A War-Time Wooing.
by Charles King.
I.
After months of disaster there had come authentic news of victory. All Union-loving men drew a long breath of relief when it was certain that Lee had given up the field and fallen back across the Potomac. The newsboys, yelling through the crowded streets in town, and the evening trains arriving from the neighboring city were besieged by eager buyers of the "extras," giving lists of the killed and wounded. Just at sunset of this late September day a tall young girl, in deep mourning, stood at a suburban station clinging to the arm of a sad, stern-featured old man.
People eyed them with respect and sympathy, not unmixed with rural curiosity, for Doctor Warren was known and honored by one and all. A few months agone his only son had been brought home, shot to death at the head of his regiment, and was laid in his soldier grave in their shaded churchyard. It was a bitter trial, but the old man bore up st.u.r.dily. He was an eager patriot; he had no other son to send to the front and was himself too old to serve; it had pleased G.o.d to demand his first-born in sacrifice upon his country"s altar, and though it crushed his heart it could not kill his loyalty and devotion. His whole soul seemed with the army in Virginia; he had nothing but scorn for those who lagged at home, nothing but enthusiastic faith in every man who sought the battle-front, and so it happened that he almost welcomed the indications that told him his daughter"s heart was going fast--given in return for that of a soldier lover.
For a moment it had dazed him. She was still so young--so much a child in his fond eyes--still his sweet-faced, sunny-haired baby Bess. He could hardly realize she was eighteen even when with blushing cheeks she came to show him the photograph of a manly, gallant-looking young soldier in the uniform of a lieutenant of infantry. Strange as the story may seem to-day, there was at the time nothing very surprising about its most salient feature--she and her hero had never met.
With other girls she had joined a "Soldiers" Aid Society;" had wrought with devoted though misguided diligence in the manufacture of "Havelocks" that were bearers of much sentiment but no especial benefit to the recipients at the front; and like many of her companions she had slipped her name and address into one of these soon-discarded cap covers. As luck would have it, their package of "Havelocks,"
"housewives," needle-cases, mittens (with trigger finger duly provided for), ear-m.u.f.fs, wristlets, knitted socks, and such things, worn by the "boys" their first winter in Virginia, but discarded for the regulation outfit thereafter, fell to the lot of the--th Ma.s.sachusetts Infantry, and a courteous letter from the adjutant told of its distribution.
Bessie Warren was secretary of the society, and the secretary was instructed to write to the adjutant and say how gratified they were to find their efforts so kindly appreciated. More than one of the girls wished that _she_ were secretary just then, and all of them hoped the adjutant would answer. He did, and sent, moreover, a photographic group of several officers taken at regimental headquarters. Each figure was numbered, and on the back was an explanation setting forth the names of the officers, the item which each had received as his share, and, where it was known, the name of the fair manufacturer. The really useful items, it would seem, had been handed to the enlisted men, and the officers had reserved for themselves only such articles as experience had proved to be of no practical value. The six in the picture had all chosen "Havelocks," and opposite the name of Bessie Warren was that of Second Lieutenant Paul Revere Abbot. Reference to the "group" again developed the fact that Mr. Abbot was decidedly the handsomest soldier of the party--tall, slender, youthful, with clear-cut and resolute features and a decidedly firm, solid look about him that was distinguishable in a group of decidedly distinguished-looking men. There followed much laughing talk and speculation and theory among the girls, but the secretary was instructed to write another letter of thanks, and did so very charmingly, and mention was made of the circ.u.mstance that several of their number had brothers or cousins at the front. Then some of the society had happened, too, to have a photograph taken in the quaint uniform, with cap and ap.r.o.n, which they had worn at a recently given "Soldiers" Fair," and one of their number--not Miss Warren--sent a copy of this to the camp of the--th Ma.s.sachusetts. Central figure in this group was Bessie Warren, unquestionably the loveliest girl among them all, and one day there came to her a single photograph, a still handsomer picture of Mr. Paul Revere Abbot, and a letter in a hand somewhat stiff and cramped, in which the writer apologized for the appearance of the scrawl, explained that his hand had been injured while practising fencing with a comrade, but that having seen her picture in the group he could not but congratulate himself on having received a "Havelock" from hands so fair, could not resist the impulse to write and personally thank her, and then to inquire if she was a sister of Guthrie Warren, whom he had known and looked up to at Harvard as a "soph" looks up to a senior; and he enclosed his picture, which would perhaps recall him to Guthrie"s mind.
