Stragglers arrived, and then the regiments. People
were not angry with the beaten soldiers, but treated
them with tenderness, gave them plentiful cold collations,
and lavished indignation on their ragged shoddy uniforms.
Then the little State, at first pulseless with despair, took
a long breath of relief when it found that Beauregard had
not occupied Washington, and set bravely about preparing
for far bloodier battles than that of Bull Run.

Lieutenant-Colonel Carter did not return with his regiment;
and Colburne read with a mixture of emotions that
he had been wounded and taken prisoner while gallantly
leading a charge. He marked the passage, and left the
paper with his compliments for the Ravenels, after debating
at the door of the hotel whether he should call on them,

[figure description] Page 072.[end figure description]

and deciding in the negative. Not being able as yet to
appreciate that blessing in disguise, Bull Run, his loyal
heart was very sad and sore over it, and he felt a thrill of
something like horror whenever he thought of the joyful
shriek with which Lillie had welcomed the shocking tidings.
He was angry with her, or at least he tried to be.
He called up his patriotism, that strongest of New England
isms, and resolved that with a secessionist, a woman
who wished ill to her country, he would not fall in love.
But to be sure of this he must keep away from her; for
thus much of love, or of perilous inclination at least, he
already had to acknowledge; and moreover, while he was
somewhat ashamed of the feeling, he still could not heartily
desire to eradicate it. Troubled thus concerning the
affairs of the country and of his own heart, he kept aloof
from the Ravenels for three or four days. Then he said to
himself that he had no cause for avoiding the Doctor, and
that to do so was disgraceful treatment of a man who had
proved his loyalty by taking up the cross of exile.

This story will probably have no readers so destitute of
sympathy with the young and loving, as that they can
not guess the result of Colburne's internal struggles. After
two or three chance conversations with Ravenel he
jumped, or to speak more accurately, he gently slid to the
conclusion that it was absurd and unmanly to make a
distinction in favor of the father and against the daughter.
Quarrel with a woman; how ridiculous! how unchivalrous!
He colored to the tips of his repentant ears as he
thought of it and of what Miss Ravenel must think of it.
He hastened to call on her before the breach which he had
made between her and himself should become untraversable;
for although the embargo on their intercourse had
lasted only about a week, it already seemed to him a
lapse of time measureable by months; and this very
naturally, inasmuch as during that short interval he had
lived a life of anguish as a man and a patriot. Accordingly
the old intimacy was resumed, and the two young

[figure description] Page 073.[end figure description]

people seldom passed forty-eight hours apart. But of the
rebellion they said little, and of Bull Run nothing. These
were such sore subjects to him that he did not wish to
speak of them except to the ear of sympathy; and she,
divining his sensitiveness, would not give him pain notwithstanding
that he was an abolitionist and a Yankee.
If the Doctor, ignorant of what passed in these young
hearts, turned the conversation on the war, Lillie became
silent, and Colburne, appreciating her forbearance, tried to
say very little. Thus without a compact, without an explanation,
they accorded in a strain of mutual charity which
predicted the ultimate conversion of one or the other.

Moreover, Colburne asked himself, what right had he to
talk if he did not fight? If he wanted to answer this
woman's outcry of delight over the rout of Bull Run, the
place to do it was not a safe parlor, but a field of victorious
battle. Why did he not act in accordance with these
truly chivalrous sentiments? Why not fall into one of the
new regiments which his gallant little State was organizing
to continue the struggle? Why not march on with
the soul of old John Brown, joining in the sublime though
quaint chorus of, “We're coming, Father Abraham, three
hundred thousand more?”

He did talk very earnestly of it with various persons,
and, among others, with Doctor Ravenel. The latter approved
the young man's warlike inclinations promptly
and earnestly.

“It is the noblest duty that you may ever have a chance
to perform during your life,” said he. “To do something
personally towards upholding this Union and striking
down slavery is an honor beyond any thing that ever was
accorded to Greek or Roman. I wish that I were young
enough for the work, or fitted for it by nature or education.
I would be willing to have my tombstone set up
next year, if it could only bear the inscription, “He died
in giving freedom to slaves.”

“Oh! do stop,” implored Lillie, who entered in time to

[figure description] Page 074.[end figure description]

hear the concluding sentence. “What do you talk about
your tombstone for? You will get perfectly addled about
abolition, like all the rest. Now, papa, you ought to be
more consistent. You didn't use to be so violent against
slavery. You have changed since five years ago.”

“I know it,” says the Doctor. “But that doesn't prove
that I am wrong now. I wasn't infallible five years ago.
Why, my dear, the progress of our race from barbarism to
civilization is through the medium of constant change. If
the race is benefited by it, why not the individual? I am
a sworn foe to consistency and conservation. To stick
obstinately to our old opinions, because they are old, is as
foolish as it would be in a soldier-crab to hold on to his
shell after he had outgrown it instead of picking up a new
one fitted to his increased size. Suppose the snakes persisted
in going about in their last year's skins? No, no;
there are no such fools in the lower animal kingdom; that
stupidity is confined to man.”

“The world does move,” observed Colburne. “We
consider ourselves pretty strict and old-fashioned here in
New Boston. But if our Puritan ancestors could get
hold of us, they would be likely to have us whipped as
heretics and Sabbath-breakers. Very likely we would be
equally severe upon our own great-great-grandchildren, if
we should get a chance at them.”

