Not many mornings subsequent to the adventure just related, I discovered upon opening the door that the Yankee tents seemed to be vacant. Not a blue-coat was to be seen. What could it mean? Had they given up the contest and ignominiously fled? As if confirmatory of the gratifying suggestion, the booming of cannon in the direction of Atlanta was evidently decreasing. Then again I thought perhaps the wagon train had been sent out to forage upon the country, and as it would now have to go forty-five and fifty miles to get anything, it required an immense military escort to protect it from the dashing, sanguinary attacks of the “rebels.” The latter thought was soon dismissed and the former embraced, and how consoling it was to me. Before the sun had attained its meridian height, a number of our scouts appeared on the abandoned grounds; and what joy their presence gave us! But they left us as suddenly as they came, and on reflection we could not think of a single encouraging word uttered by them during their stay. Suspense became intolerable. With occasional lulls, the roaring of cannon was a continuous blending of ominous sound.
In the midst of this awful suspense, an apparition, glorious and bright, appeared in our presence. It was my brother. He had left Madison a few days before, where he had been allowed to spend a part of his furlough, instead of remaining at the Augusta hospital, and where he received the tender ministrations of his estimable cousin, Mrs. Tom Hillsman, and her pretty young daughters, and the loving care of his sister Missouri, who was also at this time an inmate of her cousin’s household. How I wished he could have remained there until restored to health. One less patriotic and conscientious would have done so. His mother’s joy at meeting her beloved son, and under such circumstances, was pathetic indeed, and I shall never forget the effort she made to repress the tears and steady the voice as she sought to nerve him for the arduous and perilous duties before him. Much of his conversation, though hurried, was regarding his Mary, in Texas, and the dear little boy dropped down from heaven, whom he had never seen. The shades of night came on, and darker grew until complete blackness enveloped the face of the earth, and still the low subdued tones of conversation between mother, son and daughter, mingled with unabated interest. Hark! Hark! An explosion! An earthquake? The angry bellowing sound rises in deafening grandeur, and reverberates along the far-off valleys and distant hilltops. What is it? This mighty thunder that never ceases? The earth is ablaze—what can it be? This illumination that reveals minutest objects? With blanched face and tearful eye, the soldier said:
“Atlanta has surrendered to the enemy. The mighty reports are occasioned by the blowing up of the magazines and arsenals.”
Dumbfounded we stood, trying to realize the crushing fact. Woman’s heart could bear no more in silence, and a wail over departed hopes mingled with the angry sounds without.
Impelled by a stern resolve, and a spirit like to that of martyred saints, our brother said:
“This is no place for me. I must go.”
And then he put an arm around each of us, and kissed us with a fervor of love that knew no bounds, and was quenching itself in unfathomable hopeless tenderness. The quiet fortitude and patriotism of his mother gave way in that dread hour, and she cried aloud in agonizing apprehension of never again clasping to her bosom her greatest earthly joy. No pen can describe the scene of that last parting between mother and son, and in sheer impotency I drop the curtain.
As he walked away from his sobbing mother, through the war-illuminated village, I never beheld mortal man so handsome, so heroically grand. His great tender heart, which I had seen heave and sway under less trying circumstances, seemed to have ossified, and not an emotion was apparent.