Reunited. A story of the civil war

Front matter

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT t

REUNITED

WAR

Chapter I. Two Brothers

ENTUCKY is the garden State of the Union ; the Blue-Grass region is the garden spot of Kentucky, and any man who has ever seen ‘the Widow Rosser’s place,’ over in Jessamine County, will own up at once that that’s the garden spot of ‘the Blue-Grass country.’”

This was the eulogy of an enthusiast, but it had a basis, in fact, that is often wanting in eulogies.

Two Brothers.

It certainly could be said, without danger of successful contradiction, that in all that land, famous for its beautiful homes, there was not a happier one than Mrs. Rosser’s, up to the autumn of 1861.

But there were no happy homes in the border States at that time — indeed, happiness seemed to have fled all the land, as it ever must, where war’s red torches are being kindled.

“ The Rosser Place,” as it was called, was on the north bank of the beautiful Kentucky River, a short ride from the point where the ferry makes a watery hiatus in the Lexington and Danville Pike.

Mrs. Rosser had two sons, Paul and Harry, the former twenty-four years of age at this date, and the latter two years younger.

They were handsome, manly fellows, beloved by all who knew them, and so devoted to each other, that their neighbors spoke of them as models of brotherly affection.

He would have been voted insane, who, in those happy days, dared even to hint that the brothers should yet stand armed under rival banners, and either speak of the other as “ a foe.”

Two Brothers.

It was a beautiful evening in early September, and the brothers, both superbly mounted, were riding home from a great barbecue that had been held in Lexington that day.

As they wheeled from the highway into the shaded, winding road that led down to their home, a mile or more away, Paul brought his horse down to a walk, and, after looking for some seconds at his brother’s down-cast face, he said :

“It is better, Harry, that we should drop this subject, at least till the excitement has passed away.”

“Wait till the excitement has passed away !” exclaimed Harry Rosser, and he sat straighter, and gathered up the reins with an impatient gesture. “ Why, Paul, you speak as if you thought the war which is now upon us might suddenly still itself, like a summer storm, and leave all as calm as before. But let me tell you that neither to me, nor to my friends, will the excitement have passed away, till the South, the land of our father and of his fathers for nearly two hundred years, has her rights acknowledged by not only the puritanical North, but by all the nations of the whole broad earth !”

IO

Two Brothers.

“ You are in no condition to reason, brother Harry, therefore I shall refuse to take you seriously,” said Paul Rosser, stroking his brown mustache to hide his nervousness.

“ Not in a condition to reason !” repeated the younger and more impetuous Harry. “ Surely, you do not think I have been drinking ?”

“ I do not. But there is an intoxication that does not come from liquor ; it is the wild, unreasoning enthusiasm that sweeps over a people like the plague. It was such an epidemic that led hundreds of thousands of men, women and children to follow the mad priest, Peter the Hermit, in his wild crusade for the redemption of the Holy Sepulcher from the hands of the profane infidel. We know the end. The deluded swarms went down to unknown graves, and — the Sepulcher still remained in the hands of the Saracen. But I shall refuse to talk. We differ radically on this question. I have failed to convince you of what I believe to be your error ; you can hardly hope to prove to me that I am not right.”

As Paul Rosser ceased speaking, he gathered up the reins hanging loosely on his horse’s neck, and slightly raising his bridle-arm, the spirited

1 1

creature caught the signal, and broke into a smart canter.

Kentucky might try to be neutral in the struggle, but it was evident that such a course must be against the wishes of the Widow Rosser’s sons.

Much as all desired peace, these brothers, in their opposing views, typified the State.

But in the mountains, where the people were too poor to own slaves, or, it may be, too libertyloving to desire them, the hearts of the tall hillmen throbbed like war-drums to the music of the Union.

Down in the land of higher mental culture, where the roads were fine and the plantations fat, a great majority of the people were either openly or secretly in revolt against the Republic.

The father of Paul and Harry Rosser died when they were children, leaving them a large estate, which, under Mrs. Rosser’s judicious management, had doubled since the day of the trust.

Mrs. Rosser was a Philadelphian of Quaker ancestry. She belonged to a good family, and in

Two Brothers.

her youth was famed for a grace of person and a charm of intellect still evident despite her sixand-forty years.

Mrs. Rosser had never taken kindly to slavery, though the servants under her were practically free, and certainly better cared for and happier than they were when the storm that swept away their shackles had passed over a prostrate people and a reunited land.

With a shrewd insight into the revolution, that had been denied to many in the South — and in the North, for the matter of that — Mrs. Rosser was impressed with the necessity of keeping her sons away from the mad whirl of excitement which now showed itself at high pressure on every hand.

