by Homer Greene
CHAPTER XI
THE GREAT TRAGEDY
But Bob Bannister was not killed at Five Forks, nor did he die of hiswounds. A fragment of a bursting shell had struck his head, torn loosethe scalp, laid bare the skull, felled him with a crash, and lefthim insensible for hours. He did not know when he was carried fromthe field; but, later on, he realized that he was being jolted overrough roads, that somewhere there was a great pain of which he wasdimly conscious, and that now and then a cup of water was placed mostrefreshingly to his parched lips. When he did come fully to himself itwas the day after the battle, and he was in the army hospital at CityPoint, one of the hundreds of occupants of the long rows of cots thatlined the walls. His head was swathed in bandages, a blinding painshot back and forth across his eyes, and in his mouth was still thatinsatiable thirst. On the cot beside him lay his father, who had alsobeen ordered by the field surgeon to the hospital at City Point. Thoseminié balls made ugly wounds, as thousands of veterans of both armiescan testify, and Rhett Bannister certainly needed surgical skill andcareful nursing. But the surgeon who sent him to City Point, and whoknew and loved both him and his son, had a deeper thought in mind.That wound of Bob’s, under certain conditions, might suddenly lead tosomething very grave, and--well, it was a good idea for the boy tohave his father at his side. But, for stalwart manhood and clean andvigorous youth, wounds yield readily to proper treatment, and, beforemany days had passed, both father and son were well on the road torecovery.
Then, one morning, a strange thing happened, and, to Bob Bannister, ashe thought of it in after years, the most beautiful thing that everentered 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, andevery man who could do so, rose to his feet, or sat up in bed, andsaluted as “Father Abraham” passed by. At many a cot he stopped to givegreeting to maimed and helpless veterans of the war, to speak words ofencouragement to the sick and wounded boys who had fought and sufferedthat the common cause might triumph, to bend over the prostrate form ofsome poor wreck tossed up from the awful whirlpool of battle. Soldierswho lived never forgot the benediction of his presence that beautifulday, and more than one fell into his last sleep with the vision of thefatherly and sympathetic face of the beloved President before his dimand 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 surgeonwho was escorting him, “those are only rebels in there.”
The President turned and laid his large hand gently on the shoulder ofhis 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 ashe passed, asking after their wants, bringing to all of them good cheerand hopefulness and helpfulness as he passed by. One boy of seventeensaid to him:--
“My father knew you, Mr. Lincoln, before the war. He was killed atChantilly. He said to me once: ‘Whatever happens, don’t you everbelieve Abraham Lincoln guilty of harshness or cruelty.’ I am so gladto 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 alreadystealing into the young face, said:--
“Thank you, my son. If I know my own heart, there has never beenharshness or cruelty in it; there is no malice or bitterness in itto-day. I sympathize with you. I sympathize with all of you--” helifted his head and looked around on the rapt faces turned towardhim--“the more because your cause is a lost cause, because you aresuffering also the bitterness of defeat. And yet I feel that, underGod, 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 waslying, he gave him a word of simple greeting and would have gone by hadnot something in the man’s face attracted his attention and caused himto stop.
“Have I ever seen you before?” he inquired.
“Yes, Mr. President. I am Rhett Bannister from Pennsylvania. I spenta half-hour with you one morning in the Secretary’s room in theWar Department, in the fall of ’63. I was an escaped conscript thatmorning.”
A smile of recognition lit up the face of the President, and hisgnarled hand grasped the hand of the wounded man.
“I remember,” he said. “I remember very well. And have you been in theservice ever since?”
Some one across the aisle, who had heard the conversation, replied thattime for Bannister.
“Yes, Mr. President, he has. And he’s been the bravest and the bestsoldier in the ranks, bar none. I’m the adjutant of his battalion, andI know.”
“Good!” exclaimed the President. “Oh, that’s very good. I felt thatwe’d make a good soldier of him in the end. And, let’s see! There was aboy 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 atFive Forks.”
