For a moment there was a battle inside that tested

her strength. He had not seen her and was oblivious of her existence apparently. But she had noted the regiment under whose flag he marched. It would be easy to find him if she wished.

When the first moment of love-sickness and utter longing passed, she had no desire to see him. The dead could bury its dead. Her love was a thing of the past. The cruel thing in this man's nature she had seen the first day was there still. She saw it with a shudder in his red, half-drunken eyes the day they met in Washington, saw it so plainly, so glaringly, the memory of it could never fade. He was sober and in his right mind now, his cheeks bronzed with the new life of sunshine and open air the army had given. The thing was still there. It spoke in the brute strength of his powerful body as his marching feet struck the ground, in the iron look about his broad shoulders, the careless strength with which he carried his musket as if it were a feather, and above all in the hard cold glint from his shining eyes set straight in front.

She lay awake for hours on the little white cot at the headquarters of the ambulance corps reviewing her life and dropped to sleep at last with a deep sense of gratitude to God that she was free, and could give herself in unselfish devotion to her country. Her last waking thoughts were of Ned Vaughan and the sweet, foolish worship he had laid at her feet. She wondered vaguely if he were in those grey lines beyond the river. Ned Vaughan was there this time-back with his regiment.

Lee, Jackson and Longstreet had known for days that a battle was imminent. Their scouts from over

the river had brought positive information. The Confederate leaders had already planned the conflict. Their battle lines circled the hills beyond Fredericksburg, spread out in a crescent five miles long. Nature had piled these five miles of hills around Fredericksburg as if to build an impregnable fortress. On every crest, concealed behind trees and bushes, the Confederate artillery was in place-its guns trained to sweep the wide plain with a double cross fire, besides sending a storm of shot and shell straight from the centre. Sixty thousand matchless grey infantry crouched among those bushes and lay beside stone walls, in sunken roadways or newly turned trenches.

The great fan-shaped death-trap had been carefully planned and set by a master mind. Only a handful of sharpshooters and a few pieces of artillery had been left in Fredericksburg to dispute the passage of the river and deceive Burnside with a pretense of defending the town.

The Confederate soldier was ragged and his shoes were tied together with strings. His uniform consisted of an old hat or cap usually without a brim, a shirt of striped bed-ticking so brown it seemed woven of the grass. The buttons were of discolored cow's horn. His coat was the color of Virginia dust and mud, and it was out at the elbow. His socks were home-made, knit by loving hands swift and tender in their endless work of love. The socks were the best things he had.

The one spotless thing about him was his musket and the bayonet he carried at his side. His spirits were high.

A barefooted soldier had managed to get home and secure a pair of boots. He started back to his regi

ment hurrying to be on time for the fight. The new boots hurt him so terribly he couldn't wear them. He passed Ned's regiment with his precious footgear hanging on his arm.

"Hello, Sonny, what command?" Ned cried.

"Company E, 12th Virginia, Mahone's brigade!" he proudly answered.

"Yes, damn you," a soldier drawled from the grass, "and you've pulled your boots off, holdin' 'em in yer hand, ready to run now!"

The laugh ran along the line and the boy hurried on to escape the chaff.

A well-known chaplain rode along a narrow path on the hillside. He was mounted on an old horse whose hip bones protruded like two deadly fangs. A footsore Confederate was hobbling as fast as he could in front of him, glancing back over his shoulder now and then uneasily.

"You needn't be afraid, my friend," the parson called, "I'm not going to run over you."

"I know you ain't," the soldier laughed, "but ef I wuz ter let you pass me, and that thing wuz ter wobble I'll be doggoned ef I wouldn't be gored ter death!"

The preacher reined his steed in with dignity and spoke with wounded pride:

"My friend, this is a better horse than our Lord rode into Jerusalem on!"

The soldier stepped up quickly, opened the animal's mouth and grinned:

"Parson, that's the very same horse!"

A shout rose from the hill in which the preacher joined.