Elsie Singmaster

“ The business of the young officer was not with these cannon, but with the infantry, who, crouching before the guns, hugging the ground, were to bide their time in safety for two hours. Therefore, sitting on his horse, he still fitted words to his thoughts. The conflict before him is not a fight for men, it is a fight for mighty engines of war; it is not a human battle, it is a storm, far above earthly passion. "Infuriate demons" are these guns, their mouths are ablaze with smoky tongues of livid fire, their breath is murky, sulphur-laden ”

“ The name of one was Criswell; he had been a gunner in Battery B, and was now blind. The explosion which had paralyzed the optic nerve had not disfigured him; his smooth-shaven face in its frame of thick, white hair was unmarred, and with his erect carriage and his strong frame he was extraordinarily handsome. The name of his friend, bearded, untidy, loquacious, was Carolus Depew.
Gettysburg opens wide not only its hospitable arms, but its heart, to the old soldier. ”

“ The cemetery with its tall monuments lies a little back of her and to her left; before her is the village; beyond, on a little eminence, the buildings of the Theological Seminary; and still farther beyond the foothills of the Blue Ridge. The village is tree-shaded, the hills are set with fine oaks and hickories, the fields are green. It would be difficult to find in all the world an expanse more lovely. Those who have known it in their youth grow homesick for it; their eyes ache and their throats tighten as they remember it. ”

“ She never thought that he might die, that he might be lost, swallowed up in the yawning mouth of some great battle-trench; she never dreamed that she would never see him again, would hunt for him among thousands of dead bodies, would have her eyes filled with sights intolerable, with wretchedness unspeakable, would be tortured by a thousand agonies which she could not assuage, torn by a thousand griefs beside her own. ”

“ Are men wounded and broken by the thousands, do they lie in burning thirst, pleading for water, pleading for the bandaging of bleeding arteries, pleading for merciful death? The conquerors think of none of these things. Is night coming, are long marches coming? Still the conquerors shout like mad. Is war ended by this mammoth victory? For months and months it will drag on. Is this conquered foe a stranger, will he now withdraw to a distant country? He is our brother, his ills are ours, these wounds which we have given, we shall feel ourselves for fifty years. ”

“ There were multitudinous cries:—
"Here you are, the Keystone House!"
"Here you are, the Palace, the official hotel of Gettysburg!"
"The Battle Hotel, the best in the city!"
There were shouts also from the visitors.
"Hello, comrades! Hurrah! Hurrah!"
"Did you ever see such a storm?"
"Hurrah! Hurrah!"
At first it seemed impossible to bring order out of the chaos. The human particles would rush about forever, wearing themselves into nothingness by futile contact with one another. Presently, however, one of the carriages drove away and then another, and the crowd began to thin. ”

“ Well indeed might they sleep heavily, dully, undisturbed by cry of picket or gallop of returning scout. The flat country lay clear and bright in the moonlight; to the north-west they could almost see the low cone of Big Round Top, to which none then gave a thought, not even Parsons himself, who lay with his tanned face turned up toward the sky. Once his sunken eyes opened, but he did not remember that now, if ever, he must steal away, over his sleeping comrades, past the picket-line, and up the long red road toward home. He thought of home no more, nor of fear; he lay like a dead man. ”

“ To the young officer he was one of the unaccountable phenomena of battle, he was incomprehensible, monstrous.
He noted also the curious freaks played by round shot, the visible flight of projectiles through the air, their strange hiss "with sound of hot iron, plunged into water." He saw ambulances wrecked as they moved along; he saw frantic horses brought down by shells; he calls them "horse-tamers of the upper air." He saw shells fall into limber-boxes, he heard the terrific roar which followed louder than the roar of guns; he observed the fall of officer, of orderly, of private soldier. ”

“ Once more commands are few, men do not heed them. Clearly once more they see their duty, magnificently they obey. This is war at the height of its passion, war at the summit of its glory. A color-sergeant rushed to the stone wall, there he fell; eagerly at once his comrades plunged forward. There was an instant of fierce conflict, of maddening, indistinguishable confusion. Men wrestled with one another, opposed one another with muskets used as clubs, tore at each other like wolves, until spent, exhausted, among heaps of dead, the conquered began to give themselves up. ”

