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Pallas began the feast, where first was seen
The party-colored olive, black and green;
Autumnal cornels next in order served,
In lees of wine well pickled and preserved;
A garden salad was the third supply,
Of endive, radishes, and succory:
Then curds and cream, the flower of country fare,
And new-laid eggs, which Baucis's busy care
Turned by a gentle fire, and roasted rare.
All these in earthenware were served to board;
And next in place an earthen pitcher, stored
With liquor of the best the cottage could afford.
This was the table's ornament and pride,
With figures wrought: like pages at his side
Stood beechen bowls; and these were shining clean,
Varnished with wax without, and lined within.
By this the boiling kettle had prepared,
And to the table sent the smoking lard:
On which with eager appetite they dine,-
A savory bit, that served to relish wine;
The wine itself was suiting to the rest,
Still working in the must, and lately pressed.
The second course succeeds like that before:
Plums, apples, nuts, and of their wintry store
Dry figs and grapes and wrinkled dates were set
In canisters, to enlarge the little treat;
I
## p. 10929 (#141) ##########################################
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10929
All these a milk-white honeycomb surround,
Which in the midst the country banquet crowned.
But the kind hosts their entertainment grace
With hearty welcome, and an open face;
In all they did, you might discern with ease
A willing mind and a desire to please.
Meantime the beechen bowls went round, and still,
Though often emptied, were observed to fill,
Filled without hands, and of their own accord
Ran without feet, and danced about the board.
Devotion seized the pair, to see the feast
With wine, and of no common grape, increased;
And up they held their hands, and fell to prayer,
Excusing as they could their country fare.
One goose they had ('twas all they could allow),
A wakeful sentry, and on duty now,
Whom to the gods for sacrifice they vow:
Her, with malicious zeal, the couple viewed;
She ran for life, and, limping, they pursued:
Full well the fowl perceived their bad intent,
And would not make her master's compliment;
But, persecuted, to the powers she flies,
And close between the legs of Jove she lies.
He with a gracious ear the suppliant heard,
And saved her life; then what he was, declared,
And owned the god. "The neighborhood,” said he,
"Shall justly perish for impiety:
You stand alone exempted; but obey
With speed, and follow where we lead the way:
Leave these accursed; and to the mountain's height
Ascend, nor once look backward in your flight. "
They haste, and what their tardy feet denied,
The trusty staff (their better leg) supplied.
An arrow's flight they wanted to the top,
And there secure, but spent with travel, stop;
Then turn their now no more forbidden eyes:
Lost in a lake the floated level lies;
XIX-684
A watery desert covers all the plains,
Their cot alone as in an isle remains;
Wondering with peeping eyes, while they deplore
Their neighbors' fate, and country now no more,
Their little shed, scarce large enough for two,
Seems, from the ground increased, in height and bulk
to grow.
## p. 10930 (#142) ##########################################
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10930
A stately temple shoots within the skies:
The crotchets of their cot in columns rise:
The pavement polished marble they behold,
The gates with sculpture graced, the spires and tiles of
gold.
Then thus the sire of gods, with looks serene:-
"Speak thy desire, thou only just of men;
And thou, O woman, only worthy found
To be with such a man in marriage bound. "
Awhile they whisper; then, to Jove addressed,
Philemon thus prefers their joint request:-
"We crave to serve before your sacred shrine,
And offer at your altars rites divine:
And since not any action of our life
Has been polluted with domestic strife,
We beg one hour of death; that neither she
With widow's tears may live to bury me,
Nor weeping I, with withered arms, may bear
My breathless Baucis to the sepulchre. "
The godheads sign their suit. They run their race
In the same tenor all the appointed space:
Then, when their hour was come, while they relate
These past adventures at the temple gate,
Old Baucis is by old Philemon seen
Sprouting with sudden leaves of sprightly green;
Old Baucis looked where old Philemon stood,
And saw his lengthened arms a sprouting wood.
New roots their fastened feet begin to bind,
Their bodies stiffen in a rising rind;
Then, ere the bark above their shoulders grew,
They give and take at once their last adieu:
At once, "Farewell, O faithful spouse," they said;
At once the encroaching rinds their closing lips invade.
Even yet, an ancient Tyanæan shows
A spreading oak, that near a linden grows;
The neighborhood confirm the prodigy,-
Grave men, not vain of tongue, or like to lie.
I saw myself the garlands on their boughs,
And tablets hung for gifts of granted vows;
And offering fresher up, with pious prayer,—
"The good," said I, "are God's peculiar care,
And such as honor Heaven shall heavenly honor share. »
Translation of Dryden.
-
## p. 10931 (#143) ##########################################
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10931
A GREWSOME LOVER
A
PROMONTORY, sharpening by degrees,
Ends in a wedge, and overlooks the seas;
On either side, below, the water flows:
This airy walk the giant lover chose;
Here in the midst he sate; his flocks, unled,
Their shepherd followed, and securely fed.
A pine so burly, and of length so vast,
That sailing ships required it for a mast,
He wielded for a staff, his steps to guide;
But laid it by, his whistle while he tried.
A hundred reeds, of a prodigious growth,
Scarce made a pipe proportioned to his mouth;
Which when he gave it wind, the rocks around,
And watery plains, the dreadful hiss resound.
I heard the ruffian shepherd rudely blow,
Where, in a hollow cave, I sat below;
On Acis's bosom I my head reclined:
And still preserve the poem in my mind.
"O lovely Galatea, whiter far
Than falling snows and rising lilies are;
More flowery than the meads; as crystal bright;
Erect as alders, and of equal height;
More wanton than a kid; more sleek thy skin
Than Orient shells, that on the shores are seen;
Than apples fairer, when the boughs they lade;
Pleasing as winter suns or summer shade;
More grateful to the sight than goodly plains;
And softer to the touch than down of swans,
Or curds new turned; and sweeter to the taste
Than swelling grapes, that to the vintage haste;
More clear than ice, or running streams that stray
Through garden plots, but, ah! more swift than they.
"Yet, Galatea, harder to be broke
Than bullocks, unreclaimed to bear the yoke;
And far more stubborn than the knotted oak;
Like sliding streams, impossible to hold:
Like them fallacious; like their fountains, cold:
More warping than the willow, to decline
My warm embrace; more brittle than the vine;
Immovable, and fixed in thy disdain;
Rough as these rocks, and of a harder grain;
## p. 10932 (#144) ##########################################
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10932
More violent than is the rising flood;
And the praised peacock is not half so proud;
Fierce as the fire, and sharp as thistles are;
And more outrageous than a mother-bear;
Deaf as the billows to the vows I make,
And more revengeful than a trodden snake;
In swiftness fleeter than the flying hind,
Or driven tempests, or the driving wind.
All other faults with patience I can bear;
But swiftness is the vice I only fear.
