Part 100 (1/2)

I looked at the back of the letter. It was directed to a lady in Suffolk. From the letter, my glance pa.s.sed to the face of Mr. X-----.

He was smiling grimly.

”A valuable doc.u.ment,” he said, ”which madam will doubtless duplicate before very long, with additional particulars. I make you a present of it, colonel, as a memorial of the war.”

I thanked him, and placed the letter in my pocket. To-day I copy it, word for word.

Mr. X----- reflected a moment; then he said to Nighthawk:--

”Arrest this woman; I am tired of her. I have no time to waste upon such persons, however charming.”

Nighthawk looked greatly delighted.

”I was going to beg that order of you, sir,” he said, ”as the 'private business' alluded to in the letter, concerns a friend of mine, greatly.”

”Ah! well, here is the order.”

And taking a pen, Mr. X----- scrawled two lines, which he handed to Nighthawk. A glow of satisfaction came to that worthy's face, and taking the paper, he carefully placed it in his pocket.

As he did so, the bell in the capitol square struck midnight, and I rose to take my departure.

”Come and see me soon again, colonel,” said Mr. X-----, going to the door with me. He had made a sign to Nighthawk, who rose to go out with me, that he wished him to remain.

”What I have said to you, to-night,” continued the statesman, gravely, ”may have been injudicious, colonel. I am not certain of that--but I am quite sure that to have it repeated at this time would be inconvenient.

Be discreet, therefore, my dear friend--after the war, tell or write what you fancy; and I should rather have my present views known then, than not known. They are those neither of a time-server, a faint heart, or a fool. I stand like the Roman sentinel at the gate of Herculaneum, awaiting the lava flood that will bury me. I see it coming--I hear the roar--I know destruction is rus.h.i.+ng on me--but I am a sentinel on post; I stand where I have been posted; it is G.o.d and my conscience that have placed me on duty here. I will stay, whatever comes, until I am relieved by the same authority which posted me.” And with the bow of a n.o.bleman, the gray-haired statesman bade me farewell.

I returned to my lodgings, buried in thought, pondering deeply on the strange scenes of this night of December.

On the next morning I set out, and rejoined the army at Petersburg.

I, too, was a sentinel on post, like the statesman. And I determined to remain on duty to the last.

IX.

TO AND FRO IN THE SPRING OF '65.

The months of January and February, 1865, dragged on, sombre and dreary.

Two or three expeditions which I made during that woeful period, gave me a good idea of the condition of the country.

In September, 1864, I had traversed Virginia from Petersburg to Winchester, and had found the people--especially those of the lower Shenandoah Valley--still hopeful, brave, resolved to resist to the death.

In January and February, 1865, my official duties carried me to the region around Staunton; to the mountains west of Lynchburg; and to the North Carolina border, south of Petersburg. All had changed. Everywhere I found the people looking blank, hopeless, and utterly discouraged.

The shadow of the approaching woe seemed to have already fallen upon them.

The army was as ”game” as ever--even Early's little handful, soon to be struck and dispersed by General Sheridan's ten thousand cavalry.

Everywhere, the soldiers laughed in the face of death. Each seemed to feel, as did the old statesman with whom I had conversed on that night at Richmond, that he was a sentinel on post, and must stand there to the last. The lava might engulf him, but he was ”posted,” and must stand until relieved, by his commanding officer or death. It was the ”poor private,” in his ragged jacket and old shoes, as well as the officer in his braided coat, who felt thus. For those private soldiers of the army of Northern Virginia were gentlemen. _n.o.blesse oblige_ was their motto; and they meant to die, musket in hand!

Oh, soldiers of the army, who carried those muskets in a hundred battles!--who fought with them from Mana.s.sas, in 1861, to Appomattox, in 1865--you are the real heroes of the mighty struggle, and one comrade salutes you now, as he looked at you with admiration in old days! What I saw in those journeys was dreary enough; but however black may be the war-cloud, there is always the gleam of sunlight somewhere!