CHAPTER XXIV.RESULTS OF THE BATTLE.
The streets of Rockland were full of excited people when the news first reached the town of the terrible battle which had left so many slain upon the field, and desolated so many hearths both North and South. Rose Mather was nearly frantic, for Will she knew was in the battle, together with her two brothers, and it was not probable that all three would escape unharmed. Eagerly she grasped the paper to see who was killed, wounded, or missing, but neither of the three names was there, and she began to hope again, and found time to comfort poor Susan Simms, whose husband was also in the fight, and who had gone almost mad with the fear lest he should be killed.
Two days passed, and then there came a telegram from Tom, and Mrs. Carleton, who read it first, gave a low, moaning cry, while Rose, who read it next, uttered a piercing shriek, and fell sobbing into Annie’s arms.
“Oh, Will!—oh, Will!—my husband!” was what she said, while Mrs. Carleton uttered Jimmie’s name, and then Annie knew that harm had come to him, and placing Rose upon the sofa, she took the paper from Mrs. Carleton’s hand, and read:
“Will was badly wounded,—lay on the field all night;—Jimmie missing,—supposed to be a prisoner. I am well.
“T. Carleton.”
“T. Carleton.”
“T. Carleton.”
“T. Carleton.”
“Poor Jimmie!” Annie whispered, sadly, her heart throbbing with pity for the young man who had gone back in time to meet so sad a fate.
Never had so dark a day dawned upon Rose Mather as that which followed the arrival of Tom’s telegram, but ere its close there came a message of hope to her. Will had been taken to Washington, where he had providentially fallen into the hands of Mrs. Simms, who sent the joyful news that “no bones were broken, and he was doing well.”
“Oh, Annie, God is so much better to me than I deserve; I must love Him now, and I will, if He will only send Jimmie back,” Rose said, while Annie’s heart went up in a prayer of thanksgiving for Mr. Mather’s comparative safety, and then went out after the poor prisoner, whose destination was as yet unknown.
That night Rose started for Washington, and three days after there came to Annie a soiled, queer-looking missive, directed to “Miss Widder Anny Graam, At Miss Martherses,” the name written at the top of the letter, and the superscription spreading over so much surface, that, had there been another word, it must, from necessity, have been written on the other side of the letter. It was from Bill Baker, and it read as follows:
“Army of Potomac, and about as licked out an army as you ever seen. To all it may concern, and ‘specially Miss Anny Graam. I send you my regrets greetin’, and hopin’ this will find you enjoying the same great blessin’. Burnside has made the thunderinest blunder, and more’n a million of our boys is dead before Fredericksburgh. Mr. Mathers was about riddled through, I guess, and the Corporal,—wall, may as well take it easy,—I fit for him like a tiger, till they nocked me endways, and I played dead to save my life. But the Corporal’s a goner,—took prisoner with an awful cut on his neck; and now what I’m going to tell you is this: the night before the battle I came upon him prayin’ like a priest, kneelin’ in an awful mudpuddle, and what he said was somethin’ about Heaven, andAnny, whitch, beggin’ your pardon, I think means you, and so I ast him in case of bad luck, if I should write and tell you. I don’t think hecould have ben in a vary sperritual frame of mind, for he told me to mind my bisiness, but I don’t lay it up agin him, and when them too tall, lantern-jawed sons of Balam grabbed him as he was tryin’ to skedaddle with the blood a spirtin’ from his neck, I pitched inter ’em, and give ’em hale columby for a spell, till they nocked me flat and I made bleeve dead as I was tellin’ you. Don’t feel bad, Miss Graam. Trust luck and keep your powder dry, and mabby he’ll come back sometime.
Yours to command,“Bill Baker.”
Yours to command,“Bill Baker.”
Yours to command,“Bill Baker.”
Yours to command,
“Bill Baker.”
“Tell the old woman I’m well, but pretty well tuckered out.”
“God soften the hearts of his captors. God keep him in safety!” Annie whispered, and then, as Mrs. Carleton came in, she passed the note to her, and tried to comfort the poor mother, who, in Rose’s absence, leaned on her as on a daughter.
Annie seemed very near the sorrowing woman, who wept bitterly for her poor boy, and in the first hours of her sorrow she spoke out what was in her mind.
“I believe Jimmie loved you, Annie, and that makes you very dear to me. We can mourn for him together, and, Annie, you will pray for him night and day, that God will bring him back to us.”
Annie could only reply by pressing the hand which sought hers, for her heart was too full to speak. Had Jimmie been dead she would scarcely have mourned for him more deeply than she did now. The country was already rife with rumors of the sufferings endured by our prisoners, and death itself seemed almost preferable to months and years of privations and pain in the Southern prisons.
“Sent to Richmond, and probably from thence further South, probably to Georgia.”
This was all the intelligence they could procure from him, until spring, when there came news direct that hewas at Salisbury, and there for a time the curtain dropped, leaving his face shrouded in darkness, while in his Northern home tears were shed like rain, and prayers went up to heaven from the quivering lips of a mother, who was just learning to pray as she ought, and into Annie Graham’s heart there gradually crept a wish that the poor, weary prisoner might know how much and how kindly she thought of him, feeling at times half sorry that she had not given him some little hope as a solace for the weary hours of his prison life.