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AN UNKNOWN HEROINE
AN HISTORICAL EPISODE OF THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES
BY
V L. E. CHITTENTDEI^
AufYior of "■Personal Recollections, 1840-1890,'''' etc.
NEW YORK RICHMOND, CROSCUP & CO.
1893
wRS
TilE SK\\ YOKK PUBLJC LIBRARY
4I0278P
ASlnit. LfcNuy AND
Copyright, 1898, By lilCHMOND, CROSCUP & CO
AS A SLIGHT RECOGNITION OF HIS HOSPITALITY
AND OP
^ HIS ASSIST \NCE IN VERIFYING THE NOBLE EXAMPLE OF
^ ONE OF HIS NEIGHBORS,
w. ir Dedicate tbls Dolumc
TO
MAJOR DAINQERFIELD LEWIS,
> OF AUDLEY,
NEAR BERRYVILLE, VIRGINIA.
THE AUTHOR.
COISTTE^TS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. —Introductory, 7
II.— The Valley of Virginia, 11
III. — A Home in Vermont before the War, . . 25 IV.— The Trumpet-Call of War in the Green Moun- tains, 33
v.— The Call to Arms in the Valley, . . .38 VI. —How A Brave Man Met the Heavy Stroke of
Merciless War, 42
VII.— Deserted, 52
VIII.— The Unconscious Heroine, 65
IX.— The Consultation— The Country Doctor— The
Decision of the Heroine, . . . .76 X.— The First Expedition to Harper's Ferry, . 85 XI.— The Peculiarities of the Country Doctor— The Removal and Concealment under Difficul- ties OF A Stalwart Enemy, . . . .96 XII.— The Dream which was Not all a Dream, . 105 XIII.— The Battle of Opequan or Winchester— The Progress of the Wounded Officer — The Skill and Enterprise of His Hostess, . .116 XIV. — The Battle -Fields of Winchester — The Search FOR A Forgotten Grave — An Act to be Hon- ored BY Brave Soldiers and Emulated by
True Women, 126
3
4 CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
XV.— A Side View of the Battle of Cedar Creek,
WITH "Sheridan Twenty Miles Away," . 134 XVI.— The Terrible Harvest of War— The Prep- aration FOR the Escape of the Wounded
Officer, 153
XVII.— The Escape, .165
XVIII.— Rest and Preparation for the Search, . 181 XIX.— A Time of New Trouble and Anxiety, . 195 XX. — The] Afflictions of the Mule-Owner — Prep- arations FOR THE Search for a Prisoner OF War— The Separation of the Friends, 210 XXI.— In the Den of the Ogre, the Terrible Sec- retary, 223
XXII.— The First Failure in the Search, . . 233 XXIII.— The Bloody Angle — The Prisoner and His
Betrayer, . 241
XXIV.— "What I did for Him I Thought Some Northern Woman Might do for my Hus- band," 253
XXV.— And the Recompense of a Man's Hands
SHALL be Rendered unto Him, . . . 263 XXVI. — "I HAVE not Found so Great Faith ; no, not
IN Israel," 272
XXVII.— The Hard Lot of a Prisoner of War— One of Them Touches the End of His Sltfer-
INGS, 286
XXVIII.— "Weeping may Endure for a Night, but Joy
Cometh in the Morning," . . . .301
ILLUSTRATIO]SrS.
Portrait of Mrs. Van Metre, . . . Frontispiece
Portrait of Major Bedell, Page 129
Map of Shenandoah Valley, . . . . " 147
AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
CHAPTER I.
INTROD UCTOR Y
While this volume does not aspire to the dig- nity of history, the somewhat hackneyed title of a story founded on fact cannot properly be ap- plied to it. It is substantially a true story. Every character in it existed, the essential facts stated, occurred in the order here given. Truth has spun from her own materials the entire warp and much of the woof which has been woven into this fabric. It is only when some of the less important of the materials seemed to be wanting that the author has felt at liberty to supply them, always adhering as closely as possible to the probabilities and to what he supposed the fact to be.
The author was not present at the numerous interviews between the leading persons and no records exist of their conversations. We know from subsequent events that such conversations
» AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
were held — they are necessary to the relation. Instead of omitting the language of these inter- views and leaving his work imperfect, the author has attempted to supply it. And there were re- sults which must have been preceded by unre- corded causes. Those causes have in a few in- stances been given as the writer supposes they must have existed. Such is the whole extent to which he has departed from the record. This being understood, it is not believed that the charm which truth gives to every book will be materially diminished, while on the other hand the volume will be rendered more interesting and attractive.
A brief recapitulation will show that the author was under no necessity which called for the in- vention of facts, and afford another proof that truth is sometimes stranger than fiction.
The Union officer enlisted, served, was desper- ately wounded, left when the army retired, all as herein stated. In his desolate solitude, when very near to death, he was discovered by the heroine, a young woman who had not completed her nineteenth year, whose husband and brothers were Confederate soldiers ; her husband a prisoner. She removed the Union officer to her own dwell- ing, and with the assistance of the country doctor nursed him back to life. She made journeys to Harper's Ferry for supplies, to Cedar Creek for his clothing. She experienced all the vicissitudes :
INTRODUCTORY. 9
aided in his escape and accompanied him to Har- per's Ferry and Washington, procured an order for the release of her husband, found him and went to Vermont with the Union officer, all as herein written. Such a plot needs no additions. It is so extraordinary that the author would hesi- tate to indorse its truth if he had not visited the localities, conversed with the parties, and found it confirmed in so many particulars that to doubt it further would be affectation.
When, through the assistance of Mrs. Van Metre, the Union officer reached Harper's Ferry and was safe within the Union lines, he found that the story of his abandonment and the efficient conduct of his nurse, to which he owed the pres- ervation of his life, was already well known to General Stevenson, then in command at that post. Of his own accord General Stevenson im- mediately communicated the substance of the story to Secretary Stanton by letter. The answer of the Secretary was an order for the immediate release of Mrs. Van Metre's husband, then supposed to be confined in Fort Delaware. The next day Mrs. Van Metre received by mail the following letter, the original of which has been in the hands of the author of this book. It proves that her conduct was highly appreciated by Secretary Stanton at the time, and is one of the numerous evidences which have been fur- nished of the truth of the narrative here given.
10 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
The letter referred to reads as follows :
"Washington City, D. C,
"Nov. 4th, 1864. "Mrs. Van Metre, Harper's Ferry.
''^ Madam: — It is with unfeigned pleasure that I comply with the instructions of the Secretary of War and inform you that he has ordered the unconditional discharge of your husband, now at Fort Delaware.
"Mr. Stanton has been sensibly touched by the report received through General Stevenson of your noble and humane conduct toward a wounded Federal officer and soldier, and without a moment's delay has acted upon the suggestion of General Stevenson and ordered the discharge of your husband, as some acknowledgment of the feminine goodness and nobleness manifested in your person.
"If such an example could but extensively find imitations, it would do infinite honor to your sex and greatly relieve war of some of its most bar- barous tendencies.
"Very respectfully your obedient servant, "E. A. Hitchcock, "Maj.-Gen. Vols."
CHAPTER II.
THE VALLEY OF VIRGINIA.
There are localities in our favored land which nature has made as beautiful as a poet's dream. In a country which comprises every kind of natural scenery; where mountain, valley, lake, river, and plain are found in every possible com- bination, no one spot can be selected as the most attractive. Opinions vary. Standing upon the brink of a canon, looking down along its perpen- dicular walls to the river bounding over its rocky bed six thousand feet below, then looking upward above the glaciers and eternal snows two miles into the blue ether, one may well say, "This is indeed grand !" The domes of the Yosemite, the geysers of the National Park, the thunders of Niagara, and the sublime scenes where once rolled the Oregon and ''heard no sound save his own dashings," fill every beholder with wonder and admiration. To the writer, the great forest which clothes the western slope of the Sierra Nevada is one of the mightiest works of nature. We are now interested in a less imposing but more beautiful picture.
11
12 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
The Shenandoah Valley, otherwise known as the Garden of Virginia, is flanked by two noble mountain ranges extending southward from the Potomac Eiver. Its width varies from twelve to thirty miles. About one-third of its extent from the river another mountain range rises abruptly, converting the one into two valleys. The foot- hills on either side slope gradually away, forming a succession of moderate elevations, between which silvery streams from the mountains drain the region. The valley of the Shenandoah, the Luray, and the other valleys, originally settled by an industrious class of emigrants, have been divided into farms and brought under a high state of cultivation. The primitive forest of oak, chestnut, magnolia, and tulip trees once covered the entire valley and the surrounding mountain slopes. This forest has been largely cleared away, but many noble trees still remain to shade the highways and the grounds about the resi- dences. Broad turnpikes traverse the whole section. There are many passes through the mountains, called "gaps," and in each of these is a highway which bisects the turnpikes. A large river flows through the valley in a very crooked course, furnishing abundant water to the farms, which are also well watered by the streams and creeks from the " gaps " on either side. The main, or Shenandoah valley was the theatre of the prin- cipal events which it is our purpose to describe.
THE VALLEY OF VIRGINIA. 13
In the later days of November, 1860, a geolo- gist and mining engineer just returned from Heidelberg, where he had graduated with hon- ors, was employed to make some explorations in the county of Eockbridge. He had heard such accounts of the region that, being in no especial haste, he determined to approach it from Harper's Ferry on horseback. At that place he hired a horse which proved to be a very fine animal, and sending his trunks and geological tools forward by stage, was ready to begin his journey. But first, from such maps and information as he could collect, he arranged an itinerary which gave him a daily ride of twenty or twenty-five miles, and brought him at evening to some ham- let or village where there was a hotel. He had not yet learned what he soon ascertained, that country hotels were not a necessity, the traveller being welcome at almost any dwelhng along the road he was travelling.
He had passed through the quiet town of Charlestown, the capital of Jefferson County, where John Brown attempted his crazy enterprise and met his fate, into the adjoining county of Clarke. Here he was upon the territory originally owned by Lord Fairfax, which was surveyed by Washington before he became eminent as a sol- dier. The practiced eye of the general appreci- ated the fertility of the soil, and he became, by purchase from the lord of the manor, the owner
14 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
of many large tracts of land in this vicinity. Many of his descendants settled upon these lands and some of them occupy them at the present time. From the fine, large, rambling buildings always provided with broad lawns and shaded by noble trees they still dispense that liberal, kindly hospitality which makes a visit to one of these families an oasis in the life of a resident of the city — an event long to be remembered in the journal of the traveller.
Where the turniDike entered the county of Clarke it brought the engineer in view of a scene as beautiful as his eyes had ever beheld. The mountains on either side were covered to their tops with a forest of deciduous trees. Their foliage, now in its ripened maturity, painted the landscape with an exquisite combination of neu- tral tints and rich colors. Lower down, the foot- hills gave the country a rolling surface, and among them nestled many a picturesque rural homestead. From the mountains rapid streams dashed over their rocky beds down to the lower lands and then wound their crooked ways between fringes of alder and willow. Around many of the dwellings large trees of primitive growth had been left, to shade the avenues and approaches. Orchards laden with golden fruit were common. The lovely landscape, the pure atmosphere, the blue sky, filled the horseman with new strength and vigor and had a similar effect upon the
THE VALLEY OF VIRGINIA. 15
animal he rode. "This view is worth all the time and cost of my journey," said the horseman to himself, "if I never see the boundary line of Rockbridge County."
He was most impressed, however, by the amaz- ing fertility of the soil. It seemed to be a reddish loam which everywhere produced an abundant harvest. There were few outbuildings, for the climate did not render a warm shelter for the animals in winter a necessity. But in every farm -yard there were many great stacks of hay, grain, corn, and wheat. In the pastures the grass was still abundant for the many horses, cattle, and sheep. Even the swine were permitted to gorge themselves upon the apples which had fallen from the trees. In many fields the laborers were loading great farm wagons with turnips, beets, and potatoes. It was literally a land of abundance.
As he was approaching the town of Berryville, the capital of Clarke County, he noticed a lane leading westward, nearly at right angles to the turnpike, which apparently led to a farm of large size. He was within sight of Berryville, where he intended to pass his first night, and had abundant time. He dismounted, opened the swinging gate, and mounting again, allowed his horse to walk slowly along the lane.
Passing between hedges of the Osage orange, not very well trimmed, where broad fields of
If) AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
wheat and corn had been recently harvested, on either hand, he soon came within view of the residence. 1+ vas upon a slight elevation, sloping gently in every direction. The house was only one story high, but it made up in length and breadth what it lacked in height. On the south or front of the house was a velvety lawn, skirted on all sides with grand old oaks, chestnuts, and magnolias. On the north or in the rear were the slaves' quarters and the kitchen, separated from the house. A fine vegetable and fruit gar- den extended farther in the rear.
The traveller halted under the shade of a grand old chestnut and permitted the beauty of the picture to grow upon his mind. It increased with his inspection. The residence and its sur- roundings seemed built for that old-time Virginia hospitality of which he had read, but which he had never experienced. He led his horse to a spring which ran across the lane or private road, and while he drank, his rider began to inspect and admire his fine limbs and action. As he patted him gently on the shoulders the animal responded by a gentle whinny, which was immediately an- swered from a paddock which had been partially hidden from him by the stacks of corn and grain and their protecting thatch of straw. Farther beyond he saw another and a larger field in which there was a herd of cattle.
Himself a farmer's son, the horseman was
THE VALLEY OF VIRGINIA. 17
skilled in breeds of cattle and horses. Leading his horse, he approached as nearly as possible the first field, in which he saw a pictu?;^. which at the same time surprised and delighted nira. There were ten or a dozen brood-mares and their foals. The action of these colts, so graceful, so quick, so powerful, showed to his practiced eye that while the mares were of the best native breeds, the colts had an infusion of that wonderful Percheron blood which France owed to the first Napoleon, as it did many other of its most j)rofitable ad- vances in the arts, in manufactures, and other departments of human activity as well as in the breeding of horses and cattle.
He had stood for some time witnessing with delight the gambols of the colts and wondering how he could get access to the field beyond, in which he had discovered some fine blooded Ayr- shire cows, when looking behind him he found himself very near the rear entrance to the house and grounds. He was immediately surrounded by a flock of woolly-headed, barefooted young darkies, all clamorously proposing to hold his horse, while two or three of the largest actually seized upon his bridle. They were not uncivil; they were decently but not over liberally clothed ; their white eye-balls shining in their black faces interested and their antics amused him. He was considering how he could make use of the entire flock without exciting the jealousy of any
18 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
individual of it, when a stately old colored person came out of the house with an innocent switch in his hand and proceeded to drive away the young- sters.
" Whar you' manners, you sassy imps? Into de quarters, ebery one o' ye. If ye don't I'll thrash ye till the blood runs'." a threat which seemed to amuse the crowd. Then turning to the horse- man he said : "I hope you plees scuse de young unsi Dey means well hut dey's had no bringin' up. Plees walk into de house. I will care for your animal, sah. De colonel an missus are out in de pike on de saddle-horses. Dey will re- turn berry soon. As soon as I stable you' horse I will show you to your 'partment."
The traveller was so impressed with the un- affected civility of this venerable person of seventy years, whose woolly head was perfectly white, that he did not interrupt him until he was about to take the bridle from his hand. Then he ex- plained that he was a stranger, a traveller through the country who had been attracted by the beauty of the place and wished to have a nearer view of the colts and their dams and the cattle. He was unacquainted with their owner and had no thought of becoming a burden upon his hospitality. If he might be permitted to enter the yard and have a closer view of the colts for a few minutes he would proceed on his journey.
THE VALLEY OF VIRGINIA. 19
This arrangement was not at all satisfactory to the temporary representative of the house. He insisted that the horse must have his feed — his rider must be weary after his ride of twenty miles from " de Ferry. " Lunch was almost ready ; " de fambly" would feel hurt if he did not remain until they returned from their ride. He was sincerely grieved when the traveller assured him that his engagements would not permit of a longer delay.
Fastening his bridle to a hitching-post, the old servant led the way to the fields. The closer his inspection the greater was the traveller's pleasure at the sight of the horses and cattle. The field inclosing the Ayrshires comprised the most ele- \^ated portion of the farm. Looking north- westward, he saw a smaller farm through which ran a stream of considerable size. At one point where there seemed to be a fall there was a large stone structure surrounded by shade-trees. Beyond it there was a broad, level farm, and be- yond this again another farm somewhat broken by hills and apparently pasturing a large number of horses. Upon further inquiry of the venerable servant, he learned that the mill farm, as it was called, was the property of a young bachelor named Van Metre, who resided in a part of the mill finished for a dwelling, to which it was rumored the owner would soon bring its new mistress. The next place was Clifton, and still
20 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
farther beyond was Claremont, which as he learned from the same informant was a fine farm upon which its proprietor, Colonel Luke, raised some of the finest horses of Virginia.
"And what is the name of this beautiful place where we are standing?" asked the young en- gineer.
"This is Audley, sah. It is owned by my massa Colonel Lewis, who belongs to de Wash- ington family. He is a grandson of the beau- tiful Nelly Custis, the grandchile of Missus Washington. We has many tings in de house dat b'longed to her." And pointing to a win- dow he added, "In that room slie died. I wish you would stay and meet de colonel and Missus Lewis. You would like de colonel and missus, sir. Everybody likes de colonel and Missus Lewis."
"I have no doubt of that whatever," said the traveller, now rather mortified that he had at- tempted to seek information of the region from a servant instead of his master. Warmly express- ing his thanks for the particulars he had gained, he mounted his horse and rode away in the direc- tion of Berry ville.
His bridle-path across the country brought him to a spring, at the head of which he noticed a building of squared timbers about twelve feet in length, dove-tailed at the corners and presenting evidences of great age. The timbers Vv^ere of
THE VALLEY OF VIRGINIA. 21
chestnut oak, a most durable wood, but into them furrows an inch in dej)th had been worn by exposure to the winds and weather. Inside, a rude flight of stairs led to the upper room. A trap-door in the floor being raised was directly over the source of the spring. A noble oak shaded the building, and under it a large boulder furnished a convenient seat to the horseman after his horse had drunk his fill at the cool spring.
While he was curious to know for what use such a building could have been constructed, a farmer approached him, who announced himself as the owner of the premises. "It is the current belief in the neighborhood," he said, "that this hut was built by General Washington before his expeditions against the Indians and while he was engaged in surveying these lands for Lord Fairfax, their owner. It is well known that this end of the valley was surveyed by Washington and that he purchased large tracts of these lands from Lord Fairfax, and some of the best farms still remain in the possession of branches of his family. It is said that the upper room v/as the sleeping-room of his chain-men and that tbe lower room was occupied by himself. This was one of the farms in the Washington purchase," he continued, "and yonder," pointing to a knoll of moderate height, "is the highest point in the valley between the foot-hills."
The traveller ascended the elevation to which
22 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
the farmer iDointed and was charmed with the view in every direction. The boundaries of the valley, the gaps in the mountains, and the rivers have already been mentioned. As far as the eye could reach to the southward and limited only by the mountain ranges east and west, he saw farms similar to the one he had left, houses shaded by large trees and almost hidden by the huge stacks of hay and grain that surrounded them. In many of the fields white men and black were contentedly working side by side digging beets, turnips, and potatoes and loading them into huge farm wagons. The farms ap- peared to be well fenced. In some of the fields horses and in others cows and young cattle were grazing, and all this stock, so far as he could judge, was of the most desirable races and breeds. There was an air of abundance, of plenty, per- vading the region which led him to say to him- self, ''Here is a section of our favored land to which want and hunger, war and its miseries can never come!"