“Weak spirits are frightened by this change, this growth,
this forward impetus,” said the Doctor. “I must tell you a
story. I was travelling in Georgia three years ago. On
the seat next in front of me sat a cracker, who was evidently
making his first railroad experience, and in other
respects learning to go on his hind legs. Presently the
train crossed a bridge. It was narrow, uncovered and
without sides, so that a passenger would not be likely to
see it unless he sat near the window. Now the cracker
sat next the alley of the car, and away from the window.
I observed him give a glare at the river and turn away
his head suddenly, after which he rolled about in a queer

[figure description] Page 075.[end figure description]

way, and finally went on the floor in a heap. We picked
him up; spirits were easily produced, (they always are
down there); and presently the cracker was brought to
his senses. His first words were, `Has she lit'— He
was under the impression that the train had taken the
river at a running jump. Now that is very much like the
judgment of timid and ill-informed people on the progress
of the nation or race at such a time as this. They
don't know about the bridge; they think we are flying
through the air; and so they go off in general fainting-fits.”

Colburne laughed, as many another man has done before
him, at this good old story.

“On our train,” said he, “on the train of human progress,
we are parts of the engine and not mere passengers.
I ought to be revolving somewhere. I ought to be at
work. I want to do something—I am most anxious to do
something—but I don't know precisely what. I suppose
that the inability exists in me, and not in my circumstances.
I am like the gentleman who tired himself out
with jumping, but never could jump high enough to see
over his own standing-collar.”

“I know how you feel. I have been in that state myself,
often and in various ways. For instance it has occurred
to me, especially in my younger days, to feel a
strong desire to write, without having anything to say.
There was a burning in my brain; there was a sentiment
or sensation which led me to seek pens, ink and paper;
there was an impatient, uncertain, aimless effort to commence;
there was a pause, a revery, and all was over.
It was a storm of sheet-lightning. There were glorious
gleams, and far off openings of the heavens; but no sound,
droppings, no sensible revelation from the upper world.—
However, your longings are for action, and I am convinced
that you will find your opportunity. There will
be work enough in this matter for all.”

“I don't know,” said Calburne. “The sixth and

[figure description] Page 076.[end figure description]

seventh regiments are full. I hear that there isn't a lieutenantcy
left.”

“You will have to raise your own company.”

“Ah! But for what regiment? We shan't raise another,
I am afraid. Yes, I am actually afraid that the war will
be over in six months.”

Miss Ravenel looked up hastily as if she should like to
say “Forty years,” but checked herself by a surprising
effort of magnanimity and good nature.

“That's queer patriotism,” laughed the Doctor. But let
me assure you, Mr. Colburne, that your fears are groundless.
There will be more regiments needed.”

Miss Ravenel gave a slight approving nod, but still said
nothing, remembering Bull Run and how provokingly she
had shouted over it.

“This southern oligarchy,” continued the Doctor, “will
be a tough nut to crack. It has the consolidated vigor of
a tyranny.”

“I wonder where Lieutenant-Colonel Carter is?” queried
Colburne. “It is six weeks since he was taken prisoner.
It seems like six years.”

Miss Ravenel raised her head with an air of interest,
glanced hastily at her father, and gave herself anew to
her embroidery. The Doctor made a grimace which was
as much as to say that he thought small beer or sour beer
of Lieutenant-Colonel Carter.

“He is a very fine officer,” said Colburne. “He was
highly spoken of for his conduct at Bull Run.”

“I would rather have you for a Colonel,” replied the
Doctor.

Colburne laughed contemptuously at the idea of his
fitness for a colonelcy.

“I would rather have any respectable man of tolerable
intellect,” insisted the Doctor. “I tell you that I know
that type perfectly. I know what he is as well as if I had
been acquainted with him for twenty years. He is what
we southerners, in our barbarous local vanity, are

[figure description] Page 077.[end figure description]

accustomed to call a southern gentleman. He is on the model
of the sugar-planters of St. Dominic Parish. He needs
somebody to care for him. Let me tell you a story. When
I was on a mineralogical expedition in North Carolina
some years ago, I happened to be out late at night looking
for lodgings. I was approaching one of those cross-road
groggeries which they call a tavern down there, when I
met a most curious couple. It was a man and a goose.
The man was drunk, and the goose was sober. The man
was staggering, and the goose was waddling perfectly
straight. Every few steps it halted, looked back and
quacked, as if to say, Come along. The moon was shining,
and I could see the whole thing plainly. I was obliged to
put up for the night in the groggery, and there I got an
explanation of the comedy. It seems that this goose was
a pet, and had taken an unaccountable affection to its
owner, who was a wretched drunkard of a cracker. The
man came nearly every night to the groggery, got drunk
as regularly as he came, and generally went to sleep on
one of the benches. About midnight the goose would appear
and cackle for him. The bar-keeper would shake up
the drunkard and say, `Here! your goose has come for
you.' As soon as the brute could get his legs he would
start homeward, guided by his more intelligent companion.
If the man fell down and couldn't get up, the goose
would remain by him and squawk vociferously for assistance.—
Now, sir, there was hardly a sugar-planter, hardly
a southern gentleman, in St. Dominic Parish, who didn't
need some such guardian. Often and often, as I have
seen them swilling wine and brandy at each other's tables,
I have charitably wished that I could say to this one and
that one, Sir, your goose has come for you.”

“But you never have seen the Lieutenant-Colonel so
badly off,” answered Colburne, after a short meditation.

“Why no—not precisely,” admitted the Doctor. “But
I know his type,” he presently added with an obstinacy
which Miss Ravenel secretly thought very unjust. She

[figure description] Page 078.[end figure description]

thought it best to direct her spirit of censure in another
direction.

“Papa,” said she, “what a countryfied habit you have
of telling stories!”

