FATHER, mother, Carlotta and I are standing in the dim light of dawn,
under the old shed at the depot. We lack only Lulie to be the same
party who stood there five years before, waiting for the train. How
things have changed! The little dark eyed girl that was gazing out of
the car window then is the beautiful woman who is weeping and clinging
to my arm now. Instead of mirth and cheerfulness, all around us now is
sadness and gloom. Great rough fellows are dropping their first tears,
as they strain a sobbing wife or little child to their bosom for the
twentieth time.
Delicate youths, wearing a brave face in spite of their quivering lips,
are holding in their arms fond mothers, who are putting back the hair
from their idol’s forehead, perhaps for the last time; and even those
who have no one to bid them farewell, and who are attempting to look
careless and indifferent, often lift their cuffs to their averted eyes.
We have no piles of baggage now; a plain pine box, filled with the
delicacies loving hands have made, and a roll of blankets, are all that
we check for.
How Carlotta clings to me, sobbing on my neck!
“Oh John, my husband, how can I give you up? And to think that I bade
you go! I did not know what it was to part from you. Oh, if you are
hurt, it will kill me—I know it will kill me. My God, protect him, for
thy Son’s sake!”
I kissed her again and again, and told her to look on the bright side;
I reminded her of our duty to our country, and spoke of war as a field
of honor, not of danger. But the agony of our separation was too
close at hand, and my own heart too near breaking to reason her into
composure and fortitude, and I gave way to my own grief, and mingled my
tears with hers.
A whistle now sounded far across the river, then, with the roar of
the approaching train, rose the thrilling cheers of its gallant
freight. And soon the ferry boat, dimly seen through the mists, her
very bulwarks crowded with men in gray, strikes out into the stream,
and in brazen cadences the glorious strains of Dixie float across the
smoky waters. Nearer and nearer comes the cheering, louder and louder
swells the music, and in the red light of the rising sun gleams the
Stars and Bars. As they neared the wharf father said: “Come, John, we
must get our seats before the crowd comes in. Mary! God bless you, good
bye. Good bye, Carlotta, my daughter!” and he walked with a firm step
up the platform into the car. A mother’s kiss and tearful benison, a
sobbing scream and a convulsive clasp of my darling’s arms, and I took
my place in the train. Bowing my head on my hands I scarce heard the
murmur of voices, the ringing of bells, or the quick thrang of the
kettle drum, as the regiment from the boat formed and marched to the
coaches assigned them. As the long train jerked forward I thrust my
head out of the window and caught sight of our carriage and its two
weeping occupants. They saw me at the same instant, and, with their
handkerchiefs, waved farewell What an acme of agony in that last view!
We had reached Goldsboro before I had recovered my spirits, and I was
gazing thoughtfully out of the window as we ground our way slowly under
the shed, when a rough hand was laid upon my shoulder, and looking up I
recognized Ben. He was the same awkward looking specimen of humanity,
clad in a suit of copperas striped homespun. Instead of the old flapped
hat he now wore an oilskin cap, which he had purchased that morning,
and which still had the price card stuck on the brim. His hair was
still long and sandy, though a trifle darker than when we went fishing
together; his upper lip, with the scar across it, was covered with
a soft yellowish fuzz, that told of an incipient moustache, and his
chin was covered with stiff wiry little curls, that looked like the
vegetation of freckle seed. Rough and uncouth as was his appearance,
I felt, as I grasped his hand, that it was as full of nerve as
Virginius’, and that the old brown suit would always be the first hid
in the smoke of battle.
“I am glad, indeed, to have you with us, Ben,” said father, as they
shook hands, “John here is a gloomy companion. He has hardly spoken to
me since we left Wilmington.”
“Well, I tell you, curnell,” said Ben, laying a bag full of biscuit on
the seat in front of him, “it streaked my gizzard powerful to leave
Viny and the baby, and when I went to kiss the little varmint farwell
the tears run round my eyes like rain in a gourd bloom; but I couldn’t
make up my mind to sneak at home, and let somebody else git shot for my
folks.”
“You have expressed your patriotism very pointedly,” said father,
clearing his throat to deliver his favorite speech on States’ rights.
“Our fair and sunny land is threatened with invasion by the Vandals
of the North, and it becomes every man’s duty to resist them. We are
clearly on the side of right. The original compact of the thirteen
States was, most evidently, no surrender of sovereignty. Each State
retained its own laws, and was only sufficiently amenable to the
general Government to preserve unity. The very investiture of each
State with the right to change its laws, to execute criminals, and to
regulate its own elections, proves its sovereign independence. Do you
not think so?”
“I don’ know much ‘bout politicks,” said Ben, looking somewhat
flattered that father should have asked his opinion on so deep a
subject, “but seems to me that States is folks, and folks is sholy got
the right to undo what they done therselves.”
As I had heard these old arguments, differently dished, in every
conversation or debate since the first of January, I was much relieved
by more troops getting on board at the next depot, and crowding father
and Ben out of their talk.
We passed Weldon in the evening, through Petersburg in the night, and
were in regular camp the next day. Then war began in earnest; our
lines were formed in front of cannon instead of carriages; instead of
a flower-wreathed target a man in blue stood in front of our guns, and
our bayonets now were sometimes red when we unfixed them.
But do not fear, patient reader, that I am going to inflict a long
series of war incidents upon you. You have heard and read all that I
could tell a dozen times; and though no pen has yet arisen to blazon
North Carolina’s deeds, I will only point to the battle record of the
South, and resting her fame on the glorious valor of her sons, pass
on, with only one chapter of letters, to the close of our struggle,
when the banner we had borne through four years of shot and shell was
furled, and the land we had bled for—conquered!