A MOST LOGICAL CONCLUSION.
When Lillie came to her senses she was lying on her father's bed. For
some minutes he had been bending over her, watching her pulse, bathing
her forehead, kissing her, and calling her by name in a hoarse,
frightened whisper. He was aware that insensibility was her best friend;
but he must know at once whether she would live or die. At first she lay
quiet, silent, recollecting, trying not to believe; then she suddenly
plunged her face into the pillow with a groan of unspeakable anguish. It
was not for five or ten minutes longer, not until he had called her by
every imaginable epithet of pity and tenderness, that she turned toward
him with another spasmodic throe, clasped his head to her bosom, and
burst into an impetuous sobbing and low crying. Still she did not speak
an intelligible word; her teeth were set firm, as if in bodily pain, and
her sobs came through her parted lips; she would not look at him either,
and kept her eyes closed, or turned upward distractedly. It seemed as
if, even in the midst of her anguish, she was stung by shame at the
nature of the calamity, so insulting to her pride as a woman and wife.
After a while this paroxysm ceased, and she lay silent again, while
another icy wave of despair flowed over her, her consciousness being
expressed solely in a trembling of her cheeks, her lips, and her
fingers. When he whispered, "We will go north, we will never come back
here," she made no sign of assent or objection. She did not answer him
in any manner until he asked her if she wanted Ravvie; but then she
leaped at the proffered consolation, the gift of Heaven's pity, with a
passionate "Yes!" For an anxious half hour the Doctor left her alone
with her child, knowing that it was the best he could do for her.
One thing he must attend to at once. Steps must be taken to prevent Mrs.
Larue from crossing his daughter's sight even for a moment. See the
woman himself he could not; not, at least, until she were dead. He
enclosed her billet to her in a sealed envelope, adding the following
note, which cost him many minutes to write--
"Madame: The accompanying letter has fallen into the hands of my
daughter. She is dangerously ill. I hope that you will have the humanity
not to meet her again."
When the housemaid returned from delivering the package he said to her,
"Julia, did you give it to Mrs. Larue?"
"Yes sah."
"Did you give it into her own hands?"
"Yes sah. She was in bed, an' I gin it to herself."
"What--how did she look?" asked the Doctor after a moment's hesitation.
"She did'n look nohow. She jess lit a match an' burned the letter up."
The Doctor was aghast at the horrible, hard-hearted corruptness implied
by such coolness and forethought. But in point of fact, Mrs. Larue had
been startled far beyond her common wont, and was now more profoundly
grieved than she had ever been before in her life.
"What a pity!" she said several times to herself. "I have made them very
miserable. I have done mischief when I meant none. Why didn't the stupid
creature burn the letter! I burned all his. What a pity! Well, at any
rate it will go no farther."
She had her trunks packed and drove immediately after breakfast to
Carrollton, where she remained secluded in the hotel until she found a
private boarding house in the unfrequented outskirts of the village. If
the Ravenels moved away, her man servant was to inform her, so that she
might return to her house. She realized perfectly the inhumanity of
encountering Lillie, and was resolved that no such meeting should take
place, no matter what might be the expense of keeping up two
establishments. In her pity and regret she was almost willing to sell
her house at a loss, or shut it up without rent, and pinch herself in
some northern city, supposing that the Ravenels concluded to stay in New
Orleans. "I owe them that much," she thought, with a consciousness of
being generous, and not bad-hearted. Then she sighed, and said aloud,
"Poor Lillie! I am so sorry for her! But she has a baby, and for his
sake she will forgive her husband."
And then a feeling came over her that she would like to see the baby,
and that it would have been a pleasure to at least kiss it good-bye.
The family with which she lived consisted of a man of sixty and his
wife, with two unmarried daughters of twenty-eight and thirty, the
parents New Englanders, the children born in Louisiana, but all alike
orthodox, devout, silent, after the old fashion of New England. The
father was a cotton broker, nearly bankrupted by the Rebellion, and was
glad for pecuniary reasons to receive a respectable boarder. Such a
household Mrs. Larue had chosen as an asylum, believing that she would
be benefited just now by an odor of sanctity, if it were only derived
from propinquity. Something might get out; Lillie might go delirious and
make disclosures; and it was well to build up a character for staidness.
The idea of entering a convent she rejected the moment that it occurred
to her. "This is monastic enough," she thought with a repressed smile as
she looked at the serious faces of her Presbyterian hosts male and
female.