“ The door of the opposite house opened, and Hannah Casey's burly figure crossed the street. She had been working in her carefully tended garden and her face was crimson. Hannah Casey anticipated no battle.
"Good morning to you," she called. "What is it you want?"
"Come here," bade Mary Bowman.
The Irishwoman climbed the three steps to the little porch.
"What is it?" she asked again. "What is it you see?"
"Look!—Out there at the Seminary! You can see the soldiers moving about, like black specks under the trees!" ”

“ The engine puffed near at hand, there were new cheers from throats already hoarse with cheering, and the great man was gone, the great day over. For an instant Billy watched the train, his hand uplifted with a thousand other hands in a last salute to the swift-vanishing figure in the observation-car. Then he turned, to meet the unwilling eyes of Jakie Barsinger, helpless to move his carriage in the great crowd. ”

“ For a moment Adams's eyes followed him, then he saw that the cemetery and the outlying fields were black with ten thousand men. It would be easy for Parsons to get away.
"No hope for him," he said shortly, as he set to work to do what he could for the maimed creature at his feet. Dawn, he knew, must be almost at hand; he fancied that the moonlight was paling. He was almost crazy for sleep, sleep that he would need badly enough on the morrow, if he were any prophet of coming events.
Parsons, also, was aware of the tens of thousands of men about him, to him they were dead or dying men. ”

“ Several men and boys were killed while trying to open unexploded shells; their deaths added to the general horror. There were constant visitors who sought husbands, brothers, sweet-hearts; with these the Gettysburg women were still able to weep, for them they were still able to care; but the constant demand for entertainment for the curious annoyed those who wished to be left alone to recover from the shock of battle. Gettysburg was prostrate, bereft of many of its worldly possessions, drained to the bottom of its well of sympathy. ”

“ Mother!" forgetting that even in that little room she could not have heard him. He ran through the house, shouting. Everywhere it was the same—stripped beds, cupboards flung wide, the fringe of torn curtains still hanging. His mother was not there.
His terror drove him finally to the window overlooking the garden. It was here that he most vividly remembered her, bending over her flower-beds, training the tender vines, pulling weeds. She must be here. In spite of the snarl of guns, she must be here. But the garden was a waste, the fence was down. ”

“ His eyes were fixed upon that rounded clump of trees, his course was directed toward the centre of that wave-like crest. He was eighteen thousand against six thousand; should his gray mass enter, wedge-like, the Union line, yesterday's Union victories, day before yesterday's Union losses would be in vain.
To the young officer, enemies though they were, they seemed admirable. They had but one soul; they would have been, under a less deadly fire, opposed by less fearful odds, an irresistible mass. Before them he saw their galloping officers, their scarlet flags ”

“ His comrades carried him into the house, where they had made a dim light. The smoke of battle seemed to be lifting; there was still sharp firing, but it was silence compared to what had been, peace compared to what would be on the morrow.
They laid him on the floor of the little kitchen, and looked at the wide rent in his neck, and lifted his limp arm, not seeing that a door behind them had opened quietly, and that a woman had come up from the deep cellar beneath the house. There was not a cellar within miles that did not shelter frightened women and children. ”

“ There were nearer sounds now, the rattle of a cart behind them, the gallop of hoofs before. Again the Bateses were coming, a family of eight crowded into a little springless wagon with what household effects they could collect. Hannah Casey waved her apron at them and went out to the edge of the street.
"Run!" she yelled. "Skedaddle! Murder! Help! Police!"
Neither her jeers nor Mary Bowman's laugh could make the Bateses turn their heads. Mrs. Bates held in her short arms a feather bed, her children tried to get under it as chicks creep under the wings of a mother hen. ”

