A BOY SENT BY EXPRESS, C. O. D.
IN the winter of 1862, just before General Grant moved upon Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, I went out to Sedalia, Mo., with a heavy lot of supplies.
Sedalia is 188 miles south-west of St. Louis, and was an important military station at that time.
The people in that section were very disloyal and belligerent.
The train on which I journeyed was fired into three times the day I made the journey, by “bushwhackers,” men who carried on an irregular warfare.
The train was well guarded. There were at least fifty well-armed Union soldiers on board to guard it, who took turns on the platform, ready to spring off, gun in hand, if the train were attacked. But when a volley was fired into the train, before the engineer could stop it, and the soldiers could get started in pursuit, the enemy had mounted their horses, and were far away. When the second volley crashed into the train, a bullet passed through the window beside me, and whizzed very near to my eyes. If it had come a little closer, it would have gone through both of them. Fortunately I had just leaned back against the seat; for if I had been sitting in an upright position, as I was a few moments before, the ball would have gone through my head.
A mother and her little girl, who was five or six years old, sat in the seat in front of me. The poor little child was so terrified that she tried to hide under the seat. Her appeals, as she lifted her beautiful tear-stained face, were very touching.
“Do you think they’ll fire again, mamma?”
“I hope not, my darling,” and the mother would tenderly cover her with the skirts of her dress, and try to soothe her.
“O mamma! do get down on the floor; if you don’t, you might get killed.”
It was pitiful to see a child in such terror, crouching on the floor.
We did not reach Sedalia till midnight, and it was not till the train drew up at the station that the child could be comforted.
The next morning early I went into the nearest hospital. The building was an old, dilapidated frame structure, that had been used as a store. Scores of wounded and sick men were crowded into these poor narrow quarters.
But it is not my purpose just now to speak of them, or of the hospital management, but of a child I found there.
He was lying on a cot in a little back room. They called him “Willie.” He said he was “goin’ on eight;” but if he was that old, he was very small of his age. His face was wondrous fair and beautiful, and his hair hung in golden ringlets about his head. He had been very ill, and was still too weak to leave his bed. But he was bright and happy, and a great favorite with the men, who, lying on their beds, whittled toys for Willie with their pocket-knives out of anything they could utilize for that purpose, such as sticks and bones.
I took a great deal of pains to ascertain the facts about the boy. He was a fatherless, motherless child, who had followed the soldiers when they marched away from the town where he was temporarily staying. No one cared, and no one followed to bring him back, and so he went on with them.
The simple story, as he told it, seemed to be sustained by the facts I afterwards gathered.
“I wanted to go to the war,” he said; “I had no mother, and I did not want to stay at that place. I did not like the people, so when the soldiers went to the war I went too. Some of the men said, that first day, ‘Little boy, you had better run back home;’ but I told them I had no home, that my mother was dead, and that I was not going back; that I was going to the war, so they put me in a wagon to ride. At night I had no place to sleep; but a man who said he had a little boy at home, about as big as me, said I could sleep with him, and he hugged me up under his blanket.
“Then after that I had a place in a wagon, the colonel said I might. Sometimes I rode on the horses behind the big officers. But they wouldn’t let me go to fight; they made me stay back in the wagon. I didn’t like that; I wanted to go to the fights.”
A few days after I found Willie I was in the hospital, when a gentleman came in seeking some one. He was from Ohio. He happened to see Willie, and was wonderfully attracted to the child, and Willie seemed to take a great fancy to the gentleman. He came daily to see Willie during his stay in Sedalia. “This child,” he said to me one day, with tears in his eyes, “looks so much like my own boy, my only child, who died a few months ago, that I want to adopt him if my wife will consent. But her heart is so nearly broken by grief, that she may shrink from the plan.”
I told him that I, too, had taken a great fancy to the boy, and had determined that he should have a good home, and that through my friend, General Curtis, who commanded at St. Louis, I should hold the boy till the best of references were furnished. To this he made no objections; and as soon as he reached St. Louis he sent the very best indorsements, furnishing the most ample evidence that he was in every way worthy of such a charge, as he was a wealthy Christian gentleman. Dr. Irwin, Acting Medical Director, readily concurred; and it was agreed that if, when the boy was able to travel, they wanted him, he should be sent.
Soon after he reached home, a telegram came: “All right—send Willie by express, C. O. D.” (collect on delivery). When the contents of the telegram became known, there was great excitement among the patients. How could they part with Willie? And yet as he was to have a good home they rejoiced with Willie, who was delighted with the news that he was to go.
As soon as he was able to travel, we prepared him for the journey. His name and address, and name and address of the gentleman to whom we were sending him, were written with ink on white muslin, and sewed to his coat and jacket, and on the shawl we wrapped about him, and on the blanket we bundled him up in.
A stalwart expressman came for him, and, after giving a regular receipt for him, took him up in his arms to carry him away. Dr. Irwin and the surgeons of the hospital, and even the nurses and cooks, all came to bid Willie good-by. His farewells were very touching.
When he was carried from his little room out into the main ward, a few golden curls lay out on the folds of the coarse gray blanket, and his laughing eyes turned kindly from one to another, as they called to him: “Good-by, Willie!” “Be a good boy, Willie.” “Don’t forget me, Willie.”
As we were about to pass through the last door-way, Willie, who had said “good-by” to each one as they greeted him, called out at the top of his voice, “Good-by, everybody.” There was a chorus of good-bys in response; but an Irishman by the door was heard above them all, as he said:—
“Good luck to ye now! and may ye live a hundred years, and get into heaven afore the Divil has a chance at ye.”
We accompanied him to the train, the surgeons and myself, and saw him safely aboard with his luncheon; and we stood there together in silence as the train pulled out, for a vacancy was felt in every heart.
A telegram was received a few days later, telling us that Willie had arrived safely.
A great deal was crowded into the next few months. Battle after battle followed. Fort Henry and Fort Donelson had fallen, Nashville had surrendered, the bloody struggle at Pittsburg Landing had taken place, and the Union forces had taken possession of Corinth, Miss.; but Willie was not forgotten.
The gentleman adopted him as his own child, and his wife was greatly comforted by the presence and love of little Willie.