University of Virginia Library

32. CHAPTER XXXII.
A MOST LOGICAL CONCLUSION.

When Lillie came to her senses she was lying on her
father's bed. For some minutes he had been bending over
her, watching her pulse, bathing her forehead, kissing her,
and calling her by name in a hoarse, frightened whisper.
He was aware that insensibility was her best friend; but
he must know at once whether she would live or die. At
first she lay quiet, silent, recollecting, trying not to believe;
then she suddenly plunged her face into the pillow
with a groan of unspeakable anguish. It was not for five
or ten minutes longer, not until he had called her by every
imaginable epithet of pity and tenderness, that she turned

toward him with another spasmodic throe, clasped his
head to her bosom, and burst into an impetuous sobbing
and low crying. Still she did not speak an intelligible
word; her teeth were set firm, as if in bodily pain, and her
sobs came through her parted lips; she would not look at
him either, and kept her eyes closed, or turned upward
distractedly. It seemed as if, even in the midst of her
anguish, she was stung by shame at the nature of the calamity,
so insulting to her pride as a woman and wife.
After a while this paroxysm ceased, and she lay silent
again, while another icy wave of despair flowed over her,
her consciousness being expressed solely in a trembling of
her cheeks, her lips, and her fingers. When he whispered,
“We will go north, we will never come back here,”
she made no sign of assent or objection. She did not
answer him in any manner until he asked her if she wanted
Ravvie; but then she leaped at the proffered consolation,
the gift of Heaven's pity, with a passionate “Yes!” For
an anxious half hour the Doctor left her alone with her
child, knowing that it was the best he could do for her.

One thing he must attend to at once. Steps must be
taken to prevent Mrs. Larue from crossing his daughter's
sight even for a moment. See the woman himself he could
not; not, at least, until she were dead. He enclosed her
billet to her in a sealed envelope, adding the following
note, which cost him many minutes to write—

“Madame: The accompanying letter has fallen into the
hands of my daughter. She is dangerously ill. I hope
that you will have the humanity not to meet her again.”

When the housemaid returned from delivering the package
he said to her, “Julia, did you give it to Mrs. Larue?”

“Yes sah.”

“Did you give it into her own hands?”

“Yes sah. She was in bed, an' I gin it to herself.”

“What—how did she look?” asked the Doctor after a
moment's hesitation.

“She did'n look nohow. She jess lit a match an' burned
the letter up.”

The Doctor was aghast at the horrible, hard-hearted
corruptness implied by such coolness and forethought. But
in point of fact, Mrs. Larue had been startled far beyond
her common wont, and was now more profoundly grieved
than she had ever been before in her life.

“What a pity!” she said several times to herself. “I
have made them very miserable. I have done mischief
when I meant none. Why didn't the stupid creature
burn the letter! I burned all his. What a pity! Well,
at any rate it will go no farther.”

She had her trunks packed and drove immediately after
breakfast to Carrollton, where she remained secluded in the
hotel until she found a private boarding house in the unfrequented
outskirts of the village. If the Ravenels moved
away, her man servant was to inform her, so that she
might return to her house. She realized perfectly the inhumanity
of encountering Lillie, and was resolved that no
such meeting should take place, no matter what might be
the expense of keeping up two establishments. In her
pity and regret she was almost willing to sell her house at
a loss, or shut it up without rent, and pinch herself in
some northern city, supposing that the Ravenels concluded
to stay in New Orleans. “I owe them that much,” she
thought, with a consciousness of being generous, and not
bad-hearted. Then she sighed, and said aloud, “Poor
Lillie! I am so sorry for her! But she has a baby, and
for his sake she will forgive her husband.”

And then a feeling came over her that she would like to
see the baby, and that it would have been a pleasure to at
least kiss it good-bye.

