PART I.

ON THE BATTLE-GROUND.

We grandma, “our young folks,” and I live up here among the hills, in a quaint, old-fashioned farm-house, older than any of the “old folks” now living; and every day, when the sun goes down, we gather around the great wood fire in the sitting-room, and talk and tell stories by the hour together. I tell the most of the stories; for, though I am only a plain farmer, going about in a slouched hat, a rusty coat, and a pair of pantaloons so old and threadbare that you would not wear them if you were in the ash business, I have mingled with men, seen a great many places, and been almost all over the world.

My own children like my stories, because they think they are true, and because they are all about the men I have met, and the places I have seen, and so give them some glimpses of what is going on in the busy life outside of our quiet country home; but I do not expect other young folks to like them as well as my own do, for their own father will not tell them. However, I am going to write out a few of the many I know, in the hope that they may give some trifling pleasure and instruction to boys and girls I have never seen, and who gather of evenings around firesides far away from the one where all my stories are first told.

As I sit down to write by this bright, blazing fire, the clouds are scudding across the moon, and the wind is moaning around the old house, shaking the doors, and rattling the windows, and snapping the branches of the great trees as if a whole regiment of young giants were cracking their whips in the court-yard. On just such a night a wounded boy lay out on the Wilderness battle-ground!

You have heard of that great battle; how two hundred thousand men met in a dense forest, and for two long days and nights, over wooded hills, and through tangled valleys, and deep, rocky ravines, surged against each other like angry waves in a storm. And you have heard, too what is very pitiful to hear how, when that bloody storm was over, and the sun came out, dim and cold, on the cheerless May morning which followed, thirty thousand men every one the father, brother, or friend of some young folks at home lay dead and dying on that awful field. Amid such a host of dead and dying men, you might overlook one little boy, who, all that starless Friday night, lay there wounded in the Wilderness. I do not want you to overlook him, and therefore I am going to tell you his story.

He was a bright-eyed, fair-haired boy of twelve, the only son of his mother, who was a widow. He used to read at home of how little boys had gone to the war, how they had been in the great battles, and how great generals had praised them; and he longed to go to the war too, and to do something to make himself as famous as the little boy who fought on the Rappahannock. For a long time his mother was deaf to his entreaties, and he would not go without her consent; but at last, when a friend of his father raised a company of hundred-days men in his native town, she let him join as a drummer-boy in the regiment.

The first battle he was in was the terrible one in the Wilderness. His regiment shared in the first day’s fight, but he escaped unharmed; and all that night, though tired and hungry, he went about in the woods carrying water to the wounded. The next morning he snatched a few hours’ sleep, and that and a good breakfast refreshed him greatly. At ten o’clock his regiment moved, and it kept moving and fighting all that day, until the sun went down; but, though a hundred of his comrades had fallen around him, he remained unhurt.

The shadows were deepening into darkness, and the night was hanging its lanterns up in the sky, when the weary men threw themselves on the ground to rest. Overcome with fatigue, he too lay down, and, giving one thought to his mother at home, and another to his Father in heaven, fell fast asleep. Suddenly the sharp rattle of musketry and the deafening roar of cannon sounded along the lines, and five thousand rebels rushed out upon them. Surprised and panic-stricken, our men broke and fled; and, roused by the terrible uproar, James that was his name sprang to his feet, but only in time to catch in his arms the captain, who was falling. He was shot through and through by a minie ball.

James laid him gently on the ground, took his head tenderly in his lap; and listened to the last words he had to send to his wife and children. Meanwhile, yelling like demons, the Rebels came on, and passed them. Then he could have escaped to the woods, but he would not leave his father’s friend when he was dying.

Soon our men rallied, and in turn drove the enemy. Slowly and sullenly the Rebels fell back to the hill where James and his friend were lying. There they made a stand, and for half an hour fought desperately, but were at last overborne and forced back again. As they were on the eve of retreating, a tall, ragged ruffian came up to James, and demanded the watch and money of the captain.

“You will not rob a dying man?” said the little boy, looking up to him imploringly.

