“Where are the tall men that marched on the right,
That marched to the battle so handsome and tall?
They ‘ve been left to mark the places where they saw the foemen’s faces,
For the fever and the lead took them all, Jenny Orde,
The fever and the lead took them all.
“I found him in the forefront of the battle, Kenny Orde,
With the bullets spitting up the ground around him,
And the sweat was on his brow, and his lips were on his sword,
And his life was going from him when I found him.
“We lowered him to rest, Jenny Orde,
With your picture on his breast, Jenny Orde,
And the rumble of pursuit was the regiment’s salute
To the man that loved you best, Jenny Orde.”
XXX
As a dam breaking gives free passage to the imprisoned waters, and they
rush out victoriously, so Vicksburg, starving and crumbling in the West,
was about to open her gates and set the Father of Waters free forever.
That was where the Union hammer, grasped so firmly by strong fingers
that their knuckles turned white, was striking the heaviest blows
upon the cracking skull of the Confederacy. On the other hand,
Chancellorsville had verged upon disaster, and the powers of Europe
were waiting for one more Confederate victory in order to declare the
blockade of Southern ports at an end, and to float a Southern loan.
That a Confederate victory was to be feared, the presence in Northern
territory of Lee, grasping the handle of a sword, whose splendid blade
was seventy thousand men concentrated, testified. That Lee had lost the
best finger of his right hand at Chancellorsville was but job’s comfort
to the threatened government at Washington. That government was still,
after years of stern fighting, trying generals and finding them wanting.
But now the Fates, in secret conclave, weighed the lots of Union and
Disunion; and that of Disunion, though glittering and brilliant like
gold, sank heavily to the ground, as a great eagle whose wing is broken
by the hunter’s bullet comes surely if fiercely down, to be put to
death.
Early on the morning of July 1, 1863, Lee found himself in the
neighborhood of a small and obscure town named Gettysburg. A military
invasion is the process of occupying in succession a series of towns.
To occupy Gettysburg, which seemed as possible as eating breakfast, Lee
sent forward a division of a corps, and followed leisurely with all his
forces. But Gettysburg and the ridges to the west of Gettysburg were
already occupied by two brigades of cavalry, and those, with a cockiness
begotten of big lumps of armed friends approaching from the rear,
determined to go on occupying. This, in a spirit of great courage, with
slowly increasing forces, against rapidly increasing forces, they did,
until the brisk and pliant skirmish which opened the business of the
day had grown so in weight and ferocity that it was evident to the least
astute that the decisive battle of the New World was being fought.
XXXI
There was a pretty girl in Manchester, Maryland (possibly several, but
one was particularly pretty), and Aladdin, together with several young
officers (nearly all officers were young in that war) of the Sixth Army
Corps, rather flattered himself that he was making an impression. He was
all for making impressions in those days. Margaret was engaged to
marry Peter--and a pretty girl was a pretty girl. The pretty girl of
Manchester had several girls and several officers to tea on a certain
evening, and they remained till midnight, making a great deal of
noise and flirting outrageously in dark corners. Two of the girls got
themselves kissed, and two of the officers got their ears boxed, and
later a glove each to stick in their hat-bands. At midnight the party
broke up with regret, and the young officers, seeking their quarters,
turned in, and were presently sleeping the sleep of the constant in
heart. But Aladdin did not dream about the pretty girl of Manchester,
Maryland. When he could not help himself--under the disadvantage of
sleep, when suddenly awakened, or when left alone--his mind harped upon
Margaret. And often the chords of the harping were sad chords. But on
this particular night he dreamed well. He dreamed that her little feet
did wrong and fled for safety unto him. What the wrong was he knew
in his dream, but never afterward--only that it was a dreadful,
unforgivable wrong, not to be condoned, even by a lover. But in his
dream Aladdin was more than her lover, and could condone anything. So
he hid her feet in his hands until those who came to arrest them had
passed, and then he waked to find that his hands were empty, and the
delicious dream over. He waked also to find that it was still dark,
and that the Sixth Army Corps was to march to a place called Taneytown,
where General Meade had headquarters. He made ready and presently was
riding by his general at the head of a creaking column, under the starry
sky. In the great hush and cool that is before a July dawn, God showed
himself to the men, and they sang the “Battle-hymn of the Republic,” but
it sounded sweetly and yearningly, as if sung by thousands of lovers:
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword
His truth is marching on.