"Yet, if you knew me well, you would not shun
My love, but to my wished embraces run;
Would languish in your turn, and court my stay;
And much repent of your unwise delay.
"My palace, in the living rock, is made
By nature's hand: a spacious pleasing shade,
Which neither heat can pierce, nor cold invade.
My garden filled with fruits you may behold,
And grapes in clusters, imitating gold;
Some blushing bunches of a purple hue,
And these, and those, are all reserved for you.
Red strawberries in shades expecting stand,
Proud to be gathered by so white a hand:
Autumnal cornels later fruit provide,
And plums, to tempt you, turn their glossy side:
Not those of common kinds; but such alone
As in Phæacian orchards might have grown.
Nor chestnuts shall be wanting to your food,
Nor garden fruits, nor wildings of the wood;
The laden boughs for you alone shall bear;
And yours shall be the product of the year.
"The flocks, you see, are all my own; beside
The rest that woods and winding valleys hide,
And those that folded in the caves abide.
Ask not the numbers of my growing store:
Who knows how many, knows he has no more.
Nor will I praise my cattle; trust not me,
But judge yourself, and pass your own decree:
Behold their swelling dugs; the sweepy weight
Of ewes, that sink beneath the milky freight;
In the warm folds their tender lambkins lie;
Apart from kids, that call with human cry.
New milk in nut-brown bowls is duly served
For daily drink; the rest for cheese reserved.
## p. 10933 (#145) ##########################################
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10933
Nor are these household dainties all my store:
The fields and forests will afford us more;
The deer, the hare, the goat, the savage boar;
All sorts of venison; and of birds the best,-
A pair of turtles taken from the nest.
I walked the mountains, and two cubs I found,
Whose dam had left 'em on the naked ground:
So like, that no distinction could be seen;
So pretty, they were presents for a queen;
And so they shall: I took them both away;
And keep, to be companions of your play.
"Oh raise, fair nymph, your beauteous face above
The waves; nor scorn my presents, and my love.
Come, Galatea, come, and view my face:
I late beheld it in the watery glass,
And found it lovelier than I feared it was.
Survey my towering stature, and my size:
Not Jove, the Jove you dream, that rules the skies,
Bears such a bulk, or is so largely spread.
My locks (the plenteous harvest of my head)
Hang o'er my manly face; and dangling down,
As with a shady grove my shoulders crown.
Nor think, because my limbs and body bear
A thick-set underwood of bristling hair,
My shape deformed: what fouler sight can be
Than the bald branches of a leafless tree?
Foul is the steed without a flowing mane;
And birds, without their feathers and their train.
Wool decks the sheep; and man receives a grace
From bushy limbs and from a bearded face.
My forehead with a single eye is filled,
Round as a ball, and ample as a shield.
The glorious lamp of heaven, the radiant sun,
Is Nature's eye; and she's content with one.
Add, that my father sways your seas, and I,
Like you, am of the watery family;
-
I make you his, in making you my own.
You I adore, and kneel to you alone;
Jove, with his fabled thunder, I despise,
And only fear the lightning of your eyes.
Frown not, fair nymph; yet I could bear to be
Disdained, if others were disdained with me.
But to repulse the Cyclops, and prefer
The love of Acis, heavens! I cannot bear.
## p. 10934 (#146) ##########################################
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10934
But let the stripling please himself; nay more,
Please you, though that's the thing I most abhor:
The boy shall find, if e'er we cope in fight,
These giant limbs endued with giant might. "
THE SUN-GOD'S PALACE
S
UBLIME on lofty columns, bright with gold
And fiery carbuncle, its roof inlaid
Translation of Dryden.
With ivory, rose the palace of the sun,
Approached by folding gates with silver sheen
Radiant material priceless, yet less prized
For its own worth than what the cunning head
Of Mulciber thereon had wrought: the globe
Of earth, the seas that wash it round, the skies
That overhang it. 'Mid the waters played
Their gods cærulean. Triton with his horn
Was there, and Proteus of the shifting shape,
And old geon, curbing with firm hand
The monsters of the deep. Her Nereids there
Round Doris sported, seeming, some to swim,
Some on the rocks their tresses green to dry,
Some dolphin-borne to ride; nor all in face
The same, nor different; - so should sisters be.
Earth showed her men, and towns, and woods, and beasts,
And streams, and nymphs, and rural deities;
And over all the mimic heaven was bright
With the twelve Zodiac signs, on either valve
Of the great portal figured,-six on each.
WE
Translation of Henry King.
A TRANSFORMATION
EARY and travel-worn,- her lips unwet
With water, at a straw-thatched cottage door
The wanderer knocked. An ancient crone
forth
And saw her need, and hospitable brought
Her bowl of barley-broth, and bade her drink.
Thankful she raised it; but a graceless boy
And impudent stood by, and, ere the half
came
## p. 10935 (#147) ##########################################
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10935
Was drained, "Ha! ha! see how the glutton swills! "
With insolent jeer he cried. The goddess's ire
Was roused; and as he spoke, what liquor yet
The bowl retained, full in his face she dashed.
His cheeks broke out in blotches; what were arms
Turned legs, and from the shortened trunk a tail
Tapered behind. Small mischief evermore
Might that small body work: the lizard's self
Was larger now than he. With terror shrieked
The crone, and weeping, stooped her altered child
To raise; the little monster fled her grasp
And wriggled into hiding. Still his name
His nature tells, and, from the star-like spots
That mark him, known as Stellio, crawls the Newt.
Translation of Henry King.
EFFECT OF ORPHEUS'S SONG IN HADES
O SANG he, and, accordant to his plaint,
S
As wailed the strings, the bloodless ghosts were moved
To weeping. By the lips of Tantalus
Unheeded slipped the wave; Ixion's wheel
Forgot to whirl; the Vulture's bloody feast
Was stayed; awhile the Belides forbore
Their leaky urns to dip; and Sisyphus
Sate listening on his stone. Then first, they say,
The iron cheeks of the Eumenides
Were wet with pity. Of the nether realm
Nor king nor queen had heart to say him nay.
Forth from a host of new-descended shades
Eurydice was called; and halting yet,
Slow with her recent wound, she came alive,
On one condition to her spouse restored,—
That, till Avernus's vale is passed and earth
Regained, he look not backward, or the boon
Is null and forfeit. Through the silent realm
Upward against the steep and fronting hill,
Dark with obscurest gloom, the way he led;
And now the upper air was all but won,
When, fearful lest the toil o'ertask her strength,
And yearning to behold the form he loved,
An instant back he looked-and back the shade
That instant fled! The arms that wildly strove
## p. 10936 (#148) ##########################################
10936
OVID
To clasp and stay her, clasped but yielding air!