The Allens became as much infatuated with her as did the Chaplain on
board the Creole, or the venerable D. D. in New York city. Her modest
and retiring manner, her amiability, cheerfulness, and sprightly
conversation, made her the most charming person in their eyes that they
had ever met. The daughters regained something of their blighted
youthfulness under the sunny influences of her presence, aided by the
wisdom of her counsel, and the cunning of her fingers in matters of the
toilet. Mrs. Allen kissed her with motherly affection every time that
she bade the family good-night. The old trick of showing a mind ripe for
conversion from Popery was played with the usual success. After she had
left the house, and when she was once more receiving and flirting in New
Orleans, Mr. Allen used to excite her laughter by presenting her with
tracts against Romanism, or lending her volumes of sermons by eminent
Protestant divines. Not that she ever laughed at him to his face: she
would as soon have thought of striking him with her fist; she was too
good-natured and well-bred to commit either impertinence.
For the sake of appearances she remained in the country a week or more
after the Ravenels had left the city. Restored to her own house, she
found herself somewhat lonely for lack of her relatives, and somewhat
gloomy, or at least annoyed, when she thought of the cause of the
separation. But there was no need of continuing solitude; any quantity
of army society could be had by such New Orleans ladies as wished it;
and Mrs. Larue finally resolved to break with treason, and flirt with
loyalty in gilt buttons. In a short time her parlor was frequented by
gentlemen who wore silver leaves and eagles and stars on their
shoulders, and the loss of Colonel Carter was more than made up to her
by the devotion of persons who were mightier in counsel and in war than
he. The very latest news from her is of a highly satisfactory character.
It is reported that she was fortunate enough to gain the special favor
of an official personage very high in authority in some unmentionable
department of the South, who, as a mark of his gratitude, gave her a
permit to trade for several thousand bales of cotton. This curious
billet-doux she sold to a New York speculator for fifteen thousand
dollars, thereby re-establishing her somewhat dilapidated fortunes.
Just as a person whose dwelling falls about his head is sometimes
preserved from death by some fragment of the wreck which prostrates him,
but preserves him from the mass, so Lillie was shielded from the full
pressure of her misery by a short fever, bringing with it a few days of
delirium, and a long prostration, during which she had not strength to
feel acutely. When we must bend or break, Nature often takes us in her
own pitying hands, and lays us gently upon beds of insensibility or
semi-consciousness. Thanks be to Heaven for the merciful opiate of
sickness!
During the fever two letters arrived from Carter, but Ravenel put them
away without showing them to the invalid. For some time she did not
inquire about her husband; when she thought of him too keenly she asked
with a start for her baby. Nature continually led her to that tender,
helpless, speechless, potent consoler. The moment it was safe for her to
travel, Ravenel put her on board a vessel bound to New York, choosing a
sailing craft, not only for economy's sake, but to secure the benefit of
a lengthy voyage, and to keep longer away from all news of earth and
men. She made no objection to going; her father wished it to be so; it
was right enough. The voyage lasted three weeks, during which she slowly
regained strength, and as a consequence something of her old
cheerfulness and hopefulness. The Doctor had a strong faith that she
would not be broken down by her calamity. Not only was her temper gay
and remarkable for its elasticity, but her physical constitution seemed
to partake of the same characteristics, and she had always recovered
from sickness with rapidity. Not a bit disposed to brooding, taking a
lively interest in whatever went on around her, she would not fall an
easy prey to confirmed melancholy. The Doctor never alluded to her
husband, and when Lillie at last mentioned his name, it was merely to
say, "I hope he will not be killed."
"I hope not," replied Ravenel gently, and stopped there. He could not,
however, repress a brief glance of surprise and investigation. Could it
be that she would come to forgive that man? Had he been too hasty in
dragging her away from New Orleans, and giving up the moderate salary
which was so necessary to them both? But no: it would kill her to meet
Mrs. Larue: they must never go back to that Sodom of a city.
The question of income was a serious one. He was nearly at the end of
his own resources, and he had not suffered Lillie to draw any of her
perfidious husband's money. But he did not dwell much on these pecuniary
questions now, being chiefly occupied with the moral future of his
child, wondering much whether she would indeed forgive her husband, and
whether she would ever again be happy. Of course it was not until they
reached New York that they learned the events which I must now relate.
