THE GREAT TRAGEDY
But Bob Bannister was not killed at Five Forks, nor did he die of his
wounds. A fragment of a bursting shell had struck his head, torn loose
the scalp, laid bare the skull, felled him with a crash, and left
him insensible for hours. He did not know when he was carried from
the field; but, later on, he realized that he was being jolted over
rough roads, that somewhere there was a great pain of which he was
dimly conscious, and that now and then a cup of water was placed most
refreshingly to his parched lips. When he did come fully to himself it
was the day after the battle, and he was in the army hospital at City
Point, one of the hundreds of occupants of the long rows of cots that
lined the walls. His head was swathed in bandages, a blinding pain
shot back and forth across his eyes, and in his mouth was still that
insatiable thirst. On the cot beside him lay his father, who had also
been ordered by the field surgeon to the hospital at City Point. Those
minié balls made ugly wounds, as thousands of veterans of both armies
can testify, and Rhett Bannister certainly needed surgical skill and
careful nursing. But the surgeon who sent him to City Point, and who
knew and loved both him and his son, had a deeper thought in mind.
That wound of Bob’s, under certain conditions, might suddenly lead to
something very grave, and--well, it was a good idea for the boy to
have his father at his side. But, for stalwart manhood and clean and
vigorous youth, wounds yield readily to proper treatment, and, before
many days had passed, both father and son were well on the road to
recovery.
Then, one morning, a strange thing happened, and, to Bob Bannister, as
he thought of it in after years, the most beautiful thing that ever
entered into his life. Into the far, south door of the hospital tent,
accompanied only by a member of his staff and an assistant surgeon,
came Abraham Lincoln.
A whisper ran down the rows of cots that the President was there, and
every man who could do so, rose to his feet, or sat up in bed, and
saluted as “Father Abraham” passed by. At many a cot he stopped to give
greeting to maimed and helpless veterans of the war, to speak words of
encouragement to the sick and wounded boys who had fought and suffered
that the common cause might triumph, to bend over the prostrate form of
some poor wreck tossed up from the awful whirlpool of battle. Soldiers
who lived never forgot the benediction of his presence that beautiful
day, and more than one fell into his last sleep with the vision of the
fatherly and sympathetic face of the beloved President before his dim
and closing eyes.
They came to the ward where lay the sick and wounded Southern prisoners.
“You won’t want to go in there, Mr. President,” said the young surgeon
who was escorting him, “those are only rebels in there.”
The President turned and laid his large hand gently on the shoulder of
his escort, and looked serenely and earnestly into his eyes.
“You mean,” he said, “that they are Confederates. I want to see them.”
And so, into the Confederate wards he went, greeting every sufferer as
he passed, asking after their wants, bringing to all of them good cheer
and hopefulness and helpfulness as he passed by. One boy of seventeen
said to him:--
“My father knew you, Mr. Lincoln, before the war. He was killed at
Chantilly. He said to me once: ‘Whatever happens, don’t you ever
believe Abraham Lincoln guilty of harshness or cruelty.’ I am so glad
to have told you that, Mr. Lincoln, before I die.”
And Lincoln, as he pushed back the damp hair from the boy’s forehead,
and inquired the father’s name, and saw the death pallor already
stealing into the young face, said:--
“Thank you, my son. If I know my own heart, there has never been
harshness or cruelty in it; there is no malice or bitterness in it
to-day. I sympathize with you. I sympathize with all of you--” he
lifted his head and looked around on the rapt faces turned toward
him--“the more because your cause is a lost cause, because you are
suffering also the bitterness of defeat. And yet I feel that, under
God, this very defeat will prove the salvation of your beloved South.”
And so he passed on. When he came to the cot where Rhett Bannister was
lying, he gave him a word of simple greeting and would have gone by had
not something in the man’s face attracted his attention and caused him
to stop.
“Have I ever seen you before?” he inquired.
“Yes, Mr. President. I am Rhett Bannister from Pennsylvania. I spent
a half-hour with you one morning in the Secretary’s room in the
War Department, in the fall of ’63. I was an escaped conscript that
morning.”
A smile of recognition lit up the face of the President, and his
gnarled hand grasped the hand of the wounded man.
