Pictorial history of the war for the Union, volume 1 (of 2) : $b A complete and reliable history of the war from its commencement to its close ... together with a complete chronological analysis of the warStephens, Ann S. (Ann Sophia)
History
Pictorial history of the war for the Union, volume 1 (of 2) : $b A complete and reliable history of the war from its commencement to its close ... together with a complete chronological analysis of the war
Stephens, Ann S. (Ann Sophia)
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865
There was a house on the hill-top where Griffin’s battery had stood, and
where the Connecticut troops had planted the stars and stripes in their
last desperate charge. Through all the fight, a helpless and frightened
family had found precarious shelter in their own dwelling. The household
was composed of a son, a daughter, and the mother, a gentle Christian
woman, who had been confined to her bed for years. There was no hopes of
flight for her, poor soul, and neither son nor daughter would abandon
her when the storm of battle was at their threshold. Hoping to find a
place of safety, the devoted children carried her to a neighboring
ravine, sheltering her with their own persons.
But this spot became at last more dangerous than the house. So the
harassed children took their parent back to her home, and placing her in
bed again, stood to screen her from the bullets that broke like hail
through the walls and windows. While her house was riddled with cannon
balls and musket shot, and the missiles of death plunged through her
chamber and into her bed, three bullets pierced her frail person. Still
she outlived the battle tempest that raged around her, a tempest that
she had not even dreamed of approaching her dwelling when that fatal day
dawned upon it. When the night came on she died peacefully, and the
troubled moon looked down on a mournful scene here also. Within the
riddled walls and under the torn roof, this gentle woman lay, in a
quieter sleep than she had known for many a long night, and by her bed
knelt the bereaved children who had dared so much, weeping that a life
so peaceful should have met that violent ending. Painful as this was,
there lay many poor soldiers on the field that hour, whose children
would never have the privilege of weeping over them.
In an orchard of young trees, just forming their fruit, lay many a
prostrate Southron, sent to his long account; for the enemy had suffered
terribly there. The northern verge of the field was blackened by a fine
grove in which a Georgia regiment had fought, and under its black
shadows the dead lay thick and numerous. Here Lamar had fallen, and many
a brave Northman slept side by side with the foe he had sent into
eternity but a moment in advance of himself. The fatal hill, scorched
and blackened in every tree and blade of grass, was strewn with the dead
of both sections, among them some of the bravest leaders that the enemy
boasted.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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