Brightly, beautifully the Sabbath morning broke over all the hills of the Northland, covering them with floods of rosy light, burnishing the forest trees with sheens of gold, and cresting each tall spire with colors which seemed born of Paradise, so radiantly bright they looked, flashing from their lofty resting-place, and glancing off across the valleys where the fields of waving corn and summer wheat were growing. To the westward, too, where prairie on prairie stretches on into almost interminable space, the same July sun was shining, as quietly, as peacefully, as if in the hearts of men there burned no bitter feeling of fierce and vindictive hate,—no thirsting for each other’s blood. Oh, how calm, how still it was that Sunday morning both east, and north and west, and as the sun rose higher in the heavens, how soothingly the bells rang out their musical chimes. From New England’s templed hills to the far-off shores of Oregon, the echoes rose and fell, ceasing only when ceased the tramp of the many feet hastening up to worship God in his appointed way. Old and young, rich and poor, father and mother, sister and brother, husband and wife, assembling together to keep the holy day, that best day of the seven, praying not so much for their own sins forgiven as for the loved ones gone to war,—the dear ones far away,—and little, little dreaming as they prayed, how the same sun stealing so softly up the church’s aisle, and shining on the church’s wall, was even then looking down on a far different scene,—a scene of carnage, blood and death. For, off to the southward, near where the waters of the Potomac ripple past the grave of our nation’s hero, another concourse of people was gathered together; their Sunday bell the cannon’s roar; their Sunday hymn the battle-cry.
Long before the earliest robin had trilled its matin song, they had been on the move, their bristling bayonets glittering in the brilliant moonlight like the December frost, as with regular, even tread they kept on their winding way, knowing not if the pale stars watching their course so pityingly, as it were, would ever shine on them again. Onward,—onward,—onward still they pressed; over the hills, through the ravines, down the valleys, across the fields, till the same sun which shone so softly on their distant homes rose also over the Federal Fly, as it has been aptly termed, moving onward to the Web which lay beyond, so well concealed and so devoid of sound that none could guess that the treacherous woods, wearing so cool, so inviting a look, were sheltering a mighty, expectant host, watching as eagerly for the advancing foe as ever ambushed spider waited for its deluded prey. Backward,—backward, stretched the Confederate army, line after line, rank after rank, battalion after battalion, until in numbers it more than quadrupled that handful of men steadily moving on. From out their leafy covert the enemy peered, exulting that the fortunes of the great Republic, their whilom mother, were so surely within their power, and pausing for a time in sheer wantonness, just as a kitten sports with the mouse she has already captured, and knows cannot escape. Onward,—onward,—onward swept the Federal troops; their polished arms and glittering uniforms flashing in the morning sunlight just as the flag for which they fought waved in the morning breeze. They were weary and worn, and their lips were parched with feverish thirst, for hours had passed since they had tasted food or water. But not for this did they tarry; there was no faltering in their ranks, no faintly beating heart, no wild yearning to be away, no timid shrinking from what the woods, now just before them, might hold in store, and when the whisper ran along the lines that the enemy was in view, there was nought felt save joy, that the long suspense was ended and the fray about to commence.
There was a halt in the front ranks, and while they stand there thus, let us look once more upon these those whom we have known. Just where the good-humored faces of the Irish regiment, and the tall caps of the Highlanders are perceptible, the 13th appears in view, our company marching decorously on, no lagging, no faltering, no cowards there, though almost every heart had in it some thought of home and the dear ones left behind. Prayers were said by lips unused to pray, and who shall tell how many records of sins forgiven were that morning written in heaven? Bibles, too, were pressed to throbbing hearts, and to none more closely than to George Graham’s broad chest. He had prayed that morning in the clear moonlight, and by the same moonlight he had tried to read a line in Annie’s well-worn Bible, opening to where God promises to care for the widow and the fatherless. Was it ominous, that passage? Did it mean that he, so strong, so vigorous, so full of life, should bite the dust ere many hours were done? He could not believe it. He was too full of hope for that. He could not die with Annie at home alone, so he buttoned her Bible over his heart, and prayed that if a bullet struck him it might be there, fondly hoping that would break its force.
There was a shadow on his handsome face, and it communicated itself to Isaac Simms, who was glancing so stealthily at him, and guessing of what he was thinking. Isaac, too, had prayed in the moonlight, and he, too, had thought, “What if I should be killed!” wondering if his mother ever would forget her soldier boy, even though she might not weep over his nameless grave. This to Isaac was the hardest thought of all. The boy that would not tell a lie for the sake of promotion, was not afraid to die, but he preferred that it should not be there ‘mid piles of bloody slain. He would rather death should come to him up in the humble attic, where he had lain so oft and listened to the patter of the rain on the roof above, or feigned to be asleep when his mother stole noiselessly across the threshold to see if he were covered from the cold and shielded from the snow, which sometimes found an entrance through a crevice in the wall. ’Tis strange when we are in danger what flights our fancy often takes, gathering up the minutest details of our past life, and spreading them out before us with startling distinctness. So Isaac, with possible death in advance, thought of his past life; of every object connected with his home, from the grass-plat in the rear, where his mother bleached her clothes in spring, to the blue and white checked blanket hung round his attic bed to protect him from the winter storm. That widow, so stern, so harsh, so sharp to almost every one, had been the tenderest of parents to him, and a tear glistened on the cheek of the fair-haired boy as he remembered the only time he ever was hateful to her. He had asked her forgiveness for it, and she surely would not recall it when she read the letter Eli or John would send, bearing the fatal line, “Mother, poor Isaac is dead.” He knew they would call him “poor Isaac,” for though they sometimes teased him as his “mother’s great girl baby,” they petted him quite as much as she, only in a different way, and he felt now that both would step between him and the bullet they thought would harm him. Eli would any way, but John, perhaps, would hesitate, as he now loved Susan best. Isaac was proud of his brothers, and he glanced admiringly at them as they marched side by side, keeping even step just as they did down Main street, with his mother and Susan looking on. One now was thinking of Susan, and one of his widowed mother.
Close by Isaac walked Bill, quiet and subdued. He had not prayed that morning,—he never prayed; but when he saw Isaac kneeling on his blanket he had said to him, “Manage to get in a word or two for me and Hal; we need it, mercy knows.” And surely if ever poor mortal needed prayer it was Hal, as his brother styled him. Half stupefied with the vile liquor he had constantly managed to get, he trudged on, boasting of what he could do; “only give him a chance and he’d lick the entire Secession army. He’d like to see the ball that could kill him; he was good at dodging; he’d show’em a thing or two in the way of fight; he’d take the tuck out of the Southern gentlemen,—yes, he would,” and so he went thoughtlessly boasting on to death!
Will Mather was not there. Indisposition had detained him at Washington, and with a hearty God speed he had sent his comrades on their way, lamenting that he, too, could not join them, and bidding his brother-in-law do some fighting for him.