IN the year 1861 Barr Lassiter, a young man of twenty-two, lived with his
parents and an elder sister near Carthage, Tennessee. The family were in
somewhat humble circumstances, subsisting by cultivation of a small and
not very fertile plantation. Owning no slaves, they were not rated among
“the best people” of their neighborhood; but they were honest persons of
good education, fairly well mannered and as respectable as any family
could be if uncredentialed by personal dominion over the sons and
daughters of Ham. The elder Lassiter had that severity of manner that so
frequently affirms an uncompromising devotion to duty, and conceals a
warm and affectionate disposition. He was of the iron of which martyrs
are made, but in the heart of the matrix had lurked a nobler metal,
fusible at a milder heat, yet never coloring nor softening the hard
exterior. By both heredity and environment something of the man’s
inflexible character had touched the other members of the family; the
Lassiter home, though not devoid of domestic affection, was a veritable
citadel of duty, and duty—ah, duty is as cruel as death!
When the war came on it found in the family, as in so many others in that
State, a divided sentiment; the young man was loyal to the Union, the
others savagely hostile. This unhappy division begot an insupportable
domestic bitterness, and when the offending son and brother left home
with the avowed purpose of joining the Federal army not a hand was laid
in his, not a word of farewell was spoken, not a good wish followed him
out into the world whither he went to meet with such spirit as he might
whatever fate awaited him.
Making his way to Nashville, already occupied by the Army of General
Buell, he enlisted in the first organization that he found, a Kentucky
regiment of cavalry, and in due time passed through all the stages of
military evolution from raw recruit to experienced trooper. A right good
trooper he was, too, although in his oral narrative from which this tale
is made there was no mention of that; the fact was learned from his
surviving comrades. For Barr Lassiter has answered “Here” to the
sergeant whose name is Death.
Two years after he had joined it his regiment passed through the region
whence he had come. The country thereabout had suffered severely from
the ravages of war, having been occupied alternately (and simultaneously)
by the belligerent forces, and a sanguinary struggle had occurred in the
immediate vicinity of the Lassiter homestead. But of this the young
trooper was not aware.
Finding himself in camp near his home, he felt a natural longing to see
his parents and sister, hoping that in them, as in him, the unnatural
animosities of the period had been softened by time and separation.
Obtaining a leave of absence, he set foot in the late summer afternoon,
and soon after the rising of the full moon was walking up the gravel path
leading to the dwelling in which he had been born.
Soldiers in war age rapidly, and in youth two years are a long time.
Barr Lassiter felt himself an old man, and had almost expected to find
the place a ruin and a desolation. Nothing, apparently, was changed. At
the sight of each dear and familiar object he was profoundly affected.
His heart beat audibly, his emotion nearly suffocated him; an ache was in
his throat. Unconsciously he quickened his pace until he almost ran, his
long shadow making grotesque efforts to keep its place beside him.
The house was unlighted, the door open. As he approached and paused to
recover control of himself his father came out and stood bare-headed in
the moonlight.
“Father!” cried the young man, springing forward with outstretched
hand—“Father!”
The elder man looked him sternly in the face, stood a moment motionless
and without a word withdrew into the house. Bitterly disappointed,
humiliated, inexpressibly hurt and altogether unnerved, the soldier
dropped upon a rustic seat in deep dejection, supporting his head upon
his trembling hand. But he would not have it so: he was too good a
soldier to accept repulse as defeat. He rose and entered the house,
passing directly to the “sitting-room.”
It was dimly lighted by an uncurtained east window. On a low stool by
the hearthside, the only article of furniture in the place, sat his
mother, staring into a fireplace strewn with blackened embers and cold
ashes. He spoke to her—tenderly, interrogatively, and with hesitation,
but she neither answered, nor moved, nor seemed in any way surprised.
True, there had been time for her husband to apprise her of their guilty
son’s return. He moved nearer and was about to lay his hand upon her
arm, when his sister entered from an adjoining room, looked him full in
the face, passed him without a sign of recognition and left the room by a
door that was partly behind him. He had turned his head to watch her,
but when she was gone his eyes again sought his mother. She too had left
the place.
Barr Lassiter strode to the door by which he had entered. The moonlight
on the lawn was tremulous, as if the sward were a rippling sea. The
trees and their black shadows shook as in a breeze. Blended with its
borders, the gravel walk seemed unsteady and insecure to step on. This
young soldier knew the optical illusions produced by tears. He felt them
on his cheek, and saw them sparkle on the breast of his trooper’s jacket.
He left the house and made his way back to camp.
The next day, with no very definite intention, with no dominant feeling
that he could rightly have named, he again sought the spot. Within a
half-mile of it he met Bushrod Albro, a former playfellow and schoolmate,
who greeted him warmly.
“I am going to visit my home,” said the soldier.
The other looked at him rather sharply, but said nothing.
“I know,” continued Lassiter, “that my folks have not changed, but—”
“There have been changes,” Albro interrupted—“everything changes. I’ll
go with you if you don’t mind. We can talk as we go.”
But Albro did not talk.
Instead of a house they found only fire-blackened foundations of stone,
enclosing an area of compact ashes pitted by rains.
Lassiter’s astonishment was extreme.
“I could not find the right way to tell you,” said Albro. “In the fight
a year ago your house was burned by a Federal shell.”
“And my family—where are they?”
“In Heaven, I hope. All were killed by the shell.”