“Don't criticise, my dear,” answers papa. “I am a high
toned southern gentleman, and always knock people on
the head who criticise me.”

The question still returns upon us, why Mr. Colburne
did not join the army. It is time, therefore, to state the
hitherto unimportant fact that he was the only son of a
widow, and that his life was a necessity to her, not only
as a consolation to her loneliness, but as a support to her
declining fortunes. Doctor Colburne had left his wife and
child an estate of about twenty-five thousand dollars,
which at the time of his death was a respectable fortune
in New Boston. But the influx of gold from California,
and the consequent rise of prices, seriously diminished the
value of the family income just about the time that Edward,
by growing into manhood and entering college, necessitated
an increase of expenses. Therefore Mrs. Colburne
was led to put one half of the joint fortune into certain
newly-organized manufacturing companies, which
promised to increase her annual six per cent to twenty-four—
nor was she therein exceedingly to blame, being led away
by the example and advice of some of the sharpest New
Boston capitalists, many of whom had their experienced
pinions badly lamed in these joint-stock adventurings.

“What you want, Mr. Colburne,” said a director, “is
an investment which is both safe and permanent. Now
this is just the thing.”

I can not say much for the safety of the investment, but
it certainly was a permanent one. During the first year
the promised twenty-four per cent was paid, and the widow
could have sold out for one hundred and twenty. Then
came a free-trade, Democratic improvement on the tariff;
the manufacturing interest of the country was paralyzed.
and the Braggville stock fell to ninety. Mrs. Colburne

[figure description] Page 079.[end figure description]

might still have sold out at a profit, counting in her first
year's dividend; but as it was not in her inexperience to
see that this was wisdom, she held on for a—decline. By
the opening of the war her certificates of manufacturing
stock were waste paper, and her annual income was reduced
to eight hundred dollars. Indeed, for a year or two
previous to the commencement of this story, she had been
forced to make inroads upon her capital.

Of this crisis in the family affairs Edward was fully
aware, and like a true-born, industrious Yankee, did his
best to meet it. From every lowermost branch and twig
of his profession he plucked some fruit by dint of constant
watchfulness, so that during the past year he had been
very nearly able to cover his own conscientiously economical
expenditures. He was gaining a foothold in the law,
although he as yet had no cases to plead. If he held on a
year or two longer at this rate he might confidently expect
to restore the family income and stave off the threatened
sale of the homestead.

But this was not all which prevented him from going
forth to battle. The cry of his mother's heart was,
“My son, how can I let thee go?” She was an abolitionist,
as was almost every body of her set in New Boston;
she was an enthusiastic patriot, as was almost every one
in the north during that sublime summer of popular
enthusiasm; but this war—oh, this strange, ferocious war!
was horrible. Her sensitively affectionate nature, blinded
by veils of womanly tenderness, folded in habits of life-long
peace, could not see the hard, inevitable necessity of
the contest. Earnestly as she sympathised with its loyal
and humane objects, she was not logical enough or not
firm enough to sympathise with the iron thing itself.
Lapped in sweet influences of peace all her loving life, why
must she be called to death amid the clamor of murderous
contests? For her health was failing; a painful and fatal
disease had fastened its clutches on her; another year's
course she did not hope to run. And if the hateful

[figure description] Page 080.[end figure description]

struggle must go on, if it must torment her last few days with
its agitations and horrors, so much the more did she need
her only child. Other women's sons—yes, if there was no
help for it—but not hers—might put on the panoply of
strife, and disappear from anxiously following eyes into
the smoke and flame of battle. Edward told her every day
the warlike news of the journals, the grand and stern putting
on of the harness, the gigantic plans for crushing the
nation's foes. She could take no interest in such tidings
but that of aversion. He read to her in a voice which
thrilled like swellings of martial music, Tennyson's Charge
of the Six Hundred. She listened to the clarion-toned
words with distaste and almost with horror.

Well, the summer wore away, that summer of sombre
preparation and preluding skirmishes, whose scattering
musketry and thin cannonade faintly prophecied the orchestral
thunders of Gettysburgh and the Wilderness,
and whose few dead preceded like skirmishers the massive
columns which for years should firmly follow them into
the dark valley. Its forereaching shadows fell upon many
homes far away from the battlefield, and chilled to death
many sensitive natures. Old persons and invalids sank
into the grave that season under the oppression of its
straining suspense and preliminary horror; and among
these victims, whom no man has counted and whom few
have thought of collectively, was the mother of Colburne.

One September afternoon she sent for Edward. The
Doctor had gone; his labors were over. The clergyman
had gone; neither was he longer needed. There was no
one in the room but the nurse, the dying mother and the
only child. The change had been expected for days, and
Edward had thought that he was prepared for it; had indeed
marvelled and been shocked at himself because he
could look forward to it with such seeming composure;
for, reason with his heart and his conscience as he might,
he could not feel a fitting dread and anguish. In the
common phrase of humanity, when numbed by unusual

[figure description] Page 081.[end figure description]

sorrow, he could not realize it. But now, as, leaning over
the footboard and looking steadfastly upon his mother's
face, he saw that the final hour had come, a sickness of
heart fell upon him, and a trembling as if his soul were
being torn asunder. Yet neither wept; the Puritans and
the children of the Puritans do not weep easily; they are
taught, not to utter, but to hide their emotions. The
nurse perceived no signs of unusual feeling, except that
the face of the strong man became suddenly as pale as
that of the dying woman, and that to him this was an hour
of anguish, while to her it was one of unspeakable joy.
The mother knew her son too well not to see, even with
those failing eyes, into the depths of his sorrow.

