Nurse and Spy in the Union Army. Edmonds Sarah Emma Evelyn

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СКАЧАТЬ of danger. He was not an American, but was born of English parents, and was a native of St. John, New Brunswick. I had known him almost from childhood, and found him always a faithful friend.

      When we met in the army we met as strangers. The changes which five years had wrought, and the costume which I wore, together with change of name, rendered it impossible for him to recognize me. I was glad that he did not, and took peculiar pleasure in remaining unrecognized. We became acquainted again, and a new friendship sprang up, on his part, for mine was not new, which was very pleasant, at least to me. At times my position became very embarrassing, for I was obliged to listen to a recapitulation of my own former conversations and correspondence with him, which made me feel very much like an eavesdropper. He had neither wife, mother nor sister, and, like myself, was a wanderer from his native land. There was a strong bond of sympathy existing between us, for we both believed that duty called us there, and were willing to lay down even life itself, if need be, in this glorious cause. Now he was gone, and I was left alone with a deeper sorrow in my heart than I had ever known before.

      Chaplain B. broke the painful silence by informing me how he had met his fate. He was acting in the capacity of aide-de-camp on General C.’s staff. He was sent to carry an order from headquarters to the officer in command of the outer picket line, and while riding along the line he was struck by a Minnie ball, which passed through the temple, killing him instantly. His remains were brought to camp and prepared for their last resting place. Without shroud or coffin, wrapped in his blanket, his body was committed to the cold ground. They made his grave under a beautiful pear tree, in full bloom, where he sleeps peacefully, notwithstanding the roar of cannon and the din of battle which peal forth their funeral notes over his dreamless bed.

      One more buried

      Beneath the sod,

      One more standing

      Before his God.

      We should not weep

      That he has gone;

      With us ’tis night,

      With him ’tis morn.

      Night came at last with its friendly mantle, and our camp was again hushed in comparative repose. Twelve o’clock came, but I could not sleep. Visions of a pale face and a mass of black wavy hair, matted with gore which oozed from a dark purple spot on the temple, haunted me. I rose up quietly and passed out into the open air. The cool night breeze felt grateful to my burning brow, which glowed with feverish excitement. With a hasty word of explanation I passed the camp guard, and was soon beside the grave of Lieutenant V. The solemn grandeur of the heavens, the silent stars looking lovingly down upon that little heaped up mound of earth, the death-like stillness of the hour, only broken by the occasional booming of the enemy’s cannon, all combined to make the scene awfully impressive. I felt that I was not alone. I was in the presence of that God who had summoned my friend to the eternal world, and the spirit of the departed one was hovering near, although my dim eyes could not penetrate the mysterious veil which hid him from my view. It was there, in that midnight hour, kneeling beside the grave of him who was very dear to me, that I vowed to avenge the death of that christian hero. I could now better understand the feelings of poor Nellie when she fired the pistol at me, because I was “one of the hated Yankees who was in sympathy with the murderers of her husband, father and brothers.”

      But I could not forgive his murderers as she had done. I did not enjoy taking care of the sick and wounded as I once did, but I longed to go forth and do, as a noble chaplain did at the battle of Pittsburg Landing. He picked up the musket and cartridge-box of a wounded soldier, stepped into the front rank, and took deliberate aim at one rebel after another until he had fired sixty rounds of cartridge; and as he sent a messenger of death to each heart he also sent up the following brief prayer: “May God have mercy upon your miserable soul.”

      From this time forward I became strangely interested in the fifteenth chapter of first Corinthians – the doctrine of the resurrection, and the hope of “recognition of friends in heaven” became very precious to me. For I believe with regard to our departed loved ones, that

      When safely landed on that heavenly shore

      Where sighings cease and sorrows come no more —

      With hearts no more by cruel anguish riven,

      As we have loved on earth we’ll love in heaven.

      And infinitely more than we are capable of loving here. “Few things connected with the great hereafter so deeply concern the heart as the question of personal recognition in heaven. Dear ones of earth, linked to our hearts by the most tender ties, have departed and gone away into the unknown realm. We have carefully and tearfully laid their bodies in the grave to slumber till the great awakening morning. If there is no personal recognition in heaven, if we shall neither see nor know our friends there, so far as we are concerned they are annihilated, and heaven has no genuine antidote for the soul’s agony in the hour of bereavement. All the precious memories of toil and trial, of conflict and victory, of gracious manifestations and of holy joy, shared with them in the time of our pilgrimage, will have perished forever. The anxiety of the soul with regard to the recognition of our friends in the future state is natural. It springs from the holiest sympathies of the human heart, and any inquiry that may solve our doubts or relieve our anxiety is equally rational and commendable.

      “Tell me, ye who have seen the open tomb receive into its bosom the sacred trust committed to its keeping, in hope of the first resurrection – ye who have heard the sullen rumbling of the clods as they dropped upon the coffin lid, and told you that earth had gone back to earth; when the separation from the object of your love was realized in all the desolation of bereavement, next to the thought that you should ere long see Christ as he is and be like him, was not that consolation the strongest which assured you that the departed one, whom God has put from you into darkness, will run to meet you when you cross the threshold of immortality, and, with the holy rapture to which the redeemed alone can give utterance, lead you to the exalted Saviour, and with you bow at his feet and cast the conqueror’s crown before him? And is this hope vain? Shall we not even know those dear ones in the spirit world? Was this light of hope that gilded so beautifully the sad, dark hour of human woe, only a mocking ignis fatuus, so soon to go out in everlasting darkness? Is this affection, so deep, so holy, yearning over its object with undying love, to be nipped in the very bud of its being? Nay, it cannot be. There must have been some higher purpose; God could not delight in the bestowal of affections that were to be blighted in their very beginning, and of hopes that were to end only in the mockery of eternal disappointment.”

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