Never before or since had I been blessed with more sincere and disinterested friends—always anxious to serve and, seemingly, perfectly happy only when in my society.
Within a week after our return came the final parting between us, and I have never had more stings of conscience than I felt when closing the door of the little paradise my confiding friends were never to enter again. I parted with them in sorrow, filled with anxiety for their future, as well I might have been, for early the ensuing autumn my calico friend became again a “circus horse” and was heard of no more, and the other resumed the role of “nobody’s dog” and went down to his soulless (?) finality wishing, beyond all doubt, for another taste of his lost paradise.
During the whole of the winter of 1862 and 1863, I was in camp with my command at Falmouth, in front of Fredericksburg. The army was resting after the colossal and tragic fiasco at Fredericksburg to recover a new supply of strength and courage for the encounter with unknown blunders to come; and, aside from doing as many drills as the mud would permit, consuming rations and drawing pay, there was little to do. The winter proved to be a period of weary inactivity, with no crowns of victory in sight.
Late one stormy afternoon in the month of January, 1863, the orderly announced a civilian stranger who desired an interview. He told the orderly that his name was of no consequence and that his business was personal. Upon his entering my tent, I discovered a complete embodiment of limp weariness and sorrow, a palpable wreck of something better in the past.
Upon being seated, he said: “I ’spose you don’t know me? Well, I don’t blame you much, I’ve so changed since then; we’ve had a great sorrow since your dog and horse scart that drove of cattle into the oats. Now I b’leve you remember, but you’d never guess I’m the same man, would you?”
I had to answer that the change was very great, and asked the cause.
“That’s partly what I am here for,” he replied. “You see, when the war first broke out, George, our oldest, you must remember him, a silent, good and thoughtful boy, was at the high school. All Vermont was alive with the right sort of feeling, and all the men and boys—and some of the women, I guess,—wanted to shoulder arms and go. We were expecting all the time to hear that George was going, but hoped the other way, and finally one morning in June he got out of the stage with his whole kit of books and clothes, and told his mother, whose eyes had already filled with tears, that he had come home to go; that all the big boys of the school had held a meeting, and agreed to enlist in the ‘Third,’ and he was going with them. Well, I thought his mother would sink into the ground then and there, but she didn’t. George, you know, was her favorite. He was always a reliable, duty-loving boy. She wiped her eyes, took him in her arms, and, while her heart was breaking, kissed him, and said: ‘I ‘spose you ought to go where right and your country calls, but it will be awful hard for me to part with you. I don’t know how I’m going to live with you in danger.’ The week he spent with us, I tell you, it was like a great shadow in that old house. His mother kept about, but her heart was breaking with terrible forebodings, and her eyes were always filling with tears. When he had stayed his week out, the last at the old home, we all drove over with him to the recruiting station, and saw him sign his name to the roll of Company ——, Third Regiment, Vermont Volunteers, ‘for three years, or during the war.’ In three weeks the regiment left for the field; we went over to see him off, and he was the only happy one of the family. We were filled with unspeakable sadness; we saw them march away, and, as the old flag disappeared round the corner of the road, his mother fainted, and fell into my arms. She never saw a well day after that, but kind of lived on like a machine, taking no interest in anything but the newspapers bringing news from the war.
“George was just as good a boy in the army as he had always been at home, wrote encouraging letters to his mother, filled with ideas about duty, patriotism, and all that. But it did no good. She had made up her mind she would never see him again, and, although alive, he was as good as dead almost to her. When the Winter ended, the Vermont troops went with the army to Yorktown, and then came the dreadful 16th of April—Lees’ Mills. Three days after the fight some one sent a Boston paper to us, which gave the news of the first advance having been made by Companies —— and —— of the Third, and the terrible slaughter of the men, but gave no names. His mother knew her son was killed, and two days later a letter from his Captain told us how well he had done his duty, and how bravely he had died. The strain was more than she could bear, she took to her bed, and at the end of five weeks we buried them side by side, and my happiness along with them. Now do you see why I’ve changed?”
After a slight pause, he resumed: “I forgot to tell you,—the other boy, the one who talked to you about the meeting-house steeple five hundred feet high, enlisted in the same company as soon as he got old enough, is sick in the hospital here now, and I want to take him back home, and that’s what I’m here about. I want you to help me to get him out of the Army. He was a new recruit when he saw his brother killed, and hasn’t been well since. You know he never was a strong boy, but he would go to war to be with George. He wouldn’t consent to his brother facing danger all the time, while he was safe at home. He’s all I’ve got left, except my old father, who can’t last much longer, and they tell me if I can get you to go with me to General —— he’ll order his discharge.”