Lillie sighed; she was thinking of her husband; it was West Point which had ruined his noble character; nothing else could account for such a downfall; and her child should not go there.
In July (1864) they heard that the Nineteenth Corps had been transferred to Virginia, and during the autumn Colburne's letters described Sheridan's brilliant victories in the Shenandoah Valley. The Captain was present in the three pitched battles, and got an honorable mention for gallantry, but no promotion. Indeed advancement was impossible without a transfer, for, although his regiment had only two field-officers, it was now too much reduced in numbers to be entitled to a colonel. More than two-thirds of the rank and file, and more than two-thirds of the officers had fallen in those three savage struggles. Nevertheless the young man's letters were unflagging in their tone of elation, bragging of the bravery of his regiment, describing bayonet charges through whistling storms of hostile musketry, telling of captured flags and cannon by the half hundred, affectionate over his veteran corps commander, and enthusiastic over his youthful general in chief.
"Really, that is a most brilliant letter," observed Ravenel, after listening to Colburne's account of the victory of Cedar Creek. "That is the most splendid battle-piece that ever was produced by any author, ancient or modern," he went on to say in his enthusiastic and somewhat hyperbolical style. "Neither Tacitus nor Napier can equal it. Alison is all fudge and claptrap, with his granite squares of infantry and his billows of cavalry. One can understand Colburne. I know just how that battle of Cedar Creek was fought, and I almost think that I could fight such an one myself. There is cause and effect, and their relations to each other, in his narrative. When he comes home I shall insist upon his writing a history of this war."
"I wish he would," said Lillie, with a flash of interest for which she blushed presently.
CHAPTER XXXIV. LILLIE'S ATTENTION IS RECALLED TO THE RISING GENERATION.
On or about the first of January, 1865, Lillie chanced to go out on a shopping excursion, and descended the stairway of the hotel just in time to catch sight of a newly arrived guest, who was about entering his room on the first story. One servant directed the unsteady step and supported the wavering form of the stranger, while another carried a painted wooden box eighteen or twenty inches square, which seemed to be his sole baggage. As Lillie was in the broad light and the invalid was walking from her down a dark passage, she could not see how thin and yellow his face was, nor how weather-stained, threadbare, and even ragged was his fatigue uniform. But she could distinguish the dark blue cloth, and gilt buttons which her eye never encountered now without a sparkle of interest.
She had reached the street before the question occurred to her. Could it be Captain Colburne? She reasoned that it could not be, for he had written to them only a fortnight ago without mentioning either sickness or wounds, and the time of his regiment would not be up for ten days yet. Nevertheless she made her shopping tour a short one for thinking of that sick officer, and on returning to the hotel she looked at the arrival-book, regardless of the half-dozen students who lounged against the office counter. There, written in the clerk's hand, was "Capt. Colburne, No. 18." As she went up stairs she could not resist the temptation of passing No. 18, and was nearly overcome by a sudden impulse to knock at the door. She wanted to see her best friend, and to know if he were really sick, and how sick, and whether she could do anything for him. She determined to send a servant to make instant inquiries; but on reaching her room she found her father playing with Ravvie.
"Papa, Captain Colburne is here," were her first words.
"Is it possible!" exclaimed the Doctor, leaping up with delight. "Have you seen him?"