Carter joined the army at Grande Ecore just before it resumed field
operations. Bailey's famous dam had let Porter out of his trap; the
monitors, the gunboats, the Admiral, were on their way down the river;
it was too late to go to Shreveport, or to gather cotton; and so the
column set out rearward. That it was strong enough to take care of
itself against any force which the rebels could bring to cut off the
retreat was well known; and Carter assumed command of his new brigade
with a sense of elation at the prospect of fighting, which he had little
reason to doubt would be successful. By the last gunboat of the
departing fleet he sent his wife a letter, full of gay anticipations,
and expressions of affection, which she was destined never to answer. By
the last transport which came to Grande Ecore arrived a letter from
Ravenel, which, owing to the hastiness of the march, did not reach him
until the evening before the battle of Cane River. In the glare of a
camp-fire he read of the destruction which he had wrought in the peace
of his own family. Ravenel spoke briefly and without reproaches of the
discovery; stated that he believed it to be his duty to remove his child
from the scene of such a domestic calamity; that he should therefore
take her to the north as soon as she was able to travel.
"I beg that you will not force yourself upon her," he concluded.
"Hitherto she has not mentioned your name to me, and I do not know what
may be her feelings with regard to you. Some time she may pardon you, if
it is your desire to be pardoned. I cannot say. At present I know of
nothing better than to take her away, and to ask your forbearance, in
the name of her sickness and suffering."
This letter was a cruel blow to Carter. If the staff officers who sat
with him around the camp-fire could have known how deeply and for what a
purely domestic reason the seemingly stern and hard General was
suffering, they would have been very much amazed. He was popularly
supposed to be a man of the world, with bad morals and a calloused
heart, which could neither feel much anguish of its own nor sympathise
keenly with the anguish of other hearts. But the General was indeed so
wretched that he could not talk with them, and could not even sit among
them in silence. He went on one side and walked for an hour up and down
in the darkness. He tried to clear up the whole thing in his mind, and
decide distinctly what was the worst that had happened, and what was the
best that could be done. But his perceptions were very tumultuous and
incoherent, as is usually the case with a man when first overtaken by a
great calamity. It was a horrible affair; it was a cursed, infernal
affair; and that was about all that he could say to himself. He was
intolerably ashamed, as well as grieved and angry. He thought very
little about Mrs. Larue, good or bad; he was not mean enough to curse
her, although she had been more to blame than he; only he did wish that
he never had seen her, and did curse the day which brought them together
on the Creole. The main thing, after all, was that he had ill-treated
his wife, and it did not matter who had been his accomplice in the
wicked business. He set his teeth into his lips, and felt his eyes grow
moist, as he thought of her, sick and suffering because she loved him,
and he had not been worthy of her love. Would she ever forgive him, and
take him back to her heart? He did not know. He would try to win her
back; he would fight desperately, and distinguish himself; he would
offer her the best impulses and bravest deeds of manhood. Perhaps if he
should earn a Major-General's star and high fame in the nation, and then
should go to her feet, she would receive him. A transitory thrill of
pleasure shot through him as he thought of reconciliation and renewed
love.
At last the General was recalled to the fire to read orders which
concerned the movements of the morrow, and to transmit them to the
regiments of his own command. Then he had to receive two old friends,
regular officers of the artillery, who called to congratulate him on his
promotion. Whiskey was produced for the visitors, and Carter himself
drank freely to drown trouble. When they went away, about midnight, he
found himself wearied out, and very soon dropped asleep, for he was a
soldier and could slumber under all circumstances.
At Grande Ecore the Red River throws off a bayou which rejoins it below,
the two currents enclosing an island some forty miles in length. This
bayou, now called the Cane River, was once the original stream, and in
memory of its ancient grandeur flows between high banks altogether out
of proportion to its modest current. Over the dead level of the island
the army had moved without being opposed, or harassed, for the rebels
had reserved their strength to crush it when it should be entangled in
the crossing of the Cane River. Taylor with his Arkansas and Louisiana
infantry had followed the march closely but warily, always within
striking distance but avoiding actual conflict, and now lay in line of
battle only a few miles in rear of Andrew Jackson Smith's western boys.
Polignac with his wild Texan cavalry had made a great circuit, and
already held the bluffs on the southern side of the Cane River
confronting Emory's two divisions of the Nineteenth Corps. The main plan
of the battle was simple and inevitable. Andrew Jackson Smith must beat
off the attack of Taylor, and Emory must abolish the obstacle of
Polignac.
