they had, and wrapped about her own shoulders a little black coat
which the judge's wife had given her. Then, as one who steps into an
unfriendly sea, she started out with them into the great crowd. Once
more, poor Mary said to herself, she would obey. She had seen the
platform; by going round through the citizen's cemetery she could get
close to it.
The November day was bright and warm, but Mary and her children
shivered. Slowly she made her way close to the platform, patiently she
stood and waited. Sometimes she stood with shut eyes, swaying a
little. On the moonlit night of the third day of battle she had
ventured from her house down toward the square to try to find some
brandy for the dying men about her, and as in a dream she had seen a
tall general, mounted upon a white horse with muffled hoofs, ride down
the street. Bending from his saddle he had spoken, apparently to the
empty air.
"Up, boys, up!"
There had risen at his command thousands of men lying asleep on
pavement and street, and quietly, in an interminable line, they had
stolen out like dead men toward the Seminary, to join their comrades
and begin the long, long march to Hagerstown. It seemed to her that
all about her dead men might rise now to look with reproach upon these
strangers who disturbed their rest.
The procession was late, the orator of the day was delayed, but still
Mary waited, swaying a little in her place. Presently the great guns
roared forth a welcome, the bands played, the procession approached.
On horseback, erect, gauntleted, the President of the United States
drew rein beside the platform, and, with the orator and the other
famous men, dismounted. There were great cheers, there were deep
silences, there were fresh volleys of artillery, there was new music.
Of it all, Mary Bowman heard but little. Remembering the judge, whom
she saw now near the President, she tried to obey the spirit as well
as the letter of his command; she directed her children to look, she
turned their heads toward the platform.
Men spoke and prayed and sang, and Mary stood still in her place. The
orator of the day described the battle, he eulogized the dead, he
proved the righteousness of this great war; his words fell upon Mary's
ears unheard. If she had been asked who he was, she might have said
vaguely that he was Mr. Lincoln. When he ended, she was ready to go
home. There was singing; now she could slip away, through the gaps in
the cemetery fence. She had done as the judge commanded and now she
would go back to her house.
With her arms about her children, she started away. Then someone who
stood near by took her by the hand.
"Madam!" said he, "the President is going to speak!"
Half turning, Mary looked back. The thunder of applause made her
shiver, made her even scream, it was so like that other thunderous
sound which she would hear forever. She leaned upon her little
children heavily, trying to get her breath, gasping, trying to keep
her consciousness. She fixed her eyes upon the rising figure before
her, she clung to the sight of him as a drowning swimmer in deep
waters, she struggled to fix her thoughts upon him. Exhaustion, grief,
misery threatened to engulf her, she hung upon him in desperation.
Slowly, as one who is old or tired or sick at heart, he rose to his
feet, the President of the United States, the Commander-in-Chief of
the Army and Navy, the hope of his country. Then he stood waiting. In
great waves of sound the applause rose and died and rose again. He
waited quietly. The winner of debate, the great champion of a great
cause, the veteran in argument, the master of men, he looked down upon
the throng. The clear, simple things he had to say were ready in his
mind, he had thought them out, written out a first draft of them in
Washington, copied it here in Gettysburg. It is probable that now, as
he waited to speak, his mind traveled to other things, to the misery,
the wretchedness, the slaughter of this field, to the tears of
mothers, the grief of widows, the orphaning of little children.
Slowly, in his clear voice, he said what little he had to say. To the
weary crowd, settling itself into position once more, the speech
seemed short; to the cultivated who had been listening to the
elaborate periods of great oratory, it seemed commonplace, it seemed a
speech which any one might have made. But it was not so with Mary
Bowman, nor with many other unlearned persons. Mary Bowman's soul
seemed to smooth itself out like a scroll, her hands lightened their
clutch on her children, the beating of her heart slackened, she gasped
no more.
She could not have told exactly what he said, though later she read it
and learned it and taught it to her children and her children's
children. She only saw him, felt him, breathed him in, this great,
common, kindly man. His gaze seemed to rest upon her; it was not
impossible, it was even probable, that during the hours that had
passed he had singled out that little group so near him, that desolate
woman in her motley dress, with her children clinging about her. He
said that the world would not forget this field, these martyrs; he
said it in words which Mary Bowman could understand, he pointed to a
future for which there was a new task.
