And One Wore Gray by Graham Heather

Author:Graham, Heather [Graham, Heather]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Romance
ISBN: 9780440211471
Publisher: Dell
Published: 1992-03-02T00:00:00+00:00

———— Sixteen ————

May 1863

“Lord God, he’s down! Stonewall is down, he’s been shot by his own troops!”

The agitated cry of a Reb horseman was the first that Daniel heard of the injury to Stonewall Jackson.

He was down, Daniel thought quickly, but that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t be up again. Men were frequently injured.

And injury frequently meant death.

He’d been in his tent, dictating his own current situation to Billy Boudain, who was proving to have a marvelous craft with letters. He was surely the finest staff assistant that Daniel had ever had.

The fighting was over for the day. Again, some of the fiercest fighting Daniel had seen. They were at Chancellorsville, and Jackson had just completed one of the most amazing feats of military agility ever accomplished.

The general had cut short a visit to his wife on the twenty-ninth of April when he heard that one hundred thirty-four thousand Federal troops—now under the Union General “Fightin” Joe Hooker—were crossing the Rappahannock on both sides of Fredericksburg. It had been the first time he had ever seen his infant daughter, but he had rushed back to take command. Splitting his forces, he had sent troops against Major General John Sedgwick’s left wing, and then he had taken the majority of his men into the wilderness near Spotsylvania. Daniel’s troops had been with him, and they had driven the Federals back to Chancellorsville.

The next day, Jackson and Lee split the army again. Lee and his men faced Hooker at the front; Jackson completed his wide sweep around Hooker’s flank to attack from the rear, and on the morning of May second, they completely routed the Federals.

Now they were saying that he was down.

“Soldier!” Daniel called out, stepping forward. “It’s true? Jackson is injured?”

“Mightily, sir. He’s been taken to a nearby farm.”

“God help him!” Daniel murmured.

“Indeed, sir!”

And well God should be on his side, Daniel thought, for Stonewall was a deeply religious man. A disciplinarian, strange to many, stoic, and sworn to duty.

And necessary to Master Bobby Lee, Daniel thought.

There was nothing that he could do for Jackson, but all through the night, messengers rode back and forth, reporting on the general’s condition.

By the late hours of the night, his wounded arm was amputated. He could survive still, Daniel thought, and he couldn’t help but think of Jesse. He could survive if it could be kept from infection. If, there were so many ifs.

And there were still the Federals to be fought….

The battle continued through the third and the fourth of May. At the end, Sedgwick and Hooker were forced back, and the Army of the Potomac was withdrawn. Though it was a southern victory, the Confederates also lost, and lost sorely.

On the tenth of May, General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson died, succumbing to the pneumonia that had set in following his surgery. He died in the company of his beloved wife, and he died at peace with the God he had so worshipped. But he died a soldier still badly needed upon the battlefield.

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