xt7vt43hxt8c https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7vt43hxt8c/data/mets.xml Tyrrell, Henry, 1865- 1912 books b92-224-31182800 English G.P. Putnam's Sons, : New York : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Howard, Bronson, 1842-1908. Shenandoah, love and war in the valley of Virginia 1861-5 : based upon the famous play by Bronson Howard / by Henry Tyrrell ; illustrated by Harry A. Ogden, John H. Cassel and others. text Shenandoah, love and war in the valley of Virginia 1861-5 : based upon the famous play by Bronson Howard / by Henry Tyrrell ; illustrated by Harry A. Ogden, John H. Cassel and others. 1912 2002 true xt7vt43hxt8c section xt7vt43hxt8c

Gertrude.-" Very likely General Beauregard has more nerve
than you have."
Painted by John H. Cassel

Shenandoa

Love and War in the Valley of Virginia
1861-5

Based upon the Famous Play by

Bronson Howard

By
Henry Tyrrell
Author of "Lee of Virginia," etc.

Illustrated by Harry A. Ogden, John H. Cassel
and Others

G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York Zbe 11nickerbocker Preos London
I912

COPYRIGN'T,
BY
HENRY TYRRELL

nbe 1tnickerbocket press, Sew go"

CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I-HAUGHTY OLD CHARLESTON . . I

II-APRIL WEATHER . . i6

III-AFTER THE BALL . . 28

IV-SUMTER . 44

V-PARTING OF THE WAYS . . 57

VI-THE VIRGINIANS . . . 68

VII-WAR IS-WAR . 91

VIII-IN THE VALLEY . . 102

IX-SHENANDOAH'S DAUGHTER . 120

X-GRAPEVINE TELEGRAPH . I36

XI-LIBBY PRISON. . . . 154

XII-LIGHTS AND SHADOWS . i87

XIII-CROSSING THE RIVER . 203

XIV-SHERIDAN . . . . . 223

XV-WHIRLING THROUGH WINCHESTER . 236

XVI-THE STRANGE FORTUNES OF WAR 250
.

iv Contents

CRA PTER PAGE
XVII-SIGNALS FROM THREE-TOP MOUNTAIN 264

XVIII-"TELL How I DIED" 288

XIX-"IT'S ONLY A BATTLE!" 302

XX-AT THE ELEVENTH HOUR 311

XXI-THE VALLEY OF DESOLATION 327

XXII-THE SURRENDER 344

XXIII-" WITH MALICE TOWARD NONE" 366

XXIV-LoVE RULES 374

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE
GERTRUDE-" VERY LIKELY GENERAL BEAURE-
GARD HAS MORE NERVE THAN YOU HAVE
Frontispiece in color
Painted by John H. Cassel

THE FIRST BATTLE OF BULL RUN-" THE RE-
PULSE BECAME A ROUT . . . . 20
Drawn by Harry A. Ogden

SERGEANT BARKET-" THE YOUNG LADY TO
TAKE THE OATH, IS IT AN' SHE 'S AFTHER
SAYING SHE 'LL SEE US DAMNED FIRST" . 52
Drawn by Harry A. Ogden

SERGEANT BARKET-" I 'VE OFTEN SEEN CAP-
TAIN HEARTSEASE TAKE A SLY LOOK AT A
LITTLE LACE HANDKERCHIEF JUST BEFORE
HE WINT INTO A BATTLE" . . 84
Drawn by Harry A. Ogden

GEN. BUCKTHORN-" WHAT! YOU DEFY MY
AUTHORITY COLONEL WEST, I COMMAND
YOU! SEARCH THE PRISONER! II6
Drawn by Harry A. Ogden
v

Illustrations

PAGE
COL. WEST-" DURING ALL THIS TERRIBLE
WAR, . . . I HAVE DREAMED OF A
MEETING LIKE THIS" . . . 148
Drawn by Harry A. Ogden

GEN. BUCKTHORN (reading)-"' GENERAL
ROSSER WILL REJOIN GENERAL EARLY WITH
ALL THE CAVALRY IN HIS COMMAND AT-'
THIS IS IMPORTANT. ANYTHING ELSE,
COLONEL . . . . . . I80
Drawn by Harry A. Ogden

