"I can't stand it," he said thickly. "I can see them all day_Gettysburg: Stories of the Red Harvest and the Aftermath

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GETTYSBURG

------------------------------------------------------------------------

By Elsie Singmaster

GETTYSBURG. Illustrated

WHEN SARAH WENT TO SCHOOL. Illustrated.

12mo, $1.00.

WHEN SARAH SAVED THE DAY. Illustrated.

12mo, $1.00.

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

------------------------------------------------------------------------

GETTYSBURG

------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Illustration: A BATTLE IS TO BE FOUGHT HERE]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

GETTYSBURG

Stories of the Red Harvest and the Aftermath

ELSIE SINGMASTER

[Illustration: Publisher's Logo]

Boston and New York

Houghton Mifflin Company

1913

Published April 1913

------------------------------------------------------------------------

TO MY FATHER

JOHN ALDEN SINGMASTER, D.D.

THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY

DEDICATED

------------------------------------------------------------------------

1863-1913

_Four Score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this

continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty; and dedicated to the

proposition that all men are created equal._

_Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation,

or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are

met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a

portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here

gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting

and proper that we should do this._

_But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we

cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who

struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add

or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say

here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the

living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they

who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us

to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from

these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which

they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly

resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation,

under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of

the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the

earth._

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

GETTYSBURG, NOVEMBER 19, 1863.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

CONTENTS

_Page_

I. JULY THE FIRST 1

II. THE HOME-COMING 21

III. VICTORY 45

IV. THE BATTLE-GROUND 65

V. GUNNER CRISWELL 87

VI. THE SUBSTITUTE 109

VII. THE RETREAT 133

VIII. THE GREAT DAY 157

IX. MARY BOWMAN 181

NOTE. Grateful acknowledgment is made to the editors for permission to

reprint in this volume chapters that first appeared in _Harper's_,

_Lippincott's_, _McClure's_, and _Scribner's Magazines_.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

ILLUSTRATIONS

A BATTLE IS TO BE FOUGHT 13

HERE _Frontispiece_

From the drawing by

Sidney H. Riesenberg,

reproduced by courtesy

of Harper and Brothers

"I CAN'T STAND IT," HE 26

SAID THICKLY

From the drawing by

Frederic Dorr Steele

reproduced by courtesy

of McClure's Magazine

HE STOOD WHERE LINCOLN 104

HAD STOOD:

From the drawing by C. E.

Chambers, reproduced by

courtesy of Harper and

Brothers

THEY SAW THE STRANGE OLD 152

FIGURE ON THE PORCH

From the drawing by F.

Walter Taylor,

reproduced by courtesy

of Chas. Scribner's

Sons

------------------------------------------------------------------------

GETTYSBURG

JULY THE FIRST

From the kitchen to the front door, back to the kitchen, out to the

little stone-fenced yard behind the house, where her children played

in their quiet fashion, Mary Bowman went uneasily. She was a

bright-eyed, slender person, with an intense, abounding joy in life.

In her red plaid gingham dress, with its full starched skirt, she

looked not much older than her ten-year-old boy.

Presently, admonishing herself sternly, she went back to her work. She

sat down in a low chair by the kitchen table, and laid upon her knee a

strip of thick muslin. Upon that she placed a piece of linen, which

she began to scrape with a sharp knife. Gradually a soft pile of

little, downy masses gathered in her lap. After a while, as though

this process were too slow, or as though she could no longer endure

her bent position, she selected another piece of linen and began to

pull it to pieces, adding the raveled threads to the pile of lint.

Suddenly, she slipped her hands under the soft mass, and lifted it to

the table. Forgetting the knife, which fell with a clatter, she rose

and went to the kitchen door.

"Children," she said, "remember you are not to go away."

The oldest boy answered obediently. Mounted upon a broomstick, he

impersonated General Early, who, a few days before, had visited the

town and had made requisition upon it; and little Katy and the

four-year-old boy represented General Early's ragged Confederates.

Their mother's bright eyes darkened as she watched them. Those raiding

Confederates had been so terrible to look upon, so ragged, so worn, so

starving. Their eyes had been like black holes in their brown faces;

they had had the figures of youth and the decrepitude of age. A

straggler from their ranks had told her that the Southern men of

strength and maturity were gone, that there remained in his village in

Georgia only little boys and old, old men. The Union soldiers who had

come yesterday, marching in the Emmittsburg road, through the town and

out to the Theological Seminary, were different; travel-worn as they

were, they had seemed, in comparison, like new recruits.

Suddenly Mary Bowman clasped her hands. Thank God, they would not

fight here! Once more frightened Gettysburg had anticipated a battle,

once more its alarm had proved ridiculous. Early had gone days ago to

York, the Union soldiers were marching toward Chambersburg. Thank God,

John Bowman, her husband, was not a regular soldier, but a fifer in

the brigade band. Members of the band, poor Mary thought, were safe,

danger would not come nigh them. Besides, he was far away with

Hooker's idle forces. No failure to give battle made Mary indignant,

no reproaches of an inert general fell from her lips. She was

passionately grateful that they did not fight.

