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A SPARTAN MOTHER
83
BOBBIE STARTS FOR THE FRONT
its reinforcements and supplies. Another Union division was expected from the northward in a few days that must eventually crush the scattered Confederates, unless they effected their escape before it arrived. The Southern general knew this, and planned a concerted attack to take place the very day before the Union reinforcements were to arrive.
The Federal army was completely taken by surprise, but its superior numbers was almost equal to the strategy. While it was forced to retreat before the furious onslaughts of the Confederates, it did so in an orderly manner, pausing in battalions, sometimes by entire brigades, to return the galling fire of the enemy.
At length the Confederate commander began to realize that the enemy 's retreat was no retreat at all, but a carefully planned maneuver to keep an unbroken front as a barrier until reinforcements could come up. By nightfall the Union army had permitted itself to be driven back not less than fifteen miles. At this point the Southern leader made a still more alarming discovery. He found he had been decoyed into a valley with a range of hills extending around three sides of it. He saw that the Union general meant to take up his position on these hills, under cover of night. To retreat now meant to pass back thru an impoverished country and into the arms of a second enemy whom incoming scouts reported to be advancing by forced marches.
It meant capitulation or a desperate battle. The order was given that night for an advance at the break of day.
Just over the hill that was considered the point of vantage lay the Marye plantation.
Elizabeth Marye had taken up a place on that hilltop and all day watched the approach of the armies with an old spyglass that had been her husband's. To her these thirty thousand men, animated by a desire to kill, represented a great meltingpot out of which was to emerge one pure, sparkling deed. If the Union army was to be vanquished, or if the Confederate army was to be saved — there was Robert ! It never seemed to occur to her that death destroyed more heroes than it spared.
At last the armies drew so near that she could distinguish them with the naked eye. The gray were pursuing the blue ! That night she went to sleep with the roar of cannon singing a song of victory in her dreams.
But at the first streak of day the very air seemed to crack and boom until it seemed that the old house would be reduced to splinters from mere concussion. She quickly sprang out of bed and peeped thru the blinds. All the surrounding hills were dotted and streaked with blue. Union outposts were less than a mile from the house. At every visible point momentary puffs of smoke rose.
Mrs. Marye hurried downstairs,