“Don't be grieved for me, Edward,” she said. “I am
sustained by the faith of the promises. I am about to return
from the place whence I came. I am re-entering
with peace and with confidence into a blessed eternity.”

He came to the side of the bed, sat down on it and took
her hand without speaking.

“You will follow me some day,” she went on. “You
will follow me to the place where I shall be, at the right
hand of the Lord. I have prayed for it often;—I was
praying for it a moment ago; and, my child, my prayer
will be granted. Oh, I have been so fearful for you;
But I am fearful no longer.”

He made no answer except to press her hand while she
paused to draw a few short and wearisome breaths.

“I can bear to part with you now,” she resumed. “I
could not bear it till the Lord granted me this full assurance
that we shall meet again. I leave you in his hands.
I make no conditions with him. I have been sweetly
brought to give you altogether up to one who loves
you better than I know how to love you. He gave
me my love, and he has kept more than he gave. Perhaps
I have been selfish, Edward, to hold on to you as I have.
You have felt it your duty to go into the army, and perhaps
I have been selfish to prevent you. Now you are

[figure description] Page 082.[end figure description]

free; to-morrow I shall not be here. If you still see that
to be your duty, go; and the Lord go with you, darling,
and give you strength and courage. I do not ask him to
spare you, but only to guide you here below, and restore
you to me above.—And he will do it, Edward, for his
own sake. I am full of confidence; the promises are sure.
For you and for myself, I rejoice with a joy unspeakable
and full of glory.”

While thus speaking, or rather whispering, she had put
one arm around his neck. As he kissed her wasted cheek
and let fall his first tears on it, she drew her hand across
his face with a caressing tenderness, and smiling, fell back
softly on her pillow, closing her eyes as calmly as if to
sleep. A few broken words, a murmuring of unutterable,
unearthly, infinite happiness, echoes as it were of greetings
far away with welcoming angels, were her last utterances.
To the young man, who still held her hand and now and
then kissed her cheek, she seemed to slumber, although
her breathing gradually sank so low that he could not perceive
it. But after a long time the nurse came to the bedside,
bent over it, looked, listened, and said, “She is
gone!”

He was free; she was not there.

He went to his room with a horrible feeling that for him
there was no more love; that there was nothing to do
and nothing to expect; that his life was a blank. He
could fix his mind on nothing past or future; not even upon
the unparalleled sorrow of the present. Taking up the
Bible which she had given him, he read a page before he
noticed that he had not understood and did not remember
a single passage. In that vacancy, that almost idiocy,
which beclouds afflicted souls, he could not recall a distinct
impression of the scene through which he had just
passed, and seemed to have forgotten forever his mother's
dying words, her confidence that they should meet again,
her heavenly joy. With the same perverseness, and in
spite of repeated efforts to close his ears to the sound,

[figure description] Page 083.[end figure description]

some inner, wayward self repeated to him over and over
again these verses of the unhappy Poe—

The sad words sounded wofully true to him. For the
time, for some days, it seemed to him as if life were but a
wearisome illness, for which the grave was but a cure. His
mind, fevered by night watching, anxiety, and an unaccustomed
grappling with sorrow, was not in a healthy
state. He thought that he was willing to die; he only desired
to fall usefully, honorably, and in consonance with
the spirit of his generation; he would set his face henceforward
towards the awful beacons of the battle-field. His
resolution was taken with the seriousness of one, who,
though cheerful and even jovial by nature, had been permeated
to some extent by the solemn passion of Puritanism.
He painted to himself in strong colors the risk of
death and the nature of it; then deliberately chose the
part of facing this tremendous mystery in support of the
right. All this while, be it remembered, his mind was
somewhat exalted by the fever of bodily weariness and of
spiritual sorrow.

p542-091 CHAPTER VII. CAPTAIN COLBURNE RAISES A COMPANY, AND COLONEL CARTER A REGIMENT.

[figure description] Page 084.[end figure description]

The settlement of his mother's estate and of his own
pecuniary affairs occupied Colburne's time until the early
part of October. By then he had invested his property as
well as might be, rented the much-loved old homestead,
taken a room in the New Boston House, and was fully
prepared to bid good-bye to native soil, and, if need be,
to life. Miss Ravenel was a strong though silent temptation
to remain and to exist, but he resisted her with the
heroism which he subsequently exhibited in combating
male rebels.

One morning, as he left the hotel rather later than usual
to go to his office, his eyes fell upon a high-colored face
and gigantic brown mustache, which he could not have
failed to recognize, no matter where nor when encountered.
There was the wounded captive of Bull Run, as big
chested and rich complexioned, as audacious in eye and
haughty in air, as if no hurt nor hardship nor calamity had
ever befallen him. He checked Colburne's eager advance
with a cold stare, and passed him without speaking. But
the young fellow hardly had time to color at this rebuff,
when, just as he was opening the outer door a baritone
voice arrested him with a ringing, “Look here!”

“Beg pardon,” continued the Lieutenant-Colonel, coming
up hastily. “Didn't recognize you. It's quite a time
since our pic-nic, you know.”

Here he showed a broad grin, and presently burst out
laughing, as much amused at the past as if it did not contain
Bull Run.

“What a jolly old pic-nic that was!” he went on. “I

[figure description] Page 085.[end figure description]

have shouted a hundred times to think of myself passing
the wine and segars to those prim old virgins. Just as
though I had bowsed into the House Beautiful, among
Bunyan's damsels, and offered to treat the crowd!”