THORNTON-" IF I HAVE KILLED HIM, YOUR
HONOR WILL BE BURIED IN THE SAME GRAVE" 214
Drawn by Harry A. Ogden

"OUR BRAVE B'YES HAVE WIPED OUT THE
ENEMY, AND GOT AWAY WITH THE PAPERS !" 246
Drawn by Harry A. Ogden

FRANK-" WRITE! WRITE! TO-MY WIFE-
EDITH: TELL OUR LITTLE SON, WHEN HE IS
OLD ENOUGH TO KNOW, HOW HIS FATHER
DIED-NOT HOW HE LIVED" . . 278
Drawn by Harry A. Ogden

GERTRUDE-" YOUR WOUND!"
COL. WEST-" WOUND I HAVE No WOUND!
YOU LOVE ME" . 310
Drawn by Harry A. Ogden

"AND SHERIDAN FIFTEEN MILES AWAY !" 332
Drawn by John W. Ehninger

Illustrations vii

PAGE
"TURN BACK, FELLOWS! GENERAL SHERIDAN
IS COMING!" . . . . . 350
Drawn by Harry A. Ogden

THIE CHARGE OF THE SIXTH CORPS AT THE
BATTLE OF CEDAR CREEK . . 372
From a War Sketch Made for Frank Leslie's Illus-
trated Newspaper

MOSBY'S RAIDERS ATTACK A COMMISSARY
TRAIN . . . . . . . 386
From a Sketch by a War Correspondent

This page in the original text is blank.

SHENANDOAH

CHAPTER I

HAUGHTY OLD CHARLESTON
"How often in these mansions fine
Were friendships pledged in rare old wine,
Madeira that had crossed the line,
And golden sherry."

"CHARLESTON always looks to me as if it
had drifted bodily across the Atlantic,
from old France or Spain," said Colonel Haverill,
as he stood gazing out harbor-ward from the pil-
lared veranda of the roomy colonial mansion
fronting on the East Battery.
"I can return the compliment, Colonel," replied
his host, Dr. Ellingham, a silver-haired Southerner
of the courtly old school, "by repeating what you
have heard me say before now-that a visit to
Boston is for me the equivalent of breathing again
the-how shall I say it-the atmosphere of con-
servatism and culture, austere yet kindly, that
was once supposed to belong exclusively to our
common mother country, England."
I

Shenandoah

"Dear me, I had n't thought of it," laughed
Mrs. Haverill, the Colonel's wife. "Such mutual
appreciation ought to be kept in practice. At
the same time, let us hope that North and South
may never be alien in any other sense."
"God grant it."
" Amen."
Fervent as these expressions were, they seemed
tinged with some indefinable sense of sadness and
foreboding.
It was early spring of the year i86i. Sky and
water in that Southern seaboard clime were blue,
but it was the soft, dreamy blue of Mediterranean
shores. Nights of velvety dusk were lit with
strangely large, low-hung stars. The magnolias
were not yet in bloom, but amid the moss-veiled
live-oaks already the mocking-birds sang-or
rather rhapsodized in language of golden tone,
as if confiding thrilling secrets that burst from
stifled hearts.
Charleston still wore unconsciously an Old-
World aspect, a sort of legendary glamour of
feudalism, the real or imagined heritage of
aristocratic Huguenot ancestors. Outward signs
of this abounded in her white stuccoed walls
and red roofs nestling amidst dense foliage-her
quaint architecture and frowning fortifications-

Haughty Old Charleston

the stately grace and roomy, leisurely look of
her public places and approaches.
Socially, this "Bourbon" spirit impressed itself
upon a thousand and one traditions, usages,
customs, unwritten laws, even peculiarities of
dress and speech, vaguely reminiscent of some
bygone regime, pervading all classes and degrees.
The negroes amusingly reflected these traits, in
unwitting caricature. Some of them, of West
Indian origin, spoke French fluently. Many of
them retained odd turns of Elizabethan English
phrase, handed down directly from Raleigh's
cavalier "Virginians."
Like another Venice, this haughty mid-nine-
teenth century Charleston sat enthroned by the
inviolate sea, sufficient unto herself, her heart
swelling with what to her was proper pride, to
the outside world something like arrogant as-
sumption.
"Our city," an infant essayist of Charleston is
reputed to have written, "is between the Cooper
and the Ashley rivers, which unite and form the
ocean."
It was a splendid dream, while it lasted. Life
in the grand manner rolled carelessly, recklessly
on. The rich houses facing the Battery park
were filled with furniture, books, and art objects