The President turned half round and looked incredulously on the paleface of the youth at his side. Then he took the boy’s two hands in bothof his, and bent over him. There was no grace in the movement, therewas no beauty of face or smoothness of diction to add charm to theincident; but Bob Bannister will remember to his last hour on earth howthe 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 atthe head of his cot, with the shoulder-straps of a first lieutenanthalf 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 everystep of his promotion.”
Still holding the boy’s hands and looking down into his face, thePresident said:--
“I thank you, my son. In the name of the country for which you havefought and suffered, I thank you.”
After a moment he added:--
“And, let me see, there was a mother back there in Pennsylvania, wasn’tthere? 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 goingto have their reward. The war is almost over now, my boy--it’s almostover, Bannister. Peace is coming, next week maybe, next month forsure. And the peace that’s coming was well worth fighting for. I tellyou the mothers have not agonized in vain, the dead have not died fornaught.”
There were tears in his eyes as he spoke. He never could quite get overhis pity for the mothers whose boys had died in the conflict, nor hissorrow over the unnumbered lives lost in the maelstrom of war. Thesethings lay, always, a mighty burden on his heart. He lived with themby day and he dreamed of them at night. But now that there were to beno more battles, no more agonies, no more dead faces turned upward tothe sky, a thankfulness such as no other life has ever known filled hissoul and suffused his countenance. Rhett Bannister, who had seen himin the dark days of ’63, and who had ever since been haunted by theinexpressible sadness of his face, noted at once how that face had beentransfigured. Not that it bore evidence now of pride or exultation,or a selfish joy in victories achieved, but rather that it shone witha great gladness because the sufferings and the hardships and theheart-agonies of a whole nation were so near their end. After a littlehe 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 waitingfor you. Good-by!”
He passed down the aisle, tall, loose-jointed, with ill-fitting clothesand awkward mien; but to those two wounded soldiers on their cots itseemed that a more beautiful presence than his had never passed theirway.
Wounds heal rapidly when light hearts and clean living add theirmeasure of assistance to the surgeon’s skill. And so it came about thatboth Bannister and his son were discharged from the hospital a weeklater. With the surgeon’s certificates in their pockets, they wereready to start toward the North, toward home, toward the sweetest,most life-giving spot in all the world. They would not need to comeback, they knew that, for the war was practically over. Richmond hadfallen, Lee had surrendered, Johnston’s army would soon be in thehands of Sherman, there was no more fighting to be done. So they wenton board a transport one day, and rode down the James and up thePotomac to Washington. It was early in the evening when they reachedthe city, and after a good meal and a refreshing rest they went outon the streets for a short stroll before retiring. They were to leaveWashington on an early train the next morning, and they thought to geta glimpse of it this night in its holiday attire, as it might be manyyears before either of them would come that way again.
It was a beautiful spring night. The air was soft, and heavy withthe scent of blossoming lilacs. The night before, the city had beensplendidly illuminated in honor of the recent victories and the dawnof peace, and to-night the rejoicings were still going on. The crowdsthat filled the streets were happy, high-spirited, exultant. Oh, butit 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 theface of every person who went hurrying by; despondency in the slowgait of every loiterer on the streets. And over the head of the ChiefMagistrate hung ever the horror of blood, on his heart weighed ever theapprehension of unforeseen disaster. But to-night, how different! Someone 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 spentthe morning with him. Some friends from the West had occupied hisjoyful attention for a brief time in the afternoon. All who saw himthat day never afterward forgot the peaceful and gentle serenity ofhis face. He had said to the members of his Cabinet at their meetingthat morning, that, on his part, there was no feeling of hate orvindictiveness toward any person of the South. That, so far as he couldcontrol 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 beextinguished, and harmony and union must prevail.
As Bannister and his son walked through the gay crowds on the streetsthat night, they heard people say that the President and Mrs. Lincolnhad 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 andpleasure, and the President wanted the people to feel that he rejoicedwith them. When the play should be over, there would be a crowd waitingat the door of the play-house to see the Chief Magistrate come out andenter his carriage, and to show their admiration and love for him bycheers and huzzas and the waving of hats and handkerchiefs. The theatrewas not far away, and Bannister and Bob thought to go there and takepart in the demonstration. F Street, along which they were walking,was almost deserted. The crowds had gravitated down into E Street andbeyond, and were thronging Pennsylvania Avenue.