The family with which she lived consisted of a man of
sixty and his wife, with two unmarried daughters of
twenty-eight and thirty, the parents New Englanders, the
children born in Louisiana, but all alike orthodox, devout,
silent, after the old fashion of New England. The father

was a cotton broker, nearly bankrupted by the Rebellion,
and was glad for pecuniary reasons to receive a respectable
boarder. Such a household Mrs. Larue had chosen
as an asylum, believing that she would be benefited just
now by an odor of sanctity, if it were only derived from
propinquity. Something might get out; Lillie might go
delirious and make disclosures; and it was well to build
up a character for staidness. The idea of entering a convent
she rejected the moment that it occurred to her. “This
is monastic enough,” she thought with a repressed smile as
she looked at the serious faces of her Presbyterian hosts
male and female.

The Allens became as much infatuated with her as did
the Chaplain on board the Creole, or the venerable D. D.
in New York city. Her modest and retiring manner, her
amiability, cheerfulness, and sprightly conversation, made
her the most charming person in their eyes that they had
ever met. The daughters regained something of their
blighted youthfulness under the sunny influences of her
presence, aided by the wisdom of her counsel, and the cunning
of her fingers in matters of the toilet. Mrs. Allen
kissed her with motherly affection every time that she
bade the family good-night. The old trick of showing a
mind ripe for conversion from Popery was played with the
usual success. After she had left the house, and when she
was once more receiving and flirting in New Orleans, Mr.
Allen used to excite her laughter by presenting her with
tracts against Romanism, or lending her volumes of sermons
by eminent Protestant divines. Not that she ever
laughed at him to his face: she would as soon have thought
of striking him with her fist; she was too good-natured
and well-bred to commit either impertinence.

For the sake of appearances she remained in the country
a week or more after the Ravenels had left the city. Restored
to her own house, she found herself somewhat lonely
for lack of her relatives, and somewhat gloomy, or at
least annoyed, when she thought of the cause of the

separation. But there was no need of continuing solitude;
any quantity of army society could be had by such
New Orleans ladies as wished it; and Mrs. Larue finally
resolved to break with treason, and flirt with loyalty in
gilt buttons. In a short time her parlor was frequented
by gentlemen who wore silver leaves and eagles and stars
on their shoulders, and the loss of Colonel Carter was more
than made up to her by the devotion of persons who were
mightier in counsel and in war than he. The very latest
news from her is of a highly satisfactory character. It is
reported that she was fortunate enough to gain the special
favor of an official personage very high in authority in
some unmentionable department of the South, who, as a
mark of his gratitude, gave her a permit to trade for several
thousand bales of cotton. This curious billet-doux she
sold to a New York speculator for fifteen thousand dollars,
thereby re-establishing her somewhat dilapidated fortunes.

Just as a person whose dwelling falls about his head is
sometimes preserved from death by some fragment of the
wreck which prostrates him, but preserves him from the
mass, so Lillie was shielded from the full pressure of her
misery by a short fever, bringing with it a few days of
delirium, and a long prostration, during which she had not
strength to feel acutely. When we must bend or break,
Nature often takes us in her own pitying hands, and lays
us gently upon beds of insensibility or semi-consciousness.
Thanks be to Heaven for the merciful opiate of sickness!

During the fever two letters arrived from Carter, but
Ravenel put them away without showing them to the invalid.
For some time she did not inquire about her husband;
when she thought of him too keenly she asked with
a start for her baby. Nature continually led her to that
tender, helpless, speechless, potent consoler. The moment
it was safe for her to travel, Ravenel put her on board a
vessel bound to New York, choosing a sailing craft, not
only for economy's sake, but to secure the benefit of a

lengthy voyage, and to keep longer away from all news
of earth and men. She made no objection to going; her
father wished it to be so; it was right enough. The voyage
lasted three weeks, during which she slowly regained
strength, and as a consequence something of her old cheerfulness
and hopefulness. The Doctor had a strong faith
that she would not be broken down by her calamity. Not
only was her temper gay and remarkable for its elasticity,
but her physical constitution seemed to partake of the
same characteristics, and she had always recovered from
sickness with rapidity. Not a bit disposed to brooding,
taking a lively interest in whatever went on around her,
she would not fall an easy prey to confirmed melancholy.
The Doctor never alluded to her husband, and when Lillie
at last mentioned his name, it was merely to say, “I hope
he will not be killed.”

