THE AFTERMATH.
There were not so many millions of Americans in 1861 as there are
to-day. But they were more American then than they are now. That is, the
Old World had not sent the millions to our shores that now people the
waste places of the West. It was not until after the civil war that
those prodigious hosts came--enough to make the populace of such empires
as fill the largest space in history. That part of the land that loved
the flag cherished it with a fervor deeper than the half-alien race that
first flung it to the breeze under Washington. They loved the republic
with something of that passionate idolatry that made the Greek's ideal
joy--death for the fatherland; some of that burning zeal and godlike
pride that made the earlier Roman esteem his citizenship more precious
than a foreign crown. But until the battle on that awful 21st of July
proved the war real--with the added horror of civil hate--Secretary
Seward's epigram of ninety days clung fast in the public mind.
Up to Bull Run there was a vague feeling that our army, in proper time,
would march down upon the rebels like the hosts of Joshua, and scatter
them and the rebellion to uttermost destruction in one action. It was
upon this assumption that the journals of the North satirized, abused,
vilified Scott, and clamored day by day for an "advance upon Richmond."
The damnation of public clamor, and not the incompetency of the general,
set the inchoate armies of Scott upon that fatal adventure. But that
humiliating, incredible, and for years misunderstood Sunday, on the
plateaus of Manassas, where, after all, blundering and imbecility
brought disaster, but not shame, upon the devoted soldiery, aroused the
sense of the North to the reality of war, as the overthrow at Jemmapes
in 1793 convinced the Prussian oligarchy that the republic in France
was a fact.
It was a dreadful Monday in the North when the first hideous bulletins
were sent broadcast through the cities and carried by couriers into
every hamlet. For hours--sickening hours--it was not believed. We have
awakened many a morning since 1861 to hear of thrones overturned, armies
vanquished, dynasties obliterated; to hear of great men gone by sudden
and cruel death: but the anger and despair when Booth's cruel work was
known; the shuddering horror over Garfield's taking off; the amazement
when the hand of Nihilism laid an emperor dead; the overthrow of Austria
in a single day; the extinction of the Bonapartes--these things were
heard and digested with something like repose compared to the
bewildering outbreak that met the destruction of our army at Manassas.
It was not the dazed, panic-stricken, panic anguish that followed
Fredericksburg or the second Bull Run. It was not the indignant, fretful
wrath that rebuked official culpability for the destruction of the grand
campaign on the Peninsula. It was a startled, incredulous, angry
amazement, in which blame afterward visited upon generals or Cabinet,
was humbly taken on the people's shoulders and echoed in a moaning _mea
culpa_. For days all the people were close kin. In the streets strangers
talked to strangers; the pulpit echoed the inextinguishable wrath of the
streets; the journals, for a moment restrained into solemnity, echoed
for once the real voice of an elevated humanity and not the drivel of
partisanship nor the ulterior purposes of wealth and sham. Even
schoolboys, arrested in the merry-making of youth, looked in wonder at
the sudden reversal of conditions. Boys well remember in the school that
Monday, when the northern heavens were hung in black and grief wrung its
crystal tresses in the air, the master began the work of the day with a
brief, pathetic review of the public agony, and dismissed the classes
that he was too agitated to instruct. There were no games on the
greensward, no swimming in the river, no excursion to the Malvern cherry
groves. The streets were filled with blank faces and whispering crowds
unable to endure the restraint of routine or the ordinary callings of
life. Parties were obliterated, or rather from the flux of this white
heat, came out in solidified unity that compact of parties which for
four years breathed the breath of the nation's life, spoke the purposes
of the republic, and amid stupendous reverses and triumphs held the
public conscience clear in its sublime duty. The woes of bereavement
were not wide-spread; the killed at Manassas were hardly more than we
read of now in a disaster at sea or a catastrophe in the mines. The
whole army engaged hardly outnumbered the slaughtered at Antietam,
Gettysburg, or Burnside's butchery at St. Mary's Hill.
