Oh! that Virginia of 1865—that desolate, dreary land! Oh! those poor, sad soldiers returning to their homes! Everywhere burned houses, unfenced fields, ruined homesteads! On all sides, the desolation of the torch and the sword! The “poor paroled prisoners,” going home wearily in that dark April, felt a pang which only a very bitter foe will laugh at.
But all was not taken. Honor was left us—and the angels of home! As the sorrowful survivors of the great army came back, as they reached their old homes, dragging their weary feet after them, or urging on their jaded horses, suddenly the sunshine burst forth for them, and lit up their rags with a sort of glory. The wife, the mother, and the little child rushed to them. Hearts beat fast, as the gray uniforms were clasped in a long embrace. Those angels of home loved the poor prisoners better in their dark days than in their bright. The fond eyes melted to tears, the white arms held them close; and the old soldiers, who had only laughed at the roar of the enemy’s guns, dropped tears on the faces of their wives and little children!
EPILOGUE.
In the autumn of last year, 1867, I set out on horseback from “Eagle’s Nest,” and following the route west by Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Germanna Ford, Culpeper, and Orleans, reached “The Oaks” in Fauquier.
I needed the sunshine and bright faces of the old homestead, after that journey; for at every step had sprung up some gloomy or exciting recollection.
It was a veritable journey through the world of memory.
Fredericksburg! Chancellorsville! the Wilderness! the plains of Culpeper!—as I rode on amid these historic scenes, a thousand memories came to knock at the door of my heart. Some were gay, if many were sorrowful—laughter mingled with the sighs. But to return to the past is nearly always sad. As I rode through the waste land now, it was with drooping head. All the old days came back again, the cannon sent their long dull thunder through the forests; again the gray and blue lines closed in, and hurled together; again Jackson in his old dingy coat, Stuart with his floating plume, Pelham, Farley, all whom I had known, loved, and still mourned, rose before me—a line of august phantoms fading away into the night of the past.
Once more I looked upon Pelham, holding in his arms the bleeding form of Jean—passing “Camp-no-camp,” only a desolate and dreary field now, all the laughing faces and brave forms of Stuart and his men returned—in the Wilderness I saw Jackson fight and fall; saw him borne through the moonlight; heard his sighs and his last greeting with Stuart. A step farther, I passed the lonely old house in the Wilderness, and all the strange and sombre scenes there surged up from the shadows of the past. Mordaunt, Achmed, Fenwick, Violet Grafton!—all reappeared, playing over again their fierce tragedy; and to this was added the fiercer drama of May, 1864, when General Grant invented the “Unseen Death.”