“I hope not,” replied Ravenel gently, and stopped there.
He could not, however, repress a brief glance of surprise
and investigation. Could it be that she would come to
forgive that man? Had he been too hasty in dragging
her away from New Orleans, and giving up the moderate
salary which was so necessary to them both? But no: it
would kill her to meet Mrs. Larue: they must never go
back to that Sodom of a city.

The question of income was a serious one. He was
nearly at the end of his own resources, and he had not
suffered Lillie to draw any of her perfidious husband's
money. But he did not dwell much on these pecuniary
questions now, being chiefly occupied with the moral future
of his child, wondering much whether she would indeed
forgive her husband, and whether she would ever
again be happy. Of course it was not until they reached
New York that they learned the events which I must now
relate.

Carter joined the army at Grande Ecore just before it
resumed field operations. Bailey's famous dam had let
Porter out of his trap; the monitors, the gunboats, the Admiral,

were on their way down the river; it was too late
to go to Shreveport, or to gather cotton; and so the column
set out rearward. That it was strong enough to take care
of itself against any force which the rebels could bring to
cut off the retreat was well known; and Carter assumed
command of his new brigade with a sense of elation at the
prospect of fighting, which he had little reason to doubt
would be successful. By the last gunboat of the departing
fleet he sent his wife a letter, full of gay anticipations,
and expressions of affection, which she was destined never
to answer. By the last transport which came to Grande
Ecore arrived a letter from Ravenel, which, owing to the
hastiness of the march, did not reach him until the evening
before the battle of Cane River. In the glare of a camp-fire
he read of the destruction which he had wrought in
the peace of his own family. Ravenel spoke briefly and
without reproaches of the discovery; stated that he believed
it to be his duty to remove his child from the scene
of such a domestic calamity; that he should therefore take
her to the north as soon as she was able to travel.

“I beg that you will not force yourself upon her,” he
concluded. “Hitherto she has not mentioned your name
to me, and I do not know what may be her feelings with
regard to you. Some time she may pardon you, if it is
your desire to be pardoned. I cannot say. At present I
know of nothing better than to take her away, and to ask
your forbearance, in the name of her sickness and suffering.”

This letter was a cruel blow to Carter. If the staff
officers who sat with him around the camp-fire could have
known how deeply and for what a purely domestic reason
the seemingly stern and hard General was suffering, they
would have been very much amazed. He was popularly
supposed to be a man of the world, with bad morals and
a calloused heart, which could neither feel much anguish
of its own nor sympathise keenly with the anguish of other
hearts. But the General was indeed so wretched that he
could not talk with them, and could not even sit among

them in silence. He went on one side and walked for an
hour up and down in the darkness. He tried to clear up
the whole thing in his mind, and decide distinctly what
was the worst that had happened, and what was the best
that could be done But his perceptions were very
tumultuous and incoherent, as is usually the case with a
man when first overtaken by a great calamity. It was a
horrible affair; it was a cursed, infernal affair; and that
was about all that he could say to himself. He was intolerably
ashamed, as well as grieved and angry. He
thought very little about Mrs. Larue, good or bad; he was
not mean enough to curse her, although she had been more
to blame than he; only he did wish that he never had
seen her, and did curse the day which brought them together
on the Creole. The main thing, after all, was that
he had ill-treated his wife, and it did not matter who had
been his accomplice in the wicked business. He set his
teeth into his lips, and felt his eyes grow moist, as he
thought of her, sick and suffering because she loved him,
and he had not been worthy of her love. Would she ever
forgive him, and take him back to her heart? He did not
know. He would try to win her back; he would fight
desperately, and distinguish himself; he would offer her
the best impulses and bravest deeds of manhood. Perhaps
if he should earn a Major-General's star and high fame in
the nation, and then should go to her feet, she would receive
him. A transitory thrill of pleasure shot through
him as he thought of reconciliation and renewed love.

