The Southerner: A Romance of the Real Lincoln Part 66

The Confederate soldier was ragged and his shoes were tied together with strings. His uniform consisted of an old hat or cap usually without a brim, a s.h.i.+rt of striped bed-ticking so brown it seemed woven of the gra.s.s. The b.u.t.tons were of discolored cow's horn. His coat was the color of Virginia dust and mud, and it was out at the elbow. His socks were home-made, knit by loving hands swift and tender in their endless work of love. The socks were the best things he had.

The one spotless thing about him was his musket and the bayonet he carried at his side. His spirits were high.

A barefooted soldier had managed to get home and secure a pair of boots.

He started back to his regiment hurrying to be on time for the fight.

The new boots hurt him so terribly he couldn't wear them. He pa.s.sed Ned's regiment with his precious footgear hanging on his arm.

"h.e.l.lo, Sonny, what command?" Ned cried.

"Company E, 12th Virginia, Mahone's brigade!" he proudly answered.

"Yes, d.a.m.n you," a soldier drawled from the gra.s.s, "and you've pulled your boots off, holdin' 'em in yer hand, ready to run now!"

The laugh ran along the line and the boy hurried on to escape the chaff.

A well-known chaplain rode along a narrow path on the hillside. He was mounted on an old horse whose hip bones protruded like two deadly fangs.

A footsore Confederate was hobbling as fast as he could in front of him, glancing back over his shoulder now and then uneasily.

"You needn't be afraid, my friend," the parson called, "I'm not going to run over you."

"I know you ain't," the soldier laughed, "but ef I wuz ter let you pa.s.s me, and that thing wuz ter wobble I'll be doggoned ef I wouldn't be gored ter death!"

The preacher reined his steed in with dignity and spoke with wounded pride:

"My friend, this is a better horse than our Lord rode into Jerusalem on!"

The soldier stepped up quickly, opened the animal's mouth and grinned:

"Parson, that's the very same horse!"

A shout rose from the hill in which the preacher joined.

"Dod bam it, did ye ever hear the beat o' that!" shouted a pious fellow who was inventing cuss words that would pa.s.s the charge of profanity.

A distinguished citizen of Fredericksburg pa.s.sed along the lines wearing a tall new silk hat. He didn't get very far before he changed his line of march. A regular fusillade poured on him from the ranks.

"Say, man, is dat a hat er a bee gum?"

"Come down now!"

"Come down outen that hat an' help us with these Yanks!"

"Come down I say--I know you're up there for I can see your legs!"

When the silk hat vanished, a solemn country boy with slight knowledge of books began to discuss the great mysteries of eternity.

Ned had won his unbounded faith and admiration by spelling at the first trial the name of his native village in the Valley of Virginia--McGaheysville. Tom held this fact to be a marvellous intellectual achievement.

"What I want to know, Ned, is this," he drawled, "who started sin in this world, anyhow? What makes a good thing good and what makes a bad thing bad, and who said so first?"

"That's what I'd like to know myself, Tom," Ned gravely answered.

"An' ye don't know?"

"I certainly do not."

"I don't see why any man that can spell like you don't know everything."

He paused, picked up a pebble and threw it at a comrade's foot and laughed to see him jump as from a Minie ball.

"You know, Ned," he went on slowly, "what I think is the prettiest piece of poetry?"

"No--what?"

"Hit's this:

"'The men of high condition That rule affairs of State; Their purpose is ambition, Their practice only hate.'"

"Pretty good, Tom," was the quick reply, "but I think I can beat it with something more hopeful. I got it in Sunday School out in Missouri:

"'The sword and spear, of needless worth, Shall prune the tree and plough the earth; And Peace shall smile from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e And Nations learn to war no more.'"

The country boy's eyes gleamed with eager approval. He had fought for nearly two years and the glory of war was beginning to lose its glamour.

"Say that again, Ned," he pleaded. "Say it again! That's the prettiest thing I ever heard in my life!"

He was silent a moment:

"Yes, I used to think it would be glorious to hear the thunder of guns and the shriek of sh.e.l.ls. I've changed my mind. When I hear one of 'em comin' now, I begin to sing to myself the old-fas.h.i.+oned tune I used to hear in the revivals:

"'Hark from the tomb a doleful sound!

'My thoughts in dreadful subjects roll d.a.m.nation and the dead----'

"I've an idea we're going to sing some o' them old songs on this field pretty soon."

Again Ned thought of John and offered a silent prayer that he might not be in those blue lines that were going to charge into the jaws which Death had opened for them in the valley below.

John Vaughan in his tent beyond the Rappahannock was wasting no energy worrying about the coming battle. Death had ceased to be a matter of personal concern. He had seen so many dead and wounded men as he had ridden over battlefields he had come to take them as a matter of course.

He was going into action now for the first time in the ranks as a private soldier and he would see things happen at closer range--that was all. He wished to see them that way. He had reached the point of utter indifference to personal danger and it brought a new consciousness of strength that was inspiring. He had stopped dreaming of the happiness of love after the exhibition he had made of himself before Betty Winter and the brutal insult with which he met her advances. Some girls might forgive it, but not this proud, sensitive, high strung daughter of the snows of New England and the sunlight of France. And so he had resolutely put the thought out of his heart.

Julius had proven himself a valuable servant. He was the best cook in the regiment, and what was still more important, he was the most skillful thief and the most plausible liar in the army. He could defend himself so n.o.bly from the insinuations of the suspicious that they would apologize for the wrong unwittingly done his character. John had not lived so well since he could remember.

"Julius, you're a handy man in war!" he exclaimed after a hearty supper on fried chicken.

"Ya.s.sah--I manage ter git 'long, sah."

Julius took up his banjo and began to tune it for an accompaniment to his songs. He had a mellow rhythmical voice that always brought the crowd. He began with his favorite that never failed to please his master. The way he rolled his eyes and sang with his hands and feet and every muscle of his body was the source of unending interest to his Northern audience.