Part 24 (1/2)

A HERO OF WAR AT COLD HARBOR.

A drummer boy of our regiment who was carrying a musket was wounded and left between the lines. There were many others of our comrades there, too, but somehow to us drummer boys who had beaten the reveille and tattoo together and tramped at the head of the regiment so many long and wearisome marches, the thought that one of our number was lying out there in the blazing June sun suffering not only pain but the terrible agony of thirst, stirred our sympathies to the uttermost and we longed to go to his relief, but dared not for it was like throwing one's life away to show himself over the breastworks.

It was late in the afternoon that Peter Boyle, ”our Pete,” suggested a plan by which our comrade was rescued. Pete cut three or four scrub pine trees which abounded there and proposed that he and a couple of others should use them as a screen and go out between the lines.

”Why not wait till dark and go?” someone asked. But then it was feared he could not be found.

The bushes were set over the breastworks one at a time so as not to attract attention and as there were many more growing like them they were probably not noticed. When the evening twilight came on Pete and two others crawled over the breastworks and got behind the trees. Each had a couple of canteens of water for they knew that there would be many to whom a mouthful would be so very acceptable.

The three boys crawled and wriggled themselves toward the rebel lines s.h.i.+elded by the trees. Their movements necessarily had to be very slow so as not to attract the attention of the enemy. The ruse was well planned and executed, but fraught with much danger. They found their comrade and had to lie behind their shelter until darkness concealed their movements, and then the wounded comrade was brought into the lines and his life saved.

A HERO OF PEACE.

Boyle performed a more heroic act at a New York fire in the Bowery a few years ago.

One afternoon a fire broke out in a block, the two upper stories of which were used as a ”sweat shop.” Boyle was playing the drums in the orchestra of an adjoining theatre. He, with others, ran up on to the roof and saw scores of girls who had been working in the burning building, running frantically around the roof. The flames had cut them off from the lower part of the building and they had gone to the roof, but as the block was higher than all of the adjoining ones except the theatre and that was separated by the s.p.a.ce of several feet, it seemed that they were lost and many flung themselves in despair to the street.

Boyle took in the situation instantly and calling to his aid two men they wrested an iron fire escape from its fastenings on the theatre and with it bridged the s.p.a.ce between the buildings.

Pete then laid a board on top of it and finding that many of the girls dare not cross, he took a rope with him, and went over on the burning building, threw one end back to his helpers and then compelled the girls to walk over the bridge, using the rope as a hand rail. His bravery and nerve saved the lives of very many who but for him would have been lost.

He was the last one to leave the roof of the building and was so badly burned that he had to go to the hospital, and when I met him that day in the park he was just getting around again.

Peter Boyle probably never attended a Sunday school in his life, but I am glad that my faith is of the kind that helps me to believe that when the Book of Life is opened there will be found a balance to his credit.

A COMRADE IN GRAY.

While attending a G. A. R. encampment at Was.h.i.+ngton not many years ago, a party of us thought we would run over to the sleepy old town of Alexandria one afternoon.

Gra.s.s was growing in the streets and the town had a deserted appearance, all so very different from war times, when thousands of soldiers were in and about the city. Among other places of interest we visited was the little church where Was.h.i.+ngton used to wors.h.i.+p. Sitting on the steps was a dusty, grizzly, crippled man of 60, munching a dry crust of bread. He was dressed in a threadbare suit of gray, and we knew he was a southerner, but as we pa.s.sed into the church he gave us a military salute.

When we came out he was still nibbling away, trying to find the soft side of his bread, and one of our party ventured the remark that ”dry bread wasn't much of a meal.”

”That's so, but when rations are low and the commissary wagons are to the rear, you've got to fill up on what you can get. I've camped longside of dry bread and water more'n once.”

”Going anywhere?”

”Well, I reckon I be if my old legs don't give out. Got a brother over on the Eastern Sho' of Maryland and I am marching that way.”

”Were you in the war?”

”I reckon I was, boys, but on 'tother side. Ah, but I can shet my eyes and see jist how Gineral Pickett looked when he led us agin your 2d corps, (he had noticed the red clover leaf pinned on our coats) over at Gettysburg on that 3d of July. Say, Yanks, but 'twere bilin' that afternoon. How one of us got back alive is more'n I can tell.”

The survivor of the ”Lost cause” had by this time forgotten all about his rations. He was living again in the past. Like a tired old war horse at the sound of a bugle, he had risen from the steps and the light of battle flamed in his eye as he continued:

”Yes, boys, I was right there with Pickett--not coolin' coffee back under the wagons, or I wouldn't hev got two of your bullets in me, nor been jabbed with a bay'net trying to get over the stone wall near that clump of trees. Lord, but I thought I was a goner sure.”

We acknowledged it was a hot place.