Hence the marvel of the instant fusion, the swift resolve of the
Northern mind. The battle was the sudden grapple of aggressive
weakness--catching the half-contemptuous strong man unaware and rolling
him in the dust. Brought to earth by this unlooked-for blow, the North
arose with renewed force and the deathless determination that could have
but one issue. The people, when the benumbing force of the surprise was
mastered, flew together with one mind, one voice, one impulse. The
churches, the public halls, the street corners, moving trains, and
rushing steamers, were such hustings as the Athenian improvised in the
porticoes, when her orators inflamed the heart of Greece to repel the
barbarians, to die with Leonidas in the gorges of the Thermopylae.
Ah, what an imposing spectacle it was! The blood of wrath leaped
fiercely in the chilled veins of age; the ardor of youth became the
delirium of the Crusaders, the lofty zeal of the Puritans, the
chivalrous daring of Rupert's troopers, and the Dutch devotees of
Orange. A half-million men had been called out; a million were waiting
in passionate eagerness within a month; two hundred and fifty millions
of money had been voted--ten times that amount was offered in a day.
Every interest in life became suddenly centered in one duty--war. It
touched the heart of the whole people, and for the time they arose,
purified, contrite, as the armies of Moses under the chastening of
the rod.
In Acredale there were sore hearts as the dreadful news became more and
more definite. For days the death lists were mere guess-work; but when
the routed forces returned to their camps in Washington the awful gaps
in the ranks were ascertained with certainty. The Caribees were nearly
obliterated. Of the thousand men and over who had marched from Meridian
Hill only four hundred were found ten days after the battle. Elisha
Boone had hurried at once to Washington, charged by all the fathers,
mothers, brothers, and sisters of the regiment to make swift report of
the absent darlings. Kate was besieged in the grand house with tearful
watchers, waiting in agonizing impatience for the fatal finality.
Olympia, to spare her mother the distress of the vague responses her
telegrams brought from Washington, spent most of the time at the
Boones', where, thanks to the father's high standing with the
Administration, the earliest, most accurate information came. Finally he
wrote. He had seen Nick Marsh, who gave the first coherent narrative of
Jack, Barney, and Dick Perley. They had been seen--the first two in the
last desperate conflict. An officer (the hero whom Jack had so much
admired, and who turned out to be Gouverneur K. Warren) had escaped from
the forlorn hope left to dispute the rebel charge upon the flying
columns. He gave particulars that pointed with heart-breaking certainty
to the death of the two boys. Young Perley had been lost sight of since
noon of the battle. He had followed the path taken by Jack and his
comrades across the flank of the enemy. He had been seen at
Heintzelman's headquarters, but after that no one could trace him.
Wesley, too, had been left near the stone bridge with a ball in either
his arm or thigh, the informant was not quite sure which, as he fell in
a charge of the line. Boone telegraphed to Kate that he was going
through the lines with a flag of truce so soon as the affair could be
regulated, and proffered his best offices for the Acredale victims.
Everything had been prepared by Olympia and her mother for an instant
departure so soon as positive information came. With them Marcia Perley
went, trembling and tearful, and Telemachus Twigg, to extricate his son
from danger, for it was uncertain what his status was in the forces.
Kate, too, joined the melancholy pilgrimage that set out one morning
followed to the station by weeping kinsmen imploring the good offices of
these ambassadors of woe. The sleeping-car gave the miserable company
seclusion, if not rest. They were not the only ones in quest of the
missing, for as yet there was no certainty as to the fate of those left
on the field of battle. Later reports had been more encouraging, for
hundreds who were set down as prisoners or missing began to be heard
from as far northward as the Maryland line. In the station at Washington
Boone met his daughter. Twigg hurried to him and asked:
"Any further news, Mr. Boone? We're all here--about half Acredale."
"Yes, I see; but there is no more news of the Caribees. We learn that
the wounded have been sent to Richmond, and I shall set out for there
to-morrow."