At last the General was recalled to the fire to read orders
which concerned the movements of the morrow, and
to transmit them to the regiments of his own command.
Then he had to receive two old friends, regular officers of
the artillery, who called to congratulate him on his promotion.
Whiskey was produced for the visitors, and Carter
himself drank freely to drown trouble. When they went
away, about midnight, he found himself wearied out, and

very soon dropped asleep, for he was a soldier and could
slumber under all circumstances.

At Grande Ecore the Red River throws off a bayou
which rejoins it below, the two currents enclosing an island
some forty miles in length. This bayou, now called the
Cane River, was once the original stream, and in memory
of its ancient grandeur flows between high banks altogether
out of proportion to its modest current. Over the
dead level of the island the army had moved without being
opposed, or harassed, for the rebels had reserved
their strength to crush it when it should be entangled in
the crossing of the Cane River. Taylor with his Arkansas
and Louisiana infantry had followed the march closely
but warily, always within striking distance but avoiding
actual conflict, and now lay in line of battle only a few
miles in rear of Andrew Jackson Smith's western boys.
Polignac with his wild Texan cavalry had made a great
circuit, and already held the bluffs on the southern side of
the Cane River confronting Emory's two divisions of the
Nineteenth Corps. The main plan of the battle was simple
and inevitable. Andrew Jackson Smith must beat off the
attack of Taylor, and Emory must abolish the obstacle of
Polignac.

The veteran and wary commander of the Nineteenth
Corps had already decided how he would go over his
ground, should he find it occupied by the enemy. He had
before him a wood of considerable extent, then an open
plain eight hundred yards across, and then a valley in the
nature of a ravine, at the bottom of which flowed a river,
not fordable here, and with no crossing but a ferry. A
single narrow road led down through a deep cut to the
edge of the rapid, muddy stream, and, starting again from
the other edge, rose through a similar gorge until it disappeared
from sight behind the brows of high bluffs crowned
with pines. Under the pines and along the rim of the
bluffs lay the line of Polignac. There had been no time
to reconnoitre his dispositions; indeed, his presence in

strong force was not yet positively known to the leaders
of the Union army; but if there, his horses had no doubt
been sent to the rear, and his men formed to fight as infantry.
And if this were so, if an army of several thousand
Texan riflemen occupied this strong position, how
should it be carried? Emory had already decided that it
would never do to butt at it in front, and that it could only
be taken by a turning movement. Thus this part of the
battle had a plan of its own.

Such was the military situation upon which our new
Brigadier opened his heavy eyes at half-past three o'clock
on the morning after getting that woeful letter about his
wife. The army was to commence its march at half-past
four, and Carter was aroused by the bustle of preparation
from the vast bivouac. Thousands of men were engaged
in rolling their blankets, putting on their equipments, wiping
the dew from their rifles, and eating their hasty and
unsavory breakfasts of hard-tack. Companies were falling
in; the voices of the first-sergeants were heard calling the
rolls; long-drawn orders resounded, indicating the formation
of regimental lines; the whinnies of horses, the braying
of mules, and the barking of dogs joined in the clamor;
but as yet there was no trampling of the march, no rolling
of the wheels of artillery. Nothing could be seen of this
populous commotion except here and there where a forbidden
cooking-fire cast its red flicker over little knots
of crouching soldiers engaged in preparing coffee.

