Samantha at Saratoga

by Marietta Holley

Josiah wuzn’t able to work it right and it did require a deep mind to get into one without peril. And he wuz on the brink of a catastrophe. I got him out by siezin’ the chair and holdin’ it tight, till he dismounted from it—which he did with words unadapted to the serenity of the atmosphere. And then we went out the broad pleasant door-yard up into the tarven, and my companion got some coffee, and some refreshments, to refresh ourselves with. And then he, feelin’ clever and real affectionate to me (owin’ partly I s’pose to the good dinner), we wended our way down to the cottage where the Hero met his last foe and fell victorious.

We went up the broad steps onto the piazza, and I looked off from it, and over all the landscape under the soft summer sky, lay that same beautiful tender inspired memory. It lay like the hush that follows a prayer at a dyin’ bed. Like the glow that rests on the world when the sun has gone down in glory. Like the silence full of voices that follows a oriter’s inspired words.

The air, the whole place, thrilled with that memory, that presence that wuz with us, though unseen to the eyes of our spectacles. It followed us through the door way, it went ahead on us into the room where the pen wuz laid down for the last time, where the last words wuz said. That pen wuz hung up over the bed where the tired head had rested last. By the bedside wuz the candle blowed out, when he got to the place where it is so light they don’t need candles. The watch stopped at the time when he begun to recken time by the deathless ages of immortality. And as I stood there, I said to myself, “I wish I could see the faces that wuz a bendin’ over this bed, August 11th, 1885.”

All the ministerin’ angels, and heroes, and conquerors, all a waitin’ for him to join ’em. All the Grand Army of the Republic, them who fell in mountain and valley; the lamented and the nameless, all, all a waitin’ for the Leader they loved, the silent, quiet man, whose soul spoke, who said in deeds what weaker spirits waste in language.

I wished I could see the great army that stood around Mount McGregor that day. I wished I could hear the notes of the immortal revelee, which wuz a soundin’ all along the lines callin’ him to wake from his earth sleep into life—callin’ him from the night here, the night of sorrow and pain, into the mornin’.

And as I lifted my eyes, the eyes of the General seemed to look cleer down into my soul, full of the secrets that he could tell now, if he wanted to, full of the mysteries of life, the mysteries of death. The voiceless presence that filled the hull landscape, earth and air, looked at us through them eyes, half mournful, prophetic, true and calm, they wuz a lookin’ through all the past, through all the future. What did they see there? I couldn’t tell, nor Josiah.

In another room wuz the flowers from many climes. Flowers strewed onto the stage from hands all over the world, when the foot lights burned low, and the dark curtain went down for the last time on the Hero. Great masses of flowers, every one on ’em, bearin’ the world’s love, the world’s sorrow over our nation’s loss.

I had a large quantity of emotions as I stood there, probably as many as 48 a minute for quite a spell, and that is a large number of emotions to have, when the size of ’em is as large as the sizes of ’em wuz. I thought as I stood there of what I had hearn the Hero said once in his last illness, that, liftin’ up his grand right arm that had saved the Nation, he said, “I am on duty from four to six.”

Yes, thinkses I, he wuz on duty all through the shadows and the darkness of war, all through the peril, and the heartache, and the wild alarm of war, calm and dauntless, he wuz on duty till the mornin’ of peace came, and the light wuz shinin’.