Bob looked at his watch,--the boys of his company had sent it to himas a memento before he left the hospital,--and saw that it was nearlyhalf-past ten.
“I think we’ll have to hurry a little, father,” he said, “the play mustbe nearly over now.”
So they quickened their steps. Between Tenth and Eleventh Streets, asthey hurried along, a strange thing happened. As they passed the mouthof an alley leading to the centre of the block, toward E Street, theirattention was attracted by an unusual noise proceeding from the depthsof the passageway. Some one down there was shouting and cursing. Thenthere was a clatter of horse’s hoofs on the cobblestone pavement;around the corner of a building, and into the light of the dim lamphung at the foot of the alley, clanging up the passage and dashing outinto 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 thehilt, stained with blood on the blade. Heading his horse to the north,bending forward in his saddle, his long, dark hair flying out behindhim, he went, in a mad gallop, up the half-deserted street, and, beforethe astonished onlookers had fairly caught breath, he had vanished intothe night. A half-dozen men, strolling along in that vicinity, turnedand gazed after the flying horseman, and then all, with one accord,involuntarily started in the direction he had taken. At the corner ofTenth Street, as they looked down toward Ford’s Theatre, they saw thatthere was some confusion there. Men were running toward the play-house,other men were pushing their passage from its doorway. There wereshouts which Bannister and his son could not understand, but they, withthe others, ran down toward the centre of the disturbance. Before theywere able to reach the front of the theatre, the cry came, loud andclear, 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 thetheatre crying:--
“Stop the assassin! Stop him! It was Wilkes Booth. Don’t let him getaway!”
But those who had seen the flying horseman disappear down the longmoonlit vista of F Street, knew that the assassin had already made hisescape.
Men and women, with horror-stricken faces, were now pouring fromthe entrance to the play-house. The street was filling up with ajostling, questioning, gesticulating crowd. “How did it happen?”--“Whodid it?”--“Why was it done?”--“Where is the murderer?”--“Catchhim!”--“Hang him!” Men demanded information, and action as well. Twosoldiers in full uniform, with side-arms, hurled themselves out intothe roadway, through the crowd, and up toward F Street. Some one calleda boy and told him to run to the White House as though his life werethe forfeit for delay, and tell Robert Lincoln to come.
And then, suddenly, a hush fell upon the crowd. It was known that theywere bringing the President down. The space about the doorway wascleared, and out into the lamplight came men bearing the long, limpbody of Abraham Lincoln. At the sidewalk they hesitated and stopped.What should they do with him? There was no carriage there. And if therehad been, it was too long and rough a journey to the White House totake a dying man. Diagonally across the street, on the high front porchof a plain three-story dwelling-house, a young man stood. He had comefrom his bed-chamber to learn the cause of the disturbance, and seeingthe 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 calledout 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 theway, up the steep and winding stairs to the porch, through the modestdoorway and down the narrow hall into a small plain sleeping-room atthe end, and laid the President of the United States on a bed where asoldier of the ranks, home on furlough, had slept for many nights.
And it was there that the President died. Not in the White House withits stately halls and ornate rooms, not where his labor had been doneand his cares had weighed him down, not where his hours of anguishhad been spent and his tears of pity had been shed; but here, in thishumble home, like the homes he had loved and lived in before the nationcalled 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 hisbedside when the last breath left the mortal body, St
anton who hadknown him for many years, who had in turn denounced him, ridiculed him,criticised him, honored him, and loved him, turned in that moment tothe awe-stricken onlookers at the last scene and said: “Now he is withthe ages.”