In the moment of coming to his senses, and before memory
had fully resumed its action, the General was vaguely
conscious that something horrible was about to happen, or
had already happened. But an old soldier is not long in
waking up, especially when he has gone to sleep in the
expectation of a battle, and Carter knew almost instantaneously
what was the nature of the burden that weighed
upon his soul. He lay full dressed at the foot of a tree,
with no shelter but its branches. He was quite still for a
minute or more, staring at the dark sky with steady,

gloomy eyes. His first act was to put his hand to the
breast pocket of his blouse and draw out that cruel letter,
as if to read it anew by the flicker of a fire which reached
his resting place. But there was no need of that: he knew
all that was in it as soon as he looked at the envelope; he
remembered at once even the blots and the position of the
signature. Next the sight of it angered him, and he
thrust it back crumpled into his pocket. There was no
need, he felt, of making so much of the affair; such affairs
were altogether too common to be made so much of; he
could not and would not see any sense in the Doctor's
conduct. He sprang to his feet in his newly-found indignation,
and glared fiercely around the bivouac of his
brigade.

“How's this?” he growled. “I ordered that not a fire
should be lighted. Mr. Van Zandt, did you pass the order
to every regiment last evening?”

“I did, sir,” answers our old acquaintance, now a staff
officer, thanks to his Dutch courage, and his ability with
the pen.

“Ride off again. Stop those fires instantly. My God!
the fools want to tell the enemy just when we start.”

This outburst raised his spirits, and after swallowing a
cocktail he sat down to breakfast with some appetite. The
toughness of the cold boiled chicken, and the dryness and
hardness of the army biscuit served as a further distraction,
and enabled him to utter a joke about such delicacies
being very suitable for projectiles. But he was still nervous,
uneasy, eager, driven by the sin which was past, and
dragged by the battle which was before, so that any long
reveling at the banquet was impossible. He quitted the
empty cracker box which served him for a table, and paced
grimly up and down until his orderly came to buckle on
his sword, and his servant brought him his horse.

“How are the saddle-pockets, Cato?” he asked.

“Oh, day's chuck full, Gen'l. Hull cold chicken in dis
yere one, an' bottle o' whisky in dis yere.”

Carter swung himself slowly and heavily into his saddle.
He was weary, languid and feverish with want of sleep,
and trouble of mind. In truth he was physically and
morally a much discomforted Brigadier General. Without
waiting for other directions than his example, his five staff
officers mounted also and fell into a group behind him. In
their rear was the brigade flag-bearer escorted by half-a-dozen
cavalry-men. The sombre dawn was turning to red
and gold in the east. A monstrous serpent of blue and
steel was already creeping toward the ferry, increasing in
length as additional regiments streamed into the road from
the fields which had served for the bivouac. When Carter
had seen his entire brigade file by, he set off at a canter,
placed himself at the head of it, and rode on at a walk,
silent and gloomy of countenance. Not even the thought
that he was now a general, and had a chance to make a
reputation for himself as well as for others, could enable
him to quite throw off the seriousness and anxiety which
beclouds the minds of men during the preliminaries of battle.
The remembrance of the misery which he had wrought
for his wife was no pleasant distraction. It was like a
foreboding; it overshadowed him even when he was not
thinking of it distinctly; it seemed to have a menacing arm
which pointed him to punishment, calamity, perhaps a
grave. He was like a haunted man who sees his following
phantom if he turns his head ever so little. Nevertheless,
when he squarely faced the subject, and dragged it out
separately from the general sombreness of the situation, it
did not seem such a very hopeless misfortune. It surely
was not possible that she had broken with him for life. He
would win her back to him; it must be that she loved him
enough to forgive him some day; he would win her back
with repentance and victories. As he thought this he
dashed a little way into the fields, gave a glance at the
line of his brigade, and dispatched a couple of his staff to
close up the rearmost files of his regiments.