"Daughter!" he seemed to say to her from the depths of trouble, of
responsibility, of care greater than her own,—"Daughter, be of good
comfort!"
Unhindered now, amid the cheers, across ground which seemed no longer
to stir beneath her feet, Mary Bowman went back to her house. There,
opening the shutters, she bent and solemnly kissed her little
children, saying to herself that henceforth they must have more than
food and raiment; they must be given some joy in life.
V
GUNNER CRISWELL
On an afternoon in late September, 1910, a shifting crowd, sometimes
numbering a few score, sometimes a few hundred, stared at a massive
monument on the battle-field of Gettysburg. The monument was not yet
finished, sundry statues were lacking, and the ground about it was
trampled and bare. But the main edifice was complete, the plates, on
which were cast the names of all the soldiers from Pennsylvania who
had fought in the battle, were in place, and near at hand the
platform, erected for the dedicatory services on the morrow, was being
draped with flags. The field of Gettysburg lacks no tribute which can
be paid its martyrs.
The shifting crowd was part of the great army of veterans and their
friends who had begun to gather for the dedication; these had come
early to seek out their names, fixed firmly in enduring bronze on the
great monument. Among them were two old men. The name of one was
Criswell; he had been a gunner in Battery B, and was now blind. The
explosion which had paralyzed the optic nerve had not disfigured him;
his smooth-shaven face in its frame of thick, white hair was unmarred,
and with his erect carriage and his strong frame he was
extraordinarily handsome. The name of his friend, bearded, untidy,
loquacious, was Carolus Depew.
Gettysburg opens wide not only its hospitable arms, but its heart, to
the old soldier. Even now, after almost fifty years, the shadow of war
is not yet fled away, the roaring of the guns of battle is not
stilled. The old soldier finds himself appreciated, admired, cared
for, beyond a merely adequate return for the money he brings into the
town. Here he can talk of the battle with the proprietor of the hotel
at which he stays, with the college professor, with the urchin on the
street. Any citizen will leave his work to help find a certain house
where wounds were dressed, or where women gave out bread, fresh and
hot from the oven; or a certain well, from which life-saving,
delicious drinks were quaffed. When there are great excursions or
dedications such as this, the town is decorated, there is waving of
flags, there are bursts of song.
No stretching of hospitable arms could shelter the vast crowd which
gathered upon this occasion. The boarding-houses which accommodated
ten guests during the ordinary summer traffic now took thirty, the
hotels set up as many cot-beds as their halls would hold, the students
of the college and the theological seminary shared their rooms or gave
them up entirely, in faculty houses every room was filled, and all
church doors were thrown wide. Yet many men—and old men—spent the
night upon the street.
Gunner Criswell wondered often whether many lives ran like his, up and
up to a sharp peak of happiness, then plunged down, down to
inexpressible misery. As a boy he had been intensely happy, eager,
ambitious, alive to all the glory of the world. He had married the
girl whom he loved, and had afterward enlisted, scorning any fears
that he might not return. On the second day of July, 1863, on his
twenty-third birthday, he had lost his sight in an explosion on the
battle-field of Gettysburg; on the same day his young wife had died in
their faraway corner of the state, leaving a helpless baby to a blind
and sick father.
To-day the daughter was middle-aged, the father old. They lived
together on their little farm in Greene County, Ellen managing the
farm and doing much of the work, Gunner Criswell making baskets. War
had taken his sight, his wife, all his prospects for life; it had left
him, he said, Ellen, and the fresh, clear mountain air, a strong pair
of hands, and his own soul. Life had settled at last to a quiet level
of peace. He had learned to read the raised language of the blind, but
he could not afford many books. He was poor; owing to an irregularity
in his enlistment the Government had not given him a pension, nor had
any one taken the trouble to have the matter straightened out. The
community was small and scattered, few persons knew him, and no
Congressman needed his vote in that solidly Republican district. Nor
was he entirely certain that the giving of pensions to those who could
work was not a form of pauperization. He, for instance, had been
pretty well handicapped, yet he had got on. He said to himself often
that when one went to war one offered everything. If there was in his
heart any faint, lingering bitterness because his country had done
nothing for him, who had given her so much, he checked it sternly.
