I have earnestly endeavored to learn the fate of the boys who left the car with me, but have failed. Two of them claimed to belong to the Harris Light Cavalry, a New York regiment. I have been down through North Carolina, over the tracks I made on that memorable march, and have advertised in all papers likely to reach the ex-soldiers. I have not much hope now, although stranger things have happened. The chances for getting through were perhaps one in a hundred, on account of the vigilance of the citizens of the so-called Confederacy. They were always on the lookout for deserters, conscripts and runaway slaves. The south was literally an armed camp. Every man, old and young, and, I might say, woman and child, was in the service in some capacity. So when a stranger was discovered they raised the alarm, and with shotgun in hand and blood hound on the trail, gave chase. A man had little chance against such odds.
As I approached the block house between the picket post and the bridge I got a glimpse of the starryemblem. It was attached to a staff on the top of the fort, and it appeared to me to embody everything that was beautiful and good. It could have been no more welcome to a luckless mariner afloat on a boundless sea without a compass than it was to me. As the mists lifted it came into view amidst all the splendor of a southern sunrise, and as its spotless colors rolled in merry and playful billows across the sky my heart swelled with joy unspeakable.
Now peace hovers over the land.
"No more are hostile standards reared,Nor bugle note nor trump is heard—The war drums cease:The blue-coats scatter through the land;The erewhile soldiers, plough in hand,Of their own hard won fields demandThe earth's increase;Or ply their skill with sharper zest,Where shafts nor wheels nor halt nor rest;O'er North and South and East and WestBroods White-winged Peace."
"No more are hostile standards reared,Nor bugle note nor trump is heard—The war drums cease:The blue-coats scatter through the land;The erewhile soldiers, plough in hand,Of their own hard won fields demandThe earth's increase;Or ply their skill with sharper zest,Where shafts nor wheels nor halt nor rest;O'er North and South and East and WestBroods White-winged Peace."
"No more are hostile standards reared,Nor bugle note nor trump is heard—The war drums cease:The blue-coats scatter through the land;The erewhile soldiers, plough in hand,Of their own hard won fields demandThe earth's increase;Or ply their skill with sharper zest,Where shafts nor wheels nor halt nor rest;O'er North and South and East and WestBroods White-winged Peace."
"No more are hostile standards reared,
Nor bugle note nor trump is heard—
The war drums cease:
The blue-coats scatter through the land;
The erewhile soldiers, plough in hand,
Of their own hard won fields demand
The earth's increase;
Or ply their skill with sharper zest,
Where shafts nor wheels nor halt nor rest;
O'er North and South and East and West
Broods White-winged Peace."
And it is the earnest wish of us all that it may be perpetual.