Homer Greene

“ The strain of conflict was too great. The mightiest battle of the Civil War was on at Gettysburg. For two days, across the streets and up the heights of that quaint Pennsylvania village, the armies of Meade and Lee had clashed and striven with each other, until the uncovered dead lay by ghastly thousands, and every hollow in the hillside held its pool of blood. Rumors of victory and rumors of disaster crossed and recrossed each other on the way from the battle-field to the villages of the North. Mount Hermon hardly knew what to believe. ”

“ But I believe that you and I are the only two men in this community who could discuss their political differences without passion. You are of Kentucky ancestry, I am of South Carolinian. These other people here are either of the domineering Yankee type, or else are descended from the stubborn Pennsylvania settlers. Perhaps that accounts for their lack of fairness and reason. I have often wondered how Abraham Lincoln, with his Virginia ancestry, his Kentucky birth, and his western training, could be so narrow, so illogical, so illiberal, so utterly heartless as he has shown himself to be. ”

“ Then gloom, anxiety, was on the face of every person who went hurrying by; despondency in the slow gait of every loiterer on the streets. And over the head of the Chief Magistrate hung ever the horror of blood, on his heart weighed ever the apprehension of unforeseen disaster. But to-night, how different! Some one who had seen the President that day said he had not been so happy, so contented, so tender and serene, since he had been in Washington. His son Captain Robert Lincoln had come up from the South and spent the morning with him. ”

“ And as they walked on, and the young man told of his battles and his marches and his wounds, of the glory of fighting for the old flag, and of his ardent hope for ultimate victory and peace, and above all, of his reverence for the great and noble President at Washington, whom all the soldiers loved and honored, and for whom they would cheerfully have died, Bob felt the tides of patriotism rising high and higher in his breast ”

“ Surely no soldier, no army, ever held out more bravely against more fearful odds, in more desperate straits, than did this remnant of Lee’s tattered host, in its final effort to save the Confederate capital from falling into the hands of its enemies. Yet every drum-beat trembling on the soft spring air was but the knell of Richmond’s hope; every passing hour brought nearer and nearer her unavoidable doom.
Late in March Grant threw out a force on his left, under Sheridan, to meet and turn, and crush if possible, Lee’s right flank, and thus precipitate the fall of Petersburg. ”

“ Why can’t he see, if he has such marvelous insight, that the South is demanding merely her rights? All she wants now is to be let alone, to take her property and go, to govern herself as she sees fit. And when she is assured that she may do so, this war will cease, peace will come, the horrible struggle will be at an end. Why does Abraham Lincoln persist in striving to compel this brave people, by force of [61] arms, to pass again under the galling yoke of his hostile government? ”

“ And the remark made by Captain Yohe the day before at Easton came back into his mind: “No power on earth can save you from the extreme penalty meted out to deserters unless it be Abraham Lincoln himself.”
So this man held also in his hands dominion over life and death. At his word, spoken or withheld, he, Rhett Bannister, would live or die. At his word, spoken or withheld, soldiers by the thousands had given and would still give their lives that his counsels and his judgments might prevail. What an awful responsibility! How it must weigh on a man’s soul! ”

“ To have my father shot as a deserter, why, that would be worse for me, and worse for my mother, and for my little sister all our lives, than it would be to have me tired, or hungry, or sick, or wounded, or shot to death in battle and buried in a trench. And besides that I want to go for the sake of going. I want to do something for my country. Abraham Lincoln wants more soldiers, and if he wants them he should have them. ”

“ It followed one look into that infinitely sad and tender face, but in that moment the tide of feeling in Rhett Bannister’s mind and heart had turned. Abraham Lincoln was no longer the hated monster of other days, but a man, instead, of like passions, cares, griefs, and hopes with himself; a man to whom it was no humiliation to speak ”