And, besides, he said often to himself with amusement, he had Carolus
Depew!
It was Carolus who had told him, one evening in July, about the
Pennsylvania monument. Carolus had served in a different regiment,
without injury and with a thousand brave adventures. He was talking
about them now.
"I'm going! I'm going back to that place. I could find it. I know
where I knocked that feller down with the butt of my gun when my
ammunition gave out. I know exactly where I stood when the captain
said, 'Give 'em hell, Carolus!' The captain and me, we was pretty
intimate."
The blind man smiled, his busy hands going on with their unending
work. When he smiled, his face was indescribably beautiful; one's
heart ached for the woman who fifty years ago had had to die and leave
him.
"Ellen!" he called.
Ellen appeared in the doorway, in her short, unbecoming gingham dress.
She had inherited none of her father's beauty, and the freshness of
her youth was gone. She looked at her father kindly enough, but her
voice was harsh. Ellen's life, too, had suffered from war.
"Ellen, Carolus wants me to go with him to Gettysburg in September. A
great monument is to be dedicated, and Carolus says our names are to
be on it. May I go?"
Ellen turned swiftly away. Sometimes her father's cheerfulness nearly
broke her heart.
"I guess you can go if you want to."
"Thank you, Ellen."
"I've reckoned it all out," said Carolus. "We can do it for twenty
dollars. We ought to get transportation. Somebody ought to make a
present to the veterans, the Government ought to, or the trusts, or
the railroads."
"Where will we stay?" asked Gunner Criswell. His hands trembled
suddenly and he laid down the stiff reeds.
"They'll have places. I bet they'll skin us for board, though. The
minute I get there I'm going straight to that monument to hunt for my
name. They'll have us all arranged by regiments and companies. I'll
find yours for you."
The hand of the blind man opened and closed. He could find his own
name, thank Heaven! he could touch it, could press his palm upon it,
know that it was there, feel it in his own soul—Adam Criswell. His
calm vanished, his passive philosophy melted in the heat of old
desires relit, desire for fame, for power, for life. He was excited,
discontented, happy yet unhappy. Such an experience would crown his
life; it would be all the more wonderful because it had never been
dreamed of. That night he could not sleep. He saw his name, Adam
Criswell, written where it would stand for generations to come. From
that time on he counted the days, almost the hours, until he should
start for Gettysburg.
Carolus Depew was a selfish person, for all his apparent devotion to
his friend. Having arrived at Gettysburg, he had found the monument,
and he had impatiently hunted for the place of Gunner Criswell's
Battery B, and guided his hand to the raised letters, and then had
left him alone.
"I've found it!" he shouted, a moment later. "'Carolus Depew,
Corporal,' big as life. 'Carolus Depew, Corporal'! What do you think
of that, say! It'll be here in a hundred years, 'Carolus Depew,
Corporal'!"
Then Carolus wandered a little farther along the line of tablets and
round to the other side of the great monument. Gunner Criswell called
to him lightly, as though measuring the distance he had gone. When
Carolus did not answer, Gunner Criswell spoke to a boy who had offered
him souvenir postal cards. It was like him to take his joy quietly,
intensely.
"Will you read the names of this battery for me?" he asked.
The boy sprang as though he had received a command. It was not only
the man's blindness which won men and women and children; his
blindness was seldom apparent; it was his air of power and strength.
The boy read the list slowly and distinctly, and then refused the
nickel which Criswell offered him. In a moment Carolus returned, still
thrilled by his own greatness, as excited as a child.
"We must hunt a place to stay now," he said. "This is a grand spot.
There's monuments as far as the eye can reach. Come on. Ain't you glad
to walk with 'Carolus Depew, Corporal'?"
