_“Lights Out”—A Dirge of the War._
A marked characteristic of Uncle Jack, as these pages have shown, is
his peculiar ability to establish and maintain strong ties of personal
friendship. This has been evident even from his youth. He has gathered
friends from all walks of life, and their name is legion. The list
has always been characterized by names that were written large in
the annals of Church and State. Conspicuous among these is the late
Lieutenant-Colonel James T. Johnson, of Rockville, Indiana, a man
distinguished for talent and achievement in various fields. The twain
were boys together, and the friendship thus early formed continued until
severed by the death of Johnston in 1904. When Newgent was first winning
laurels as a boy preacher, Johnston often walked five miles to attend his
services. They were young men, mere youths, when the Civil War broke out.
Both heard and responded to their country’s call at that dark time when
not only the country’s honor, but her very existence was at stake. Both
served under General Burnsides, and both held official positions in the
army, Newgent as chaplain of his regiment, and Johnston as lieutenant,
later lieutenant-colonel. After the war was over, each won honors and
served well his generation in his chosen profession, the one as a
minister of the gospel, the other as a lawyer and politician. Johnston
found room near the top in the legal profession, and at the same time
represented his district three successive terms in Congress. He ranked
high as an orator, and, like his clerical friend, was much in demand at
reunions and other gatherings of the soldiers, the two men frequently
dividing time upon such occasions. Had Newgent chosen politics as a
career, he would doubtless have become a political leader. Had Johnston
turned his attention to the ministry, he would have taken rank in all
probability among the leading preachers of his day.
But there was one sad difference between them—Johnston was skeptically
inclined. While the two men maintained the highest regard for each other,
and frequently were associated together in their work, the subject
of religion was one point on which, to the regret, possibly, of both
parties, they were not in accord. Johnston’s skepticism however, was not
of the positive sort. He represented the honest doubter rather than
the avowed disbeliever. His wife was a devout Presbyterian, and while
he could not subscribe to the tenets of the church, he never disparaged
the church or its work. Every worthy cause found in him a sympathizer
and liberal supporter. His honor and integrity were never questioned,
and he enjoyed the full confidence and esteem of his fellows. It is a
matter of satisfaction that such a life was not permitted to go out in
the dark. And Newgent had the joy of finally leading him, just as his sun
was sinking below the horizon, to a simple faith in Christ and a blessed
assurance of his acceptance with God.
During his last illness, which covered a period of six months, the
colonel was visited frequently by local ministers, but owing to his
reputed skepticism and his high professional standing, the subject of
religion was not pressed upon him. There is a tendency to fear big men
in matters of religion not easily explained and not easily overcome,
and it is quite probable that many a great life has ended without the
consolations of religion that, were it not for this tendency, might have
been led into the light as readily as a little child. Oh, how Christians
fear the logic of the world, and yet, the sword of the Spirit is a
greater weapon than all the world’s artillery!
Newgent visited him almost daily during this time, and on one occasion
determined to broach the subject of religion. “Colonel,” he said, in his
usual tactful manner, “while you are shut in here, would it not be a fine
opportunity for you to read the Bible through?”
“Well,” he answered, “Laura and I tried it; we took it up by books,
but we got stalled.” It was, of course, the colonel himself who “got
stalled.” Laura, his wife, was a Christian, as has been noted, and her
faith was not shaken by Scriptural difficulties.
“What was your trouble?” Newgent questioned, with a view to encouraging
conversation along that channel.
“Well,” he said, “we got to the book of Job. I could not reconcile the
book of Job with the idea that God is our Heavenly Father, full of love
and mercy. If Job was God’s child and a good man, as the Bible says he
was, how could a loving father allow a loving, obedient child to be so
abused and tempted by the devil? I can’t see through it.”
