Severed at Gettysburg

Front matter

I

J. S. OGILVIE AND COMPANY’S

Fireside Series.

Chapter I

It was a sky-blue, golden November day and the Gulf waters sparkled under the brilliant sunlight and broke in foam-crested circles over the silvered sands. Sea-gulls rode the tops of the waves and a distant sail floated dreamily along as if sweeping the clear, azure sky. A stately residence was built up on the elevated slope of the beach. It was an old Queen Anne style of architecture, and the many points of its roof could be seen through the autumn-hued foliage of the giant trees surrounding it. A flock of blackbirds held mad carnival in a huge pecan tree ; under it stood two boys looking up through the thick russet leaves falling in a shower, and listening to the merry bird chatter. These youths were half-brothers. Fath er and mother sat on the wide shaded terrace watching them. The father’s face was stern and troubled.

Mary, I fear evil will yet fall on your boy Hiram. He is the worst boy I ever knew; the most incorrigible stern-willed piece of humanity I ever tried to control.”

I think you judge him wrongly. You are too severe.”

Too severe ! Impossible, if I did not rule the boy with a red-hot iron the rascal would run everything off of the plantation, and me, he would hurry in a lively trot, Two days ago he was in the blacksmith’s shop.

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and as usual, the meddlesome scamp got in the way. Harrison commanded him to leave, the boy refused. Harrison sent up to the house for me ; I reached the shop just in time to see him grin at me and Harrison, rush through the back-door and^ave for parts unknown. That night he and his chum Meredith Legrange, entered the shop, built up a huge fire, bent all the saw-teeth, doubled every tool that could be crooked and played the mischief by going into the church and scaring the negroes nearly to death. The church is near the shop, and during the services the negroes became alarmed at the hammering, thundering and terrific roaring, when suddenly the shop door flew open and congregation, minister and all swear, out rushed Satan with fiery horns, long tail, cloven feet and flaming pitchfork, followed by an imp accoutered like himself. No sooner did Satan and his partner enter the church door, than every negro, yelling and frightened half to death, left through cracks, doors and windows. The cloven-feet hemmed two old sisters in a corner and this morning I thought we would have a funeral.^*

“ He is full of mischief, but he intends no evil.”

“He is full of Satan, and will some day land in purgatory,” said the old gentleman with an awful scowl. “He is a tyrant over the other children and keeps them continually fighting. I built that room out there in the corner of the yard and ordered him to stay in it. Last night about midnight I heard Henry and John screaming so loudly that I got up to learn the cause. I could find neither shoes, nor pants, cursed all the dogs in creation, when I thought of Hiram and felt certain that he was the thief. I wrapped a blanket round me and went up stairs, but the simpletons became more frightened on seeing me^ and I had to return, I went

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to Hiram’s room, found the door locked and he snoring like a thunder-storm. I threatened to split the door open and then he answered.

‘“I demand what you have been doing to your brothers.’

‘ Nothing ; ghosts got after them I expect.’

He is the worst rascal outside of the penitentiaries.”

‘^You do not understand my boy ; you do not give him the kind of correction his nature requires to develop his nobler qualities. He has a strong, dominant, pugnacious, yet truthful nature. Your severity continually rouses his combative propensities, and by constant exercise they will become more pofverful than his gentler qualities. You do him injustice.”

Do I ? Well, look under that pecan tree, and see for yourself. I will whip him this night.”

The mother saw Henry stretched on the ground ; and when they reached the spot, he crept up, hair, face and clothes covered in sand. Crying and stammering he complained :

Father, Hiram knocked me down.”

‘‘What for?”

“Nothing.”

“ Father, he took my pecans while I was up the tree, and when I came down he would not divide with me. I knocked him down, but did not hurt him, for the sand is soft. You know he is a girl-boy, and a cry-baby.”

“ Never mind, you rascal. I will whip you soundly this night,” said the old gentleman, furiously, as he sprang toward his step-son. But Hiram, being an active boy, eluded the iron hands, and ran off with deer-like fleetness.

That night he crept into his mother’s bedroom. A shaded lamp burned on a table drawn to the bedside.