It was only on dismal, rainy days, or when she woke at night and

looked at her little children lying in their beds, that the vague,

strange possibility of her husband's death occurred to her. Then she

assured herself with conviction that God would not let him die. They

were so happy, and they were just beginning to prosper. They had paid

the last upon their little house before he went to war; now they meant

to save money and to educate their children. By fall the war would be

over, then John would come back and resume his school-teaching, and

everything would be as it had been.

She went through the kitchen again and out to the front door, and

looked down the street with its scattering houses. Opposite lived

good-natured, strong-armed Hannah Casey; in the next house, a dozen

rods away, the Deemer family. The Deemers had had great trouble, the

father was at war and the two little children were ill with typhoid

fever. In a little while she would go down and help. It was still

early; perhaps the children and their tired nurses slept.

Beyond, the houses were set closer together, the Wilson house first,

where a baby was watched for now each day, and next to it the McAtee

house, where Grandma McAtee was dying. In that neighborhood, and a

little farther on past the new court-house in the square, which

Gettysburg called "The Diamond," men were moving about, some mounted,

some on foot. Their presence did not disturb Mary, since Early had

gone in one direction and the Union soldiers were going in the other.

Probably the Union soldiers had come to town to buy food before they

started on their march. She did not even think uneasily of the sick

and dying; she said to herself that if the soldiers had wished to

fight here, the good men of the village, the judge, the doctor, and

the ministers would have gone forth to meet them and with accounts of

the invalids would have persuaded them to stay away!

Over the tops of the houses, Mary could see the cupola of the Seminary

lifting its graceful dome and slender pillars against the blue sky.

She and her husband had always planned that one of their boys should

go to the Seminary and learn to be a preacher; she remembered their

hope now. Far beyond Seminary Ridge, the foothills of the Blue Ridge

lay clear and purple in the morning sunshine. The sun, already high in

the sky, was behind her; it stood over the tall, thick pines of the

little cemetery where her kin lay, and where she herself would lie

with her husband beside her. Except for that dim spot, the whole

lovely landscape was unshadowed.

Suddenly she put out her hand to the pillar of the porch and called

her neighbor:—

"Hannah!"

The door of the opposite house opened, and Hannah Casey's burly figure

crossed the street. She had been working in her carefully tended

garden and her face was crimson. Hannah Casey anticipated no battle.

"Good morning to you," she called. "What is it you want?"

"Come here," bade Mary Bowman.

The Irishwoman climbed the three steps to the little porch.

"What is it?" she asked again. "What is it you see?"

"Look!—Out there at the Seminary! You can see the soldiers moving

about, like black specks under the trees!"

Hannah squinted a pair of near-sighted eyes in the direction of the

Seminary.

"I'll take your word for it," she said.

With a sudden motion Mary Bowman lifted her hand to her lips.

"Early wouldn't come back!" she whispered. "He would never come back!"

Hannah Casey laughed a bubbling laugh.

"Come back? Those rag-a-bones? It 'ud go hard with them if they did.

The Unionists wouldn't jump before 'em like the rabbits here. But I

didn't jump! The Bateses fled once more for their lives, it's the

seventeenth time they've saved their valuable commodities from the

foe. Down the street they flew, their tin dishes and their precious

chiny rattling in their wagon. 'Oh, my kind sir!' says Lillian to the

raggedy man you fed,—'oh, my kind sir, I surrender!' 'You're right you

do,' says he. 'We're goin' to eat you up!'—'Lady,' says that same snip

to me, 'you'd better leave your home.' 'Worm!' says I back to him,

'_you_ leave my home!' And you fed him, you soft-heart!"

"He ate like an animal," said Mary; "as though he had had nothing for

days."

"And all the cave-dwellers was talkin' about divin' for their cellars.

I wasn't goin' into no cellar. Here I stay, aboveground, till they lay

me out for good."

Mary Bowman laughed suddenly, hysterically. She had laughed thus far

through all the sorrows war had brought,—poverty, separation, anxiety.

She might still laugh; there was no danger; Early had gone in one

direction, the Union soldiers in the other.

"Did you see him dive into the apple-butter, Hannah Casey? His face

was smeared with it. He couldn't wait till the biscuits were out of

the oven. He—" She stopped and listened, frowning. She looked out once

more toward the ridge with its moving spots, then down at the town

with its larger spots, then back at the pines, standing straight and

tall in the July sunshine. She could see the white tombstones beneath

the trees.

"Listen!" she cried.

"To what?" demanded Hannah Casey.

For a few seconds the women stood silently. There were still the same

faint, distant sounds, but they were not much louder, not much more

numerous than could be heard in the village on any summer morning. A

heart which dreaded ominous sound might have been set at rest by the

peace and stillness.

Hannah Casey spoke irritably. "What do you hear?"

"Nothing," answered Mary Bowman. "But I thought I heard men marching.

I believe it's my heart beating! I thought I heard them in the night.

Could you sleep?"

"Like a log!" said Hannah Casey. "Sleep? Why, of course, I could

sleep! Ain't our boys yonder? Ain't the Rebs shakin' in their shoes?