The full sunlight gives man poise and shows him the practical side of
things, but in the early morning and late at night man is seldom quite
rational. He weakly allows himself to dwell upon what was not, is not,
and will not be. And so Aladdin, during the first period of that march,
pretended that Margaret was to be his and that all was well.
A short distance out of Manchester the column met with orders from
General Meade and was turned westward toward Gettysburg. With the
orders came details of the first day’s fight, and Aladdin learned of the
officer bringing them, for he was a Maine man, that Hamilton St. John
was among the dead. Aladdin and the officer talked long of the poor boy,
for both had known him well. They said that he had not been as brilliant
as John, nor as winning as Hannibal, but so honest and reliable, so
friendly and unselfish. They went over his good qualities again and
again, and spoke of his great strength and purity, and of other things
which men hold best in men.
And now they were riding with the sun in their eyes, and white dust
rolled up from the swift feet of horses and men. Wild roses and new-mown
grass filled the air with delightful fragrance, and such fields as were
uncut blazed with daisies and buttercups. Over the trimmed lawns about
homesteads yellow dandelions shone like stars in a green sky. Men,
women, and children left their occupations, and stood with open mouths
and wide eyes to see the soldiers pass. The sun rose higher and the day
became most hot, but steadily, unflinchingly as the ticking of a clock,
the swift, bleeding, valiant feet of the Sixth Army Corps stepped off
the miles. And the men stretched their ears to hear the mumbled distant
thunder of artillery--that voice of battle which says so much and tells
so little to those far off. The Sixth Corps felt that it was expected to
decide a battle upon Northern soil for the North, and marching in
that buoyant hope, left scarcely a man, broken with fatigue and
disappointment, among the wild flowers by the side of the way.
If you have ever ridden from Cairo to the Pyramids you will remember
that at five miles’ distance they look as huge as at a hundred yards,
and that it is not until you actually touch them with your hand that you
even begin to realize how wonderfully huge they really are. It was
so with the thunders of Gettysburg. They sounded no louder, and they
connoted no more to the column now in the immediate vicinage of the
battle, than they had to its far-distant ears. But presently the
column halted behind a circle of hills, and beheld white smoke pouring
heavenward as if a fissure had opened in the earth and was giving forth
steam. And they beheld in the heavens themselves tiny, fleecy white
clouds and motionless rings, and they knew that shells were bursting and
men falling upon the slopes beyond the hills.
A frenzy of eagerness seized upon the tired feet, and they pressed
upward, lightly, like dancers’ feet. Straps creaked upon straining
breasts, and sweat ran in bubbles. Then the head of the column reached
the ridge of a hill, and its leaders saw through smarting eyes a great
horseshoe of sudden death.
XXXII
That morning Peter Manners had received a letter, but he had not had a
chance to open and read it. It was a letter that belonged next to his
heart, as he judged by the writing, and next to his heart, in a secure
pocket, he placed it, there to lie and give him strength and courage for
the cruel day’s work, and something besides the coming of night to look
forward to. For the rest, he went among the lines, and smiled like a boy
released from school to see how silently and savagely they fought.
The Sixth Corps rested wherever there was shade along the banks of Rock
Creek, and gathered strength and breath for whatever work should be
assigned to it.
Aladdin, sharing a cherry-pie with a friend, shivered with excitement,
for there was a terrific and ever-increasing discharge of cannons and
muskets on the left, and it seemed that the time to go forward again and
win glory was at hand. Presently one came riding back from the battle.
His face was shining with delight, and, sitting like a centaur to
the fiery plunges of his horse, he swung his hat and shouted. It was
Sedgwick’s chief of staff, McMahon, and he brought glorious news, for
he said that the corps was to move toward the heavy firing, where the
fighting was most severe.