And yet he remembered with a shudder that only twelve months before this whole region had been thrown into the fiercest excitement by the invasion of John Brown and twenty-two other equally insane fanatics. True, the party had been defeated, some shot, others hung\ and others had run away, so that none remained to disturb the peace of the valley. He knew, too, that there
THE VALLEY OF VIRGINIA. 23
had recently been an election, that many intem- perate threats had been made of the dire results which would follow the election of one or another of the candidates. Surely, he thought, those threats will not be carried into execution. And if war should come it will be re3tricted to a few armed conflicts in the cities or along the Atlantic coast, and then better counsels will prevail and peace will return. It cannot be that these moun- tains will ever echo the roar of artillery, that these peaceful farms will become the theatres of bloody battles, or that this lovely landscape will ever be illuminated by the lurid torch of war!
Passing the night in Berryville, our traveller next day pursued his journey. The valley seemed to grow in beauty as it narrowed in extent. Leaving Masanutten like a grand sentinel on his right, he passed down the lovely vale of Luray, halting only long enough to inspect its mighty caverns with their magical effects in the lime- stone rocks ; past the Natural Bridge, Harrison- burg, Staunton, and on to the locality of his investigations in Rockbridge County. The result of his scientific work there was not encouraging to the promoters of the enterprise he was expected to forward. That enterprise received his honest, emphatic condemnation. But he reported to his employers that on his way to Eockbridge County he had traversed, as he believed, the most fertile
24 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
as it was unquestionably the most exquisitely beautiful valley on the continent of America.
His report to his employers made, he turned his face westward, supposing that he had seen this valley for the last time. But great events were even then maturing in the near future. Had they been disclosed to him, he would within a little more than two years have seen him- self returning hither as a general of brigade, now sending the enemy whirling up the valley, again himself sent whirling by the foe down the valley in his turn. He would have seen him- self leaving it for the last time as the commander of a division in an army, driving all the horses, cattle, sheep, and swine in their advance, their march illuminated by the conflagration of every outbuilding, of all the stacks of hay and grain, of everything capable of supporting human life. Instead of the pasture of abundance which he saw on his first visit, there would have been a smoking, barren desert, until another season's crox) incapable of supporting human life.
The miseries of war force themselves upon a nation in defiance of all resistance. We shall see enough of them in this valley as the incidents of our story are developed without attempting to anticipate them. We will hereafter deal with them as they arise.
CHAPTER III.
A HOME IN VERMONT BEFORE THE WAR.
Under the shadow of one of the loftiest peaks of the Green Mountains, well toward the north- ern boundary of Vermont, is situated the town- ship which I shall call Westfield. There are many such towns on the flanks of the Green Mountains. They are formed by a combination of hill and valley, too much of the first and too little of the second. The rugged shoulders of the mountains extend at right angles to the principal range, and the rivers between them, which spread below into broad, rich intervals, are here only trout -brooks dashing along their rocky beds. There are here and there small areas capable of cultivation, but the greater part of the lands when cleared are fit only for pasturage.
These are literally mountain towns. The primitive forest which originally covered the country, in the valleys where there was some depth of soil, comprised the soft and the sugar maple, the beech, and two or three birches of average size. These upon the hillsides were gradually replaced by the hemlock and spruce,
25
26 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
which became less in diameter with the ascent until on the mountain-tops they were dwarfed into impenetrable thickets. The first to attack these forests were the lumbermen, who felled and carried away the trees large enough for sawing, and then usually permitted the lands to revert to the State upon sales for unpaid taxes. Later these lands became of some value on account of the scarcity and increased price of charcoal, and still later they were farther increased by the de- mand for wood pulp. In ISr.O they were not worth more than three or four dollars per acre.
In one of the poorest of these mountain towns lived Farmer Bedell, a lineal descendant of an ancestor who came over in the Mcujfloiver, and who, if he had not inherited the persistence, the industry, and the religion of liis ancestor, could never have raised a family and maintained a decent respectability upon the barren soil which he had cleared from the forest and called his farm. I shall not attempt to explain why Bedell and others like him, when the rich prairies of the West and even of the Genesee Country were open to the emigrant, located here, where the soil was so unproductive and the climate so cold that their stock must be sheltered and fed for one-half the year; fortunate if they could glean their living for the other half from the stony hillsides. Per- haps the correct explanation was given by one of them to a traveller who asked him what they
A HOME IN VERMONT BEFORE THE WAR. 27
raised in such a barren country. "We raise men," was his reply, and it was a true answer. There are hundreds of men who in enterprise, energy, and learning have honored the American, name, distancing their competitors in all the departments of human industry and usefulness, who were born and reared in just such mountain towns.
Bedell married, and sons and daughters were born to him. Our story concerns only Henry, a son who was born in 1834. He began to be useful to his father at the age of seven years, and his usefulness increased until he left the home- stead. During the three winter months he went to the district school. The nine remaining months of the year he labored for his father, who was the lawful owner of his time and services until he had completed his twenty-first year. At the age of eighteen, like many other Vermont boys, he purchased the remainder of his minority from his father, agreeing to give him three hun- dred dollars for it. He was six feet tall, strong and vigorous, for he had never abused his health. Except to watch by a sick friend he had never been awake at midnight in his life. He could now cut a broader swath in the hay-field, he could cradle more acres of wheat, he could cut more cord -wood in a day, than any other man in his town. His labor was in demand, for he was as faithful as he was strong. For the greater
28 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
part of the year he earned and his employers paid him as much as a dollar a day for his work from sunrise to sunset. He never complained, never struck or even agitated for higher wages, but went straight on. At the age of twenty-one he had paid his father for his time and was the owner of one hundred acres of as good land as there was in the townshii^ of Westfield.
Then the forest began to fall before the strokes of his powerful axe, the trees were cut into even lengths, made into log-heaps and burned. The ashes were collected and sold to the maker of potash. In tlie fall he sowed a small field of winter wheat, and the next spring he planted his first crop of corn, potatoes, turnips, etc. He could afford to hire a carpenter, and in his leisure hours between planting and hoeing he built a good, warm, substantial log-house. To this house one morning in June he brought his wife and her dowry. That of such a Vermont bride was neither costly nor comprehensive. It usually comprised a chest of drawers, a bedstead, a few chairs, a wooden clock, some cheap crockery, and other necessaries given by her father. The family jewels, consisting of a string of gold beads, and a Bible, were the gifts of the mother. Linen sheets and pillow-cases spun and woven with her own hands, blankets made with the assistance of her mother, her own wardrobe for a year purchased with her wages as the teach.er of
A HOME IN VERMONT BEFORE THE WAR. 29
a district school, together with tlie contributions of her husband, made a very fair outfit for the young couple. She was a good, wholesome Ver- mont girl, wholesome in her heart and soul as well as in her person, fitted by training and an education almost self-won to be the wife of a true man and the mother of his children.
As we shall see much of Bedell in the course of our story, we shall leave his character as it is developed to the judgment of the reader. But a word or two must be written about his personal appearance. In height and strength he was gigantic. He now measured six feet two inches in his stockings, and he was in every limb and muscle well proportioned. His face always wore a kind and genial expression, intensified possibly by his gentle blue eyes and light brown hair. His hands and feet were well formed, his move- ments so easy that he seemed to do everything without exertion.
Of necessity the young couple prospered. They were both attentive and helpful to all their neigh- bors, especially to those who were in distress or want. We will not follow the details of their lives. They were not unusual or extraordinary. There have been hundreds of such lives in New England, where they are too common to attract notice.
In that November when the mining engineer is travelling through the valley of Virginia, the
30 AN UXKXOWN HEROINE.
Bedells of our story have been married six or seven years. Three children have been born to them, of whom both father and mother are just a little proud. The youngest of these is only five months old. They have adopted an orphan, son of a deceased Bedell, who has reached the age of ten years and is as dear to them as if he was their own son. He is a bright lad, competent to look after the farm while his adopted father is away. In these seven years the world has gone well with them. He has brought as much of his farm under cultivation as he thinks profit- able, and has added another to it which pro- duces an unusually large crop of hay. Both farms now constitute one, which is well stocked with cattle, sheep, and horses. He has barn room for his entire crop of hay and grain and a warm shelter in the long, cold winter for every animal he owns. The log-house has dis- appeared. In its place stands a neat farm-house, one and a half stories high, with its "square room,-' bedrooms, and kitchen well furnished and provided with all approved modern conven- iences. He has no dairy, for his milk is sent to the creamery, that greatest boon to the New England wife. There is a bookcase well stocked — he takes an agricultural as well as the county paper. While he devotes himself to his farm, his wife, besides being a most excellent housekeeper, is a faithful mother to her children and is their
A HOME IN VERMONT BEFORE THE WAR. 31
daily teacher. Henry Bedell is not only a select- man, but he is the leading citizen and his farm is one of the best in the township. He would have represented his town in the State legislature this year if his neighbors could have had their choice. But he is a man of firmness who has a singular habit of considering the claims of other men be- fore his own. There was a neighbor who was entitled to the place, he said, and he could afford to wait. The neighbor is the representative, but he is also a friend who would go through fire to serve Bedell. And so it happens that husband and household are a credit to the State and their town. The husband is an industrious, charitable, benevolent citizen. His wife is a pattern for other wives, affectionate and useful. There are none better in the Republic than these farmers of the mountain towns of Vermont, of whom it is not claimed that the Bedells are more than aver- age examples.
CHAPTER IV.
THE TRUMPET-CALL OF WAR IX THE GREEN MOUNTAINS.
The red tongue of war licked the walls of Sumter and his brazen throat belched out a roar which rolled up every New England valley, out over every Western prairie. There followed it the call for men. Henry E. Bedell scarcely noted the sound of the guns, but the call for men touched every nerve in his giant frame. It was in the sj^ring-time, when he was ploughing and sowing and planting. While he reflected upon his duty, the call was filled by prompter men and the demand had passed him by. Then there came disaster and defeat — another call, sharj^er, more peremptory, not to be disregarded by one who loved his country. Once more the Vermont farmer looked upon his wife and home, and while he hesitated other and apparently more patriotic men had responded, and again he felt that he had failed of his duty. "But in the sultry summer-time, as war's red records show," of 1862, came that memorable appeal to which no loyal ear was deaf, no loyal heart failed to re-
33
CALL OF WAR IN THE GREEN MOUNTAINS. 33
spend, it was the call for "three hundred thou- sand more. " " From Mississippi's winding stream to far New England's shore," no ear was quicker to hear, no heart more prompt to answer than the ear and heart of the Westfield farmer. It came to him in his county paper early one morn- ing. Instantly he decided that this call was for him and he would answer it, not by any cheap substitute, but in person. Then his mind was at rest. He went out into the morning air. Never did his eye rest more longingly upon his farm, his animals, his home. He entered his dwelling. His children clamorously demanded their daily privilege of climbing up-r^n his shoulders. They performed the feat and proclaimed their achieve- ment with shouts of joy and kisses of love. His wife saw upon his face a look which she had never witnessed before. She followed him into another apartment. Without a word he drew her to him with one arm, holding in his other hand the open paper. With a woman's intuition she understood it all. " I cannot hold you back, Henry ! I would not if I could," she said. "The country needs you and you must go. But, 0 God, preserve my husband !" she cried, struggling to keep down the wave of fear which threatened to overwhelm her when she most wished for strength.
"Heaven bless you, my brave wife," he said, controlling his own emotion with a mighty effort. "I knew you would not fail me in this crisis. 3
34 AX UNKNOWN HEROINE
And now, dear, let lis sit down and talk it all over calmly. I have been expecting this call, and the devil has been very busy in devising ways for me to avoid it. He suggests that I can hire a sub- stitute who has no wife and children to suffer if he loses his life. It is my first duty, he urges, to stay at home and take care of my family. I need not repeat his arguments or my replies. The country is in danger. It wants strong, earnest, healthy men, and not cheap substitutes who will desert or run away at the first opportu- nity. I am strong and healthy, and at least I ought to be big enough to be of some use to my country,'' he continued, casting a glance over his gigantic frame and forcing himself to smile. " These misguided men at the South must be de- feated if they persist in their efforts to break up the Government, and I must help to do it. I should desi)ise myself, earn the contempt of all honest men, and dishonor my native State if I did not obey this call I"'
"You are right, Henry,'' she replied. ''If I were a man I should feel as you do, and I almost wish I were one, so that I might go with you and fight by your side. But my place is here, to care for our children and to pray for you. God will watch over us and reunite us. I feel it, and I will not make the parting harder by a single tear."
Afraid to trust herself to say more, the Ijrave
CALL OF WAR IN THE GREEN MOUNTAINS. 35
wife hurried from the room and threw herself heart and soul into the preparations for her hus- band's departure. Whatever may have been her secret anguish, not a trace of it appeared up- on her calm, serene brow when her dear ones were by. An atmosphere of somewhat forced cheer- fulness pervaded the household, even the little ones taking an active part in the work of prepa- ration. Imitating their mother's example, they endeavored to appear happy and unconcerned as they went about the work of cleaning, brushing, and polishing which fell to their share. But, young as they were, they felt the sad undercur- rent beneath the assumed cheerfulness about them, and often the merry laugh would cease and a silent tear fall at the thought that " father was going to the war."
On the 4th day of August, 1862, Bedell with dry eyes and a strong heart took leave of his family and his Westfield home, and enlisted in Company D, Eleventh Vermont Volunteers. He was such a magnificent specimen of man- hood that on the day of his enlistment his captain insisted upon promoting him, and he was borne on the roster as Corporal Bedell. On the first day of September his regiment was mustered into the service of the United States. James M. Warner, a lieutenant in the regular army and an educated soldier, was its colonel. The regiment was ordered first to Washington,
36 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
where it became a regiment of heavy artillery, and being separated into batteries of one hundred and fifty men was distributed into the forts which protected the capital. There it served for eighteen long months and until April, 1861.
This may have been a useful service, but it was not liked by officers or men. They seemed to be wasting time in idleness which should have been in some way made profitable to the cause.
But Corporal Bedell was a true soldier, content to obey his superior officers and to perform the duty which they assigned to him. He had one privilege of which he availed himself almost daily. Everything known to the corporal was promptly communicated to his wife and neigh- bors in their Vermont homes.
Then on the 11th of August, all unconscious that he had done anything but his daily duty, he was informed that he had been again promoted and that he was now Sergeant Bedell. His sur- prise was greater v/hen, on the 28th of Decem- ber, 1863, while the regiment was still in the de- fences of Washington, he was deemed worthy of a commission. On the 12th of January, 1864, he received his commission as lieutenant. About the same time Aldace Walker, who had joined the regiment as a lieutenant, was made its lieutenant- colonel. This story cannot turn aside to do jus- tice to Colonel Walker. I may, however, take this occasion to say that the subsequent very
CALL OF WAR IN THEi GREEN MOUNTAINS. 3?
lively and magnificent fighting of the regiment was under Colonel Walker's command, that he was deservedly breveted as colonel for his per- sonal bravery, and that he is now the chairman of the Interstate Eailway Association of the United States.
The record of the regiment covers gallant service at Spottsylvania, May 15th to 18th; Cold Harbor, June 1st to 12th; Petersburg, June 18th; Weldon Eailroad, June 23d; Fort Stevens, in front of Washington, July 12th, 1 864. Then it went into the Shenandoah A^alley and fought in all the battles there under Sheridan. Its history has been written by Colonel Walker, and we shall follow it so far as it is connected with the heroine of our story and Lieutenant Bedell.
CHAPTER V.
THE CALL TO ARMS IX THE VALLEY.
No man of Xorthern birth or sympathies should undertake to describe from a Southern stand- point the war in the valley of Virginia. It may be permitted to the writer to say that a strong sentiment in favor of the Union was sup- posed to exist in the State and was loyally entertained by a large majority of the people of the valley, including all citizens of the better class. But the guns of Sumter struck the note of separation. When General Lee resigned from the army of the United States and consented to take command of the Confederate army of Vir- ginia, the Union sentiment immediately and com- pletely disappeared. Nowhere did the Confederate call for recruits meet with a more general and cordial response than in the Shenandoah Valley. One of the earliest to volunteer had been J. L. E. Van Metre, the owner of the estate of which we have already attempted a slight description.
He had enlisted in the Confederate army in the summer of 1861, when there was supposed to be little danger that the wave of war would reach
38
THE CALL TO ARMS IN THE VALLEY. 30
the valley. His horses, cattle, and other animals had been purchased by the Confederate Govern- ment and paid for in money and bonds. There was supposed to be little left worth the trouble of capture. The homestead was therefore left in charge of Peter Dennis, a faithful colored slave, with Mrs. Betty Van Metre and her young niece as its tenants.
But the valley of Virginia proved to be one of the great highways of civil war. From its pro- ductive capacity the Confederacy was to derive a large proportion of its provisions. Its people could temporarily leave the service in the spring, raise and harvest a crop, and return to active service in the autumn. Therefore the tidal wave of war annually and sometimes quarterly rolled up and down the valley, every time engulfing the Van Metre homestead, until nearly every useful animal, every wheeled vehicle, all the hay, straw, in short, almost everything portable had been swept away. Even the able-bodied slaves had been sent as laborers to the Confederate front. The mill and outbuildings had so far escaped de- struction or much injury. As "single misfor- tunes do not come alone," in the summer of IStU Van Metre was captured and became a prisoner to the Union forces.
We will not undertake to follow the Northern army, which under the command of Sheridan "went into" the valley early in August, 1864:.
40 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
On the 10th of that month his whole command moved out of Harper's Ferry and went into camp at CHfton, a large plantation near Berryville. Here and hereabout the Vermont brigade re- mained for several days. It came to the knowl- edge of some of the officers of that brigade that in the stone mill and dwelling already mentioned, Mrs. Van Metre, the wife of the owner, with her young niece and an old colored servant, was living alone and unprotected. Over this homestead they stationed and maintained a guard which secured it against further intrusion. To show her grati- tude for such protection, Mrs. Van Metre sug- gested that while she had no provisions of her own, she might prepare their army rations in a manner which would remind them of the cooking of their wives and daughters at home. The offi- cers accordingly sent her their beef, bacon, and hard-tack, and adding a few vegetables from her own garden she prepared for them several dinners. These dinners so spread her reputation as a cook that until the brigade moved away her table was filled daily with as many guests as she could accommodate. The officers were all gen- tlemen, who treated her with the respect they would have demanded for their mothers or their wives, and the dinners became memorable. When they went to the field, many of them to their deaths, there was not one who did not carry with him a profound respect for Mistress
THE CALL TO ARMS IN THE VALLEY. 41
Betty Van Metre. How far she remembered them we shall learn hereafter.
