THE ZENITH OF THE SOUTH  
The sun of the first day of July, which was to witness the beginning of the most tremendous event in the history of America, dawned hot and clouded with vapors. They hung in the valleys, over the steep stony hills and along the long blue slopes of South Mountain. The mists made the country look more fantastic to Harry, who was early in the saddle. The great uplifts and projections of stone assumed the shapes of castles and pyramids and churches.
 
Over South Mountain, on the west, heavy black clouds floated, and the air was close and oppressive.
 
"Rain, do you think?" said Harry to Dalton.
 
"No, just a sultry day. Maybe a wind will spring up and drive away all these clouds and vapors. At least, I hope so. There's the bugle. We're off on our shoe campaign."
 
"Who leads us?"
 
"We go with Pettigrew, and Heth comes behind. In a country so thick with enemies it's best to move only in force."
 
The column took up its march and a cloud of dust followed it. The second half of June had been rainy, but there had been several days of dry weather now, allowing the dust to gather. Harry and Dalton soon became very hot and thirsty. The sun did not drive away the vapors as soon as they had expected, and the air grew heavier.
 
"I hope they'll have plenty of good drinking water in Gettysburg," said Harry. "It will be nearly as welcome to me as shoes."
 
They rode on over hills and valleys, and brooks and creeks, the names of none of which they knew. They stopped to drink at the streams, and the thirsty horses drank also. But it remained hard for the infantry. They were trained campaigners, however, and they did not complain as they toiled forward through the heat and dust.
 
They came presently to round hillocks, over which they passed, then they saw a fertile valley, watered by a creek, and beyond that the roofs of a town with orchards behind it.
 
"Gettysburg!" said Dalton.
 
"It must be the place," said Harry. "Picturesque, isn't it? Look at those two hills across there, rising so steeply."
 
One of the hills, the one that lay farther to the south, a mass of apparently inaccessible rocks, rose more than two hundred feet above the town. The other, about a third of a mile from the first, was only half its height. They were Round Top and Little Round Top. In the mists and vapors and at the distance the two hills looked like ancient towers. Harry and George gazed at them, and then their eyes turned to the town.
 
It was a neat little place, with many roads radiating from it as if it were the hub of a wheel, and the thrifty farmers of that region had made it a center for their schools.
 
Harry had learned from Jackson, and again from Lee, always to note well the ground wherever he might ride. Such knowledge in battle was invaluable, and his eyes dwelled long on Gettysburg.
 
He saw running south of the town a long high ridge, curving at the east and crowned with a cemetery, because of which the people of Gettysburg called it Cemetery Ridge or Hill. Opposed to it, some distance away and running westward, was another but lower ridge that they called Seminary Ridge. Beyond Seminary Ridge were other and yet lower ridges, between two of which flowed a brook called Willoughby Run. Beyond them all, two or three miles away and hemming in the valley, stretched South Mountain, the crests of which were still clothed in the mists and vapors of a sultry day. Near the town was a great field of ripening wheat, golden when the sun shone. Not far from the horsemen was another little stream called Plum Run. They also saw an unfinished railroad track, with a turnpike running beside it, the roof and cupola of a seminary, and beside the little marshy stream of Plum Run a mass of jagged, uplifted rocks, commonly called the Devil's Den.
 
Harry knew none of these names yet, but he was destined to learn them in such a manner that he could never forget them again. Now he merely admired the peaceful and picturesque appearance of the town, set so snugly among its hills.
 
"That's Gettysburg, which for us just at this moment is the shoe metropolis of the world," said Dalton, "but I dare say we'll not be welcomed as purchasers or in any other capacity."
 
"You take a safe risk, George," said Harry. "Tales that we are terrible persons, who rejoice most in arson and murder, evidently have been spread pretty thoroughly through this region."
 
"Both sections scatter such stories. I suppose it's done in every war. It's only human nature."
 
"All right, Mr. Pedantic Philosopher. Maybe you're telling the truth. But look, I don't think we're going into Gettysburg in such a great hurry! Yankee soldiers are there before us!"
 
Other Southern officers had noted the blue uniforms and the flash of rifle barrels and bayonets in Gettysburg. As they used their glasses, the town came much nearer and the union forces around it increased. Buford, coming up the night before, had surmised that a Southern force would advance on Gettysburg, and he had chosen the place for a battle. He had with him four thousand two hundred mounted men, and he posted them in the strong positions that were so numerous. He had waited there all night, and already his scouts had informed him that Pettigrew and Heth were advancing.
 
"Are we to lose our shoes?" whispered Harry.
 