Then the whole corps sprang to its feet and went forward, tearing down
the fences in its path and trampling the long grass in the fields. A
mile away the long, flowery slopes ended in a knobbed hill revealed
through smoke. That was Little Round Top, and its possession meant
victory or defeat. The corps was halted and two regiments were sent
forward up the long slope. To them the minutes seemed moments. They went
like a wave over the crest to the right of the hill, and poured down
into the valley beyond. Here the blue flood of men banked against a
stone wall, spreading to right and left, as the waters of a stream
spread the length of a dam. Then they began to fire dreadfully into the
faces of their enemy, and to curse terribly, as is proper in battle.
Bullets stung the long line like wasps, and men bit the sod.
Aladdin was ordered to ride up Little Round Top for information.
Half-way up he left his horse among the boulders and finished the
laborious ascent on foot. At the summit he came upon a leaderless
battery loading and firing like clockwork, and he saw that the rocks
were strewn with dead men in light-blue Zouave uniforms, who looked as
if they had fallen in a shower from the clouds. Many had their faces
caved in with stones, and terrible rents showed where the bayonet
had been at work, for in this battle men had fought hand to hand like
cave-dwellers. Bullets hit the rocks with stinging blows, and round
shot screamed in the air. Sometimes a dead man would be lifted from
where he lay and hurled backward, while every instant men cried hoarsely
and joined the dead. In the midst of this thunder and carnage, Aladdin
came suddenly upon Peter, smiling like a favorite at a dance, and
shouted to him. They grinned at each other, and as Aladdin grinned he
looked about to see where he could be of use, and sprang toward a gun
half of whose crew had been blasted to death by a bursting shell. The
sweat ran down his face, and already it was black with burning powder.
The flash of the guns set fire to the clothing of the dead and wounded
who lay in front, and on the recoil the iron-shod wheels broke the
bones of those lying behind. It was impossible to know how the fight was
going. It was only possible to go on fighting.
There was a voice in front of the battery that kept calling so terribly
for water that it turned cold the stomachs of those that heard. It
came from a Confederate, a general officer, who had been wounded in
the spine. Occasionally it was possible to see him through the smoke.
Sometimes a convulsion seized him, and he beat the ground with his whole
body, as a great fish that has been drawn from the water beats the deck
of a vessel. It was terrible to look at and hear. Bullets and shot tore
the ground about the man and showered him with dust and stones. Aladdin
shook his canteen and heard the swish of water. It seemed to him, and
his knees turned to water at the thought, that he must go out into that
place swept by the fire of both sides, and give relief to his enemy.
He did not want to go, and fear shook him; but he threw down the rammer
which he had been serving, and drawing breath in long gasps, took a step
forward. His resolve came too late. A blue figure slipped by him and
went down the slope at a run. It was Manners. They saw him kneel by the
dying Confederate in the bright sunlight, and then smoke swept between
like a wave of fog. The red flashes of the guns went crashing into the
smoke, and on all sides men fell. But presently there came a star-shaped
explosion in the midst of the smoke, hurling it back, and they saw
Manners again. He was staggering about with his hands over his eyes,
and blood was running through his fingers. Even as they looked, a shot
struck him in the back, and he came down. They saw his splendid square
chest heaving, and knew that he was not yet dead. Then the smoke closed
in, but this time another figure was hidden by the smoke. For no sooner
did Aladdin see Peter fall than he sprang forward like a hound from the
leash. Aladdin kneeled by Manners, and as he kneeled a bullet struck his
hat from his head, and a round shot, smashing into the rocky ground
a dozen feet away, filled his eyes with dirt and sparks. There was a
pungent smell of brimstone from the furious concussions of iron against
rock. A bullet struck the handle of Aladdin’s sword and broke it. He
unstopped his canteen and pressed the nozzle to Manners’ lips. Manners
sucked eagerly, like an infant at its mother’s breast. A bullet struck
the canteen and dashed it to pieces. The crashing of the cannon was like
close thunder, and the air sang like the strings of an instrument. But
Aladdin, so cool and collected he was, might have been the target for
praises and roses flung by beauties. He put his lips close to Peter’s
ear, and spoke loudly, for the noise of battle was deafening.
“Is it much, darlint?”
Manners turned his bleeding eyes toward Aladdin.
“Go back, you damn little fool!” he said.
“Peter, Peter,” said Aladdin, “can’t you see?”