“ Mary Bowman will not talk about the battle. To each of her children and each of her grandchildren, she has told once, as one who performs a sacred duty, its many-sided story. She has told each one of wounds and suffering, but she has not omitted tales of heroic death, of promotion on the field, of stubborn fight for glory. By others than her own she will not be questioned. A young officer, recounting the rigors of the march, has written, "Forsan et hæc olim meminisse juvabit,"—"Perchance even these things it will be delightful to remember." ”

“ He followed John to the barn.
"Seems as if I might ride Harry," he said tentatively.
"O father, you couldn't," John answered gently. "You know how it will be, noise and confusion and excitement. Harry isn't used to it. You couldn't manage him."
"Seems as though if Dick goes, Harry ought to go, too. 'Tain't fair for Dick to go, and not Harry," he whispered childishly. ”

“ Then a roar of sound shut out possibility of thought. The little house shook with it. He covered his ears, but he might as well have spared himself his pains. That sound could never be shut out, neither then, nor for years afterward, from the ears of those who heard it. There were many who would hear no other sound forevermore. The coward began again his whining, "Oh, God! Oh, God!" His nostrils were full of smoke; he could smell already the other ghastly odors that would follow. He lifted himself from his bed, and, hiding his eyes from the window, felt his way down the steep stairway. ”

“ The young officer had not dreamed that the Confederates would be able to advance to the Union lines; his speculation concerned only the time they would be able to stand the Union fire. But they have advanced, they are advancing still farther. And there in that weak centre—he cannot trust his own vision—men are leaving the sheltering wall; without order or reason, a "fear-stricken flock of confusion," they are falling back. The fate of Gettysburg, it seemed to his horrified eyes, hung by a spider's single thread. ”

“ You are a Christian, your husband was a Christian. Do you want your children to think it is a wicked thing to die for their country? Do as I tell you, Mary."
Mary got up from her chair, and put on her children all the clothes they had, and wrapped about her own shoulders a little black coat which the judge's wife had given her. Then, as one who steps into an unfriendly sea, she started out with them into the great crowd. Once more, poor Mary said to herself, she would obey. She had seen the platform; by going round through the citizen's cemetery she could get close to it. ”

“ To feel delight, remembering these things, Mary Bowman has never learned. Her neighbors who suffered with her, some just as cruelly, have recovered; their wounds have healed, as wounds do in the natural course of things. But Mary Bowman has remained mindful; she has been, for all these years, widowed indeed.
Her faithful friend and neighbor, Hannah Casey, is the great joy of visitors to the battle-field. She will talk incessantly, enthusiastically, with insane invention. ”

“ Slowly, after an hour and a half, the roar of battle abated, and the young officer and his general made their way back along the line. By three o'clock the great duel was over; the two hundred and fifty guns, having been fired rapidly for two hours, seemed to have become mortal, and to suffer a mortal's exhaustion. Along the crest, battery-men leaned upon their guns, gasped, and wiped the grime and sweat from their faces. ”

“ He heard the guns, he caught glimpses now and then of messengers galloping to headquarters; he sat with bent head and staring eyes. Late in the afternoon the firing ceased, and he said over and over again, "Oh, God, don't let us go that way! Oh, God, don't let us go that way!" He did not realize that the noise came from the direction of Gettysburg, he did not comprehend that "that way" meant home, he felt no anxiety for the safety of his mother; he knew only that, if he saw another dead or dying man, he himself would die. Nor would his death be simply a growing unconsciousness ”

“ Is this brave young officer to enjoy the reward of his great courage, to live in fame, to be honored by his countrymen? At Cold Harbor he is to perish with a bullet in his forehead. Is not all this business of war mad? ”

“ He rode his horse up on the pavement and pounded with his sword at the Deemer door.
"He might terrify the children to death!" cried Mary Bowman, starting forward.
But already the soldier was riding toward her.
"There is sickness there!" she shouted to his unheeding ears; "you oughtn't to pound like that!"
"You women will have to stay in your cellars," he answered. "A battle is to be fought here."
"Here?" said Mary Bowman stupidly.
"Get out!" said Hannah Casey. "There ain't nobody here to fight with!"
The soldier rode his horse to Hannah Casey's door, and began to pound with his sword. ”