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There lay an open Bible, stained with tears. The dim mellow light fell on the patient, noble features. He loved his mother to idolatry ; she was the only living creature that understood his complex nature. He knelt at her side, bowed his face upon his hands, and his tears flowed long and freely; then a calm stole over him, and he prayed :

Oh God, take care of mother while her boy is absent.”

He rose, gazed tenderly into her loved face, stooped, pressed his lips lightly to her brow, and was gone. Gone ; yes, forever ; mother and son met no more on earth.

Our acts here are fetters, which chain us in eternity; too frequently our deeds spring impulsively from the training we have received in youth. Home should be the place to build character strong and noble ; to fortify man with stern principles to resist evil. Each nature should receive training appropriate to its peculiar individuality, and parents often ignorantly pervert the original traits forming the character of their children, as with these two boys, giving wrong discipline.

Henry’s unformed character was innately weak; this frailty was increased by being pampered, and defended as one would an infant. He should have been made to combat for himself, thereby exercising his deflcient faculties they would have become strong. A like law of development runs through morals as through physiology. A frail body can be strengthened by regular and appropriate exercise, until its power will be sufficient to wrestle with wind and storm. Similarly suitable exercise will develop deficient faculties until the character becomes manly. Severity had almost culminated the stern will of Hiram McPherson

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into ol5stinacy. Patient, loving* gentleness would have softened the hard elements of his nature, and in this boy it would have developed a world of tenderness. Thus, home is too frequently a weak builder, a character destroyer.

CHAPTER II. Meredith, no good will come from this marriage.’’

** How do you know ? When were you gifted with prescience, to see the battle-field of my wedded life rush red on your sight ? Lochiel-like, I do not heed your warning.”

A dark scowl of impatient, intolerant annoyance swept over the handsome and character-marked face of Meredith Legrange.

I know it is useless to remonstrate with you, for your gneiss-like determination gives your nature the hardness of granite. All the powers of earth and heaven could not change your resolution to marry this woman ; still I warn you, neither good nor happiness will result from this loveless union. Boy, ambition will strand you on the barren and rock-bound coast of desolate wretchedness. It will sweep you, a restless mariner. Over Time’s boundless ocean ; with hurrying feet it will rush old age upon you, and ere you have reached manhood’s prime, it will have made you a toil-spent, storm-driven man. Inordinate ambition will bring no man happiness. Meredith, you cannot deceive me. I am sure you feel no love for the Washington belle you are going to marry.”

The speaker paused and a pained expression crept

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over his grave features. His brother, Meredith Legrange, sat writing before a desk, and with the cool, nonchalant air of a man of thirty, he laid down his pen, leaned back, fastening the stud in his sleeve. He looked straight into his brother’s eyes.

“ Not for empires would I trj;" to deceive you. I do not love the woman I shall this evening marry ; and I have the satisfaction of knowing that neither does she love me.”

Satisfaction I Meredith, some day you will curse this madness, for a deed in which passion rules, and reason takes no part, is surely a mad one. Satisfaction, oh boy ! do not speak ironically.”

‘^1 am deeply in earnest; if she loved me, how in honor, could I marry her,, giving her no love in return. The bargain is equal, therefore I feel no conscientious scruples.”

With the coolness of a Wall-street speculator, he resumed writing.

Why is she willing?”

I do not know her motive in marrying me. I have conversed with her about ten minutes. All the business was arranged between her father and me;”

A slight shoulder shrug and he continued :

‘^As well ask a butterfly, why it flits in the sunshine, or a fleecy cloud why it floats dreamily beneath the stars, as to require reason of a woman for anything she does. Her motive is about as constant as the summer breeze that wafts the thistle down, and as firm as ocean reeds washed upon sands.

^‘And you?”

am selling myself, not for her father’s millions but the prestige of his name. It will be the basing step to the throne I see,”

'‘That will be?’^

'‘Power ! Power that when I lift my hand nations shall tremble, not secure in their might. Power ! that when I raise my voice, not only America, but empires, kingdoms, and worlds shall hold their breath in listening awe . ”

He sprang from his chair and hurriedly tramped the floor. His face was no longer still with that immutable calm that Greek sculptors gave to the faces of Destiny and the god Demeter, but burned with an intensity which bespoke repressed and concentered passions.