Again the Lieutenant-Colonel laughed noisily, his insolent
black eyes twinkling with merriment. Colburne
looked at him and listened to him with amazement. Here
was a man who had lately been in what was to him the
terrible mystery of battle; who had fallen down wounded
and been carried away captive while fighting heroically
for the noblest of causes; who had witnessed the greatest
and most humiliating overthrow which ever befel the armies
of the republic; who yet did not allude to any of
these things, nor apparently think of them, but could chat
and laugh about a pic-nic. Was is treasonable indifference,
or levity, or the sublimity of modesty? Colburne thought
that if he had been at Bull Run, he never could have
talked of any thing else.

“Well, how are you?” demanded Carter. “You are
looking a little pale and thin, it seems to me.”

“Oh, I am well enough,” answered Colburne, passing
over that subject with modest contempt, as not worthy of
mention. “But how are you? Have you recovered from
your wound?”

“Wound? Oh! yes; mere bagatelle; healed up some
time ago. I shouldn't have been caught if I hadn't been
stunned by my horse falling. The wound was nothing.”

“But you must have suffered in your confinement,” said
Colburne, determined to appreciate and pity.

“Suffered! My dear fellow, I suffered with eating and
drinking and making merry. I had the deuce's own time
in Richmond. I met loads of my old comrades, and they
nearly killed me with kindness. They are a nice set of
old boys, if they are on the wrong side of the fence. You
didn't suppose they would maltreat a brother West Pointer,
did you?”

[figure description] Page 086.[end figure description]

And the Lieutenant-Colonel laughed heartily at the civilian
blunder.

“I didn't know, really,” answered the puzzled Colburne.
“I must say I thought so. But I am as poor a
judge of soldiers as a sheep is of catamounts.”

“Why, look here. When I left they gave me a supper,
and not only made me drunk, but got drunk themselves in
my honor. Opened their purses, too, and forced their
money on me.”

All this, it will be noted, was long previous to the time
when Libby Prison and Andersonville were deliberately
converted into pest-houses and starvation pens.

“I am afraid they wanted to bring you over,” observed
Colburne. He looked not only suspicious, but even a little
anxious, for in those days every patriot feared for the faith
of his neighbor.

“I suppose they did,” replied Carter carelessly, as if he
saw nothing extraordinary in the idea. “Of course they
did. They need all the help that they can get. In fact
the rebel Secretary of War paid me the compliment of
making me an offer of a regiment, with an assurance that
promotion might be relied on. It was done so delicately
that I couldn't be offended. In fact it was quite natural,
and he probably thought it would be bad taste to omit it.
I am a Virginian, you know; and then I was once engaged
in some southern schemes and diplomacies—before this
war broke out, you understand—oh, no connection with
this war. However, I declined his offer. There's a patriot
for you.”

“I honor you, sir,” said Colburne with a fervor which
made the Lieutenant-Colonel grin. “You ought at be rewarded.”

“Quite so,” answered the other in his careless, half-joking
style. “Well, I am rewarded. I received a letter
yesterday afternoon from your Governor offering me a regiment.
I had just finished an elegant dinner with some
good fellows, and was going in for a roaring evening. But

[figure description] Page 087.[end figure description]

business before pleasure. I took a cold plunge bath and
the next train for New Boston, getting here at midnight.
I am off at ten to see his Excellency.”

“I am sincerely delighted,” exclaimed the young man.
“I am delighted to hear that the Governor has had such
good sense.”

After a moment's hesitation he added anxiously, “Do
you remember your invitation to me?”

“Certainly. What do you say to it now? Will you
go with me?”

“I will,” said Colburne emphatically. “I will try. I
only fear that I can neither raise nor command a company.”

“Never fear,” answered Carter in a tone which poohpoohed
at doubt. “You are just the man. Come round to
the bar with me, and let's drink success to our regiment.
Oh, I recollect; you don't imbibe. Smoke a segar, then,
while we talk it over. I tell you that you are just the
man. Noblesse oblige. Any gentleman can make a good
enough company officer in three months' practice. As to
raising your men, I'll give you my best countenance,
whatever that may amount to. And if you actually don't
succeed in getting your quota, after all, why, we'll take
somebody else's men. Examinations of officers and consolidations
of companies bring all these things right, you
know.”

“I should be sorry to profit by any other man's influence
and energy to his harm,” answered the fastidious
Colburne.

“Pshaw! it's all for the good of the service and of the
country. Because a low fellow who keeps a saloon can
treat and wheedle sixty or eighty stout fellows into the
ranks, do you suppose that he ought to be commissioned
an officer and a gentleman? I don't. It can't be in my
regiment. Leave those things to me, and go to work without
fear. Write to the Adjutant-General of the State to-day
for a recruiting commission, and as soon as you get it,

[figure description] Page 088.[end figure description]

open an office. I guarantee that you shall be one of the
Captains of the Tenth Barataria.”

“Who are the other field officers?” asked Colburne.

“Not appointed yet. I am alone in my glory. I am
the regiment. But the Lieutenant-Colonel and Major
shall be of the right stamp. I mean to have a word to say
as to the choice. I tell you that we'll have the bulliest
regiment that ever sprang from the soil of New England.”

“Well, I'll try. But I really fear that I shall just get
my company recruited in time for the next war.”

“Never fear,” laughed Carter, as though war were a
huge practical joke. “We are in for a four or five years'
job of fighting.”

“You don't mean it!” said the young man in amazement.
“Why, we citizens are all so full of confidence.
McClellan, every body says, is organizing a splendid army.
Did Bull Run give you such an opinion of the superior
fighting qualities of the southerners?”