No, they ain't. They ain't got no shoes. Ain't the Bateses, them

barometers of war, still in their castle, ain't—"

"I slept the first part of the night," interrupted Mary Bowman. "Then

it seemed to me I heard men marching. I thought perhaps they were

coming through the town from the hill, and I looked out, but there was

nothing stirring. It was the brightest night I ever saw. I—"

Again Hannah Casey laughed her mighty laugh. There were nearer sounds

now, the rattle of a cart behind them, the gallop of hoofs before.

Again the Bateses were coming, a family of eight crowded into a little

springless wagon with what household effects they could collect.

Hannah Casey waved her apron at them and went out to the edge of the

street.

"Run!" she yelled. "Skedaddle! Murder! Help! Police!"

Neither her jeers nor Mary Bowman's laugh could make the Bateses turn

their heads. Mrs. Bates held in her short arms a feather bed, her

children tried to get under it as chicks creep under the wings of a

mother hen. Down in front of the Deemer house they stopped suddenly. A

Union soldier had halted them, then let them pass. He rode his horse

up on the pavement and pounded with his sword at the Deemer door.

"He might terrify the children to death!" cried Mary Bowman, starting

forward.

But already the soldier was riding toward her.

"There is sickness there!" she shouted to his unheeding ears; "you

oughtn't to pound like that!"

"You women will have to stay in your cellars," he answered. "A battle

is to be fought here."

"Here?" said Mary Bowman stupidly.

"Get out!" said Hannah Casey. "There ain't nobody here to fight with!"

The soldier rode his horse to Hannah Casey's door, and began to pound

with his sword.

"I live there!" screamed Hannah. "You dare to bang that door!"

Mary Bowman crossed the street and looked up at him as he sat on his

great horse.

"Oh, sir, do you mean that they will fight _here_?"

"I do."

"In Gettysburg?" Hannah Casey could scarcely speak for rage.

"In Gettysburg."

"Where there are women and children?" screamed Hannah. "And gardens

planted? I'd like to see them in my garden, I—"

"Get into your cellars," commanded the soldier. "You'll be safe

there."

"Sir!" Mary Bowman went still a little closer. The crisis in the

Deemer house was not yet passed, even at the best it was doubtful

whether Agnes Wilson could survive the hour of her trial, and Grandma

McAtee was dying. "Sir!" said Mary Bowman, earnestly, ignorant of the

sublime ridiculousness of her reminder, "there are women and children

here whom it might kill."

The man laughed a short laugh.

"Oh, my God!" He leaned a little from his saddle. "Listen to me,

sister! I have lost my father and two brothers in this war. Get into

your cellars."

With that he rode down the street.

"He's a liar," cried Hannah Casey. She started to run after him. "Go

out to Peterson's field to do your fighting," she shouted furiously.

"Nothing will grow there! Go out there!"

Then she stopped, panting.

The soldier took time to turn and grin and wave his hand.

"He's a liar," declared Hannah Casey once more. "Early's went. There

ain't nothing to fight with."

Still scolding, she joined Mary Bowman on her porch. Mary Bowman stood

looking through the house at her children, playing in the little

field. They still played quietly; it seemed to her that they had never

ceased to miss their father.

Then Mary Bowman looked down the street. In the Diamond the movement

was more rapid, the crowd was thicker. Women had come out to the

doorsteps, men were hurrying about. It seemed to Mary that she heard

Mrs. Deemer scream. Suddenly there was a clatter of hoofs; a dozen

soldiers, riding from the town, halted and began to question her.

Their horses were covered with foam; they had come at a wild gallop

from Seminary Ridge.

"This is the road to Baltimore?"

"Yes."

"Straight ahead?"

"Yes."

Gauntleted hands lifted the dusty reins.

"You'd better protect yourself! There is going to be a battle."

"Here?" asked Mary Bowman again stupidly.

"Right here."

Hannah Casey thrust herself between them.

"Who are you goin' to fight with, say?"

The soldiers grinned at her. They were already riding away.

"With the Turks," answered one over his shoulder.

Another was kinder, or more cruel.

"Sister!" he explained, "it is likely that two hundred thousand men

will be engaged on this spot. The whole Army of Northern Virginia is

advancing from the north, the whole Army of the Potomac is advancing

from the south, you—"

The soldier did not finish. His galloping comrades had left him, he

hastened to join them. After him floated another accusation of lying

from the lips of Hannah Casey. Hannah was irritated because the

Bateses were right.

"Hannah!" said Mary Bowman thickly. "I told you how I dreamed I heard

them marching. It was as though they came in every road, Hannah, from

Baltimore and Taneytown and Harrisburg and York. The roads were full

of them, they were shoulder against shoulder, and their faces were

like death!"

Hannah Casey grew ghastly white. Superstition did what common sense

and word of man could not do.

"So you did!" she whispered; "so you did!"

Mary Bowman clasped her hands and looked about her, down the street,

out toward the Seminary, back at the grim trees. The little sounds had

died away; there was now a mighty stillness.

"He said the whole Army of the Potomac," she repeated. "John is in the

Army of the Potomac."

"That is what he said," answered the Irishwoman.

"What will the Deemers do?" cried Mary Bowman. "And the Wilsons?"

"God knows!" said Hannah Casey.

Suddenly Mary Bowman lifted her hands above her head.