No word of plaint even in that second death
Against her lord she uttered,- how could love
Too anxious be upbraided? — but one last
And sad "Farewell! " scarce audible, she sighed,
And vanished to the ghosts that late she left.
Translation of Henry King.
THE POET'S FAME
O CROWN I here a work that dares defy
S
The wrath of Jove, the fire, the sword, the tooth
Of all-devouring Time! Come when it will
The day that ends my life's uncertain term,—
That on this corporal frame alone hath power
To work extinction,- high above the Stars
My nobler part shall soar; my Name remain
Immortal; wheresoe'er the might of Rome
O'erawes the subject Earth, my Verse survive
Familiar in the mouths of men! and if
A bard may prophesy, while time shall last
Endure, and die but with the dying world!
Translation of Henry King.
## p. 10937 (#149) ##########################################
10937
THOMAS NELSON PAGE
(1854-)
HOMAS NELSON PAGE "had the good fortune," to quote from
his own felicitous description of his birthplace, as recorded
in the Homeric combat Pulaski's Tunament,' "to come
from the old county of Hanover, as that particular division of the
State of Virginia is affectionately called by nearly all who are so
lucky as to have seen the light amid its broom-straw fields and heavy
forests. " This occurrence took place in 1854; and if the future author
exhibited discrimination in the choice of a birthplace, he was even
more happy in the time of his advent. A
little earlier, and the prejudices of his sec-
tion might have obscured the fact that other
as well as his ancestral acres were robed in
the hue which is the color of their preva-
lent crop; and a little later, his sketches of
Virginia life before and during the War
would not have been reminiscences. It is
also worth while to note, for the effect on
the literature of his inventions, that he
belongs to an honorable and historic fam-
ily; on the maternal side the descendant of
Governor Nelson, and on the paternal of
gentleman landholders, high in wisdom and
council since the settlement of the State.
THOMAS NELSON PAGE
He was educated at the University of Virginia, and practiced
law in Richmond. In 1883 he published a volume of negro dialect
poems with A. C. Gordon, entitled 'Befo' de War,' among which is
the favorite and pathetic ballad 'My Boy Cree'; and in 1884 'Marse
Chan,' his first pronounced success, appeared in the Century Magazine.
The now famous 'Meh Lady,' 'Ole Stracted,' and 'Unc' Edinburg's
Drowndin',' with several other stories written for the periodicals,
were published in the volume entitled 'In Ole Virginia. This and
'Two Little Confederates' (1888), an autobiography, 'On Newfound
River (1891), The Burial of the Guns' (1894), and all the sketches
except the first and last in 'Elsket (1891), are pictures of Virginia
life before, or during, the Civil War.
What Mr. Page would have been in another age, country, and sta-
tion, it is difficult to surmise, except that he must have been a man
## p. 10938 (#150) ##########################################
10938
THOMAS NELSON PAGE
of letters. Tradition possesses him in a remarkable degree; and if he
owes much to his experiences when, a little barefoot boy, he hunted
deserters in the pines, and hid behind a rail fence to see what the
battle was like, - the small sovereign of a hungry domain suffering
the fortunes of war,-he owes as much to the lore he gleaned in
neither school nor class-room, but from the shelves of a dark old
library, where Horace rubbed brown calf shoulders with Clarissa
Harlowe,' and the Elizabethan dramatists with the 'Bucolics. ' Nor
can the author's point of view be ignored in his slightest sketch; for
it was that of one who lived under a régime and a code that was
patriarchal in its government, impractical, chivalrous, whose fashion.
is passing away, and whose history is best preserved in his own vol-
It taught him that all women were beautiful, and gracious,
and proud, and good, and distractingly fascinating, only becoming
meek and gentle when surrendering on their own terms; and the
men, at least the young men, are preux chevaliers, straight, and
strong, and religious, and fire-eaters, till the timid reader trembles in
their company lest he may give offense. These ideal and delightful
personages might have come out of an Arthurian legend. Did they
indeed step from a brown volume-"Meh Lady" and "Marse Chan,"
Bruce and Margaret of Newfound River? Or are they of that stuff
that dreams are made of, and the embodiment of his own beliefs?
umes.
No discussion of Mr. Page's writing can go far without a refer-
ence to the manner in which his stories are told. With what one is
tempted to call a consummate art,- but that their secret is open
to every reader, and that they show as little trace of labor as one
of the bird-songs of his own pine forests,—these beautiful and loving
personations are thrown against a dark background. The fair maiden.
is contrasted with her black foster-sister; Sir Galahad with his hum-
ble servitor. And the true story is told, as it can best be told in
fiction's form, of the great system of slavery,- of the traits it en-
gendered and the characters it formed.
And how subtle the instinct that the defense, not of the institu-
tion but of its victims, both master and slave, is maintained not by
the white man but by the black, who in his simple fashion tells the
story of the lives of his "white people," of whom he is one, whose
riches and splendor and nobility all aggrandize his own greatness.
The lovely and touching idyls, Marse Chan,' 'Meh Lady,' 'Unc'
Edinburg's Drowndin','- pathetic and humorous, and such a picture
of ante-bellum Virginia life as is seldom found in our literature,-
are told by an old negro, who through the illusive haze of memory
sees the social pageant pass by, till the day when the trumpet
sounded and he rode to the wars by his master's side, that master's
black angel, guarding and defending him from the foes who were
## p. 10939 (#151) ##########################################
THOMAS NELSON PAGE
10939
come to rescue the slave. In all these stories the negro, not the
white man, is the hero; like Brer Rabbit, it is he to whom are
shrewdness and wisdom and the finer traits that rabbits are not sup-
posed to possess, as loyalty and generosity. And that another, not
thine own self, may praise thee, the description of the magnificence
of the old régime is not related by its modest and loyal son, but by
the slave; obviously a dispassionate and unprejudiced witness.
Mr. Page is scarcely less happy in his treatment of another char-
acter, the "poor white. " This type is peculiar to the soil, and to
know him one must live with him; he occupied before the War the
middle ground between the gentry and the negro, and was conde-
scended to by both. We see these men in a class and individually
in Two Little Confederates' and 'On Newfound River,' especially
in the admirable trial scene when the county magnate bullies the
justice, and his humble adherents, Hall and Jim Mills, drawl out
their patron's wisdom. And we see them again, reborn through
courage and patriotism, in the noble and stirring series of stories
named for the first in the volume, The Burial of the Guns. '
An author's own people are his most severe critics; but Mr. Page's
countrymen and women are content to appear to the world as they
appear in his books.