Her mother had been dead many years, and Bessie showed this letter to her father, and with his full consent and with much sisterly pride wrote that Guthrie was indeed her brother; that he, too, had taken up arms for his country and was at the front with his regiment, though nowhere near their friends of the--th Ma.s.sachusetts (who were watching the fords of the Potomac up near Edward"s Ferry), and that she had sent the photograph to him.
One letter seemed to lead to another, and those from the Potomac speedily became very interesting, especially when the papers mentioned how gallantly Lieutenant Paul Abbot had behaved at Ball"s Bluff and how hard he had tried to save his colonel, who was taken prisoner. Guthrie returned the photograph to Bess, with a letter which the doctor read attentively. He remembered Paul Abbot as being a leader in the younger set at Harvard, and was delighted to hear of him "under the colors,"
where every Union-loving man should be--where, as he recalled him, he knew Abbot must be, for he belonged to one of the oldest and best families in all Ma.s.sachusetts; he was a gentleman born and bred, and would make a name for himself in this war. Guthrie only wished there were some of that stamp in his own regiment, but he feared that there were few who had the stuff of which the Abbots were made--there were too many ward politicians. "But I"ve cast my lot with it and shall see it through," wrote Guthrie. Poor fellow! poor father! poor loving-hearted Bessie! The first volley from the crouching gray ranks in those dim woods back of Seven Pines sent the ward politicians in mad rush to the rear, and when Guthrie Warren sprang for the colors, and waved them high in air, and shouted for the men to rally and follow him, it was all in vain--all as vain as the effort to stop the firing made by the chivalric Virginia colonel, who leaped forward, with a few daring men at his back, to capture the resolute Yankee and his precious flag. They got them; but the life-blood was welling from the hero"s breast as they raised him gently from the silken folds. The Virginians knew a brave man when they saw one, and they carried him tenderly into their lines and wrote his last messages, and that night they sent the honored body back to his brigade, and so the stricken father found and brought home all that was left of the gallant boy in whom his hopes were centred.
For a time Bessie"s letters languished after this, though she had written nearly every week during the winter and early spring. Lieutenant Abbot, on the other hand, appeared to redouble his deep interest. His letters were full of sympathy--of a tenderness that seemed to be with difficulty repressed. She read these to her mourning father--they were so full of sorrow for the bitter loss that had befallen them, so rich with soldierly sentiment and with appreciation of Guthrie"s heroic character and death, so welcome with reminiscence of him. Not that he and Abbot had met on the Peninsula--it was the unhappy lot of the Ma.s.sachusetts--th to be held with McDowell"s corps in front of Washington while their comrades were doing sharp, soldierly work down along the Chickahominy. But even where they were, said these letters, men talked by the hour of how Guthrie Warren had died at Seven Pines--how daring Phil Kearney himself had ridden up and held forth--
"The one hand still left,"
and asked him his name just before the final advance on the thicket. One letter contained a copy of some soldierly verses her Ma.s.sachusetts correspondent had written--"Warren"s Death at Seven Pines"--in which he placed him peer with Warren who fell at Bunker Hill. The verses thrilled through her heart and soul and brought a storm of tears--tears of mingled pride and love and hopeless sorrow from her aging father"s eyes. No wonder she soon began to write more frequently. These letters from Virginia were the greatest joy her father had, she told herself, and though she wrote through a mist that blurred the page, she soon grew conscious of a strange, shy sense of comfort, of a thrilling little spring of glad emotion, of tender, shrinking, sensitive delight, and by the time the hot summer was waning and August was at hand this unseen soldier, who had only shared her thoughts before, took complete and utter control. Why tell the old, old story in its every stage? It was with a new, wild fear at heart she heard of Stonewall Jackson"s leap for the Rapidan, of the grapple at Cedar Mountain where the Ma.s.sachusetts men fought sternly and met with cruel loss. Her father raged with anxiety when the news came of the withdrawal from the Peninsula, the triumphant rush of Lee and Longstreet on Jackson"s trail, of the ill-starred but heroic struggle made by Pope along the banks of Bull Run. A few days and nights of dread suspense and then came tidings that Lee was across the Potomac and McClellan marching to meet him. Two more