________________________________________________
_ Winter had vanished. Spring was come with a hush. Toward a little
island set in the blue waters of Charleston harbor anxious eyes were
strained.
Was the flag still there?
God alone may count the wives and mothers who listened in the still hours
of the night for the guns of Sumter. One sultry night in April Stephen's
mother awoke with fear in her heart, for she had heard them. Hark! that
is the roar now, faint but sullen. That is the red flash far across the
black Southern sky. For in our beds are the terrors and cruelties of
life revealed to us. There is a demon to be faced, and nought alone.
Mrs. Brice was a brave woman. She walked that night with God.
Stephen, too, awoke. The lightning revealed her as she bent over him.
On the wings of memory be flew back to his childhood in the great Boston
house with the rounded front, and he saw the nursery with its high
windows looking out across the Common. Often in the dark had she come to
him thus, her gentle hand passing over aim to feel if he were covered.
"What is it, mother?" he said.
She said: "Stephen, I am afraid that the war has come."
He sat up, blindly. Even he did not guess the agony in her heart.
"You will have to go, Stephen."
It was long before his answer came.
"You know that I cannot, mother. We have nothing left but the little I
earn. And if I were--" He did not finish the sentence, for he felt her
trembling. But she said again, with that courage which seems woman's
alone:
"Remember Wilton Brice. Stephen--I can get along. I can sew."
It was the hour he had dreaded, stolen suddenly upon him out of the
night. How many times had he rehearsed this scene to himself! He,
Stephen Brice, who had preached and slaved and drilled for the Union,
a renegade to be shunned by friend and foe alike! He had talked for his
country, but he would not risk his life for it. He heard them repeating
the charge. He saw them passing him silently on the street. Shamefully
he remembered the time, five months agone, when he had worn the very
uniform of his Revolutionary ancestor. And high above the tier of his
accusers he saw one face, and the look of it stung to the very quick of
his soul.
Before the storm he had fallen asleep in sheer weariness of the struggle,
that face shining through the black veil of the darkness. If he were to
march away in the blue of his country (alas, not of hers!) she would
respect him for risking life for conviction. If he stayed at home, she
would not understand. It was his plain duty to his mother. And yet he
knew that Virginia Carvel and the women like her were ready to follow
with bare feet the march of the soldiers of the South.
The rain was come now, in a flood. Stephen's mother could not see in the
blackness the bitterness on his face. Above the roar of the waters she
listened for his voice.
"I will not go, mother," he said. "If at length every man is needed,
that will be different."
"It is for you to decide, my son," she answered. "There are many ways in
which you can serve your country here. But remember that you may have to
face hard things."
"I have had to do that before, mother," he replied calmly. "I cannot
leave you dependent upon charity."
She went back into her room to pray, for she knew that he had laid his
ambition at her feet.
It was not until a week later that the dreaded news came. All through
the Friday shells had rained on the little fort while Charleston looked
on. No surrender yet. Through a wide land was that numbness which
precedes action. Force of habit sent men to their places of business,
to sit idle. A prayerful Sunday intervened. Sumter had fallen. South
Carolina had shot to bits the flag she had once revered.
On the Monday came the call of President Lincoln for volunteers.
Missouri was asked for her quota. The outraged reply of her governor
went back,--never would she furnish troops to invade her sister states.
Little did Governor Jackson foresee that Missouri was to stand fifth of
all the Union in the number of men she was to give. To her was credited
in the end even more men than stanch Massachusetts.
The noise of preparation was in the city--in the land. On the Monday
morning, when Stephen went wearily to the office, he was met by Richter
at the top of the stairs, who seized his shoulders and looked into his
face. The light of the zealot was on Richter's own.
"We shall drill every night now, my friend, until further orders. It is
the Leader's word. Until we go to the front, Stephen, to put down
rebellion." Stephen sank into a chair, and bowed his head. What would
he think,--this man who had fought and suffered and renounced his native
land for his convictions? Who in this nobler allegiance was ready to die
for them? How was he to confess to Richter, of all men?
"Carl," he said at length, "I--I cannot go."
"You--you cannot go? You who have done so much already! And why?"
Stephen did not answer. But Richter, suddenly divining, laid his hands
impulsively on Stephen's shoulders.
"Ach, I see," he said. "Stephen, I have saved some money. It shall be
for your mother while you are away."
At first Stephen was too surprised for speech. Then, in spite of his
feelings, he stared at the German with a new appreciation of his
character. Then he could merely shake his head.
