Slike strani
PDF
ePub

the first success since the battle of Bull Run. The country hailed it as the first sign of the rejuvenation and reorganization of the army. The rebel "army of Western Kentucky" has never been heard of since that disastrous day; and Crittenden, its commander, sank at once into disgrace and oblivion as a consequence of his defeat.

name he is still called more frequently than by victory was complete, and doubly welcome as any other. His slow gait and quiet dignified style of traveling gained him the title of "Old Slow-trot." "Uncle George," and "George H." are often used by the men in facetious hours, and the titles always linger on the tongues of the soldiers like sweet morsels. "Corinthian Thomas" is a name which has been given him since his late victory at Nashville.. And though these titles are used by the men with an air and in a tone indicating familiarity with their leader, none of them ever knew him to sacrifice, in his communication with them, his dignity in the slightest degree. They have no difficulty in reaching his ear. They always find a patient listener and a sound adviser, and a kindly mannered and pleasant director. He never laughs and jokes with soldiers or officers, but his mild voice and quiet manner win him more of the love of his men than any momentary familiarity could do. He has been known to halt in the march and spend ten or fifteen minutes in directing stragglers to their commands.

The present war has been the school of many of our best officers, and dearly has the country paid in its best blood the tuition of some. Bull Run was the price which the country paid for having its erroneous idea of war violently corrected. The failure of the first assault on Vicksburg and of the attack on Kenesaw Mountain were fearful prices paid to correct certain errors of judgment in Sherman's mind. We paid for M'Clellan's violation of a well known rule of war in placing the Chickahominy between his battalions. Numerous similar instances might be named, showing how the country has been compelled to pay terrible penalties of blood for the ignorance of unworthy and incompetent leaders; but enough. Thomas's training in the art of war has cost the country not a single disaster or sacrifice. On the contrary, he has saved the country, on more than one occasion, the fearful penalty it was about to pay for the ignorance of other leaders. He has been prominent in three grand campaigns. Two of them he has conducted on his own plans and in person. In the other he acted as second in command. The two which he planned and conducted were complete successes; and the other, as far as he was concerned, a magnificent triumph. His first campaign in the war for the Union was that against the fortified camp of Zollicoffer at Mill Springs, Kentucky. His plan embraced an assault upon the rebel works; but before he could get into position to do this the enemy marched out of his works and attacked him in his camp, failing in an attempt to surprise him. The rebels failed also in the battle which ensued, and were terribly defeated, with heavy loss and at the sacrifice of the organization of their army. Night alone, under cover of which it crossed the Cumberland River, prevented the capture of the entire force under General Crittenden. Fourteen pieces of artillery, fifteen hundred horses, with all the stores of the enemy, with a large number of prisoners, fell into our hands. This

In the campaign and battle of Chickamauga Thomas was second in command to Rosecrans, but in all its important actions his is the principal figure. The story of Chickamauga has been often, and, in one or two instances, well told; but the whole truth about it must be reserved until time shall permit the historian to tell it without fear or favor. Thomas stands forth the undisputed hero of that day—the single spirit upon whom all depends. He is the central figure. There are no heroes beside him. The young and noble ones who died, as Lytle and Burnham, Van Pelt and Jones, and those not less noble spirits who distinguished themselves and lived to be rewarded, as Baird and Dick Johnston, old Steadman and young Johnston, who guided his columns to the assault, Wood and Harker-all these surrounding Thomas but add to his glory as the parhelion adds to the beauty of the sun. On the first day at Chickamauga Thomas did his share toward the destruction of a great rebel army, but it was in vain. The fruits of his victory were frittered away by others. There was no general advance when he advanced. On the second day it was too late; the enemy had succeeded in crossing his whole force over the Chickamauga, and the opportunity to destroy his force in detail was gone forever. Circumstances devolved upon Thomas the task of saving a great army, not destroying one. The duty was nobly performed, and the army, nobly saved; and though those who were not present, and who judge of the battle from hearsay, may be mystified by the circumlocution and vagueness of official reports, those who staid at Chickamauga know that Thomas alone retrieved that disaster and saved Rosecrans's army.

His last campaign and battles at Nashville are perhaps his greatest. Fought but yesterday, as it were, the public is not yet weary with the tales that are still being told of them. The operations were conducted in a manner characteristic of the man. The retreat and concentration at Nashville was a masterly performance, executed without confusion and completed without loss. The battle before the city was one of hard blows and simple manœuvres, fought after ample preparation and deliberation. The columns were heavy and massed, and the lines strong and deep. The action was slow and measured. In the midst of the engagement are numerous lulls-lulls employed in dreadful preparation, in re-arranging lines and massing columns. There are numerous deliberate assaults of strong positions, and in every minute detail of the general plan there is visible a com

him.

bined effort of each part of the army to reach | and unbounded confidence which they feel in some vital point of the enemy's position, the key of the battle-field. When this is won the battle is ended. The victory is the result of cool, deliberate action. The troops are tools in the hands of their leader, and are made willing and trusty instruments through the absolute

In these three campaigns the career of General Thomas is chiefly embraced. In the minor events of his military career there is nothing to detract from the glory which attaches to him in these.