“I remember,” he said. “I remember very well. And have you been in the
service ever since?”
Some one across the aisle, who had heard the conversation, replied that
time for Bannister.
“Yes, Mr. President, he has. And he’s been the bravest and the best
soldier in the ranks, bar none. I’m the adjutant of his battalion, and
I know.”
“Good!” exclaimed the President. “Oh, that’s very good. I felt that
we’d make a good soldier of him in the end. And, let’s see! There was a
boy whose place you took. The boy went home.”
“No, Mr. President, he wouldn’t go, so we both stayed.”
“The boy wouldn’t go home? What became of him?”
“He’s here, Mr. President, on the next cot. We were both clipped at
Five Forks.”
The President turned half round and looked incredulously on the pale
face of the youth at his side. Then he took the boy’s two hands in both
of his, and bent over him. There was no grace in the movement, there
was no beauty of face or smoothness of diction to add charm to the
incident; but Bob Bannister will remember to his last hour on earth how
the great War President leaned over him and spoke.
“My boy, of such stuff are patriots and heroes made.”
Then, glancing at the wall where Bob’s frayed and dusty coat hung at
the head of his cot, with the shoulder-straps of a first lieutenant
half showing, he said, inquiringly:--
“That coat’s not yours?”
“It is mine, Mr. President.”
Lincoln looked down again at the boyish face beneath him.
“It’s hard to believe,” he said.
And then the adjutant across the aisle spoke up for the second time.
“It’s quite true, Mr. President. And he has splendidly earned every
step of his promotion.”
Still holding the boy’s hands and looking down into his face, the
President said:--
“I thank you, my son. In the name of the country for which you have
fought and suffered, I thank you.”
After a moment he added:--
“And, let me see, there was a mother back there in Pennsylvania, wasn’t
there? How’s the mother?”
“Very well, Mr. Lincoln, and waiting patiently for us.”
“Well, you’re going home to her very soon now. The mothers are going
to have their reward. The war is almost over now, my boy--it’s almost
over, Bannister. Peace is coming, next week maybe, next month for
sure. And the peace that’s coming was well worth fighting for. I tell
you the mothers have not agonized in vain, the dead have not died for
naught.”
There were tears in his eyes as he spoke. He never could quite get over
his pity for the mothers whose boys had died in the conflict, nor his
sorrow over the unnumbered lives lost in the maelstrom of war. These
things lay, always, a mighty burden on his heart. He lived with them
by day and he dreamed of them at night. But now that there were to be
no more battles, no more agonies, no more dead faces turned upward to
the sky, a thankfulness such as no other life has ever known filled his
soul and suffused his countenance. Rhett Bannister, who had seen him
in the dark days of ’63, and who had ever since been haunted by the
inexpressible sadness of his face, noted at once how that face had been
transfigured. Not that it bore evidence now of pride or exultation,
or a selfish joy in victories achieved, but rather that it shone with
a great gladness because the sufferings and the hardships and the
heart-agonies of a whole nation were so near their end. After a little
he loosed one of Bob’s hands and took one of Bannister’s.
“Good-by, boys!” he said, “and health to you, and a happy home-going.
Some day you’ll come to Washington. Come in and see me. I’ll be waiting
for you. Good-by!”
He passed down the aisle, tall, loose-jointed, with ill-fitting clothes
and awkward mien; but to those two wounded soldiers on their cots it
seemed that a more beautiful presence than his had never passed their
way.
Wounds heal rapidly when light hearts and clean living add their
measure of assistance to the surgeon’s skill. And so it came about that
both Bannister and his son were discharged from the hospital a week
later. With the surgeon’s certificates in their pockets, they were
ready to start toward the North, toward home, toward the sweetest,
most life-giving spot in all the world. They would not need to come
back, they knew that, for the war was practically over. Richmond had
fallen, Lee had surrendered, Johnston’s army would soon be in the
hands of Sherman, there was no more fighting to be done. So they went
on board a transport one day, and rode down the James and up the
Potomac to Washington. It was early in the evening when they reached
the city, and after a good meal and a refreshing rest they went out
on the streets for a short stroll before retiring. They were to leave
Washington on an early train the next morning, and they thought to get
a glimpse of it this night in its holiday attire, as it might be many
years before either of them would come that way again.