Among those lining the pathway across the street along which thePresident’s body was borne, dripping blood as it passed, stood RhettBannister and his son. For one moment, as the moonlight fell on thegray face, already stamped with the seal of death, they saw him.His long arms hung loosely at his sides, his eyes were closed, hiscountenance showed no mark of suffering, save that some one, holdinghis wounded head, had inadvertently smeared his cheek with blood.They never forgot that sight. They never could forget it. Many andmany a time, in the stillness of midnight, in the light and noise ofnoonday, no matter where or when, the vision of that face they both hadknown and loved, with its closed eyes and tangled hair, and with theblood-splash on the cheek, came back to them, with its never-endingshock 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 thehour, and to rave against the assassin, and those who might haveinfluenced him, and while women, pale-faced and unbonneted, wept andwrung their hands, the soldiers came and cleared the theatre, and drovethe people from the street; and thenceforward, until the dead body ofthe Chief Magistrate had been borne from the humble house where hedied, no one without authority was permitted to pass that way.
Rhett Bannister and Bob were pushed and crowded back with the restup into F Street, along which they had been quietly strolling ahalf-hour earlier, and there, exhausted from the shock of the tragedy,grief-stricken as they had never been before, they sat down on thestreet curb to rest. And, even as they sat there, men came running bycalling 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 allmean?”
“I don’t know, Robert, except that the most inhuman and uncalled-forcrime that ever marred the centuries has been committed this night.”
“Father, I can’t go home. While such things as these are still possibleI wouldn’t dare go home, there’s more work for us to do yet in thearmy. I am going back to-morrow morning to join my regiment inVirginia.”
“You are right, my son, and I will go back with you.”
And they went.
CHAPTER XII
THE WELCOME HOME
The war was over. Peace rested on the land. All men, North and South,were thankful that the shedding of human blood had ceased. June came,brighter, more beautiful, than any other June of which living men hadmemory. The world was filled with sunshine, with flowers, with thesongs of birds, with the flashings of waters, with the gladness ofnature and humanity. The last tired, tattered soldier of the Southhad gone back to his home to pick up the broken threads of destinyand to begin his life anew. And, slowly drifting up from camp andbattle-field, the veterans of the Union army were coming by ones andtwos and in little groups, some of them mere ghosts of the boys who hadgone to the front when the war was on. But for every war-worn soldierthus returning there was one who would never come again. So there weretears as well as smiles, and heart-aches as well as rejoicings.
But the soldiers from Mount Hermon did not come until after the closeof the Grand Review in Washington, in which they took part. Then theytoo turned their faces toward home. It was agreed that they should allcome together. And Mount Hermon, that had sent them forth with itsGod-speed, that had rejoiced in their victories and sorrowed in theirdefeats, was ready to welcome them back. They were to come on a specialcar that would reach Carbon Creek late in the forenoon. There they wereto be met by a committee of welcome, with a band of music and decoratedwagons. The party would reach Mount Hermon about noon, and after thefirst greetings had been given, there was to be a dinner under a greattent on the public square, the finest dinner that the men of MountHermon could buy and the women of Mount Hermon could prepare. Andafter the dinner, from the platform at the end of the tent, there wereto be addresses of welcome, and music, and every returning man and boywho had worn the blue was to be made to feel that the town was proud ofhim this day, and honored him for the service he had performed for hiscountry and the lustre he had shed upon Mount Hermon.
So, on the day of the arrival, the committee of welcome was at CarbonCreek a full hour before the train was due, so fearful were they lestby some unforeseen delay they should be one minute too late. In duetime the procession, half a hundred strong, started on its way to MountHermon, the band in the first wagon playing “Marching through Georgia.”All along the route there was, as the newspapers said next day, “acontinuous ovation.” Farm-houses were decorated, flags were flyingeverywhere, groups of cheering citizens stood at every crossroad. Whenthey reached the borough line, they all descended from the wagons andformed on foot to march to the village green. Not quite as they hadformed in other days under Southern skies, for now there was no one incommand; officers and privates alike were in the ranks to-day, marchingshoulder to shoulder, arm in arm, in one long, glad, home-comingprocession. But you couldn’t keep those ranks in order; no one couldhave kept them in order. One old veteran said that Ulysses Granthimself couldn’t have kept the men in line, there was so much cheering,so much hand-shaking, so many waiting wives and mothers and children tobe kissed and hugged and kissed again. And long before the great tenton the green was reached there was no more semblance of order in thosehappy ranks, than you would have found among a group of schoolgirls outfor a holiday.
