“Where are you running to, Nell?”
“Why, we were at Miss Anne Walker’s and the shells were bursting in our yard, and we are getting out of the way.”
Zip! a shell passed over my head and burst a few yards away. I didn’t wait to say good-by, but ran along Washington Street for my life. At last we got to Mr. Venable’s house, which was out of the range of the guns, and there we stopped with others. Many people had passed us on our way, and we had passed many people, all running through Washington Street for dear life. Everybody seemed to be running; in Mr. Venable’s house quite a crowd was gathered. His family were from home, but their friends filled the house. We watched from doors and windows, and talked of our friends who had fallen, of the Ninth of June, and of how Fort Hell and Fort Damnation got their names. We spoke of a friend who had kissed wife and children good-by, and gone out that fateful Ninth with the militia up the Jerusalem Plank Road to Fort Hell. Later in the day a wagon had come lumbering up to the door, blood dripping from it as it jolted along. In it lay the husband and father, literally shot to pieces. His little boy walked weeping behind it. His widow had shrouded him with her own hands, and trimmed his bier herself with the fragrant June flowers that were growing in her yard—flowers which he had loved and helped to tend. She had a house full of little ones around her. She had never known how to work, and now she was going about finding tasks to do, bearing up bravely and strengthening her children, she who had been as dependent upon her husband for love and tenderness as his children were upon her.
As the day waned we saw people hurrying past the Venable home bearing the wounded. I remember one poor fellow who was lying on a stretcher that was borne by his friends. He seemed to be shot almost to pieces. Graycoats were passing now, marching into the city.
As we sat at supper that night—a large party it was at that hospitable board—a servant brought a message to the three of us. A gentleman—a soldier—wished to see us. I went into the hall, and there was Walter Taylor. I don’t think I was ever so glad to see anybody in my life. Walter was not only “Walter,” but he was General Lee’s adjutant, and the very sight of him meant help to us. What did mother, Millie, and I do but throw our arms around his neck and kiss him like crazy women.
“I can’t stop a minute,” he said. “I heard you were here, and felt that I must come out to see how you were getting along. But I must go straight back to my command. Let me know if I can do anything for you.”
“Walter, where is Dan?”
“I don’t know, Nell, but I think he will be here to-night—if he is not here already.”
We felt like clinging to Walter and holding him back. I for one had lost my nerve. I was sick of war, sick of the butchery, the anguish, the running hither and thither, the fear. Soon after supper my husband came in. I was tremblingly glad to see him again, to touch his warm living body, to see that he was not maimed and mutilated—yet it hung over me all the time that he must go away in a few minutes—to come back, or be brought back—how? I kept my hand on him all the time he sat beside me. Every time he moved I trembled, feeling that it was a move to go.
“What are you doing out here?” he asked; “I thought you were at Miss Anne’s and went there for you.”