“No, I can’t. I’m no use now. Go back; go back and give ‘em hell!”
Aladdin endeavored to raise Peter in his arms, but was not strong
enough.
“I can’t lift you, I can’t lift you,” he said.
“You can’t,” said Peter. “Bless you for coming, and go back.”
“Shut up, will you?” cried Aladdin, savagely. “Where are you hit?”
“In the back,” said Peter, “and I’m done for.”
“The hell you are!” said Aladdin. Tears hotter than blood were running
out of his eyes. “What can I do for you, Peter?” he said in a husky
voice.
Manners’ blackened fingers fumbled at the buttons of his coat, but he
had not the strength to undo them.
“It’s there, ‘Laddin,” he said.
“What’s there?” said Aladdin. He undid the coat with swift, clever
fingers.
“Let me hold it in my hands,” said Peter.
“Is it this--this letter--this letter from Margaret?” asked Aladdin,
chokingly, for he saw that the letter had not been opened.
A shower of dirt and stones fell upon them, and a shell burst with a
sharp crash above their heads.
“Yes,” said Peter. “Give it to me. I can’t ever read it now.”
“I can read it for you,” said Aladdin. He was struggling with a sob that
wanted to tear his throat.
“Will you? Will you?” cried Peter, and he smiled like a beautiful child.
“Sure I will,” said Aladdin.
With the palm of his hand he pressed back the streaming sweat from his
forehead twice and three times. Then, having wiped his hands upon his
knees, he drew the battered fragment of his sword, and using it as a
paper-knife, opened the letter carefully, as a man opens letters which
are not to be destroyed. Then his stomach turned cold and his tongue
grew thick and burred. For the letter which Margaret had written to her
lover was more cruel than the shell which had blinded his eyes and the
bullet which was taking his life.
“‘Laddin--” this in a fearful voice.
“Yes.”
“Thank God. I thought you’d been hit. Why don’t you read?”
Aladdin’s eyes, used to reading in blocks of lines rather than a word at
a time, had at one glance taken in the purport of Margaret’s letter,
and his wits had gone from him. She called herself every base and cruel
name, and she prayed her lover to forgive her, but she had never had the
right to tell him that she would marry him, for she had never loved him
in that way. She said that, God forgive her, she could not keep up the
false position any longer, and she wished she was dead.
“There’s a man at the bottom of this,” thought Aladdin. He caught a
glimpse of Peter’s poor, bloody face and choked.
“I--it--the sheets are mixed,” he said presently. “I’m trying to find
the beginning. There are eight pages,” he went on, “fighting for time,”
and they ‘re folded all wrong, and they’re not numbered or anything.”
Peter waited patiently while Aladdin fumbled with the sheets and tried,
to the cracking-point, to master the confusion in his mind.
Suddenly God sent light, and he could have laughed aloud. Not in vain
had he pursued the muse and sought after the true romance in the far
country where she sweeps her skirts beyond the fingers of men. Not in
vain had he rolled the arduous ink-pots and striven manfully for the
right word and the telling phrase. The chance had come, and the years of
preparation had not been thrown away. He knew that he was going to
make good at last. His throat cleared of itself, and the choking phlegm
disappeared as if before a hot flame of joy. His voice came from between
his trembling lips clear as a bell, and the thunder of battle rolled
back from the plain of his consciousness, as, slowly, tenderly, and
helped by God, he began to speak those eight closely lined pages which
she should have written.
“My Heart’s Darling--” he began, and there followed a molten stream of
golden and sacred words.
And the very soul of Manners shouted aloud, for the girl was speaking to
him as she had never spoken before.