Personally, she was intensely loyal to the Union, but as soon as she discovered that her sons were divided, and that there was danger that they might not only be torn from her by the red hand of war, but might stand opposed to each other under the old flag and the new, maternal love made her conservative, and forced her high sense of patriotism into abeyance.

With Mrs. Rosser lived her ward, Clara Leroy,

Two Brothers.

an orphan and a distant relative of her dead husband. Clara, having been in the family since her infancy, was looked upon as a daughter.

In that land, famed for its beautiful women, Clara Leroy was an acknowledged belle. She was at this time about nineteen years of age ; a pronounced brunette, with dark eyes and carmine lips, and the lithe, exquisite form that might stand for a model of eternal youth.

“ The Rosser boys look on Clara just as if she was a sister,” the neighbors would say, when discussing the beautiful girl’s prospects ; and some would add : “ But, then, all know she

ain’t a sister, and they’re not such fools as to let her leave the family. Which will it be — Paul or Harry T

Mrs. Rosser and Clara Leroy were sitting on the wide piazza, which commanded a view of the cliffs of the Kentucky River on the southern side, while to the west and north a winding carriage road went down the park-like grounds in the direction of Nicholasville and the Lexington pike.

It was a charming abode, with a little village of white cottages for the servants a hundred

Two Brothers .

yards to the east of the house, and beyond that the outbuildings, orchards and undulating fields, where sleek herds grazed the luxuriant blue grass that has given its name to that favoredregion.

The sunset glow falling on Mrs. Rosser’s face only seemed to intensify the expression of profound anxiety with which she watched the road up which her sons must come from the great barbecue at Lexington.

“ I do not think we need look for the boys till after dark,” said Clara, adding, as she saw the shadow of trouble deepening on Mrs. Rosser’s fine, patient face: “ There is so much abroad to interest men now, that, when they go out, there is no knowing when they will return. Never before have I wished that I was a man.”

“And why should you wish it now, my child ?” asked Mrs. Rosser, gently laying her hand on the shapely head and turning it till the dark, expressive eyes met hers.

Clara, evidently startled by her own words, blushed, and half stammered :

“ Because — because, if I were a man, I think I should fight on the side of the South.”

Two Brothers.

“ Then,” said Mrs. Rosser, quietly, “ you think the men who stand by the Union are wrong?”

“No, dear mother; I will not say that. Indeed, I must confess that I do not know much about the rights or wrongs involved. I speak, like a woman, from my feelings ; and we are told that it is feeling rather than reason that rules a woman’s world.”

“ And I am sorry it is so, Clara. But here come the boys.” And Mrs. Rosser took Clara’s hand and rose to her feet, while the two young horsemen came galloping under the giant locusts that bordered the winding road.

As the brothers dismounted before the door, two stout black boys, named by their masters “ Virgil ” and “ Ovid,” appeared, as if by magic, and led the horses away.

The young men kissed their mother and their adopted sister ; but, had a stranger been present, he must have noticed that when Paul stooped to salute the fair girl, his face became flushed and his manner nervous, while his more impulsive brother went through with the greeting without any unusual show of feeling.

Neither Mrs. Rosser nor Clara asked the young i6

men about the barbecue. By a tacit but wellunderstood agreement, all unpleasant subjects had hitherto been tabooed in that house.

Paul and Harry went to their rooms and prepared for supper, and when they appeared in the big dining-hall, the anger, with the dust, had gone from their handsome faces ; and as the fond mother looked from one to the other, the doubts left her heart for the time, and she felt that no differences could separate these two, who were so much to each other, and all the world to her.

After supper, George Netly, the son of a neighbor, and a strong sympathizer with the South, dropped in.

Young Netly came to learn about the barbecue, which he had not attended ; but as his visits had been very frequent since Clara’s return from school the previous June, Mrs. Rosser was not decided as to his object ; and as she did not like the man — she could not have liked him even if she had not seen through Paul’s secret — he was not made welcome in one heart in that family.

Sturdy, coarse and loud-voiced, George Netly poured out a torrent of indignation against Union

“My Old Kentucky Home.

men, and he would have kept it up had not Harry whispered to him :

“ You cannot talk so in my presence, for my brother is a gentleman and a Union man !”

Chapter II. “my Old Kentucky Home — Good-night V*

The autumn was over, and the crimson torches' of the maples flared along the hills of Central Kentucky. Meanwhile, up from the South and down from the North came the din of warlike preparations.

Neighbors, who had ever been dear friends, became estranged. Congregations were divided or broken up. But, sadder than all, in that border land, the effort to disrupt the Republic, in time, was successful in breaking up families from the start.

