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Lincoln Conscript

<h2>CHAPTER XI THE GREAT TRAGEDY</h2> But Bob Bannister was not killed at Five Forks, nor did he die of his wounds. A fragment of a bursting shell had struck his head, torn loose the scalp, laid bare the skull, felled him with a crash, and left him insensible for hours. He did not know when he was carried from the field; but, later on, he realized that he was being jolted over rough roads, that somewhere there was a great pain of which he was dimly conscious, and that now and then a cup of water was placed most refreshingly to his parched lips. When he did come fully to himself it was the day after the battle, and he was in the army hospital at City Point, one of the hundreds of occupants of the long rows of cots that lined the walls. His head was swathed in bandages, a blinding pain shot back and forth across[239] his eyes, and in his mouth was still that insatiable thirst. On the cot beside him lay his father, who had also been ordered by the field surgeon to the hospital at City Point. Those minié balls made ugly wounds, as thousands of veterans of both armies can testify, and Rhett Bannister certainly needed surgical skill and careful nursing. But the surgeon who sent him to City Point, and who knew and loved both him and his son, had a deeper thought in mind. That wound of Bob’s, under certain conditions, might suddenly lead to something very grave, and—well, it was a good idea for the boy to have his father at his side. But, for stalwart manhood and clean and vigorous youth, wounds yield readily to proper treatment, and, before many days had passed, both father and son were well on the road to recovery. Then, one morning, a strange thing happened, and, to Bob Bannister, as he thought of it in after years, the most beautiful thing that ever entered into his life. Into the far,[240] south door of the hospital tent, accompanied only by a member of his staff and an assistant surgeon, came Abraham Lincoln. A whisper ran down the rows of cots that the President was there, and every man who could do so, rose to his feet, or sat up in bed, and saluted as “Father Abraham” passed by. At many a cot he stopped to give greeting to maimed and helpless veterans of the war, to speak words of encouragement to the sick and wounded boys who had fought and suffered that the common cause might triumph, to bend over the prostrate form of some poor wreck tossed up from the awful whirlpool of battle. Soldiers who lived never forgot the benediction of his presence that beautiful day, and more than one fell into his last sleep with the vision of the fatherly and sympathetic face of the beloved President before his dim and closing eyes. They came to the ward where lay the sick and wounded Southern prisoners. “You won’t want to go in there, Mr.[241] President,” said the young surgeon who was escorting him, “those are only rebels in there.” The President turned and laid his large hand gently on the shoulder of his escort, and looked serenely and earnestly into his eyes. “You mean,” he said, “that they are Confederates. I want to see them.” And so, into the Confederate wards he went, greeting every sufferer as he passed, asking after their wants, bringing to all of them good cheer and hopefulness and helpfulness as he passed by. One boy of seventeen said to him:— “My father knew you, Mr. Lincoln, before the war. He was killed at Chantilly. He said to me once: ‘Whatever happens, don’t you ever believe Abraham Lincoln guilty of harshness or cruelty.’ I am so glad to have told you that, Mr. Lincoln, before I die.” And Lincoln, as he pushed back the damp hair from the boy’s forehead, and inquired[242] the father’s name, and saw the death pallor already stealing into the young face, said:— “Thank you, my son. If I know my own heart, there has never been harshness or cruelty in it; there is no malice or bitterness in it to-day. I sympathize with you. I sympathize with all of you—” he lifted his head and looked around on the rapt faces turned toward him—“the more because your cause is a lost cause, because you are suffering also the bitterness of defeat. And yet I feel that, under God, this very defeat will prove the salvation of your beloved South.” And so he passed on. When he came to the cot where Rhett Bannister was lying, he gave him a word of simple greeting and would have gone by had not something in the man’s face attracted his attention and caused him to stop. “Have I ever seen you before?” he inquired. “Yes, Mr. President. I am Rhett Bannister from Pennsylvania. I spent a half-hour[243] with you one morning in the Secretary’s room in the War Department, in the fall of ’63. I was an escaped conscript that morning.” A smile of recognition lit up the face of the President, and his gnarled hand grasped the hand of the wounded man. “I remember,” he said. “I remember very well. And have you been