“Bully for Dixon,” said Rodney, with tears in his eyes. “He always was a brave boy.”
At last Atlanta fell, Sherman marched to the sea, the battle of Five Forks was fought, the grand result of which was to reduce General Lee’s army of seventy-six thousand to less than twenty-nine thousand men, and then came the surrender at Appomattox. A short time afterward came also a joyous letter from Marcy Gray, in which he said that although Plymouth had once been recaptured by the rebels, aided by their formidable iron-clad, the Albemarle, which had worsted the Union gunboats every time they met her, the city did not remain in the hands of the enemy any longer than it took Lieutenant Cushing to blow up the iron-clad with his torpedo; and then, their main-stay being gone, the rebels again surrendered. He and his mother had not been troubled in any way since the night Captain Fletcher took him to Williamston jail. If it had not been for the papers that occasionally came into their hands, they would not have known that dreadful battles were being fought in the next State. There had been peace and quiet in the settlement since Allison, Goodwin, and Beardsley were bushwhacked. It was a terrible thing for Christians to do, but the refugees had been driven to it, and through no fault of their own. The two foragers who were captured on the night that Ben Hawkins was surprised in his father’s house, and who were sent South to act as guards at the Andersonville prison pen, had escaped after a few months’ service, and were now at home with their families. So were Hawkins and all the rest of the prisoners who were captured and paroled at Roanoke Island, and they had never been molested. No word had been received from Charley Bowen since he shipped in the Union Navy, but Marcy hoped to see him again at no distant day, for he never could forget that Charley saved his life. Sailor Jack had made a “good thing” out of his trading, and had promised his mother that he would not go to sea any more. As a family they were prosperous and hoped to be happy, now that the cause of the war was dead and the war itself ended. Marcy concluded his interesting letter by saying:
“While I write, the flag my Barrington girl gave me is waving from the house-top, and there is not a rebel banner floating to taint the breeze that kisses it. May it ever be so—one flag, one country, one destiny.”
“Amen,” said Rodney Gray solemnly.
THE END OF THE SERIES.
The
Famous
Castlemon
Books.