CHAPTER V.HOW THE BOYS CAME HOME.
Capt. Lesterwas carried from the field of Antietam insensible, and on examination his wounds were pronounced mortal by the physicians, though no means were left untried to preserve a life so valuable to his country. A minié ball had passed through his shoulder to the back of the neck, and at the same time the fragment of a shell struck his ankle, inflicting a severe wound, and splintering the bone. He lay for several days in a half-unconscious state—at times, when partially roused, becoming delirious, then sinking again into a lethargy from which it was difficult to awaken him. A private house had been hastily fitted up for the reception of the wounded, and to thishe was taken and made as comfortable as circumstances admitted.
When Fanny Lester and Lilian reached the end of their journey, they were at first denied admittance to the hospital; and it was only after the most strenuous exertions on the part of Mr. Ryder that they were allowed to see Capt. Lester.
“I am afraid, my dear young friends,” said the good man, “that you will not be permitted to remain with him; the military rules are very strict, and few favors are shown here.”
“Have no fears on that score, my dear sir,” Lilian replied. “If once we gain entrance, it will take at least a regiment to dislodge us.”
It was evening when they entered the room where the sick man lay, seemingly insensible to every thing around him; and as Lilian approached, the nurse who had been moistening his lips from timeto time, came forward, and greeting her kindly, offered her a seat by his side. Though terribly shocked at his death-like appearance, Lilian was outwardly calm; and taking from the nurse minute directions with regard to the treatment to be pursued, busied herself in arranging the dressings and medicines, to conceal the emotion which threatened to overpower her.
When this was done, she seated herself by the bedside, and taking the hand of the wounded man, placed her fingers on his wrist to assure herself that he still lived, for in that darkened room his sleep so closely resembled death, that her heart stood still with terror as she looked upon him. Hardly had she touched his wrist when a perceptible thrill ran through the veins; there was a slight movement, and then a faint voice whispered, “Is this Lilian?”
Too much agitated to reply at once, she gave him the stimulant prescribed by the nurse, turned up the lamp that she might see his face, and then said as calmly as she could,
“Yes, Robert, it is your sister and Lilian, who have come to nurse and make you well.”
“Thank God!” was the low response; and then he seemed to sleep again, while Lilian watched him through the night, glad to find that her young companion had forgotten her sorrows in refreshing slumber. From that time Capt. Lester’s symptoms were slightly improved, and he had more frequent intervals of consciousness, though there were yet but faint hopes of his recovery. If medical skill and the most assiduous care could save him, he was certain to recover, for Lilian or Fanny were with him night and day, anticipating every want, andsoothing by their tender sympathy the sufferings which no skill could wholly relieve.
For some weeks it was feared by the surgeons that amputation of the foot must take place; and nothing but the prayers and tears of Lilian induced them to delay it, until, by the blessing of God on her exertions, it was no longer deemed necessary. The ball still remained in his shoulder, and had hitherto eluded search; but it was at length found and extracted; and from that hour his progress, though slow, was sure.
“How is it, Robert,” said Lilian one day, when he was suffering more than usual from his wounds, “that you are always so cheerful and patient, though you suffer so much? I have heard that convalescents are expected to be irritable and capricious, but you do not avail yourself of the privilege at all. Youmust be naturally indifferent to pain, or else you have too much pride to allow it to overcome you; which is it?”
“Neither the one nor the other, dear Lilian. I have naturally a great dread of pain, and do not think myself possessed of a large share of that moral courage in which your sex excel, and which is the only kind which will bear the test of suffering. As to pride, it is sadly out of place on a sick-bed, even if it had the power to deaden a sense of pain, which I very much doubt.”
“What is it then that makes you so desirable a patient? for, excepting my aunt, I never saw any one bear pain as you do.”
“Shall I tell you, my Lilian? It is the taking home to my heart, and appropriating that precious promise, ‘My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.’ In myself I am all weakness; but if an almighty armis underneath and around me, I have all the strength and support I need. God grant that you may know from your own experience the blessedness of which I speak.”
Tears were in the eyes of Lilian as she answered,
“With such examples as I have had before me, I can never doubt the reality of the religion of Jesus, and I would give worlds, if I had them, to feel its power; but it seems impossible for me to obtain such a blessing.”
“Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved,” was the reply. “And now, dear Lilian, I must send you from me to visit our poor patient up stairs, who needs you even more than I do, if that were possible.”
A few days previous to this conversation, Lilian was passing through one of the rooms in which lay some rebel officerswho had been recently brought in from Virginia. Most of them were hopeless cases, and the sight was so painful to the young girl, that she passed on rapidly, until her steps were arrested by the exclamation, “Miss Grey! can it be possible?” She turned and saw, though she could hardly recognize in the pallid face and emaciated form before her, Lieut. Carter, the betrothed of her cousin, the rebel officer whose desertion of his country’s flag had caused them all so much unhappiness. It was a very painful meeting to Lilian, and her first impulse was to leave the room instantly; but death was stamped on every feature of the young man, and humanity triumphed. She approached the bedside, and said kindly,
“Mr. Carter, I can stay but a moment. Is there any thing I can do for you, or that you wish to say to me?”