The veteran and wary commander of the Nineteenth Corps had already
decided how he would go over his ground, should he find it occupied by
the enemy. He had before him a wood of considerable extent, then an open
plain eight hundred yards across, and then a valley in the nature of a
ravine, at the bottom of which flowed a river, not fordable here, and
with no crossing but a ferry. A single narrow road led down through a
deep cut to the edge of the rapid, muddy stream, and, starting again
from the other edge, rose through a similar gorge until it disappeared
from sight behind the brows of high bluffs crowned with pines. Under the
pines and along the rim of the bluffs lay the line of Polignac. There
had been no time to reconnoitre his dispositions; indeed, his presence
in strong force was not yet positively known to the leaders of the
Union army; but if there, his horses had no doubt been sent to the rear,
and his men formed to fight as infantry. And if this were so, if an army
of several thousand Texan riflemen occupied this strong position, how
should it be carried? Emory had already decided that it would never do
to butt at it in front, and that it could only be taken by a turning
movement. Thus this part of the battle had a plan of its own.
Such was the military situation upon which our new Brigadier opened his
heavy eyes at half-past three o'clock on the morning after getting that
woeful letter about his wife. The army was to commence its march at
half-past four, and Carter was aroused by the bustle of preparation from
the vast bivouac. Thousands of men were engaged in rolling their
blankets, putting on their equipments, wiping the dew from their rifles,
and eating their hasty and unsavory breakfasts of hard-tack. Companies
were falling in; the voices of the first-sergeants were heard calling
the rolls; long-drawn orders resounded, indicating the formation of
regimental lines; the whinnies of horses, the braying of mules, and the
barking of dogs joined in the clamor; but as yet there was no trampling
of the march, no rolling of the wheels of artillery. Nothing could be
seen of this populous commotion except here and there where a forbidden
cooking-fire cast its red flicker over little knots of crouching
soldiers engaged in preparing coffee.
In the moment of coming to his senses, and before memory had fully
resumed its action, the General was vaguely conscious that something
horrible was about to happen, or had already happened. But an old
soldier is not long in waking up, especially when he has gone to sleep
in the expectation of a battle, and Carter knew almost instantaneously
what was the nature of the burden that weighed upon his soul. He lay
full dressed at the foot of a tree, with no shelter but its branches. He
was quite still for a minute or more, staring at the dark sky with
steady, gloomy eyes. His first act was to put his hand to the breast
pocket of his blouse and draw out that cruel letter, as if to read it
anew by the flicker of a fire which reached his resting place. But there
was no need of that: he knew all that was in it as soon as he looked at
the envelope; he remembered at once even the blots and the position of
the signature. Next the sight of it angered him, and he thrust it back
crumpled into his pocket. There was no need, he felt, of making so much
of the affair; such affairs were altogether too common to be made so
much of; he could not and would not see any sense in the Doctor's
conduct. He sprang to his feet in his newly-found indignation, and
glared fiercely around the bivouac of his brigade.
"How's this?" he growled. "I ordered that not a fire should be lighted.
Mr. Van Zandt, did you pass the order to every regiment last evening?"
"I did, sir," answers our old acquaintance, now a staff officer, thanks
to his Dutch courage, and his ability with the pen.
"Ride off again. Stop those fires instantly. My God! the fools want to
tell the enemy just when we start."
This outburst raised his spirits, and after swallowing a cocktail he sat
down to breakfast with some appetite. The toughness of the cold boiled
chicken, and the dryness and hardness of the army biscuit served as a
further distraction, and enabled him to utter a joke about such
delicacies being very suitable for projectiles. But he was still
nervous, uneasy, eager, driven by the sin which was past, and dragged by
the battle which was before, so that any long reveling at the banquet
was impossible. He quitted the empty cracker box which served him for a
table, and paced grimly up and down until his orderly came to buckle on
his sword, and his servant brought him his horse.
"How are the saddle-pockets, Cato?" he asked.
"Oh, day's chuck full, Gen'l. Hull cold chicken in dis yere one, an'
bottle o' whisky in dis yere."
Carter swung himself slowly and heavily into his saddle. He was weary,
languid and feverish with want of sleep, and trouble of mind. In truth
he was physically and morally a much discomforted Brigadier General.