It was a beautiful spring night. The air was soft, and heavy with
the scent of blossoming lilacs. The night before, the city had been
splendidly illuminated in honor of the recent victories and the dawn
of peace, and to-night the rejoicings were still going on. The crowds
that filled the streets were happy, high-spirited, exultant. Oh, but
it was a different city from the one through which Bob Bannister went,
on his way to war, in the fall of ’63! Then gloom, anxiety, was on the
face of every person who went hurrying by; despondency in the slow
gait of every loiterer on the streets. And over the head of the Chief
Magistrate hung ever the horror of blood, on his heart weighed ever the
apprehension of unforeseen disaster. But to-night, how different! Some
one who had seen the President that day said he had not been so happy,
so contented, so tender and serene, since he had been in Washington.
His son Captain Robert Lincoln had come up from the South and spent
the morning with him. Some friends from the West had occupied his
joyful attention for a brief time in the afternoon. All who saw him
that day never afterward forgot the peaceful and gentle serenity of
his face. He had said to the members of his Cabinet at their meeting
that morning, that, on his part, there was no feeling of hate or
vindictiveness toward any person of the South. That, so far as he could
control it, now that the war was over, there should be no persecution,
no more bloody work of any kind. That resentment must give way and be
extinguished, and harmony and union must prevail.
As Bannister and his son walked through the gay crowds on the streets
that night, they heard people say that the President and Mrs. Lincoln
had gone with a small party to see the play, “Our American Cousin,”
at Ford’s Theatre on Tenth Street. It was a time for relaxation and
pleasure, and the President wanted the people to feel that he rejoiced
with them. When the play should be over, there would be a crowd waiting
at the door of the play-house to see the Chief Magistrate come out and
enter his carriage, and to show their admiration and love for him by
cheers and huzzas and the waving of hats and handkerchiefs. The theatre
was not far away, and Bannister and Bob thought to go there and take
part in the demonstration. F Street, along which they were walking,
was almost deserted. The crowds had gravitated down into E Street and
beyond, and were thronging Pennsylvania Avenue.
Bob looked at his watch,--the boys of his company had sent it to him
as a memento before he left the hospital,--and saw that it was nearly
half-past ten.
“I think we’ll have to hurry a little, father,” he said, “the play must
be nearly over now.”
So they quickened their steps. Between Tenth and Eleventh Streets, as
they hurried along, a strange thing happened. As they passed the mouth
of an alley leading to the centre of the block, toward E Street, their
attention was attracted by an unusual noise proceeding from the depths
of the passageway. Some one down there was shouting and cursing. Then
there was a clatter of horse’s hoofs on the cobblestone pavement;
around the corner of a building, and into the light of the dim lamp
hung at the foot of the alley, clanging up the passage and dashing out
into the street, came a man on horseback. He was hatless, wild-eyed,
terrible in countenance and mien. In one hand he held his horse’s rein,
in the other he grasped a dagger, shining in the moonlight at the
hilt, stained with blood on the blade. Heading his horse to the north,
bending forward in his saddle, his long, dark hair flying out behind
him, he went, in a mad gallop, up the half-deserted street, and, before
the astonished onlookers had fairly caught breath, he had vanished into
the night. A half-dozen men, strolling along in that vicinity, turned
and gazed after the flying horseman, and then all, with one accord,
involuntarily started in the direction he had taken. At the corner of
Tenth Street, as they looked down toward Ford’s Theatre, they saw that
there was some confusion there. Men were running toward the play-house,
other men were pushing their passage from its doorway. There were
shouts which Bannister and his son could not understand, but they, with
the others, ran down toward the centre of the disturbance. Before they
were able to reach the front of the theatre, the cry came, loud and
clear, so that all could hear it:--
“Lincoln has been shot!”
And again:--
“The President has been killed!”
One man, white-faced, bareheaded, rushed from the doorway of the
theatre crying:--
“Stop the assassin! Stop him! It was Wilkes Booth. Don’t let him get
away!”
But those who had seen the flying horseman disappear down the long
moonlit vista of F Street, knew that the assassin had already made his
escape.