It was three o'clock in the afternoon when Carolus left Gunner
Criswell on a doorstep in Gettysburg and went in search of rooms. At a
quarter to six the blind man still sat on the same spot. He was
seventy years old and he was tired, and the cold step chilled him
through. He did not dare to move; it seemed to him that thousands of
persons passed and repassed. If he went away, Carolus could not find
him. And where should he go? He felt tired and hungry and worn and
old; his great experience of the afternoon neither warmed nor fed him;
he wished himself back in his own place with his work and his peace of
mind and Ellen.
Then, suddenly, he realized that some one was speaking to him. The
voice was a woman's, low-pitched, a little imperious, the voice of one
not accustomed to be kept waiting.
"Will you please move and let me ring this door-bell?"
Gunner Criswell sprang to his feet. He did not like to acknowledge his
infirmity; it seemed always like bidding for sympathy. But now the
words rushed from him, words than which there are none more
heartrending.
"Madam, forgive me! I am blind."
A perceptible interval passed before the woman answered. Once Gunner
Criswell thought she had gone away.
Instead she was staring at him, her heart throbbing. She laid her hand
on his arm.
"Why do you sit here on the steps? Have you no place to stay?"
Gunner Criswell told her about Carolus.
"You must come to my house," she invited.
Gunner Criswell explained that he could not leave his friend. "He
would be worried if he couldn't find me. He"—Gunner Criswell turned
his head, then he smiled—"he is coming now. I can hear him."
Protesting, scolding, Carolus came down the street. He was with
several other veterans, and all were complaining bitterly about the
lack of accommodations. The lady looked at Carolus's untidiness, then
back at the blind man.
"I can take you both," she said. "My name is Mrs. James, and I live on
the college campus. Anybody can direct you. Tell the maid I sent you."
Mrs. James's house was large, and in it the two old men found a
comfortable room, distinguished and delightful company, and a
heart-warming dinner. There were five other guests, who like
themselves had neglected to engage rooms beforehand—a famous general
of the Civil War and four lesser officers. Professor James made them
all welcome, and the two small boys made it plain that this was the
greatest occasion of their lives. The dinner-table was arranged in a
way which Carolus Depew had never seen; it was lit by candles and
decked with the best of the asters from Mrs. James's garden. The
officers wore their uniforms, Mrs. James her prettiest dress. Carolus
appreciated all the grandeur, but he insisted to the blind man that it
was only their due. It was paying a debt which society owed the
veteran.
"This professor didn't fight," argued Carolus. "Why shouldn't he do
this for us? They oughtn't to charge us a cent. But I bet they will."
Gunner Criswell, refreshed and restored, was wholly grateful. He
listened to the pleasant talk, he heard with delight the lovely voice
of his hostess, he felt beside him the fresh young body of his
hostess's little son. Even the touch of the silver and china pleased
him. His wife had brought from her home a few plates as delicate, a
few spoons as heavy, and they had had long since to be sold.
Carolus helped the blind man constantly during the meal; he guided his
hand to the bread-plate and gave him portions of food, all of which
was entirely unnecessary. The blind man was much more deft than
Carolus, and the maid was careful and interested and kind. All the
guests except the general watched the blind man with admiration. The
general talked busily and constantly at the other end of the table; it
was not to be expected that he should notice a private soldier.
It was the general who had first proposed inscribing the names of all
the soldiers on the great monument; the monument, though he was not a
member of the building committee, was his dearest enterprise. Since
the war the general had become a statistician; he was interested in
lists and tabulations, he enjoyed making due return for value
received, he liked to provide pensions, to place old soldiers
comfortably in Soldiers' Homes. The war was long past; his memory had
begun to grow dim; to his mind the lives of the soldiers would be
completed, rounded, by this tribute, as his own would be by the statue
of himself which should some day rise upon this field. It was he who
had compiled the lists for this last and greatest roster; about it he
talked constantly.
Presently, as the guests finished their coffee, one of the lesser
officers asked the man next him a question about a charge, and then
Professor James asked another, and the war changed suddenly from a
thing of statistics and lists and pensions to what it actually was, a
thing of horror, of infinite sacrifice, of heroism. Men drilled and
marched and fought and suffered and prayed and were slain. The faces
of the _raconteurs_ glowed, the eager voices of the questioners
trembled. Once one of the officers made an effort to draw Gunner
Criswell into speech, but Gunner Criswell was shy. He sat with his arm
round the little boy, the candle-light shining on his beautiful face,
listening with his whole soul. With Carolus it was different. Carolus
had several times firmly to be interrupted.
