The Shades of the Wilderness - A Story of Lee's Great Stand by Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander) Altsheler
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page 22 of 342 (06%)
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in any of them than we have in this moving one of yours."
"Good-by, you're always welcome to it. I think Marse Bob is on ahead." The two left the wagon and took to a path beside the road, which was muddy and rutted deeply by innumerable hoofs and wheels. But grass and foliage were now dry after the heavy rains that followed the Battle of Gettysburg, and the sun was shining in late splendor. The army, taking the lack of pursuit and attack as proof that the enemy had suffered as much as they, if not more, was in good spirits, and many of the men sang their marching songs. A band ahead of them suddenly began to play mellow music, "Partant Pour La Syrie," and other old French songs. The airs became gay, festive, uplifting to the soul, and they tickled the feet of the young men. "The Cajun band!" exclaimed Harry. "It never occurred to me that they weren't all dead, and here they are, playing us into happiness!" "And the Invincibles, or what's left of them, won't be far away," said Dalton. They walked on a little more briskly and beside them the vast length of the unsuccessful army still trailed its slow way back into the South. The sun was setting in uncommon magnificence, clothing everything in a shower of gold, through which the lilting notes of the music came to Harry and Dalton's ears. Presently the two saw them, the short, dark men from far Louisiana, not so many as they had been, but playing with all the fervor of old, putting their Latin souls into their music. "And there are the Invincibles just ahead of them!" exclaimed Dalton. |
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