“ Oh Meredith ! Meredith ! I charge you fling away ambition ; by that sin fell the angels, and how can man, the image of his Maker, hope to win by it ? The highest angel changed Heaven for hell ; transformed himself from a brilliant cherub into an ebon demon.’’

‘‘Yet that same devil tells us, ‘ it is better to reign in hell than serve in Heaven.’ He tried both places. Do not fear, brother ! Life at best is plastic clay, pliable to be moulded as we will.”

The older man’s face was reflected in the sunset shadows that fell through the tall windows. It wore an expression of bitter disappointment, and his voice had the ring of keen pain — pain for one he would have died to save. He leaned against a tall alabaster urn, and for a time buried his face in his hands. His heart ached with pain and agony. When he lifted his head, his voice was solemn and mournful.

“ Meredith, after you have trod all the paths of glorj^, sounded all the shoals and depths of honor, what will it profit you ? An old man, broken by the storms of state, time will lend you years upon years, they will become burdensome, brother; oh burdensome and barren as a rock-bound desert.”

“Nonsense! I tell you, men sometimes are masters

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of their fate, dear brother ; it is not in our stars, but in ourselves if we are underlings.”

When too late you will learn that ambition brings not contentment ; ambition brings not happiness, ambition brings not our earthly Eden home. Happiness and contentment come from the strangling of our baser propensities, and the exaltation and development of our higher and nobler, until the faithful discharge of the laws of duty and morality become our every desire, our every rule of action. Then comes ^ a peace above all earthly dignities, a still and quiet conscience.’ Inordinate ambition builds not our terrestrial paradise home — home in its complete, deep sense; neither the marble palace, nor the lowly hut which shelters us, is home unless sanctified by the holj^ chrism of love. Brother, there is no greater blessing on earth than the strong, steady, crystal love of a Christian wife. Your house, then, is your temple where dwell honor, purity and godliness ; your hearthstone is your altar, whence harmonious devotion of wife and husband ascend an acceptable offering to God. Without this love marriage is sinful, and God will not bless what is unholy. Woman’s pure love is man’s aegis against the temptations and evils of life. It is an alchemist that converts his sorrows into pleasure, his sufferings into happiness ; it hallows his life, and makes it better and nobler. When man constantly yields to his lower impulses, they grow strong by their continual exercise, and finally master the moral man. Woman’s ungodly hands are powerful to drag him downward to this corrupt existence ; he lives subject to his brute nature, and like other animals at death, there is no divinity left to remain immortal. By persistently using his moral faculties they overrule, at last annihilate the degradation of his mental and

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t)hysical organization, and man stands spiritual, lofty, and Godlike. If your wife’s soul is in harmony with yours, her prescient intuition reads your spiritual necessities, your sublime aspirations, and by the purity of her nature she helps to supply these desires and requirements, and thus the fire of sublimity burns out the lower propensities. A noble, crystal-souled wife aids man to immortality, to the eternities of heavep. and God. Marriage is a holy sacrament for this purpose. It is a powerful factor in man’s life, and this evening you will make for yourself either heaven or hell.”

Legrange threw himself into a chair, drooped his head on one hand and with the other making an impatient gesture replied:

‘‘ Brother, have mercy ! Let my past remain buried. Oh, the height and depth and vastness with which I once loved ; its intensity was a sweet delirium, an intoxication of madness and in my passionate pressure my idol of crystal crumbled to clay.”

Bitter memories made his features rigid and the agony of those recollections wrought an eternity of moments. Geologists do not calculate age by the rushing of Time’s swift wings, but the convulsions and cataclysms that have changed, and scarred the old face of earth. So with some human lives, grown aged like Lear, from the intensity of cyclone minutes.

‘‘I shall never love but her; and her love will never hallow my life, and I shall use marriage for my advancement as I would any other speculation.”

