“How long it is since that day! how much has come and gone since then! and I live to tell it! It was but a few years after that the world shook with the French Revolution—and a few years more—that man of a bloody age, the expression of all that is evil and great in human nature, rose and shocked his race, comet-like, with his fierce glare, and then set forever. Our own calm Washington sleeps in his heart-honored grave, and the sighs of a grateful people whisper in the cedars above it—but then, he was living, acting, and inspiring all about him with the indomitable courage and heroic patience that animated himself. The terrors and events that stirred our hearts to agony were nigh us, even at our doors, and strong as we might be in patriotic feeling, almost every family could count its victims. I was young in years, but we grew old early then, and my mother had held her first child in her arms at fifteen years old. “It was early in the morning—at early dawn—when I parted from him. He held me to his bosom that was covered with the simple uniform—so associated in my mind with all that was best and noblest on earth—and my bosom beat with pride as well as grief. I also could sacrifice something to my country. “Well—that day—it wore on drearily, so drearily as you can never know; and in the afternoon some neighbors came in to talk of the army, and the destination of the regiment which had just left us. It was long after dinner—nearly two o’clock. So depressed and wretched did I feel, that when I lifted my head from my arms, where I was leaning, and gazed out on the sky, I was more soothed than startled at its strange appearance. The air seemed absolutely heavy with a darkness that came on like an army. But my thoughts had been of darkness and blood, and a sadness I could not shake off. Presently they all saw and felt it too. They sprang to the door, but it was not a storm, it was not cloudy, but just dark—the cattle came lowing into the yard, the birds flew to their nests, the fowls were already on their roosts. I cannot describe to you the consternation of our household. Superstitious persons are not wanting in any age, and you may guess that many read in the supernatural gloom a foreboding of disaster to our arms. That the day of judgment was approaching was a more common feeling, and a good many went to the minister’s house in their terror, that they might be listening to prayer. I don’t remember that I thought about it much, but it was a relief to see the sky light up as it did after two or three hours, and see nature going on her accustomed routine.