The time of his or her introduction into a story is usually the occasion for the description of the principal character. In the course of this nar- rative the reader will form a very intimate ac- quaintance with Mrs. Betty Van Metre. I prefer to leave him to form his own opinion of her with- out any influence of mine. I shall give a very brief sketch of her origin and her life up to her nineteenth year, when she becomes more actively connected with this history. Beyond that I shall leave her to be known and judged by her own conduct — her own construction of the duty of a true woman.
CHAPTER VI.
HOW A BRAVE MAX MET THE HEAVY STROKE OF MERCILESS WAR.
Our story is now touched by the bloody hand of active War. The Vermont brigade, to which BedelFs regiment was attached, belonged to the division then commanded by that brave and popu- lar officer General Getty. The division was in camp on the farm called Claremont, about three miles north from Berryville and about two miles west of the turnpike from Harper's Ferry through Charlestown and thence up the valley. Win- chester, the largest city in the lower valley, lies ten and a half miles due west from Berryville on another turnpike. About half-way from Berryville to Winchester, the road b}' a ford crosses the Opequan (pronounced Opeccan) Creek, which runs northerly into the Potomac at Williamsport. The banks of this creek are high and bold, and in high water the ford is frequently impassable.
On the morning of September 13th, 186^1:, the division of General Getty moved out toward the Opequan to ascertain the position of the army of
42
A BRAVE MAN IN THE WAR. 43
General Early, then known to be on the west bank of that river. The Vermont brigade had the advance, the third and fourth regiments being deployed as skirmishers. There were no fences, and the force moved directly across the country about five miles to the creek. Sheridan and Wright accompanied the column.
The skirmishers reached and forded the creek, meeting the Confederate pickets a short distance up and beyond the west bank. Captain Cowan's battery went into position on the east side of the creek and opened fire, hoping thus to discover the enemy's camps in that vicinity and their numer- ical strength. This battery was in plain view from the opposite side. There was an occasional shot from the rifles of the skirmishers in advance of Cowan's battery on the west bank of the creek, and the rest of the division was massed in a wood a quarter of a mile behind the battery. This wood was free from underbrush ; it afforded an excellent shade; the men were scattered in groups among the stacked rifles, conversing or otherwise amusing themselves.
It is now known from Major More, the officer upon the staff of General Early who carried the order, that the fire from Cowan's battery having become annoying. General Early ordered up a heavier battery on the west side of the creek, to silence Cowan's guns or compel him to retire. The first shells from the Confederate guns were
44 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
fired at too high an elevation, passed over the guns at which they were aimed, and exploded among the tree -tops, doing no further injury. But this error was soon corrected, and the shells hegan to plough through and explode among the ranks of the division concealed in the timber. Several were wounded; the lines were formed for removal to some safer position. But as the enemy's missiles began to fall short of the Union- ists, they became satisfied that their exact posi- tion was unknown to the enemy, and in a few minutes the firing ceased and danger was over.
Bedell always set a good example before his men when under fire. As an officer he deemed it his duty to take good care of his men and not to attempt concealment of his own person. His great height, his muscular activity, and splendid physique made him an attractive target, of which the enemy did not fail to avail themselves. He was bravely holding his men in line, when the guns in the Confederate battery were concen- trated upon him; one shell exploded, tearing his right hand, leaving three fingers each hanging by its tendons, and he fell. A second shell had crashed through his left thigh, leaving a portion of the muscle on either side, and a horrible mass of crushed bones, mangled flesh, and gushing arteries in its pathway.
As he fell and saw the bright red blood spurt- ing from the severed arteries, he made a brave
A BRAVE MAN IN THE WAR. 45
attempt to compress his thigh with his uninjured and his mangled hand, for he knew that a brief delay involved his death. It was ineffectual, for there was but little strength in that fragment of a hand. " Cord it, boys !" he exclaimed as he lay upon the ground. "Don't let me bleed to death! Cord it! with a handkerchief or anything, quick! A ramrod and a handkerchief will do it!"
Willing hands tied the handkerchief, but they were nervous and the rude substitute gave way under the too sudden twist, and again the scar- let torrent burst out, impelled by the power- ful pulsations of his vigorous heart. "Try it once more, boys!" he exclaimed. "Try a bay- onet the next time — it's my only chance!" A young officer tore his sash from his own shoulders, passed it twice around the limb, tied it, another inserted a bayonet, and with a single powerful twist the success of the improvised torniquet was complete — the bleeding was arrested and for the moment his life was saved.
He was more than five miles from the camp to which the division was about to return. They bore him on a stretcher to a temporary field hos- pital, where the surgeons began to debate whether there was anything to be gained by an amputa- tion. It was a most difficult operation at the best. Weakened by his other v/ounds, they feared he might die under the surgeon's knife.
The brave man promptly settled the question.
46 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
"Is it not certain that this wound will be fatal if the leg is not amputated?" he asked. The^ agreed it was. "Then lose not a moment's time," he said. "There is a chance of recovery if the leg is amputated — there is none if it is not. In such a case I take the chance!"
They laid him upon the table and the skilled hands of the surgeons of the Vermont brigade performed the amputation. Everything was done for him that could be suggested by science and skill, and the sufferer was made as comforta- ble as the rude conditions of war permitted. "Still," said the account of Colonel Walker, " there was very little hope. Though his native vigor was in his favor, his very size and the muscular strength ujjon which he had prided himself were against him, for it was computed that over sixty-four square inches of flesh were severed and laid bare by the surgeon's knife. And it was also found that his right hand had been terribly injured, the bones of three fingers and of the middle hand having been crushed and comminuted. The operation already performed had been so severe that it was thought best not to attempt the treatment of the hand until it was seen whether or not he would rally from the shock of the wounds and the amputation."
About dusk the army returned to their camp at Claremont. That journey was a terrible ordeal to the wounded man. It would have been severe
A BRAVE MAN IN THE WAR. 47
enough if his ambulance had moved over an ordinary turnpike road for that distance imme- diately after he had undergone such a fearful trial. But there were no fences left and few cross-roads. The army moved as the crow flies, straight across the country, over stone walls half torn down, across ditches half filled with broken timbers. Thus jolted and shaken, an ordinary life would have inevitably been de- stroyed. But Bedell's was not an ordinary life. He determined to live if he could. Sustained by stimulants and his indomitable courage, at last in the darkness he reached the camp of the divi- sion alive.
A short distance eastward from the camp, on another farm, was a house which had been deserted by the owner and his family. The basement was occupied by an old man and his wife, both apparently destitute of human hearts and sympathies. Tempted by the promise of re- wards, they consented that Bedell should be placed in one of the unoccupied rooms of the second story of the house, and then, having made him as comfortable as they could, his companions left him for the night, scarcely expecting that the morning sun would see him alive.
The next morning the surgeon of his regiment found him not only alive, but stronger than he was the evening before. After an examination and the statement that he was delighted to see
48 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
him feeling better, he was about to leave, when Bedell said to him :
"Surgeon, you doctors think I have got my fatal wound — that I cannot live. You propose to make my short journey to the grave as easy as possible. I know perfectly well that the chances are against me. But I have got a wife and children up in Vermont who want me. I want to live on my own account — much more on theirs. I am going to make the hardest fight for life of which I am capable. I want you to help me. I want you to bring the surgeons of the Fourth and Fifth Vermont right here as soon as you can. I want to talk the matter over and see what can be done to save me."
'*I will do it. God knows if you die it shall not be for want of anything that I can do for you," said the surgeon.
By nine o'clock the surgeon of his own regiment and three others were in consultation over him. He insisted that they should discuss the case in his presence. The surgeon of his own regiment, the youngest of the four, alone expressed any hope. The three others said that such an am- putation, almost at the very hip. was fatal in the majority of cases without other complications. In this case it was complicated with the wounded hand and the want of hospital accommodations; and there were other reasons why they considered his case hopeless.
A BRAVE MAN IX THE WAR. 40
The younger man said but little. Bedell waited until none of the surgeons had anything to add. Then, as coolly as if he were speaking of another, he said :
"Gentlemen, my life is not my own property. For another year it belongs to the United States. After that my wife and children own it. I shall save it if I can. I shall not throw away one chance to save it. I decide to place myself in the hands of the surgeon of my own regiment. I know he will do all he can for me. I want one of you to write for me a letter to my wife. Then I will put myself under his direction.''
" I will write for you — I will do anything that man can do for you,"' said the elder of the sur- geons, "for you deserve to live." He drew a table to the side of the wounded man and wrote to his wife from his dictation what might prove to be his last letter. It told her the simple truth. He had been desperately wounded — his right leg had been amputated — he was about to undergo another operation, which might terminate his life. Still he had some hope. He gave her plain di- rections about closing his estate and the educa- tion of the children. Its closins: words were so touching that he alone of those present was able to control his emotions. There ran through it a single ray of hope, so faint at times that it vras scarcely visible. It was just possible that he might survive the operation about to be per- 4
50 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
formed. It was a model letter of a fearless sol- dier and a loving husband writing to his wife for the last time. With his left hand, assisted by the surgeon, he wrote what bore some resem- blance to his name, saw the letter sealed and directed. The older surgeon promised to mail it, and then, turning to the surgeon of the Eleventh Vermont, Bedell said, "Doctor, I am ready."
The young surgeon did not flinch. They brought in a table and laid the wounded man upon it. Bedell watched the preparations with the coolness of a disinterested spectator. But when they offered him the anaesthetic, he de- clined to take it. He preferred to retain his con- sciousness.
" The amputation and dressing of your wounded hand and the dressing of your amputated thigh will be tedious and exhausting," said the sur- geon. " We must husband every ounce of your strength. You will require it all, and whether it will prove sufficient God only knows."
To this argument Bedell promptly yielded. The blessed boon, which has spared humanity such a vast amount of pain, was administered and the wounded man became unconscious.
The writer is not a surgeon, and if he were he does not know that the description of the long and careful process of amputating the fingers, repairing the stump of the hand, and dressing the thigh would be interesting to his readers. The
A BRAVE MAN IN THE WAR. 51
hand proved to have been reduced to a shapeless mass of fractured bone, crushed muscle, veins and arteries, and severed nerves. The surgeon was skilful and worked with rapidity. But it was a full hour after the patient was laid upon the table before the operation was completed.
A narrow bed filled with straw and laid upon the floor, in a room from which everything even to the window-shades had been removed, was the only couch they could procure for the wounded man. His covering was an army blanket. To this bed they returned him in the bloody clothing worn when he fell. Had Bedell been in his mountain home, or in a hospital where he could have had proper care and a comfortable bed, his subsequent experience showed that he would have had an uninterrupted progress toward recovery. Even here the surgeon hoped that he might secure the constant attendance of a nurse, the dressing of his wounds as often as was necessary, and the regular administration of stimulants and of strengthening food. After a few days' rest he could be removed to Harper's Ferry, where he could be supplied with every necessity. He then explained to Bedell the treatment he intended should be pursued, provided him with refreshing food, placed him in charge of a soldier nurse, and left him for the night.
CHAPTER VII.
DESERTED.
When at sunrise the next morning the surgeon made an early call, he was delighted to find his patient's condition greatly improved. He had had a fair night's rest. His appetite was good and he was free from pain. He complimented Bedell upon his vigorous constitution, which with proper assistance he believed would carry him through to perfect recovery. He informed him that he had made a requisition upon the agency of the Sanitary Commission at Harper's Ferry for a cot bedstead and other conveniences, which would be received in the course of three or four days. Until then the same course of treatment already adopted was to be pursued.
Both the surgeon and Bedell were conscious that his struggle for life had only just begun. In cases of severe wounds like his, nature merci- fully provides a torpidity of the nerves which renders them for a short time almost insensible to pain. But when the parts become inflamed there is an increased sensitiveness and the pain is sometimes almost intolerable. This inflamma-
DESERTED. 53
tion in Bedell's case was certain to occur, though it was hoped to keep it under control by careful treatment and constant attention.
For two or three days the case progressed as well as the surgeon expected. There was con- siderable inflammation, but the patient remained perfectly quiet, and by constant bathing and other applications the pain was kept under control. He was growing stronger and progressing steadily toward recovery.
But there were several incidents of Bedell's sit- uation which were very unsatisfactory. The No- vember storms were commencing; the room he occupied was open in many places to the weather and there was no way of heating it. The old couple named Asbury, who were probably tres- passers in the basement, but who claimed to have been left in possession by the owner, proved to be human only in form and apparently destitute of all human sympathy. They promised when paid in advance to attend upon Bedell's wants and to prepare his food, but as soon as the sur- geon's nurse withdrew they appropriated his sup- plies and then gave him no farther attention. The house was far enough away from the camp at Claremont to make it an attraction to the guerillas then roving over the country, and no ordinary guard was an adequate security against them.
Finding that the Asburys were more likely to
54 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
betray Bedell to some of their friends who were maraudiDg the country than they were to do anything to assist him, the surgeon determined to rely upon a guard from the camp to nurse and protect his patient. But it was not many days before even this precarious protection had to be withdrawn. An advance movement of the Union army was about to take place, and by way of preparation for it, peremptory orders were issued that all the sick and wounded should be at once removed to the hospital at Harper's Ferry, more than twenty miles away.
The heart of the young surgeon sank at the prospect for poor Bedell. He did not believe that he could endure the pain of transportation even for a mile, and to leave him was to abandon him to certain death. Mosby, a daring partisan leader, was always close upon the rear of a re- treating Federal army, ready to dash upon it at the first opening. He had captured officers in towns when they were surrounded by their own men. Under the claim that Custer had executed some of his men on the ground that they were not regularly enlisted in the Confederate army, Mosby by way of retaliation had just hung five Union soldiers on the same tree. A Federal officer captured by Mosby, well or wounded, would probably have short shrift, is or were Mosby 's men the worst of the marauders. The caves in the mountains were literally swarming
DESERTED. 55
with the most abandoned species of wretches ever created in the human form. They comprised all the criminals of the region, with recruits of men who had fled from the draft, bounty -jumpers, deserters, and vagabonds of all kinds. Some were counterfeiters, some illicit distillers — all thieves and robbers and, upon any prospect of gain, murderers. They were impartial — they robbed both sides ; no one who had anything to lose was safe from their bloody knives. There were other wretches in the towns who gave them notice of any possible victim and with whom they divided their spoils. They promptly appeared on every battle-field and murdered the wounded; it was unsafe to travel any road after nightfall, for to encounter them was death. Compared with the operations of these outlaws, bushwhack- ing was Christian warfare.
It would be more merciful to shoot the wounded officer upon his pallet of straw than to leave him to the mercy of these miscreants. Every effort for his safe removal must be exhausted before that alternative could be considered.
These sudden and unexpected moA^ements are among the most cruel incidents of war. They always cost many lives. The wounded are taken from comfortable beds when their cases are fa- vorably progressing, crowded into army wagons and ambulances and hurried away over the rough and broken roads, too many of them to their
56 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
deaths. On this occasion the procession that moved northward was not large, for as yet there had been no great battle since this army entered the valley.
An earnest and careful attempt was made to remove Bedell. The ambulance was cushioned, he was carried very gently and laid on a bed on the floor of the vehicle. But now all his wounds had become inflamed and every injured nerve and severed muscle was in angry rebellion. The ambulance moved very slowly, but the shaking and jolting as the wheels fell into well-worn ruts or over obstructions were unavoidable. For a time he bore the pain without a murmur. He uttered no complaint — not a groan escaped him. But tlie tax was more than he could bear. There was a shiver — his face turned an ashen color, and he fainted. So far as his own suffering was concerned he was dead.
The ambulance was moved out of the proces- sion into a field ; the officers of his regiment and his friends gathered about him. What was to be done? To persist in the attempt to remove him would be fatal. He would die before he had made one mile of the twenty. To leave him would expose him to a death almost equally cer- tain. The horizon of his fate seemed closing in on every side.
During the conference Bedell recovered his consciousness. Again his clear judgment con-
DESERTED. 57
sidered the situation and decided what should be done. He could not be removed, for he had not the strength to survive the journey. One man like himself must not obstruct the movement of an army. There was only one thing to be done. They must return him to his pallet of straw, arrange whatever they could for his protection, and leave him to take his chance of life, however small it might seem to be.
They replaced him upon his straw mattrass, nearer to death than he had been at any time before. But he had brother -officers who would not abandon him. His desertion might be ex- cused as a cruel necessity, they said, but it would be none the less the act of cowards. As soon as our army retired the scavengers of the camp and field would spread over the country. They took no prisoners, left no living witnesses of their atrocities. If Bedell was left alone they would murder him. But they would not attack two or three determined men.
Bedell calmly told them that after that day's experience he had little hope of recovery; that obviously there was only one possible course, they must leave him ; a soldier might remain with him if they thought best ; they could give him some supplies, and that was all they could do. When they got to Harper's Ferry, if he lived, they could consult about his further removal.
Bedell so calmly took upon himself as his obvi-
58 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
ous duty as a soldier all the risks of the situation that his brother-officers yielded, although one of them said that in so doing he felt as if he deserved to be kicked out of camp by a mule. They selected as his nurse a man not in uniform, arranged a box of crackers so that it raised the head of his bed, and placed within his reach vessels of water and cooked food enough to sustain life for several days. The surgeon determined to make one more effort to secure the services of the Asburys. He knew they were faithless, but he hoped to secure their services by partial payment and the promise of future rewards. They promised; they accepted his money ; they agreed to visit Bedell hourly — to prepare his food and to do everything he required.
Having made these arrangements, the best that the circumstances admitted, the surgeon and his brother-officers bade the wounded man farewell and took their unwilling leave. A short distance from the house they passed the small dwelling of a colored man who stood at his open door. "What is your name, uncle?" asked the surgeon.
"My name is Dick Eunner, suh," he civilly answered.
"What is your work, and is this your house?" pursued the inquirer.
"I work for Missus Van Metre in the mill. Me and Ginny, my wife, have lived here all our lives, suh."
DESERTED. 59
"Uncle," said the surgeon, holding up two bright, new greenbacks, "these are for you. In that room" (pointing to one he had just left) "is a wounded Union officer. I want you to go and see him every morning and see that he wants for nothing. Will you do so?"
"I will see de Union officer ebery day, suh, but I cannot take pay for it. I know what for he come here. He is one of Lincoln's men. Me an' Ginny will do all we can for him, but not for money — no, not for money."
" Then take the money and buy medicines for him," said the surgeon. "We have to leave him to go with the army. The Asburys have prom- ised to care for him, but we do not like to trust them. We think if you promised you would keep your word."
" Dem Asburys is no good, suh. Dey're squat- ters. Dey've got no business in dat house. You can't trust 'em. But me an' Ginny will do what we can for de wounded officer. But we don' want no pay. What for you didn't see Missus Van Metre? She's a woman an' a lady, is Mis- sus Van Metre. She will help anybody dat's in trouble."
"We cannot wait now to see anybody. Our regiment is already miles away, uncle!" said the surgeon, much impressed by the simple honesty of the colored man. " We wish you would take some money, and look after our brother -officer.