XXXIII
When the fighting was over for that day, Aladdin wrote as follows to
Margaret:
MARGARET DEAR: Peter was shot down to-day, while doing more than his
duty by his enemies and by his country and by himself, which was always
his way. He will not live very long, and you must come to him if it
is in any way possible. His love for you makes other loves seem very
little, and I think it would be better that you should walk the streets
than that you should refuse to come to him now. He had a letter from
you, which God, knowing about, blinded him so that he could not read it,
and he believes that you love him and are faithful to him. It is very
merciful of God to let him believe that. He must not be undeceived now,
and you must come and be lovely to him and pretend and pretend, and make
his dying beautiful. I have the right to ask this of you, for, next to
Peter, I was the one that loved you most. And when I made you think I
didn’t I lied. I lied because I felt that I was not worthy, and I loved
you enough to want you to belong to the best man God ever made, and I
loved him too. And that was why it was. I tell you because I think you
must have wondered about it sometimes. But it was very hard to do, and
because I did it, and because Peter is what he is, you must come to him
now. If God will continue to be merciful, you will get here in time. I
hope I may be on hand to see you, but I do not know. Hamilton is gone,
and Peter is going, and there will be a terrible battle to-morrow, and
thousands of poor lads will lie on this field forever. And here, one way
or another, the war will be decided. I have not the heart to write to
you any more, my darling. You will come to Peter, I know, and all will
be as well as it can be. I pray to God that I too shall live to see you
again, and I ask him to bless you and keep you for ever and ever. Always
I see your dear face before me in the battle, and sometimes at night
God lets me dream of you. I am without dogma, sweetest of all possible
sweethearts, but this creed I say over and over, and this creed I
believe: I believe in one God, Maker of heaven and Margaret.
Angels guard you, darling.
ALADDIN.
GETTYSBURG, July 2, 1863.
XXXIV
On the morning of the third day of July, young Hannibal St. John shaved
his face clean and put himself into a new uniform. The old nth Maine was
no longer a regiment, but a name of sufficient glory. On three occasions
it had been shot to pieces, and after the third the remaining tens were
absorbed by other regiments. Hannibal’s father had obtained for him
a lieutenancy in the United States artillery, Beau Larch was second
lieutenant in another Maine regiment, and John, the old and honored
colonel of the nth, was now, like Aladdin, serving on a staff.
The battle began with a movement against Johnson on the Confederate
left, and one against Longstreet on their right.
That against Longstreet became known in history as Farnsworth’s charge,
and Aladdin saw it from the signal-station on Little Round Top.
It was a series of blue lines, whose relations to one another could not
be justly estimated, because of the wooded nature of the ground, which
ran out into open places before fences and woods that spat red fire, and
became thinner and of less extension, as if they had been made of
wax and were melting under the blaze of the July sun. In that charge
Farnsworth fell and achieved glory.
Aladdin held a field-glass to his eyes with trembling hands, and watched
the cruel mowing of the blue flowers. Sometimes he recognized a man that
he knew, and saw him die for his country. Three times he saw John St.
John in the forefront of the battle. The first time he was riding a
glorious black horse, of spirit and proportions to correspond with those
of the hero himself. The second time he was on foot, running forward
with a-halt in his stride, hatless, and carrying a great battle-flag.
Upon the top of it gleamed a gold eagle, that nodded toward the enemy.
A dozen blue-coated soldiers, straggling like the finishers in a
long-distance race, followed him with bayonets fixed. The little loose
knot of men ran across a field toward a stone wall that bounded it upon
the other side. Then white smoke burst from the wall, and they were
cut down to the last man. The smoke cleared, and Aladdin saw John lying
above the great flag which he had carried. A figure in gray leaped the
stone wall and ran out to him, stooped, and seizing the staff of the
flag in both hands, braced his hands and endeavored to draw it from
beneath the great body of the hero. But it would not come, and as he
bent closer to obtain a better hold, the back of a great clenched hand
struck him across the jaw, and he fell like a log. Other men in gray
leaped the wall and ran out. The flag came easily now, for St. John was
dead; but so was the gray brother, for his comrades raised him, and his
head hung back over his left shoulder, and they saw that his neck had
been broken like a dry stick.
Aladdin had not been sent to that place to mourn, but to gain
information. Twice and three times he wiped his eyes clear of tears, and
then he swept his faltering glass along the lines of the enemy, until,
ranged in their center, he beheld a great semicircle of a hundred and
more iron and brass cannons, and movements of troops. Then Aladdin
scrambled down from Little Round Top to report what he had seen in the
center of the Confederate lines.
At one o’clock the Confederate batteries, one hundred and fifteen pieces
in all, opened their tremendous fire upon the center of the Union lines.