in the service ever since?” Some one across the aisle, who had heard the conversation, replied that time for Bannister. “Yes, Mr. President, he has. And he’s been the bravest and the best soldier in the ranks, bar none. I’m the adjutant of his battalion, and I know.” “Good!” exclaimed the President. “Oh, that’s very good. I felt that we’d make a good soldier of him in the end. And, let’s see! There was a boy whose place you took. The boy went home.” “No, Mr. President, he wouldn’t go, so we both stayed.” [244] “The boy wouldn’t go home? What became of him?” “He’s here, Mr. President, on the next cot. We were both clipped at Five Forks.” The President turned half round and looked incredulously on the pale face of the youth at his side. Then he took the boy’s two hands in both of his, and bent over him. There was no grace in the movement, there was no beauty of face or smoothness of diction to add charm to the incident; but Bob Bannister will remember to his last hour on earth how the great War President leaned over him and spoke. “My boy, of such stuff are patriots and heroes made.” Then, glancing at the wall where Bob’s frayed and dusty coat hung at the head of his cot, with the shoulder-straps of a first lieutenant half showing, he said, inquiringly:— “That coat’s not yours?” “It is mine, Mr. President.” [245] Lincoln looked down again at the boyish face beneath him. “It’s hard to believe,” he said. And then the adjutant across the aisle spoke up for the second time. “It’s quite true, Mr. President. And he has splendidly earned every step of his promotion.” Still holding the boy’s hands and looking down into his face, the President said:— “I thank you, my son. In the name of the country for which you have fought and suffered, I thank you.” After a moment he added:— “And, let me see, there was a mother back there in Pennsylvania, wasn’t there? How’s the mother?” “Very well, Mr. Lincoln, and waiting patiently for us.” “Well, you’re going home to her very soon now. The mothers are going to have their reward. The war is almost over now, my boy—it’s almost over, Bannister. Peace is coming, next week maybe, next month for[246] sure. And the peace that’s coming was well worth fighting for. I tell you the mothers have not agonized in vain, the dead have not died for naught.” There were tears in his eyes as he spoke. He never could quite get over his pity for the mothers whose boys had died in the conflict, nor his sorrow over the unnumbered lives lost in the maelstrom of war. These things lay, always, a mighty burden on his heart. He lived with them by day and he dreamed of them at night. But now that there were to be no more battles, no more agonies, no more dead faces turned upward to the sky, a thankfulness such as no other life has ever known filled his soul and suffused his countenance. Rhett Bannister, who had seen him in the dark days of ’63, and who had ever since been haunted by the inexpressible sadness of his face, noted at once how that face had been transfigured. Not that it bore evidence now of pride or exultation, or a selfish joy in victories achieved, but rather that it shone with a[247] great gladness because the sufferings and the hardships and the heart-agonies of a whole nation were so near their end. After a little he loosed one of Bob’s hands and took one of Bannister’s. “Good-by, boys!” he said, “and health to you, and a happy home-going. Some day you’ll come to Washington. Come in and see me. I’ll be waiting for you. Good-by!” He passed down the aisle, tall, loose-jointed, with ill-fitting clothes and awkward mien; but to those two wounded soldiers on their cots it seemed that a more beautiful presence than his had never passed their way. Wounds heal rapidly when light hearts and clean living add their measure of assistance to the surgeon’s skill. And so it came about that both Bannister and his son were discharged from the hospital a week later. With the surgeon’s certificates in their pockets, they were ready to start toward the North, toward home, toward the sweetest,[248] most life-giving spot in all the world. They would not need to come back, they knew that, for the war was practically over. Richmond had fallen, Lee had surrendered, Johnston’s army would soon be in the hands of Sherman, there was no more fighting to be done. So they went on board a transport one day, and rode down the James and up the Potomac to Washington. It was early in the evening when they reached the city, and after a good meal and a refreshing rest they went out on the streets for a short stroll before retiring. They were to leave Washington on an early train the next morning, and they thought to get a glimpse of it this night in its holiday attire, as it might be many years before either of them would come that way again. It was a beautiful spring night. The air was soft, and heavy with the scent of blossoming lilacs. The night before, the