The captain dropped back into his seat, incredulous. Among the men standing against the tent-wall there was a buzz of approving voices. Rhett Bannister put his arm about the boy’s shoulders affectionately.
“You’re right, my son,” he said. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have asked it. I didn’t think. I didn’t realize; but—you’re right.”
Then Lieutenant Forsythe stepped forward.
“Permit me,” he said, “to make a suggestion. I talked much with this man on my way down here. I believe he will make a good and earnest soldier. The son has already proved his ability and patriotism. Why not keep them both? I am sure it will not militate against the spirit of the President’s order.”
“Right you are!” exclaimed Sergeant Anderson, stepping out from the shadow where he had stood dreading lest he should lose his protégé, of whom he had grown wondrously fond.
“Good!” said the other men.
“Let it be done,” responded the captain. And it was done.
In less than two hours Rhett Bannister was also a soldier of the United States. And so he and his son served their country in the ranks. They ate by the same camp-fire, slept in the same rude tent, and marched, shoulder to shoulder, through the autumn mists and the winter slush and mud of old Virginia. At Mine Run, a month after they were sworn in, they had their first baptism of fire, and bore themselves with such coolness and bravery as to elicit compliments for both from Captain Howarth. In winter-quarters, with the monotony of camp-life and the round of daily duties pressing on them, their spirits never flagged. Both by precept and example they radiated courage and cheerfulness to all their company. When, occasionally, a spirit of dissatisfaction showed itself in the ranks, when impatience with those in command became manifest, when poor and scanty fare and wretched clothing were the rule, it was Rhett Bannister, cool and logical, free of speech and earnest in manner, who moved among the men and counseled patience, who pointed out to them their duty and appealed to their patriotism, and never without success. “His influence with the soldiers,” said Captain Howarth, one day, “is worth a thousand courts-martial.”
There was one time in particular when murmurings of discontent broke forth, when the winter rains of Virginia were coldest and most piercing; when food was scarce and foraging forbidden; when Meade, under whom the soldiers had fought at Gettysburg, was discredited and displaced, and Grant, whom they did not know, was given supreme command; when the authorities at Washington seemed stricken with lethargy and blindness, and the anti-war sentiment in the North, increasing with dangerous rapidity, came filtering down to ears and hearts in the ranks not unwilling to receive it. Then it was that Rhett Bannister, the one-time hater of the administration, detractor of the army, denouncer of the war, went out among his comrades, from man to man, from tent to tent, from company to company, urging duty, pleading patriotism, counseling patience.
“You think you have troubles,” he said one night to a group of murmuring men, crowded into a smoky tent, while the cold rain dripped through the tattered canvas, and the wind howled dismally among the pines outside. “You think you have hardships and burdens and afflictions in the service of your country. Let me tell you something. I have seen Abraham Lincoln. I have talked with him face to face. I have read in his sad eyes and hollow cheeks, and the lines creasing his forehead, the story of his suffering. Boys, that man is bearing the burdens of this country and the woes of her people on his heart. Every drop of blood that is shed is as though it came from his body, every groan of a wounded soldier is as though it came from his lips, every tear from the eyes of those left desolate is as though it furrowed his face. You cannot conceive the immensity of the burdens he is bearing, or the weight of suffering he endures. Yet he is patiently, faithfully, earnestly, prayerfully, with tremendous power of will and strength of soul, pressing on toward the hoped-for end, and by God’s grace he is going soon to bring us all back out of the shadows of war into the light of a victorious peace. Boys, when you think you have burdens to bear, remember Abraham Lincoln.”