THE BURIAL OF THE GUNS
Copyright 1894, by Charles Scribner's Sons
EE surrendered the remnant of his army at Appomattox, April
9th, 1865, and yet a couple of days later
battery lay intrenched right in the mountain pass where it
had halted three days before. Two weeks previously it had been
detailed with a light division, sent to meet and repel a force
which it was understood was coming in by way of the southwest
valley, to strike Lee in the rear of his long line from Richmond
to Petersburg. It had done its work. The mountain pass had
been seized and held, and the Federal force had not gotten by
that road within the blue rampart which guarded on that side
the heart of Virginia. This pass, which was the key to the main
line of passage over the mountains, had been assigned by the
commander of the division to the old colonel and his old battery,
and they had held it. The position taken by the battery had
been chosen with a soldier's eye. A better place could not have
been selected to hold the pass. It was its highest point, just
where the road crawled over the shoulder of the mountain along
## p. 10940 (#152) ##########################################
THOMAS NELSON PAGE
10940
the limestone cliff, a hundred feet sheer above the deep river,
where its waters had cut their way in ages past, and now lay
deep and silent, as if resting after their arduous toil before they
began to boil over the great bowlders which filled the bed a
hundred or more yards below.
The little plateau at the top guarded the descending road on
either side for nearly a mile; and the mountain on the other side
of the river was the centre of a clump of rocky, heavily timbered
spurs, so inaccessible that no feet but those of wild animals or of
the hardiest hunter had ever climbed it. On the side of the river
on which the road lay, the only path out over the mountain
except the road itself was a charcoal-burner's track, dwindling
at times to a footway known only to the mountain folk, which
the picket at the top could hold against an army. The posi-
tion, well defended, was impregnable; and it was well defended.
This the general of the division knew when he detailed the old
colonel, and gave him his order to hold the pass until relieved,
and not let his guns fall into the hands of the enemy. He
knew both the colonel and his battery. The battery was one
of the oldest in the army. It had been in the service since
April 1861, and its commander had come to be known as
"the
wheel-horse of his division. " He was perhaps the oldest officer
of his rank in his branch of the service. Although he had bit-
terly opposed secession, and was many years past the age of serv
ice when the War came on, yet as soon as the President called
on the State for her quota of troops to coerce South Carolina, he
had raised and uniformed an artillery company, and offered it,
not to the President of the United States, but to the governor
of Virginia.
It is just at this point that he suddenly looms up to me as a
soldier; the relation he never wholly lost to me afterward, though
I knew him for many, many years of peace. His gray coat with
the red facing and the bars on the collar; his military cap; his
gray flannel shirt-it was the first time I ever saw him wear
anything but immaculate linen; his high boots; his horse capari-
soned with a black high-peaked saddle, with crupper and breast-
girth, instead of the light English hunting-saddle to which I had
been accustomed, -all come before me now as if it were but
the other day. I remember but little beyond it, yet I remember,
as if it were yesterday, his leaving home, and the scenes which
immediately preceded it; the excitement created by the news of
## p. 10941 (#153) ##########################################
THOMAS NELSON PAGE
10941
the President's call for troops; the unanimous judgment that it
meant war; the immediate determination of the old colonel, who
had hitherto opposed secession, that it must be met; the sup-
pressed agitation on the plantation, attendant upon the tender of
his services and the governor's acceptance of them.
The prompt and continuous work incident to the enlistment of
the men, the bustle of preparation, and all the scenes of that time,
come before me now. It turned the calm current of the life of
an old and placid country neighborhood, far from any city or cen-
tre, and stirred it into a boiling torrent, strong enough, or fierce
enough, to cut its way and join the general torrent which was
bearing down and sweeping everything before it. It seemed but
a minute before the quiet old plantation, in which the harvest,
the corn-shucking, and the Christmas holidays alone marked the
passage of the quiet seasons, and where a strange carriage or a
single horseman coming down the big road was an event in life,
was turned into a depot of war supplies, and the neighborhood
became a parade-ground. The old colonel-not a colonel yet, nor
even a captain, except by brevet-was on his horse by daybreak,
and off on his rounds through the plantations and the pines,
enlisting his company. The office in the yard, heretofore one
in name only, became one now in reality; and a table was set
out piled with papers, pens, ink, books of tactics and regulation,
at which men were accepted and enrolled. Soldiers seemed to
spring from the ground, as they did from the sowing of the
dragon's teeth in the days of Cadmus. Men came up the high-
road or down the paths across the fields, sometimes singly, but
oftener in little parties of two or three, and asking for the cap-
tain, entered the office as private citizens and came out soldiers
enlisted for the war. There was nothing heard of on the plant-
ation except fighting; white and black, all were at work, and
all were eager; the servants contended for the honor of going
with their master; the women flocked to the house to assist in
the work of preparation,— cutting out and making underclothes,
knitting socks, picking lint, preparing bandages, and sewing on
uniforms,- for many of the men who had enlisted were of the
poorest class, far too poor to furnish anything themselves, and
their equipment had to be contributed mainly by wealthier neigh-
bors. The work was carried on at night as well as by day, for
the occasion was urgent. Meantime the men were being drilled
by the captain and his lieutenants, who had been militia officers
## p. 10942 (#154) ##########################################
10942
THOMAS NELSON PAGE
of old. We were carried to see the drill at the cross-roads, and
a brave sight it seemed to us: the lines marching and counter-
marching in the field, with the horses galloping as they wheeled
amid clouds of dust, at the hoarse commands of the excited offi-
cers, and the roadside lined with spectators of every age and
condition.
I recall the arrival of the messenger one night, with the tel-
egraphic order to the captain to report with his company at
"Camp Lee" immediately; the hush in the parlor that attended
its reading; then the forced beginning of the conversation after-
wards in a somewhat strained and unnatural key, and the cap-
tain's quick and decisive outlining of his plans. Within the hour
a dozen messengers were on their way in various directions to
notify the members of the command of the summons, and to
deliver the order for their attendance at a given point next day.
It seemed that a sudden and great change had come. It was the
actual appearance of what had hitherto only been theoretical
war. The next morning the captain, in full uniform, took leave
of the assembled plantation, with a few solemn words commend-
ing all he left behind to God; and galloped away up the big road
to join and lead his battery to the war, and to be gone just four
years.
-
Within a month he was on the "Peninsula" with Magruder,
guarding Virginia on the east against the first attack.
His camp
was first at Yorktown and then on Jamestown Island, the honor
having been assigned his battery of guarding the oldest cradle of
the race on this continent. It was at "Little Bethel" that his
guns were first trained on the enemy, and that the battery first
saw what they had to do; and from this time until the middle of
April 1865 they were in service, and no battery saw more service
or suffered more in it. Its story was a part of the story of the
Southern Army in Virginia. The captain was a rigid disciplina-
rian, and his company had more work to do than most new com-
panies. A pious churchman, of the old puritanical type not
uncommon to Virginia, he looked after the spiritual as well as
the physical welfare of his men; and his chaplain or he read
prayers at the head of his company every morning during the
War. At first he was not popular with the men, he made the
duties of camp life so onerous to them: it was "nothing but drill-
ing and praying all the time," they said. But he had not com-
manded very long before they came to know the stuff that was
## p. 10943 (#155) ##########################################
THOMAS NELSON PAGE
10943
in him.