“Not at all. Both sides fought timidly, as a rule, just as
greenhorns naturally would do. The best description of
the battle that I have heard was given in a single sentence
by my old captain, Lamar, now in command of a Georgia
regiment. Said he, `There never was a more frightened
set than our fellows—except your fellows.—Why, we outfought
them in the morning; we had them fairly whipped
until Johnston came up on our right. The retreat was a
mathematical necessity; it was like saying, Two and two
make four. When our line was turned, of course it had
to retreat.”

“Retreat!” groaned Colburne in bitterness over the recollection
of that calamitous afternoon. “But you didn't
see it. They ran shamefully, and never stopped short of
Washington. One man reached New Boston inside of
twenty-four hours. It was a panic unparalleled in history.”

“Nonsense! Beg your pardon. Did you never read of
Austerlitz and Jena and Waterloo? Our men did pretty

[figure description] Page 089.[end figure description]

well for militia. I didn't see the panic, to be sure;—I
was picked up before that happened. But I have talked
with some of our officers who did see it, and they told me
that the papers exaggerated it absurdly. Newspaper
correspondents ought not to be allowed in the army.
They exaggerate every thing. If we had gained a victory,
they would have made it out something greater than
Waterloo. You must consider how easily inexperience is
deceived. Just get the story of an upset from an old stage-driver,
and then from a lady passenger; the first will tell
it as quite an ordinary affair, and the second will make it
out a tragedy. Now when some old grannies of congressmen
and some young ladies of newspaper reporters, none
of whom had ever seen either a victory or a defeat before,
got entangled among half a dozen disordered regiments
they naturally concluded that nothing like it had happened
in history. I tell you that it wasn't unparalleled, and
that it ought not to have been considered surprising.
Whichever of those two green armies got repulsed was
pretty sure to be routed. That was a very pretty
manœuvre, though, that coming up of Johnston on
our right. Patterson ought to be court-martialed for his
stupidity.”

“Stupidity! He is a traitor,” exclaimed Colburne.

“Oh! oh!” expostulated the Colonel with a cough.
“If we are to try all our dull old gentlemen as traitors,
we shall have our hands full. That's something like
hanging homely old women for witches.—By the way,
how are the Allstons? I mean the—the Ravenels. Well,
are they? Young lady as blooming and blushing as ever?
Glad to hear it. Can't stop to call on them; my train
goes in ten minutes.—I am delighted that you are going
to fall in with me. Good bye for to-day.”

Away he went, leaving Colburne in wonder over his
contrasts of slanginess and gentility, his mingled audacity
and insouciance of character, and all the picturesque ins
and outs of his moral architecture, so different from the

[figure description] Page 090.[end figure description]

severe plainness of the spiritual temples common in New
Boston. The young man would have preferred that his
future Colonel should not drink and swear; but he would
not puritanically decide that a man who drank and swore
could not be a good officer. He did not know army men
well enough to dare judge them with positiveness; and
he certainly would not try them by the moral standards
according to which he tried civilians. The facts that
Carter was a professional soldier, and that he had shed
his blood in the cause of the country, were sufficient to
make Colburne regard with charity all his frank vices.

I must not allow the reader to suppose that I present
Carter as a type of all regular officers. There were men
in the old army who never tasted liquors, who never
blasphemed, who did not waste their substance in riotous
living, who could be accused of no evil practices, who
were models of Christian gentlemen. The American service,
as well as the English, had its Havelocks, its Headly
Vicars, its Colonel Newcomes. Nevertheless I do venture
to say that it had also a great many men whose moral
habits were cut more or less on the Carter pattern, who
swore after the fashion of the British army in Flanders,
whose heads could carry drink like Dugald Dalgetty's,
and who had even other vices concerning which my discreet
pen is silent.

Within a week after the conversation above reported
Colburne opened a recruiting office, advertised the “Putnam
Rangers” largely, and adorned his doorway with a
transparency representing Old Put in a bran-new uniform
riding sword in hand down the stone steps of Horseneck.
His company, as yet in embryo, was one of the ten
accepted out of the nineteen offered for Carter's regiment.
It was supposed that the name of a West Point colonel
would render the organization a favorite one with the enlisting
classes; and accordingly all the chiefs of incomplete
companies throughout the State of Barataria wanted to
sieze the chance for easy recruiting. But Colburne

[figure description] Page 091.[end figure description]

soon found that the dullness of a young lawyer's office
was none too prosy an exordium for the dullness of a recruiting
office at this particular period. Passed was that
springtide of popular enthusiasm when companies were
raised in a day, when undersized heroes wept at being rejected
by the mustering officer, when well-to-do youths
paid a hundred dollars to buy out a chance to be shot at.
Bull Run had disenchanted some romantic natures concerning
the pleasures of war, and the vast enlistments of
the summer had drawn heavily on the nation's fighting
material. Moreover, Colburne had to encounter obstacles
of a personal nature, such as did not trouble some of his
competitors. A student, a member of a small and shy social
circle, neither business man nor one of the bone and
sinew, not having belonged to a fire company or militia
company, nor even kept a bar or billiard-saloon, he had no
retainers nor partisans nor shopmates to call upon, no rummy
customers whom he could engage in the war-dance on
condition of unlimited whiskey. He had absolutely no
personal means of influencing the classes of the community
which furnish that important element of all military organizations,
private soldiers. For a time he remained almost
as solitary in his office as Old Put in the perilous
glory of his breakneck descent. In short the raising of his
company proved a slow, vexatious and expensive business,
notwithstanding the countenance and aid of the Colonel.