"I don't think so," replied Dalton in an undertone. "We're in strong force, and I don't see any signs that our generals intend to turn back. Harry, your glasses are much stronger than mine. What do you see?"
 
"I see a lot. The Yankees must be four or five thousand, and they are posted strongly. They are thick in the railroad cut and hundreds of horses are held by men in the rear. It must be almost wholly a cavalry force."
 
"Do you see any people in the town?"
 
"There is not a soul in the streets, and as far as I can make out all the doors are closed and the windows shuttered."
 
"Then it's a heavy force waiting for us. The people know it, and expecting a battle, they have gone away."
 
"Your reasoning is good, and there's the bugle to confirm it. Our lines are already advancing!"
 
It was still early in the morning, and the strong Southern force which had come for shoes, but which found rifles and bayonets awaiting them instead, advanced boldly. They, the victors of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, had no thought of retreating before a foe who invited them to combat.
 
Harry and Dalton found their hearts beating hard at this their first battle on Northern soil, and Harry's eyes once more swept the great panorama of the valley, the silent town, the lofty stone hills, and far beyond the long blue wall of South Mountain, with the mists and vapors still floating about its crest.
 
Heth was up now, and he took full command, sending two brigades in advance, the brigades themselves preceded by a great swarm of skirmishers. Harry and Dalton rode with one of the brigades, and they closely followed those who went down the right bank of the stream called Willoughby Run, opening a rapid fire as they advanced upon a vigilant enemy who had been posted the night before in protected positions.
 
Buford's men met the attack with courage and vigor. Four thousand dismounted cavalry, all armed with carbines, sent tremendous volleys from the shelter of ridges and earthworks. The fire was so heavy that the Southern skirmishers could not stand before it, and they, too, began to seek shelter. The whole Southern column halted for a few minutes, but recovered itself and advanced again.
 
The battle blazed up with a suddenness and violence that astonished Harry. The air was filled in an instant with the whistling of shells and bullets. He heard many cries. Men were falling all around him, but so far he and Dalton were untouched. Heth, Davis, Archer and the others were pushing on their troops, shouting encouragement to them, and occasionally, through the clouds of smoke, which were thickening fast, Harry saw the tanned faces of their enemies loading and firing as fast as they could handle rifle and cannon. The Northern men had shelter, but were fewer in number. The soldiers in gray were suffering the heavier losses, but they continued to advance.
 
The battle swelled in volume and fierceness along the banks of Willoughby Run. There was a continuous roar of rifles and cannon, and the still, heavy air of the morning conducted the sound to the divisions that were coming up and to the trembling inhabitants of the little town who had fled for refuge to the farmhouses in the valley.
 
Harry and George had still managed to keep close together. Both had been grazed by bullets, but these were only trifles. They saw that the division was not making much progress. The men in blue were holding their ground with extraordinary stubbornness. Although the Southern fire, coming closer, had grown much more deadly, they refused to yield.
 
Buford, who had chosen that battlefield and who was the first to command upon it, would not let his men give way. His great hour had come, and he may have known it. Watching through his glasses he had seen long lines of Southern troops upon the hills, marching toward Gettysburg. He knew that they were the corps of Hill, drawn by the thunder of the battle, and he felt that if he could hold his ground yet a while longer help for him too would come, drawn in the same manner.
 
Harry once caught sight of this officer, a native of Kentucky like himself. He was covered with dust and perspiration, but he ran up and down, encouraging his men and often aiming the cannon himself. It was good fortune for the North that he was there that day. The Southern generals, uncertain whether to push the battle hard or wait for Lee, recoiled a little before his tremendous resistance.
 
But the South hesitated only for a moment. Hill, pale from an illness, but always full of fire and resolution, was hurrying forward his massive columns, their eagerness growing as the sound of the battle swelled. They would overwhelm the union force, sweep it away.
 
Yet the time gained by Buford had a value beyond all measurements. The crash of the battle had been heard by union troops, too, and Reynolds, one of the ablest union generals, was leading a great column at the utmost speed to the relief of the general who had held his ground so well. A signalman stationed in the belfry of the seminary reported to Buford the advance of Reynolds, and the officer, eager to verify it, rushed up into the belfry.
 
Then Buford saw the columns coming forward at the double quick, Reynolds in his eagerness galloping at their head, and leaving them behind. He looked in the other direction and he saw the men of Hill advancing with equal speed. He saw on one road the Stars and Stripes and on the other the Stars and Bars. He rushed back down the steps and met Reynolds.
 