“Wall, I woan’t!” was the Rebel’s brutal reply, as he aimed his bayonet straight at the captain’s heart.

By a quick, dexterous movement, James parried the blow; but, turning suddenly on the poor boy, the ruffian, with another thrust of his bayonet, ran him directly through the body. His head sunk back to the ground, and he fainted.

How long he lay there unconscious he does not know, but when he came to himself the moon had gone down, and the stars had disappeared, and thick, black clouds were filling all the sky. It did not rain, but the cold wind moaned among the trees, and chilled him through and through. He tried to rise, but a sharp pain came in his side, and for the first time he thought of his wound. Passing his hand to it, he found it was clotted with blood. The cold air had stopped the bleeding, and thus saved his life. Though the bayonet had gone clear through him, his hurt was not mortal, for no vital part was injured.

He thought of the captain, and spoke his name; but no answer came. Then he reached out his hand to find him. He was there, but his face was cold, colder than the cold night that was about them. He was dead.

The wounded lay all around, and all this while their cries and groans, as they called piteously for water, or moaned aloud in their agony, came to his ear, and went to his very soul. He had heard their cries the night before, as he crept about among them in the thick woods; but then they had not sounded so sad, so pitiful, as now, and that night was not so cold, so dark, so cheerless as this was. Soon he knew the full extent of their agony. An intolerable thirst came upon him. Hot, melted lead seemed to run along his veins, and a burning heat, as of a fire of hot coals kindling in his side, almost consumed him. He cried out for help, but no help came, for water, but still he thirsted. Then he prayed, prayed to the Good Father, who he knew was looking pitifully down on him through the thick darkness, to come and help him.

And He came. He always comes to those who ask for Him. Soon the clouds grew darker, the wind rose higher, and the rain the cooling, soothing, grateful rain poured down in torrents. It wet him through and through, but it eased his pain, cooled the fever in his blood, and he slept! In all that cold and pelting storm he slept!

It was broad day when he awoke. The sun was shining dimly through the thick masses of gray clouds which floated in the sky, but the wind had gone down, and the rain was over. The moans of the wounded still came to him, but they were not so frequent, nor so terrible, as they were the night before. Many had found relief from the rain, and many had ceased moaning forever.

He could not rise, but, after long and painful effort, he succeeded in turning over on his side. Then he had a view of the scene around him. He lay near the summit of a gentle hill, at whose base a little brook was flowing. At the north it was crowned with a dense growth of oaks and pines and cedar thickets, but at the south and west it sloped away into waving meadows and pleasant cornfields, already green with the opening beauty of spring. Beyond the meadows were other hills, and knolls, and rocky heights, all covered with an almost impenetrable forest, and there the hardest fighting of those terrible days was done. A narrow road, bordered by a worm-fence (Western boys know what a worm-fence is), wound around the foot of the hill, and led to a large mansion standing half hidden in a grove of oaks and elms, not half a mile away. Before this mansion were pleasant lawns and gardens, and in its rear a score or more of little negro houses, whose whitewashed walls were gleaming in the sun. This was the plantation so James afterwards learned of Major Lucy, one of those wicked men whose bad ambition has brought this dreadful war on our country.

The scene was very beautiful, and, looking at it, James forgot for a moment the darker picture, drawn in blood, on the grass around him. But there it was. Blackened muskets, broken saddles, overturned caissons, wounded horses snorting in agony, and fair-haired boys and gray-haired men mangled and bleeding, some piled in heaps, and some stretched out singly to die, lay all over that green hillside! Here and there a crippled soldier was creeping about among the wounded, and, close by, a stalwart man, the blood dripping from his dangling sleeve, was wrapping a blue-eyed, pale-faced boy in his blanket. “Don’t cry, Freddy,” he said; “ye sha’n’t be cold! Yer mother’ll soon be yere!” But the boy gave no answer, for he was dead!

“He don’t hear you,” said James. “He isn’t cold now!”