"Is it not for the Union?" implored Richter, "I would give a fortune, if
I had it. Ah, my friend, that would please me so. And I do not need the
money now. I 'have--nobody."
Spring was in the air; the first faint smell of verdure wafted across the
river on the wind. Stephen turned to the open window, tears of intense
agony in his eyes. In that instant he saw the regiment marching, and the
flag flying at its head.
"It is my duty to stay here, Carl," he said brokenly.
Richter took an appealing step toward him and stopped. He realized that
with this young New Englander a decision once made was unalterable. In
all his knowledge of Stephen he never remembered him to change. With the
demonstrative sympathy of his race, he yearned to comfort him, and knew
not how. Two hundred years of Puritanism had reared barriers not to be
broken down.
At the end of the office the stern figure of the Judge appeared.
"Mr. Brice!" he said sharply.
Stephen followed him into the littered room behind the ground glass door,
scarce knowing what to expect,--and scarce caring, as on that first day
he had gone in there. Mr. Whipple himself closed the door, and then the
transom. Stephen felt those keen eyes searching him from their hiding-
place.
"Mr. Brice," he said at last, "the President has called for seventy-five
thousand volunteers to crush this rebellion. They will go, and be
swallowed up, and more will go to fill their places. Mr. Brice, people
will tell you that the war will be over in ninety days. But I tell you,
sir, that it will not be over in seven times ninety days." He brought
down his fist heavily upon the table. "This, sir, will be a war to the
death. One side or the other will fight until their blood is all let,
and until their homes are all ruins." He darted at Stephen one look from
under those fierce eyebrows. "Do you intend to go sir?"
Stephen met the look squarely. "No, sir, he answered, steadily, "not
now."
"Humph," said the Judge. Then he began what seemed a never-ending search
among the papers on his desk. At length he drew out a letter, put on his
spectacles and read it, and finally put it down again.
"Stephen," said Mr. Whipple, "you are doing a courageous thing. But if
we elect to follow our conscience in this world, we must not expect to
escape persecution, sir. Two weeks ago," he continued slowly, "two weeks
ago I had a letter from Mr. Lincoln about matters here. He mentions
you."
"He remembers me!" cried Stephen
The Judge smiled a little. "Mr. Lincoln never forgets any one," said he.
"He wishes me to extend to you his thanks for your services to the
Republican party, and sends you his kindest regards."
This was the first and only time that Mr. Whipple spoke to him of his
labors. Stephen has often laughed at this since, and said that he would
not have heard of them at all had not the Judge's sense of duty compelled
him to convey the message. And it was with a lighter heart than he had
felt for many a day that he went out of the door.
Some weeks later, five regiments were mustered into the service of the
United States. The Leader was in command of one. And in response to his
appeals, despite the presence of officers of higher rank, the President
had given Captain Nathaniel Lyon supreme command in Missouri.
Stephen stood among the angry, jeering crowd that lined the streets as
the regiments marched past. Here were the 'Black Jaegers.' No wonder
the crowd laughed. Their step was not as steady, nor their files as
straight as Company A. There was Richter, his head high, his blue eyes
defiant. And there was little Tiefel marching in that place of second
lieutenant that Stephen himself should have filled. Here was another
company, and at the end of the first four, big Tom Catherwood. His
father had disowned him the day before, His two brothers, George and
little Spencer, were in a house not far away--a house from which a
strange flag drooped.
Clouds were lowering over the city, and big drops falling, as Stephen
threaded his way homeward, the damp anal gloom of the weather in his very
soul. He went past the house where the strange flag hung against its
staff In that big city it flaunted all unchallenged. The house was
thrown wide open that day, and in its window lounged young men of
honored families. And while they joked of German boorishness and Yankee
cowardice they held rifles across their knees to avenge any insult to the
strange banner that they had set up. In the hall, through the open
doorway, the mouth of a shotted field gun could be seen. The guardians
were the Minute Men, organized to maintain the honor and dignity of the
state of Missouri.
Across the street from the house was gathered a knot of curious people,
and among these Stephen paused. Two young men were standing on the
steps, and one was Clarence Colfax. His hands were in his pockets, and
a careless, scornful smile was on his face when he glanced down into the
street. Stephen caught that smile. Anger swept over him in a hot flame,
as at the slave auction years agone. That was the unquenchable fire of
the war. The blood throbbed in his temples as his feet obeyed,--and yet
he stopped.
What right had he to pull down that flag, to die on the pavement before
that house? _
Read next: BOOK II: Volume 5: Chapter XVII. Camp Jackson
Read previous: BOOK II: Volume 4: Chapter XV. Mutterings
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