60 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
You would relieve our minds if you would, for it cuts us to the heart to leave him, and we fear he is near his end,"
But Uncle Dick was obstinate. He would do all he could for the wounded man, but he would not take money. As the surgeon shook his honest hand and with the other grasped that of Ginny, he left in hers a roll of paper covering a small sum in greenbacks, and before she could recover from her surprise enough to protest, he had hur- ried awa3^
With the retirement of the army began a time of physical and mental anxiety and distress for Bedell which no pen can adequately describe. The army retired to Harper's Ferry. When it again advanced, Martinsburg, farther west, be- came its base of supplies, and the region around Berry ville, instead of being traversed every few days by army trains, was not again visited for many weeks by Union troops. This part of Clarke County became the hunting-ground for guerillas, camp-followers, tramps, and deserters. Bush- whacking, robbing, and murder were too common to attract attention. The tramps expected no quarter and gave none. Two or three times Custer's cavalry swept over the county, and left the murderers they captured hanging from the trees along the turnpike. Every Union soldier who fell into the hands of the roving murder- ers was hung or shot as soon as he had been
DESERTED. 61
robbed. For the first few days the house where Bedell lay escaped their visitations. It was some distance away from the turnpike and was sup- posed to have been deserted. Several of these parties were turned away by the apparent stu- pidity of Uncle Dick Runner, who always con- trived to intercept and show them that there was no spoil here, but that there were fresh fields and pastures new in some other direction.
When the officers of Bedell's regiment parted from him they had almost no hope that he would survive. The strain of his attempted removal had been very injurious. They were not much surprised, therefore, when the nurse left with him, two or three days afterward, came into the camp at Harper's Ferry and announced that Bedell had died and he had seen him buried that morning!
This is what had in fact taken place: The nurse had been very brave before the army left. Immediately after its departure he began to show his cowardice. He had heard that an attack was to be made that night — one man could make no defence against guerillas I In short, his cow^ardly fear so wrought upon Bedell in his nervous con- dition that he begged the fellow to clear out and leave him. His absence he might survive — his presence he could not endure. The coward left immediately, and to excuse his own conduct circu- lated the report that Bedell was dead.
The wounded man's next ill- fortune was with
62 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
the Asburys, who Hved in the basement and claimed to be the landlords of the deserted house. He knew that they had been paid for taking care of him and had promised his friends to attend to his wants. When, therefore, the male Asbury came for his supplies, promising to cook him a meal, he did not object to their being taken away, leaving only the box of crackers, his substitute for a pillow, which did not attract Mr. Asbury's notice. The patient's provisions being thus se- cured, the inhuman wretch left him to his fate, and Bedell never saw either of the Asburys again.
All through the darkness of that last long and gloomy night the sufferer tossed upon his bed of straw. Hope had not wholly deserted him. "Surely, "he thought, "they will at least bring me my breakfast." But the hours passed; they did not come, and then the helpless invalid knew that he was deserted.
Two days and two very long nights had passed since he said farewell to his friends — it was now late in the evening of the third day. I shall not shock the sensibility of my readers by a descrip- tion of Bedell's sufferings during this time. It will suffice to simply outline his situation. He was helpless from desperate wounds; he was not only in the country of a political enemy, but in a region controlled by the enemies of the human race. He was lying on a straw bed, on the floor of an unfurnished room, through the walls of
DESERTED. 63
which the rains beat and the w inds whistled. He could not move without a deathly spasm of pain. He had been robbed of his supplies. By an effort which almost exhausted his remaining strength, his single hand had got access to the box of crackers under his head, or he would have already starved. The guerillas would soon be upon him, for those who would steal his food would betray him to the enemy. If they did not, his wounds were every hour becoming more inflamed and more painful, and their pain could not be much longer endured.
Then his thoughts went to his mountain home — to the wife and children who were this night re- membering him in their prayers, but, alas ! whom he should never see again. What would he not give for the strength to write them one last word, the power to give them one last counsel !
So much as that he would try to do. In the pocket of his vest there was a lead -pencil. With this, on the cover of his cracker-box, he would write his name, his regiment, and a message to his family. They should not bury him, ignorant of his name, in an unidentified grave !
He strove to reach that pencil until his arm fell from exhaustion. No, he could not even write his name and a last message to the loved ones at home !
Then he began to wonder when he would die. Would it be at sunrise to-morrow? Most men
64 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
did die at sunrise. Would he see the sun rise in another and a better world where there was no suffering, or would he die to-morrow night or the next morning? Then he prayed that, weak and helpless and stranded as he was, the Lord would show him whether there was any way that he could yet be of service to his country.
There was an answer to his prayer. It made every nerve in his body thrill with hope. His door gently opened and out of the darkness came a whisper. "Kunnell'' it said, "I's got nuffin but a jug of cold water for ye ! May I come in?"
CHAPTER YIII.
THE UNCONSCIOUS HEROINE.
The mining engineer of 1860 is the colonel of a Federal regiment in 1864. In a single cam- paign he has left half his regiment on the plains of Virginia, and now in the early autumn he has led its thinned ranks into the valley of Virginia. He has marched his men from Harper's Ferry, hy the Charlestown turnpike, over the same route that he rode in 1860, and with the brigade to which his regiment is attached is now in camp at Claremont, one of the farms formerly pointed out to him as the property of Colonel Luke, cele- brated for its production of fine horses.
Early one morning he rode out to find the beautiful estate of Audley, which had so im- pressed him on his first visit. He had some diffi- culty in recognizing it, although it had fared somewhat better than its neighbors. Its owner was in the service in a distant part of the Con- federacy. He found the old servant who had been so polite and hospitable, but who did not now recognize him. He had changed with the estate. His hair could not have been whiter or 5 65
66 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
his aspect more venerable ; but his countenance was sorrowful, his clothing worn and rusty. From him the colonel learned that the fine horses and cattle had been exchanged for Confederate securities early in 1861. The wave of invasion and retreat which had so many times rolled up and down the valley had injured Audley less than its neighbors, but it had levelled the fences and destroyed many of its attractions. There was no colored flock of "sassy imps" to greet the traveller. The mistress and the family had left the valley and a general air of sadness pervaded the estate.
The colonel extended his inquiries to the Van Metre farm and mill. Here greater changes had taken place. Its proprietor had brought from the Luray Valley Miss Elizabeth, better known as Miss Betty Keyser, to become its mistress and to bear his name. Then he had enlisted in the Confederate cavalry ; her two brothers in other branches of the service. She must have been a young bride, for now in 1864 she had not com- pleted her nineteenth year. Like another Penel- ope, she was keeping the mill and farm to await her husband's return. There, with Peter, a for- mer slave, Dick Eunner, a colored man in the mill, Ginny, his wife, and her young niece of nine years, she still lived, though battles had raged and the unloosed dogs of war with bloody mouths had howled around her for more than three
THE UNCONSCIOUS HEROINE. 67
years. The mill farm had suffered with the others. The horses, cattle, all the live-stock, all the wagons and other vehicles, everything which could subsist men or animals had been swept away. The mill was no longer a source of in- come, for there was no more wheat or corn to be ground. The fences had been levelled; the thrift and prosperity which the traveller witnessed only four years before had melted away in the lurid atmosphere of three years of relentless war.
The brave young wife, with a colored man once a slave but, although now free, faithful to his mistress, had kept the mill and farm through all the disturbances of war. Her husband, after long immunity from wounds and calamities, had been captured, and on his way to Harper's Ferry had been permitted by his captors to call at his home, procure a change of clothing, and take leave of his wife. Then he had been carried North to encounter vicissitudes, of which more will be written in the course of the story. In one respect the reports which the colonel had from his colored informant and other sources agreed. The young wife from the Luray Valley was a woman of strong character who had secured the respect of all who had been brought into con- tact with her by the fortunes of war ; her prop- erty had been to some extent protected by Con- federates and Unionists, and up to this time even the camp-followers had not raided her home.
68 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
When the colonel returned to his camp at Claremont he ordered a guard for the protection of the Van Metre homestead, and directed that it should be maintained until the army moved. Afterward he with other officers of his brigade called at the door and made the young wife's ac- quaintance. They were all impressed with the brave attempt at cheerfulness which she main- tained in her loneliness, and all treated her with deference and kindness ; for they knew that as yet she was only a Southern girl, living in the midst of war, at the mercy of those she had been taught to look upon as the deadly enemies of herself and her people, and who were even then holding her husband as a prisoner. She was living, with no companion but her little niece, like so many other sorrowful women North and South, patient in their anxiety and desolation, waiting and praying for peace.
These officers speedily made the discovery that this young Virginia matron was a lady both by nature and education. She expressed her grati- tude for their protection of her property, and in every other respect conducted herself with marked propriety and dignity. As already mentioned, it was one of these officers, weary of the eternal sameness of the army ration, who with a tender memory of the superiority of his mother's cook- ing, one day ventured to ask Mrs. Van Metre whether she would not prepare a meal or two
THE UNCONSCIOUS HEROINE. 69
from their supplies. She readily promised to do SO, and with some vegetables from her own garden cooked for them a few meals which were long remembered. Thus it happened that upon four or five occasions half a dozen officers of the Vermont brigade and of General Getty's staff broke bread at Mrs. Van Metre's table.
With this sketch in mind we may return to the deserted officer. Early one morning Uncle Dick Eunner came to Mrs. Van Metre, with his finger on his lips and an earnest expression of secrecy on his face. " 'Fore de Lord, Missus Betty," he w^hispered, "a Union officer is a dyin' in dat house ober dar whar de Asburys are. I's jes' come from dar and I tink he is dyin' now."
" Why did you not tell me of this before, Dick?" asked his mistress with some severity.
"Why — why — you see, 'twas dis way," he stammered. "Dem Asburys is no good. Dey promis de kunnel's friends to take care of de kunnel. Dey get pay for it. I promis I'd go see when he wanted something. I go dere tree, four times; dem Asburys won't lef me in. Dey say it's none o' my business. Dey goin' to take care ob de kunnel ! Early dis morning I steal in de house. I went upstair. De poor man had no water. He can't move. I tink dem As- burys steal his food. I ran got some water. Dat room was an awful place. I clar it up a little, den I come for you."
70 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
'' Come with me, Dick !" exclaimed the energetic woman, and in a moment she was literally flying over the ground to the house where Bedell lay. Dick followed as fast as his ancient legs would carry him. She walked into the base- ment without ceremony. "Where is the soldier you are suffering to die in solitude?" she de- manded of the miserable couple, who were still living in that part of the house.
"Oh! he's a Lincoln hireling," said the female Asbury. "We don't care for him. We haven't been near him. Who cares if he does die? He's upstairs somewhere!"
"I am ashamed that you are a woman!" ex- claimed Mrs. Van Metre. "You promised to take care of him and were paid for it. You stole his food and left him and would not let Dick see him ! If he dies you are murderers and ought to be hung!" With this greeting she rushed up to the room where Bedell lay.
"I cannot tell you what I saw or what I said," she afterward explained to the writer. " It was something like this. He lay upon the floor on a straw bed — his eyes sunken and hollow, his great wound where the leg seemed taken off near the hip all exposed, the matter dripping from it. One hand was wrapped in a handkerchief; with the other he was vainly trying to cover himself with an army blanket.
" I was overcome, and instead of going to work
THE UNCONSCIOUS HEROINE. 71
I foolishly asked whether I could do anything for him. The poor fellow burst into tears. 'I hope you will excuse me,' he said. 'I am very weak — I have lost some blood, and it has been lonely here ; and when I saw you I thought of
my wife — and — and '
"'Stop!' I said. 'Speaking only weakens you. I see just how it is!' By this time I was quite myself. There was a pail of fresh water which Dick had brought. I gave him a cupful, which he drank, and a second and a third. I said to Dick, 'Take the horse and go for Dr. Osborne. Tell him I want him just as quick as he can come. ' Then I dropped on the floor by the poor fellow's side, and with a handkerchief dipped in the cool water washed his face, his hands, his exposed wound. He kept crying and begging my pardon and telling how weak he was. 'Cry !' I said. 'I would cry if I were in your place. Why shouldn't you cry? But you must remember one thing — you are not going to be alone any more. I shall see to that. ' So I kept talkingand bath- ing and he crying and thanking me until he seemed quite refreshed. Then I said, 'I do not like to leave you, but I ought to have some things ready when the doctor comes. Are you willing that I should run over to my house and get them?' He said yes quite cheerfully, and I was glad to see that his mind was as clear as mine.
72 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
" I went to my house very quickly. Some intui- tion the clay before had led me to boil a chicken, and I set about making a dish of strong broth before the doctor came. Before it was quite ready Dick rode up to my door. He had brought the doctor in half the time I expected. Dick had been sent to see if I had a syringe ; if not he was to go to Gaylord for the doctor's. I gave him mine and he took it to Dr. Osborne."
She paused; her animated face became very grave. "I quite forgot myself," she said, "in thinking of what happened almost thirty years ago. You must get the rest of the stor}" from some one else. For me to tell it is too much like blowing my own trumpet."
"Madam," I said, "you ought not to decline to give me the rest of this story. I intend to give it to the world, and I would like to have it from your own lips."
"I am afraid you will not understand me, sir," she said. " I am not entitled to the least credit. Any other woman would have done what I did. Why, the poor man's condition was horrible — horrible!" she exclaimed with a shudder.
"I will assent to anything — I will say that black is white if you wish ; but the story — pray go on with the story. You were at the point where the doctor sent for the syringe. Go on and do not stop again!"
" I sent Dick with the syringe. I poured the
THE UNCONSCIOUS HEROINE. 73
broth into a bottle, corked it, and gave it to my niece. I gathered up pieces of linen, two linen sheets, a blanket and a thick comforter, and we both returned to the room where the poor man lay. Dr. Osborne had already removed the offi- cer's coat and vest. He waited while I gave him a cup of the chicken broth. It delighted me to see him drink it and call for more until he had taken the whole. It seemed to put life in him.
" Then the doctor resumed his work, with the assistance of Dick and myself. The details will not interest you. We got him fairly well bathed — his wounds cleansed and in clean bandages. The thick comforter over his straw tick made a softer bed ; we placed him between clean sheets with a blanket over him, and before we had quite Unished he was asleep."
So much of the story of her first interview with Bedell after he was wounded I had from Mrs. Van Metre's own lips. It was interrupted by the en- trance of her husband, whom I then saw for the first time. I was not able afterward to induce her to continue the relation. She could not, she said, talk about herself. I continue the story as I gathered it from other sources.
Bedell continued to sleep so soundly that ordi- nary conversation did not disturb him. Then the doctor called Mrs. Van Metre to account.
"You are a fine Confederate woman," began the doctor. " Here is a Northern invader, a Lin-
74 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
coin hireling, who has come here to roh us of our property and to conquer us, and you are trying to save his life I Why don't you do your duty and leave him to die?"
"Because a good Confederate — Dr. Osborne — is just as much interested as I am in saving his life ; because no true woman could do otherwise than as I am doing. Doctor, let us not have any false pretences between us. When I first came and offered to help him he tried to make me go away ; his condition was unfit to be seen, he said. He was thankful, he said, God alone knew how thankful; but he was jjast all hope. Would I not kindly go away and leave him to die?
"Look at him now," she said as she turned her earnest face toward the man now sleeping so restfully who had been so hopeless only a few hours before. "Are you not repaid already? Can you refuse to help me save his life?"
" Mother Eve was too much for Adam in the first discussion in the garden and you carry too many guns for a country doctor. No! no! God bless your kindly heart, Betty Van Metre ! I can refuse you nothing. Friend or enemy, we will save this man if we can!"
"What do you think are his chances, doctor?"
" I can tell much better when he wakes and I can have some conversation with him. I think he has had great distress of mind. But the manner in which he yielded to your influence
THE UNCONSCIOUS HEROINE. 75
and his present sleep are very hopeful. He may sleep for hours. Let Uncle Dick go for Ginny. She is an excellent nurse and will watch him as well as you can. Then you go home and we will meet here at four o'clock to-day."
Ginny was sent for and placed in charge. Uncle Dick decided to stay with her, ''to keep dem misabul Asburys outen de room." Mrs. Van Metre returned to her own dwelling.
Her restricted larder could still provide a roasted chicken and corn bread made with her own hands for her patient's dinner. She came before the hour. The wounded man was awake, much refreshed by his sleep. But he was still very weak, and when, knowing that he had but one hand, she seated herself on the floor by his bed, carved the chicken, and gave him the deli- cious and tender meat, he was profuse in his apologies for his nervousness, which still found expression in his moistened eyes. He had made an excellent dinner when the doctor arrived.
Mrs. Van Metre left the room during the doc- tor's long examination of the patient. At the end of it the doctor said he preferred to talk with her at her own house. Arrangements were made for Ginny to stay with Bedell during the night, and the doctor and Mrs. Van Metre re- turned to her home.
CHAPTER IX.
THE CONSULTATION — THE COUNTRY DOCTOR — THE DECISION OF THE HEROINE.
" I HAVE had a very satisfactory interview with Lieutenant Bedell, " began the doctor. " His mind is clear and I think I can make a good estimate of his chances."
" When can I remove him to my own house, where he can have proper care?" earnestly asked Mrs. Van Metre.
"My dear madam," replied the doctor, "you anticipate me. I do not know that that time will ever come. This man has been very near to death. But for you he would not be living to- day. I would say nothing to discourage you. Heaven knows, but I have studied his condition thoroughly. I suppose yo.u would like to know just what I think his chances are?"
"Most certainly, doctor. But he seemed so much improved to-night that I hoped he was out of danger."
"Very far from that, I assure you. He has a splendid constitution, which gives me all the hope I have. But he has received wounds which in
76
THE CONSULTATION. 77
the majority of cases would have been fatal. He has been subjected to fearful surgical operations — then just as nature v/as asserting herself they tried to move him and he fainted. They carried him back to that room, and there for four days he has lain deserted, the fever and inflammation increasing by neglect and the consciousness of his condition wearing his life away. It is a miracle, almost, that he did not die. Your com- ing and what you did gave him hope and pro- duced a powerful reaction. But he is very weak. The suppuration of his wounds, now unavoid- able, will make heavy drafts upon his vitality, which I tell you frankly 1 do not believe he can endure. As for moving him now, that is out of the question. He would die before you got him out of the house!"
"Poor fellow! and he has a wife and children! And how brave he is ! and how grateful ! Must he die? Don't give him up, doctor! Is there nothing we can do to save him?"
" My dear madam, I have never felt our pov- erty and destitution as I do to-day. Yes, some- thing might be done for him. If we had stimu- lants and medicines to brace him up and enable him to meet the drafts which his wounds will make upon his system, his superb constitution might pull him through. If we had the quinine and whiskey left by his friends and which have been stolen from his bed, they would do much."
78 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
" CaDnot we buy these stimulants with money?"
^' No. The only stimulant to be had is a quart or so of cider brandy from an illicit still. It burns like nitric acid — it is not as good for our purposes as alcohol. As for quinine, I have not seen an ounce of it in a year."
"But, doctor, don't tell me that it is impos- sible to get what will save such a life! There must be some place where it exists and some way to get it!"
"There is at Harper's Ferry a depot of the Sanitary Commission, where there is an abun- dance of everything we want, but those supplies are for the Federal army, not for us Confederates. They are as safe from you and me as if they were locked behind bolts and bars and guarded by an angel with a flaming sword!"
" Do you say, doctor, that if you had those med- icines from Harper's Ferry you believe you could save the life of that wounded officer?"
"I do most certainly believe I could," said the doctor with an earnestness that was very grave.