He had not been in service a year before he had had
four horses shot under him; and when later on he was offered
the command of a battalion, the old company petitioned to be one
of his batteries, and still remained under his command. Before
the first year was out the battery had, through its own elements
and the discipline of the captain, become a cohesive force, and a
distinct integer in the Army of Northern Virginia. Young farmer
recruits knew of its prestige, and expressed preference for it of
many batteries of rapidly growing or grown reputation.
Owing to its high stand, the old and clumsy guns with which
it had started out were taken from it, and in their place was pre-
sented a battery of four fine brass twelve-pound Napoleons of the
newest and most approved kind, and two three-inch Parrotts,-all
captured. The men were as pleased with them as children with
new toys. The care and attention needed to keep them in prime
order broke the monotony of camp life. They soon had abund-
ant opportunities to test their power. They worked admirably,
carried far, and were extraordinarily accurate in their aim. The
men from admiration of their guns grew to have first a pride
in and then an affection for them, and gave them nicknames as
they did their comrades: the four Napoleons being dubbed "The
Evangelists," and the two rifles being "The Eagle," because
of its scream and force, and "The Cat," because when it be-
came hot from rapid firing "it jumped," they said, "like a cat. "
From many a hill-top in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania
the Evangelists spoke their hoarse message of battle and death;
the Eagle screamed her terrible note, and the Cat jumped as
she spat her deadly shot from her hot throat. In the Valley of
Virginia; on the levels of Henrico and Hanover; on the slopes
of Manassas; in the woods of Chancellorsville; on the heights of
Fredericksburg; at Antietam and Gettysburg; in the Spottsylvania
wilderness; and again on the Hanover levels and on the lines
before Petersburg, the old guns through nearly four years roared
from fiery throats their deadly messages. The history of the
battery was bound up with the history of Lee's army. A rivalry
sprang up among the detachments of the different guns, and
their several records were jealously kept. The number of duels.
each gun was in was carefully counted, every scar got in bat
tle was treasured; and the men around their camp fires, at their
scanty messes, or on the march, bragged of them among them-
selves and avouched them as witnesses.
New recruits coming
## p. 10944 (#156) ##########################################
10944
THOMAS NELSON PAGE
in to fill the gaps made by the killed and disabled readily fell in
with the common mood and caught the spirit like a contagion.
It was not an uncommon thing for a wheel to be smashed in
by a shell; but if it happened to one gun oftener than to an-
other there was envy. Two of the Evangelists seemed to be
especially favored in this line, while the Cat was so exempt
as to become the subject of some derision. The men stood by
the guns till they were knocked to pieces; and when the fortune
of the day went against them, had with their own hands oftener
than once saved them after most of their horses were killed.
This had happened in turn to every gun; the men at times
working like beavers, in mud up to their thighs and under a
murderous fire, to get their guns out. Many a man had been
killed tugging at trail or wheel when the day was against them;
but not a gun had ever been lost. At last the evil day arrived.
At Winchester a sudden and impetuous charge for a while swept
everything before it, and carried the knoll where the old battery
was posted; but all the guns were got out by the toiling and
rapidly dropping men, except the Cat, which was captured with
its entire detachment working at it until they were surrounded
and knocked from the piece by cavalrymen. Most of the men
who were not killed were retaken before the day was over, with
many guns; but the Cat was lost. She remained in the enemy's
hands, and probably was being turned against her old comrades
and lovers. The company was inconsolable. The death of com-
rades was too natural and common a thing to depress the men
beyond what such occurrences necessarily did; but to lose a
gun! It was like losing the old colonel; it was worse: a gun
was ranked as a brigadier; and the Cat was equal to a major-
general. The other guns seemed lost without her; the Eagle es-
pecially, which generally went next to her, appeared to the men
to have a lonely and subdued air. The battery was no longer
the same: it seemed broken and depleted, shrunken to a mere
section. It was
worse than Cold Harbor, where over half the
men were killed or wounded. The old captain, now colonel of
the battalion, appreciated the loss, and apprehended its effect on
the men as much as they themselves did, and application was
made for a gun to take the place of the lost piece; but there
was none to be had, as the men said they had known all along.
It was added-perhaps by a department clerk-that if they
wanted a gun to take the place of the one they had lost, they
## p. 10945 (#157) ##########################################
THOMAS NELSON PAGE
10945
"By
had better capture it.
we will," they said. -adding
epithets intended for the department clerk in his "bomb-proof,"
not to be printed in this record; - and they did. For some time
afterwards, in every engagement into which they got, there used
to be speculation among them as to whether the Cat were not
there on the other side; some of the men swearing they could
tell her report, and even going to the rash length of offering
bets on her presence.
By one of those curious coincidences, as strange as anything
in fiction, a new general had in 1864 come down across the
Rapidan to take Richmond, and the old battery had found at
hill-top in the line in which Lee's army lay stretched across the
"Wilderness" country to stop him. The day, though early in
May, was a hot one, and the old battery, like most others, had
suffered fearfully. Two of the guns had had wheels cut down by
shells, and the men had been badly cut up; but the fortune of
the day had been with Lee, and a little before nightfall, after a
terrible fight, there was a rapid advance: Lee's infantry sweeping
everything before it, and the artillery, after opening the way for
the charge, pushing along with it; now unlimbering as some.
vantage ground was gained, and using canister with deadly effect;
now driving ahead again so rapidly that it was mixed up with
the muskets when the long line of breastworks was carried with
a rush, and a line of guns were caught still hot from their rapid
work. As the old battery, with lathered horses and smoke-
grimed men, swung up the crest and unlimbered on the captured
breastwork, a cheer went up which was heard even above the
long general yell of the advancing line; and for a moment half
the men in the battery crowded together around some object on
the edge of the redoubt, yelling like madmen. The next instant
they divided; and there was the Cat, smoke-grimed and blood-
stained and still sweating hot from her last fire, being dragged
from her muddy ditch by as many men as could get hold of
trail-rope or wheel, and rushed into her old place beside the
Eagle, in time to be double-shotted with canister to the muz-
zle, and to pour it from among her old comrades into her now
retiring former masters. Still, she had a new carriage, and her
record was lost, while those of the other guns had been faithfully
kept by the men. This made a difference in her position for
which even the bullets in her wheels did not wholly atone; even
Harris, the sergeant of her detachment, felt that.
