Part 72 (2/2)

”Undying grat.i.tude is due to G.o.d for this great victory--by which despondency increases in the North, hope brightens in the South and the Capital of Virginia and the Confederacy is saved.”

A wave of exultation swept the South--while Death stalked through the streets of Richmond.

Instead of the tramp of victorious hosts, their bayonets glittering in the sunlight, which Socola had confidently expected, he watched from the windows of the Department of State the interminable lines of ambulances bearing the wounded from the fields of McClellan's seven-days' battle.

The darkened room on Church Hill was opened. Miss Van Lew had watched the gla.s.s rattle under the thunder of McClellan's guns, and then with sinking heart heard their roar fade in the distance until only the rumble of the ambulances through the streets told that he had been there. She burned the flag. It was too dangerous a piece of bunting to risk in her house now. It would be many weary months before she would need another.

Through every hour of the day and night since Lee sprang on McClellan, those never-ending lines of ambulances had wound their way through the streets. Every store and every home and every public building had been converted into a hospital. The counters of trade were moved aside and through the plate gla.s.s along the crowded streets could be seen the long rows of pallets on which the mangled bodies of the wounded lay. Every home set aside at least one room for the wounded boys of the South.

The heart-rending cries of the men from the wagons as they jolted over the cobble stones rose day and night--a sad, weird requiem of agony, half-groan, half-chant, to which the ear of pity could never grow indifferent.

Death was the one figure now with which every man, woman and child was familiar. The rattle of the dead-wagons could be heard at every turn.

They piled them high, these uncoffined bodies of the brave, and hurried them under the burning sun to the trenches outside the city. They piled them in long heaps to await the slow work of the tired grave-diggers.

The frail board coffins in which they were placed at last would often burst from the swelling corpse. The air was filled with poisonous odors.

The hospitals were jammed with swollen, disfigured bodies of the wounded and the dying. Gangrene and erysipelas did their work each hour in the weltering heat of mid-summer.

But the South received her dead and mangled boys with a majesty of grief that gave no cry to the ear of the world. Mothers lifted their eyes from the faces of their dead and firmly spoke the words of resignation:

”Thy will, O Lord, be done!”

Her houses were filled with the wounded, the dying and the dead, but Richmond lifted up her head. The fields about her were covered with imperishable glory.

The Confederacy had won immortality.

The women of the South resolved to wear no mourning for their dead.

Their boys had laid their lives a joyous offering on their country's altar. They would make no cry.

Johnston had lost six thousand and eighty-four men, dead, wounded and missing at Seven Pines, and Lee had lost seventeen thousand five hundred and eighty-three in seven days of continuous battle. But the South was thrilled with the joy of a great deliverance.

Jefferson Davis in his address to the army expressed the universal feeling of his people:

”Richmond, July 5, 1862.

”_To the Army of Eastern Virginia_:

”_Soldiers_:

”I congratulate you upon the series of brilliant victories which, under the favor of Divine Providence, you have lately won; and as President of the Confederate States, hereby tender to you the thanks of the country, whose just cause you have so skillfuly and heroically saved.

”Ten days ago an invading army, vastly superior to yours in numbers and the material of war, closely beleaguered your Capital and vauntingly proclaimed our speedy conquest. You marched to attack the enemy in his entrenchments. With well-directed movements and death-defying valor you charged upon him in his strong positions, drove him from field to field over a distance of more than thirty-five miles, and, despite his reenforcements, compelled him to seek safety under the cover of his gunboats, where he now lies cowering before the army so lately despised and threatened with utter subjugation.

”The fort.i.tude with which you have borne trial and privation, the gallantry with which you have entered into each successive battle, must have been witnessed to be fully appreciated. A grateful people will not fail to recognize you and to bear you in loved remembrance.

Well may it be said of you that you have 'done enough for glory,'

but duty to a suffering country and to the cause of Const.i.tutional liberty claims for you yet further effort. Let it be your pride to relax in nothing which can promote your future efficiency; your one great object being to drive the invader from your soil, and, carrying your standards beyond the outer borders of the Confederacy, to wring from an unscrupulous foe the recognition of your birthright and independence.”

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