The sick man replied bitterly,
“I see how it is; you all hate and despise me; but I cannot help it. I am a Southerner, and would not desert my brethren in arms though I lost every friend on earth. What I have done I would do again in the same circumstances.”
“You are wrong, Hugh,” said Lilian, “none of us hate or despise you, though the course you have taken has almost broken the hearts of those who loved you so dearly.”
“And who love me no longer, you would say. Well, I knew the penalty when I put on this uniform, and I am not going now to complain of the cost. I hate the Yankees,” he exclaimed with an energy of which he seemed incapable, “and the bitterest thought in dying is, that Elinor has become one of their miserable canting crew; but they have lostStanwood; he at least is true to the bonny blue flag.”
“Not so, Hugh. Stanwood has seen his error, and taken the oath of allegiance at Washington, and only waits until his wounds are healed to go home and be reconciled to his family.”
The sick man turned ghastly pale on hearing this, and an execration rose to his lips, which was suppressed from deference to Lilian, who added,
“You are very ill, Hugh, and thoughts like these are not suited to one in your condition. Let me beg you to see the chaplain; he is a good man, and will gladly visit you.”
“Oh spare me all that stereotyped nonsense,” he exclaimed. “I will die as I have lived, without the aid of priest or chaplain. If my belief is correct, I do not need them; and if I am wrong, it is too late to mend the mistake. I am dying,and you know it; but I will at least die game: no whining repentance or hypocritical confessions for Hugh Carter.”
There seemed little hope of doing him any good in such a state of mind, and Lilian, feeling her own incompetency to reply to him, sadly turned away and left the room, while memory went back to other days, when he who was going into eternity without one ray of light upon his path, had been to her almost a brother. There was a shadow on her bright face as she went back to her patient, who instantly saw it, and inquired the cause, when she related the scene through which she had just passed. Capt. Lester had formerly known Lieut. Carter, and though no bond of affinity had ever drawn the young men together, he was greatly shocked to learn his present condition.
“I must see him, dear Lilian,” he said;“he may listen to me when he would not admit a clergyman. It is too dreadful to let him die so, without making one effort to do him good. Poor Elinor, how could she bear this?”
With great difficulty, and on crutches, Capt. Lester made his way to the bedside of the wounded officer; but the latter refused to converse with him, declaring that his mind was made up, and he would never be such a coward as to change his opinions because death was at hand. In vain he was urged to listen to God’s own words of promise.
“To those who can believe, all that is well enough; as for me, I have never feared any thing in life, and cannot begin to tremble now.”
A few days afterwards he died in the same state of mind, declaring with his latest breath that he asked no favors at the hands of God or man.
Elinor was informed of his death, but not of the circumstances attending it; and thus she was spared the keenest pang of all—that of knowing that he whom she had once loved and trusted, died without hope.
One after another our brave boys came back to us from the hospitals, wounded and disabled, some maimed for life, yet bating no tittle of courage or faith in the ultimate triumph of the good cause. A part of the regiment had reënlisted at the expiration of their term of service, and were with us for a few days, enjoying the sweets of domestic life after their laborious campaigns.
It was during their stay that the death of little Willie occurred, and the drummer-boy was followed to his grave by many of those who knew and loved him as a son or brother in the camp. There were manly tears shed around his grave;and one man exclaimed, as the coffin was lowered from sight,
“There goes the best boy I ever knew, and I don’t believe he has left his like behind him.”
The first snows of winter had fallen on Willie’s grave before Capt. Lester came back to us, with his sister and a lady whom we had loved as Lilian Grey, but were now to know as Mrs. Lester. She was well aware that the prejudices of her uncle and cousin would be shocked by her marriage away from home and in a hospital; so she said nothing about it in her letters, believing that her husband could plead his own cause far better in person than she could do by writing. The event justified her expectations; for though at first Mr. Fenton was surprised and angry, the reasons given by Capt. Lester and the persuasions of his wife soon reconciled him, and even forced himto confess that it was probably the best thing that could have been done under the circumstances. Mrs. Fenton, however, would not consent to part with her niece; so Capt. Lester became an inmate of the family, and soon won the affection of all its members, while his health improved rapidly, though the wound in his ankle was still painful and troublesome.
Soon after Capt. Lester’s return, there came a visitor to the parsonage whose arrival was warmly welcomed by Mabel, though it caused her tears to flow afresh. This was the father of Lieut. Wiley, who had taken the journey for the purpose of becoming acquainted with the bride of his son, now doubly endeared to him by her early widowhood and sorrow.