Private Bannister and his son were both in the procession. Not thatit was Rhett Bannister’s choice to be there. He had thought to makethe journey back to his home quietly and alone, in much the same waythat he had left it nearly two years before, and there await suchwelcome, good or ill, as the people of the community might see fit togive him. But his comrades simply would not have it so. Indeed, theyrefused absolutely to go together, or to partake in the ceremony ofwelcome, unless he would go with them. So he went, not without manymisgivings, fearing the worst, yet hoping for the best. And the bestcame. His record in the ranks had preceded him long before. The storyof his conversion by Abraham Lincoln was a story that his neighborsnever wearied of telling. And if there was one thing more than anotheron which Mount Hermon prided herself, next to having as one of her ownboys the youngest commissioned officer in the Army of the Potomac, itwas on the fact that Rhett Bannister, the once hated, despised, andoutlawed copperhead, had become one of the best and bravest and truestsoldiers in the armies of his country.
And so Mount Hermon welcomed him. Nor could he for one moment doubtthe sincerity of his welcome. The hearty handclasp, the tremblingvoice, the tear-dimmed eye with which old friends and neighbors greetedhim, left no room for questionings.
One block from the public square Henry Bradbury came upon them. He puthis one remaining arm around Bob’s shoulders and hugged him till hewinced.
“You rascal!” he exclaimed. “You runaway! You patriot! God bless you!”
Then he released Bob, and grasped Bob’s father’s hand.
“Rhett Bannister,” he said, “I never took hold of but one man’s handin my life before, that I was prouder to shake, and that was AbrahamLincoln’s.”
Then when he got his voice again, he added:--
“Fall out, both of you. Sarah Jane Stark wants to see you at her housebefore you go to the square.”
So they followed him three blocks around, and down to the house ofSarah Jane Stark. She was there in the hall, waiting for them.
“Bob Bannister,” she said, “I love you!” And she put her hands up onhis broad shoulders and kissed him on both cheeks. Then she turnedto Bob’s father, and, without a word, and much to his amazement andconfusion, she saluted him in the same way.
“There!” she exclaimed, “that’s the first time I’ve kissed a man inforty years. I never expect to kiss another, but--to-day--it’
s worthit. There, not a word! I know what I’m doing. Go in there, both of you.March!”
She opened the parlor door, thrust them both into the room, and closedthe door on them without another word. In that room were Mary Bannisterand Louise. At the end of fifteen minutes, Sarah Jane Stark came backdown the hall and knocked briskly.
“Come,” she said, “it’s time to go to the square. You needn’t thinkyou can stay here and make love all day. And I won’t give you a thingto eat. You’ve got to go up to the tent and eat with the rest of us.”
On the way up she walked with Bob. She had a thousand questions to ask,nor could Bob get one quite answered before a new one would strike himsquarely between the eyes. But when she said: “And where’s that dearsergeant who took breakfast with us one morning, and who couldn’t saygrace; what became of him?” and Bob answered, “He was killed at ColdHarbor, Miss Stark,” she was silent for a full minute.
They were just ready to sit down to dinner in the big tent when theBannisters arrived. A place had been reserved for them at the head ofthe table, two and two on each side of the master of the feast, withall the other veterans and their wives and daughters and sweethearts inline below, and the patriotic citizens of Mount Hermon filling up therest of the long tables.
That was a dinner! In the whole history of Mount Hermon nothing hadbeen known to equal it. And when it was over, and the tables had beenpartly cleared, the flag at the end of the tent was drawn aside, andthere on the platform were the speakers, the singers, and the band. Achorus of girls, dressed in white, with little flags in their hands,sang “America.” There was a brief and fervent prayer by the oldclergyman who had married nearly every one’s father and mother in MountHermon, and who knew all the middle-aged people by their first names.Then the burgess of the borough delivered the address of welcome, andthe band played. After that the chairman of the meeting rose and rappedfor order.