city had been splendidly illuminated in honor of the recent victories and the dawn of peace, and to-night the rejoicings were[249] still going on. The crowds that filled the streets were happy, high-spirited, exultant. Oh, but it was a different city from the one through which Bob Bannister went, on his way to war, in the fall of ’63! Then gloom, anxiety, was on the face of every person who went hurrying by; despondency in the slow gait of every loiterer on the streets. And over the head of the Chief Magistrate hung ever the horror of blood, on his heart weighed ever the apprehension of unforeseen disaster. But to-night, how different! Some one who had seen the President that day said he had not been so happy, so contented, so tender and serene, since he had been in Washington. His son Captain Robert Lincoln had come up from the South and spent the morning with him. Some friends from the West had occupied his joyful attention for a brief time in the afternoon. All who saw him that day never afterward forgot the peaceful and gentle serenity of his face. He had said to the members of his Cabinet at their meeting[250] that morning, that, on his part, there was no feeling of hate or vindictiveness toward any person of the South. That, so far as he could control it, now that the war was over, there should be no persecution, no more bloody work of any kind. That resentment must give way and be extinguished, and harmony and union must prevail. As Bannister and his son walked through the gay crowds on the streets that night, they heard people say that the President and Mrs. Lincoln had gone with a small party to see the play, “Our American Cousin,” at Ford’s Theatre on Tenth Street. It was a time for relaxation and pleasure, and the President wanted the people to feel that he rejoiced with them. When the play should be over, there would be a crowd waiting at the door of the play-house to see the Chief Magistrate come out and enter his carriage, and to show their admiration and love for him by cheers and huzzas and the waving of hats and handkerchiefs. The theatre was not far away, and[251] Bannister and Bob thought to go there and take part in the demonstration. F Street, along which they were walking, was almost deserted. The crowds had gravitated down into E Street and beyond, and were thronging Pennsylvania Avenue. Bob looked at his watch,—the boys of his company had sent it to him as a memento before he left the hospital,—and saw that it was nearly half-past ten. “I think we’ll have to hurry a little, father,” he said, “the play must be nearly over now.” So they quickened their steps. Between Tenth and Eleventh Streets, as they hurried along, a strange thing happened. As they passed the mouth of an alley leading to the centre of the block, toward E Street, their attention was attracted by an unusual noise proceeding from the depths of the passageway. Some one down there was shouting and cursing. Then there was a clatter of horse’s hoofs on the cobblestone pavement; around the corner of a building,[252] and into the light of the dim lamp hung at the foot of the alley, clanging up the passage and dashing out into the street, came a man on horseback. He was hatless, wild-eyed, terrible in countenance and mien. In one hand he held his horse’s rein, in the other he grasped a dagger, shining in the moonlight at the hilt, stained with blood on the blade. Heading his horse to the north, bending forward in his saddle, his long, dark hair flying out behind him, he went, in a mad gallop, up the half-deserted street, and, before the astonished onlookers had fairly caught breath, he had vanished into the night. A half-dozen men, strolling along in that vicinity, turned and gazed after the flying horseman, and then all, with one accord, involuntarily started in the direction he had taken. At the corner of Tenth Street, as they looked down toward Ford’s Theatre, they saw that there was some confusion there. Men were running toward the play-house, other men were pushing their passage from its doorway. There were[253] shouts which Bannister and his son could not understand, but they, with the others, ran down toward the centre of the disturbance. Before they were able to reach the front of the theatre, the cry came, loud and clear, so that all could hear it:— “Lincoln has been shot!” And again:— “The President has been killed!” One man, white-faced, bareheaded, rushed from the doorway of the theatre crying:— “Stop the assassin! Stop him! It was Wilkes Booth. Don’t let him get away!” But those who had seen the flying horseman disappear down the long moonlit vista of F Street, knew that the assassin had already made his escape. Men and women, with horror-stricken faces, were now pouring from the entrance to the play-house. The street was filling up with a jostling, questioning, gesticulating crowd. “How did it happen?”—“Who did it?”—“Why was it done?”