His tones had the ring of defiance as if he challenged angels and men to thwart his purpose.

There is nothing honorable in such a marriage, and before I would barter myself, I would serve all my ( days and nights as a slave chained in the blackest dungeonV”

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Swift as a darting arrow Legrange sprang to his feet ; his eyes flashed, then the fire died out leaving the face deadly white.

Were yon not my brother, I would shoot you dead for those words. The privilege of a brother may be trespassed.’’

The voice of Lucius Legrange quivered with pain as he replied :

It were poor friendship, that feared to risk a man’s anger to render him a service. Yon can shoot when you please, but the bond of brotherhood is sacred in my hands, neither will your threats prevent me from doing my duty.”

The face of Meredith Legrange softened, and remembrances of his brother’s tender devotion swung him round, and with the warmth of an impulsive, generous nature he faced his brother and in tones of agony said .

“ God knows I have done you the foulest injustice man ever did to man, or even devil to devil, lashed you with the scorpion sting of an ingrate. Can you forgive me?”

Freely, as I hope God will some day forgive me.”

Their hands closed in a firmer grasp than that of David and Jonathan.

‘‘ Meredith, can nothing prevent this marriage ? ”

For an instant there was no reply, then slowly but resolutely he answered :

‘‘ Nothing ; but death. ”

Boy ! boy ! Your blind obstinacy will wreck you ; a man less cool, less keen, less confidently nonchalant of all danger, might even now take warning. One careless, over confldent stroke of the chisel may mar the whole statue of — Life — which you, in your proud, conscious power, deem obedient to every cut of

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the chisel. Meredith, you may round your statue into sublime proportions, but there is a higher sculptor that shapes our ' destinies, rough hew them as we may.’ I know you think to endow it with the strength of the Milo, the glory of the Belvedere, the winged brilliance of the Perseus, but this day’s work will ruin and deface the whole. You will learn that self-reliance, and confidence only in human genius, will not shape life into harmonious beauty, grandeur or perfection. From utter inability your hands will grow paralyzed and powerless. And Life will stand before you a mutilated Torso ; a fragment broken and unfinished ; food for ants and worms ; buried in sands that will soon suck it from sight or memory, with but touches of glory and value left here and there showing what, under wisdom’s guidance, it might have been.”

“ You grow eloquent, brother mine ; but I shall erect my life, like unto a proud Babylonian palace, its walls of white marble from the purest quarries ; a Parian chef-doeuvre of elegance and human power ; — an unrivalled Moti Masjid in its matchless purity and grandeur. ”

‘‘ But in it there will be no warm hearthstones, no richly tinted, memorial pictures ; no loving hearts and caressing hands; its walls will be unadorned, its hearth covered in ashes of loneliness, and its halls so glitteringly cold and empty that the echo of your own footsteps will sound as the distant, mocking laugh of a demon, that tempted you and now riots in your misery. Ah, boy I when that day comes, as come it will, when all men shall have failed you, and even the structure of your proud omnipotence shall have been washed away by one sweep of the veering winds, one rush of life’s ocean-tide, then turn to the brother who would have saved you at the cost of his own life. I shall not be here to see the wreck, the end; the Sailor^ s Home leaves at six; I must go.’’

Will you not remain and attend my marriage ?”

ISTo. I have no desire to witness the burial of much that is now noble in your nature. Under an Indian clime our lives will soon be far sundered; though my work is humbler I trust you will ever remember the brother who has loved you all his life. Good-bye, and God bless you, brother.”

Tightly their hands were clasped ; Lucius Legrange stooped and kissed the brow of his brother, then was gone. He was a missionary to India, and sailed that evening on the out-going steamer — Sailor’s Home,

CHAPTER in.

