HOW THE BOYS CAME HOME.
Capt. Lester was 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 this he 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 time to
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, and soothing 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. You must 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 arm is 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 officers who 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 lost
Stanwood; 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 him to 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 the cheeks 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 found inclosed 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, and Lilian 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 those who 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.”