"I cannot forget," he adds, "the sea of emotion that well-nigh overwhelmed me, as soon as I could realize the fact that I was no longer a prisoner, and especially when I beheld the starry banner floating triumphantly over the invincibles who had followed their great General down to the sea."
Our hero and his friend became objects of much curiosity, while their eventful escape was the subject of general conversation and comment by the brave boys who pressed around them, and who proved to be a detachment of the One Hundred and First Illinois Volunteers, Twentieth Army Corps. Their most intimate friends would have failed to recognize them. Glazier was clad in an old gray jacket and blue pants, with a venerable and dilapidated hat which had seen a prodigious amount of service of a nondescript kind; while a tattered gray blanket that had done duty for many a month as a bed by day and a cloak by night, and was now in the last stage of dissolution from age and general infirmity, completed his unmilitary and unpretentious toilet. Having at first no one to identify them, Glazier and his companion were as strangers among friends, and necessarily without official recognition. At length, however, after much searching, they found Lieutenant Wright's old company, and thus the refugees became officially identified and recognized as Federal officers.
In company with Lieutenant E. H. Fales, who had been his fellow-prisoner at Charleston, and effected his escape, Glazier proceeded on horseback to the headquarters of General Kilpatrick. The General, cordially welcoming and congratulating Glazier on his happy escape, at once furnished him with the documents necessary to secure his transportation to the North. His term of service having expired, he was anxious to revisit his family, who thought him dead, and bidding an affectionate adieu to his friend Wright, he and Lieutenant Fales embarked on a steamship on December twenty-ninth for home. After experiencing the effects of a severe storm at sea, the vessel arrived at the wharf of the metropolitan city, and our hero adds: "I awoke to the glorious realization that I was again breathing the air of my native State. There was exhilaration and rapture in the thought, which I could not repress, and that moment is fixed as a golden era in my memory. I hope never to become so hardened that that patriotic and Christian exultation will be an unpleasant recollection."
There have probably been few hearts that beat higher with martial ardor, than that of Willard Glazier; but at that moment the thought of "Battle's red carnival" was merged in the gentler recollection of kindred and friends, rest and home.
CHAPTER XXVI.
GLAZIER RE-ENTERS THE SERVICE.
Glazier's determination to re-enter the army. — Letter to Colonel Harhaus. — Testimonial from Colonel Clarence Buel. — Letter from Hon. Martin I. Townsend to governor of New York. — Letter from General Davies. — Letter from General Kilpatrick. — Application for new commission successful. — Home. — The mother fails to recognize her son. — Supposed to be dead. — Recognized by his sister Marjorie. — Filial and fraternal love, — Reports himself to his commanding officer for duty. — Close of the war and of Glazier's military career. — Seeks a new object in life. — An idea occurs to him. — Becomes an author, and finds a publisher.
Home, with its rest, its peaceful enjoyments and endearments, was no abiding place for our young soldier while his bleeding country still battled for the right, and called upon her sons for self-denying service in her cause. He had registered a vow to remain in the army until relieved by death, or the termination of the war. His heart and soul were in the Union cause, and finding that at the expiration of his term of service he had been mustered out, he had determined before proceeding to his home to apply for another commission, and, if possible, resume his place at the front.
The following letter, which we think stamps his earnest loyalty to the cause he had espoused, and for which he had already suffered so much, was addressed to his friend and patron:
Astor House, New York,