His auditor started from her seat. She walked quickly to the window and looked at the setting sun. Then she walked back and stood before the medical man like a statue. There was a ring of determination in her voice which thrilled him.
"Doctor," she said, "prepare me a list of the things you need, and which you think the Sani-
THE DECISION OF THE HEROINE. 79
tary Commission can furnish. To-morrow I shall go to Harper's Ferry and get them!"
The doctor's breath was almost taken away. After a little he managed to exclaim : " My dear woman, what are you thinking about? Have you gone crazy? Don't you know that Harper's Ferry is in the hands of our enemies? You could not get within their lines ! If you could, they would arrest and probably hang you as a spy. Positively it is the most reckless prop- osition I ever heard in my life. I cannot let you do it !"
^'But I must do it, doctor! There is no one else to go. We must have the medicines and I have no choice."
"Why do you take so much interest in this Northern man who has been wounded in battle by our own friends?"
" I am not surprised that you ask, and I do not know that I can answer your question to your satisfaction or, indeed, to my own. He is a wounded, suffering man, with a home far away, and in it are a wife and children. If any woman knowing that and seeing him as I have seen him could do otherwise than I have done, she is not such a woman as I am. Then weeks ago his general placed guards upon and protected my home. From all his brother-officers myself and my little niece have received the most courte- ous and considerate treatment. This officer and
»U AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
others have eaten at my table. I cannot help thinking that I should be doing a good deed if I could help save such a noble man !
"But my strongest reason is yet to be given. You may laugh at me and think me superstitious if you like. But when Dick Eunner first told me that a Union officer was dying in that house, the thought possessed me that if I could help that man, some Northern woman might help my husband. This notion, if you will call it such, absolutely controls me. When I go forward something tells me that I am doing right. When I hold back and ask why I should take any trouble for him, I can almost hear a voice say- ing, ' Betty Van Metre, as you deal with that suf- fering man so shall your husband be dealt with. Nurse him, cure him, do all in your power for him, if you wish ever again to see your hus- band!' I feel, I know that in some way the fate of my husband is bound up with that of this Union officer !
"Am I not doing right, doctor? Here I am alone, inexperienced, and not yet twenty years old. If I am doing wrong you, who have had experience, ought to advise me. I am acting ac- cording to my lights."
" Mrs. Van Metre, you have answered me. I do solemnly believe you are acting the part of a true woman. If you were my daughter I would tell you so. But I cannot advise you to go to
THE DECISION OF THE HEROINE. 81
Harper's Ferry. The turnpike is beset with tramps and guerillas. The prospect of success is too remote, and I believe you will fail."
"I might succeed where a man would fail. I shall go to-morrow morning, so you had better make all your preparations and give me full directions ! "
"I must at least insist on your postponing it another day. I ought to consider you an obsti- nate, wilful child. You will be insulted, morti- fied, probably imprisoned, and you will fail. Yet I shall probably let you go, the man will die, and I shall never see you again !"
"You are not an encouraging adviser, doctor. But I am in the hands of the Almighty. I must trust him and do what seems to be necessary. It will take Peter a day to repair the old wagon, so we have that time for preparation."
She again visited her patient and prepared him for the night. He was cheerful, thankful, but her heart sank when she found how little strength he had. She arranged with the three colored servants to see that he was not again left alone.
The next was a busy day. From her own nearly exhausted larder, the box of crackers, and the milk of a neighbor's cow she provided his food for the next day. He saw that prepara- tions were being made for something and he wished to know what. She made some excuse, which satisfied him. 6
83 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
Successive Confederate and Union invasions of the valley had swept from her farm every horse save one — an old animal, spavined, foundered, worthless for almost every purpose. A long-dis- used wagon had also been left because it would scarcely hold together to be moved away. Uncle Peter, who was a skilful cobbler of wheeled vehi- cles as well as shoes, was directed out of the re- mains to reconstruct a wagon which should with- stand the hard usage of a journey to Harper's Ferry and back, a distance of more than forty miles, over roads which had not been repaired since the beginning of the war and which had been many times furrowed by army wagons and artillery. This work occupied him for the day.
As soon as the doctor called in the morning his patient insisted upon being informed of the prepa- rations going on and what they signified. "I will tell you," said the doctor, "and then I must rely upon your discretion. You must promise not to attempt to dissuade Mrs. Van Metre from what she intends to do. She insists upon making an attempt to procure from Harper's Ferry the stimulants which you must have if you are to recover.
"I think the journey a most dangerous one. I do not think she will be allowed to enter the town. If she gets to the Sanitary depot I do not believe she will be given the articles we need.
THE DECISION OF THE HEROINE. 83
But she is so determiDed that I dare not take the responsibihty of preventing her, nor should you. On the contrary, I think we should encourage and assist her."
Bedell assented; in fact, he was almost too feeble to resist. In the evening Mrs. Van Metre took the control of the sick-room. Ginny, the colored nurse, was to remain with the officer, and in her possession was placed the most nour- ishing food which Mrs. Van Metre's stores could supply. Then they bathed the hands, face, and much of the body of the wounded man, with such a comforting effect that he went to sleep under their hands.
Our heroine very much wanted something from Bedell which would serve her for creden- tials, otherwise the only proof that he was alive and that she was acting for him was her own word. But he was too weak to write or even to give her instructions which would be useful. The army had moved and he did not know that he had an acquaintance in the town.
Under these circumstances she felt at liberty to examine Bedell's clothing to see whether she could not find something that would prove his identity. In one of the pockets of his coat she found a letter ; the stamp of the War Office was upon the envelope. She removed the letter from the envelope and found that its folds adheied together. It had been saturated by his blood.
84 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
Carefully separating one of these folds, she saw that the letter was the official announcement of his last promotion, directed with his full name. She thrust it into her hosom, gave to Ginny her last directions, breathed a prayer for the safety of her patient, and about midnight returned to her own home.
CHAPTER X.
THE FIRST EXPEDITION TO HARPER 'S FERRY.
Early the next morning Mistress Betty took her seat in the rickety vehicle and slowly started her stiffened Rosinante on his twenty -mile jour- ney to Harper's Ferry and return. It could not be said that she handled the ribbons grace- fully, for in her case the cord of a dismantled bedstead replaced the reins. She encountered parties of camp-followers and tramps, but none of them could discover any reward for robbery in her empty conveyance. The road was rough and her progress slow. It was seven long hours after she started before she reached the pickets of the Union post.
To the young officer in command of the picket she told the plain truth. She gave her true name — said she lived in Berryville, that her husband and brothers were in the Confederate army, that she was a Southern woman. She said that near her home in Berryville, in a vacant house, there was an officer of the Union army desperately wounded and about to die for want of nourishing food and stimulating remedies.
85
8G AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
She gave liis name and regiment. She had come, she said, to procure these necessaries from the Sanitary Commission. She had no other errand. She asked to he taken before the general in com- mand of the post without delay, that she might accomplish her errand and return.
It was about this time that smuggling into the Confederacy was at its height. The notorious Belle Boyd had been detected and imprisoned, and many other agents and spies had not only carried medicines and mails, but the Union plans to the Southern leaders. These operations had been the cause of the loss of many lives and much Union property. The greatest strictness now prevailed. No one was permitted to pass the lines without orders from the general command- ing the army in that military department.
The officer of the picket feared that he had one of these spies in petticoats on his hands, and yet, being a gentleman, he could not withhold his confidence from that frank, open face or order a search of her person, to which she volunteered to submit. It was the hour for the relief of his guard, and riding by her side he escorted the singular conveyance and its driver to the quar- ters of General Stevenson, to whom, while she waited without, the young officer told her story. It elicited many oh's and all's and other ex- pressions of incredulity from the experienced veteran.
FIRST EXPEDITION TO HARPER'S FERRY. 87
Then the driver was called into the general's presence and sharply questioned. She repeated her story. She had no other, and there was not a fact or circumstance in it upon which the gen- eral could hang the shadow of a suspicion.
Her bearing was so unassuming, her story so absolutely unexceptionable, that the general was annoyed because he could not take exception to either. He took refuge in fuming and fault-find- ing. "Why can't you women stay at home and attend to your own affairs?" he growled. " I would have much preferred to do so," she said, "but if I had your officer would surely have died." " There it is again !" he said. "They always have some reason on their lips that the devil himself can't answer. Now if this was a man I VI know what to do with him. Probably I would hang him as a spy ! It is easier to deal with fifty men than one soft-spoken woman. Here you, madam! Don't you know that this yarn of yours is the d — dest improbable story ever invented? Excuse me for swearing in the presence of a lady, for you look like a lady and d — n me if I don't be- lieve you are a lady. But why didn't you bring a letter from the officer when you were going on such a dangerous errand where you would inevitably risk your life?"
"The lieutenant was too feeble to write, sir, and bis right hand is all shot to pieces. He would have made the effort if I had asked him.
88 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
but I knew he could not write, and the exertion would have made him weaker I"
"But a woman as bright as you are might have brought some credentials — a button from his coat or something from his pocket. How can I take your unconfirmed story?"
" While he was asleep, sir, I confess I did ex- amine his pockets, and in one of them I found this." Dexterously opening a seam in her skirt, she extracted from it the blood-stained letter, which she handed to the general, who passed it to a member of his staff and directed him to read it. The officer removed the letter from its envelope without glancing at the direction. While sep- arating the adhering folds he saw its beginning.
" Bedell ! Bedell !" exclaimed the officer. " How came you by this, madam? Bedell was in our brigade. He was mortally wounded and died more than a week ago. We had to leave him, poor fellow, and it was a shame that we did so. I know he is dead, for the nurse we left with him came into camp the next day and reported that he died during the night. This letter must have been taken from his body."
" Lieutenant Bedell was not dead this morning at sunrise," she said, and her voice was very tender as she continued : " He would have been in my house, but he was too weak to be moved. I left him in a deserted house near mine in charge of a faithful old colored couple. His hand is shot
FIRST EXPEDITION TO HARPER'S FERRY. 89
and useless ; he has not strength to hold a pen. He will die if I do not get what I came for. I fear he will die before I get home. My own doctor has said so. That is why I came, gentlemen," she continued. " Pray think of one of your wives or daughters on my errand, and for their sakes give me what I came for and let me go. I do not ask for myself, but for your brother-officer, now very near his end. I am trying to save him for his own wife and children. I am afraid if I am much longer delayed I shall not find him alive when I go home."
Her lips and her voice were tremulous as she closed her pathetic appeal. No one answered her. There were eyes in the group that were not dry, and the veteran general seemed to be trying to divert attention from his own emotions by vehemently blowing his nose. Just then, un- announced, another officer entered the room. " I hear there is a lady here whom I want to see," he exclaimed, and rushing forward he strode up to the timid woman and warmly grasped both her hands. "God bless you, Mrs. Van Metre!" he exclaimed. "Why are you here and what can this camp do for you?" Then she recognized in his cordial greeting and earnest look the voice and face of one of the officers who had sat at her table and partaken of the luxuries of her cookery. "Tell me," he repeated, "what any of us can do for you."
90 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
" You can do me a very great favor if you can convince these gentlemen that I am telHng the truth," she said. "I am not here for myself, but for one of your brother-officers. Lieutenant Bedell."
"Poor Bedell I" he responded. "How shame- ful it was that we left him to die. I should have stayed with him at any risk, although he insisted that we should leave him for our duties with the army. But he did not suffer long. The nurse whom we left with him reported that he died the next morning. But pray what can be done for him now?"
" Lieutenant Bedell is not dead, as I have as- sured these gentlemen," said Mrs. Van Metre. "We still hojDe, Dr. Osborne and myself, that we can save him, if I can have the things for which I have come."
" You can have anything that this camp can furnish for such a purpose, but the news is too good. Bedell alive! I could as readily have be- lieved he was raised from the dead," warmly responded the officer. "But what do you want? What have you come for? You shall have it at once!"
The general here interposed, and turning to the messenger asked :
"Are you a Union woman?"
"lam not," she replied. "I am a Southern woman to the last drop of my blood. My hus-
FIRST EXPEDITION TO HARPER'S FERRY. 91
band and brothers are Confederate soldiers and my husband is now in the hands of your people a prisoner of war. I hope and pray that the South may yet be victorious and your Northern army defeated."
"Rebel or not, yon are a brave and I believe you are a good, true woman!" said the general. " But about giving you supplies which may be used to cure some sick Confederate ! we shall have to think about that. What shall we do with her, gentlemen? Her conduct violates all the rules of war. I suppose it is my duty to arrest and imprison her as a spy. I wish she had not come. I fear she will prove an elephant on our hands. How we should be laughed at if we gave her what she wants and the supplies went straight to Mosby's camp! Again I ask, what shall we do with her?"
'' I would like to ask the lady why she takes so much interest in the fate of an enemy?" asked a young officer.
"Dr. Osborne, my physician, asked me that question and I have asked it of myself. I do not know that I can give a satisfactory answer. Lieutenant Bedell and his brother-officers placed guards over my little property — they have all treated me with the courtesy of gentlemen. My husband is a prisoner. I have thought that if I could save the life of this man for his wife and family, the Lord might put it into the heart of
92 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
some Northern woman to be equally kind and helpful to my husband. If these suggestions do not answer you, then I say that I suppose it is because I am a woman and have a woman's heart, and I cannot — Heaven knows I cannot — see such a brave man suffer and die without doing all that I can to save him. If these rea- sons are not sufficient I am sorry — I can only say that I have no other."
" If she is not a trustworthy woman there never was one," said the officer who had previously made her acquaintance. " I would believe her as I would my mother. Then are we not bound to take some risk for Bedell? I vote for furnishing her with everything she wants, and I am ready to take the whole risk!"
''I think, gentlemen, we are all agreed," said the general with the caution of an army officer. "We believe what this lady says. She is work- ing for the life of one of our brother-officers. We will furnish her with all the materials and facilities which will promote her good r^ork. If any one entertains a different opinion, now is his time to express it."
There was no dissension. All set about con- tributing to the work. Every possible attention was shown to Mrs. Van Metre. Even the old horse was refreshed with such a feed as he had not enjoyed since the war began.
Mrs. Van Metre gave them the memorandum
FIRST EXPEDITION TO HARPER'S FERRY. 93
prepared by Dr. Osborne of Bedell's real necessi- ties. To this the surgeons and agents of the Com- mission made liberal additions. The Sanitary and Christian Commissions, the stores and private sup- plies of the officers were drawn upon, and the load as made up severely taxed the strength and ca- pacity of the vehicle. The driver decided that it would be unsafe to undertake the transportation of such a load in the day-time through a region so destitute, infested by so many bands of roving rob- bers, all following their merciless instincts. The supplies were closely packed in boxes and the re- turn postponed until evening, notwithstanding one of the officers very significantly suggested that she would run no risk of attack on her return.
At nightfall she left the camp followed by the God-speed of officers and men, her heart as full of gratitude as her wagon was with medicines and necessaries. The old horse appeared to have renewed his youth and activity. He picked his way cautiously over the rough places, and wher- ever he came to a smoother road, without a word or touch of the whip he bowled along at a pace of six or seven miles an hour.
Her heart sank once on the return journey. She was within two miles of her home when she heard the sound of horses galloping on the road behind her. The old horse increased his paces, but she knew she was being rapidly overtaken.
94 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
They must be her pursuers, she thought — they were guerillas or robbers. It was too much that after all her success she should lose her supplies when so near her home — that her good fortune should desert her and her enterprise come to naught!
Ko ! no ! Thank Heaven ! Separating into two lines, the party swept past her. The leader spoke. She recognized the voice of her acquaintance who had been so kind to her during the day. It was expressed in different language, but it filled her agitated breast with the same feeling which gave strength to the arms and firmness to the hearts of the disciples when, toiling at the oars, they heard through storm and tempest the cheering message, "It is I, be not afraid!" The voice of this leader said, "No guerillas — no robbers will harm you. We are your escort to Berry - ville!"
Her escort waited at the junction of the road leading to her home with the turnpike, and watched her until she reached her own door. As she drove past them they gave her a respectful fusillade of good wishes and kind messages to her patient. She found the doctor waiting for her, much troubled by the delay of her return. The lieutenant was sleeping under the watchful eye of Ginny, but he had been growing weaker during the day. The abundant load of supplies was transferred to Mrs. Van Metre's store-room,
FIRST EXPEDITION TO HARPER'S FERRY. 95
where it was safe under lock and key. But the doctor would not defer the administration of a remedy from which he expected immediate re- sults. He prepared it, and with the fortunate messenger went to the patient's bedside, aroused and administered it to him.
CHAPTER XI.
THE PECULIARITIES OF THE COUNTRY DOCTOR — THE REMOVAL AXD CONCEALMENT UNDER DIF- FICULTIES OF A STALWART ENEMY.
Upon several occasions in my life it has hap- pened to me to be brought into contact with the country doctor. I have met him socially and professionally, and in one instance he has been closely connected with my own family. I have always found him exhibiting the same specific characters. As an interesting species of our race, he deserves some description.
He is, I believe, the most charitable and kind- hearted expression of our humanity. His life is laborious — he belongs to the most arduous and difficult of what are known as the learned profes- sions. He deals with the complex mechanism of life, which is never at rest, is in constant opera- tion, and through our negligence of its demands, exposed to disarrangement and injury. Unless he understands all its delicate functions he is useless, and the knowledge of these functions is only to be acquired by long and patient study. He must be able to detect the diseased parts, not
9a
PECULIARITIES OF THE COUNTRY DOCTOR. 97
by simple inspection, as in the case of other ma- chinery, but by symptoms, deductions, or by what is called diagnosis, and when he has located the defect he must know how it can be repaired. To practise at all and to protect himself against the perils of malpractice, he must attain to a measure of skill only to be acquired by a long and thorough course of training.
When he has acquired the knowledge necessary to his being admitted to his profession, he cannot, like the ordinary mechanic, sit in his shop and have his work brought to him to be done at his leisure, where his tools are ready to his hand. No. Nature cannot wait — pain, her messenger, is imperative. The country doctor must be ready to answer her call at any hour of the day or night. More often than otherwise he will be aroused from his refreshing sleep at midnight — he will have to harness his own horse and in storm and darkness make his way oveif hill and moun- tain to some distant cottage where the patient lies impatiently awaiting his coming.
Is he always adequately rewarded? Does he stipulate for and secure his fee in advance? No! In the majority of cases he performs his service upon a credit which will only mature in another world. It is none the less valuable on that account, for he never stops to inquire whether the patient is able to pay. The city practitioner called from his sleep in the night by a stranger 7
98 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
may coolly refer the messenger to his young part- ner at some number a dozen blocks away and shut the door in his face. The country doctor is never guilty of such unfeeling incivility. He answers the call in person . Wherefore it is that throughout my professional life I have thought and said of the country doctor, " He is the true Samaritan, an honor to his profession and to mankind."
As Adam Smith once wrote of humanity, these country doctors are very much alike — very uni- form. Why did not Dr. Osborne, when he was sent for in great haste by Mrs. Van Metre, stop and inquire whether the patient was not " a Lin- coln hireling"? He was a Confederate, was Dr. Osborne. Politically, he was more interested in killing than in curing the officers of the Northern army. Why at least did he not sto]) and ascer- tain whether the patient would promise to com- pensate him if he recovered and should ever have the pecuniary ability to do so? Why did he come at the first summons, take a deep inter- est in the case, repeat his visits from day to day, and never omit them until Bedell had no further need of him, without so much as one word on the subject of his fees? It was because he was a country doctor !