"Look!" she screamed.

"What?" cried Hannah Casey. "What is it?"

Mary Bowman went backwards toward the door, her eyes still fixed on

the distant ridge, as though they could not be torn away. It was nine

o'clock; a shrill little clock in the house struck the hour.

"Children!" called Mary Bowman. "Come! See!"

The children dropped the little sticks with which they played and ran

to her.

"What is it?" whined Hannah Casey.

Mary Bowman lifted the little boy to her shoulder. A strange,

unaccountable excitement possessed her, she hardly knew what she was

doing. She wondered what a battle would be like. She did not think of

wounds, or of blood or of groans, but of great sounds, of martial

music, of streaming flags carried aloft. She sometimes dreamed that

her husband, though he had so unimportant a place, might perform some

great deed of valor, might snatch the colors from a wounded bearer,

and lead his regiment to victory upon the field of battle. And now,

besides, this moment, he was marching home! She never thought that he

might die, that he might be lost, swallowed up in the yawning mouth of

some great battle-trench; she never dreamed that she would never see

him again, would hunt for him among thousands of dead bodies, would

have her eyes filled with sights intolerable, with wretchedness

unspeakable, would be tortured by a thousand agonies which she could

not assuage, torn by a thousand griefs beside her own. She could not

foresee that all the dear woods and fields which she loved, where she

had played as a child, where she had picnicked as a girl, where she

had walked with her lover as a young woman, would become, from Round

Top to the Seminary, from the Seminary to Culp's Hill, a great

shambles, then a great charnel-house. She lifted the little boy to her

shoulder and held him aloft.

"See, darling!" she cried. "See the bright things sparkling on the

hill!"

"What are they?" begged Hannah Casey, trying desperately to see.

"They are bayonets and swords!"

She put the little boy down on the floor, and looked at him. Hannah

Casey had clutched her arm.

"Hark!" said Hannah Casey.

Far out toward the shining cupola of the Seminary there was a sharp

little sound, then another, and another.

"What is it?" shrieked Hannah Casey. "Oh, what is it?"

"What is it!" mocked Mary Bowman. "It is—"

A single, thundering, echoing blast took the words from Mary Bowman's

lips.

Stupidly, she and Hannah Casey looked at one another.

THE HOME-COMING

Parsons knew little of the great wave of protest that swept over the

Army of the Potomac when Hooker was replaced by Meade. The sad

depression of the North, sick at heart since December, did not move

him; he was too thoroughly occupied with his own sensations. He sat

alone, when his comrades would leave him alone, brooding, his terror

equally independent of victory or defeat. The horror of war appalled

him. He tried to reconstruct the reasons for his enlisting, but found

it impossible. The war had made of him a stranger to himself. He could

scarcely visualize the little farm that he had left, or his mother.

Instead of the farm, he saw corpse-strewn fields; instead of his

mother, the mutilated bodies of young men. His senses seemed unable to

respond to any other stimuli than those of war. He had not been

conscious of the odors of the sweet Maryland spring, or of the song of

mocking-birds; his nostrils were full of the smell of blood, his ears

of the cries of dying men.

Worse than the recollection of what he had seen were the forebodings

that filled his soul. In a day—yes, an hour, for the rumors of coming

battle forced themselves to his unwilling ears—he might be as they.

Presently he too would lie, staring, horrible, under the Maryland sky.

The men in his company came gradually to leave him to himself. At

first they thought no less of him because he was afraid. They had all

been afraid. They discussed their sensations frankly as they sat round

the camp-fire, or lay prone on the soft grass of the fields.

"Scared!" laughed the oldest member of the company, who was speaking

chiefly for the encouragement of Parsons, whom he liked. "My knees

shook, and my chest caved in. Every bullet killed me. But by the time

I'd been dead about forty times, I saw the Johnnies, and something hot

got into my throat, and I got over it."

"And weren't you afraid afterwards?" asked Parsons, trying to make his

voice sound natural.

"No, never."

"But I was," confessed another man. His face was bandaged, and blood

oozed through from the wound that would make him leer like a satyr for

the rest of his life. "I get that way every time. But I get over it. I

don't get hot in my throat, but my skin prickles."

Young Parsons walked slowly away, his legs shaking visibly beneath

him.

Adams turned on his side and watched him.

"Got it bad," he said shortly. Then he lay once more on his back and

spread out his arms. "God, but I'm sick of it! And if Lee's gone into

Pennsylvania, and we're to chase him, and old Joe's put out, the Lord

knows what'll become of us. I bet you a pipeful of tobacco, there

ain't one of us left by this time next week. I bet you—"

The man with the bandaged face did not answer. Then Adams saw that

Parsons had come back and was staring at him.

"Ain't Hooker in command no more?" he asked.

"No; Meade."

"And we're going to Pennsylvania?"

"Guess so." Adams sat upright, the expression of kindly commiseration

on his face changed to one of disgust. "Brace up, boy. What's the

matter with you?"

Parsons sat down beside him. His face was gray; his blue eyes, looking

out from under his little forage-cap, closed as though he were

swooning.