XIX-685
"
## p. 10946 (#158) ##########################################
10946
THOMAS NELSON PAGE
It was only a few days later, however, that abundant atone-
ment was made. The new general did not retire across the
Rapidan after his first defeat, and a new battle had to be fought:
a battle if anything more furious, more terrible, than the first,
when the dead filled the trenches and covered the fields. He
simply marched by the left flank, and Lee, marching by the
right flank to head him, flung himself upon him again at Spott-
sylvania Court House. That day the Cat, standing in her place
behind the new and temporary breastwork thrown up when the
battery was posted, had the felloes of her wheels, which showed
above the top of the bank, entirely cut away by minie bullets,
so that when she jumped in the recoil her wheels smashed and
let her down. This covered all old scores. The other guns had
been cut down by shells or solid shot; but never before had one
been gnawed down by musket-balls. From this time all through
the campaign the Cat held her own beside her brazen and bloody
sisters; and in the cold trenches before Petersburg that winter,
when the new general-Starvation-had joined the one already
there, she made her bloody mark as often as any gun on the
long lines.
Thus the old battery had come to be known, as its old com-
mander, now colonel of a battalion, had come to be known by
those in yet higher command. And when, in the opening spring
of 1865, it became apparent to the leaders of both armies that
the long line could not longer be held if a force should enter
behind it, and sweeping the one partially unswept portion of Vir-
ginia, cut the railways in the southwest, and a man was wanted
to command the artillery in the expedition sent to meet this
force, it was not remarkable that the old colonel and his battalion
should be selected for the work. The force sent out was but
small; but the long line was worn to a thin one in those days,
and great changes were taking place, the consequences of which
were known only to the commanders. In a few days the com-
mander of the expedition found that he must divide his small
force, for a time at least, to accomplish his purpose; and send-
ing the old colonel with one battery of artillery to guard one
pass, must push on over the mountain by another way to meet
the expected force, if possible, and repel it before it crossed the
farther range.
Thus the old battery, on an April evening of
1865, found itself toiling alone up the steep mountain road which
leads above the river to the gap, which formed the chief pass in
## p. 10947 (#159) ##########################################
THOMAS NELSON PAGE
10947
that part of the Blue Ridge. Both men and horses looked, in
the dim and waning light of the gray April day, rather like
shadows of the beings they represented than the actual beings
themselves. And any one seeing them as they toiled painfully
up, the thin horses floundering in the mud, and the men, often
up to their knees, tugging at the sinking wheels,-now stopping
to rest, and always moving so slowly that they seemed scarcely
to advance at all,- might have thought them the ghosts of some
old battery lost from some long gone and forgotten war on that
deep and desolate mountain road. Often when they stopped, the
blowing of the horses and the murmuring of the river in its
bed below were the only sounds heard, and the tired voices of
the men when they spoke among themselves seemed hardly more
articulate sounds than they. Then the voice of the mounted
figure on the roan horse half hidden in the mist would cut in,
clear and inspiring, in a tone of encouragement more than of
command, and everything would wake up: the drivers would
shout and crack their whips; the horses would bend themselves
on the collars and flounder in the mud; the men would spring
once more to the mud-clogged wheels, and the slow ascent would
begin again.
The orders of the colonel, as has been said, were brief: To
hold the pass until he received further instructions, and not to
lose his guns. To be ordered, with him, was to obey. The last
streak of twilight brought them to the top of the pass; his sol-
dier's instinct and a brief recognizance made earlier in the day
told him that this was his place, and before daybreak next morn-
ing the point was as well fortified as a night's work by weary
and supperless men could make it. A prettier spot could not
have been found for the purpose: a small plateau, something
over an acre in extent, where a charcoal-burner's hut had once
stood, lay right at the top of the pass. It was a little higher on
either side than in the middle, where a small brook, along which
the charcoal-burner's track was yet visible, came down from the
wooded mountain above; thus giving a natural crest to aid the
fortification on either side, with open space for the guns, while
the edge of the wood coming down from the mountain afforded
shelter for the camp.
As the battery was unsupported, it had to rely on itself for
everything: a condition which most soldiers by this time were
accustomed to. A dozen or so of rifles were in the camp, and
## p. 10948 (#160) ##########################################
10948
THOMAS NELSON PAGE
with these pickets were armed and posted. The pass had been
seized none too soon: a scout brought in the information before
nightfall that the invading force had crossed the farther range
before that sent to meet it could get there, and taking the
nearest road had avoided the main body opposing it, and been
met only by a rapidly moving detachment,—nothing more than a
scouting party,- and now were advancing rapidly on the road on
which they were posted, evidently meaning to seize the pass and
cross the mountain at this point. The day was Sunday; a beau-
tiful spring Sunday: but it was no Sabbath for the old battery.
All day the men worked, making and strengthening their redoubt
to guard the pass; and by the next morning, with the old battery
at the top, it was impregnable. They were just in time. Before
noon their vedettes brought in word that the enemy were as-
cending the mountain; and the sun had hardly turned when the
advance guard rode up, came within range of the picket, and
were fired on.
It was apparent that they supposed the force there only a
small one, for they retired and soon came up again reinforced in
some numbers; and a sharp little skirmish ensued, hot enough to
make them more prudent afterwards, though the picket retired
up the mountain. This gave them encouragement and probably
misled them, for they now advanced boldly. They saw the re-
doubt on the crest as they came on, and unlimbering a section
or two, flung a few shells up at it, which either fell short or
passed over without doing material damage. None of the guns
was allowed to respond, as the distance was too great with the
ammunition the battery had; and indifferent as it was, it was too
precious to be wasted in a duel at an ineffectual range. Doubt-
less deceived by this, the enemy came on in force; being obliged
by the character of the ground to keep almost entirely to the
road, which really made them advance in column. The battery
waited. Under orders of the colonel, the guns standing in line.
were double-shotted with canister; and loaded to the muzzle, were
trained down to sweep the road at from four to five hundred
yards' distance. And when the column reached this point, the
six guns, aimed by old and skillful gunners, at a given word
swept road and mountain-side with a storm of leaden hail. It
was a fire no mortal man could stand up against; and the prac-
ticed gunners rammed their pieces full again, and before the
smoke had cleared or the reverberation had died away among the
## p. 10949 (#161) ##########################################
THOMAS NELSON PAGE
10949
mountains, had fired the guns again and yet again. The road
was cleared of living things when the draught setting down the
river drew the smoke away; but it was no discredit to the other
force, for no army that was ever uniformed could stand against
that battery in that pass. Again and again the attempt was
made to get a body of men up under cover of the woods and
rocks on the mountain-side, while the guns below utilized their
better ammunition from longer range; but it was useless. Al-
though one of the lieutenants and several men were killed in the
skirmish, and a number more were wounded, though not severely,
the old battery commanded the mountain-side, and its skillful
gunners swept it at every point the foot of man could scale.