Dr. Osborne is dead. The writer has recently been among the people in the region where he lived and died. There is no question about the
PECULIARITIES OF THE COUNTRY DOCTOR. 99
esteem in which he was held by that community. When its members answered the writer's in- quiries about him their voices were low, their accents affectionate, their testimony unanimous that he was a good man.
Although the exigencies of war had for a long time deprived his patients of their benefits, Dr. Osborne thoroughly understood the practical use of all modern surgical instruments and of all the medical remedies described in the Pharmacopoeia. He was simply amazed at the success of Mrs. Van Metre's expedition. The agents of the Sanitary and Christian Commissions had not only furnished all the articles mentioned in his written memo- randum, but having obtained from the faithful messenger a description of Bedell's condition, they had added such things as they thought might prove useful in his case. The doctor left the coffee and tea, the canned meats, vegetables, and other food supplies to the administration of Mrs. Van Metre. Those which belonged to his own profession he displayed upon one of her tables. First of all, from the requisite materials he com- pounded the strengthening and stimulating mix- ture which was to be administered every two hours. The draught of the previous evening had arrested the weakening process, and the first ap- plication in the morning appeared to turn the face of his patient in the direction of recovery.
Then how the good doctor did revel in the
4f rK>^/#^_
100 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
pleasures of his profession and thank God for the HberaHty of the Sanitary Commission. For this mountaineer was a man of experience and learn- ing, and he knew the uses of all the medicines and instruments, many of which he had seldom seen during the recent years of war. With a touch of affection he proceeded to remove the coverings and arrange the medicines in order. His heart leaped in his bosom when he came to the instruments. For his brother-surgeons had sent him a very complete assortment of the most modern and approved manufactures, with a grate- ful note requesting his acceptance of them after his patient had been cured. He laid them out, one by one, upon the table, surveyed and rejoiced over them, more pleased than a queen by the presentation of a casket of jewels.
As soon as the patient had begun to feel the strengthening effects of the new remedies, he was visited by the doctor, Mrs. Van Metre, and the colored couple, Dick and Ginny. They trespassed upon the Asburys' fire enough to heat a quan- tity of water. The old dressings of his wounds were softened, removed, and committed to the flames, and new, clean bandages were applied. His entire body was thoroughly bathed. Uncle Dick was a very fair barber. He trimmed the patient's hair and whiskers and even attempted a moderate shampoo. Clean linen was put upon him, the cot bedstead and mattress from the Ferry
REMOVAL AND CONCEALMENT. 101
were set up, and the patient was placed between clean sheets upon them. Even the naked room was made a little more attractive and less desolate.
Bedell bore the fatigue of this change fairly well, and the doctor left him with the hope that if no set-back occurred his removal might be at- tempted within the next three or four days.
The house where the officer lay was a good third of a mile from the Van Metre homestead, where Peter Dennis and near which Dick and Ginny lived. It was not safe to leave the lieu- tenant alone. ''Dem Asburys," as Uncle Dick persisted in calling them, were unsafe neighbors, almost as dangerous as the guerillas and camp- followers. Mrs. Van Metre did not wish to leave her little niece alone in the house, and although the colored neighbors would stay with the wounded man during the night, Mrs. Van Metre experienced considerable difficulty in arranging matters during the day. She finally compromised by going to her patient once in three hours, keeping up his courage by a few minutes of cheer- ful conversation, and then returning home.
But this plan involved much labor and left both places exposed during her temporary ab- sence. She therefore determined as soon as Be- dell's strength would permit that he should be removed to her own home, where he could have cheerful companionship and not be subject to exposure.
102 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
How was this removal to be effected? He was a heavy man, he could not yet stand upon his single leg, he was in the second story of the house, and except her colored servants she had no one to assist her. She called upon Dick Runner to devise some means for his transfer.
"Dick," she said, "the wounded soldier must not be left in that solitary, exposed house any longer. I want him removed to my house. It must be done at once — to-day — and you must find a way to do it."
"Dat's a hard job. Missus Betty! De kunnel can't walk — he mus' be carried. He's berry heavy. I don't see how it's to be done."
" But you must see. It's cruel to have him lie there and suffer when he could be so comfortable with us. We must move him to-day and you must find the way!"
"I'll do the best I can, but you mus' give me time to tink ! You are alius in a drefful hurry, Miss Betty. You kinder scares me." So say- ing he seated himself upon a bowlder, clasped his head with both hands, and was apparently buried deep in reflection.
He did not keep her waiting long. "Miss Betty," he exclaimed, "I's got it — I's got it! But we mus' not move him to-day. Dem As- burys is a-watchin'. They has been four or five tramps hazin' round here and dey specks some- thing. Up in the garret of the mill there is an
REMOVAL AND CONCEALMENT. 103
old stretcher ; dey carried stones and bricks on it. I knows I kin find it. You wait till night, put his mattress an' comforter on it, Ginny an' I will carry one end, Peter an' some other darky will take the other, an' we'll carry him right over to your house!"
She recognized the wisdom of waiting until evening, and Dick was directed to prepare the stretcher and engage the carriers. The only op- position came from Bedell. He would not, he said, helpless hulk that he was, be carried into her house to turn it into a hospital. He was grateful enough to her, Heaven knew, but this was too much. He was beginning to have some hope — he was getting stronger. She must let him fight out the battle where he was, alone.
"Lieutenant," said the determined woman, "you are not going to waste your strength nor my time. I am stronger than you are and my three servants will help me. You are going over to my house to-night, and your objections will not weigh a feather's weight. You are a sick man — you don't know what is best for you. I do ! Here comes Ginny with your coffee and a ration of canned beef. That is good for you be- yond any controversy ! Now be good and obedi- ent and obey your nurse!"
Bedell was silenced. He obeyed. That night the old stretcher was brought, the heavy man was laid upon it, and three colored men and
104 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
Ginny carried him gently down the stairs out under the open sky. It was raining. The Vir- ginia woman protected the Union officer from the rain with her umbrella — the procession moved slowly, though safely, across the fields to her home.
Mrs. Van Metre had asked him whether he had not been refreshed by the sponge -bath given him by Dr. Osborne, and he had responded with great enthusiasm. She thereupon directed Dick and Ginny, in spite of his remonstrances, to repeat the process. After it was completed he was placed in a broad, soft bed in a pleasantly furnished apartment, which he afterward ] earned was the room of his hostess, which she had surrendered for his use. Then she gave him a cooling, quieting draught, prepared by the doctor, which seemed to take away from him all disposition to resist, and he slept.
His hostess was as much relieved from anxiety as himself. He was removed without the knowl- edge of any one but herself and her trusted ser- vants. Tramps and guerillas would scarcely suspect his presence in her own room. She might reasonably hope that he would be permitted to travel the road to convalescence and recovery without interference or interruption. However, his greatest danger lay in the possibility of dis- covery, and to prevent that should be the study of her present life.
CHAPTER XII.
THE DREAM WHICH WAS NOT ALL A DREAM.
The journey to Harper's Ferry, the anxiety and excitement, which were constant until the wounded man was safe under her own roof, would have worn out any one who was not sustained by a strong sense of duty. Mas. Ysn Metre had de- termined to nurse him through that first night in his new quarters and had dismissed her colored assistants to their homes. When she saw how peacefully her patient was sleeping, she experi- enced a strong desire herself for a similar rest. She extinguished all the lights, dropped upon a lounge, threw a shawl over herself, and was soon sleeping as refreshingly as her charge.
Both slept far into the long autumn night. The lieutenant first awoke. His slight movement showed him that his nurse was at her post of duty.
"Do you want anything?" she asked as she started to relight the lamps
"Please do not strike a light," he said. "Leave the room as it is. I wish to tell you something. If I saw your face I might not have
105
106 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
the courage to tell you what I wish to say. Will you kindly sit where I can feel your presence?"
She seated herself by his bedside and took his unwounded hand. She waited some time in si- lence and then asked :
''What was it that you wished to say?"
"Mrs. Van Metre," he said in a low but very firm voice, "I have seen your husband to night."
She was startled. She thought he had sud- denly been stricken with insanity. "How did you know that I had a husband?" she asked.
"I do not know unless I dreamed it," he said, and again relapsed into silence.
"Tell me the story," she said. "There is no one to hear it but ourselves."
"It was a dream," he said. "I know it was a dream. There is no truth in dreams. It is absurd to tell them, yet this one was fearfully real. You will not think me light-headed or that I have lost my senses?"
"Indeed I will not. You excite my curiosity. I should much like to hear it. I am curious to learn how you came to know about my husband. These dreams have sometimes proved prophetic."
" If I shall not earn your contempt I will tell you the whole story. I fear my sleep has weak- ened me, and I may never be stronger."
"Tell it in 3'our own way. We can discuss it afterward."
"This was the way of it. I was in that horri-
THE DREAM WHICH WAS NOT A DREAM. 107
ble room where you found me and I was dying of thirst and starvation. What I wanted more than anything else was to write my name, regi- ment, the date of my death, and the place where I was to be buried. I wanted my wife and friends to know where I lay. It appeared that I had already suffered all that mortal man could suifer and live. With great pains I had found a pencil and a piece of board upon which I was trying to write my name. The Asburys had been watch- ing me with hungry eyes. They seized the board and tore it from me. In the struggle I lost con- sciousness.
"Then I was restored far enough to know that some one gave me a refreshing drink. In an instant I was another being — all my pains, cares, anxieties had vanished. I was as light as air. By a gentle spring with my one limb I could ascend indefinitely — to the heavens if I wished. I was supremely happy. I pitied those who were tied down to this dull, senseless earth. Distance was nothing to me. A wish transported me any- where I chose to go. I wanted to see my home. By a graceful series of ascents and descents, like travelling over a rolling country, I was there. My children were hanging on my neck, my wife was embracing me and sa3;ing: 'It was cruel of you, Henry, not to write us for all these long weeks when we were mourning you as dead, and then come upon us so suddenly. Your own colonel
108 AN UXKXOWX HEROINE.
reported you as mortally wounded and then as dead, and we never expected to see you again. '
'* 'I have been wounded and very near to death, ' I said. 'Do you not see that it is only a part of your husband who has come back to you? But for a woman as good and true as yourself I should have died as awful a death as you could imagine, and you never would have known where I was buried.' Then I told her all about you — how energetic and kind you had been, and how you had saved my life when you were in great trouble yourself. I told her of your anxiety about your husband, who was a prisoner if he was alive, and that you sometimes feared he was not living, and that I owed you such a debt of gratitude that I ought to find your husband and get him released if he was in prison, for you had saved me and given me back to her. *God bless her !' exclaimed my wife. *Our children shall be taught to love her and I will never make a prayer that does not invoke blessings on her head.' Then we went into our children's room, and I heard them talk- ing in their sleep of their father.
" My wife was suddenly startled. I had tried already to call her attention to my crippled con- dition, but her mind was so full of joy that she did not notice what I said. Xow she saw my defect. 'Why, Henry, ' she exclaimed, * you have lost a part of yourself I'
"'You were too proud of the strength and
THE DREAIvI WHICH WAS NOT A DREAM. 109
activity of your husband. So was I. It was necessary that our pride should have a fall. I have lost my leg, but as I said before I have gained the friendship of a woman who is as noble and good and kind as yourself. Could I say more of any woman?'
"Just here comes in the remarkable part of my dream, You must think me foolish for re- lating it to you. But it did seem so real I''
"Indeed, you misjudge me," said his auditor. "Your strange vision interests me. Perhaps I will tell you how deeply when you have finished. I should be sorry if you did not give me the whole of the story."
"My dear wife whispered in my ear that she feared I had been ungrateful. 'I am strangely drawn toward that woman,' she said. 'Think how great a debt we owe her! What is her name ? Where did you leave her ? Is she happy ? She cannot possibly be contented not knowing the fate of her husband. It would be hard for us to part with you again, but we would do it for you to go back to her and help her find her husband. '
" 'You recall me to my duty,' I said. 'I do not know why I left her. She is in trouble. Nothing but the sorrow that strains the heart to the point of breaking could have impressed the sadness which was in her face when I last saw it. I deserve to be punished for leaving her. I have
110 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
been ungrateful. I will go back to her and do what I can to repair my error. '
"I remember that my wife stood before me, and I thought I never saw a woman with a more noble expression upon her face. 'Henry,' she said, 'I have been' very proud of you. But if you can rest until you have either aided that woman to find her husband or to ascertain that he is no longer living, you are not the man I married — you are no husband of mine ! '
"Then, as if a curtain had been let down from the sky before me, I seemed to be shut out from my wife and my home. Next, by one of those mysterious changes which I cannot even try to explain, I was in a camp of many thousand Con- federate prisoners — soldiers of the Southern army. There was a long building of one story over which floated a hospital flag. Near it, shaded by large trees, were tents in which very sick men lay. In one of them there was only a single patient. He lay upon a cot, to which he had just been brought. He was dreadfully emaci- ated. His head had just been shaved, his body had been washed, and as he lay upon his back, his hollow cheeks, sunken eyes, and ashen face showed that he had been a great sufferer, proba- bly from a long fever. He could only speak in whispers. An old gray-haired general with a benignant face, a lady young enough to be his daughter, a surgeon, and an old colored man
THE DREAM WHICH WAS NOT A DREAM. Ill
stood around the sick man. The lady had turned her face away from the sufferer ; her breast was swelling with emotion and her gentle eyes were filled with tears.
"In a corner of the tent stood another person. He had a fawning, treacherous, hang-dog look. I have no words adequate to describe the villa- nous meanness of his appearance or expression. A soldier stood beside him who appeared to be his guard.
'"What do you make of his case, doctor?' I heard the general ask.
'" It is a case of brain fever complicated with the most inexcusable negligence and I fear with violence. Look at his wrists — they carry the marks of manacles which have worn away the skin. '
" 'He was very violent, sir. He was dangerous. He tried to kill me. We had to restrain him or he would have killed us all, ' whined the wretch who stood by the soldier.
"'Silence, you villain I Not another word from your lying lips ! ' said the general, with a most righteous ring to his voice. Then I saw that the man addressed was a rat-mouthed, ferret-eyed caitiff in the dress of a nurse or hos- pital attendant. He seemed crushed by the words of the general.
'"Can you save the poor man's life?' asked the general of the surgeon.
113 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
a r
I do not know — I cannot answer now. His case is very doubtful. The fever is still upon him. We have been very gentle in our treat- ment of him. If he does not sink under it I shall have some hope. It was most fortunate that your daughter found him this morning. Another access of his fever would inevitably have been fatal. '
"'Was it not cruel to shave his head in that manner? Why was it necessary, doctor?' in- quired the sweet voice of the lady.
'"The answer is scarcely fitting for a lady's ear,' replied the surgeon. 'It was not only nec- essary, it was indispensable. He would other- wise have been devoured by vermin!'
"'He wouldn't let me do anything. He wouldn't take anything from me,' began the wretch.
"'I tell you silence!' thundered the general. He called in a sergeant and a file of men. 'Take that man, ' he said, pointing to the miserable crea- ture who had just spoken, 'to the guard-house. Put him in irons. Give him bread and water only. If this poor prisoner dies his life shall pay the forfeit, if I take it with my own hands. '
"Then the sufferer on the cot made an effort to speak. We could all hear him, for there was no sound to break the silence but the sighs of the compassionate woman. 'Will some one write to my wife in the valley,' he said, 'and tell her
THE DREAM WHICH WAS NOT A DREAM. 113
where I am? I know that my letters have been suppressed. She has not heard from me for many weeks. She must think I am dead !'
" 'What is the name and post-office address of your wife?' asked the general.
" ^ Her name is Betty Van Metre and she lives in Berry ville, in the valley,' said the sick man.
"I had hitherto said not a word. But when I heard your name and knew that the patient was your husband I could not restrain myself. ' What is the name of this place?' I asked. 'Gentlemen, I know this man's wife. Tell me the name of this place, and she shall be here as quick as steam and the railroad can bring her. I owe my hfe to Mrs. Van Metre'.'
" All except the lady stared at me as if I was an impertinent intruder. The general demanded by what right I thrust myself into their councils in a matter which did not concern me.
"I tried to remonstrate. I told them that if they knew how much I owed to you they would not stand upon ceremony. I said, 'For the sake of that poor sick man, for mine — as you hope for blessings here and for mercy hereafter, tell me the name of this place, and I will thank you on my knees.' "
"Did you learn the name of the place?"
"Alas! no. The earnestness of my appeal — my intense anxiety awoke me. The vision passed and I heard your voice almost at my side." 8
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"Are you quite certain that the man who lay upon the cot gave my name?"
"As certain as that I now hear your voice."
" Would you recognize the face of the sick man if you saw it in a picture?"
"I think so — I have no douht I should."
Mrs. Van Metre controlled her feelings more perfectly than the wounded officer. " I heard in May last," she said, "that my hushand had been captured a second time near Spottsylvania Court House. Up to that time he had been a faithful correspondent. Since then I have heard nothing from him. I cannot understand his silence. I think I should have died of grief if I had not kept my mind employed. Your vision, as you call it, at least suggests the chance that he may be alive. I had almost lost hope in these days of weary suspense and waiting."
" Your husband is alive. He is in good hands now, although he has been a sufferer from some treachery. You will see him again. 1 wanted to live before for my country, children, and my wife. I have now another reason, for if I live I will find your husband and give him back to you !"
Mrs. Van Metre now drew the curtains, for the sun was already reddening the crest of the east- ern Blue Ridge. She took from a drawer a pho- tograph album containing a number of por- traits. She held it before his eyes and began to turn the leaves. At the second portrait he said :
THE DREAM WHICH WAS NOT A DREAM. 115
'' Stop ! That is the face of the man I saw last night on the cot in the hospital tent. He was not stalwart and vigorous as he appears here, but it is the same face, worn and wasted by fever and exposure."
"That picture," said Mrs. Van Metre, "is the last photograph of my husband."
There was silence in the room during the long morning twilight while the darkness of the night was slowly changing to the bright light of day. "I am sincerely grateful for your interest," she said, "but you are excited now, and in your weak condition excitement is dangerous. It is very singular that the events of the last few days should have so multiplied your chances of re- covery and so filled my heart with confidence and hope. It is said that dreams are only base- less imaginations. That may be true. Neverthe- less yours has been very comforting, a healing balm for at least one wounded heart. A very great and good man, troubled as we have been, had his life changed by a supernatural revelation. Standing before a great king, he declared that 'he was not disobedient to the heavenly vision. ' It will make me stronger, a more hopeful wife, and a more earnest woman to believe that my husband lives and that through you I may yet see his face. "
CHAPTEE XIII.
THE BATTLE OF OPEQUAX OR WINCHESTER — THE PROGRESS OF THE WOUNDED OFFICER — THE SKILL AND ENTERPRISE OF HIS HOSTESS.
Hopeless, in his desolate room, waiting for death. Bedell had heard the guns of Sheridan's first great battle in the valley. It was fought on the IDth of September. The Unionists call it the battle of the Opequan ; the Confederates, with more propriety, the battle of Winchester. No part of the battle was fought upon the river ; the heaviest fighting was within sight of the spires of Winchester.