He was a plain New England farmer, cultivating a few acres of hard soil, from which he managed by unceasing industry to gain a support for his small family;but he was rich in faith, and his benevolence would shame that of many a millionaire. His son had left home while still very young; but he was fondly remembered, and his loss lamented by the aged pair, who had only one daughter left to be the stay of their declining years.
Mr. Wiley went from house to house through the Beach Hill neighborhood, wherever a disabled soldier or a bereaved wife or mother were to be found, often accompanied by Mabel, who in her mourning garb looked so pale and shadowy that we almost expected to see her vanish from our sight. The old man loved to hear and talk of his dead son; but he loved still more to speak of Him who died for sinners, and of the heaven to which his disciples are hastening. It was impossible on such occasions for the most careless to listen unmoved; and tears were often seen to steal down thecheeks of bearded men, though all “unused to the melting mood,” as they heard from his lips the story so often told, yet ever new, of Gethsemane and Calvary.
The visit of Mr. Wiley was a blessing to many souls in Woodbury, and especially to Mabel and Lilian, both of whom made a public profession of faith in Christ the Sabbath before his departure. When he left for home, Mabel and her mother went with him, as our physician recommended a change of scene for the former, whose health was suffering from the shock she had sustained.
Capt. Lester had now so far recovered as to walk with only the assistance of a cane, when, one evening after Lilian had been spending the day with me, he came in bringing a large package, which he threw into her lap, saying, “Read that, dear wife, and then tell me what to do.”
She opened the envelope and foundinclosed a commission as colonel of a veteran regiment then being raised, with a letter in which flattering mention was made of Capt. Lester’s services in the army, and the estimation in which he was held by the chief magistrate of the state.
Lilian’s eyes sparkled with all a wife’s pride as she read the letter, and turning to her husband, she said, “There ought to be but one cause for hesitation on such a subject. If you are well enough to go, you cannot doubt for a moment your duty to accept it. I would not hold you back, if I could, and I am certain that I could not, if I would.”
“Thanks, dear Lilian; I knew your brave and true heart would cheer me on in the path of duty; but I have been a petted invalid so long, that I am ashamed to say the thought of leaving all I love was at first painful to me.”
“And may I not go with you?” she inquired; “you know how well I can bear hardships; and I assure you I will take care that you shall find me no incumbrance.”
“That you could never be, in any case,” was his reply; “but the coming campaign is likely to be a fatiguing and perilous one, and besides, I must not set an example of self-indulgence to the regiment. It would never do for the colonel to be enjoying the society of his wife, unless he grants the same privilege to the other officers, and in that case, I fear we should be in danger of losing the name of the ‘fighting regiment,’ which the veterans have so nobly earned.”
“I submit, as in duty bound, to your decision; but I must have a promise that I may come to you instantly, if at any time you should need me.”
The promise was readily given, andLilian smiled through her tears as she playfully pictured his helplessness, when he should find himself thrown once more on his own resources.
“I know you have almost spoiled me,” he replied in the same tone, “but the camp is a good school in which to learn to endure hardships and self-denial, and I am not likely to want for lessons in our present service.”
Several members of the Twenty-sixth, when they found that Capt. Lester was to have the command of a regiment, were transferred, and most of his field and line officers were old friends and comrades, so we bade him farewell cheerfully, though his health was not fully reëstablished.
True to her former professions, Lilian sent him forth with smiles and blessings; and after his departure, she had always a word of comfort and cheer for thosewho had given their household treasures to the cause of freedom. But the few who knew her intimately, knew that she shed bitter tears when no eye but that of God was upon her, as she thought of the perils by which he was surrounded, and which he had neither the power nor the wish to shun.
The regiment commanded by Col. Lester was in the second division of the Sixth corps in the Army of the Potomac, and was stationed near the enemy’s outposts, so that picket-firing and skirmishing were of daily occurrence, though there had been no general engagement since the battle of Gettysburg.
That grand Army of the Potomac; how my heart thrills as I think or write of it! Composed, as no other army on earth ever was made up, save our own noble troops of the West and South-west, of the very flower of American manhood,with youth, wealth, intellect, and talent filling its ranks, and yet, by a strange fatality, doomed to experience unmerited defeats or fruitless victories, it has waited with a courage and patience truly sublime for the moment of triumph which is sure to come at last. So often decimated, yet never subdued, but Antæus-like, gathering fresh vigor from every disaster, they have not always been able to command success, but they have done more; for they have deserved it. In the coming time, when this fearful war shall have passed into history, and our children are reaping its glorious results, it will be a prouder boast than that of royal lineage to have the right to say, “My father was a soldier in the Army of the Potomac.”