[blocks in formation]
[graphic][merged small]

CHAPTER III.

scended the great staircase as cheerfully as Allan himself. One after another, he too, looked into the spacious rooms on the ground-floor in breathORE than an hour after Allan had set forth less astonishment at the beauty and the luxury

THE CLAIMS OF SOCIETY.

own grounds, Midwinter rose, and enjoyed, in his turn, a full view by daylight of the magnifi

cence of the new house.

Refreshed by his long night's rest, he de

66

lived in service when I was a boy was a fine one," he thought, gayly; "but it was nothing to this! I wonder if Allan is as surprised and delighted as I am?" The beauty of the sum

mer morning drew him out through the open copy of the famous Niobe of the Florence Muhall door, as it had drawn his friend out before seum. He glanced from the statuette to the him. He ran briskly down the steps, humming window, with a sudden doubt which set his heart the burden of one of the old vagabond tunes throbbing fast. It was a French window; and which he had danced to long since, in the old the statuette was on his left hand as he stood vagabond time. Even the memories of his before it. He looked out with a suspicion which wretched childhood took their color, on that he had not felt yet. The view before him was happy morning, from the bright medium through the view of a lawn and garden. For a moment which he looked back at them. "If I was not his mind struggled blindly to escape the concluout of practice," he thought to himself, as he sion which had seized it—and struggled in vain. leaned on the fence and looked over at the park, Here, close round him and close before him; "I could try some of my old tumbling tricks on here, forcing him mercilessly back from the hapthat delicious grass." He turned; noticed two py present to the horrible past, was the room of the servants talking together near the shrub that Allan had seen in the Second Vision of the bery, and asked for news of the master of the Dream. house. The men pointed with a smile in the direction of the gardens; Mr. Armadale had gone that way more than an hour since, and had met (as had been reported) with Miss Milroy in the grounds. Midwinter followed the path through the shrubbery, but, on reaching the flower-garden, stopped, considered a little, and retraced his steps. "If Allan has met with the young lady," he said to himself, "Allan doesn't want me." He laughed as he drew that inevitable inference, and turned considerately to explore the beauties of Thorpe-Ambrose on the other side of the house.

Passing the angle of the front wall of the building, he descended some steps, advanced along a paved walk, turned another angle, and found himself in a strip of garden ground at the back of the house. Behind him was a row of small rooms situated on the level of the servants' offices. In front of him, on the farther side of the little garden, rose a wall, screened by a laurel hedge, and having a door at one end of it, leading past the stables to a gate that opened on the high-road. Perceiving that he had only discovered, thus far, the shorter way to the house, used by the servants and trades-people, Midwinter turned back again, and looked in at the window of one of the rooms on the basement story as he passed it. Were these the servants' offices? No; the offices were apparently in some other part of the ground-floor; the window he had looked in at was the window of a lumberroom. The next two rooms in the row were both empty. The fourth window, when he approached it, presented a little variety. It served also as a door; and it stood open to the garden at that moment.

Attracted by the book-shelves which he noticed on one of the walls, Midwinter stepped into the room. The books, few in number, did not detain him long; a glance at their backs was enough, without taking them down. The Waverley Novels, Tales by Miss Edgeworth, and by Miss Edgeworth's many followers, the Poems of Mrs. Hemans, with a few odd volumes of the illustrated gift-books of the period, composed the bulk of the little library. Midwinter turned to leave the room, when an object on one side of the window, which he had not previously noticed, caught his attention and stopped him. It was a statuette standing on a bracket-a reduced VOL. XXX.-No. 180.-3 E

He waited, thinking and looking round him while he thought. There was wonderfully little disturbance in his face and manner; he looked steadily from one to the other of the few objects in the room, as if the discovery of it had saddened rather than surprised him. Matting of some foreign sort covered the floor. Two cane chairs and a plain table comprised the whole of the furniture. The walls were plainly papered, and bare-broken to the eye in one place by a door leading into the interior of the house; in another, by a small stove; in a third, by the book-shelves which Midwinter had already noticed. He returned to the books; and, this time, he took some of them down from the shelves.

The first that he opened contained lines in a woman's handwriting, traced in ink that had faded with time. He read the inscription"Jane Armadale, from her beloved father. Thorpe-Ambrose, October, 1828." In the second, third, and fourth volumes that he opened the same inscription reappeared. His previous knowledge of dates and persons helped him to draw the true inference from what he saw.. The books must have belonged to Allan's mother; and she must have inscribed them with her name, in the interval of time between her return to Thorpe-Ambrose from Madeira and the birth of her son. Midwinter passed on to a volume on another shelf-one of a series containing the writings of Mrs. Hemans. In this case the blank leaf at the beginning of the book was filled on both sides with a copy of verses, the writing being still in Mrs. Armadale's hand. The verses were headed "Farewell to ThorpeAmbrose," and were dated "March, 1829"-two months only after Allan had been born.