The sun went down, flinging his last flame on a victorious bat-
tery still crowning the mountain pass. The dead were buried by
night in a corner of the little plateau, borne to their last bivouac
on the old gun-carriages which they had stood by so often-
which the men said would "sort of ease their minds. "
The next day the fight was renewed, and with the same result.
The old battery in its position was unconquerable. Only one
fear now faced them: their ammunition was getting as low as
their rations; another such day or half-day would exhaust it.
sergeant was sent back down the mountain to try to get more,
or if not, to get tidings. The next day it was supposed the fight
would be renewed; and the men waited, alert, eager, vigilant,
their spirits high, their appetite for victory whetted by success.
The men were at their breakfast or what went for breakfast;
scanty at all times, now doubly so, hardly deserving the title of
a meal, so poor and small were the portions of corn meal, cooked
in their frying-pans, which went for their rations—when the
sound of artillery below broke on the quiet air. They were on
their feet in an instant, and at the guns, crowding upon the
breastwork to look or to listen; for the road, as far as could be
seen down the mountain, was empty except for their own picket,
and lay as quiet as if sleeping in the balmy air. And yet volley
after volley of artillery came rolling up the mountain. What
could it mean? That the rest of their force had come up and
was engaged with that at the foot of the mountain? The colonel
decided to be ready to go and help them; to fall on the enemy
in the rear: perhaps they might capture the entire force. It
seemed the natural thing to do; and the guns were limbered
up in an incredibly short time, and a roadway made through the
―――
## p. 10950 (#162) ##########################################
10950
THOMAS NELSON PAGE
intrenchment, the men working like beavers under the excite-
ment. Before they had left the redoubt, however, the vedettes
sent out returned and reported that there was no engagement
going on, and the firing below seemed to be only practicing.
There was quite a stir in the camp below; but they had not even
broken camp. This was mysterious. Perhaps it meant that they
had received reinforcements, but it was a queer way of showing
it. The old colonel sighed as he thought of the good ammuni-
tion they could throw away down there, and of his empty limber-
chests. It was necessary to be on the alert, however: the guns
were run back into their old places, and the horses picketed once
more back among the trees. Meantime he sent another messen-
ger back,- this time a courier, for he had but one commissioned
officer left, and the picket below was strengthened.
The morning passed and no one came; the day wore on, and
still no advance was made by the force below. It was suggested
that the enemy had left; he had at least gotten enough of that
battery. A reconnoissance, however, showed that he was still
encamped at the foot of the mountain. It was conjectured that
he was trying to find a way around to take them in the rear, or
to cross the ridge by the foot-path. Preparation was made to
guard more closely the mountain path across the spur; and a de-
tachment was sent up to strengthen the picket there. The wait-
ing told on the men, and they grew bored and restless. They
gathered about the guns in groups and talked; talked of each
piece some, but not with the old spirit and vim: the loneliness
of the mountain seemed to oppress them,-the mountains stretch-
ing up so brown and gray on one side of them, and so brown
and gray on the other, with their bare dark forests soughing
from time to time as the wind swept up the pass. The minds
of the men seemed to go back to the time when they were not
so alone, but were part of a great and busy army; and some of
them fell to talking of the past, and the battles they had figured
in, and of the comrades they had lost. They told them off in a
slow and colorless way, as if it were all part of the past as much
as the dead they named. One hundred and nineteen times they
had been in action. Only seventeen men were left of the eighty
odd who had first enlisted in the battery; and of these four were
at home crippled for life. Two of the oldest men had been
among the half-dozen who had fallen in the skirmish just the
day before.
It looked tolerably hard to be killed that way after
## p. 10951 (#163) ##########################################
THOMAS NELSON PAGE
10951
passing for four years through such battles as they had been in;
and both had wives and children at home, too, and not a cent to
leave them to their names. They agreed calmly that they'd have
to "sort of look after them a little," if they ever got home.
These were some of the things they talked about as they pulled
their old worn coats about them, stuffed their thin, weather-
stained hands in their ragged pockets to warm them, and squatted
down under the breastwork to keep a little out of the wind. One
thing they talked about a good deal was something to eat. They
described meals they had had at one time or another as personal
adventures, and discussed the chances of securing others in the
future as if they were prizes of fortune. One listening, and
seeing their thin, worn faces and their wasted frames, might have
supposed they were starving; and they were, but they did not
say so.
Towards the middle of the afternoon there was a sudden
excitement in the camp. A dozen men saw them at the same
time: a squad of three men down the road at the farthest turn,
past their picket; but an advancing column could not have cre-
ated as much excitement, for the middle man carried a white
flag. In a minute every man in the battery was on the breast-
work. What could it mean! It was a long way off, nearly half a
mile, and the flag was small,-possibly only a pocket-handkerchief
or a napkin; but it was held aloft as a flag unmistakably. A
hundred conjectures were indulged in. Was it a summons to
surrender? A request for an armistice for some purpose? Or
was it a trick to ascertain their number and position? Some
held one view, some another. Some extreme ones thought a shot
ought to be fired over them to warn them not to come on: no
flags of truce were wanted. The old colonel, who had walked to
the edge of the plateau outside the redoubt, and taken his posi
tion where he could study the advancing figures with his field-
glass, had not poken. The lieutenant who was next in command
to him had walked out after him, and stood near him, from time
to time dropping a word or two of conjecture in a half-audible
tone: but the colonel had not answered a word; perhaps none
was expected. Suddenly he took his glass down, and gave an
order to the lieutenant: "Take two men and meet them at the
turn yonder; learn their business; and act as your best judgment
advises. If necessary to bring the messenger farther, bring only
the officer who has the ag, and halt him at that rock yonder,
## p. 10952 (#164) ##########################################
10952
THOMAS NELSON PAGE
where I will join him. " The tone was as placid as if such an
occurrence came every day. Two minutes later the lieutenant
was on his way down the mountain, and the colonel had the men
in ranks. His face was as grave and his manner as quiet as
usual, neither more nor less so. The men were in a state of
suppressed excitement. Having put them in charge of the second
sergeant, the colonel returned to the breastwork. The two offi-
cers were slowly ascending the hill, side by side; the bearer of
the flag, now easily distinguishable in his jaunty uniform as a
captain of cavalry, talking, and the lieutenant in faded gray, faced
with yet more faded red, walking beside him with a face white
even at that distance, and lips shut as though they would never
open again. They halted at the big bowlder which the colonel
had indicated, and the lieutenant, having saluted ceremoniously,
turned to come up to the camp; the colonel, however, went down
to meet him. The two men met, but there was no spoken ques-
tion; if the colonel inquired, it was only with the eyes. The
lieutenant spoke, however. "He says-" he began and stopped,
then began again -"he says General Lee-" again he choked,
then blurted out, "I believe it is all a lie-a damned lie. "
"Not dead? Not killed? " said the colonel quickly.