Miss Ravenel was much spited in secret when she saw
his advertisement; but she was too proud to expose her
interest in the matter by opposition. What object had
she in keeping him at home and out of danger? Moreover,
after the fashion of most southern women, she believed
in fighting, and respected a man the more for drawing
the sword, no matter for which party. After a while,
when his activity and cheerfulness of spirit had returned
to him, she began to talk with her old freedom of expression,
and indulged in playful prophecies about the Bull

[figure description] Page 092.[end figure description]

Runs he would fight, the masterly retreats he would accomplish,
and the captivities he would undergo.

“When you are a prisoner in Richmond,” she said, “I'll
write to my Louisiana friends in the southern army and
tell them what a spiteful abolitionist you are. I'll get them
to put a colored friend and brother into the same cell with
you. You won't like it. You'll promise to go back to
your law office, if they'll send that fellow to his plantation.”

The Doctor was all sympathy and interest, and brimmed
over with prophecies of Colburne's success. He
judged the people of Barataria by the people of Louisiana;
the latter preferred gentlemen for officers, and so of course
would the former. Notwithstanding his hatred of slavery
he was still somewhat under the influence of its aristocratical
glamour. He had not yet fully comprehended
that the war was a struggle of the plain people against an
oligarchy, and that the plain people had, not very understandingly
but still very resolutely, determined to lead the
fighting as well as to do it. He had not yet full faith
that the northern working-man would beat the southern
gentleman, without much guidance from the northern
scholar.

“Don't be discouraged,” he said to Colburne. “I feel
the utmost confidence in your prospects. As soon as it is
generally understood who you are and what your character
is, you will have recruits to give away. It is impossible
that these bar-tenders and tinkers should raise good
men as easily as a gentleman and a graduate of the university.
They may get a run of ruff-scuff, but it won't
last. I predict that your company will be completed
sooner and composed of better material than any other in
the regiment. I would no more give your chance for that
of one of these tinkers than I would exchange a meteorite
for its weight in old nails.”

The Doctor abounded in promising but unfruitful
schemes for helping forward the Putnam Rangers. He

[figure description] Page 093.[end figure description]

proposed that Colburne should send a circular to all the
clergymen and Sabbath-school superintendents of the
county, calling upon each parish to furnish the subscriber
with only one good recruit.

“If they do that,” said he, “as they unquestionably
will when the case is properly presented to them, why the
company is filled at once.”

He advised the young man to make an oratorical tour,
delivering patriotic speeches in the village lyceums, and
circulating an enlistment paper at the close of each performance.
He told him that it would not be a bad move
to apply to his professional brethren far and near for aid
in rousing the popular enthusiasm. He himself wrote favorable
notices of the captain and his company, and got
them printed in the city journals. One day he came home
in a hurry, and with great glee produced the evening edition
of the New Boston Patriot.

“Our young friend has hit it at last,” he said to Lillie.
“He has called the muses to his aid. Here is a superb
patriotic hymn of his composition. It is the best thing of
the kind that the literature of the war has produced.”
(The Doctor was somewhat given to hyperbole in speaking
well of his friends.) “It can't fail to excite popular
attention. I venture to predict that those verses alone
will bring him in fifty men.”

“Let me see,” said Lillie, making an impatient snatch
at the paper; but the Doctor drew it away, desirous of enjoying
the luxury of his own elocution. To read a good
thing aloud and to poke the fire are simple but real pleasures,
which some people cannot easily deny themselves—
and which belong of right, I think, to the head of a family.
The Doctor settled himself in an easy chair, adjusted
his collar, put up his eyeglass, dropped it, put on his
spectacles in spite of Lillie's remonstrances, and read as
follows—

[figure description] Page 094.[end figure description]

“Let me see it,” persisted Lillie, making a second and
more successful reach for the paper. She read the verses
to herself with a slight flush of excitement, and then
quietly remarked that they were pretty. It has been

[figure description] Page 095.[end figure description]

suspected that she kept that paper; at all events, when her
father sought it next morning to cut out the verses and
paste them in his common-place book, he could not find it;
and while Lillie pretended to take an interest in his search,
she made no distinct answer to his inquiries. I am told
by persons wise in the ways of young ladies that they
sometimes lay aside trifles of this sort, and are afterwards
ashamed, from some inexplicable cause, of having the fact
become patent even to their nearest relatives. It must
not be understood, by the way, that Miss Ravenel had lost
her slight admiration for that full-blown specimen of the
male sex, Colonel Carter. He was too much in the style
of a Louisiana planter not to be attractive to her homesick
eyes. She welcomed his rare visits with her invariable
but nevertheless flattering blush, and talked to him with
a vivacity which sent flashes of pain into the soul of Colburne.
The young man admitted the fact of these spasms,
but tried to keep up a deception as to their cause. In his
charity towards himself he attributed them to an unselfish
anxiety for the happiness of that sweet girl, who, he feared,
would find Carter an unsuitable husband, however grandiose
as a social ornament and accomplished as an officer.

In spite of these sentimental possibilities of disagreement
between the Colonel and the Captain, their friendship
daily grew stronger. The former was not in the
least influenced by lovelorn jealousy, and set much store
by Colburne as being the only officer in his regiment who
was precisely to his taste. He had desired, but had not
been able to obtain, the young gentlemen of New Boston,
the sons of the college professors, and of the city clergymen.
The set was limited in number and not martial nor
enthusiastic in character. It had held aristocratically
aloof from the militia, from the fire companies, from personal
interference in local politics, from every social enterprise
which could bring it into contact with the laboring
masses. It needed two years of tremendous war to break
through the shy reserve of this secluded and almost

[figure description] Page 096.[end figure description]

monastic little circle, and let loose its sons upon the battle-field.
The Colonel was disgusted with his raft of tinkers
and tailors, as he called his officers, although they were
mostly good drill-masters and creditably zealous in learning
the graver duties of their new profession. The regular
army, he said, had not been troubled with any such
kind of fellows. The brahminism of West Point and of
the old service revolted from such vulgar associations. It
required the fiery breath of many fierce battles, in which
the gallantry of volunteers shone conspicuous, to blow this
feeling into oblivion.