The fading sunlight fell across the cold sculptured face of Meredith Legrange, as his head rested on his arm. His countenance was sad to sternness. On it a physiognomist would have gazed enrapturedly and wonderingly. It was strong with intellectual and moral superiority ; and only the science of phrenology could penetrate the complex, intricate capacities and propensities of his powerful character. Science would find no weakness ; but a man of strength, will, force, in morality and intelligence. Firmness and sublimity were elements of power in his nature. A painter would have loved this face, for its magnificent features, sharply chiseled; indexing the volcanic force of Angelo, with the delicacy of Shelley and spirituality of Raphael. His hair, a silky, chestnut brown, clustered in rings^

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around a "brow, high, extremely broad and full, giving even to the most inexperienced reader of human nature the idea of massive solidity. Ej^es, that made one think of Caesar’s Cassius ; far-reaching — steel grey and piercing. Now the long, raven lashes were lifted and as the sunset glories fell into the clear depths of the eloquent eyes, in them burned a slumbering fire that the great Roman saw in the eyes of Cassius and called dangerous. His thin lips told decision ; surely he could be wielded as easily as a block of marble could be melted by a moonbeam. An hour later he paused in front of the marble palace, the bridal gift of his destined wife. The stylobate began at the low iron fence, and ascended in regular steps until it reached the wide columned galleries. There were double rows of columns extending around the building. Those near the inner walls were Grecian Ionic ; the base of each was a huge winged dragon chained with sculptured cords like the sandals of a woman, while the shafts were channelled or fiuted to resemble the folds of female garments. The top or capital of each column wa^ woman’s head with the volutes like hair hanging from each side of her face. Each wore a wreath of exquisitely sculptured leaves, tendrils of honeysuckle and lotus lily buds, used so much by the ancient Greek architects. Nothing in Persian, Corinthian, Doric or Greek architecture ever rivaled the massive grandeur of these Caryatides columns ; not even those of the only existing example of the Caryatic order, the triple temple in the Athenian Acropolis. Patrician W'ashington had gathered to witness the nuptial of its society queen. And as Meredith Legrange passed through the broad, marble hall his eyes wandered downward through the blaze, of light, the wilderness of scarlet clustered roses that twined

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gleaming walls, and trailed through alabaster-like railing, so exquisitely carved as to resemble delicate lace work. Onward his gaze wandered along the whole line of the double marble stairs with their broad crimson carpeting winding into the depths of the hall ; at the farthest end the luster of two giant candelabra fell over the white chiseled limbs of large Greek gods that supported them. Meredith Legrange, who had served as private secretary to the United States minister to the court of France, had frequented the splendors of Versailles, St. Cloud and the Louvre, but none of those Parisian palaces exce.:ded the royal magnificence of this. The walls of the entire structure were exquisitely carved. He was conducted to the bridal chamber, and stood at the side of the patrician empress he would soon endow with the sacred name — wife. She was many years his senior, tall and divinely fair. He a mere youth. He conducted her to the crowded banquet room, where were assembled President Lincoln and his family, his cabinet and their families ; senators, congressmen and many others of American royalty. Greek architecture is distinguished^ for nothing more than the beauty and delicacy of its mouldings ; and here one found all the exquisite purity and classic grandeur of antique Hellenas. The light to this central apartment was admitted only through double screens of white marble trellis work of the most exquisite design, one on the outer and one on the inner face of the walls. In our climate this would seem to produce nearly complete darkness, but in a building composed of white marble with Greek statues here and there holding upward silver lamps, this was required to temper the glare which otherwise would have been intolerable. As it is, no words can express the chastened beauty of that bridal chamber, seen in the

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soft gloom of the subdued light which reaches it through the distant and half-closed openings that surrounded it. There in that great throng, in the solemn hush of the marble room, two strangers uttered vows that chained each to the other, either in the bonds of happiness or misery. Could it be those of happiness with no love existing between them ? Each marrying the other through motives of self-interest known only to himself and herself. Verily, self-interest moves humanity to most of its acts from king to beggar ; history, hieroglyphics, and tradition repeat the same story, old as humanity itself. Human creatures are not all selfish ; for across the Atlantic, where its waves washed English shores another wedding took place. Here were no splendors save those of nature. True love bound them, nothing more, and defying human power to sever them they had fled to this woodland seclusion. It was June and evening. The long shadows stole through the trunks of the trees, lengthening in bands of gold over dark green mosses and rustling grasses, on whose tops the spider wove his webs of amber threads in the western sun. Nothing broke the deep stillness save the calling of the sea in its low, musical monologue, and the long, weird tree-song of a katydid that rang through all the dusky, hushed forest. The golden day stole onward, the shadows lengthened, the birds sought their roost, and the fawns their couches ; the peace of evening brooded on earth, and outstretched her wings over the sea. All nature rested ; and there, in that solemn prayer of earth and sea, two more of God’s creatures bound their destinies together. Nature knelt at her evening prayers, and chanted her vesper as sanction to this strange nuptial.