Presently there was a halt: something probably going

on in front: perhaps a reconnoisance: perhaps battle. The
men were allowed to stack arms and sit down by the roadside.
Then came news: Enemy in force at the crossing: a
direct attack in front out of the question: turning movements
to be made somewhere by somebody. It was a full
hour after sunrise when an aid of General Emory's arrived
with orders for General Carter to report for duty to General
Birge.

“What is the situation?” asked the General.

“Two brigades are forming in front,” replied the aid.
“We have an immense line of skirmishers stretching from
the Cane River on the right all along the edge of the
woods, and out into the fields. But we can't go at them
in front. Their ground is nearly a hundred feet higher
than ours, and the crossing isn't fordable. We have got
to flank them. Closson is going up with some artillery to
establish a position on our left, and from that the cavalry
will turn the right wing of the enemy. Birge is to do the
same thing on this side with three brigades. He will go
up about a mile—three miles from the ferry—ford the
river—it's fordable up there—come round on the fellows,
and give it to them over the left.”

“Very good,” said Carter. “If I shouldn't come back,
give the General my compliments for his plan. Much
obliged, Lieutenant.”

At this moment the flat, dull report of a rifled iron gun
came from the woods far away in front, followed a few
seconds afterward by another report, still flatter in sound
and much more distant, the bursting of a shell.

“There goes Closson,” laughed the young officer. “Two
twenty-pound Parrotts and four three-inch rifles! He'll
wake 'em up when he gets fairly a-talking. Good luck to
you, General.”

And away he rode gaily, at a gallop, in the direction of
the ferry.

While Birge's column countermarched, and Carter's
brigade filed into the rear of it, the cannonade became

lively in the front, the crashes of the guns alternating rapidly
with the crashes of the shells, as Closson went in with
all his six pieces, and a Rebel battery of seven responded.
After half an hour of this the enemy found that a range of
two thousand yards was too long for them, and became
silent. Then Closson ceased firing also, and waited to
hear from Birge. And now for five or six hours there was
no more sound of fighting along this line, except an occasional
shot from the skirmishers aimed at puffs of rifle smoke
which showed rarely against the pines of the distant bluffs.
The infantry column struggled over its long detour by the
right; the cavalry tried in vain to force a way through the
jungles on the left; the centre listened to the roar of A. J.
Smith's battle in the rear, and lunched and waited. At
two o'clock Emory put everything in order to advance
whenever Birge's musketry should give notice that he was
closely engaged. Closson was to move forward on the
left, and fire as fast as he could load. The remainder of
the artillery was to gallop down the river road to the
ferry, and open with a dozen or fifteen pieces. The two
supporting brigades were to push through the woods as
rapidly as possible and cover the artillery. The skirmishers
were to cross the river wherever they could ford
it, and keep up a heavy fire in order to occupy the attention
of the enemy. Closson started at once, forced five of
his three-inch rifles through the wood, went into battle at
a range of a thousand yards, and in ten minutes dislodged
the Rebel guns from their position. But all this was
mere feinting; the heavy fighting must be done by Birge.

The flanking column had a hard road to travel. After
fording the Cane River it entered a country of thickets,
swamps and gullies so difficult of passage that five hours
were spent in marching barely five miles. Two regiments
were deployed in advance as skirmishers; the others followed
in columns of division doubled on the centre. At
one time the whole force went into line of battle on a false
alarm of the near presence of the enemy. Then the nature

of the ground forced it to move for nearly a mile in the
ordinary column of march. It floundered through swampy
undergrowths; it forded a deep and muddy bayou. About
two o'clock in the afternoon it came out upon a clearing
in full view of a bluff, forty or fifty feet in height, flanked
on one side by the river, and on the other by a marshy
jungle connecting with a lake. Along the brow of this
bluff lay Polignac's left wing, an unknown force of Texan
riflemen, all good shots, and impetuous fighters, elated
moreover with pursuit and the expectation of victory.
Here Carter received an order to charge with his brigade.