"No, not so bad as that: surrendered; surrendered his entire
army at Appomattox day before yesterday. I believe it is all a
damned lie," he broke out again, as if the hot denial relieved
him. The colonel simply turned away his face, and stepped a
pace or two off; and the two men stood motionless back to back
for more than a minute. Then the colonel stirred.
"Shall I go back with you? " the lieutenant asked huskily.
The colonel did not answer immediately. Then he said, "No:
go back to camp and await my return. ” He said nothing about
not speaking of the report. He knew it was not needed. Then
he went down the hill slowly alone, while the lieutenant went up
to the camp.
The interview between the two officers beside the bowlder
was not a long one. It consisted of a brief statement by the
Federal envoy of the fact of Lee's surrender two days before,
near Appomattox Court House, with the sources of his informa-
tion, coupled with a formal demand on the colonel for his sur-
render. To this the colonel replied that he had been detached
and put under command of another officer for a specific purpose;
and that his orders were to hold that pass, which he should do
## p. 10953 (#165) ##########################################
THOMAS NELSON PAGE
10953
until he was instructed otherwise by his superior in command.
With that they parted ceremoniously, the Federal captain return-
ing to where he had left his horse in charge of his companions.
a little below, and the old colonel coming slowly up the hill to
camp. The men were at once set to work to meet any attack
which might be made. They knew that the message was of
grave import, but not of how grave. They thought it meant
that another attack would be made immediately, and they sprang
to their work with renewed vigor, and a zeal as fresh as if it
were but the beginning and not the end.
The time wore on, however, and there was no demonstration
below, though hour after hour it was expected and even hoped
for. Just as the sun sank into a bed of blue cloud, a horseman
was seen coming up the darkened mountain from the eastward
side, and in a little while practiced eyes reported him one of
their own men - the sergeant who had been sent back the day
before for ammunition. He was alone, and had something white
before him on his horse-it could not be the ammunition; but
perhaps that might be coming on behind. Every step of his
jaded horse was anxiously watched. As he drew near, the lieu-
tenant, after a word with the colonel, walked down to meet him,
and there was a short colloquy in the muddy road: then they
came back together and slowly entered the camp- the sergeant
handing down a bag of corn which he had got somewhere below,
with the grim remark to his comrades, "There's your rations; "
and going at once to the colonel's camp-fire, a little to one side
among the trees, where the colonel awaited him. A long con-
ference was held: and then the sergeant left to take his luck
with his mess, who were already parching the corn he had
brought for their supper, while the lieutenant made the round of
the camp; leaving the colonel seated alone on a log by his camp-
fire. He sat without moving, hardly stirring, until the lieutenant
returned from his round. A minute later the men were called
from the guns and made to fall into line. They were silent,
tremulous with suppressed excitement; the most sun-burned and
weather-stained of them a little pale; the meanest, raggedest,
and most insignificant not unimpressive in the deep and solemn
silence with which they stood, their eyes fastened on the colonel,
waiting for him to speak. He stepped out in front of them;
slowly ran his eyes along the irregular line up and down, taking
in every man in his glance, resting on some longer than on
## p. 10954 (#166) ##########################################
THOMAS NELSON PAGE
10954
others, the older men. - then dropped them to the ground; and
then suddenly, as if with an effort, began to speak. His voice
had a somewhat metallic sound, as if it were restrained; but it
was otherwise the ordinary tone of command. It was not much
that he said:-simply that it had become his duty to acquaint
them with the information which he had received: that General
Lee had surrendered two days before at Appomattox Court
House, yielding to overwhelming numbers; that this afternoon,
when he had first heard the report, he had questioned its truth,
but that it had been confirmed by one of their own men, and no
longer admitted of doubt; that the rest of their own force, it was
learned, had been captured, or had disbanded, and the enemy
was now on both sides of the mountain: that a demand had been
made on him that morning to surrender too; but he had orders
which he felt held good until they were countermanded, and he
had declined. Later intelligence satisfied him that to attempt to
hold out further would be useless, and would involve needless
waste of life: he had determined, therefore, not to attempt to
hold their position longer; but to lead them out, if possible, so as
to avoid being made prisoners, and enable them to reach home
sooner and aid their families. His orders were not to let his
guns fall into the enemy's hands, and he should take the only
step possible to prevent it. In fifty minutes he should call the
battery into line once more, and roll the guns over the cliff into
the river; and immediately afterwards, leaving the wagons there,
he would try to lead them across the mountain, and as far as
they could go in a body without being liable to capture; and
then he should disband them, and his responsibility for them
would end. As it was necessary to make some preparations, he
would now dismiss them to prepare any rations they might have,
and get ready to march.
All this was in the formal manner of a common order of the
day; and the old colonel had spoken in measured sentences, with
little feeling in his voice. Not a man in the line had uttered
a word after the first sound half exclamation, half groan
which had burst from them at the announcement of Lee's sur-
render. After that they had stood in their tracks like rooted
trees, as motionless as those on the mountain behind them, their
eyes fixed on their commander; and only the quick heaving up
and down the dark line, as of horses over-laboring, told of the
emotion which was shaking them. The colonel, as he ended, half
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THOMAS NELSON PAGE
10955
turned to his subordinate officer at the end of the dim line, as
though he were about to turn the company over to him to be
dismissed; then faced the line again, and taking a step nearer,
with a sudden movement of his hands towards the men as though
he would have stretched them out to them, began again:-
"Men," he said, and his voice changed at the word, and
sounded like a father's or a brother's,-"My men, I cannot let
you go so. We were neighbors when the war began-many of
us, and some not here to-night; we have been more since then,
- comrades, brothers in arms; we have all stood for one thing,—
for Virginia and the South; we have all done our duty-tried to
do our duty; we have fought a good fight, and now it seems
to be over, and we have been overwhelmed by numbers, not
whipped- and we are going home. We have the future before.
us: we don't know just what it will bring, but we can stand a
good deal. We have proved it. Upon us depends the South in
the future as in the past. You have done your duty in the past;
you will not fail in the future. Go home and be honest, brave,
self-sacrificing, God-fearing citizens, as you have been soldiers,
and you need not fear for Virginia and the South. The War
may be over; but you will ever be ready to serve your country.
The end may not be as we wanted it, prayed for it, fought for
it; but we can trust God: the end in the end will be the best
that could be; even if the South is not free, she will be better
and stronger that she fought as she did. Go home and bring up
your children to love her; and though you may have nothing else
to leave them, you can leave them the heritage that they are
sons of men who were in Lee's army. "
He stopped; looked up and down the ranks again, which had
instinctively crowded together and drawn around him in a half-
circle; made a sign to the lieutenant to take charge, and turned
abruptly on his heel to walk away. But as he did so, the long
pent-up emotion burst forth.