After he had delivered his speech on the difficulties of the book of Job,
and unburdened his mind somewhat, Newgent drew near to him, and speaking
very simply but earnestly, said: “Colonel, you are a great lawyer, but
you are only a child in the Bible. Your trouble is that you commenced at
the wrong place. When, as a little child, you started to school, your
teacher did not start you in the advanced studies. She put you in the A,
B, C class. Now, don’t be in too big a hurry to get out of your A, B, C’s
in the study of the Bible, for there is where you belong. I have been
making a study of God’s Word for many years, and I want you to listen to
me a while. I think we can get over the rough places after a while. Do
you have any trouble with Jesus Christ? He was God’s dear son, yet he
had to suffer more than any man, but his suffering was for others. So we
learn from Job’s sufferings that he has helped millions to trust God in
the dark.”
This was the colonel’s A, B, C lesson in religion. The visits and
conversations were continued day after day, until a couple of days before
his death, when the truths of the preceding lessons were clinched in the
following conversation:
“Colonel,” said the preacher, resuming their lessons, “you had one of the
best mothers in the world, did you not?” He admitted that he had.
“She taught you to say your little prayers?”
“Yes,” said the great man, as the tears started from his eyes.
“And you never doubted her word?”
“No—never.”
“That was simple faith in mother. Now, in your mind go back to mother,
and though she is dead, look up into her face as when you were a child,
and trust her as you did then. That will represent the soul looking up to
Jesus and trusting him for salvation. That is all Christ requires of a
sinner.”
As the preacher finished this little homily on faith, the colonel was
weeping like a child. “Jack,” he sobbed, “is that all there is in coming
to Christ to be saved?”
“That is all there is,” and before the preacher could continue the
discussion further, the light broke in upon the humble and contrite
heart. “I’ve got it,” he interrupted with much emotion, at the same
time grasping the preacher’s hand with all the strength his six-months’
illness had left him. Thus, the man who all the years of his eventful
career, by his own wisdom and logic and learning knew not God, was at the
last critical moment melted and transformed by the light from Calvary,
and a great life was snatched as a brand from the eternal burning. The
lawyer, the statesman, the scholar, the orator received the kingdom of
heaven on the Savior’s easy terms, “as a little child,” and two days
later his soul passed into the presence of Jehovah.
Rev. Mr. Newgent delivered the funeral oration. Men of prominence from
various parts of the country helped to swell the vast throng that was
present at the funeral service. The story of the colonel’s conversion
from skepticism to simple, saving faith in Christ was related by the
speaker, and produced a profound impression.
The paper with which this chapter is concluded refers to the life-long
association of the two men, Johnston, the “young cavalryman of Indiana,”
and Newgent, the “boy chaplain.” It was read before a special meeting
of the Steele Post G. A. R., and auxiliary orders of Rockville shortly
after Johnston’s death by Mrs. White, the wife of Judge A. F. White of
that city. Judge White was also a soldier and a life-long friend of
Johnston and Newgent. The doctor referred to in the paper had served as a
physician in the Confederate army, but afterward took up his residence in
Rockville, where he built up a large practice. The three men were present
with the wife when Colonel Johnston died, and helped to make up the
scene in the death chamber so dramatically described in the paper.
“LIGHTS OUT.”
“It is midwinter in east Tennessee in 1863. The rivers are
flooded, the valleys desolate, the mountain gaps gorged with
snow. It is the home of mountain patriots; it must be held at
all hazards to the last. This is Lincoln’s solemn wish; it is
a part of Grant’s giant plan when Mission Ridge is stormed.
A young cavalryman of Indiana is one of the ten thousand who
keep freedom’s vigils along the Clinch, the Holstein, and the
French Broad. He munches his meager rations of parched corn; he
rides the wild mountain roads night and day; he obeys to the
letter his orders to hold to the last man the ford of a remote
mountain stream. A buckshot buries itself in his wrist, making
a wound which heals long after the war and a scar which he
carries to his grave. The old flag stays in east Tennessee.
