“A line of bluecoats came charging up the street. They were very steady, but so were we. They fired a volley, but we knew it was blank and didn’t mind it. Then when they got close to us we gave them our pistol fire. We didn’t use blank cartridges; three of the bluecoats fell over and then all at once the soldiers swarmed upon us. It seemed to me as if the earth and air and sky were all full of soldiers. They were on top of me and around me and then, in some way, I can’t imagine how, I tore myself loose and ran as hard as I could. I found myself down on the docks among the shipping. There was a schooner making ready to leave, and the captain was just stepping aboard. I spoke to him and as soon as he opened his mouth I knew he was a Virginian. I told him that I was a Virginia man, boy, I mean, trying to get back to tidewater Virginia, and he told me to come along with him, that he was bound for York River. We got off directly, but the wind failed almost as soon as we reached Chesapeake Bay. We lay there becalmed for three days and on the last day we got the Baltimore newspapers and one of them had a poem in it, a great poem. It’s called ‘Maryland, My Maryland.’ It’s the finest thing I ever read in my life.” He took out of his pocket a newspaper clipping and, in a ringing voice and with all the power of feeling, read the lines of the poem. The effect was something like that produced by the first rendering of the “Marseillaise.” As George finished, every man present sprang to his feet and followed Stonewall Jackson’s advice, to “yell like devils.” Richard Tremaine found himself hurrahing as loud as anybody. George stood in an involuntarily heroic attitude, tasting the rapture of being a hero. In a minute or two a soft arm stole around his neck, and close to him he saw his mother’s delicate, handsome, middle-aged face, her eyes, still young and exactly like those of the boy. He caught her in his arms and kissed her rapturously. The mother and son were evidently near together. When the cheering had subsided a little, Mrs. Charteris turned to Richard Tremaine. “Mr. Tremaine,” she said, “I have a contribution to make to your battery of artillery. Here is my son, the only son of his mother, and she a widow. You are welcome to him. I only wish I had ten more sons to give my country.” Richard Tremaine took Mrs. Charteris’s hand and kissed it. “It was mothers like you,” he said, “who made Sparta and Rome.” Mr. Wynne, the clerk of the court, a small, oldish man, with stiff gray hair and a prim pursed-up, thin mouth, spoke: “Wait a bit,” he said. “This Charteris boy is under age. He is too young to enlist.” “I assure you he is not,” replied Mrs. Charteris positively. “He was eighteen years old his last birthday. I, his mother, should know.” Everybody present doubted whether George Charteris was really eighteen or not, but Mr. Wynne settled it. He coolly took down a ledger and turning over the leaves rapidly, came to a certain entry in it.