Mrs. Sprague, with Olympia and Merry, drove to the house of a friend
she had known years before, whose husband was a Senator. The Boones--or
rather Kate--bade them a cordial adieu as they drove off to the
National Hotel.
Then the most trying part of the quest began. The War Department was
besieged with applicants, mostly women. Orders had been issued to forbid
all crossing the lines, and the despairing kinsfolk of the lost were in
a panic of impatient terror. In vain Olympia called upon eminent
Senators who had been friends of her father; in vain she invoked the aid
of the Secretary of State, who had been the family's guest at Acredale.
Once she penetrated, by the aid of strong letters, to the Secretary of
War. He was surrounded by a hurried throng of orderlies, officers, and
clerks, and even after she had been admitted to his office Olympia was
left unnoticed on a settee, waiting some sign to approach the dreaded
presence. His imperious and abrupt manner, his alternation of
deferential concern for some and disdainful impatience for others, gave
her small hope that he would heed her prayer. She waited hours, sitting
in the crowded room, ill from the oppressive air, the fixed stare of the
officers, and the sobbing of others like herself waiting a word with the
autocrat. At length, late in the afternoon, when the crowd had quite
gone, she heard the Secretary say in an undertone:
"Send an orderly to those women and see what they want."
Each of the waiting women handed credentials to the young man, and each
in turn arose trembling and stood before the decisive official at the
great, paper-strewn desk. There was no attempt to soften the refusal, as
he turned curtly from the pleaders; and Olympia, shrinking from the
ordeal, was about to step out of the room, when a tall, care-worn man
shambled in, glancing pityingly at her as she arose, half trembling,
recognizing the President.
She stepped in front of him in a desperate impulse, and, throwing up her
veil, cried piteously:
"O Mr. Lincoln, you are a father, you have a tender heart; you will
listen to the bereaved!" He stopped, looking at her kindly, and put his
left arm wearily on the desk by his side.
"Yes, my poor girl, I am a father and have a heart; the more's the pity,
for just now something else is needed in its place. I suppose your
father is over yonder," and he nodded toward the Virginia shore.
"O Mr. Lincoln, my father is farther away than that. My father was
Senator Sprague--you served with him in Congress--I--I--thought that
perhaps you might take pity on his widow, his daughter, his son, if the
poor boy is still living, and--and--"
"Send you across the lines?"
"Oh, if God would put it in your heart!"
"It's in my heart fast enough, my poor child, but--"
"Impossible, Mr. President! The enemy, as it is, can open a Sabine
campaign on us, and tie our hands by stretching Northern women out in a
line of battle between the ranks!"
It was the weary, discouraging voice of the Secretary, imperiously
implying that the Executive must not interpose weakness and mercy where
Draconian rigor sat enthroned. The President smiled sadly.
"Ah, Mr. Secretary, a sister--a mother--give a great deal for the
country. We can not err much in granting their prayer. Make out an
order--for whom?"
Olympia, speechless with gratitude reverence could hardly articulate:
"My mother, myself, and Miss Marcia Perley."
"Another mother?"
"Her boy is not of age, and ran away to join my brother's company." She
had a woman's presence of mind to answer with this diplomatic evasion.
"I'm afraid you will only add to your distress, my poor child; but you
shall go." He inclined his head benignantly and passed into the inner
sanctuary behind the rail, when Olympia heard the Secretary say, grimly:
"I shall take measures to stop this sort of thing, Mr. President.
Hereafter you shall only come to this department at certain hours. At
all other times the doors shall be guarded."
A gray-haired man in undress uniform presently appeared, and as he
handed Olympia the large official envelope he said, respectfully:
"You never heard of me, Miss Sprague? Many years ago the Senator, your
father, did a kind turn for my brother--an employé in the Treasury. If
I can be of any aid to you in this painful business, pray give me a
chance to show a kindness to the family of a great and good man. My name
is Charles Bevan, and it is signed to one of the papers in this letter."