“Our young friends,” he said, “desire to participate, to a briefextent, in this programme of rejoicing. I will call upon Master SamuelPowers.”
So Master Samuel Powers made his way awkwardly and blushingly upbetween benches and tables, to the platform. At the steps he stumbled,recovered himself with a masterly jerk, and continued on his course.Turning to the audience, red-faced and frightened, he began to searchin his pockets for something that he had evidently mislaid. Intohis coat pockets and trousers pockets, each side in turn, outsideand inside, he searched with increasing desperation, but in vain.Then he tried the pockets all over again, with the same result. Theaudience began to see the comical side of the boy’s embarrassment, andhalf-suppressed laughter was heard throughout the tent. Some one in thecrowd yelled:--
“Cough it up, Sam! cough it up! You’ve swallered it!”
And a boy’s voice somewhere in the rear responded:--
“Aw, snakes! Let ’im alone. He’s got it in his head. Give it to ’em,Sammy, boy! Chuck it at ’em! Go it!”
Thus adjured, Sam advanced to the front of the platform.
“I had a paper,” he said, “to read from, but I guess I’ve lost it.Anyway, what I want to say is that two years ago us boys had a militarycompany here. An’ we’ve got it yet. An’ we’re goin’ to keep it. Well,two years ago Bob Bannister tried to get in the company an’ we wouldn’tlet ’im in because--” he gave a frightened glance at Rhett Bannister,sitting below him--“I might as well tell--because his father was acopperhead. Well, after what happened we got a little ashamed ofourselves, an’ when we heard how he was fightin’ down there in a realcompany, we were all sorry we hadn’t let him in. So when our captainmoved away we elected Bob Bannister captain, with leave of absence tillthe war was over. But somehow or another that didn’t seem to be quiteenough to do. An’ then when we heard about Five Forks we got togetheran’ chipped in, and our fathers helped us a little, and we bought himthe best sword an’ silk sash that Henry Bradbury could find in NewYork, an’ we want to give it to him here to-day. Say, Bill Hinkle,bring that sword up here!”
Thunders of applause greeted Sam’s remarks. Some one took Bob by thearm and dragged him to the platform, and when he had received thesword, which was indeed a beauty, there were insistent calls for aspeech. Bob looked down to his father for help and inspiration, and ashe did so the audience saw on his head the long, red, ragged scar overwhich the hair had not yet grown, and then the applause was renewedwith threefold vehemence.
Finally he managed to stammer out:--
“I can’t make a speech. I’m sure this tribute from the boys has touchedmy heart. I know I’m very grateful to you all for the way you’vewelcomed me. I’ll never forget this day, and--and I guess that’s all.”
He turned and made a rapid retreat from the platform, while theaudience shouted itself hoarse with approval of his speech. Therewas more music by the band, and then Judge Morgan mounted theplatform. He had aged much during the last two years of the war, andhis hand trembled visibly as he thrust it, after the old fashion,into the breast of his tightly buttoned Prince Albert coat. But hisvoice, though quavering a little at the start, was still strong andpenetrating, and no one in the audience could fail to hear him as hespoke.
“Mr. Chairman, returning soldiers of the Union armies, ladies andfellow citizens:--
“Some two years ago it was my fortune, or misfortune as you choose,to be present at a meeting of the citizens of Mount Hermon, heldon the nation’s natal day, on this very spot. The great battle ofGettysburg had just been fought. Public feeling ran high, the spiritof patriotism was at white heat. It became my duty to draw and presentto that meeting a set of resolutions condemnatory of one of our fellowcitizens whose unpatriotic attitude and open disloyalty brought downupon his head our righteous wrath. I need not repeat those resolutionshere. I need not call your attention further to the exciting incidentsof that day. Many of you will remember them. I will hasten on to saythat it has been my duty and my great pleasure to prepare another setof resolutions to be presented to this meeting to-day. They are asfollows:--
“RESOLVED: _First_,--That the resolutions heretofore adopted by thecitizens of Mount Hermon on the fourth day of July, A. D. 1863,denouncing as disloyal and unworthy of citizenship one Rhett Bannister,be and they are hereby absolutely suspended, revoked, and made void.