Shenandoah

from across the seas, or priceless relics of colonial
days-with the Georgian masterpieces of Chippen-
dale and Sheraton-with French bronzes, ormolu
and tapestries-with family portraits painted by
Kneller, Hoppner, Raeburn, Van Loo, or by their
American followers, Copley, Stuart, Sharples,
West. Rare antique plate, china, and crystal
gleamed against the dark mahogany of banquet-
table and sideboard. And the port and Madeira,
the Burgundy and brandies in the cellar, matched
the other heirlooms in age and quality.
The social laws of old Charleston were conserv-
ative, though proudly arbitrary; and it was quite
as difficult for a stranger to invade the inner
precincts without gilt-edged credentials as it is
to-day amongst the high nobility of Europe.
Neither money, nor beauty, nor wit, nor learning,
nor official position, would in itself suffice. But
without any of these advantages, the coveted
passport might be obtained through favorable
recommendation to the dames and dowagers who
were the arbiters of fashion and fate. Then, at
the magical open sesame, the most exclusive
dining-rooms and drawing-rooms received the
stranger into full communion, without reserva-
tion, in all the warm-hearted effusion that made
"Southern hospitality" a proverb.

Haughty Old Charleston 5

Such were the enviable conditions-heightened
rather than restrained by the political turmoil
of the time-under which an oddly assorted group
of people, of various ages and conditions, and
including besides Charlestonians a number of
representatives of other sections of the South as
well as of Northern States, planned the Ellingham
ball, for the second week in April.
Colonel Haverill, of the Regular Army of the
United States, had been a Mexican War comrade
of the late Colonel Ellingham, of Virginia. When
Ellingham died, Haverill became the guardian of
his two children, Robert and Gertrude.
Robert was duly graduated from West Point,
and with his classmate Kerchival West, of Mas-
sachusetts, went with the rank of lieutenant to see
active service on the plains, in the regiment of
Colonel Haverill. Ordered to Washington, Colo-
nel Haverill and his wife were now travelling
northward via Charleston, accompanied by Lieu-
tenants Ellingham and West. Gertrude Elling-
ham had come on from the family homestead in
the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, to meet her
brother Bob. Likewise, Madeline West had
hastened to join her brother Kerchival, and in-
cidentally to enjoy her first acquaintance with
the fascinating Southern city.

Shenandoah

It was Robert and Gertrude, of course, who had
brought about this unwonted assemblage at the
Ellingham mansion, the town residence of the
wealthy, elderly uncle, Dr. Marshall Ellingham,
a widower, and noted for his scholarly tastes and
princely hospitality.
Nothing less than a ball-one of the famous
Ellingham "levees "-could fittingly honor the
occasion.
The younger set, including the two lieutenants,
had practically no other subject of "serious" dis-
cussion. Secession talk was rife, to be sure, and
the military activities going on were such as to
lead to but one logical conclusion-that war, or
something very like it, was imminent. But love
outranked logic, in that particular camp, at least.
The sentimental action was prompt and ani-
mated, if not decisive. At the very opening of
the campaign, the casualties took in Kerchival
West and his demure, dark-eyed sister Madeline;
also, as mutual offsetting to this pair, the gallant
Bob Ellingham and his sister Gertrude, the latter
a spirited girl with warm bronze hair befitting her
emotional temperament, and vivid complexion
to match.
"Kerchival !" called Madeline, from amongst
the oleander shadows on the veranda.

Haughty Old Charleston

But it was Bob who gave a responsive start,
as he stood chatting with West in the drawing-
room. West noted it with amusement, saying to
himself, "Now, what can there be about my
sister's voice to make a man jump like that"
Two minutes later, Gertrude called "Brother
Robert" to the piano to turn some music for her,
and Kerchival West stood riveted to the spot in
such a spellbound attitude that everybody could
see at a glance he was maundering to himself
about "How the tones of a woman's voice can
thrill through a man's soul!"
The girls kept their counsel better than that.
Still, in one way or another, the sentimental
fluctuations of the whole quartette were discussed
with such charming frankness that whatever heart
secrets they had were open ones.
Before the date of the ball came around, matters
had reached this stage: The girls paired off in one
corner, and the boys in an opposite one, and eyed
each other diagonally across the room while the
double dialogue ran somewhat as follows:
GERTRUDE: I 've got something to say to
you, Madeline, dear.
MADELINE (as they clasp arms confidentially
around each other's waist): Yes
ROBERT: Kerchival, old boy, there 's -