Within an hour all was ready, but they could not set out until the next
morning, when, by eight o'clock, the three ladies were _en route_. There
was a large company with them, all under a flag of truce. They passed
through the long lines of soldiery that lay intrenched on the Virginia
side of the Potomac, and pushed on to Annandale, where the rebel outpost
received them. Olympia's eyes dwelt on the wide-stretching lands of pine
and oak, remembering the pictures Jack had given in his letters of this
very same route. But there were few signs of war. The cleared places lay
red and baking under the hot August sun; the trees seemed crisp
and sapless.
At Fairfax Court-House, where the first signs of real warlike tenure
were seen, the visitors were taken into a low frame house, and each in
turn asked to explain the objects of her mission. Then the hospital
reports were searched. In half a dozen or more instances the sad-eyed
mothers were thrown into tremulous hope by the tidings of their
darlings' whereabouts. But for Olympia and Aunt Merry there was no clew.
No such names as Sprague or Perley were recorded in the fateful pages of
the hospital corps. But there were several badly wounded in the hospital
at Manassas, where fuller particulars were accessible.
They were conducted very politely by a young lieutenant in a shabby gray
uniform to an ambulance and driven four miles southward to Fairfax
Station on the railway, when, after despairing hours of waiting, they
were taken by train to Manassas. An orderly accompanied them, and as the
train passed beyond Union Mills, where the Bull Run River runs along the
railway a mile or more before crossing under it, the young soldier
pointed out the distant plateau, near the famous stone bridge, and, when
the train crossed the river, the high bluffs, a half-mile to the
northward, where the action had begun at Blackburn's Ford. He was very
respectful and gentle in alluding to the battle, and said, ingenuously,
pointing to the plateau jutting out from the Bull Run Mountains:
"At two o'clock on Sunday we would have cried quits to McDowell to hold
his ground and let us alone. But just as we were on our heel to turn,
Joe Johnston came piling in here, right where you see that gully yonder,
with ten thousand fresh men, and in twenty minutes we were three to one,
and then your folks had the worst of it. President Davis got off the
train at the junction yonder, and as he rode across this field, where we
are now, the woods yonder were full of our men, flying from the Henry
House Hill, where Sherman had cut General Bee's brigade to pieces and
was routing Jackson--'Stonewall,' we call him now, because General
Bonham, when he brought up the reserves, shouted, 'See, there, where
Jackson stands like a stone wall!' He's a college professor and very
pious; he makes his men pray before fighting, and has 'meetings' in the
commissary tent twice a week."
"Did Mr. Davis join in the battle?" Olympia asked, more to seem
interested in the garrulous warrior's narrative than because she really
had her mind on the story.
"Oh, dear, no. Old Johnston had finished the job before the President
(Olympia noticed that all Southerners dwelt upon this title with
complacent insistence) could reach the field. He was barely in time to
see the cavalry of 'Jeb' Stuart charge the regulars on the
Warrenton road."
The train came to a halt, and the young man said, cheerfully:
"Here we are. The hospital's still right smart over yonder in the
trees."
"But you will go with us, will you not?" Olympia asked in alarm, for it
was wearing toward night.
"Oh, yes; I'm detailed to remain with you until you have found out about
your kinsfolk."
In the mellow sunset the three women followed the orderly across the
fields strewed with armaments, supplies, and the rough depot
paraphernalia of an army at rest. The hospital consisted of a large tent
for the slightly hurt, and a few old buildings and a barn for the more
serious cases. The search was futile. There were two or three of the
Caribees in the place, but they knew nothing of their missing comrades.
Indeed, Jack's detail by Colonel Sherman had effectually cut off all
trace of his movements after the battle began.