[Illustration: "I CAN'T STAND IT," HE SAID THICKLY]

"I can't stand it," he said thickly. "I can see them all day, and hear

them all night, all the groaning—I—"

The old man pulled from his pocket a little bag. It contained his last

pipeful of tobacco, the one that he had been betting.

"Take that. You got to get such things out of your head. It won't do.

The trouble with you is that ever since you've enlisted, this

company's been hanging round the outside. You ain't been in a battle.

One battle'll cure you. You got to get over it."

"Yes," repeated the boy. "I got to get over it."

He lay down beside Adams, panting. The moon, which would be full in a

few days, had risen; the sounds of the vast army were all about

them—the click of tin basin against tin basin, the stamping of horses,

the oaths and laughter of men. Some even sang. The boy, when he heard

them, said, "Oh, God!" It was his one exclamation. It had broken from

his lips a thousand times, not as a prayer or as an imprecation, but

as a mixture of both. It seemed the one word that could represent the

indescribable confusion of his mind. He said again, "Oh, God! Oh,

God!"

It was not until two days later, when they had been for hours on the

march, that he realized that they were approaching the little

Pennsylvania town where he lived. He had been marching almost blindly,

his eyes nearly closed, still contemplating his own misery and fear.

He could not discuss with his comrades the next day's prospects, he

did not know enough about the situation to speculate. Adams's hope

that there would be a battle brought to his lips the familiar "Oh,

God!" He had begun to think of suicide.

It was almost dark once more when they stumbled into a little town.

Its streets, washed by rains, had been churned to thick red mud by

thousands of feet and wheels. The mud clung to Parsons's worn shoes;

it seemed to his half-crazy mind like blood. Then, suddenly, his gun

dropped with a wild clatter to the ground.

"It's Taneytown!" he called wildly. "It's Taneytown."

Adams turned upon him irritably. He was almost too tired to move.

"What if it is Taneytown?" he thundered. "Pick up your gun, you young

fool."

"But it's only ten miles from home!"

The shoulder of the man behind him sent Parsons sprawling. He gathered

himself up and leaped into his place by Adams's side. His step was

light.

"Ten miles from home! We're only ten miles from home!"—he said it as

though the evil spirits which had beset him had been exorcised. He saw

the little whitewashed farmhouse, the yellowing wheat-fields beside

it; he saw his mother working in the garden, he heard her calling.

Presently he began to look furtively about him. If he could only get

away, if he could get home, they could never find him. There were many

places where he could hide, holes and caverns in the steep, rough

slopes of Big Round Top, at whose foot stood his mother's little

house. They could never find him. He began to speak to Adams

tremulously.

"When do you think we'll camp?"

Adams answered him sharply.

"Not to-night. Don't try any running-away business, boy. 'Tain't worth

while. They'll shoot you. Then you'll be food for crows."

The boy moistened his parched lips.

"I didn't say anything about running away," he muttered. But hope died

in his eyes.

It did not revive when, a little later, they camped in the fields,

trampling the wheat ready for harvest, crushing down the corn already

waist-high, devouring their rations like wolves, then falling asleep

almost on their feet.

Well indeed might they sleep heavily, dully, undisturbed by cry of

picket or gallop of returning scout. The flat country lay clear and

bright in the moonlight; to the north-west they could almost see the

low cone of Big Round Top, to which none then gave a thought, not even

Parsons himself, who lay with his tanned face turned up toward the

sky. Once his sunken eyes opened, but he did not remember that now, if

ever, he must steal away, over his sleeping comrades, past the

picket-line, and up the long red road toward home. He thought of home

no more, nor of fear; he lay like a dead man.

It was a marvelous moonlit night. All was still as though round

Gettysburg lay no vast armies, seventy thousand Southerners to the

north, eighty-five thousand Northerners to the south. They lay or

moved quietly, like great octopi, stretching out, now and then, grim

tentacles, which touched or searched vainly. They knew nothing of the

quiet, academic town, lying in its peaceful valley away from the world

for which it cared little. Mere chance decreed that on the morrow its

name should stand beside Waterloo.

Parsons whimpered the next morning when he heard the sound of guns. He

knew what would follow. In a few hours the firing would cease; then

they would march, wildly seeking an enemy that seemed to have

vanished, or covering the retreat of their own men; and there would be

once more all the ghastly sounds and cries. But the day passed, and

they were still in the red fields.

It was night when they began to march once more. All day the sounds of

firing had echoed faintly from the north, bringing fierce rage to the

hearts of some, fear to others, and dread unspeakable to Parsons. He

did not know how the day passed. He heard the guns, he caught glimpses

now and then of messengers galloping to headquarters; he sat with bent

head and staring eyes. Late in the afternoon the firing ceased, and he

said over and over again, "Oh, God, don't let us go that way! Oh, God,

don't let us go that way!" He did not realize that the noise came from

the direction of Gettysburg, he did not comprehend that "that way"

meant home, he felt no anxiety for the safety of his mother; he knew

only that, if he saw another dead or dying man, he himself would die.

Nor would his death be simply a growing unconsciousness; he would

suffer in his body all the agony of the wounds upon which he looked.