Entirely without merit in itself, the only interest of the little poem was in the domestic story that it told. The very room in which Midwinter then stood was described-with the view on the garden, the window made to. open on it, the book-shelves, the Niobe, and other more perishable ornaments which Time had destroyed. Here, at variance with her brothers, shrinking from her friends, the widow of the murdered man had, on her own acknowledgment, secluded herself, without other comfort than the love and forgiveness of her father, until her child was born. The father's mercy

house. Don't be afraid of my not keeping you company at breakfast. I didn't eat much at the cottage; I feasted my eyes on Miss Milroy, as the poets say. Oh, the darling! the darling! she turns you topsy-turvy the moment you look at her. As for her father, wait till you see his wonderful clock! It's twice the size of the famous clock at Strasbourg, and the most tremendous striker ever heard yet in the memory of man!"

and the father's recent death filled many verses | to have kept you waiting—this door leads some-happily too vague in their commonplace ex- where, I suppose; let's try a short cut into the pression of penitence and despair to give any hint of the marriage-story in Madeira to any reader who looked at them ignorant of the truth. A passing reference to the writer's estrangement from her surviving relatives and to her approaching departure from Thorpe-Ambrose followed. Last came the assertion of the mother's resolution to separate herself from all her old associations; to leave behind her every possession, even to the most trifling thing she had, that could remind her of the miserable past; and to date her new life in the future from the birthday of the child who had been spared to console her—who | was now the one earthly object that could still speak to her of love and hope. So the old story of passionate feeling that finds comfort in phrases rather than not find comfort at all was told once again. So the poem in the faded ink faded away to its end.

Midwinter put the book back with a heavy sigh, and opened no other volume on the shelves. "Here in the country-house, or there on board the Wreck," he said, bitterly, “the traces of my father's crime follow me, go where I may." He advanced toward the window; stopped and looked back into the lonely, neglected little room. "Is this chance?" he asked himself. "The place where his mother suffered is the place he sees in the Dream; and the first morning in the new house is the morning that reveals it, not to him, but to me. Oh, Allan! Allan! how will it end?"

The thought had barely passed through his mind before he heard Allan's voice, from the paved walk at the side of the house, calling to him by his name. He hastily stepped out into the garden. At the same moment Allan came running round the corner, full of voluble apologies for having forgotten, in the society of his new neighbors, what was due to the laws of hospitality and the claims of his friend.

"I really haven't missed you," said Midwinter; "and I am very, very glad to hear that the new neighbors have produced such a pleasant impression on you already."

He tried, as he spoke, to lead the way back by the outside of the house; but Allan's flighty attention had been caught by the open window and the lonely little room. He stepped in immediately. Midwinter followed, and watched him in breathless anxiety as he looked round. Not the slightest recollection of the Dream troubled Allan's easy mind. Not the slightest reference to it fell from the silent lips of his friend.

"Exactly the sort of place I should have expected you to hit on!" exclaimed Allan, gayly. "Small and snug and unpretending. I know you, Master Midwinter! You'll be slipping off here when the county families come visiting; and I rather think on those dreadful occasions you won't find me far behind you. What's the matter? You look ill and out of spirits. Hungry? Of course you are! unpardonable of me

Singing the praises of his new friends in this strain, at the top of his voice, Allan hurried Midwinter along the stone passages on the basement floor which led, as he had rightly guessed, to a staircase communicating with the hall. They passed the servants' offices on the way. At the sight of the cook and the roaring fire, disclosed through the open kitchen door, Allan's mind went off at a tangent, and Allan's dignity scattered itself to the four winds of heaven as usual.

“Aha, Mrs. Gripper; there you are with your pots and pans, and your burning fiery furnace! One had need be Shadrach, Meshach, and the other fellow to stand over that. Breakfast as soon as ever you like. Eggs, sausages, bacon, kidneys, marmalade, water-cresses, coffee, and so forth. My friend and I belong to the select few whom it's a perfect privilege to cook for. Voluptuaries, Mrs. Gripper, voluptuaries, both of us. You'll see," continued Allan, as they went on toward the stairs, "I shall make that worthy creature young again; I'm better than a doctor for Mrs. Gripper. When she laughs she shakes her fat sides; and when she shakes her fat sides she exerts her muscular system; and when she exerts her muscular systemHa! here's Susan again. Don't squeeze yourself flat against the balusters, my dear; if you don't mind hustling me on the stairs, I rather like hustling you. She looks like a full-blown rose when she blushes, doesn't she? Stop, Susan! I've some orders to give. Be very particular with Mr. Midwinter's room: shake up his bed like mad, and dust his furniture till those nice round arms of yours ache again. Nonsense, my dear fellow! I'm not too familiar with them; I'm only keeping them up to their work. Now then, Richard! where do we breakfast? Oh, here. Between ourselves, Midwinter, these splendid rooms of mine are a size too large for me; I don't feel as if I should ever be on intimate terms with my own furniture. My views in life are of the snug and slovenly sorta kitchen chair, you know, and a low ceiling. Man wants but little here below, and wants that little long. That's not exactly the right quotation; but it expresses my meaning, and we'll let alone correcting it till the next opportunity."

"I beg your pardon," interposed Midwinter, "here is something waiting for you which you have not noticed yet."

As he spoke, he pointed a little impatiently to a letter lying on the breakfast-table. He

« PrejšnjaNaprej »