Without waiting for other directions than his example, his five staff
officers mounted also and fell into a group behind him. In their rear
was the brigade flag-bearer escorted by half-a-dozen cavalry-men. The
sombre dawn was turning to red and gold in the east. A monstrous serpent
of blue and steel was already creeping toward the ferry, increasing in
length as additional regiments streamed into the road from the fields
which had served for the bivouac. When Carter had seen his entire
brigade file by, he set off at a canter, placed himself at the head of
it, and rode on at a walk, silent and gloomy of countenance. Not even
the thought that he was now a general, and had a chance to make a
reputation for himself as well as for others, could enable him to quite
throw off the seriousness and anxiety which beclouds the minds of men
during the preliminaries of battle. The remembrance of the misery which
he had wrought for his wife was no pleasant distraction. It was like a
foreboding; it overshadowed him even when he was not thinking of it
distinctly; it seemed to have a menacing arm which pointed him to
punishment, calamity, perhaps a grave. He was like a haunted man who
sees his following phantom if he turns his head ever so little.
Nevertheless, when he squarely faced the subject, and dragged it out
separately from the general sombreness of the situation, it did not seem
such a very hopeless misfortune. It surely was not possible that she had
broken with him for life. He would win her back to him; it must be that
she loved him enough to forgive him some day; he would win her back with
repentance and victories. As he thought this he dashed a little way into
the fields, gave a glance at the line of his brigade, and dispatched a
couple of his staff to close up the rearmost files of his regiments.
Presently there was a halt: something probably going on in front:
perhaps a reconnaisance: perhaps battle. The men were allowed to stack
arms and sit down by the roadside. Then came news: Enemy in force at the
crossing: a direct attack in front out of the question: turning
movements to be made somewhere by somebody. It was a full hour after
sunrise when an aid of General Emory's arrived with orders for General
Carter to report for duty to General Birge.
"What is the situation?" asked the General.
"Two brigades are forming in front," replied the aid. "We have an
immense line of skirmishers stretching from the Cane River on the right
all along the edge of the woods, and out into the fields. But we can't
go at them in front. Their ground is nearly a hundred feet higher than
ours, and the crossing isn't fordable. We have got to flank them.
Closson is going up with some artillery to establish a position on our
left, and from that the cavalry will turn the right wing of the enemy.
Birge is to do the same thing on this side with three brigades. He will
go up about a mile--three miles from the ferry--ford the river--it's
fordable up there--come round on the fellows, and give it to them over
the left."
"Very good," said Carter. "If I shouldn't come back, give the General my
compliments for his plan. Much obliged, Lieutenant."
At this moment the flat, dull report of a rifled iron gun came from the
woods far away in front, followed a few seconds afterward by another
report, still flatter in sound and much more distant, the bursting of a
shell.
"There goes Closson," laughed the young officer. "Two twenty-pound
Parrotts and four three-inch rifles! He'll wake 'em up when he gets
fairly a-talking. Good luck to you, General."
And away he rode gaily, at a gallop, in the direction of the ferry.
While Birge's column countermarched, and Carter's brigade filed into the
rear of it, the cannonade became lively in the front, the crashes of
the guns alternating rapidly with the crashes of the shells, as Closson
went in with all his six pieces, and a Rebel battery of seven responded.
After half an hour of this the enemy found that a range of two thousand
yards was too long for them, and became silent. Then Closson ceased
firing also, and waited to hear from Birge. And now for five or six
hours there was no more sound of fighting along this line, except an
occasional shot from the skirmishers aimed at puffs of rifle smoke which
showed rarely against the pines of the distant bluffs. The infantry
column struggled over its long detour by the right; the cavalry tried in
vain to force a way through the jungles on the left; the centre listened
to the roar of A. J. Smith's battle in the rear, and lunched and waited.
At two o'clock Emory put everything in order to advance whenever Birge's
musketry should give notice that he was closely engaged. Closson was to
move forward on the left, and fire as fast as he could load. The
remainder of the artillery was to gallop down the river road to the
ferry, and open with a dozen or fifteen pieces. The two supporting
brigades were to push through the woods as rapidly as possible and cover
the artillery. The skirmishers were to cross the river wherever they
could ford it, and keep up a heavy fire in order to occupy the attention
of the enemy. Closson started at once, forced five of his three-inch
rifles through the wood, went into battle at a range of a thousand
yards, and in ten minutes dislodged the Rebel guns from their position.