Fathers were found to differ from their sons, and brothers who had been rocked in the same cradle and nourished at the same breast parted,

1 8 “My Old Kentucky Homey

to enlist under opposing banners, and to stand as foemen in the red ranks of war.

One night — it was mid-October, and the full moon, not yet an hour high, looked over the flashing streams and undulating hills of Central Kentucky — Harry Rosser was pacing the piazza and tugging at his brown mustache like a man much perplexed, when Dora Burns, the daughter of a neighbor, appeared from the parlor with Clara Leroy.

“ Are you settling the fate of this distracted nation, Harry ?” asked Dora Burns, with a little laugh, that must have been forced, for the moonlight showed that her sweet face was serious, if not actually sad.

“ No/’ replied Harry. “ I was thinking about you, and congratulating myself on the honor — the pleasure of seeing you home by moonlight.”

“ Wouldn’t the honor — the pleasure be just as great if there were no moon, or if the sun were shining at high noon?” asked Clara, as she kissed her friend and adjusted the white zephyr wrap about her exquisite head.

“ 1 suppose so,” said Harry, with a sigh ; “ but I had in mind the many rambles we have had

“My Old Kejitucky Home .

l 9 over the same road, and I was asking myself, when, after to-night, can I be her escort again ?”

Clara did not ask for an explanation, but kissed Dora, and stood watching her and Harry till they disappeared down the road, now shimmering with shadow and moon-light.

“ And so,” said Dora Burns, as she went on by Harry’s side, “ you were thinking about me. How did I come to have a place in thoughts now given to weightier things?”

She tossed back the ends of her nubia, and walked on with her anxious eyes raised to his troubled face.

“ I will tell you !” he said, and he pressed her arm more closely. “ The winter is coming, and it may be long before I can walk with you again. I can never hope to see a more peaceful or more beautiful night.”

He could feel a tremor of the little hand clinging to his arm, but she made no response.

They walked on till they reached a point where the path ran along the cliffs, below which the river lay in shadow. Here they sat down on a rock, known locally, like many other high rocks the world over, as “ The LoverVDeap.”

After the silence was becoming painful, Harry said, with the manner of a man speaking by a strong effort of will :

“ Dora, I am going away to-night.”

“ Going away to-night !” she repeated, in surprise.

“ Yes ; and the thought unmans me.” *~

“ But where are you going ?” she asked, at the same time pushing her nubia from her head and laying her hand on his arm.

“ Dora,” he continued, in a tremulous voice, “ I have not said anything to mother or Paul about it, for I know how they feel, and God knows how; I love them. But of late I have been away a great deal.”

“ I know all about that, Harry,” she said, “and the knowledge has pained me more than I can tell you. What have you been doing ?”

“ Drilling,” he replied.

“ Drilling !” she repeated.

“Yes. I have been elected captain of a company of cavalry, all friends of mine, and all pledged to give their lives to the cause of the South. We leave to-night, for the time has come when earnest men must do more than talk.” He waited, and seeing she made no comment, he took her hand and added : “ Dora, I

know your heart is not with the cause I have espoused.”

She did not answer at once, but he could see that her lips became set, and an expression like ypars of sudden age came over her face. At length she said, and the suppressed emotion in her tones thrilled him :

“ I do not blame you for feeling as you do, though neither I nor mine have any sympathy with the course you have espoused. I was in hopes you would take time to think before you acted — ”

“Did your father take time to think?” he interrupted.

“ My father,” she said, and there was a light in her eyes such as he had never seen there before, “ was educated for a soldier at West Point. He served his country with honor in Mexico, and now he feels it to be his duty to serve her at home. Do not speak about him, for duty, not impulse, is his guide.”

As Dora Burns spoke she pulled the nubia over her head with an impatient gesture, and

22 “My Old Kentucky Homer

rose to her feet, and, at that instant, the moon was hidden behind a cloud.

“ I did not mean to speak of war to-night,” he said, again offering her his arm, which she took after some hesitation.

“ Of what, then ?” she asked.

“ Of love,” he answered.

He felt as if she were about to withdraw her hand from his arm, but he held it in place and added hurriedly, as if determined to say what was on his mind before she could check him :

“We may never meet again, Dora, and I felt that 1 could not leave you without asking if the course I am about to take will influence your heart against me — without knowing if you desire our engagement to stand.”