Shenandoah

there 's something I 'd like to let you know,
while you're here in Charleston.
KERCHIVAL: All right, Bob. And I 've some-
thing for you, also.
MADELINE: You don't really mean that,
Gertrude With me
ROBERT: I 'm in love with your sister
Madeline.
KERCHIVAL: The deuce you are!
ROBERT: I never suspected it myself until
last night.
GERTRUDE: Robert fell in love the first time
he set eyes on you.
MADELINE: (Kisses Gertrude).
KERCHIVAL: I 've discovered something about
myself, too, Bob.
MADELINE: Now I 'm going to surprise you,
Gertrude.
KERCHIVAL: I 'm in love with your sister.
ROBERT: W-h-a-t
MADELINE: Kerchival has been in love with
you, dear, ever since-well, I believe ever since
long before you met.
KERCHIVAL: I fell in love with her day before
yesterday.
ROBERT (seizing Kerchival's hand): We
understand each other, Kerchival.

Haughty Old Charleston

The first cloud that appeared in this roseate
sky was Edward Thornton.
Thornton was rather a handsome fellow, in his
insolent way, and a few years older than the two
lieutenants-that is to say, he was close upon
thirty. He had more than the assurance of
manner that such advantage might perhaps be
expected to give him-especially with Mrs. Haver-
ill, the Colonel's wife. Though for some years a
resident of Charleston and Savannah, he had come
originally from the North. Rumor declared that
he had once been a naval cadet at Annapolis,
but had dropped out, or been dropped, before half-
way through his course. His intercourse with the
Colonel and Mrs. Haverill, though apparently of
long standing and based upon some sort of family
association, was at times a trifle constrained.
The young people frankly did not like Thornton,
though none of them had said so, and probably
any or all of them would have denied the charge
had it been made.
At any rate, Kerchival and Robert looked
askance at any proposition of Thornton's to act
as escort to the girls on their walks or rides. The
latter, on the contrary, may have tacitly encour-
aged him, in their inscrutable feminine fashion.
Certainly this did not mend matters.

Shenandoah

Meanwhile, Dr. Ellingham and the Colonel,
and Mrs. Haverill and the Pinckneys (South
Carolina relatives of the Ellinghams), saw graver
portents than sentimental ones on the near horizon.
If they made an allusion to the coming festivity,
it was to wish the affair well over and out of
the way. Their real conversation turned upon
questions of State sovereignty, the "old flag," and
rights as to secession from the Union.
Already, in December, I86o, Charleston had
ratified the Ordinance of Secession, adopted in a
convention which declared the State of South
Carolina "no longer a part of the confederation
known as the United States of America." Six
other States-Mississippi, Florida, Alabama,
Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas, had respectively
followed the lead of the Palmetto State, passing
ordinances taking themselves out of the Union;
and their delegates had assembled at Montgomery,
Alabama, and formed a new government, under the
name of the Confederate States of America.
The full significance of these proceedings, how-
ever, was not grasped by statesmen, soldiers, or
the people at large. There were powerful peace-
making agencies, especially in Virginia, and sober-
minded people in all sections of the country hoped
until the last that these would prevail.

Haughty Old Charleston II

This was the feeling among the elders, even in
Charleston-at least, in the immediate circle of
the Ellinghams and their Northern guests.
" If the interests of your manufacturing and
shipping States of the North," observed Dr.
Ellingham, "and of our agricultural and cotton
States of the South, are not running in harmony,
that is no excuse for a family quarrel."
"I quite agree with you," Colonel Haverill
would respond. "It is an awkward thing for a
soldier to take sides in such a dispute. Theoretic-
ally, we don't have to-the Government settles
all that for us, and we simply obey orders. I feel
confident they will find a remedy for the present
break, as they have for other and perhaps worse
ones in times past. If it were not for the slavery
question "
"Ah," sighed the Southern conservative, "if
I owned the four million slaves, I would gladly
give them all up for the preservation of the Union.
For that matter, they have been our economical
ruin, anyway. It is the political principle involved
that we are committed to. If ever there should
be a sectional war-which God forbid !-it will be
fought in sincere devotion to an abstraction, and
not for sordid interests."
"Well, your friend Major Ruffin certainly has

