Read Ebook: A Lincoln Conscript by Greene Homer Thulstrup Thure De Illustrator

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Ebook has 893 lines and 49550 words, and 18 pages

Three feeble and uncertain voices responded in the affirmative.

"And all you that don't want him say No."

The chorus of noes was triumphantly loud.

"The noes win," declared the judge-advocate general; and the captain added, "The court's adjourned sign dee."

"Aw, shucks!" exclaimed Bill Hinkle, now in disgrace himself and therefore more in sympathy with Bob. "You fellows know a lot, don't you! You're smart, ain't you! W'y, Bob Bannister's the best man you got. I'll back him to lick any three of you, with one hand tied behind 'is back, by jimminy! You've made regular nincompoops o' yourselves, you have. Aw, shucks!"

And the deeply and doubly disgusted one walked away.

So did Bob Bannister walk away. He went with bent head and breaking heart. To be denied the right to join with his companions in any demonstration looking to his country's glory or welfare was, to him, a tragedy. His was one of those natures endowed at birth with a spirit of patriotism. From the time when he could first read he had absorbed the history of his country and her heroes. No colors had ever shone before his eyes more brilliant and beautiful than the red, white, and blue of his country's flag. With an intuition far beyond his years, he had grasped the meaning and foreseen the consequences of a dissolution of the compact that bound the states together. And when, at last, the storm broke, when Sumter fell, when Bull Run came, an awakening calamity, he threw his whole heart and soul into the cause of the North, and from that time on he lived in spirit, and would have died in body, with the Union armies, fighting, that the old flag and all that it symbolized might prevail. Yet, strange as it may seem, his father, with whom he lived, of whom he was proud and fond, to whom he was loyally obedient, was an outspoken sympathizer with the Southern Confederacy. Perhaps it was the strain of Southern blood in his veins, perhaps it was the underlying aristocracy of feeling of those whose ancestors have owned slaves, perhaps it was the clear logic of his mind running in the narrow grooves that genius so often hollows out, that led Rhett Bannister into his passionate sympathy with the South. Be that as it may, he was no coward. What he was, what he felt, what he thought, was known of all men. Opposition could not conquer him, opprobrious epithets could not cow him, nor could ostracism silence his eloquent tongue.

Notwithstanding the general and fervent loyalty of the community in which Bannister lived, there were, nevertheless, among the people, those who felt that the war was a mistake and a failure, that the issue had been tried out at an awful sacrifice with but indifferent success, and that now peace should be had on any reasonable terms. These were the conservatives, the locofocos. Then there were those who, deeply sympathizing with the South from the beginning of the trouble, were ready to make any legal opposition to a further prosecution of the war by the Federal government, using politics and public speech as their strongest weapons. These were classed in the North as copperheads. Then there were still others who, saying little and clothing their conduct with secrecy, gave what aid, comfort, and active co?peration they could to the enemies of the Federal government. These were plainly spoken of as traitors. Indeed, secret organizations sprang up in the North and West, with their lodges, officers, grips, and passwords, having for their object a concentrated effort to undermine the patriotic efforts of the citizens of the North and the administration at Washington, and to aid indirectly in the defeat of the Union armies in the field. Perhaps the most deeply rooted organization of the kind in the loyal states was known as the Knights of the Golden Circle. But Rhett Bannister was not one of their members. He despised the stab in the dark, and all secret and unfair methods of warfare. Frank, eloquent, and outspoken, he never hesitated to say and to do freely and openly that which he deemed to be right, regardless of the opinions, the condemnation, or even the hate of his neighbors.

It was to this father and to his home that the boy, refused admission into the patriotic ranks of his comrades, now started on his way. At the edge of the village he met Sarah Jane Stark. There are some people who are always known, not only to their friends but to the public also, by their full names. Sarah Jane Stark was one of them. She had lived in Mount Hermon all her life. How long that was it would be ungallant to say, had not Miss Stark herself declared boastfully that she had come within fifteen years of living in two centuries. With no children of her own, she was a mother to all the children in the village. Kind-hearted, sharp-tongued, a terror to evil-doers, "a very present help in trouble" to all the worthy who needed her assistance, the social arbiter of the town, she was the most loved as well as the most feared woman in the community. When she met Bob in the footpath at the roadside, she looked at him sharply.

"Look here, Bob Bannister," she said, "you've been crying. Or if you haven't, you've been so close to it there wasn't any fun in it. Now you just go ahead and tell me what the matter is."

Bob knew from previous experience, on many occasions, that it was absolutely useless to attempt evasion with Sarah Jane Stark. Much as his sensitive nature rebelled against complaining of any slight that his fellows had put upon him, he felt that he must make a clean breast of it to his questioner.

"Why, they put me out of the company, Miss Stark," he said. "I wanted to drill in the company with the other fellows and they wouldn't let me. That's all. I s'pose they had a right to do it; of course they had a right."

"Put you out of the company, did they? And what did they put you out for, I'd like to know? Aren't you as good a soldier as any of them?"

"Well, that wasn't exactly it, Miss Stark. They seemed to think that because--well, they thought I wasn't loyal."

"Thought you weren't loyal! Well, that is a note! Why, you--oh, I see! On account of your father, eh? Yes, I see."

Miss Stark tapped her foot impatiently on the hard soil of the side-path, and looked off toward the blue sky-line of the Moosic range, behind which the sun had already gone down.

"'The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children,'" she said musingly. Then she turned again to Bob.

"You're no copperhead yourself, are you?" she inquired. "You're not even a locofoco, are you?"