“Very good,” he answered, in a loud, satisfied, confident
tone, at the same time throwing away his segar.
“Let me look at things first. I want to see where to go
in.”

A single glance told him that the river side was unassailable.
He galloped to the right, inspected the boggy
jungle, glared at the lake beyond, and decided that nothing
could be done in that quarter. Returning to the brigade
he once more surveyed the ground in its front. It
would be necessary to take down a high fence, cross an
open field, take down a second fence, and advance up the
hill under a close fire of musketry. But he was not dispirited
by the prospect; he was no longer the silent,
sombre man of the morning. The whizzing of the Texan
bullets, the sight of the butternut uniforms, and ugly
broadbrims which faced him, had cleared his deep breast
of oppression, and called the fighting fire into his eyes.
He swore loudly and gaily; he would flog those dirty
rapscallions; he would knock them high and dry into the
other world; he would teach them not to get in his way.

“Go to the regimental commanders,” he shouted to
his staff officers. “Tell them to push straight at the hill.
Tell them, Guide right.”

On went the regiments, four in number, keeping even
pace with each other. There was a halt at the first fence
while the men struggled with the obstacle, climbing it in

some places, and pushing it over in others. The General's
brow darkened with anxiety lest the temporary confusion
should end in a retreat; and spurring close up to the line
he rode hither and thither, cheering the soldiers onward.

“Forward, my fine lads,” he said. “Down with it.
Jump it. Now then. Get into your ranks. Get along,
my lads.”

On went the regiments, moving at the ordinary quickstep,
arms at a right-shoulder-shift, ranks closed, gaps
filled, unfaltering, heroic. The dead were falling; the
wounded were crawling in numbers to the rear; the leisurely
hum of long-range bullets had changed into the sharp,
multitudinous whit-whit of close firing; the stifled crash
of balls hitting bones, and the soft chuck of flesh-wounds
mingled with the outcries of the sufferers; the bluff in
front was smoking, rattling, wailing with the incessant
file-fire; but the front of the brigade remained unbroken,
and its rear showed no stragglers. The right hand regiment
floundered in a swamp, but the other hurried on
without waiting for it. As the momentum of the movement
increased, as the spirits of the men rose with the
charge, a stern shout broke forth, something between a
hurrah and a yell, swelling up against the rebel musketry,
and defying it. Gradually the pace increased to a double-quick,
and the whole mass ran for an eighth of a mile
through the whistling bullets. The second fence disappeared
like frost-work, and up the slope of the hill struggled
the panting regiments. When the foremost ranks
had nearly reached the summit, a sudden silence stifled
the musketry. Polignac's line wavered, ceased firing,
broke and went to the rear in confusion. The clamor of
the charging yell redoubled for a moment, and then died
in the rear of a tremendous volley. Now the Union line
was firing, and now the rebels were falling. Such was
the charge which carried the crossing, and gained the battle
of Cane River.

But Brigadier-General John Carter had already fallen
gloriously in the arms of victory.

At the moment that the fatal shot struck him he had
forgotten his guilt and remorse in the wild joy of successful
battle. He was on horseback, closely following his
advancing brigade, and watching its spirited push, and
listening to its mad yell, with such a smile of soldierly delight
and pride that it was a pleasure to look upon his
bronzed, confident, heroic face. It would have been
strange to a civilian to hear the stream of joyful curses
with which he expressed his admiration and elation.

“God damn them! see them go in!” he said. “God
damn their souls! I can put them anywhere!”

He had just uttered these words when a Minie-ball
struck him in the left side, just below the ribs, with a thud
which was audible ten feet from him in spite of the noise
of the battle. He started violently in the saddle, and
then bent slowly forward, laying his right hand on the
horse's mane. He was observed to carry his left hand
twice toward the wound without touching it, as if desirous,
yet fearful, of ascertaining the extent of the injury. The
blow was mortal, and he must have known it, yet he retained
his ruddy bronze color for a minute or two. With
the assistance of two staff officers he dismounted and
walked eight or ten yards to the shade of a tree, uttering
not a groan, and only showing his agony by the manner
in which he bent forward, and the spasmodic clutch with
which he held to those supporting shoulders. But when
he had been laid down, it was visible enough that there
was not half an hour's life in him. His breath was short,
his forehead was thickly beaded with a cold perspiration,
and his face was of an ashy pallor stained with streaks of
ghastly yellow.