Eighty cannons roared back at them with defiant thunder, and the blue
sky became hidden by smoke. Among the Union batteries horses began to
run loose, cannons to be splintered like fire-wood, and caissons to
explode. At these moments men, horses, fragments of men and horses,
stones, earth, and things living and things dead were hurled high into
the air with great blasts of flame and smoke, and it was possible to
hear miles of exultant yells from the hills opposite. But fresh cannon
were brought lumbering up at the gallop and rolled into the places of
those dismantled, shot and shell and canister and powder were rushed
forward from the reserve, and the grim, silent infantry, the great
lumbermen of Maine and Vermont, the shrill-voiced regiments from New
York, the shrewd farmers of Ohio and Massachusetts, the deliberate
Pennsylvanians, and the rest, lay closely, wherever there was shelter,
and moistened their lips, and gripped their rifles, and waited--waited.
For two hours that terrible cannonading was maintained. The men who
served the guns looked like stokers of ships, for, such was the heat,
many of them, casting away first one piece of clothing and then another,
were half naked, and black sweat glistened in streams on their chests
and backs. As sight-seers crowd in eagerly by one door of a building
where there is an exhibition, and come reluctantly out by another and go
their ways, so the reserves kept pressing to the front, and the wounded
maintained an unceasing reluctant stream to the rear.
A little before three o’clock Hannibal St. John had his right knee
smashed by the exploding of a caisson, and fell behind one of the guns
of his battery. He was so sure that he was to be killed on this day
that it had never occurred to him that he might be trivially wounded and
carried to the rear in safety. An expression of almost comical chagrin
came over his face, for life was nothing to him, and somewhere far above
the smoke a goodly welcome awaited him: that he knew. Men came with a
stretcher to carry him off, but he cursed them roundly and struggled
to his well knee. The cannon behind which he had fallen was about to be
discharged.
“Give ‘em hell!” cried Hannibal.
As he spoke, the piece was fired, and leaping back on the recoil, as a
frenzied horse that breaks its halter, one of the wheels struck him
a terrible blow on the body, breaking all the ribs on that side and
killing him instantly. His face wore a glad smile, and afterward, when
Aladdin found him and took the gold locket from his pocket, and read the
inscription written, a great wonder seized men:
July 3, 1863.
Nunc dimittis.
Te Deum laudamus.
Thus in one battle fell the three strong hostages which an old man had
given to fortune.
XXXV
Three o’clock the Union batteries were ordered to be silent, for it was
well known to those in command that presently there would be a powerful
attack by infantry, for which the cannonade was supposed to have paved
the way with death and disorder, and it was necessary that the pieces
should be kept cool in order to be in efficient condition to grapple
with and suppress this attack. Sometimes a regiment, stung to a frenzy
of courage by bullets and the death of comrades, will rise from its
trench without the volition of its officers, and go frantically forward
against overwhelming odds. A different effect of an almost identical
psychological process is patience. Men will sometimes lie as quietly
under a rain of bullets, in order to get in one effective shot at an
enemy, as cattle in the hot months will lie under a rain of water to get
cool. It was so now. The whole Union army was seized by a kind of bloody
deliberation and lay like statues of men, while, for quarter of an hour
more, the Confederates continued to thunder from their guns. Now and
again a man felt lovingly the long black tube of a cannon to see if its
temperature was falling. Others came hurrying from the rear with relays
of powder, shot, shell, and canister.
It seemed now to the Confederate leaders that the Union batteries had
been silenced, and that the time had come for Pickett, the Ney of the
South, to go forward with all his forces. Only Longstreet demurred and
protested against the charge. When Pickett asked him for the order to
advance he turned away his head sorrowfully and would not speak. Then
Pickett, that great leader of men, who was one half daring and one half
magnetism and all hero, said proudly: “I shall go forward, sir.” And
turned to his lovers.
Silence and smoke hung over Gettysburg.
Presently out of the smoke on the Confederate side came three lines of
gray a mile long. Battle-flags nodded at intervals, and swords blazed in
the sun.