One day the Colonel related in confidence to the Doctor
a circumstance which had given him peculiar disgust.
The Governor having permitted him to nominate his own
Lieutenant-Colonel, he had selected an ex-officer of a three
months' regiment who had shown tactical knowledge, and
gallantry. The field position of Major he had finally resolved
to demand for Colburne. Hence an interview, and
an unpleasant one, with the chief magistrate of Barataria.

“Governor,” said Carter, “I want that majority for a
particular friend of mine, the best officer in the regiment
and the best man for the place that I know in the State.”

The Governor was in his little office reclining in a highbacked
oaken chair, and toasting his feet at a fire. He
was a tall, thin, stooping gentleman, slow in gait because
feeble in health, with a benign dignity of manner and an
unvarying amiability of countenance. His eyes were a
pale blue, his hair a light chesnut slightly silvered by fifty
years, his complexion had once been freckled and was still
fair, his smile was frequent and conciliatory. Like President
Lincoln he sprang from the plain people, who were to
conquer in this war, and like him he was capable of intellectual
and moral growth in proportion to enlargement of
his sphere of action. A modest, gentle-tempered, obliging
man, patriotic in every impulse, devout in the severe
piety of New England, distinguished for personal honor

[figure description] Page 097.[end figure description]

and private virtues, he was in the main a credit to the
State which had selected him for its loftiest dignity.

He had risen from his chair and saluted the Colonel
with marked respect. Although he did not like his moral
ways, he valued him highly for his professional ability
and courage, and was proud to have him in command of a
Baratarian regiment. To his shy spirit this aristocratic
and martial personage was in fact a rather imposing phenomenon.
Carter had a fearful eye; by turns audaciously
haughty and insolently quizzical; and on this occasion
the Governor felt himself more than usually discomposed
under its wide open, steady, confident stare. He seemed
even a little tremulous as he took his seat; he dreaded to
disagree with the representative of West Point brahminism;
and yet he knew that he must.

“Captain Colburne.”

“Oh—Captain Colburne,” hesitated the Governor. “I
agree with you, Colonel, in all that you say of him. I
hope that there will be an opportunity yet of pushing him
forward. But just now,” he continued with a smile that
was apologetical and almost penitent, “I don't see that I
can give him the majority. I have promised it to Captain
Gazaway.”

“To Gazaway!” exclaimed Carter. A long breath of angry
astonishment swelled his broad breast, and his cheek
would have flushed if any emotion could have deepened
the tint of that dark red bronze.

“You don't mean, I hope, Governor, that you are resolved
to give the majority of my regiment to that boor.”

“I know that he is a plain man,” mildly answered the
Governor, who had begun life himself as a mechanic.

“Plain man! He is a plain blackguard. He is a toddy-mixer
and shoulder-hitter.”

The Governor uttered a little troubled laugh; he was
clearly discomposed, but he was not angry.

“I am willing to grant all that you say of him,” he answered.
“I have no personal liking for the man.

[figure description] Page 098.[end figure description]

Individually I should prefer Captain Colburne. But if you
knew the pressure that I am under—”

He hesitated as if reflecting, smiled again with his habitual
gentleness, folded and unfolded his hands nervously,
and proceeded with his explanation.

“You must not expose our little political secrets, Colonel.
I am obliged to permit certain schemes and plots
which personally I disapprove of. Captain Gazaway lives
in a very close district, and influences a considerable number
of votes. He is popular among his class of people, as
you can see by the ease with which he filled his company.
He and his friends insist upon the majority. If we refuse it
we shall probably lose the district and a member of Congress.
That is a serious matter at this time when the
administration must be supported by a strong house, or
the nation may be shipwrecked. Still, if I were left alone
I would take the risk, and appoint good officers and no
others to all our regiments, satisfied that success in the
field is the best means of holding the masses firm in
support of the Government. But in the meantime Burleigh,
who is our candidate in Gazaway's district, is defeated,
we will suppose. Burleigh and Gazaway understand
each other. If Gazaway gets the majority, he
promises to insure the district to Burleigh. You see the
pressure I am under. All the leading managers of our
party concur in urging upon me this promotion of Gazaway.
I regret extremely that I can do nothing now for
your favorite, whom I respect very much. I hope to do
something for him in the future.”

“When an election is not so near at hand,” suggested
Carter.

“Here,” continued the Governor, without noticing the
satire, I have been perfectly frank with you. All I ask in
return is that you will have patience.”

“'Pon my honor, I can't of course find fault with you
personally, Governor,” replied the Colonel. “I see how
the cursed thing works. You are on a treadmill, and

p542-106 [figure description] Page 099.[end figure description]

must keep stepping according to the machinery. But by—!
sir, I wish this whole matter of appointments was in
the hands of the War Department.”

“I almost wish it was,” sighed the Governor, still
without a show of wounded pride or impatience.

It was this conversation which the Colonel repeated to
the scandalized ears of Doctor Ravenel, when the latter
urged the promotion of Colburne.

“I hope you will inform our young friend of your efforts
in his favor,” said the Doctor. “He will be exceedingly
gratified, notwithstanding the disappointment.”

“No,” said the Colonel. “I beg your pardon; but
don't tell him. It would not be policy, it would not be
soldierly, to inform him of any thing likely to disgust him
with the service.”