The groom, tall, erect and kingly in appearance ;

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the bride almost a child, her face had the ethereal beauty of Raphael’s Madonna. The features were fair, and exquisitely shaped, eyes large, dark and eloquent ; mouth and nose perfect both in form and expression. The whole face of singular patience, purity and unquestioning truthfulness, and rigid fidelity. A countenance that told, to the acute phj^siognomist, strong character elements, that slumbered until opportunity and necessity called them into action. Circumstances build one-half of the man, and inborn traits the other. Often circumstances are the stronger and they drive the man ; sometimes character masters them, and it brings man victor off the Marengo fields of life.

The minister pronounced them man and wife, two witnesses signed the license and then the bride and groom were left alone.

Mes fres, on the whole this is a strange life. Ah, those destinies, those unseen hands hammering away on the anvil of life ; forging links that chain human lives together in an unconscious destiny. Here were four individuals who, at different times, had come upon the theater of action ; two in the center of an American capital and two in the deep stillness of a far European woodland — widely sundered — but the chain was forged and stretched across ocean and continent and linked these lives. Hiram McPherson clasped the young wife closely to him ; they stood sheltered under a giant oak, and the fair, youthful face lifted upward to him was darkened by the shadows thrown over it by the wide thickly foliaged branches. She gazed into his eyes and leaned her lovely head against him while his clasp tightened to the pressure of a steel rivet, and as he bent his kingly head, and pressed his lips to hers passionately, he murmured ;

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My darling ! my idol ! my life V*

Where they stood one lingering ray of light from the lingering sunset clouds, fell through the flickering leaves and stole over the radiantly hapny face in its purity and trust. Tenderly the love that kindled her soul, shone in her eyes, and closer she nestled to him as he whispered —

‘‘ Murillo, my precious wife.’’

Words of love that have been on many a human lip and have cursed more lives than they ever blessed.

Chapter IV

It was the 21st of July, 1861. Where are now the soldiers who on the day fought the memorable battle of Manassas ? scattered ; but they remember the awful scene, the first battle of the great rebellion. It was three days after the fight at Bull Run, and the right wing of the Union army rushed down upon the Confederates like a horde of infuriated beasts, while the Southern braves met the vast army with the fierceness of mad lions. It was a scene of terrible sublimity to the spectators who had come from Washington to witness the downfall of the Confederacy in its first resistance. One whipping of the rebels would teach them the folly of opposing the powerful Union armies. The tramp of thousands, the shriek and groans of dying, the clash of steel, the boom of artillery, and the awful roar of a great battle shook the earth from the Potomac to the Blue Ridge. Ever in the hottest bring were Lee and Jackson, braving death as if it had

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no power to kill ; seeing liis brave band almost crushed and routed, in trumpet tones, rising above the roar and storm of battle, Lee shouted :

‘‘ See Jackson stand like a stonewall.”

It was inspiration, for there stood this noble brigade, square, solid, invincible as the Macedonian phalanx until the danger was checked by Gen. Early, and reinforcements of Gen. J. E. Johnston ; and the vast Union armies fled in wild havoc and disorder. In this stonewall, near to this commander fought Hiram McPherson ; no demon, no tiger ever rivaled the fearless bravery of this man. Close to him was a delicate, fair curled, dark-eyed boy, who fought with the calm, recklessness of a Leonidas-commanded Spartan at the passage of Thermopylae. His daring made him the army’s idol. That night when the battle was over, the 3mung boy lay on the hard ground, under the violet skies, and Hiram McPherson tenderly guarded the dreaming youth.