“Tell Colonel Gilliman,” he said, mentioning the senior
colonel of the brigade, and then paused to catch his breath
before he resumed, “tell him to keep straight forward.”

These were the first words that he had spoken since he

was hit. His voice had already sunk from a clear, sonorous
bass to a hoarse whisper. Presently, as the smoking
and roaring surge of battle rolled farther to the front a chaplain
and a surgeon came up, followed by several ambulance
men bearing stretchers. The chaplain was attached to
Carter's old regiment, and had served under him since its
formation. The surgeon, a Creole by birth, a Frenchman
by education, philosophical and roué, belonged to a Louisiana
loyal regiment, and had known the General in other
days, when he was a dissipated, spendthrift lieutenant of
the regular army, stationed at Baton Rouge. He gave
him a large cup of whiskey, uncovered the wound, probed
it with his finger, and said nothing, looked nothing.

“Why don't you do something?” whispered the chaplain
eagerly, and almost weeping.

“I have done all that is—essential,” he replied, with a
slight shrug of the shoulders.

“How do you feel, General?” asked the chaplain, turning
to his dying commander.

“Going,” was the whispered answer.

“Going!—Oh, going where?” implored the other, sinking
on his knees. “General, have you thought of the sacrifice
of Jesus Christ?”

For a moment Carter's deep voice returned to him, as,
fixing his stern eyes on the chaplain, he answered, “Don't
bother!—where is the brigade?”

Perhaps he thought it unworthy of him to seek God in
his extremity, when he had neglected Him in all his hours
of health. Perhaps he felt that he owed his last thoughts
to his country and his professional duties. Perhaps he did
not mean all that he said.

It was strange to note the power of military discipline
upon the chaplain. Even in this awful hour, when it was
his part to fear no man, he evidently quailed before his
superior officer. Under the pressure of a three years'
habit of obedience and respect, cowed by rank and that
audacious will accustomed to domination, he shrank back

into silence, covering his face with his hands, and no doubt
praying, but uttering no further word.

“General, the brigade has carried the position,” said one
of the staff-officers.

Carter smiled, tried to raise his head, dropped it slowly,
drew a dozen labored breaths, and was dead.

“It a maintena jusq' au bout son personnage,” said the
surgeon, letting fall the extinct pulse. “Sa mort est tout
ce qu' il y a de plus logique.”

So he thought, and very naturally. He had only known
him in his evil hours; he judged him as all superficial acquaintances
would have judged; he was not aware of the
tenderness which existed at the bottom of that passionate
nature. With another education Carter might have been
a James Brainard or a St. Vincent de Paul. With
the training that he had, it was perfectly logical that in
his last moments he should not want to be bothered about
Jesus Christ.

The body was borne on a stretcher in rear of the
victorious columns until they halted for the night, when it
was buried in the private cemetery of a planter, in presence
of Carter's former regiment. Among the spectators
was Colburne, stricken with real grief as he thought of the
bereaved wife. Throughout the army the regret was
general and earnest over the loss of this brave and able
officer, apparently just entering upon a career of long-deserved
promotion. In a letter to Ravenel, Colburne related
the particulars of Carter's death, and closed with a
fervent eulogium on his character as a man and his services
as a soldier, forgetting that he had sometimes drunk too
deeply, and that there were suspicious against him of other
vices. It is thus that young and generous spirits are apt
to remember the dead, and it is thus always that a soldier
laments for a worthy commander who has fallen on the
field of honor.