“_Second_,--That we welcome the said Rhett Bannister to his home as hereturns to us from the war, bringing with him a record for loyalty andcourage of which the best and bravest soldier might well be proud. Andwe congratulate him and his noble wife on the splendid service whichtheir son Lieutenant Robert Barnwell Bannister has rendered to hiscountry in her hour of need.
“_Third_,--That we welcome with open arms and thankful hearts all thesesoldiers of the Republic, who have returned to us this day bearinglaurels of victory, and we extend our assistance and condolence to allsick and wounded veterans and to all widows and orphans through whosesufferings our country has been saved.
“Mr. Chairman, I move the adoption of these resolutions by a risingvote.”
And how they did vote! rising of course, standing on chairs, tables,anything; cheering, waving hats and handkerchiefs, to express theirapproval of the resolutions which Judge Morgan had so acceptablyframed. Then there were shouts for “Bannister! Rhett Bannister! RhettBannister!”
At first he did not want to go. Then, as the second and wiser thoughtcame to him, he mounted the platform and faced his fellow townsmen.In the beginning he could not quite control his voice, but it soongot back its old resonant ring, and then the audience sat in raptattention, listening to his words.
HE FACED HIS FELLOW TOWNSMEN.]
“My friends and neighbors, I do not deserve this. I never dreamed of awelcome home like this. I thought to come back quietly, alone, and slipas easily as I might into the old grooves, and I hoped that some day,possibly, you would forget. But the boys who marched with me, foughtwith me, suffered with me, not one of whom but has been braver, truer,more faithful, and more deserving than I,--the boys, I say, would notlisten to it. So her
e I am, with them--and you. And now that I am hereI want to say to you what I have had it in my heart to say to you,night and day, for nearly two years. I am, as you know, descended fromthe men and women of the South. When the war came on I sympathized withmy brothers there. If I had been resident among them then, and hadfailed to rally to their cause, I would have been more than a poltroon.I could not see that the environment of a lifetime here should haveled me into wiser counsels and better judgment. You know the story ofmy folly. But, like Saul of Tarsus, breathing out threatenings andslaughter, I came one day into the presence of an overmastering soul. Iwent out from that presence changed, and utterly subdued. I saw thingsin a new light and with a larger vision. Not that I loved my peopleof the South any less, but that I loved my country more. By the graceand mercy of Abraham Lincoln, and the goodness of God, I was permittedto fight in the ranks of my country’s soldiers, side by side with myson whom you have just seen and heard. I never commended this boypublicly before, and it is not probable that I ever shall again; butI will say to-day, that no knight of old ever sought the Holy Grailwith more persistent courage and deeper devotion than he has soughthis country’s welfare. As for me, I am what I am to-day, I have donewhat I have done, because of Abraham Lincoln. If you had seen him asI saw him, if you had heard him as I heard him, you would have lovedhim as I loved him--yet not so deeply. For my love was greater becausehe loved my people of the South. Doubt me if you will, discredit me ifyou must, but I speak what I believe and know when I say that the menand women of the South have never had a better friend, a truer guide,a wiser counselor, than they lost when the foul assassin’s bullet sentthis gentle spirit to its home. I have done what I could. I have beenthe best soldier I knew how to be. Now I am back with you, to take uponce more the old life, and to try to prove to you through all thedays and nights that are to come, that your flag is my flag, that yourcountry is my country, and that this home among the Pennsylvania hillswas never quite so dear to me before as it is to-day. I thank you.I am grateful to you all. Your welcome has touched me so deeply--sodeeply”--and then his voice went utterly to pieces, and with tears ofjoy streaming down his face, he left the stand.
