“So you won’t have to go, Rhett, you see, even if you are drafted. And we can well afford the money.”
Bannister looked from his wife to his son, and back again, with a smile of pity on his lips for their simplicity. But there was no anger in his voice as he replied:—
“That is true, Mary. Doubtless I could purchase immunity from the draft with money. But my money would be used by me to buy a substitute, or by the government for the purposes of the war, and the moral guilt on my part would be even greater than though I went myself. No, I shall not purchase my release, nor shall I go to war. There are means of defending my rights and my person against this tyranny, and I shall exercise them. I may die in the attempt, but I shall not have it charged against my memory that I fought my brothers of the South with bayonet and rifle, or helped others to do it.”
In his excitement, he rose from his chair and paced up and down the floor, but, in a moment, growing calmer, he added:—
“Oh, well! they haven’t come for me yet. Let’s not borrow trouble. We’ll have it soon enough. Keep a stout heart, Mary. And we’ll all go to bed now and sleep away our cares.”
It was all very well for Rhett Bannister to speak thus lightly of sleeping away cares, but as for his poor wife, she lay half the night, dreading lest the next noise she should hear might be Lincoln’s soldiers come to take away her husband to what both he and she considered a cruel, causeless war. Nor did sleep come quickly to close Bob’s eyes. Never before had the conflict between parental love and duty and his exalted sense of patriotism been so fierce and strong. Yet, reason with himself as he would, he was not able to convince either his heart or his judgment that his father was right and that Abraham Lincoln was wrong. And as the great War President expounded his thought on the crisis to the American people, and governed his conduct accordingly, Bob Bannister believed in him, trusted him, followed him in spirit, and would have followed him in body had he been of sufficient age to bear arms.
But here and now was the fact of his father’s conscription to deal with; a fact which opened the door to untold trouble, to possible, if not probable, tragedy. For Bob knew that in declaring his proposed resistance to the draft his father was not indulging in mere bravado. What Rhett Bannister said he meant, and what he undertook to do he did if it was within the power of human accomplishment. So Bob waited in dread for the coming of the officer to serve the notice of the draft.
But when, three days after the drawing, a deputy provost-marshal did come with a conscription notice, neither Bob nor his father was at home. So the notice was left at the house with Mrs. Bannister, and she, poor woman, after contemplating it all the afternoon with dread and apprehension, thrust it into her husband’s hand at night, saying deprecatingly, tearfully:—
“O Rhett, I couldn’t help it! He just gave it to me, and I didn’t know what it meant till I read it, and I don’t know now, except I suppose it means that you are really drafted and must go to war. And he wouldn’t stay to let me tell him why it was just impossible for you to go, and—and that’s all I know about it, Rhett dear.”
Bannister took the notice and read it over. It was simply to the effect that, in accordance with the Act of Congress of March 3, 1863, he had been drawn to serve for three years, or during the war, as a soldier in the armies of the United States. It further notified him to report for duty within ten days from the date of service of the notice, at the office of the provost-marshal for the district, Captain Samuel Yohe, at Easton, Pa. There was an additional notice to those desiring to purchase release from service, to pay the three hundred dollars commutation money to the deputy internal-revenue collector for the district.