“I’se afeard he ar’, he said he war. Oh! ef his mother know’d he war yere! ’t would break her heart, break her heart!” moaned the man, still wrapping the blanket about the boy.

James closed his eyes to shut out the painful scene, and the thought of his own mother came to him. Would it not break her heart to know he was wounded? to hear, perhaps, that he was dead? He must not die; for her sake, he must not die! ONE only could help him, and so he prayed. Again he prayed that the Good Father would come to him, and again the Good Father came!

“What is ye a doin’ yere, honey, a little one loike ye?” asked a kind voice at his side.

He looked up. It was an old black woman, dressed in a faded woollen gown, a red and yellow turban, and a pair of flesh-colored stockings which Nature herself had given her. She was very short, almost as broad as she was long, and had a face as large round as the moon, and it looked very much like the moon when it shines through a black cloud; for, though darker than midnight, it was all over light, that kind of light which shines through the faces of good people.

“I am wounded; I want water,” said the little boy, feebly.

“Ye shill hab it, honey,” said the woman, giving him some from a bucket she had set on the ground.

“Guv some ter my lad,” cried the man who sat by the dead boy; “he’s been a cryin’ fur it all night all night! Didn’t ye yere him?”

“No, I didn’t, massa. I hain’t been yere more’n a hour, and a tousand’s a heap fur one olé ooman ter ’tend on,” she replied, filling a gourd from the bucket, and going with it to the dead boy.

She stooped down and held the water to his lips, but in a moment started back, and cried out in a frightened way, “He’m dead! He can’t drink no more!”

“He hain’t dead!” yelled the man, fiercely; “he sha’n’t die! Guv me the water, olé ’ooman.”

With a trembling hand, he tried to give it to his son. He held it to the boy’s lips for a moment, then, dropping the gourd, and sinking to the ground, he cried out, “It’ll kill his mother, kill his mother! Oh! oh!”

“He’m better off, massa,” said the woman, in a voice full of pity; “he’m whar he kin drink foreber ob de bery water ob life.”

“Gwo away, olé ’ooman, gwo away, doan’t speak ter me!” moaned the man, throwing his arms around the body of his boy, and burying his face in the blanket he had wrapped about him.

Brushing her tears away with her apron, the woman turned to James, and said, “Whar is ye hurted, honey? Leff aunty see.”

The little boy opened his jacket, and showed her his side. She could not see the wound, for the blood had glued his shirt, and even his waistcoat, to his body; but she said, kindly, “Don’t fret, honey. ’Tain’t nuffin ter hurt, it’ll soon be well. Olé Katy’ll borrer a blanket or so frum some o’ dese as is done dead, and git ye warm; and den, when she’s gub’n a little more water ter de firsty ones, she’ll take a keer ob you, she will, honey; so neber you f’ar.”

She went away, but soon came again with the blankets, and, wrapping two about him, and putting another under his head, said, “Dar, honey, now you’ll be warm; and neber you keer ef olé Katy hab borrer’d de blankets. Dey’ll neber want ’em darselfs; and she knows it’ll do dar bery souls good, eben whar dey is, ter know you’s got ’em. So neber keer, and gwo ter sleep, dat’s a good chile. Aunty’ll be yere agin in a jiffin.”

James thanked the good woman, and, closing his eyes again, soon fell asleep. The sun was right over his head, when old Katy awoke him, and said, “Now, honey, Aunty’s ready now. She’ll tote you off ter de plantation, and hab you all well in less nur no time, she will; fur massa’s ’way, and dar haint no ’un dar now ter say she sha’n’t.”

“You can’t carry me; I’m too heavy, Aunty,” said James, making a faint effort to smile.

“Carry you! Why, honey chile, olé Katy could tote a big man, forty times so heaby as you is, ef dey was only a hurted so bad as you.”

Taking him up, then, as if he had been a bag of feathers, she laid his head over her shoulder, and, cuddling him close to her bosom, carried him off to the large mansion he had seen in the distance.

What befell him there I shall tell “our young folks” in the next number of this, their own Magazine.

Edmund Kirke.