Although bedell had no knowledge of it at the time, Getty's division of the Sixth Corps, to which the Vermont brigade was attached, with the First Division under the gallant Russell, on the 18th of September was again encamped for the night at Claremont, near the deserted house where he lay. In the early morning, before the army moved. General Russell had presented to Colonel Luke, the owner of Claremont, his favorite mare. She had been wounded, and her master left her, under Colonel Luke's promise that she should be 'll6
THE BATTLE OF OPEQUAN OR WINCHESTER. 117
cured and cared for. "A few hours afterward," said Colonel Luke to the writer, "her brave owner lay dead upon the field, but the descend- ants of his favorite mare have ever since been celebrated as the best-tempered and most admi- rable horses ever bred in the valley." Had the officers of the Vermont brigade known that Bedell was living and where he was, he would have had many friendly visitors.
The main body of the Union army struck the road from Berryville to Winchester, followed it about five miles, and crossed the river at the ford. They followed the road through a wooded ravine called Ash Run, the scene of much bloody bush- whacking, for about two miles, constantly ex- pecting to meet the enemy. As they filed ovit of the ravine into the open country, on a hill to the northward of the road they saw Sheridan with his staff and knew that the battle was to be fought under his eye and command. With a cheer Getty's division formed its line of battle across the road, its left, held by the Vermonters, resting upon Abraham Creek, a stream running nearly parallel to the road to its mouth just south of the Opequan ford. Other divisions formed on their right, extending far north of the road, the Sixth Vermont being sent forward as skirmishers. The line being thus formed, the advance commenced.
The main body of the Confederate army was at
118 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
Stephenson's Depot, on the railroad about five miles north of Winchester. General Early and his staff were on a hill north of the Berryville road and within a mile of Winchester. As soon- as he discovered the Union line, he sent aid after aid to hasten his army. In order to give the cavalry under Crook, Averill, and Merritt time to get into their desired position, the Sixth Corps was halted for two or three anxious hours and stood apparently waiting while Early's army was coming up. Ramseur and Gordon's divisions of the Confederate army arrived, crossed the road, and confronted the extreme left of the Union line. Fitzhugh Lee's artillery took its position in a wood north of the Berryville road.
The Union advance then commenced. It was over a rolling country in which there were some woods and very deep ravines. It is not our pur- pose to describe this advance. It is enough to say that it was not only against a fierce fire directly in front, but Lee's artillery from the wood north of the road enfiladed the Union line as it slowly moved forward. The slaughter was terrible, but nothing could arrest the steady for- ward movement of the Sixth Corps. They were fighting under the eye of Sheridan. They knew that they had not been held back, that they were not subjected to that murderous fire without a purpose. So they moved steadily forward down into the ravines, up their rocky sides, with ranks
THE BATTLE OF OPEQUAN OR WINCHESTER. 110
thinning at every step, until they had forced the enemy back to within a mile of Winchester.
There had been checks in this advance — once or twice the line had been broken and a part of it had been forced back. But it was re-formed and finally General Wright put all his reserves into the battle. The Sixth and the Nineteenth Corps now moved on, driving the enemy, captur- ing many prisoners, and finally overcoming every- thing in its front and clearing its part of the battle-field.
Now the result of Sheridan's combinations be- gan to be apparent. Crook's cavalry, together with that of Averill and Merritt, had made a long detour to the northward and had finally got into position. Then it was that Sheridan rode along the whole line of battle of the Sixth Corps, in the midst of the storm of bullets, shouting as he passed each brigade, '' Crook and Averill are on their left and rear, and by Heaven we've got them bagged !"
A member of General Early's staff who stood with the writer on a slight elevation just north of the Berry ville road, almost thirty years after- ward, gave the Confederate view of the closing moments of the battle. "From the top of this hill," he said, ''General Early had given his orders during the day. From this hill aid after aid had been sent to hurry forward the troops from Stephenson's Depot, and yonder," pointing
120 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
to an elevation on the east side of the road, " is where Gordon and Kamseur first formed their line. From yonder wood Fitz Lee enfiladed the Union lines with his artillery, inflicting heavy losses upon them. Farther east in another wood was a Federal battery. They fired upon us uniil they got our range, and their shells came so close that we had to retire to the west side of the hill. All through the long day our lines had stood firm and unbroken. We had begun to hope that they could not be broken by the Federal force. But suddenly over yonder hill, far beyond our left and in our rear, came a large body of cavalry. Before it our lines seemed to melt away and sink into the earth. It was a heart-sickening specta- cle to us. The cavalry moved on at a slow gallop, but the disappearance of our line moved with greater speed. It was not checked until it reached Eamseur's division, on our extreme right. That division retired, without breaking, around the easterly side of Winchester into the pike beyond. The remainder of our army, broken and disor- ganized, fled through the streets of the old town, pursued and many of them captured by your cavalry. The pursuit was continued to Kerns- town, three miles beyond. There, after sunset, Eamseur made a stand and gave his pursuers a volley. They inferred that we had been met by a reinforcement and the pursuit was over." The result of the battle of Winchester and that
THE BATTLE OF OPEQUAN OR WINCHESTER. 121
of Fisher's Hill, only two days later, turned the route of the Union army away from Berryville, and the Confederates being still farther south, this part of Clarke County was left to the rule of the strongest. Camp-followers, bounty-jump- ers, and tramps of the lowest species swarmed over the region like an Egyptian plague. How that solitary woman managed to suppress the fact that a Union soldier was recovering from his wounds in her house must always remain a mys- tery. Except that it was very slow, there was nothing very unusual in Bedell's progress toward convalescence, but many days elapsed before he could move about the room with improvised crutches on his remaining leg. Seldom did a day pass when Mrs. Van Metre's house was not visited by one or more of the wandering vaga- bonds. Bedell was in her own room. She took good care to let every lawless visitor know that it was her room, and those who had any decency kept out of it. But if they insisted upon enter- ing it, she was not at the end of her resources. There was a door into a dark room in the mill. Sometimes the patient was bundled into that room. Sometimes she boldly threw open the door and told them to enter and insult the privacy of an undefended woman if they would. They had never yet done so, for they were too cowardly to brave her indignation.
The patient did not suffer now for want of the
122 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
best nursing. Dick and Ginny his wife and Peter Dennis had faithful hearts under their black skins, and the attention of Dr. Osborne was unremitting. He was now suppHed with strengthening food and proper medicines. The journey to Harper's Ferry was made once every week. The old horse improved in his strength and paces, and his appearance on the road had become so common that it ceased to attract the attention of those who lived along the turnpike.
But the cautious woman did not relax her vigilance. She knew that except those who were exempted from the draft by age, the men who remained at home were equally destitute of honor and humanity. It would be a congenial work for one of these miscreants to inform the criminals living in their mountain dens of her journey and of the time of her return with her supplies, and thus furnish them with an opportunity to rob a woman. Once only was she interfered with in this manner. It was not unusual for these wretches to lie in wait for the traveller. Ash Run and other ravines had become so noto- rious that no one passed them except under the protection of a guard. An accomplice in the town had informed one of these parties of her journeys to Harper s Ferry and her return with supplies. The fact that she was a woman, which would have secured her immunity from every decent thief, was onlv an additional inducement
PROGRESS OF THE WOUNDED OFFICER. 123
for these rascals, because they could rob a woman with less risk than a man. There were four of them who on one occasion lay in wait for her. It was in a wood through which the turnpike passed, nearly a mile from the nearest house. But they had not counted upon any resistance. Her escort was a factor neglected in their prepa- rations. They had halted the old horse. They had dismounted, left their horses in the wood, and now two on each side of the wagon were en- deavoring to persuade the driver to ransom her horse and wagon by a peaceful surrender of the contents of the latter. There was a sudden rush- ing sound like the coming of a furious storm; there was a gleam of steel in the moonlight — the sickening sound of cutting edges upon living flesh, and when the storm had swept past, the four thieves lay wounded upon the roadside. Their wounds were not mortal, but they were desper- ately painful and effectually disabled every one of the robbers. The old horse jogged onward to his destination, and the attack upon his driver was never renewed.
There was only one ground of suspicion, on the part of the agents of the Sanitary Commission at Harper's Ferry, of the good faith of Mrs. Van Metre's weekly requisition. It was the extraor- dinary quantity of whiskey required for the con- sumption of the invalid. Her explanation, how- ever, was very satisfactory. There were a number
124 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
of old men in the neighborhood not included in the drastic terms of the Confederate draft. It was impossible to conceal from these patriarchs the fact that a Confederate woman was nursing a wounded Union officer who was attended by the country doctor. But every one of them was amenable to the seductive influence of good whiskey, which some of them had not tasted since the beginning of the war. The promise of the weekly ration secured the silence of every one of these venerable gossips, and under the in- fluence of such a beverage as they had not tasted since the peaceful ante-bellum days they were easily convinced that such a shattered wreck as the lieutenant could not greatly imperil the Confederacy. The use of old Bourbon for these diplomatic purposes was recognized as a political necessity ; the secret was kept, and the draft of Mrs. Van Metre was good for anything contained in the Sanitary treasury.
The strength of the wounded officer soon re- turned to such an extent that he was able to dictate a letter, which his willing amanuensis committed to paper: and it was not the less precious to her who received it because of the illegible scrawl which stood for his name, the best he could make with his stump of a hand. It was duly directed and on one of Mrs. A'an Metre's journeys ]X)sted. In due time she carried back to her patient a bulky letter in a beloved handwrit-
PROGRESS OF THE WOUNDED OFFICER. 125
ing, postmarked among the Green Mountains. She opened it, handed its sheets successively to her patient, and listened while he read. The tender confidences between husband and wife under such circumstances are not for the eye of the puhhc. The letter told of the health, comfort, and hope of his wife and children — his happiness was so supreme that for a moment his nurse forgot her own sorrow and her triumph was complete.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE BATTLE-FIELDS OF WINCHESTER — THE SEARCH FOR A FORGOTTEN GRAVE — AX ACT TO BE HONORED BY BRAVE SOLDIERS AND EMULATED BY TRUE WOMEN.
The spires of the old town of Winchester have overlooked some tragic scenes. The visitor of to-day will find a quiet city of moderate size pre- senting no features of general interest, in which men buy and sell and get gain much the same as in other peaceful communities. But in one of its shaded suburbs there is a cemetery in which rest over five thousand Confederate dead. Many graves have neat white marble slabs upon which are inscribed the names and regiments of each silent tenant. And there is one very noble monument. On its base is recorded the fact that beneath it are buried over eight hundred and seventy unidentified soldiers of the Confederacy. This city of the dead is not neglected. It is in- closed within an artistic fence of iron, the gift of Charles Broadway Rouss, a former citizen of Winchester.
Adjoining it on the north side is the Union
126
THE BATTLE-FIELDS OF WINCHESTER. 127
cemetery with its more than five thousand dead. Here too is a noble monument to more than twenty-seven hundred unidentified Union soldiers. This greater number of the unknown is said to be due to the fact that the Union forces were stran- gers from the North, while many of the Confeder- ates were residents of the valley.
These ten thousand lives were the harvest of death in the battle-fields of two campaigns in this immediate vicinity. How sad the story which these two monuments tell I Every one of these soldiers had a home — many of them wives and children, mourners for their dear ones, long awaited but never to return. Yet this abundant harvest of death was from small battle-fields compared with Antietam, Gettysburg, or the Wilderness, each of which was more fruitful in the casualties of war.
How many acts of heroism worthy of historical record were performed within sight of old Win- chester! Here, just east of the turnpike which leads to Martinsburg, was the bloody battle of July 20th, 1863, when the Union forces coming from Stephenson met the Confederate army, and after a desperate fight forced it back through the city and then held both city and field. There was hard and weary work for the Federal sur- geons, with their own and their enemy's wounded. When on that moonlit night the women of W^in- chester came out as volunteer nurses, they were
128 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
glad to receive them and gave them enough to do. It was under yonder great oak that Miss Tillie Eussell found the frightfully wounded boy, his chest deluged with his blood, his face pale, his body writhing in an agony of pain all the more intense from his constrained position. She raised his head from the ground into her lap and supported it by her arm. The movement gave instant relief to his pain and he fell asleep. But when she sought to change her position his agony returned. She called a surgeon and explained the situation. " His sleep may save his life, " said the surgeon. "It is the only thing that will." She made no farther complaint. She was willing to suffer to save him. Through the long hours of the dreary night she sat motionless holding the boy's head in her arms. Her friends had returned to the town. She was alone among the dead — her arm was almost broken by the weight upon it. But there she sat while the boy slept all through the dreary hours of night until the morning. And his life was saved — he is to-day an honored citizen of the valley. The heroine deserves some better recognition than she has hitherto received. Fourteen months later, from this hill General Early hurried up the divisions of Eodes and Gordon from Stephenson to meet the Union lines formed from Abraham's Creek across the Berry- ville road, and on yonder field they faced each other during that long September day. On our
THE BATTLE-FIELDS OF WINCHESTER. 129
left is the wood from which Fitzhugh Lee's ar- tillery so long enfiladed the Union lines. Far on the right is Dinkle's barn in front of Ramseur's division, where the Union General David A. Eussell led the charge and lost his life. Almost in our front is Hackwood, where an aid of General Early was delivering an order to another general, who fell dead while the order was being read. But there is neither time nor space here to de- scribe the heroic deeds witnessed on this battle- field. It was dotted with Confederate and Union dead at the close of the battle, and the slain of both armies were buried where they fell.
" We fought Early from daylight until six or seven o'clock and drove him from Opequan Creek to and beyond Winchester." Such was the dis- patch sent in the evening of September 19th by General Sheridan to General Stephenson at Har- per's Ferry. With so much material the tempta- tion is strong to describe the part of the Vermont brigade in this fierce conflict ; but such an account does not fall naturally within our scope, which is only to give an idea of the area and extent of the field.
The battle of Winchester was followed by that of Fisher's Hill, on the 21st of September. A part of the Union army then passed nearly a month in traversing other sections of the valley. It went up the valley as far as Mount Crawford, a few miles beyond Staunton, and thence down 9
130 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
the valley through Harrisonburg to the vicinity of Front Eoyal ; then by a rapid march through Newtown and Middletown it rejoined Sheridan near Martinsburg, where the whole force re- mained until shortly before the 19th of October. During this time the army of General Early was kept south of the Union forces.
By following these movements on the map, it will be seen that for a month after the battle of Winchester there was no Union or Confederate force in the vicinity of Berryville, if the small body of irregular cavalry under Mosby is excepted. Mosby had, as he claimed by way of retaliation, executed Union soldiers, because he said that Custer had hung some of his men, claiming that they were not a part of the Confederate army. Mosby did not otherwise violate the laws of war.
This month was the harvest of the bush- whackers and bounty- jumpers in Clarke County. They came down from the mountains, where they carried on their single industry of illicit distilla- tion, and robbed the dwellings of the living and the graves of the dead. No road was safe from them. Ash Run and other ravines were the scenes of daily assassination.
Notwithstanding these perils of the road, Mrs. Van Metre did not omit her weekly trips to Har- per's Ferry. Upon one of them she learned that one of the Union officers who had protected her property and eaten at her table had fallen in the
THE BATTLE-FIELDS OP WINCHESTER. 131
battle of Winchester. He had earned her grati- tude by gentle and courteous treatment, and now when she heard that he lay in a nameless grave on the field where he had fallen, she instantly resolved that his resting-place should no longer be forgotten and unknown if she could find and place a stone over it. The search would be diffi- cult ; no one knew the pit or ditch where he lay, and there was even a discouraging rumor that his body had been robbed of his uniform and buried without any indication of his rank or name.
Except Dick Runner and Peter Dennis, whose color permitted them to be humane, she had no one to assist her in her care for her patient. She must therefore take up the search for the officer's grave alone or aided only by one of these colored men, while the other was left in charge of the house. She took Dick Eunner into her confi- dence. The next day and for several subsequent days she left her home, with the old horse and rickety wagon, in the early morning, and did not return until evening. She was sad and weary, but not discouraged. What was she doing? The answer should be inscribed in letters of gold on a monument more lasting than granite. For this young Virginia matron, hearing the burden of her own sorrow, nursing a wounded man back to life, still found the time and energy to search all over that broad battle-field, day after day, for
1^2 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
the grave of a comparative stranger. The search was long — many would have abandoned it. But Heaven would not permit such energy to fail of success. After many days she found the grave she sought. A board had been driven into the earth at its head on which she was just able to de- cipher the name of her casual acquaintance. But the inscription was almost obliterated. A few more storms and it would have been illegible, and the officer would have slept forever among the unknown dead.
What she saw would have repelled and turned away any man or woman whose heart was not brave and true. The thin covering of earth which had been hastily thrown over the uncoffined body had been washed away by the rains of autumn ; the limbs and portions of the brave man's body were already exposed, for the dogs to gnaw, the carrion birds to peck at, and the foxes to mangle. Willingly did Dick Runner, in tender memory of ^'de young genTman," guard his body through the night and until his watch was relieved next day. At her own cost, out of her slender purse she paid for a decent coffin, hired two laborers to disinter the remains, to place them in the coffin, remove them to Winchester, and there, with the silent prayer of at least one mourner, to inter them in the Union cemetery. She placed a suitable stone at their head for their permanent identification.
THE BATTLE-FIELDS OF WINCHESTER. 133
Such conduct cannot fail to receive the com- mendation of all right-minded men and good women. The account is imperfect unless the final result or Mrs. Van Metre's reward is given. I will state it in the words of Colonel Walker in his " Vermont Brigade in the Shenandoah Valley, " published in 1869:
''Then she addressed a letter to his friends^ giving them the information which she possessed, and they subsequently recovered the remains, thanking God and their unknown benefactor." It is to be fervently hoped that they did not fail to acknowledge and reward her heroic conduct as she deserved.
CHAPTER XV.
A SIDE VIEW OF THE BATTLE OF CEDAR CREEK,
The wounded lieutenant by the middle of October was on the high-road to recovery. The f"/thful service of the country doctor, supplies from Harper's Ferry, and careful nursing were doing their efficient work. The longest pair of crutches which the stores of the Sanitary Com- mission could furnish were ingeniously length- ened by Peter Dennis, and enabled Bedell to de- monstrate that the loss of his leg had not dej^rived him of the power of locomotion. He was inclined to test it by more frequent exercise in the open air than was consistent with his personal safety. The tramp-thieves were more numerous than ever. They infested the region and had entered Mrs. Van Metre's house a dozen times a day. To exclude them would excite their suspicions and their cupidity, and they were too powerful to be resisted. They were given free access to every room in the house: nothing apparently was concealed from them, and they were finally satisfied to desist from despoiling a lonely woman
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THE BATTLE OF CEDAR CREEK. 135
who had nothing useful to them of which she might be robbed. How she evaded their vigi- lance and allayed their suspicions is simply in- explicable.
Bedell now began to suffer from another want. Almost six weeks had passed since he was wounded. He had no clothing except that which was on his person when he fell. His nurse had managed to provide him with some undergar- ments much too small for him, and Ginny had dis- played great ingenuity in washing and changing them while he slept. But now that he wanted to dress himself and take more exercise in the open air, he felt intensely the want of a complete change of clothing which was not saturated with his blood. His natural habits of cleanliness intensi- fied this desire, and made him almost reckless in his determination to have a new suit of undress uniform or its substitute.