Mrs. Sprague's tears were falling softly as the orderly led them to the
surgeon's office. They were there shown the records of all who had been
buried on the field. Many, he informed them, sympathetically, had been
buried where they fell, in great ditches dug by the sappers. In every
case the garments had been stripped from the bodies before burial, so
that there was absolutely no means of identification. Most of the
wounded had, however, been sent to Richmond with the prisoners. "It
would not do," he added, kindly, "to give up all hope of the lost ones,
until they had seen the roster of the prisoners and the wounded in the
Richmond prisons and hospitals."
Quarters were given to them in a tent put at their disposal by the
surgeons, and in the long, wakeful hours of the night Olympia heard the
guard pacing monotonously before the door. The music of the bugles
aroused them at sunrise--a wan, haggard group, sad-eyed and silent. The
girl made desperate efforts to cheer the wretched mother, and even
privily took Merry to task for giving way before what was as yet but a
shadow. 'Twould be time enough for tears when they found evidence that
the stout, vigorous boys had been killed. As they finished the very
plain breakfast of half-baked bread, pea-coffee, and eggs, bought by the
orderly at an exorbitant rate, he said, good-naturedly:
"The train don't come till about ten o'clock. If you'd like to see the
battle-field, I can get the ambulance and take you over."
Olympia eagerly assented--anything was preferable to this mute misery of
her mother and Merry's sepulchral struggles to be conversational and
tearless. They drove through bewildering numbers of tents, most of them,
Olympia's sharp eyes noted, marked "U.S.A.," and she reflected, almost
angrily, that the chief part of war, after all, was pillage. The men
looked shabby, and the uniforms were as varied as a carnival, though by
no means so gay. Whenever they crossed a stream, which was not seldom,
groups of men were standing in the water to their middle, washing their
clothing, very much as Olympia had seen the washer-women on the
Continent, in Europe. They were very merry, even boisterous in this
unaccustomed work, responding to rough jests by resounding slashes of
the tightly wrung garments upon the heads or backs of the unwary wags.
"Why, there must be a million men here," Merry cried, as the tents
stretched for miles, as far as she could see.
"No; not quite a million, I reckon," the orderly said, proudly; "but we
shall have a million when we march on Washington."
"March on Washington!" Merry gasped, as though it was an official order
she had just heard promulgated. "But--but we aren't ready yet. We--"
Then she halted in dismay. Was she giving information to the enemy?
Would they instantly make use of it? Ah! she must, at any cost, undo
this fatal treason, big with disaster to the republic. "I mean we are
not ready yet to put our many million men on the march."
The orderly laughed. "I reckon your many million will be ready as soon
as our one million. You know we have a big country to cover with them.
You folks have only Washington to guard and Richmond to take. We have
the Mississippi and fifteen hundred miles of coast to guard. Now, this
corner is Newmarket, where Johnston waited for his troops on Sunday and
led them right along the road we are on--to the pine wood yonder--just
north of us. We won't go through there, because we ain't making a flank
movement," and he laughed pleasantly. They drove on at a rapid rate as
they came upon the southern shelf of the Manassas plateau.
"This," the orderly said, pointing to a small stone building in a bare
and ragged waste of trees, shrubs, and ruined implements of war, "is the
Henry House--what is left of it--the key of our position when Jackson
formed his stone wall facing toward the northwest, over there where your
folks very cleverly flanked us and waited an hour or two, Heaven only
knows what for, unless it was to give us time to bring up our
re-enforcements. Your officers lay the blame on Burnside and Hunter,
who, they declare, just sat still half the day, while Sherman got in
behind us and would have captured every man Jack of our fellows, if
Johnston hadn't come up, where I showed you, in the very nick of time."
The women were looking eagerly at the field of death. It was still as on
the day of the battle, save that instead of the thousands of beating
hearts, the flaunting flags, and roaring guns, there were countless
ridges torn in the sod, as if a plow had run through at random, limbs
and trees torn down and whirled across each other, broken wheels, musket
stocks and barrels, twisted and sticking, gaunt and eloquent, in the
tough, grassy fiber of the earth.
"In this circle of a mile and a half fifty thousand men pelted each
other from two o'clock that Sunday morning until four in the afternoon.