Shenandoah

more decided opinions on the subject than both of
us together," laughed Haverill, making the custom-
ary effort to divert the conversation into lighter
channels.
Ruffin was a striking character, typical of the
time. They met him afternoons at the Charleston
Hotel, or on sunny mornings walking by the
Battery sea-wall, gazing out across the harbor to
where the Sumter fortress reared its forty-foot
walls on an artificial island built on the shoals.
This was one of the important fortifications of the
seceding States whose status in relation to the
Federal Government was in ominous dispute.
"Sir," Ruffin would say, impressively, "if the
status of these Federal forts in the seceded States
is not yet determined, it is high time it should be.
If an appeal to arms is necessary,-and I can see
that it is, sooner or later,-let it come right here,
and now. It is appropriate that South Carolina
should fire the first shot, since she is the foremost
exponent of the fundamental doctrines of eco-
nomical and political liberty which the present
Washington Government is opposing."
"But, Major," Colonel Haverill would protest,
"I understood you were a Virginian Virginia
has not seceded."
"Not yet, but she will-she must. I am, as

Haughty Old Charleston

you say, sir, a Virginian born. But this hanging
fire is so little to my taste, sir, that I have sold my
Virginia property, and cast my allegiance with
South Carolina, for the present. I have enlisted
with the State troops here, and I await any minute
General Beauregard's call to the batteries he is
planting all around Sumter."
Major Ruffin was a white-haired, elderly man,
sixty years old if a day. In his fiery fanatical zeal
there was something humorous-and something
tragic.
Dr. Ellingham alluded feelingly to the crisis
facing loyal citizens of the border States, Virginia
and Kentucky.
"It occurs to me," he added, "that Major
Robert Anderson, commanding the garrison at
Fort Sumter, is a Southerner-a Kentuckian, I
believe, married to a Georgia lady, and a slave-
owner. Yet I am sure the Federal Government
is confident of his loyalty, in leaving its interests
here in his charge."
"So much so," Colonel Haverill joined in, ap-
provingly, "that I understand President Lincoln
is to send gunboats down here with a view to
relieving the Sumter garrison, evidently in anti-
cipation of a state of siege."
"If President Lincoln is doing that he must

Shenandoah

have a correct idea of the gravity of the situa-
tion. And, mark my words, gentlemen, that
will be the signal for the actual beginning of
hostilities."
With these portentous words, Major Ruffin
saluted, turned on his heel, and marched away.
Haverill was glad to return to the Ellingham
house, and in the atmosphere of frivolity and bustle
of festive anticipation there forget the warlike
obsession that hung as a lurid cloud over the
city.
And even here, amidst the light-hearted, busy
preparations for the ball, a characteristic incident
impressed him once again with the width and
depth of the chasm dividing Southern customs
and habit of mind from those of his Northland
nativity.
The pompous negro majordomo, known as
Peter the Great, was freely consulted by the
Ellinghams and Mrs. Pinckney in regard to both
details and essentials. Among the latter, he was
to carry the invitations by hand. He even looked
over the list, and ventured suggestions concern-
ing certain names which should be crossed off,
and certain others which might properly be
added.
One of the ladies from Washington asked Pete

Haughty Old Charleston 15

if he was quite sure he knew where all these people
lived. His reply was:
"Madam, if there is any pusson in Charleston
who lives where I don't know, that pusson
should n't be invited to the Ellingham ball."

CHAPTER II

APRIL WEATHER

"How doth this Spring of love resemble
Th' uncertain glory of an April day!"

