“I should certainly think not, with the examples the other generals on both sides are setting. Grant would not harm women, nor Thomas, nor Meade, nor Lee. Why, Bessie, my darling, Lee would hang a man who insulted a woman or destroyed private property. You remember when General Gordon captured the city of York just before the Battle of Gettysburg, and the inhabitants were scared lest he should burn the town, he said: ‘I beg you to rest assured that the troops behind me, though ill-clad and travel-stained, are good men and brave—that beneath their rough exteriors are hearts as loyal to women as ever beat in the breasts of honorable men; that their own experience and the experience of their mothers, wives and sisters at home have taught them how painful must be the sight of a hostile army in their town; that under the order of General Lee, non-combatants and private property are safe; that the spirit of lust and rapine has no place in the spirits of those dust-covered men.’ He pledged the head of any soldier under his command who destroyed private property, disturbed the peace of a single home, or insulted a woman. And not a person was harmed, nor a dollar’s worth of private property destroyed. Surely, if a half-starved Confederate force could be so knightly, the great army of Sherman, backed by unlimited supplies, will be as honorable.”
“I hear General Sherman says the Emancipation Proclamation was only a war act, and that he expects to own a hundred slaves after the war is over,” said Bessie, reassured.
“I met him over at Camellia before the war,” Helen remembered; “he was a polished gentleman, remarkably impressed, with Southern hospitality. Surely he will not forget the many times he has broken bread with the Carolinians. Barbarians do not forget that, and if he cannot be as chivalrous as Gordon he can at least be as honorable as Morgan.”
They sat for a moment in silence.
“Jack, come up stairs with me before you go,” Bessie murmured at last. They went out together, and Helen sat and looked into the firelight and dreamed of fires that never fail.
The brave wife, leaning upon her strong husband’s shoulder, led him to a little room and stood with him by a bed all covered with little garments. She lit a candle, and its glow showed him more of his wife’s heart than he had ever before seen.
There, each in its place on the white spread, were more than a full score of little prophecies of a woman’s love and joy and hope—a dainty cap intertwined with pink ribbons and another with blue; a tiny dress all stitched and sewn with silk, and others just as beautiful by it; some little coats of softest flannel and silken braidings, and a pair of tiny socks all crocheted in pink and white, so small that Bessie looked quaintly into her husband’s face and said:
“Jack, dear, do you think anything could be so tiny as to get into those?”
“Where did you get them, Bessie, in this poor land of fire and poverty?”
“From Helen, the sweet girl. I told her about it at the first, and she had her brother smuggle them to her. Oh, she is so lovely! And see the little basket all covered with dotted swiss and little ribbons intertwined in it; and the soft little brush with ivory handle, as soft as the silken hair it will touch; and the tiny comb. And do you see the little gold pins and the silver powder box and the puff? And she put in a dozen of the softest little undervests. Jack, I love Helen.”