But all this was mere feinting; the heavy fighting must be done by
Birge.
The flanking column had a hard road to travel. After fording the Cane
River it entered a country of thickets, swamps and gullies so difficult
of passage that five hours were spent in marching barely five miles. Two
regiments were deployed in advance as skirmishers; the others followed
in columns of division doubled on the centre. At one time the whole
force went into line of battle on a false alarm of the near presence of
the enemy. Then the nature of the ground forced it to move for nearly a
mile in the ordinary column of march. It floundered through swampy
undergrowths; it forded a deep and muddy bayou. About two o'clock in the
afternoon it came out upon a clearing in full view of a bluff, forty or
fifty feet in height, flanked on one side by the river, and on the other
by a marshy jungle connecting with a lake. Along the brow of this bluff
lay Polignac's left wing, an unknown force of Texan riflemen, all good
shots, and impetuous fighters, elated moreover with pursuit and the
expectation of victory. Here Carter received an order to charge with his
brigade.
"Very good," he answered, in a loud, satisfied, confident tone, at the
same time throwing away his segar. "Let me look at things first. I want
to see where to go in."
A single glance told him that the river side was unassailable. He
galloped to the right, inspected the boggy jungle, glared at the lake
beyond, and decided that nothing could be done in that quarter.
Returning to the brigade he once more surveyed the ground in its front.
It would be necessary to take down a high fence, cross an open field,
take down a second fence, and advance up the hill under a close fire of
musketry. But he was not dispirited by the prospect; he was no longer
the silent, sombre man of the morning. The whizzing of the Texan
bullets, the sight of the butternut uniforms, and ugly broadbrims which
faced him, had cleared his deep breast of oppression, and called the
fighting fire into his eyes. He swore loudly and gaily; he would flog
those dirty rapscallions; he would knock them high and dry into the
other world; he would teach them not to get in his way.
"Go to the regimental commanders," he shouted to his staff officers.
"Tell them to push straight at the hill. Tell them, Guide right."
On went the regiments, four in number, keeping even pace with each
other. There was a halt at the first fence while the men struggled with
the obstacle, climbing it in some places, and pushing it over in
others. The General's brow darkened with anxiety lest the temporary
confusion should end in a retreat; and spurring close up to the line he
rode hither and thither, cheering the soldiers onward.
"Forward, my fine lads," he said. "Down with it. Jump it. Now then. Get
into your ranks. Get along, my lads."
On went the regiments, moving at the ordinary quickstep, arms at a
right-shoulder-shift, ranks closed, gaps filled, unfaltering, heroic.
The dead were falling; the wounded were crawling in numbers to the rear;
the leisurely hum of long-range bullets had changed into the sharp,
multitudinous _whit-whit_ of close firing; the stifled crash of balls
hitting bones, and the soft _chuck_ of flesh-wounds mingled with the
outcries of the sufferers; the bluff in front was smoking, rattling,
wailing with the incessant file-fire; but the front of the brigade
remained unbroken, and its rear showed no stragglers. The right hand
regiment floundered in a swamp, but the other hurried on without waiting
for it. As the momentum of the movement increased, as the spirits of the
men rose with the charge, a stern shout broke forth, something between a
hurrah and a yell, swelling up against the rebel musketry, and defying
it. Gradually the pace increased to a double-quick, and the whole mass
ran for an eighth of a mile through the whistling bullets. The second
fence disappeared like frost-work, and up the slope of the hill
struggled the panting regiments. When the foremost ranks had nearly
reached the summit, a sudden silence stifled the musketry. Polignac's
line wavered, ceased firing, broke and went to the rear in confusion.
The clamor of the charging yell redoubled for a moment, and then died in
the rear of a tremendous volley. Now the Union line was firing, and now
the rebels were falling. Such was the charge which carried the crossing,
and gained the battle of Cane River.
But Brigadier-General John Carter had already fallen gloriously in the
arms of victory.
At the moment that the fatal shot struck him he had forgotten his guilt
and remorse in the wild joy of successful battle. He was on horseback,
closely following his advancing brigade, and watching its spirited push,
and listening to its mad yell, with such a smile of soldierly delight
and pride that it was a pleasure to look upon his bronzed, confident,
heroic face. It would have been strange to a civilian to hear the stream
of joyful curses with which he expressed his admiration and elation.