The meeting did not last long after that. There were more numbers onthe programme indeed. But when Rhett Bannister had finished, so manywere talking, so many were cheering, so many were crying, that thechairman simply let the people have their own way and finish as theywould.
It was a happy supper-party at the Bannister home that night; so likethe suppers in the summer days of old, in the years before the war.After it was over, Bob went down by the path across the meadow, as heused to go, to see Seth Mills. The old man had failed much of late. Agewas resting heavily upon him, and he was too feeble to go far from home.
And in the beautiful June twilight Rhett Bannister sat upon his porchand looked out upon the old familiar scene: the fields, the trees,the road, the clear and wonderful expanse of sky. But when his eyeswandered, for a moment, to the shop and the windmill tower crowned bythe motionless blades of the big wheel, he turned them away. Therewere things which, on this night of nights, he did not care to bringback to memory. And, as he sat there, holding in his own the hand ofthe happiest, proudest woman that the stars looked down upon thatsummer night in all the old Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, there camethe well-remembered click of the front-gate latch, and, out of thedarkness, hobbling slowly up the walk, came the bent figure of SethMills. Bannister leaped from the porch and hurried down the path tomeet him. The old man stopped and looked him over in well-feigneddismay.
“Rhett Bannister,” he exclaimed, “you blamed ol’ copperhead! youskallywag deserter! you deep-dyed villyan! what ’a you wearin’ themblue soldier clothes fur?”
Then, as Bannister hesitated, in doubt as to how he should take thisoutburst, his visitor broke into a hearty laugh.
“Well, Rhett,” he said, “I forgive you. I forgive you. Where’s yourhand? Where’s your two hands? I knowed what you’d do when the boywent. I told him so. God bless you, but I’m proud of you! I’m proudo’ both of you! Bob’s been down; splendid boy; said I mustn’t come uphere; too fur to walk. I told him to mind his own business; that I wascomin’ up to shake hands with Rhett Bannister ef it took a leg; ef ittook both legs, by cracky!”
Bannister helped the old man up the steps, and made him comfortable ina big porch-chair, and told him a hundred things he wanted to know, andat last he told him about Abraham Lincoln.
“You know I saw the President?”
“I heard all about it, Rhett. You’ve been blessed above your fellowmen.”
“But you didn’t know that he spoke to me of you?”
“Of me? Seth Mills?”
“Yes, of you. He told me that story about how you settled the springcontroversy with Sam Lewis.”
“No!”
“Yes, he did. And then I told him that I knew you, that you were mynearest and best neighbor; and he said: ‘You tell Seth Mills for me, ifyou ever see him again, that Abe Lincoln remembers him, and sends himgreeting and good wishes in memory of the old days in Sangamon County.’I’ve carried that message in my heart for you through blood and fire,Seth, and now, to-night, it is yours.”
But the old man did not reply. Instead, his hand stole out and restedon his neighbor’s knee, and then, softly in the darkness, Bannisterheard him sob.
But Seth Mills went home at last, and over the crest of the easternhill-range the full moon came shining. And then something elsehappened. From the shadows of the roadway that fronted the house,suddenly, sweetly, jubilantly on the night air, came the music of achorus of fresh young voices singing:--
“Home, home, sweet, sweet home; Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.”
They were the same boys who, two years before, had marched down theroad at night singing songs of derision to the hated copperhead.
Ah! but those two years. What may not happen in a time like that? Whatchange of thought, of heart, of life? What tragedy and transformation?
As the faint, sweet chorus of the boy-singers came back to him acrossthe moonlit fields, Rhett Bannister turned his face to the star-strewnsky, and thanked God that after the storm and stress and trial, andthrough the ministry of one great man, he had fallen upon such gloriousdays.
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Transcriber’s Notes:
--Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
--Except for the frontispiece, illustrations have been moved to follow the text that they illustrate, so the page number of the illustration may not match the page number in the Illustrations.
--Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.
--Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.
--Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.
--The Author’s em-dash style has been retained.