Dora firmly but gently said:

“ Hitherto my father has been your friend ; through all my life his will has been my law, and it has been a law of love. He has gone north of the Ohio, and is now in the army. You are to-night going to the South to fight against him, and yet you ask me to love you and to keep our troth. Why, Harry Rosser, do you not know that the woman who is not a true daughter could

“My Old Kentucky Home.

2 3 never make a loving wife ? No, no ; the man to whom I give my love must be one on whose every act I can hourly invoke Heaven’s blessings. If you are right, then my father is wrong ; but I will die believing that he is incapable of wrong.”

Now she did release her hand from his arm, and walked on with a quicker pace, as if eager for their journey to end.

“ Then I am to understand,” he said, hoarsely, “ that our engagement is at an end ?”

“ It is.”

“ And forever ?”

“ Yes, if forever you are bent on this course,” she said.

By this time they had reached a bend in the road, and out of the bushes that fringed it to the south there suddenly appeared the tall, dark figure of a young man.

Halting directly in front of the estranged lovers, the man said, in a hoarse, discordant voice :

“ Pardon me, I did not expect to see you here, Harry Rosser ; nor you, Miss Burns.”

“ Howard Raymond,” said Harry, as he gave

“My Old Kentucky Homed

Dora his arm, “ it has not been my custom to arrange my movements according toyourexpectations.”

“ Certainly not ; but I heard you had gone south. There is where every man who thinks himself brave and holds such views should be, instead of — ”

“ See here, Raymond ! Step aside and let us pass. You are an excellent stump speaker, but neither Miss Burns nor myself is in any mood to play audience for you to-night.”

If Howard Raymond could by any possibility have mistaken the ring of resolution in Harry Rosser’s voice, he could not have fallen into a like error as to his movements. Keeping Dora close to his side — he could feel that now she clung to his arm — he strode on, forcing the tall, dark figure to step from the middle of the road.

Nothing more was said by either Harry or Dora till they stood at her door, which a servant had opened and then withdrew.

“You will at least give me your hand, Dora, and when I am gone you will think of me, if at all, as one who is moved by a sense of duty, be that sense right or wrong.”

“My Old Kentucky Home.

^5

She let her hand rest in his, as she made answer :

“ Yes, Harry, all that — all that, and more, too. We think you in error ; but those who know you and — and have loved you, are sure that you believe you are in the right.”

She made as if to enter the house, but before she could do so, he stooped, pressed his lips to her forehead, and then dashed down the steps, and hurried away.

When he came back to the bend in the road where he had encountered Howard Raymond, he saw the tall, dark figure still standing in the same position and looking directly toward him.

Harry Rosser, without a pause, walked directly on till he came face to face with the man, who was evidently waiting for him.

Coming to a halt, Harry exclaimed: “Well!” and the other repeated the same word.

These young men were nearly of an age. They had known each other from childhood, and had been schoolmates, but never companions. Their natures were so entirely different that they might be said to be born antagonistic.

This antagonism increased into hate on the

“My Old Kentucky Horned part of Raymond and of contempt on the part of Harry Rosser, when they became rivals for the hand of the same fair girl.

Still further to confirm their antagonism, Howard Raymond was from the first outspoken in favor of the Union, but even among Union men his expressions were not looked upon as the result of patriotism, for he had already established for himself a character for insincerity.

That he was not wanting in physical courage was evident from his bearing on this occasion ; his clenched hands, compressed lips and flashing eyes showed that he was not only ready, but courted an encounter with the young man confronting him.

After the exclamation, “ Well!” Harry Rosser said :

“ Step from the middle of the road, sir, and let me pass !”

The command was so sudden that Raymond obeyed, and Harry Rosser passed on ; but he had only taken a few steps when he was halted by the demand :

“ Do you ride south to-night, Captain Rosser?”

u Is that any of your business ?” was the response.

“ I choose to make it my business,” sneered Raymond.

“ Then, let me say, I do ride south to-night. I take a direction that you will never dare to follow.”

“ Do not delude yourself with that belief,” said Raymond, his white teeth flashing through his black beard. “ You and I shall meet again, when the constraints of society and consideration for your friends will not restrain me.”

“ Let the meeting be now, if you desire,” said Harry, taking a backward step ; “ but if you choose to defer it till we meet on the battle-field, where your friends do not think you will ever be seen, why, so be it. One thing you may rest assured of — 1 shall make no effort to avoid you.”

With the last word Harry Rosser wheeled, his heel crunching the gravel as if the head of his foe were beneath it, and then with long strides he went down the moonlit road in the direction of the lights gleaming in the old mansion above the river.

He was about to enter the house, when he

“My Old Kentucky Home .

heard his name called, and, turning, he saw his brother coming from the direction of the servants’ quarters.