letters reached her from the marching--th Ma.s.sachusetts, and a telegram from Washington telling her where to write, and saying, "All well so far as I am concerned," at which the doctor shook his head--it sounded so selfish at such a time; it grated on his patriotic ear, and it wasn"t such as he thought an Abbot ought to telegraph. But then he was hurried; they probably only let him fall out of ranks a moment as they marched through Washington. And then the newspapers began to teem with details of the fierce battles of the last three days of August, and he forgave him and fathomed the secret in his daughter"s breast as she stood breathing very quickly, her cheek flushing, her eyes filling, and listening while he read how Lieutenant Abbot had led the charge of the--th Ma.s.sachusetts and seized the battle-flag of one of Starke"s brigades at that bristling parapet--the old, unfinished railway grade to the north of Groveton. Neither father nor daughter uttered a word upon the subject. The old man simply opened his arms and took her to his heart, where, overcome with emotion, mingling pride and grief and anxiety and tender, budding love, she burst into tears and hid her burning face.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "_The Virginians knew a brave man when they saw one._"]
Then came the news of fierce fighting at South Mountain, where the--th Ma.s.sachusetts was prominent; then of the Antietam, where twice it charged through that fearful stretch of cornfield and had but a handful left to guard the riddled colors when nightfall came, and then--silence and suspense. No letters, no news--nothing.
Her white, wan face and pleading eyes were too much for the father to see. Though no formal offer of marriage had been made, though the word "love" had hardly been written in those glowing letters, he reasoned rightly that love alone could prompt a man to write day after day in all the excitements and vicissitudes of stirring campaign. As for the rest--was he not an Abbot? Did not Guthrie know and honor him? Was he not a gallant officer as well as a thoroughbred gentleman? No time for wooing now! That would come with peace. He had even given his consent when she blushingly asked him if she might--"Well, _there!_ read it yourself," she said, putting the closely written page into his hands. It was an eager plea for her picture--and the photograph was sent. He chose the one himself, a dainty "vignette" on card, for it reminded him of the mother who was gone. It was fitting, he told himself, that his daughter--her sainted mother"s image, Guthrie"s sister--should love a gallant soldier. He gloried in the accounts of Paul Abbot"s bravery, and longed to meet him and take him by the hand. The time would come. He could wait and watch over the little girl who was drawing them together.
He asked no questions. It would all be right.
And now they stood together at the station waiting for the evening cars and the latest news from the front. It lacked but a few minutes of train time when, with sad and sympathetic face, the station-agent approached, a fateful brown envelope in his hand. The doctor turned quickly at his daughter"s gasping exclamation,
"_Papa!_ Mr. Hardy has a telegram!"
Despite every effort his hand and lip trembled violently as he took it and tore it open. It was brief enough--an answer to his repeated despatches to the War Department.
"Lieutenant Paul R. Abbot, dangerously wounded, is at field hospital near Frederick, Maryland."
The doctor turned to her pale, pleading face, tears welling in his eyes.
"Be brave, my little girl," he murmured, brokenly. "He is wounded, but we can go to him at once."
Nearly sunset again, and the South Mountain is throwing its dark shadow clear across the Monocacy. The day has been warm, cloudless, beautiful, and, now that evening is approaching, the sentries begin to saunter out from the deeper shade that has lured them during the afternoon and to give a more soldierly tone to the picture. There are not many of them, to be sure, and this is evidently the encampment of no large command of troops, despite the number of big white tents pitched in the orchard, and the score of white-topped army-wagons, the half-dozen yellow ambulances, and the scraggy lot of mules in the pasture-lot across the dusty highway. The stream is close at hand, only a stone"s-throw from the picturesque old farmhouse, and the animated talk among the groups of bathers has that peculiarly blasphemous flavor which seems inseparable from the average teamster. That the camp is under military tutelage is apparent from the fact that a tall young man in the loose, ill-fitting blue fatigue-dress of our volunteers, with war-worn belts and a business-like look to the long "Springfield" over his shoulder, comes striding down to the bank and shouts forthwith,
"You fellows are making too much noise there, and the doctor wants you to dry up."
