The Red Acorn [87]
cherish and honor, of whom I should be proud, and whose strong, kindly arms would be my secure support and protection until death claimed us, I have not the slightest doubt. But when I ask myself whether this is really love--the sacred, all-pervading passion which a woman should feel for the man to whom she gives herself, body and soul, I encounter the strongest doubts. These doubts have no reference to you--only to myself. I feel that it would be a degradation--a deep profanation--for me to give myself to you, without feeling in its entirety such a love as I have attempted to define. I have gone away from you because I want to consider this question and decide it with more calmness and impartiality than I can where I meet you daily, and daily receive some kindness from your hands. These and the magnetism of your presence are temptations which I fear might swerve me from my ideal, and possibly lead to a mistake which we both might ever afterward have reason to regret.
I have, as you will be informed, accepted a detail to one of the hospitals at Nashville. Do not write me, except to tell me of a change in your postoffice address. I will not write you, unless I have something of special moment to tell you. Believe me, whatever may betide, at least your very sincere friend,
Rachel Bond.
Chapter XVIII. Secret Service.
The flags of war like storm-birds fly, The charging trumpets blow, Yet rolls no thunder in the sky, No earthquake strives below.
And calm and patient Nature keeps Her ancient promise well, Though o'er her bloom and greenness sweeps The battle's breath of hell.
Ah! eyes may well be full of tears, And hearts with hate are hot, But even-paced come round the years, And Nature changes not.
She meets with smiles out bitter grief, With songs our groans of pain; She mocks with tint of flower and leaf The war-field's crimson stain.
--Whittier's "Battle Autumn of 1862"
The Summer and Fall of the "Battle Year" of 1862 had passed without the Army of the Cumberland--then called the Army of the Ohio--being able to bring its Rebel antagonist to a decisive struggle. In September the two had raced entirely across the States of Tennessee and Kentucky, for the prize of Louisville, which the Union army won. In October the latter chased its enemy back through Kentucky, without being able to inflict upon it more than the abortive blow at Perryville, and November found the two opponents facing each other in Middle Tennessee--the Army of the Cumberland at Nashville, and the Rebel Army of the Tennessee at Murfeesboro, twenty-eight miles distant. There the two equally matched giants lay confronting each other, and sullenly making ready for the mighty struggle which was to decide the possession of a territory equaling a kingdom in extent.
In the year which had elapsed since the affair at Wildcat Harry Glen's regiment had not participated in a single general engagement. It had scouted and raided; it had reconnoitered and guarded; it had chased guerrillas through the Winter's rain and mud for days and nights together; it had followed John Morgan's dashing troopers along limestone turnpikes that glowed like brick-kilns under the July sun until three-fourths of the regiment had dropped by the roadside in sheer exhaustion; it had marched over the mountains to Cumberland Gap, and back over the mountains to Lexington; across Kentucky and Tennessee to Huntsville, Ala., back across those States to the Ohio River, and again back across Kentucky to Nashville, beside side marches as numerous as the branches on a tree; 50 per cent. of its number had fallen vicitms to sickness and hardship, and 10 per cent. more had been shot, here and there, a man or two at a time, on the picket or skirmish line, at fords or stockades guarding railroad bridges. But while other regiments which had suffered nothing like it had painted on their banners "Mill Springs," "Shiloh," and "Perryville," its colors had yet to receive their maiden inscription. This was the hard luck of many
I have, as you will be informed, accepted a detail to one of the hospitals at Nashville. Do not write me, except to tell me of a change in your postoffice address. I will not write you, unless I have something of special moment to tell you. Believe me, whatever may betide, at least your very sincere friend,
Rachel Bond.
Chapter XVIII. Secret Service.
The flags of war like storm-birds fly, The charging trumpets blow, Yet rolls no thunder in the sky, No earthquake strives below.
And calm and patient Nature keeps Her ancient promise well, Though o'er her bloom and greenness sweeps The battle's breath of hell.
Ah! eyes may well be full of tears, And hearts with hate are hot, But even-paced come round the years, And Nature changes not.
She meets with smiles out bitter grief, With songs our groans of pain; She mocks with tint of flower and leaf The war-field's crimson stain.
--Whittier's "Battle Autumn of 1862"
The Summer and Fall of the "Battle Year" of 1862 had passed without the Army of the Cumberland--then called the Army of the Ohio--being able to bring its Rebel antagonist to a decisive struggle. In September the two had raced entirely across the States of Tennessee and Kentucky, for the prize of Louisville, which the Union army won. In October the latter chased its enemy back through Kentucky, without being able to inflict upon it more than the abortive blow at Perryville, and November found the two opponents facing each other in Middle Tennessee--the Army of the Cumberland at Nashville, and the Rebel Army of the Tennessee at Murfeesboro, twenty-eight miles distant. There the two equally matched giants lay confronting each other, and sullenly making ready for the mighty struggle which was to decide the possession of a territory equaling a kingdom in extent.
In the year which had elapsed since the affair at Wildcat Harry Glen's regiment had not participated in a single general engagement. It had scouted and raided; it had reconnoitered and guarded; it had chased guerrillas through the Winter's rain and mud for days and nights together; it had followed John Morgan's dashing troopers along limestone turnpikes that glowed like brick-kilns under the July sun until three-fourths of the regiment had dropped by the roadside in sheer exhaustion; it had marched over the mountains to Cumberland Gap, and back over the mountains to Lexington; across Kentucky and Tennessee to Huntsville, Ala., back across those States to the Ohio River, and again back across Kentucky to Nashville, beside side marches as numerous as the branches on a tree; 50 per cent. of its number had fallen vicitms to sickness and hardship, and 10 per cent. more had been shot, here and there, a man or two at a time, on the picket or skirmish line, at fords or stockades guarding railroad bridges. But while other regiments which had suffered nothing like it had painted on their banners "Mill Springs," "Shiloh," and "Perryville," its colors had yet to receive their maiden inscription. This was the hard luck of many