The Sword of Antietam - A Story of the Nation's Crisis by Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander) Altsheler
page 11 of 329 (03%)
page 11 of 329 (03%)
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as a superior.
Colonel Winchester's regiment and the remains of Colonel Newcomb's Pennsylvanians had been sent east after the defeat of the Union army at the Seven Days, and were now with Pope's Army of Virginia, which was to hold the valley and also protect Washington. Grant's success at Shiloh had been offset by McClellan's failure before Richmond, and the President and his Cabinet at Washington were filled with justifiable alarm. Pope was a western man, a Kentuckian, and he had insisted upon having some of the western troops with him. The sergeant rode his horse slowly up the slope, and joined the lads over whom he watched like a father. "And what have the hundred eyes of Argus beheld?" asked Warner. "Argus?" said the sergeant. "I don't know any such man. Name sounds queer, too." "He belongs to a distant and mythical past, sergeant, but he'd be mighty useful if we had him here. If even a single one of his hundred eyes were to light on Stonewall Jackson, it would be a great service." The sergeant shook his head and looked reprovingly at Warner. "It ain't no time for jokin'," he said. "I was never further from it. It seems to me that we need a lot of Arguses more than anything else. This is the enemy's country, and we hear that Stonewall Jackson is advancing. Advancing where, from what and |
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