Again with excellent judgment his preserver considered the situation, decided that he must have his change of clothing, and that the duty of providing it was cast upon herself. About twenty miles up the valley, where Cedar Creek winds around the base of "Three Top " and Masanutten Mountains, was the present camp of Sheridan's army. With it were supposed to be the baggage- wagons of the Vermont brigade. In the wagon of the Eleventh Vermont was the lieutenant's portmanteau, or, as it was commonly called, his
136 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
"gripsack," which contained a complete change of clothing and many other articles of which he felt the want. He was now becoming strong, he was an adept in the art of concealing himself, and the three colored persons were perfectly trust- worthy. There was no reason why she could not as safely leave him for a trip to Cedar Creek as for one of her w-eekly journeys to Harper's Ferry. The distance was no greater, and she could go and return with the "gripsack" in a single day.
By practice the lieutenant w^as able to write with his left hand a brief letter or order to the colonel or the quartermaster of his regiment for the delivery of his clothing to the bearer, and to sign it with his name. It was his first commu- nication to his regiment since his fall, and the letter also explained the change in his handwrit- ing and the reason of his absence. Provided with this authority, Mrs. Van Metre again pro- visioned her patient against her temporary ab- sence; the old horse was harnessed to the old w^agon, wiiich seemed to grow stronger with use, and this time accompanied by Nannie Koontz, her young niece, the brave woman at early dawn started for the camp at Cedar Creek, not less than twenty miles away.
She reached the camp without misadventure. The officer of the picket took her directly to the headquarters of General Getty, who commanded the division of the Sixth Corps to which the Ver-
THE BATTLE OF CEDAR CREEK. 137
mont brigade was attached. To him she de- Hvered her letter and explained her errand. With the speed of the wind the rumor reached the regiment that a messenger had arrived from Bedell and that he was still living. Men and officers of the Eleventh hurried to headquarters and, when the rumor was confirmed, demanded to see the bearer of the welcome news. Without any hesitation she came out from the general's tent, and to the crowd that gathered around her modestly told her extraordinary story — how and where she found Bedell, his neglected condition, his danger, and his improvement. Then she ex- plained her errand and invoked their assistance in procuring the clothing for which she had come. How she impressed the Yermonters may be gath- ered from the account written by their Colonel Walker at the time :
'' Our feelings of wonder and admiration were most intense as we learned from her simple story that our favorite who was dead was alive again, and felt how much true heroism her modest words concealed. She had plainly totally aban- doned herself for weeks to the care of a suffering enemy, and yet she did not seem to realize that she deserved any credit for so doing or that every woman would not have done as much. " In short, she captured the affectionate interest of the whole Vermont brigade.
The afternoon was drawing on before they
138 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
would release her from the last of their inquiries. Then they had to give her the disappointing in- telligence that the baggage-wagon of the Eleventh Vermont, of which she was in search, was still at Winchester. But they would not permit her to think of returning to her home that day.
They loaded her with the hearty attentions of the camp and made many preparations for her return journey. The old horse was well cared for; a tent was prepared with two beds for her- self and niece to occupy, and everything was done to enable them to pass the night in comfort and security.
^'Here again," she said to the writer long afterward, with the simplicity of a child, "it seemed as if the Lord directed me. The beds were tempting, we were both weary, but I would not permit my niece to remove her clothing nor did 1 remove any part of my own. Dressed as we were, we lay upon our cots and fell into a re- freshing sleep. Just before dawn I was awak- ened by the incessant howling of a dog. I was dreadfully annoyed and wondered why some one did not put a stop to that disagreeable noise. I am sorry to say that I wished that dog was dead. But his howling continued, and as we could neither of us sleep we arose, performed our ablu- tions, put on our hats, and waited for daylight.
"Suddenly there was a shot — another — and then the irregular dropping fire which I knew
THE BATTLE OF CEDAR CREEK. 13-9
too well was that of a skirmish-line ! Then the curtain of the tent was drawn away and a voice said, 'Dress and get ready as soon as you can!' At the same moment there was the crash of mus- ket-firing only a short distance away. 'We are ready noiv,^ I said. The side of the tent was drawn away and there stood our horse ready harnessed to our wagon. An officer helped us into it. He said to an orderly, 'Take this horse by the bit, go by a road' (which he described) 'as rapidly as you can. It will bring you into the Winchester pike. Follow it — stay with these ladies until you know that they are out of dan- ger. These are General Getty's orders — there is an attack along our w^hole line! Now go!' Even as he spoke the sound of the shots almost drowned his voice and the shells from a battery of artillery began to form their curves over our heads."
Mrs. Van Metre had heard the opening guns of the battle of Cedar Creek, of the 19th of Octo- ber. Defeated at Winchester, crushed again at Fisher's Hill, the indomitable veterans of Stone- wall Jackson's corps had retreated up the valley, gathered in their stragglers, received some rein- forcement, and now had turned upon and attacked their pursuers. Sheridan had been summoned to Washington for consultation, and on this morn- ing of October 19th was at Winchester. Some criticism has been expended upon him for leaving
140 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
his army subject to such an attack, especially as a signal to General Early had been taken from the Confederate station on Three Top Mountain, coming from Longstreet, saying, "Be ready to move as soon as my forces join you, and we will crush Sheridan." If such a signal was sent, Sheridan was right in disregarding it, for the writer is assured by Major More, of Early's staff, that none of Longstreet 's force joined Early in the valley, and none of them were present in the battle of Cedar Creek. It may as well be con- ceded, for it is certainly true, that this battle was a remarkable instance of a defeated army recovering itself and with slight reinforcements turning upon and surprising its victorious enemy. No soldier would have anticipated such an at- tack, which would have been successful had not the plunder of the camp proved too tempting for the hungry men by whom it was captured.
Mrs. Van Metre had left behind her all the noise and confusion of a surprise.
" And there was mounting in hot haste ; the steed, The mustering squadron and the clattering car, Went pouring forward with impetuous speed, And swiftly forming in the ranks of war !"
The sounds of battle were not new to her. Without obstruction, by a circuitous route which took her outside all the camps, she reached the turnpike and was able to plan her future move- ments.
THE BATTLE OF CEDAR CREEK. lil
What was she to do? She was on the high- road to Winchester. From the sound of the firing over so broad an area in her rear, she in- ferred that the attack was made along the whole line of the Union army. If that army was de- feated, the turnpike would be its line of retreat and would be crowded with fugitives. She was familiar with the dangers and terrors of a retreat. If she became involved in a herd of panic-stricken fugitives, army wagons, and ambulances, escape would be almost impossible. If the attack failed and Early's army was driven up the valley, the road would be crowded with reinforcements hur- rying in his pursuit. She could leave the turnpike and by taking any one of the cross-roads on her right, get outside the crowd and reach her home. But then she would not accomplish the object of her journey. The clothing of her patient was in the baggage-wagon of his regiment at Winches- ter, to which the turnpike led. To Winchester she resolved to go, unless prevented by obstacles which she could not overcome.
The orderly sent to protect her promptly de- cided not to neglect the opportunity of escape afforded by her conveyance. He took the reins and the driver's seat and forced the old horse over the rough road at a speed which threatened at every step to wreck the old wagon. It was fortunate that he did so, for Eamseur, Gordon, and Pegram's division of the Confederate army
142 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
had struck a division of Crook's corps and Kitching's division so heavily that they were swept away Hke leaves before a storm. The veterans of these divisions were for the moment a terror-stricken mob, that filled the turnpike, carried away the Eighth Vermont under brave Colonel Thomas, placed across the pike to arrest their flight, and apparently led the army in a mad race for Winchester.
As the morning drew on Mrs. Van Metre knew that the battle had become a defeat. Louder and louder swelled the roar of cannon, the rattle of musketry, and the din of the conflict behind her. Once or twice the pursuit seemed to be checked for a moment, then to be resumed with the rush of a furious storm. All over the south- ern horizon rose the black smoke of battle ; now it seemed stationary — now to be coming nearer. Her new driver, in spite of her remonstrances, lashed the crippled horse into a mad gallop which could not long endure, in his effort to keep in ad- vance of the oncoming crowd of fugitives. But it was useless: the pursuit was too vigorous. She was overtaken, surrounded, overwhelmed by horsemen, men on foot, yelling drivers of army wagons, from which escape now seemed impos- sible.
Here fortunately she was relieved of the driver. He had dashed the conveyance over obstructions which sorely tested its strength, and a repetition
THE BATTLE OF CEDAR CREEK. 143
of such experience would wreck it. He now saw some better means of escape and promptly de- serted the woman he was ordered to protect. She took up the rems, and by watching her op- portunity turned out of the road and the crowd and made her way more slowly across the fields.
About ten o'clock, as she supposed, there was a change. The sounds of the battle no longer seemed to advance. The smoke cleared away, the rattle of musketry was less continuous, the stream of fugitives diminished, the crowd passed on and left the turnpike almost clear. Had the retreat stopped — the pursuit been checked? She determined to take all the chances. If it had, she might still reach Winchester and accomplish the object of her journey. The turnpike was unobstructed, and she turned into it again.
The moment when she came to this conclusion was synchronous with another event which de- serves mention. The Sixth Corps, which at the first attack had formed in line of battle and, as other divisions had been overwhelmed, had fallen back about four miles, preserving its forma- tion, had now reached the limits of its retreat. Wright, as brave a soldier as ever fought, was in command. He threw his corps square across the pike, and the Nineteenth Corps formed in its rear. It became a rock against which the waves of retreat dashed in vain. Early's whole army
from a commanding eminence in front opened 10
144 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
upon it with musketry and artillery. They pounded Eicketts' division for half an hour, and finding that they made no impression, turned to the more agreeable work of plundering the Union camps. Sheridan had good warrant for saying in his report in substance that the Sixth Corps was the "only infantry that confronted the enemy from the first attack in the morning until the battle was decided."
The crowd of fugitives had disappeared. The turnpike was clear. There was not a man, an army wagon, or a vehicle upon it. Suddenly coming over the next ascent appeared a moving body. In the advance was a horse, apparently without a rider. He was followed by a small number of mounted men. All were moving with great speed, but the horse in front seemed to be gaining on the others. They rushed along the pike with the speed of the wind. As they came nearer to her, she discovered that the foremost horse had a rider, but he lay so close along the shoulders and neck of the animal that he seemed a part of him. The head of the horse projected in a line with his neck, the rider clinging to it as if he would reduce the resistance of the air to the minimum. The uniform rise and fall of the bodies of horse and rider, as regular as a pendulum, the effort of both to forereach to the last possible inch with every bound, was the perfection of horsemanshij), an ideal exhibition of muscular
THE BATTLE OF CEDAR CREEK. 145
action. The rider was a short and rather a heavy man who knew that his horse was doing his best. For his heels, armed with sharp spurs, were turned outward, as if he scorned to touch his steed with their points, and his reins lay loose upon his horse's neck. The nostrils of the ani- mal expanded with every respiration, and the white foam from them flecked his flanks or spotted the uniform of his rider. Never were horse and his master more thoroughly agreed. The stride was gigantic. The speed could not have been increased if the fate of a nation had depended upon it. Mrs. Van Metre turned her wagon aside from the travelled part of the road to allow the cavalcade to pass. With open mouth and powerful respiration, the steed showed that he was doing his best. His companions used every exertion to equal his pace. But he was rapidly gaining and opening the space be- tween them. As they swept by the woman and her stationary vehicle and rapidly passed from her sight, she knew that the battle was on and that Sheridan was not many miles away !
The noble animal with his invaluable burden had not much farther to go. Only two miles farther to the south, a brigade of Custer's cavalry had now been thrown across the pike to intercept the advance of the enemy. Just in their rear General Getty's division of the Sixth Corps was posted across and at right angles to the turnpike. 10
146 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
It was a perfect dam to the current of flee- ing men. On their right Taylor's battery opened upon their pursuers. With the check, confidence returned, and the fugitives again sought the position of their several commands. The Sixth Corps, Taylor's battery, and Torbert's cavalry were already in position — the tide of re- treat had been turned when the black steed and his rider came into their view, attended with a mighty tempest of cheers. He swept along the line to the position of General Wright. He saw at a glance that the chief of the fighting Sixth had already turned the tide of defeat and the faces of his men in the opposite direction. " I am glad to see you here, general!" was the roldierly greeting of General Wright. "By Heaven ! I am glad to be here !" was the emphatic reply of the man who was now to pluck victory from the very jaws of defeat.
The remainder of the battle of Cedar Creek was upon a field far in the rear of the emissary of the wounded officer. Her way to Winchester was now unobstructed. How many men would have been brave enough to follow it, with one of the great battles of the century raging in his rear, which might at any moment again overwhelm him in the desperate confusion of a retreat, when by a simple change of course he might in a short time be outside the danger-line? This woman thought only of her errand, which was to re-
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THE BATTLE OF CEDAR CREEK. 149
lieve the discomforts of her patient. If she turned to the right or left her mission failed. She therefore kept straight on, and without meet- ing with any farther actual obstruction, about one o'clock she reached Winchester.
In some way, never clearly explained to her, she found that her errand had been anticipated. Outside the town on the turnpike she was met by a soldier who wished to know whether she was not in search of the baggage of the Eleventh Vermont Regiment. She admitted the fact. "Then come with me," he said, and took her at once to the quartermaster of the Vermont bri- gade. Here her story was accepted without ob- 'jection or question.
They would have kept her at Winchester over night, for the few Vermont boys whom she found there admired her simple, unostentatious energy. But in her quiet way she said that Bedell would be anxious about her — he would fear that she had been involved in the great battle which had been fought, and of which she did not then know the issue. She thought it would be better if the boys would assist her in getting the change of clothing for their brother-officer, and then let her go to him and relieve his anxiety.
To such good sense and excellent judgment the boys had no objection to make. They procured the "gripsack" of the lieutenant, containing his new uniform. Then they had a caucus, in which the
150 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
agent of the Sanitary Commission took an active part. A committee of this caucus decided upon the probable necessities of Bedell under the cir- cumstances. The package was made up (omit- ting nothing), and after a good feed for the old horse and an excellent lunch for the driver and her niece, the cavalcade was ready to start for Berry ville. The conveyance was more liberally freighted than upon any previous occasion from Harper's Ferry. She had not only secured the desired change of clothing, but a liberal supply of the linen and underclothing which was so nec- essary to the comfort of the convalescing officer.
To the casual reader of history this exposure by a young and inexperienced woman to the actual dangers of battle may appear incredible. One would suppose that, terror-stricken by the actual peril to life, she would seek every opportu- nity to escape and to place herself outside its dangers. But it is one of the merciful compen- sations of war that it suppresses personal fear, and that those who are within the range of its ter- rible missiles accept the situation as a necessity.
I cannot better illustrate the fearlessness of this woman in accomplishing her object on the day when she knew a great battle was being fought, which might at any moment overwhelm her, than by an account of an incident which I myself saw, and for the accuracy of which I am willing to be held responsible.
THE BATTLE OF CEDAR CREEK. 151
When General Early attempted to capture Washington by a surprise in July, 1861, it was necessary to connect the forts by which it was de- fended by earthworks. Forts Stevens and Reno, on either side of the extension of Seventh Street, w^ere connected by a ditch and corresponding earthworks. In their construction it became necessary to destroy several small dwellings and to remove their occupants with their household goods. One of these dwellings was occupied by a colored family, another by an immigrant from the Emerald Isle, both having large families of children. Their furniture was removed into the street or highway on the crest of the hill, just where it was supposed the attacking force would attempt to enter the city. The officer in com- mand, aware that they would be under fire, urged the heads of these families to retire to a less ex- posed position under the hill, where he offered to carry their household goods. They would not consent. In the afternoon the attack was made. Shells were sent screaming over the place and the air was humming with the sound of minie-balls. Singularly enough the two families appeared to fraternize. The children were playing, the mothers attempting to cook their food by an open fire in the middle of the street, while the masters of the two households, extended on the ground, contentedly smoked their pipes as unconcerned as if the missiles of death which filled the air above
152 AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
them had been the notes of innocent singing- birds. Neither of these families could be induced to withdraw to a place of safety, because if they did they might become separated from and lose their little household furniture. There they re- mained while the fierce cannonading hurled its missiles above their heads, and I believe ulti- mately escaped all injury.
Some insensit)ility to danger of this kind must have protected this brave woman on that fearful day. From the early morning when she left the camp at Cedar Creek until nightfall when the cavalry of Custer had driven the attacking army up the valley toward Strasburg, there was not an hour — no, not a moment — when she was not within ear-shot of the roar and the dangers of a great battle which might at any moment over- take and overwhelm her. Yet she kept straight on, turning neither to the right nor the left, not for one moment losing sight of the object of her journey.
At Winchester she accomplished it, and in the early evening reached her home in Berryville, where she found her patient delighted with her success, which so much contributed to his com- fort, but more disposed to render thanks to the Almighty for her protection and deliverance from the perils of the day.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE TERRIBLE HARVEST OF WAR — THE PREPA- RATION FOR THE ESCAPE OF THE WOUNDED OFFICER.
The conduct of General Sheridan in destroying the mihtary value of the region in his last cam- paign, and his burning of dwelling-houses in some instances, have been severely criticised and have presented an interesting subject of inquiry, some of the results of which will be here given.
General Sheridan was ordered to act under the instructions given by Lieutenant-General Grant to General Hunter on the 4th of August, 1864, by which he was directed to "take all provisions, forage, and stock wanted for the use of your command. Such as cannot be consumed, destroy. It is not desirable that dwellings should be de- stroyed, they should rather be protected, but the people should be informed that so long as an enemy can subsist among them, recurrences of these raids must be expected, and we are deter- mined to stop them at all hazards."
When Sheridan left the valley for the last time, he reports that he "commenced moving back, stretching the cavalry across the valley,
153
154: AN UNKNOWN HEROINE.
from the Blue Ridge to the eastern slope of the Alleghanies, with directions to burn all forage and drive off all the stock, etc., as they moved to the rear, fully coinciding in the views and instructions of the lieutenant-general, that the valley should be made a barren waste. The most positive orders were given, however, not to burn dwellings."
He declares that "the whole country from the Blue Eidge to the North Mountain has been made untenantable for a rebel army. I have destroyed over two thousand barns filled with wheat and hay and farming implements ; over seventy mills filled with flour and wheat ; have driven in front of the army over four thousand head of stock, and have killed and issued to the troops not less than three thousand sheep."
He sometimes exceeded his instructions as to burning dwellings, of which he gives the follow- ing instance: "Lieutenant John R. Meigs, my engineer officer, was murdered beyond Harrison- burg, near Dayton. For this atrocious act, all the houses within m\ area of five miles were burned. Since I came into the valley from Har- per's Ferry, every train, every small party, and every straggler has been bushwhacked by the people, many of whom have protection papers from commanders who have been hitherto in the valley."
It would be extremely satisfactory if all the
THE TERRIBLE HARVEST OF WAR. 155
murders in the valley could be fastened upon the vagabonds who recognized no lawful authority. But the evidence is conclusive