“ In the whole history of Mount Hermon nothing had been known to equal it. And when it was over, and the tables had been partly cleared, the flag at the end of the tent was drawn aside, and there on the platform were the speakers, the singers, and the band. A chorus of girls, dressed in white, with little flags in their hands, sang “America.” There was a brief and fervent prayer by the old clergyman who had married nearly every one’s father and mother in Mount Hermon, and who knew all the middle-aged people by their first names. ”

“ It seems to me, my friend, that the South can afford to do as Seth Mills did, swallow her pride, be generous to us, get back with us into the Union, and help us build it bigger and broader and deeper, and wall it up, and put in a pipe big enough to supply us all with prosperity and happiness and peace. ”

“ His record in the ranks had preceded him long before. The story of his conversion by Abraham Lincoln was a story that his neighbors never wearied of telling. And if there was one thing more than another on which Mount Hermon prided herself, next to having as one of her own boys the youngest commissioned officer in the Army of the Potomac, it was on the fact that Rhett Bannister, the once hated, despised, and outlawed copperhead, had become one of the best and bravest and truest soldiers in the armies of his country. ”

“ The South is not anxious to leave the Union. If she were assured of the rights and consideration to which she is entitled, she would stay with us. Abraham Lincoln, by virtue of the power of his office, could secure those rights to her if he would. She must have such voice in the control of this government as she is entitled to have by reason of her ancestry, her intelligence, and her patriotism. And she must have protection for her property at home and abroad, whether that property consists of land, money, or slaves. ”

“ At many a cot he stopped to give greeting to maimed and helpless veterans of the war, to speak words of encouragement to the sick and wounded boys who had fought and suffered that the common cause might triumph, to bend over the prostrate form of some poor wreck tossed up from the awful whirlpool of battle. Soldiers who lived never forgot the benediction of his presence that beautiful day, and more than one fell into his last sleep with the vision of the fatherly and sympathetic face of the beloved President before his dim and closing eyes. ”

“ When, occasionally, a spirit of dissatisfaction showed itself in the ranks, when impatience with those in command became manifest, when poor and scanty fare and wretched clothing were the rule, it was Rhett Bannister, cool and logical, free of speech and earnest in manner, who moved among the men and counseled patience, who pointed out to them their duty and appealed to their patriotism, and never without success. “His influence with the soldiers,” said Captain Howarth, one day, “is worth a thousand courts-martial.” ”

“ FIGHTING FOR THE FLAG For three days, Robert Barnwell Bannister had been a soldier of the United States. On the evening of the third day he sat at the opening of his tent studying a small volume of infantry tactics which had fallen into his hands. Inside the tent his comrade and tent-mate, a young fellow hardly older and no less patriotic and enthusiastic than himself, just in from two hours of picket-duty, lay resting on a rude board couch, with a block of wood and a coat for a pillow, singing softly to himself a rude bit of doggerel that had recently become popular in camp. ”

“ Rhett, dear, no matter what happens now, come life or death or desolation, I shall have two heroes to worship and dream of as long as I live.”
Strange it is, and divine, that in a woman so weak so strong a spirit will develop when the right hour strikes.
So, in the bleak darkness of the next morning, at the same hour on which his son had left home scarcely a week before, Rhett Bannister kissed his wife and his sleeping child good-by, and set forth on a mission which, even in his most hopeful moments, promised him only bitter and disastrous failure. ”

“ After it was over, Bob went down by the path across the meadow, as he used to go, to see Seth Mills. The old man had failed much of late. Age was resting heavily upon him, and he was too feeble to go far from home.
And in the beautiful June twilight Rhett Bannister sat upon his porch and looked out upon the old familiar scene: the fields, the trees, the road, the clear and wonderful expanse of sky. But when his eyes wandered, for a moment, to the shop and the windmill tower crowned by the motionless [279] blades of the big wheel, he turned them away. ”

“ Then she turned again to Bob.
“You’re no copperhead yourself, are you?” she inquired. “You’re not even a locofoco, are you?”
“No, indeed, Miss Stark! There isn’t [21] one of those boys that believes in putting down the rebellion more than I do, that loves the old flag more than I do, or would fight for it, or for the government, or for Abraham Lincoln, quicker than I would if I had the chance—Miss Stark, I’m loyal, I’m loyal!”
He stood erect, eyes flashing, the color back in his cheeks, the soul within him speaking. Sarah Jane Stark went up to him and put her arm about his shoulders. ”

