Promise of Glory by C. X. Moreau

Author:C. X. Moreau
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endpapers Press
Published: 2000-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

IT HAD RAINED DURING THE night, a soft rain without wind or thunder, the kind of rain that farmers long for in the spring when the earth has been turned and crops are in the ground. The air held the smell of it, heavy, musty, a faint hint of the sea. Joe Hooker looked east, saw the first uncertain streaks of light that signal the dawn.

He had spent the night in a barn close behind his soldiers, his staff finding what rest they could among the animals and stalls and the movement of the army outside the rough walls. He could hear the regiments forming beyond the barnyard. In the darkness, men were assembling, shuffling into formation.

An hour, less even, and they would step off into the dim light, begin the day. And the fighting.

The hours before a battle are always the hardest. Less tolerable, even, than the fighting. A battle consumes a soldier, fills his mind and his body with purpose. The waiting before a fight is insufferable, a void, when a man’s mind wanders, fills him with memories of home and longings for a life past, saps him of his fighting spirit.

He strode into the barnyard, found his horse, a fine white stallion that stamped and blew impatiently at his approach; the animal sensing the atmosphere, knowing something was about to happen. He stroked the powerful neck, swung into the saddle.

No campfires marked the bivouacs. His soldiers had slept in the rain without fires, eaten a cold breakfast. From somewhere in the dark beyond the barnyard a bugle sounded, a dry, clear sound, a missed note. He recognized the “assembly,” felt his pulse quicken.

Hooker rode out onto the road, his eyes adjusting to the dark, became aware of massed shapes, lines of men standing in the growing light. Long columns of infantry, shoulder to shoulder, stretching away, beyond the farm, as far as he could see, disappearing into darkness.

Men were watching him pass, rows of silent faces, dark eyes. Hooker realized that they were waiting for him to give the command that would send them forward, anxious to begin the fighting, settle the issue.

The road loomed up out of the dark, glowing in the faint light, a high fence, wooden rails on either side of a muddy track, leading south, pointing like an accusing finger at Sharpsburg. He wheeled his horse about, cantered down the line, the sky lightening, streaked with gray and white in the east, the sun still hovering below the horizon.

He peered toward the east, straining to catch some glimpse of movement, the arrival of reinforcements, remembered what McClellan had said. Another corps, possibly two. I’ll need them, he thought, and whatever else he can send, before this is over.

A battery opened up, from the plateau near the town, the shell screaming across the field, a long, fiery arc that disappeared into shadow, trailing death and fire like a comet. Another cannon fired, then a third, and Hooker felt the peculiar sensation one feels just

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.