Very deliberately and with pains about aiming, the Union batteries began
to hurl solid shot against the gray advance. Soon holes were bitten here
and there, and occasionally a flag went down, to be instantly snatched
up and waved defiantly. When Pickett, Pettigrew, and the splendid
brigade of Cadmus Wilcox had reached the bottom of the valley, their
organization was as unbroken as a parade. But there shell, instead of
round shot, met them, and men tasted death by fives and tens. But the
lines, drawing together, closed the spaces left by mortality, and the
flags began to approach each other. Then the gray men began to come
up the slope, and there were thousands of them. But shell yielded to
canister, and the muskets of the infantry sent out death in leaden
showers, so that the great charge began to melt like wax over heat, and
the flags hung close together like a trophy of battle in a chapel. But
still the gray men came. And now, in a storm of flame and smoke, they
reached the foremost cannons of the Union line, and planted their flags.
So much were they permitted for the glory of a lost cause. For a little,
men killed one another with the butts of guns, with bayonets, and with
stones, and then, as the overdrip of a wave broken upon an iron coast
trickles back through the stones of the beach to the ocean, so all
that was left of Pickett’s great charge trickled back down the slope,
driblets of gray, running blood. For a little while longer the firing
continued. Battle-flags were gathered, and thrown together in sheaves.
There was a little broken cheering, and to all intents and purposes the
great war was at an end.
Aladdin, broken with grief and fatigue, went picking his way among the
dead and wounded. He had lost Peter and Hannibal in that battle, and
Hamilton and John were dead; he alone remained, and it was not just. He
felt that the Great Reaper had spared the weed among the flowers, and
he was bitter against the Great Reaper. But there was one more sorrow
reserved for Aladdin, and he was to blaspheme against the God that made
him.
There was still desultory firing from both armies. As when, on the
Fourth of July, you set off a whole bunch of firecrackers, there is
at first a crackling roar, and afterward a little explosion here and a
little explosion there, so Gettysburg must have sounded to the gods in
Olympus. Thunder-clouds begotten of the intense heat rolled across
the heavens from east to west, accentuating the streaming glory of
the setting sun, and now distant thunder rumbled, with a sound as of
artillery crossing a bridge. Drops of rain fell here and there.
Aladdin heard himself called by name, “‘Laddin, ‘Laddin.”
As quickly as the brain is advertised of an insect’s sting, so quickly
did Aladdin recognize the voice and know that his brother. Jack was
calling to him. He turned, and saw a little freckled boy, in a uniform
much too big for him, trailing a large musket.
“Jack!” he cried, and rushed toward him with outstretched arms. “You
little beggar, what are you doin’ here?”
Jack grinned like one confessing to a successful theft of apples
belonging to a cross farmer. And then God saw fit to take away his life.
He dropped suddenly, and there came a rapid pool of blood where his face
had been. With his arms wrapped about the little figure that a moment
before had been so warlike and gay, Aladdin turned toward the heavens a
face of white flint.
“I believe in one God, Maker of hell!” he cried.
Thunder rumbled and rolled slowly across the battle-field from east, to
west.
“I believe in one God, Maker of hell!” cried Aladdin, “Father of
injustice and doer of hellish deeds! I believe in two damnations, the
damnation of the living and the damnation of the dead.”
He turned to the little boy in his arms, and terrible sobs shook his
body, so that it appeared as if he was vomiting. After a while he turned
his convulsed face again to the sky.
“Come down,” he cried, “come down, you--”
Far down the hill there was a puff of white smoke, and a merciful
bullet, glancing from a rock, struck Aladdin on the head with sufficient
force to stretch him senseless upon the ground.
When the news of Gettysburg reached the Northern cities, lights were
placed in every window, and horns were blown as at the coming of a new
year. Senator Hannibal St. John had lost his three boys and the hopes of
his old age in that terrible fight, but he caused his Washington house
to be illuminated from basement to garret.
And then he walked out in the streets alone, and the tears ran down his
old cheeks.
XXXVI
There had been a wedding in the hospital tent. Margaret bent over Peter
and kissed him goodby. She was in deep black, and by her side loomed a
great, dark figure, whose eyes were like caverns in the depths of which
burned coals. The great, dark man leaned heavily upon a stick, and did
not seem conscious of what was going on. The minister who had performed
the ceremony stood with averted face. Every now and then he moistened
his lips with the tip of his tongue. The wounded in neighboring cots
turned pitiful eyes upon the girl in black, for she was most lovely--and
very sad. Occasionally a throat was cleared.