COLONEL HAVERILL, fifty-five years of age,
was distinctively an American soldier type.
He was in the full flush of mature manhood, tall
and striking in appearance, grave and precise in
manner, without any undue affectation of dignity,
yet by habit as well as by nature inclined to sever-
ity and reserve. His army reputation was that
of a martinet-but a martinet who possessed the
confidence, even the affection, of his regiment,
because every one knew that his pride and punc-
tiliousness were for his command, for the service,
and for the flag-not for himself.
A veteran of the Mexican War, he was happily
married to his second wife, a New York belle up
to the time of her becoming the Colonel's bride,
some six years before the period with which the
present narrative is concerned. His only son,
i6

April Weather

Frank, was at that time a boy of fourteen-bright
and spirited, but, as the Colonel declared with
real mortification, evidently not cut out for a
soldier. That most lamentable deficiency-in
the father's eyes-gave color to the assertion
made not by Mrs. Haverill alone, that the Colonel
thought more of his young Southern wards,
Robert and Gertrude Ellingham, than he did of
his own son.
However this may have been, the Colonel's
young wife more than made up to the lad the de-
privation of his father's full measure of paternal
confidence and affection. Having no children of
her own, she gave to the boy what in his infancy
he had never known-a mother's loving care.
His own mother had died at his birth. As he grew
up in New York, amidst good family associations
and in comfortable circumstances, seeing little of
his father and experiencing the irksomeness with-
out the companionship of that parent's strict
control, it was not to be wondered at if Frank
came perilously near to being spoiled.
He was at once a tie between Colonel Haverill
and his beautiful young wife, and their only cause
of discord.
After graduation from Columbia-instead of
from West Point, as the Colonel would have de-
2

Shenandoah

sired, if such a choice could have been realized in
the natural course of events-Frank Haverill en-
tered the banking house of the Howards, relatives
of his stepmother. This had seemed a promising
connection-it might have led, possibly, to another
matrimonial alliance, through one of the pretty
daughters of the family, on whom the young clerk
was known to have made a most favorable im-
pression-when suddenly he ran away with and
married Edith Maury, a nice enough girl, as it
was said, but two or three years his senior, and the
daughter of an impoverished Southern family,
whose home was in New Orleans.
This was bad enough. Still, a rash love match
is not in itself an unpardonable sin. Frank was
forgiven, at least a truce was patched up, and the
prodigal son went back repentant, as it seemed,
to his stool at the bank.
Alas! the "prodigal" climax was yet to come.
Its beginnings had dated back even to the college
days. Edward Thornton had been much in New
York, then. He had first met the Haverills at
Saratoga. Handsome, reckless, a social favorite
and sportsman of no small pretensions, Thornton
had immediately exercised over young Frank
an influence amounting to fascination and hero-
worship. Those were flush times of racing, of

April Weather

gambling, of drinking, and-south of the Mason
and Dixon line especially-of duelling. Thornton
took the eager, precocious boy in hand, and " made
a man of him." It was such a "man" as the
Colonel, his father, absent most of the time on
Western duty, never dreamed. If Mrs. Haverill
came in the course of time to regard the compan-
ionship with uneasiness and suspicion, she thought
it the part of discretion to keep such misgivings
from her husband.
So it was that every step in Frank's later career
had come as a surprise to his father, and as a shock,
until a positive estrangement had grown up.
Duty, rather than any warmer paternal feeling,
had impelled the Colonel to keep in communication
with his son, and, through the gentle interposition
of his own wife, to continue the money allowance
meant mainly in behalf of the amiable and
unoffending younger Mrs. Haverill.
Matters were in such strained relation now,
when the Colonel and his wife stopped at Charles-
ton, on their way North. And it was at this
fateful moment that the last stroke fell.
The day before the Ellingham ball, Colonel
Haverill learned from the New York newspapers,
and simultaneously by a letter from his lawyers
there, that his son was an absconder and a fugitive.

Shenandoah

Under suspicion on account of irregularities dis-
covered at the Howard bank, he had fled, no one
knew whither, to escape arrest, leaving his wife
deserted and without resources.
Colonel Haverill's grief and rage were fearful.
His self-control was almost tragic. With clenched
hands and hard-set face he paced the back veranda
upon which his room opened, pausing now and
again to mutter a few words, in a low tone meant
to be calm, to his wife, who sat mutely awaiting
a propitious moment to offer her counsel.
"I might have expected it," said the Colonel.
"And yet, had n't I enough else on my mind,
just now, without being brought to face a thing
like this Well, let Pate deal with him. He
deserves the worst that can happen. I am through
with him. I have always done my best by him,
now I have other and more important duties to
perform. I am an officer of the United States
Army. The name which my son bears came to
him from men who had borne it with honor, and
I transmitted it to him without a blot. He has
disgraced it, and he has no longer any right to
bear it. I renounce him. From now on I have
no son-I am childless."
"But, John,-there is his poor young wife-"
"His marriage was a piece of reckless folly,

The First Battle of Bull Run.-" The repulse became a rout."
Drawn by Harry A. Ogden

This page in the original text is blank.

