XXIII.

INTERRUPTION.

In

SAT down to write, but through the noonday air, calm and still as midsummer, though in the heart of winter, comes the boom of distant cannon. another latitude it might be a tone of terror and agony; but over our quiet valleys the besom of destruction has never swept, the voice of carnage has not sounded, the "feverish lips” of cannon, save in one mad hour, have spoken only summons to battle and shouts of victory. When, early in the war, the vexed air quivered with its fiery freight, it used to raise high hopes. Eager eyes answered to eager lips. Was Richmond taken? Was Beauregard defeated? Was Davis captured ? Was the land avenged, and peace restored?

But we have learned wisdom since then, and patience. Still the guns boom, deafening enough in their places, no doubt, but to us, afar off, deadened down to a sturdy rumbling; and a sweeter sound mingles with the deep

reverberation. The clangor of bells is softly heard. Beginning at the west it ripples along to the south; one and another take up the joyful strain, and ring out happy chimes. So faint, so far, the little chords of melody give forth, as it were, the echoes of some Æolian harp stirred by a light-winged zephyr. Tiny wavelets strike out from tiny centres of sound, and all along the southern horizon meet and mingle in harmonious confusion, till the fairy-like music steals into our hearts. The drumbeat adds its solemn undertone, and far, far beyond that line of southern hills, crowned with its Procession of the Pines, I know there are thousands of hearts beating with wild tumult of joy, thousands of hearts throbbing with rapturous gladness. For-do you know? Not a child in the village street but can tell you wherefore the village bells are ringing so merrily. It is the returning regiments.

ror

The returning regiments! How long it is since the April morning that left a stain on the pavements of Baltimore! How long before us stretched the three strange, terrible months months menacing us with unknown perils and shadowy terto which our early volunteers were called! Could that excitement, that indignation, that new and ominous roar of approaching battle, endure three months? Could we endure it? Bear for three months the anxiety, the uncertainty, the raging thirst for victory and vengeance, the

"dull, deep pain and constant anguish of patience?" It is three and thirty months since then, and still our battle-flag remains unfurled, and still an outraged nation waits to be avenged. Seventy-five thousand men! Where could the beloved land find foes to withstand a host like that? we asked, in our simplicity. They laughed in Montgomery. They had measured their strength better than we. They knew their iniquitous purpose. Our grand army was but a stripling come out to fight a giant with smooth stones from the brook. They knew themselves, but there was a strength of which they never dreamed. They did not know that our seventyfive thousand men were but the first rain-drops from the cloud not yet ripe for showers. The prince of the powers of darkness had marshalled his minions well, as we presently learned. Then the cloud spread up the sky. It gathered thick, and thundered loud, and the rent heavens rang with the shout, the solid earth shook with the tread of ten hundred thousand men.

And now they have come back to us. They have fulfilled their high promise. They have acquitted themselves like men. They rushed to the breach, when the foe came in like a flood, and stayed the desolation. There are men who dare to sneer at patriotism, and talk of the attractive power of thirteen dollars a month. To such a talker, one is moved to say: "Your testimony is

goes;

conclusive as far as it but it goes no farther than your solitary self. You may know that you would give up wife, and child, and life for thirteen dollars a month, but you are not authorized to say that all men would do the same. As like naturally seeks like, it is very possible that the clique to which you belong, and from which you generalize your unworthy laws, are impelled by such petty considerations. But a clique does not establish laws for humanity."

No one supposes that men, in becoming soldiers, become angels. Pay, pension, promotion, of course, have their influence, and they are all honorable motives, closely entwined with

"The graces and the loves that make
The music of the march of life,"

but in the breasts of our brave soldiery there is somewhat broader, deeper, higher than these. He is blind who does not see it.

I was reading, the other day, the funeral sermon of a young man of Michigan, Major Noah Henry Ferry, of the Fifth Michigan Cavalry. He fell at Gettysburg, swept away by treason's highest wave. His is only one of the many names written in "living light," and for every name we see, there are, doubtless, scores that we see not. But every name, every record of a hero's life and a martyr's death, is as fresh and fair as if his name alone. illumined our country's annals. In a letter to his

mother, shortly before his departure from Washington, Major Ferry writes: "If by the accident of war I should find my end upon the field .... you will have the comfort of knowing that I have, by dying in such a cause, not lived in vain; and that (I can tell it to you) no impure motive had a voice in bringing me here; nor is there in my history anything of which my friends need feel ashamed."

To a

That he was not impelled by love of glory, or any personal ambition, is constantly seen. younger brother, chafing under the necessity of remaining at home, he writes, "Why, Ned, when I read of your work at home, and hear you talk of discontent, because you are not doing more for your country, I feel guilty in staying here. You are doing manifold more than I am. Your place cannot be vacated without being felt by very many, while mine would hardly be missed." In another letter he writes "If I go to war, I want to fight; if I go to play, I want to play." And what says the father of this young soldier, when the tidings came from Gettysburg? "Not one son, but all, if need be; rather than that this unholy rebellion triumph. If my country must fall, welcome the annihilation of every temporal interest and the destruction of life itself: for I do not desire to survive my country's ruin." While such words are spoken, while such fire burns in heroic hearts, and such dust mingles with the soil, who is