—“Where[254] is the murderer?”—“Catch him!”—“Hang him!” Men demanded information, and action as well. Two soldiers in full uniform, with side-arms, hurled themselves out into the roadway, through the crowd, and up toward F Street. Some one called a boy and told him to run to the White House as though his life were the forfeit for delay, and tell Robert Lincoln to come. And then, suddenly, a hush fell upon the crowd. It was known that they were bringing the President down. The space about the doorway was cleared, and out into the lamplight came men bearing the long, limp body of Abraham Lincoln. At the sidewalk they hesitated and stopped. What should they do with him? There was no carriage there. And if there had been, it was too long and rough a journey to the White House to take a dying man. Diagonally across the street, on the high front porch of a plain three-story dwelling-house, a young man stood. He had come from[255] his bed-chamber to learn the cause of the disturbance, and seeing the limp body of the President brought from the door of the theatre, and that the bearers were in doubt as to what they should do, he called out across the street, over the heads of the multitude:— “Bring him in here! Bring him in here!” And the men who were carrying the body, having no plan of their own, knowing nothing better to do, bore their unconscious burden across the way, up the steep and winding stairs to the porch, through the modest doorway and down the narrow hall into a small plain sleeping-room at the end, and laid the President of the United States on a bed where a soldier of the ranks, home on furlough, had slept for many nights. And it was there that the President died. Not in the White House with its stately halls and ornate rooms, not where his labor had been done and his cares had weighed him down, not where his hours of anguish[256] had been spent and his tears of pity had been shed; but here, in this humble home, like the homes he had loved and lived in before the nation called him for its chief, it was here, in the gray of the next morning, that he died. And Stanton, his great War Secretary, standing at his bedside when the last breath left the mortal body, Stanton who had known him for many years, who had in turn denounced him, ridiculed him, criticised him, honored him, and loved him, turned in that moment to the awe-stricken onlookers at the last scene and said: “Now he is with the ages.” Among those lining the pathway across the street along which the President’s body was borne, dripping blood as it passed, stood Rhett Bannister and his son. For one moment, as the moonlight fell on the gray face, already stamped with the seal of death, they saw him. His long arms hung loosely at his sides, his eyes were closed, his countenance showed no mark[257] of suffering, save that some one, holding his wounded head, had inadvertently smeared his cheek with blood. They never forgot that sight. They never could forget it. Many and many a time, in the stillness of midnight, in the light and noise of noonday, no matter where or when, the vision of that face they both had known and loved, with its closed eyes and tangled hair, and with the blood-splash on the cheek, came back to them, with its never-ending shock and sorrow. After the President’s body had passed, and the crowd closed in again, and men took second thought and began to realize the horror of the hour, and to rave against the assassin, and those who might have influenced him, and while women, pale-faced and unbonneted, wept and wrung their hands, the soldiers came and cleared the theatre, and drove the people from the street; and thenceforward, until the dead body of the Chief Magistrate had been borne from the humble house where he[258] died, no one without authority was permitted to pass that way. Rhett Bannister and Bob were pushed and crowded back with the rest up into F Street, along which they had been quietly strolling a half-hour earlier, and there, exhausted from the shock of the tragedy, grief-stricken as they had never been before, they sat down on the street curb to rest. And, even as they sat there, men came running by calling out that Secretary of State Seward had been stabbed in his bed, and that every member of the Cabinet had been marked for murder. “Father,” said Bob, when he found his voice to speak, “what does it all mean?” “I don’t know, Robert, except that the most inhuman and uncalled-for crime that ever marred the centuries has been committed this night.” “Father, I can’t go home. While such things as these are still possible I wouldn’t dare go home, there’s more work for us to do yet in the army. I am going back to-morrow[259] morning to join my regiment in Virginia.” “You are right, my son, and I will go back with you.” And they went. <hr class="chap" /> [260] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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