Men and women, with horror-stricken faces, were now pouring from
the entrance to the play-house. The street was filling up with a
jostling, questioning, gesticulating crowd. “How did it happen?”--“Who
did it?”--“Why was it done?”--“Where is the murderer?”--“Catch
him!”--“Hang him!” Men demanded information, and action as well. Two
soldiers in full uniform, with side-arms, hurled themselves out into
the roadway, through the crowd, and up toward F Street. Some one called
a boy and told him to run to the White House as though his life were
the forfeit for delay, and tell Robert Lincoln to come.
And then, suddenly, a hush fell upon the crowd. It was known that they
were bringing the President down. The space about the doorway was
cleared, and out into the lamplight came men bearing the long, limp
body of Abraham Lincoln. At the sidewalk they hesitated and stopped.
What should they do with him? There was no carriage there. And if there
had been, it was too long and rough a journey to the White House to
take a dying man. Diagonally across the street, on the high front porch
of a plain three-story dwelling-house, a young man stood. He had come
from his bed-chamber to learn the cause of the disturbance, and seeing
the limp body of the President brought from the door of the theatre,
and that the bearers were in doubt as to what they should do, he called
out across the street, over the heads of the multitude:--
“Bring him in here! Bring him in here!”
And the men who were carrying the body, having no plan of their own,
knowing nothing better to do, bore their unconscious burden across the
way, up the steep and winding stairs to the porch, through the modest
doorway and down the narrow hall into a small plain sleeping-room at
the end, and laid the President of the United States on a bed where a
soldier of the ranks, home on furlough, had slept for many nights.
And it was there that the President died. Not in the White House with
its stately halls and ornate rooms, not where his labor had been done
and his cares had weighed him down, not where his hours of anguish
had been spent and his tears of pity had been shed; but here, in this
humble home, like the homes he had loved and lived in before the nation
called him for its chief, it was here, in the gray of the next morning,
that he died. And Stanton, his great War Secretary, standing at his
bedside when the last breath left the mortal body, Stanton who had
known him for many years, who had in turn denounced him, ridiculed him,
criticised him, honored him, and loved him, turned in that moment to
the awe-stricken onlookers at the last scene and said: “Now he is with
the ages.”
Among those lining the pathway across the street along which the
President’s body was borne, dripping blood as it passed, stood Rhett
Bannister and his son. For one moment, as the moonlight fell on the
gray face, already stamped with the seal of death, they saw him.
His long arms hung loosely at his sides, his eyes were closed, his
countenance showed no mark of suffering, save that some one, holding
his wounded head, had inadvertently smeared his cheek with blood.
They never forgot that sight. They never could forget it. Many and
many a time, in the stillness of midnight, in the light and noise of
noonday, no matter where or when, the vision of that face they both had
known and loved, with its closed eyes and tangled hair, and with the
blood-splash on the cheek, came back to them, with its never-ending
shock and sorrow.
After the President’s body had passed, and the crowd closed in again,
and men took second thought and began to realize the horror of the
hour, and to rave against the assassin, and those who might have
influenced him, and while women, pale-faced and unbonneted, wept and
wrung their hands, the soldiers came and cleared the theatre, and drove
the people from the street; and thenceforward, until the dead body of
the Chief Magistrate had been borne from the humble house where he
died, no one without authority was permitted to pass that way.
Rhett Bannister and Bob were pushed and crowded back with the rest
up into F Street, along which they had been quietly strolling a
half-hour earlier, and there, exhausted from the shock of the tragedy,
grief-stricken as they had never been before, they sat down on the
street curb to rest. And, even as they sat there, men came running by
calling out that Secretary of State Seward had been stabbed in his bed,
and that every member of the Cabinet had been marked for murder.
“Father,” said Bob, when he found his voice to speak, “what does it all
mean?”
“I don’t know, Robert, except that the most inhuman and uncalled-for
crime that ever marred the centuries has been committed this night.”
“Father, I can’t go home. While such things as these are still possible
I wouldn’t dare go home, there’s more work for us to do yet in the
army. I am going back to-morrow morning to join my regiment in
Virginia.”
“You are right, my son, and I will go back with you.”
And they went.