The great octopus of which he was a part did not feel in the least the

spark of resistance in him, one of the smallest of the particles that

made up its vast body. When the moon had risen, he was drawn in toward

the centre with the great tentacle to which he belonged. The octopus

suffered; other vast arms were bleeding and almost severed. It seemed

to shudder with foreboding for the morrow.

Round Top grew clear before them as they marched. The night was

blessedly cool and bright, and they went as though by day, but

fearfully, each man's ears strained to hear. It was like marching into

the crater of a volcano which, only that afternoon, had been in fierce

eruption. It was all the more horrible because now they could see

nothing but the clear July night, hear nothing but the soft sounds of

summer. There was not even a flag of smoke to warn them.

They caught, now and again, glimpses of men hiding behind hedge-rows,

then hastening swiftly away.

"Desertin'," said Adams grimly.

"What did you say?" asked Parsons.

He had heard distinctly enough, but he longed for the sound of Adams's

voice. When Adams repeated the single word, Parsons did not hear. He

clutched Adams by the arm.

"You see that hill, there before us?"

"Yes."

"Gettysburg is over that hill. There's the cemetery. My father's

buried there."

Adams looked in under the tall pines. He could see the white stones

standing stiffly in the moonlight.

"We're goin' in there," he said. "Keep your nerve up there, boy."

Adams had seen other things besides the white tombstones, things that

moved faintly or lay quietly, or gave forth ghastly sounds. He was

conscious, by his sense of smell, of the army about him and of the

carnage that had been.

Parsons, strangely enough, had neither heard nor smelled. A sudden awe

came upon him; the past returned: he remembered his father, his

mother's grief at his death, his visits with her to the cemetery. It

seemed to him that he was again a boy stealing home from a day's

fishing in Rock Creek, a little fearful as he passed the cemetery

gate. He touched Adams's arm shyly before he began to sling off his

knapsack and to lie down as his comrades were doing all about him.

"That is my father's grave," he whispered.

Then, before the kindly answer sprang from Adams's lips, a gurgle came

into Parsons's throat as though he were dying. One of the apparitions

that Adams had seen lifted itself from the grass, leaving behind dark

stains. The clear moonlight left no detail of the hideous wounds to

the imagination.

"Parsons!" cried Adams sharply.

But Parsons had gone, leaping over the graves, bending low by the

fences, dashing across an open field, then losing himself in the

woodland. For a moment Adams's eyes followed him, then he saw that the

cemetery and the outlying fields were black with ten thousand men. It

would be easy for Parsons to get away.

"No hope for him," he said shortly, as he set to work to do what he

could for the maimed creature at his feet. Dawn, he knew, must be

almost at hand; he fancied that the moonlight was paling. He was

almost crazy for sleep, sleep that he would need badly enough on the

morrow, if he were any prophet of coming events.

Parsons, also, was aware of the tens of thousands of men about him, to

him they were dead or dying men. He staggered as he ran, his feet

following unconsciously the path that took him home from fishing,

along the low ridge, past scattered farmhouses, toward the cone of

Round Top. It seemed to him that dead men leaped at him and tried to

stop him, and he ran ever faster. Once he shrieked, then he crouched

in a fence-corner and hid. He would have been ludicrous, had the

horrors from which he fled been less hideous.

He, too, felt the dawn coming, as he saw his mother's house. He sobbed

like a little child, and, no longer keeping to the shade, ran across

the open fields. There were no dead men here, thank God! He threw

himself frantically at the door, and found it locked. Then he drew

from the window the nail that held it down, and crept in. He was

ravenously hungry, and his hands made havoc in the familiar cupboard.

He laughed as he found cake, and the loved "drum-sticks" of his

childhood.

He did not need to slip off his shoes for fear of waking his mother,

for the shoes had no soles; but he stooped down and removed them with

trembling hands. Then a great peace seemed to come into his soul. He

crept on his hands and knees past his mother's door, and climbed to

his own little room under the eaves, where, quite simply, as though he

were a little boy, and not a man deserting from the army on the eve of

a battle, he said his prayers and went to bed.

When he awoke, it was late afternoon. He thought at first that he had

been swinging, and had fallen; then he realized that he still lay

quietly in his bed. He stretched himself, reveling in the blessed

softness, and wondering why he felt as though he had been brayed in a

mortar. Then a roar of sound shut out possibility of thought. The

little house shook with it. He covered his ears, but he might as well

have spared himself his pains. That sound could never be shut out,

neither then, nor for years afterward, from the ears of those who

heard it. There were many who would hear no other sound forevermore.

The coward began again his whining, "Oh, God! Oh, God!" His nostrils

were full of smoke; he could smell already the other ghastly odors

that would follow. He lifted himself from his bed, and, hiding his

eyes from the window, felt his way down the steep stairway. He meant,

God help him! to go and hide his face in his mother's lap. He

remembered the soft, cool smoothness of her gingham apron.

Gasping, he staggered into her room. But his mother was not there. The

mattress and sheets from her bed had been torn off; one sheet still

trailed on the floor. He picked it up and shook it. He was imbecile

enough to think she might be beneath it.

"Mother!" he shrieked "Mother! Mother!" forgetting that even in that

little room she could not have heard him. He ran through the house,

shouting. Everywhere it was the same—stripped beds, cupboards flung

wide, the fringe of torn curtains still hanging. His mother was not

there.