Up to two o'clock we were on the defensive. We were driven from the
broad, smooth road yonder that you see cutting through the trees,
northward a mile from here. Jackson alone made a stand; if it hadn't
been for him we should have been prisoners in Washington now, I reckon.
You see those men at work? They are picking up lead. We reckon that it
takes a ton of lead to kill a man."
"A ton of lead?" Olympia repeated.
"Yes. You wouldn't believe that thousands of men can stand in front of
each other a whole day and pour lead into each other's faces, and not
one in fifty is hit?"
"Ah!" Olympia commented, thinking that, after all, Jack might not have
been hit.
"These are the trenches of the dead. Our dead are not here. They were
all taken and sent to friends. There are five hundred of your dead here
and near the stone bridge yonder. We lost three hundred killed in
the fight."
"And are there no other marks than this plain board?" Olympia pointed to
a rough pine plank, sticking loosely in the ground, with the words
painted in lampblack: "85 Yanks. By the Hospital Corps, Bee's Brigade."
"That's all. They were all stripped--no means of identifying them. The
sun was very hot; the rain next day made the bodies rot, and the men had
to just shovel them in--" "Oh, oh! don't, pray don't!" Olympia cried, as
her mother tottered against the ambulance.
"I ask your pardon, ladies; I forgot that these are not things for
ladies to hear." He spoke in sincere contrition.
To relieve him Olympia smiled sadly, saying, "Won't you take us back,
please?"
The ambulance drove on into the Warrenton pike, and, if Olympia had
known it, within a stone's-throw of Jack's last effort, where the
cavalry picket came upon him. It was noon when they reached the station.
The orderly returned the ambulance to the hospital, brought down the
luggage, and the three women made a luncheon of fruit and dry bread,
declining the orderly's invitation to eat at the hospital. The train
came on three hours late. It was filled with military men, most of them
officers; but so soon as the orderly entered the rear coach, ushering in
his charges, two or three young men with official insignia on their
collars arose with alacrity and begged the ladies to take the vacant
places. At Bristow Station many of the officers got out and a number of
civilians entered from the coach ahead and took their places. Mrs.
Sprague, worn out by the fatigue of the journey and the strain upon her
mind, quite broke down in the hot, ill-ventilated car. There was no
water to be had, and Olympia turned inquiringly to the person opposite
her, asking:
"Could we possibly get any water--my mother is very much overcome?"
"Certainly, madam. There must be plenty of canteens on the train. I will
bring you some in a moment."
An officer who had been sharing the seat with Merry arose on hearing
this and said, kindly:
"Madam, if you will make use of your seat as a couch, perhaps your
mother will feel more comfortable reclining. I will get a seat
elsewhere."
Olympia was too much distressed to think of acknowledging this courteous
action, but Merry spoke up timidly:
"We are most grateful to you, sir."
"Oh, don't mention it. Are you going far?" "Yes, we're going to
Richmond, to--to find our boys, lost in the battle two weeks ago."
"Oh, you're from the North." He was a young man, perhaps thirty,
evidently proud of his unsoiled uniform and the glittering insignia of
rank on the sleeve and collar.
"Yes, sir; we're from Acredale, near Warchester," Merry said, as though
Acredale must be known even in this remote place, and that the knowing
of it would bring a certain consideration to the travelers.
"Oh, yes, Warchester. I fell in with an officer from there after the
battle, a Captain Boone. Do you know him?"
"Oh, dear me, yes. He is from Acredale. He is captain of Company K of
the Caribee Regiment--"
"Caribee? Why, yes. I remember that name. We got their flags and sent
them to Richmond; we--"
"And, oh, sir, did you take the prisoners? I mean the Caribees--were
there many? Oh, dear sir, it is among them our boys were; they were
mere boys."
"Yes, ma'am, there were a good smart lot of them, and as you say all
very young. Boone himself can't be twenty-five."