April Weather 21

but I forgave him that. Now, thorough scoundrel
that he is, he has deserted the girl."
" Don't judge him too hastily, John. He loved
her, I am sure. May it not have been that it was
only after another was dependent upon him, that
the debts of a thoughtless spendthrift-for he
was nothing worse-drove him to desperation-
to fraud, perhaps-I will not believe to crime"
"His wife shall be provided for-my lawyers
have their instructions," replied the Colonel,
curtly.
The young wife went on, in a firmer yet still
pleading voice:
"Your son has something more to expect from
you, also. I am thinking of what you have so
often told me-of the poor mother who died when
he was born-her whose place I have tried to fill,
both to Frank and to you. I never saw her, and
she is sleeping in the old graveyard at home. But
I am doing what she would do to-day, if she were
living. No pride, no disgrace, could have turned
her face from him. The care and love of her son
have been to me my most sacred duty-the most
sacred duty which one woman can assume for
another."
'I know it "-the Colonel spoke as if he were
choking-" you have fulfilled that duty, Constance.

Shenandoah

God bless you! Now, leave me to myself a little.
There are more things than one to trouble my
mind."
Mrs. Haverill threw a kiss to her husband,
stole softly out of the room, closing the door
behind her, passed through the spacious galleries
and down the broad winding stairs to the drawing-
room.
What a splendid, old colonial, baronial, hospit-
able mansion it was! There was a vast central
rotunda, domed with a skylight of colored glass;
and around this open space, on all the four floors
from ground to roof, circled the gallery corridors
from which heavy oaken doors opened into guest
chambers, living rooms, and sunny nooks innum-
erable, some looking out upon Charleston harbor
and oceanward, others at the rear and sides of
the house having vine-clad balconies, or else the
aforesaid practicable verandas that ran all the way
around outside. On the main floor the two grand
salons, which could be thrown into one, fully
eighty feet long, extended the whole length of the
house, with vast open fireplaces and imposing
marble mantels at either end.
Here was the Erard piano, a "grand" of the
ante-bellum period. Spindle-legged and carved-
back chairs and tapestry sofas were set against

April Weather

the polished dark woodwork of the wainscoting.
Candelabra of silver, brass, and crystal, with tall
wax candles, stood in state on claw-footed tables
topped with Italian marble and mosaic. Ruddy-
faced ancestral portraits, some of them in gold-
laced Continental uniforms of the Revolution or
of I812, peered from the rich gloom of lofty walls.
Peter the Great, in sombre livery, patrolled this
noble hall, and at each door was stationed a
smiling mulatto maid servant, in readiness to
minister to the wants or fancies of guests and
household.
Through a high-arched doorway leading into
the dining-room, glimpses were caught of the
polished mahogany table, of the silver service and
rare old china resting on damask mats, and of the
great rosewood sideboard reaching to the ceiling
with its ecclesiastical-looking glass doors and
white-knobbed, bellied drawers, and cut-glass
decanters glowing with ruby port and topaz
Madeira, brandy, and whiskey.
Everywhere, as Mrs. Haverill descended after
her troublous interview with the Colonel, the
younger people were blissfully lounging or cir-
culating about, still talking love and war.
They had a new and breezy accession to their
ranks, in the person of Jenny Buckthorn,

Shenandoah

"U. S. A." She was the daughter of bluff old
General Francis Buckthorn, of the Regular Army,
and had been born and brought up in a military
camp on the Western plains. From her first
baby squall, it was understood, she had virtually
commanded the garrison. Now she had the ways
and gait of a trooper, paradoxically combined
with the full complement of feminine graces and
the heart of a coquette.
" We 're going to see active service, now-sooner
than you civilians seem to suspect," announced
Jenny, to an attentive group of listeners under
the front portico. "Our boys are already under
marching orders, in Washington. And we army
girls-well, of course we don't go to the front
until it becomes absolutely necessary; but all
the same, we 're ready to scrape lint and flirt with
the officers of the home guard. Your General
Beauregard is riding his high horse, it seems. Tell
him for me that he 'd better mind what he 's
doing or we 'll have Heartsease down here after
him."'
" And who is Heartse