His terror drove him finally to the window overlooking the garden. It

was here that he most vividly remembered her, bending over her

flower-beds, training the tender vines, pulling weeds. She must be

here. In spite of the snarl of guns, she must be here. But the garden

was a waste, the fence was down. He saw only the thick smoke beyond,

out of which crept slowly toward him half a dozen men with blackened

faces and blood-stained clothes, again his dead men come to life. He

saw that they wore his own uniform, but the fact made little

impression upon him. Was his mother dead? Had she been killed

yesterday, or had they taken her away last night or this morning while

he slept? He saw that the men were coming nearer to the house,

creeping slowly on through the thick smoke. He wondered vaguely

whether they were coming for him as they had come for his mother. Then

he saw, also vaguely, on the left, another group of men, stealing

toward him, men who did not wear his uniform, but who walked as

bravely as his own comrades.

He knew little about tactics, and his brain was too dull to realize

that the little house was the prize they sought. It was marvelous that

it had remained unpossessed so long, when a tiny rock or a little bush

was protection for which men struggled. The battle had surged that

way; the little house was to become as famous as the Peach Orchard or

the Railroad Cut, it was to be the "Parsons House" in history. Of this

Parsons had no idea; he only knew, as he watched them, that his mother

was gone, his house despoiled.

Then, suddenly, rage seized upon him, driving out fear. It was not

rage with the men in gray, creeping so steadily upon him—he thought of

them as men like himself, only a thousand times more brave—it was rage

with war itself, which drove women from their homes, which turned

young men into groaning apparitions. And because he felt this rage, he

too must kill. He knelt down before the window, his gun in his hand.

He had carried it absently with him the night before, and he had

twenty rounds of ammunition. He took careful aim: his hand, thanks to

his mother's food and his long sleep, was quite steady; and he pulled

the trigger.

At first, both groups of men halted. The shot had gone wide. They had

seen the puff of smoke, but they had no way of telling whether it was

friend or foe who held the little house. There was another puff, and a

man in gray fell. The men in blue hastened their steps, even yet half

afraid, for the field was broad, and to cross it was madness unless

the holders of the house were their own comrades. Another shot went

wide, another man in gray dropped, and another, and the men in blue

leaped on, yelling. Not until then did Parsons see that there were

more than twice as many men in gray as men in blue. The men in gray

saw also, and they, too, ran. The little house was worth tremendous

risks. Another man bounded into the air and rolled over, blood

spurting from his mouth, and the man behind him stumbled over him.

There were only twelve now. Then there were eleven. But they came

on—they were nearer than the men in blue. Then another fell, and

another. It seemed to Parsons that he could go on forever watching

them. He smiled grimly at the queer antics that they cut, the strange

postures into which they threw themselves. Then another fell, and they

wavered and turned. One of the men in blue stopped at the edge of the

garden to take deliberate aim, but Parsons, grinning, also leveled his

gun once more. He wondered, a little jealously, which of them had

killed the man in gray.

The six men, rushing in, would not believe that he was there alone.

They looked at him, admiringly, grim, bronzed as they were, the

veterans of a dozen battles. They did not think of him for an instant

as a boy; his eyes were the eyes of a man who had suffered and who had

known the hot pleasures of revenge. It was he who directed them now in

fortifying the house, he who saw the first sign of the creeping

Confederates making another sally from the left, he who led them into

the woods when, reinforced by a hundred of their comrades, they used

the little house only as a base toward which to retreat. They had

never seen such fierce rage as his. The sun sank behind the Blue

Ridge, and he seemed to regret that the day of blood was over. He was

not satisfied that they held the little house; he must venture once

more into the dark shadows of the woodland.

From there his new-found comrades dragged him helpless. His enemies,

powerless against him by day, had waited until he could not see them.

His comrades carried him into the house, where they had made a dim

light. The smoke of battle seemed to be lifting; there was still sharp

firing, but it was silence compared to what had been, peace compared

to what would be on the morrow.

They laid him on the floor of the little kitchen, and looked at the

wide rent in his neck, and lifted his limp arm, not seeing that a door

behind them had opened quietly, and that a woman had come up from the

deep cellar beneath the house. There was not a cellar within miles

that did not shelter frightened women and children. Parsons's mother,

warned to flee, had gone no farther. She appeared now, a ministering

angel. In her cellar was food in plenty; there were blankets,

bandages, even pillows for bruised and aching heads. Heaven grant that

some one would thus care for her boy in the hour of his need!

The men watched Parsons's starting eyes, thinking they saw death. They

would not have believed that it was Fear that had returned upon him,

their brave captain. They would have said that he never could have

been afraid. He put his hand up to his torn throat. His breath came in

thick gasps. He muttered again, "Oh, God! Oh, God!"

Then, suddenly, incomprehensibly to the men who did not see the

gracious figure behind them, peace ineffable came into his blue eyes.

"Why, _mother_!" he said softly.

III

VICTORY[1]

Footnote 1:

From the narrative of Colonel Frank Aretas Haskell, Thirty-sixth

Wisconsin Infantry. While aide-de-camp to General Gibbon he was

largely instrumental in saving the day at Gettysburg to the Union

forces. His brilliant story of the battle is contained in a series

of letters written to his brother soon after the contest.