Leading Paul back till they came to an elevation that commanded a view of the beautiful country for many miles around, Harry said :

“ Old fellow, you must have known all about it, but till the hour had come I could not bring myself to tell you.”

“ I saw your horse down by the gate, with a rifle strapped to the saddle,” said Paul.

“ Then you know where I am going?”

“ I can guess all that. But let us sit down and talk this matter over,” said Paul, pointing to the trunk of a fallen tree.

“ The time for talk has passed, and the time for action has come,” said Harry, as he took a seat beside his brother.

“ And you believe it is your duty to go, Harry ?”

“ I do.”

“ But have you forgotten the duty you owe to our mother ? Is it right, Harry, that to carry out this quixotic idea of duty, you should break her heart ? Hear me out ; I shall speak of our

“My Old Kentucky Home'.

2 9 mother, not of myself. You should know how I love you. You should know that if you part from us now, a cloud will fall upon our home and our hearts, and something tells me that, once that cloud has come, it will never again be lifted.”

As Paul spoke, he pointed to the opposite hillside, where cold and white there gleamed in the moonlight the marble shaft that marked the resting-place of their father. This shaft met Harry’s swimming gaze, and he said, in a husky voice :

“ There, Paul, there our father sleeps. He was born away to the South, and it is said that I most resemble him, as you do our mother ; if he were living now, his heart would be like mine, and it is not in our blood to sit passive where our sympathies are enlisted.”

“ True, Harry, but it is in our blood to reason —

“ It is too late to debate, Paul. I know you better than you know yourself. The war tide now pouring through the South will soon beat against the mountains and sweep over the valleys of Kentucky. When that time comes, as come it surely must, you will not sit passive ; God grant our fields of effort may lie far apart/’ and with a sob that came from the depths of his generous heart, Harry threw his arms about his brother’s neck and kissed him.

“ Have you told her — told mother ?” asked Paul, rising and looking back at the house.

“ No ; I wanted to leave that till the last. I tried it a dozen times, but lost heart. In one hour I shall be away. When I am gone, Paul, look in my writing-case and you will find an envelope addressed to you ; it contains my will. It is in good shape and properly witnessed. I — I believe, old fellow, that is all,” said Harry.

They turned back to the house, and on the way Paul asked :

“ Did you tell Dora?”

“Yes.”

“ And how did she take it ?”

“As I feared. Our engagement is broken. Let us get back, for I feel as if I should break down if we talked much longer.”

As they neared the house, Ovid, Harry’s servant, appeared dressed in his holiday clothes,

“My Old Kentucky Home.

and touching his hat, he said, in a voice indicating anything but joy :

“ Mauss Harry, bofe hosses is ready, sah ! An’ Pze done said good-bye to de ole folks in de cabin.”

“ All right, Ovy, I shall be out in a few minutes,” replied Harry. Then, as the black boy disappeared, he continued: “ I’ve made up my mind to take Ovy with me, not because I shall need a servant, but it will seem more like home to have some one from the old place about me.”

To this Paul made no reply. His feelings were so over-wrought that he dare not trust himself to speak, so he turned his face away while his brother entered the house.

After some minutes — minutes so full of mental torture that they seemed like hours — Paul heard a low cry coming from the direction of the sitting-room.

It was the first? sound of agony he had heard from his mother’s lips since that day in the long ago when the coffin of his father was lowered into the grave over on yonder hill-side.

The next instant, Harry was hurrying out,

32 “My Old Kentucky Home l 1

tears coursing down his ashy face, and his step as unsteady as if he had been drinking.

“ God bless you, my brother! God bless you and them !” gasped Harry, and he caught Paul to his heart, kissed him, and was gone.

Stunned, and like a man walking in a dream, Paul Rosser turned and followed in the direction Harry had taken.

He came down to the gate where the horse had been tied, but the animal was gone.

He looked down the road on which the moonlight sifted through the swaying branches, and he caught the pale flash on a polished rifle-barrel and he heard the ring of iron hoofs dying away in the direction of the south.

MY NAME ’S SAM MARTIN,” SAIDfTHE/ PRISONER.— See Page 48.

i

5 ?

k

V

• -

. -4 e

Chapter III

“ GOD PITY ME ! MY BOYS, MY BOYS ARE GONE !”

Paul Rosser spoke truly. With the departure of Harry a cloud fell on the old home, and the cheery songs of the servants were heard no longer in the cabins.

Just before Christmas, a letter was received from Harry, who was then coming North through Kentucky with Zollicoffer’s army. He wrote with the love of a fond son and brother, but he made no reference to the cause to which he had pledged his gallant young life.