The Blue and the Gray; Or, The Civil War as Seen by a Boy. Annie Randall White

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      Ralph was silent. His heart burned with patriotic fire, and it seemed to him that it was his duty to help swell the numbers of those who were ready to respond to the President's call. But he also knew that his mother loved her early home, and that it seemed to her unnatural for him to be so ready to take up arms against “her people,” and he respected her too deeply to wound her willingly. That mother had been gently born, and when she met the young Northern lawyer, she had loved him from the first, and cheerfully shared his humble but peaceful home. She was now left alone in the world, with her three girls and this boy, the youngest. The fortunes of war were too varying. She might never see him again, and how could she live without him?

      To Ralph was presented a problem that he was called unexpectedly to solve. He pondered over it in the silence of night, and in the busy hours of day. Was it right to fly in the face of his beloved mother's prejudices by joining the Federal forces? On the one hand he felt that he, too, was Southern in feeling and in birth. His father was a Northern man, and he would uphold the old flag; but which side it was his duty to join, he could not determine. He was resolved to go into one of the two armies. In the crisis that had come, it was clearly every one's duty to come to the front.

      The boy talked with every one whom he could interest. He was not able to study out the problem alone. One of his schoolmates had the proud distinction of having an uncle who was a commissioned officer, and he took the bold step of meeting him one day when he was walking past his home.

      “Sir,” he said timidly, “may I speak to you?”

      “Certainly,” the officer replied. And then and there he poured forth his doubts, his desire to do what was right, his mother's objections—all, he told the waiting gentleman whose opinion he so desired.

      The officer laid his hand kindly on the boy's shoulder.

      “Your wish does you credit. The fortunes of war are too varying for me to decide for you. Try and work out the proper answer yourself, and may you be helped to make a wise decision.”

      Alas, the question was too hard for a boy like him to answer. He was humbly trying to see where his duty lay, and then he was ready to enlist on whichever side called him. On one hand was his mother and her early teachings, on the other his dead father, with all his views. “What side would he choose were he here?” was the ever-recurring thought in his anxious brain.

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      But after weeks of this long, weary struggle, he decided to join the Union army. His mother saw that he believed he was shirking a duty, and that he longed for action.

      She thought she would make one more effort to change his purpose. She said to him suddenly one day, when she saw his troubled face: “Ralph, you are only seventeen. You have never been away from your home, and know nothing about hardships and privations. Do you think you could face a cannon, and know that its deadly mouth might lay you low on the field, mangled and torn?”

      “Oh, mother, I never think of such things. If I enlist, I must take my chances with the rest. I want to go with the other boys. Eddie Downing and George Martin have and are going into camp to-morrow, at Readville.”

      “But will the government accept you? Eddie and George are three or four years older than you. There are plenty of men, without taking a boy who is his mother's chief comfort.”

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      “I am strong and well. When I come back, you will be the proudest mother in the land, to think you sent your boy away. I may go with your blessing, may I not? That will protect me.”

      The boy's eyes were moist with emotion. His mother, with a sigh, gave her reluctant consent, and though many a bitter tear was shed in the loneliness of her room, she bravely hid them from the boy she loved.

      Now that the decision was final, she made every preparation for the comfort of the boy who was to leave them so soon. His sisters wept continually—not a very cheerful parting, but Ralph was the idol of his home.

      “Mother,” he said to her a day or two after she had given her consent, “do not worry about me. I shall do my duty. This war can't last long. Then I'll come back to you, and stay at home as long as I live, depend on that.”

      His beaming face half reassured her, and she began to share his enthusiasm. He was enrolled as a soldier. Although his youth was at first objected to, his earnestness carried the day, and he was told to report at Camp Hale at once.

      He was a real soldier at last! A genuine soldier, who must СКАЧАТЬ