Sitting his horse easily in the stone-fenced field near the rounded

clump of trees on the hot noon of the third day of battle, his heart

leaping, sure of the righteousness of his cause, sure of the

overruling providence of God, experienced in war, trained to

obedience, accustomed to command, the young officer looked about him.

To his right and left and behind him, from Culp's Hill to Round Top,

lay the Army of the Potomac, the most splendid army, in his opinion,

which the world had ever seen, an army tried, proved, reliable in all

things. The first day's defeat, the second day's victory, were past;

since yesterday the battle-lines had been re-formed; upon them the

young man looked with approval, thanking Heaven for Meade. The lines

were arranged, except here in the very centre near this rounded clump

of trees where he waited, as he would have arranged them himself,

conformably to the ground, batteries in place, infantry—there a

double, here a single line—to the front. There had been ample time for

such re-formation during the long, silent morning. Now each man was in

his appointed place, munition-wagons and ambulances waited, regimental

flags streamed proudly; everywhere was order, composure. The laughter

and joking which floated to the ears of the young officer betokened

also minds composed, at ease. Yesterday twelve thousand men had been

killed or wounded upon this field; the day before yesterday, eleven

thousand; to-day, this afternoon, within a few hours, eight thousand

more would fall. Yet, lightly, their arms stacked, men laughed, and

the young officer heard them with approval.

Opposite, on another ridge, a mile away, Lee's army waited. They, too,

were set out in brave array; they, too, had re-formed; they, too,

seemed to have forgotten yesterday, to have closed their eyes to

to-morrow. From the rounded clump of trees, the young officer could

look across the open fields, straight to the enemy's centre. Again he

wished for a double line of troops here about him. But Meade alone had

power to place them there.

The young officer was cultivated, college-bred, with the gift of keen

observation, of vivid expression. The topography of that varied

country was already clear to him; he was able to draw a sketch of it,

indicating its steep hills, its broad fields, its tracts of virgin

woodland, the "wave-like" crest upon which he now stood. He could not

have written so easily during the marches of the succeeding weeks if

he had not now, in the midst of action, begun to fit words to what he

saw. He watched Meade ride down the lines, his face "calm, serious,

earnest, without arrogance of hope or timidity of fear." He shared

with his superiors in a hastily prepared, delicious lunch, eaten on

the ground; he recorded it with humorous impressions of these great

soldiers.

The evening before he had attended them in their council of war; he

has made it as plain to us as though we, too, had been inside that

little farmhouse. It is a picture in which Rembrandt would have

delighted,—the low room, the little table with its wooden water-pail,

its tin cup, its dripping candle. We can see the yellow light on blue

sleeves, on soft, slouched, gilt-banded hats, on Gibbon's single star.

Meade, tall, spare, sinewy; Sedgwick, florid, thick-set; young Howard

with his empty sleeve; magnificent Hancock,—of all that distinguished

company the young officer has drawn imperishable portraits.

He heard their plans, heard them decide to wait until the enemy had

hurled himself upon them; he said with satisfaction that their heads

were sound. He recorded also that when the council was over and the

chance for sleep had come, he could hardly sit his horse for

weariness, as he sought his general's headquarters in the sultry,

starless midnight. Yet, now, in the hot noon of the third day, as he

dismounted and threw himself down in the shade, he remembered the

sound of the moving ambulances, the twinkle of their unsteady lamps.

Lying prone, his hat tilted over his eyes, he smiled drowsily. It was

impossible to tell at what moment battle would begin, but now there

was infinite peace everywhere. The young men of his day loved the

sounding poetry of Byron; it is probable that he thought of the

"mustering squadron," of the "marshaling in arms," of "battle's

magnificently-stern array." Trained in the classics he must have

remembered lines from other glorious histories. "Stranger," so said

Leonidas, "stranger, go tell it in Lacedæmon that we died here in

defense of her laws." "The glory of Miltiades will not let me sleep!"

cried the youth of Athens. A line of Virgil the young officer wrote

down afterwards in his account, thinking of weary marches: "Forsan et

hæc olim meminisse juvabit."—"Perchance even these things it will be

delightful hereafter to remember."

Thus while he lay there, the noon droned on. Having hidden their

wounds, ignoring their losses, having planted their guidons and loaded

their guns, the thousands waited.

Still dozing, the young officer looked at his watch. Once more he

thought of the centre and wished that it were stronger; then he

stretched out his arms to sleep. It was five minutes of one o'clock.

Near him his general rested also, and with them both time moved

heavily.

Drowsily he closed his eyes, comfortably he lay. Then, suddenly, at a

distinct, sharp sound from the enemy's line he was awake, on his feet,

staring toward the west. Before his thoughts were collected, he could

see the smoke of the bursting shell; before he and his fellow officers

could spring to their saddles, before they could give orders, the iron

rain began about the low, wave-like crest. The breast of the general's

orderly was torn open, he plunged face downward, the horses which he

held galloped away. Not an instant passed after that first shot before

the Union guns answered, and battle had begun.