"The devil is to pay!" he cried to Reynolds.
 
"How do we stand?"
 
"We can hold on until the arrival of the First Corps."
 
Buford sprang on his horse, and the two generals, reckless of death, galloped among the men, encouraging the faint-hearted, reforming the lines, and crying to them to hold fast, that the whole Army of the Potomac was coming.
 
Harry felt the hardening of resistance. The smoke was so dense that he could not see for a while the fresh troops coming to the help of Buford, but he knew nevertheless that they were there. Then he heard a great shouting behind him, as Hill's men, coming upon the field, rushed into action. But Jackson, the great Jackson whom he had followed through all his victories, the man who saw and understood everything, was not there!
 
The genius of battle was for the moment on the other side. Reynolds, so ably pushing the work that Buford had done, was seizing the best positions for his men. He was acting with rapidity and precision, and the troops under him felt that a great commander was showing them the way. His vigor secured the slopes and crest of Cemetery Hill, but the Southern masses nevertheless were pouring forward in full tide.
 
The combat had now lasted about two hours, and, a stray gust of wind lifting the smoke a little, Harry caught a glimpse of a vast blazing amphitheater of battle. He had regarded it at first as an affair of vanguards, but now he realized suddenly that this was the great battle they had been expecting. Within this valley and on these ridges and hills it would be fought, and even as the thought came to him the conflict seemed to redouble in fury and violence, as fresh brigades rushed into the thick of it.
 
Harry's horse was killed by a shell as he rode toward a wood on the Cashtown road, which both sides were making a desperate effort to secure. Fortunately he was able to leap clear and escape unhurt. In a few moments Dalton was dismounted in almost the same manner, but the two on foot kept at the head of the column and rushed with the skirmishers into the bushes. There they knelt, and began to fire rapidly on the union men who were advancing to drive them out.
 
Harry saw an officer in a general's uniform leading the charge. The bullets of the skirmishers rained upon the advance. One struck this general in the head, when he was within twenty yards of the riflemen, and he fell stone dead. It was the gallant and humane Reynolds, falling in the hour of his greatest service. But his troops, wild with ardor and excitement, not noticing his death, still rushed upon the wood.
 
The charge came with such violence and in such numbers that the Southern skirmishers and infantry in the wood were overpowered. They were driven in a mass across Willoughby Run. A thousand, General Archer among them, were taken prisoners.
 
Harry and Dalton barely escaped, and in all the tumult and fury of the fighting they found themselves with another division of the Southern army which was resisting a charge made with the same energy and courage that marked the one led by Reynolds. But the charge was beaten back, and the Southerners, following, were repulsed in their turn.
 
The battle, which had been raging for three hours with the most extraordinary fury, sank a little. Harry and Dalton could make nothing of it. Everything seemed wild, confused, without precision or purpose, but the fighting had been hard and the losses great.
 
Heth now commanded on the field for the South and Doubleday for the North. Each general began to rectify his lines and try to see what had happened. The Confederate batteries opened, but did not do much damage, and while the lull continued, more men came for the North.
 
Harry and Dalton had found their way to Heth, who told them to stay with him until Lee came. Heth was making ready to charge a brigade of stalwart Pennsylvania lumbermen, who, however, managed to hold their position, although they were nearly cut to pieces. Hill now passed along the Southern line, and like the other Southern leaders, uncertain what to do in this battle brought on so strangely and suddenly, ceased to push the union lines with infantry, but opened a tremendous fire from eighty guns. The whole valley echoed with the crash of the cannon, and the vast clouds of smoke began to gather again. The union forces suffered heavy losses, but still held their ground.
 
Harry thought, while this comparative lull in close fighting was going on, that Dalton and he should get back to General Lee with news of what was occurring, although he had no doubt the commander-in-chief was now advancing as fast as he could with the full strength of the army. Still, duty was duty. They had been sent forward that they might carry back reports, and they must carry them.
 
"It's time for us to go," he said to Dalton.
 
"I was just about to say that myself."
 
"We can safely report to the general that the vanguards have met at Gettysburg and that there are signs of a battle."
 
Dalton took a long, comprehensive look over the valley in which thirty or forty thousand men were merely drawing a fresh breath before plunging anew into the struggle, and said:
 
"Yes, Harry, all the signs do point that way. I think we can be sure of our news."
 
They had not been able to catch any of the riderless horses galloping about the field, and they started on foot, taking the road which they knew would lead them to Lee. They emerged from some bushes in which they had been lying for shelter, and two or three bullets whistled between them. Others knocked up the dust in the path an............