“He has a comrade from a neighboring county who shares with him
the suffering and sacrifice of that desperate campaign, he is
the “boy chaplain” of the brigade.
“It is the same winter along the Rappahannock and the Rappidan.
The snow, like a measureless shroud, covers the numberless
dead of the debatable land between the Potomac and the James.
There is another soldier, a mere boy, a young artilleryman from
the Shenandoah, who is one of the thousands who hold Lee’s
unbroken lines. His battery long since won its title to glory.
It helped to clear the mountain gaps of the Blue Ridge; its
red guns helped feed the fires which lighted up the valley of
death for Pickett’s dauntless charge. Ill fed, ragged, but
inbred with the chivalry of the South, he is in it all. There
is victory at Chancellorsville, but defeat at Gettysburg; but
St. Andrew’s cross still gleams blood red on the breast of the
South, The Stars and Bars still flash defiance from Marye’s
Hill.
“The young artilleryman also has a comrade from the valley, a
young trooper who rides with Ashby’s cavaliers in all their
wild forays.
“Two flags, two oaths of allegiance, the culminating hates
of a hundred years, separate these two young soldiers of the
North and the South. But they are not alien in blood, they are
brothers of the same race, Anglo-Saxon from the first Americans
to the last. They speak the same tongue, their mothers read the
same Bible, prayed to the same God; their forefathers fought
for the same country—Nathaniel Greene at Yorktown, Washington
on Cambridge Heights.
“It is midsummer of 1904. The cavalryman of ’63 is dying;
not in the weary hospital of pain; not on the perilous edge
of battle. More than forty years have passed since the grim
midwinter of east Tennessee.
“It is the home he has made for his declining years. The rooms
are cool and sweet, a broad porch looks down a quiet street,
familiar books are everywhere; his escutcheon over the mantel
shows his soldier record from ’62 to ’65—the old, old story
of duty and glory. A blue book on the table tells briefly
his struggle from the farm to the halls of Congress; the
faces of statesmen, kinsmen, and friends look down from their
appropriate places on the walls.
“The good right hand of the veteran lies in that of another;
grief-stricken she keeps her vows, ’till death do us part.’
“A grey-haired man holds the other. It is the soldier of
the Rappahannock. Lee’s battery boy of ’63 is the trusted
physician, the medical confidant, and ministrant of the Union
soldier. With all the knowledge of a learned and skillful
physician, he has fought the common enemy for the life of
his dying friend. But the odds are too great. Old pains, old
ailments, old wounds of ’63 outmatch the medical arts of 1904.
But the doctor has known the grief of defeat before. Once a
long time ago he yielded to the inevitable in the orchards
of Appomattox. He lays his ear close over the failing heart
to catch, if he can, its last lingering drum-beats in the
battle of life. He places his fingers on the pulseless wrist,
searching for its last faint throb—and they rest motionless for
a moment on the old scar of ’63. ‘It is over,’ he says very
softly.
“A low word of prayer for the widow and fatherless falls
from the lips of the grey-haired minister at the foot of
the bed. It is the ‘boy chaplain’ of the dead veteran’s
old brigade—youthful to the end. Another man beside him,
thin-visaged and bent. It is Ashby’s old trooper, and his eyes
are full of tears as he walks slowly out of the room.
“‘Lights out.’ ‘The bands in the pine woods cease. A robin
sings close by, as they will in summer evenings; the fragrance
of old-fashioned flowers steals in through the white window
curtains. The sun sinks behind the church across the street,
the shadow of its belfry coming in at the open door. And over
all, Lincoln’s worn face looks down from its place among the
pictures on the wall. Even now with the hush of death upon us
all, we hear his plaintive prophecy of long ago: ‘We are not
enemies but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may
have strained, it cannot break the bonds of our affection. The
mystic chord of memory, stretching from every patriot grave and
battlefield to every living heart and hearthstone all over this
broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when touched
again, as they surely will be, by the better angels of our
nature.’”