“ It was after Cold Harbor that Captain Baker called him one night to company headquarters,—Howarth had long ago been invalided home,—and said to him:—
“Bannister, I am going to make a sergeant of you.”
“But, captain—”
“Oh, I know how you feel, but there’s no help for it. Brady’s dead, Holbert’s a prisoner, and Powelton and Gray can’t do the work. You must take it.”
“Captain, I beg of you not to do it. Be good to me. I’ll fight anywhere. I’ll take any mission. I’ll face any danger. But I can’t accept an office in the army of the United States. ”

“ They knew, from long experience, that the old man could not be forced to tell more than he chose. So the day dragged on. Rhett Bannister had not been so unhappy before in all his life. A dozen times he thought of starting out to find his son, and a dozen times he abandoned the idea. A dozen times he felt that he must go over and choke the truth out of old Seth Mills, and as often he restrained himself. He surmised something of what had happened, and what he surmised hurt and angered him.
The day went by, and the night, and the next day, and Bob did not return. ”

“ Chairman, returning soldiers of the Union armies, ladies and fellow citizens:—
“Some two years ago it was my fortune, or misfortune as you choose, to be present at a meeting of the citizens of Mount Hermon, held on the nation’s natal day, on this very spot. The great battle of Gettysburg had just been fought. Public feeling ran high, the spirit of patriotism was at white heat. It became my duty to draw and present to that meeting a set of resolutions condemnatory of one of our fellow citizens whose unpatriotic attitude and open disloyalty brought down upon his head our righteous wrath. ”

“ There was one time in particular when murmurings of discontent broke forth, when the winter rains of Virginia were coldest and most piercing; when food was scarce and foraging forbidden; when Meade, [224] under whom the soldiers had fought at Gettysburg, was discredited and displaced, and Grant, whom they did not know, was given supreme command; when the authorities at Washington seemed stricken with lethargy and blindness, and the anti-war sentiment in the North, increasing with dangerous rapidity, came filtering down to ears and hearts in the ranks not unwilling to receive it. ”

“ And Bob, leaning far forward in his chair, drinking in every word of the story, thrilled [68] with the earnestness of the speaker, felt his heart fired anew with reverence and enthusiasm for the great war-president, and with zeal for the cause which he had so faithfully espoused.
Rhett Bannister was too much of a gentleman and too deeply artistic in temperament to try to break with argument or depreciation the force of the old man’s recital.
“Oh, well!” he said, rising. “We all have our heroes. This would be a sad world if there were no heroes to worship. ”

“ And one day, in the following June, after the battle and slaughter of Cold Harbor, [120] one of these poor fellows, lying on a rough cot in a field hospital, dying from a dreadful wound, dictated a last letter to his waiting mother at home, and another to Sarah Jane Stark at Mount Hermon. And when she was old and wrinkled and gray, this dear woman, who never had a child of her own, would read over again that brief, pathetic letter from the dying soldier boy of Cold Harbor, and weep as she read. ”

“ And the men who were carrying the body, having no plan of their own, knowing nothing better to do, bore their unconscious burden across the way, up the steep and winding stairs to the porch, through the modest doorway and down the narrow hall into a small plain sleeping-room at the end, and laid the President of the United States on a bed where a soldier of the ranks, home on furlough, had slept for many nights. ”

“ Oh, if Abraham Lincoln could only see this and act accordingly! If he would only cut loose from the radicals and the abolitionists, and the petty politicians who control him, and who even now treat him behind his back with ridicule and contempt; if he would only heed the counsels of such men as Vallandigham, Fernando Wood, Judge Woodward, and Judge Taney, patriots all of them; if he would even now [63] sue for an honorable peace and strive for a united country, he would get it and get it abundantly. ”