"Tell him to send us some towels, then," growls one of the number, a black-browed, surly-looking fellow with ponderous, bent shoulders and a slouching mien. Some of his companions t.i.tter encouragingly, others are silent. The sergeant of the guard flushes angrily and turns on the speaker.
"You know very well what I mean, Rix. I"m using your own slang in speaking to you because you wouldn"t comprehend decent language. It isn"t the first time you"ve been warned not to make such a row here close to a lot of wounded and dying men. Now I mean business. Quit it or you"ll get into trouble."
"What authority have _you_ got, I"d like to know," is the sneering rejoinder. "You"re nothing but a hospital guard, and have no business interfering with us. I ain"t under no doctor"s orders. You go back to your stiffs and leave live men alone."
The sergeant is about to speak, when the bathers, glancing up at the bank, see him suddenly face to his left and raise his hand to his shouldered rifle in salute. The next instant a tall young officer, leaning heavily on a cane and with his sword-arm in a sling, appears at the sergeant"s side.
"Who is the man who questions your authority?" he asks, in a voice singularly calm and deliberate.
There is a moment"s awkward silence. The sergeant has the reluctance of his cla.s.s to getting a fellow-soldier into a sc.r.a.pe. The half-dressed bathers stand uncomfortably about the sh.o.r.e and look blankly from one to another. The man addressed as Rix is busily occupied in pulling on a pair of soldier brogans, and tying, with great deliberation, the leather strings.
Casting his clear eyes over the group, as he steps forward to the edge, the young officer speaks again:
"You"re here, are you, Rix. That leaves little doubt as to the man even if I were not sure of the voice. I could hear your brutal swearing, sir, loud over the prayers the chaplain was saying for the dead. Have you no sense of decency at all?"
"How"n h.e.l.l did I know there was any prayin" going on?" muttered Rix, bending his scowling brows down over his shoe and tugging savagely at the string.
"What was that remark, Rix?" asks the lieutenant, his grasp tightening on the stick.
No answer.
"Rix, drop that shoestring; stand attention, and look at me," says the officer, very quietly, but with setting teeth that no man fails to note.
Rix slowly and sullenly obeys.
"What was the remark you made just now?" is again the question.
"I said I didn"t know they were praying," growls Rix, finding he has to face the music.
"That sounds very little like your words, but--let it go. You knew very well that men were dying here right within earshot when you were making the air blue with blasphemy, and when better men were reverently silent.
It is the third time you have been reprimanded in a week. I shall see to it that you are sent back to your company forthwith."
"Not while Lieutenant Hollins is quartermaster you won"t," is the insubordinate reply, and even the teamsters look scared as they glance from the scowling, hanging face of Rix to the clear-cut features of the officer, and mark the change that sweeps over the latter. His eyes seem to flash fire, and his pallid face--thin with suffering and loss of blood--flushes despite his physical weakness. His handsome mouth sets like a steel-trap.
"Sergeant, get two of your men and put that fellow under guard," he orders. "Stay where you are, Rix, until they come for you." His voice is low and stern; he does not condescend to raise it for such occasion, though there is a something about it that tells the soldier-ear it can ring with command where ring is needed.
"I"d like to know what I"ve done," mutters Rix, angrily kicking at the pebbles at his feet.
No answer. The lieutenant has walked back a pace and has seated himself on a little bench. Another officer--a gray-haired and distinguished-looking man, with silver eagles on his shoulders--is rapidly nearing him and reaches the bank just in time to catch the next words. He could have heard them farther back, for Rix is in a fury now, and shouts aloud:
"If you knew your own interests--knew half that I know about your affairs, Lieutenant Abbot--you"d think twice before you ordered me under arrest."
The lieutenant half starts from the bench; but his self-control is strong.
"You are simply adding to your insubordination, sir," he says, coldly.
"Take your prisoner, sergeant. You men are all witnesses to this language."
And muttering much to himself, Teamster Rix is marched slowly away, leaving an audience somewhat mystified. The colonel stands looking after him with a puzzled and astonished face; the men begin slowly to edge away, and then Mr. Abbot wearily rises and--again he flushes red when he finds his superior officer facing him at not three paces distance.