"I've just reported to General McClellan that our whole command at
Harper's Ferry, thirteen thousand strong, surrendered early this morning
and that Jackson with picked men has already started to join Lee!"
"My God! My God!" cried the colonel. "Oh, that lost day! We ought to
have fought yesterday and destroyed Lee, while Harper's Ferry was still
holding out! What a day! What a day! Nothing can ever pay us back for
the losing of it!"
Dick, too, felt a sinking of the heart, but despair was not written on
his face as it was on that of his colonel. Jackson might come, but it
would only be with a part of his force, that which marched the swiftest,
and the victory of the Army of the Potomac would be all the grander.
The more enemies crushed the better it would be for the Union.
"Why, colonel!" he exclaimed, "we can beat them anyhow!"
"That's so, my lad, so we can! And so we will! It was childish of me to
talk as I did. Here, Johnson, blow your best on that trumpet. I want
our regiment to be the first to reach the Antietam."
Johnson blew a long and mellow tune and the Winchester regiment swung
forward at a more rapid gait.
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