In the morning Mrs. James took the blind man for a drive. The air was
as fresh and clear as the air of his own mountains; the little boy sat
on a stool between his feet and rested his shoulder against his knee.
Mrs. James knew the field thoroughly; she made as plain as possible
its topography, the main lines, the great charges, the open fields
between the two ridges, the mighty rocks of Devil's Den, the almost
impenetrable thickets. To Gunner Criswell, Gettysburg had been a
little smoke-o'erlaid town seen faintly at the end of a long march,
its recollection dimmed afterward by terrible physical pain. He
realized now for the first time the great territory which the
battle-lines inclosed, he understood the titanic grandeur of the event
of which he had been a part, he breathed in also the present and
enduring peace. He touched the old muzzle-loading cannon; the little
boy guided his hand to the tiny tombstones in the long lines of graves
of the unknown; he stood where Lincoln had stood, weary, heart-sick,
despairing, in the fall of '63.
[Illustration: HE STOOD WHERE LINCOLN HAD STOOD]
Then, strangely for him, Gunner Criswell began to talk. Something
within him seemed to have broken, hidden springs of feeling seemed to
well up in his heart. It was the talk of a man at peace with himself,
reconciled, happy, conscious of his own value, sure of his place in
the scheme of things. He talked as he had never talked in his life—of
his youth, of his hopes, of his wife, of Ellen. It was almost more
than Mrs. James could endure.
"It is coming back here that makes you feel like this," she said
brokenly. "You realize how tremendous it was, and you know that you
did your part and that you haven't been forgotten, that you were
important in a great cause."
"Yes, ma'am," answered Gunner Criswell, in his old-fashioned way. "It
is that exactly."
Mrs. James had little respect for rank as such. She and the great
general, the four lesser officers, her husband and her two boys, were
to drive together to the dedication that afternoon and to have seats
on the platform, and thither she took Private Criswell. Carolus Depew
was not sorry to be relieved of the care of the blind man; he had
found some old comrades and was crazy with excitement.
"It is a good thing that she invited you," said Carolus, "because we
are going to march, just like we used to, and you couldn't very well."
The dedication exercises were not long. To the blind man there was the
singing which stirred his heart, there was the cool air in his face,
there was the touch of the little boy's hand, there was Mrs. James's
voice in explanation or description.
"There is the Governor!" cried Mrs. James. "He will pass right beside
you. There is the Secretary of War. You can hear him talking to the
Governor if you listen carefully. That deep voice is his. _Can_ you
hear?"
"Oh, yes," answered the blind man happily.
He heard the speeches, he heard the music, he could tell by the wild
shouting when the great enveloping flag drifted to the ground and the
monument stood wholly unveiled; he could feel presently the vast crowd
beginning to depart. He stood quietly while the great general near him
laughed and talked, receiving the congratulations of great men,
presenting the great men to Mrs. James; he heard other bursts of
cheering, other songs. He was unspeakably happy.
Then suddenly he felt a strange hand on his arm. The general was close
to him, was speaking to him; there was a silence all about them. The
general turned him a little as he spoke toward the great bronze
tablets with their record of the brave.
"You were in the army?" asked the general.
"Yes, sir."
"In what regiment?"
"I was in Battery B, sir."
"Then," said the general, "let us find your name."
Mrs. James came forward to the blind man's side. The general wished to
make visible, actual, the rewarding of the soldier, and she was
passionately thankful that it was upon this man that the general's eye
had fallen.
But Gunner Criswell, to her astonishment, held back. Then he said an
extraordinary thing for one who hesitated always to make his infirmity
plain, and for one who could read the raised letters, who had read
them, here on this very spot. He said again those three words, only a
little less dreadful than the other three terrible words, "He is
dead."
"Oh, sir," he cried, "I cannot read! I am blind!"
The general flung his arm across the blind man's shoulder. He was a
tall man also, and magnificently made. It gave one a thrill to see
them stand together.
"I will read for you."