"God damn them! see them go in!" he said. "God damn their souls! I can
put them anywhere!"
He had just uttered these words when a Minie-ball struck him in the left
side, just below the ribs, with a _thud_ which was audible ten feet from
him in spite of the noise of the battle. He started violently in the
saddle, and then bent slowly forward, laying his right hand on the
horse's mane. He was observed to carry his left hand twice toward the
wound without touching it, as if desirous, yet fearful, of ascertaining
the extent of the injury. The blow was mortal, and he must have known
it, yet he retained his ruddy bronze color for a minute or two. With the
assistance of two staff officers he dismounted and walked eight or ten
yards to the shade of a tree, uttering not a groan, and only showing his
agony by the manner in which he bent forward, and the spasmodic clutch
with which he held to those supporting shoulders. But when he had been
laid down, it was visible enough that there was not half an hour's life
in him. His breath was short, his forehead was thickly beaded with a
cold perspiration, and his face was of an ashy pallor stained with
streaks of ghastly yellow.
"Tell Colonel Gilliman," he said, mentioning the senior colonel of the
brigade, and then paused to catch his breath before he resumed, "tell
him to keep straight forward."
These were the first words that he had spoken since he was hit. His
voice had already sunk from a clear, sonorous bass to a hoarse whisper.
Presently, as the smoking and roaring surge of battle rolled farther to
the front a chaplain and a surgeon came up, followed by several
ambulance men bearing stretchers. The chaplain was attached to Carter's
old regiment, and had served under him since its formation. The surgeon,
a Creole by birth, a Frenchman by education, philosophical and roué,
belonged to a Louisiana loyal regiment, and had known the General in
other days, when he was a dissipated, spendthrift lieutenant of the
regular army, stationed at Baton Rouge. He gave him a large cup of
whiskey, uncovered the wound, probed it with his finger, and said
nothing, looked nothing.
"Why don't you do something?" whispered the chaplain eagerly, and almost
weeping.
"I have done all that is--essential," he replied, with a slight shrug of
the shoulders.
"How do you feel, General?" asked the chaplain, turning to his dying
commander.
"Going," was the whispered answer.
"Going!--Oh, going where?" implored the other, sinking on his knees.
"General, have you thought of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ?"
For a moment Carter's deep voice returned to him, as, fixing his stern
eyes on the chaplain, he answered, "Don't bother!--where is the
brigade?"
Perhaps he thought it unworthy of him to seek God in his extremity, when
he had neglected Him in all his hours of health. Perhaps he felt that he
owed his last thoughts to his country and his professional duties.
Perhaps he did not mean all that he said.
It was strange to note the power of military discipline upon the
chaplain. Even in this awful hour, when it was his part to fear no man,
he evidently quailed before his superior officer. Under the pressure of
a three years' habit of obedience and respect, cowed by rank and that
audacious will accustomed to domination, he shrank back into silence,
covering his face with his hands, and no doubt praying, but uttering no
further word.
"General, the brigade has carried the position," said one of the
staff-officers.
Carter smiled, tried to raise his head, dropped it slowly, drew a dozen
labored breaths, and was dead.
"_Il a maintenu jusq'au bout son personnage_," said the surgeon, letting
fall the extinct pulse. "_Sa mort est tout ce qu'il y a de plus
logique._"
So he thought, and very naturally. He had only known him in his evil
hours; he judged him as all superficial acquaintances would have judged;
he was not aware of the tenderness which existed at the bottom of that
passionate nature. With another education Carter might have been a James
Brainard or a St. Vincent de Paul. With the training that he had, it was
perfectly logical that in his last moments he should not want to be
bothered about Jesus Christ.
The body was borne on a stretcher in rear of the victorious columns
until they halted for the night, when it was buried in the private
cemetery of a planter, in presence of Carter's former regiment. Among
the spectators was Colburne, stricken with real grief as he thought of
the bereaved wife. Throughout the army the regret was general and
earnest over the loss of this brave and able officer, apparently just
entering upon a career of long-deserved promotion. In a letter to
Ravenel, Colburne related the particulars of Carter's death, and closed
with a fervent eulogium on his character as a man and his services as a
soldier, forgetting that he had sometimes drunk too deeply, and that
there were suspicions against him of other vices. It is thus that young
and generous spirits are apt to remember the dead, and it is thus always
that a soldier laments for a worthy commander who has fallen on the
field of honor.