“When you come, darling,” said the dying man, “there will be an end of
sorrow.”
“There will be an end of sorrow,” echoed the girl. She bent closer to
him, and kissed him again.
“It is very wonderful to have been loved,” said Peter. Then his face
became still and very beautiful. A smile, innocent like that of a little
child, lingered upon his lips, and his blind eyes closed.
St. John laid his hand upon Margaret’s shoulder.
A man, very tall and lean and homely, entered the tent. He was clad in
an exceedingly long and ill-fitting frock-coat. Upon his head was a high
black hat, somewhat the worse for wear. He turned a pair of very gentle
and pitying eyes slowly over those in the tent.
Aladdin, his head almost concealed by bandages, sat suddenly upright
in a neighboring cot. A wild, unreasoning light was in his eyes, and
marking time with his hand, he burst suddenly into the “Battle Hymn of
the Republic”
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call
retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.
He sang on, and the wounded joined him with weak voices:
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me;
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.
The tall man who had entered, to whom every death was nearer than his
own, and to whom the suffering of others was as a crucifixion, removed
the silk hat from his head, and wiped his forehead with a colored
handkerchief.
Margaret knelt by Aladdin and held his unconscious form in her arms.
Outside, the earth was bathing in exquisite sunshine.
XXXVII
It was not long before Aladdin got back the strength of his body, but
the gray bullet which had come in answer to his cry against God, even
as the lightning came to Amyas Leigh, in that romance to which it is so
good to bow, had injured the delicate mechanism of his brain, so that
it seemed as if he would go down to the grave without memory of things
past, or power upon the hour. Indeed, the war ended before the surgeons
spoke of an operation which might restore his mind. He went under the
knife a little child, his head full of pictures, playthings, and fear of
the alphabet; he came forth made over, and turned clear, wondering eyes
to the girl at his side. And he held her hand while she bridged over the
years for him in her sweet voice.
He learned that she had married Peter, making his death peaceful, and he
God-blessed her for so doing, while the tears ran down his cheeks.
But much of Aladdin that had slept so long was to wake no more. For it
was spring when he woke, and waking, he fell in love with all living
things.
One day he sat with Margaret on the porch of a familiar house, and
looked upon a familiar river that flowed silverly beyond the dark trees.
Senator St. John, very old and very moving, came heavily out of the
house, and laid his hands upon the shoulders of Margaret and Aladdin. It
was like a benediction.
“I have been thinking,” said the senator, very slowly, and in the voice
of an old man, “that God has left some flowers in my garden.”
“Roses?” said Aladdin, and he looked at Margaret.
“Roses perhaps,” said the senator, “and withal some bittersweet, but,
better than these, and more, he has left me heart’s-ease. This little
flower,” continued the senator, “is sown in times of great doubt and
sorrow and trouble, and it will grow only for a good gardener, one who
has learned to bow patiently in all things to God’s will, and to set his
feet valiantly against the stony way which God appoints. I call Margaret
‘Heart’s-ease,’ and I call you, too, ‘Heart’s-ease,’ Aladdin, for you
are becoming like a son to me in my declining years. Consider the
river, how it flows,” said the old man, “smoothly to the sea, asking no
questions, and making no lamentations against the length of its days,
and receiving cheerfully into the steadfast current of its going alike
the bitter waters and the sweet.”
We have forgotten Aladdin’s songs and the tunes which he made, for the
people’s ear is not tuned to them any more. But that is a little thing.
It is pleasant to think of that night when, the knocking of his heart
against his ribs louder than the knocking of his hand upon her door, he
carried to Margaret’s side the wonderful lamp which, years before, had
been lighted within him, and which, burning always, now high, now low,
like the rising and falling tides in the river, had at length consumed
whatever in his nature was little or base, until there was nothing
left save those precious qualities, love and charity, which fire cannot
calcine nor cold freeze. Also it is pleasant to think that little
children came of their love and sang about their everlasting fire.