"No, indeed, Miss Stark! There isn't one of those boys that believes in putting down the rebellion more than I do, that loves the old flag more than I do, or would fight for it, or for the government, or for Abraham Lincoln, quicker than I would if I had the chance--Miss Stark, I'm loyal, I'm loyal!"

He stood erect, eyes flashing, the color back in his cheeks, the soul within him speaking. Sarah Jane Stark went up to him and put her arm about his shoulders.

"Good!" she cried. "You're the right sort. I wish Abe Lincoln had a hundred thousand at the front just like you. Now you leave that matter about the company to me. I'll see those boys, the little brats, and if they don't take you in I'll--"

"No, Miss Stark, please don't! I couldn't go back in now. I couldn't ever go in after this. But if the war lasts till I get old enough, I shall be a real soldier in a real company some day."

"Bully for you!"

It was not a very dignified nor refined expression; but Sarah Jane Stark was noted for expressing herself forcibly when the occasion demanded it, and she felt that this was one of the occasions that demanded it.

"And," she added, "you go tell Rhett Bannister for me, that if he had one thousandth part of the natural patriotism and horse-sense of his son-- No, you needn't tell him; I'll tell him myself. I can do it better. You just trot along home and don't let the conduct of those fool boys trouble you. You're right and they're wrong, and that's all there is to it."

So Bob went on his way. The Bannister home lay on the old North and South turnpike road, a full mile from the centre of the village. A very comfortable home it was, too, neat and prosperous in appearance, with a small and fertile farm behind the commodious house, and a well-kept lawn in front. For Rhett Bannister, theorist though he was, was no mere dreamer of dreams, he was a worker as well; both the fruit of his brain and the labor of his hands being evident in the comforts by which he was surrounded.

When Bob went up the path to the porch he found his father and mother and his six-year-old sister all there, enjoying the coolness of the evening. It was already too dark for either of his parents to discover in Bob's face any sign of distress, and he did not mention to them his experiences of the evening. But the quick ear of his mother caught the troubled cadence in his voice, and she went over and sat by him and began smoothing the hair back from his forehead.

"You're tired, Robbie," she said, "and it's been such a warm day."

"Did you hear anything new up town about the Pennsylvania raid?" inquired his father.

"Nothing much," replied the boy. "I believe there's been some fighting around Gettysburg, and they're expecting a big battle there to-day."

"Yes," replied the man, "I suppose the two armies are facing each other there, very likely the slaughter has already begun. Perhaps there'll be another holocaust like Fredericksburg. Doubtless thousands of lives will be sacrificed and millions of money squandered at Gettysburg, when ten words from the stiff-necked incompetents at Washington would have stopped the horrible conflict and brought peace to the country months ago."

Bob said nothing, he knew it was useless. He had, on two or three occasions, attempted in a feeble way to argue with his father questions pertaining to the war, but he had been fairly swept off his feet by a flood of logic and eloquence, and he had found silence on these matters to be the better part for him to take in the presence of his father.

After a few minutes the man added: "If, even now, Lincoln would concede one half of what the South demands as a plain right--"

Bannister paused. Somewhere in the darkness up the road there was a confused sound of voices. Then, from a score of lusty young throats there came in on the still air of the summer night the familiar words of a patriotic song.

"My country, 'tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty--"

"It sounds good, Robert," said Rhett Bannister. "But what's it all about? What does it mean?"

"I don't know, father," said Bob; "I--I guess it's just the boys a-marching."

The voices and the words of the song grew clearer and more distinct. Now the steady tramp of marching feet could be distinguished. Then another song broke in upon the night.

"John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave; John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave; John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave; But his soul goes marching on."

Loud, clear, and musical came the "Glory, glory, hallelujah!" chorus; and, indistinctly in the darkness, the figures of the marching company could be discerned, coming down the road in front of the lawn.

The expression on Rhett Bannister's face could not be seen, but his voice was heavy with indignation as he muttered:--

"And that same John Brown was a fanatic, a fool, and a murderer, and richly deserved his fate."

"They don't know, father," said Bob apologetically. "They sing it because it sounds good."

Down by the gate there was, for a moment, an ominous silence, then, full-volumed and vigorous, a new parody on "John Brown's Body" was hurled across the darkness toward the house of the copperhead.

"We'll hang Rhett Ban'ster on a sour-apple tree; We'll hang Rhett Ban'ster on a sour-apple tree; We'll hang Rhett Ban'ster on a sour-apple tree; As we go marching on."

NEWS FROM GETTYSBURG

At the first line of the daring parody Rhett Bannister and his son both sprang to their feet, the one white with sudden rage, the other stricken with indignation and alarm. With one step the man reached the edge of the porch, with the next he was down on the path on his way to the gate, to give physical expression to his wrath. What would have happened in the road can only be conjectured, had not Bob's frightened little mother run to the porch-steps and called to her husband:--

"Rhett, dear! Rhett, don't! Don't mind them. Come back, Rhett, dear!"

The angry man stopped in his headlong passage down the walk. There had never been a time in all his married life when the pleading voice of his wife had not been sufficient to check any outburst of passion on his part. Daring and defiant to all the world beside when occasion prompted him, he had always been as tender and gentle with her as in the days of their courtship. She was down at his side now, one hand on his arm, trying to soothe his outraged feelings.

"They're mere boys, Rhett. They don't know any better. Some day, when they're older, they'll regret it. And now you'll have nothing to regret, Rhett, dear, nothing."

Up from the road came a defiant shout:

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