"And are they treated well? Do they have care? Of course you did not ask
any of their names?" Merry asked eagerly, comforted to be able to talk
with some one who knew of the Caribees, for heretofore, of the scores
they had questioned, no one had ever heard of the regiment.
"Oh, as to that, ma'am, you know a soldier's life is hard, and a
prisoner's is a good deal harder. Most of your men are in Castle
Thunder--a large tobacco warehouse." He hesitated, and looked furtively
at Olympia administering water to her mother. "Perhaps," he said,
heartily, "if you would put a drop of whisky in the cup it would brace
up your mother's nerves. We find it a good friend down here, when it
isn't an enemy," he added, smiling as Olympia looked at the proffered
flask hesitatingly.
"I assure you, madam," (Southerners, in the old time at least, imitated
the pleasant continental custom of addressing all women by this
comprehensive term), "you will be the better for a sip yourself. It was
upon that we did most of our fighting the other day, and it is a mighty
good brace-up, I assure you."
But Olympia shook her head, smiling. Her mother had taken a fair dose,
and was, as she owned, greatly benefited by it. The young man sat on the
arm of the opposite seat, anxious to continue the conversation, but
divided in mind. Merry was trying to hide her tears, and kept her head
obstinately toward the window. Olympia, with her mother's head pillowed
on her lap, strove to fan a current of air into circulation. She gave
the young man a reassuring glance, and he resumed his seat in front of
her, beside the distracted Merry.
"You are from Richmond?" Olympia asked as he sat puzzling for a pretext
to renew the talk with her.
"Oh, no; I am from Wilmington, but I have kinsfolk in Richmond, I am on
General Beauregard's staff. My name is Ballman--Captain Ballman."
She vaguely remembered that Vincent Atterbury was on staff duty. Perhaps
this young man knew him.
"Do you know a Mr. Atterbury in--in your army?" she asked, blushing
foolishly.
"Atterbury--Atterbury--why, yes! I know there is such a man. He is in
General Jackson's forces--whether on the staff or not I can't say. Stay.
I saw his name in _The Whig_ this very day." He took out the paper and
glanced down the columns. "Ah, yes; is this the man?" And he read:
"Major Vincent Atterbury, whose wounds were at first pronounced serious,
is now at his mother's country-house on the river. He is doing
excellently, and all fears have been removed."
"Yes, that is he. We know him quite well." And she turned her head
window-ward, with a feeling of confidence in the mission, heretofore so
blank and wild. Vincent would aid them. He could bring official
intervention to bear, without which Jack might, even though alive and
well, be hidden from them. She whispered this confidence to her mother
as the train jolted along noisily over the rough road, and, a good deal
inspired by it, Mrs. Sprague began to take something like interest in
the melancholy country that flew past the window, as if seeking a place
to hide its bareness in the blue line of uplands that marked the
receding mountain spurs.
The captain was much more potential in providing a supper at the evening
station than the orderly, who was looked upon with some suspicion when
he told the story of his _protégés_. The zeal of the new Confederates
did not extend to aiding the enemy, even though weak women and within
the Confederate lines. It was nearly morning when the train finally drew
up in the Richmond station, and the captain, with many protestations of
being at their service, gave them his army address, and, relinquishing
them to the orderly, withdrew. It had been decided that the party should
not attempt to find quarters in the hotels, which their escort declared
were crowded by the government and the thousands of curious flocking to
the city since the battle.
He could, however, he thought, get them plain accommodations with an
aunt, who lived a little from the center of the town. They were forced
to walk thither, no conveyance being obtainable. After a long delay they
were admitted, the widow explaining that she had been a good deal
troubled by marauding volunteers. The orderly explained the situation to
his kinswoman, and without parley the three ladies were shown into two
plain rooms adjoining. They were very prim and clean; the morning air
came through the open windows, bearing an almost stupefying odor. It may
have been the narcotic influence of the flowers that brought sleep to
the three women, for in ten minutes they were at rest as tranquilly as
if in the security of Acredale.