“War is an unmixed evil; look at it as you will, it is, it must be, an unmixed evil!”

This, in an indignant tone, from one, standing at my side, gazing at one of its saddest results.

“An evil, I grant,” said I; “unmixed I deny. War and its attendants have a grand side. Do not start, and look so reproachfully at me; were we standing on another spot, and were the circumstances different, I would tell you all I mean; but let it pass.”

We were in no mood for argument then, and the subject dropped; but it recurred frequently to my mind, and the more I have dwelt upon it, the more I am convinced (your pardon, dear speaker!) that such a statement is not, cannot be true. War has its compensations, its beautiful compensations; and I very much question, whether, if the statistics of the good deeds, the kind, warm, large-hearted actions, could be registered, as are those of crime, we should not find that those performed in times of war, greatly overbalance those in times of peace. Great crises call forth and compel great deeds.

Where is the battle-field since Sumter’s sad surprise, which cannot boast, not one, but many Sir Philip Sydney’s, with the earnest “Take it; thy need is greater than mine?” Magnanimity need no longer be confined to the field of ZÜtphen, and each child be taught the story as though it stood alone. Where the hospital where we may not see something of sublimity in the beautiful forgetfulness of self, the untiring devotion with which plain, poor men watch, night after night, by a dying comrade,—a stranger till those walls had made them brothers? Where the home, high or humble, which fails to show the brave-hearted wife, mother, daughter, or sister, giving for her country a life far dearer than her own, to danger and to death? Is there no moral grandeur, no moral heroism here? A sad soul, so struggling with, yet surmounting sorrow; so sending forth her sure support and stay, then turning calmly and quietly to take up her lonely cross and bear the burden of daily life, by virtue of such act reaches a spiritual elevation which times of peace could rarely, if ever, witness.

I see the laugh—I hear the cutting remark, “Such a woman’s view!” but I know these things are true, for I have witnessed them; and, be it remembered, that ridicule is not reasoning, nor satire always sound sense. Never can I listen to this statement, that “War is an unmixed evil,” without longing to combat it; and added to that, but this very morning, the same belligerent desire was excited in my mind by reading an opinion, somewhat dogmatically asserted, that, “In these days, Apollo must give place to Mars.”

“Not so,” I answered then; “not so,” I answer now. Apollo never gathers in a heavier harvest—never stores stouter sheaves, than those mowed down by the chariot wheels of the God of War, as he dashes onward in his headlong career. Ask the world, since creation’s dawn, and she will tell you that Apollo clings to Mars; and if he ever “gives place,” it is only that he may follow on the fiery track of his great leader, sure of grander opportunities in the waxing and waning of one moon, than a life-time of peace could give.

And even granting (which I never will) that Apollo pauses in his course—that his lyre “lingers o’er its lays”—are not the daily deeds of our loved land, at this moment, prouder poems than this continent has ever yet produced? Where can we find such stirring strains, such ringing rhythm, such burning ballads, such lyric lays, such sublime sonnets, such ever-during epics, as these times of ours call forth? Is not each soldier a poet in his way? And shall his verse have the less power, for that it is set to martial music? Shall it touch our hearts the less? Rather, shall not every chord vibrate ten thousand times the more, for that the pages on which it is written are the fair fields of our own dear country; its pen, the sword; its ink, the heart’s blood of our brothers?

But I have wandered wide of my mark. I seated myself to note a simple story, of one of that ever-growing army who have nobly given their young lives to their country.

I have made allusion before to my whistling friend, Robinson, who was brought to the hospital at the same time with our poor Darlington, from the same regiment, and wounded in the same battle,—that of “Fair Oaks.” His left arm was terribly shattered, just below the shoulder, and injuring the shoulder-blade; and for a long time his case was a very critical one, requiring the most close and constant watching. He was entirely confined to his bed for many tedious weeks, and yet I know not why I should apply that term to the time so passed; for they were certainly never “tedious” to us, although we felt great anxiety for him, and we never had any proof that they were so to him. Patient and uncomplaining, the only sign he gave of suffering, save the contraction of his brow, was the constant effort to whistle away the pain, and his moans in his sleep. There was always something inexpressibly sad to me in these moans; it seemed as though the body were compensating itself, during sleep, for the powerful restraint imposed upon it during waking hours.

I have rarely seen greater unselfishness in any one. During his illness, it was all-important to keep up his strength, for as the wound began to heal, one abscess followed another, and kept him much prostrated; we therefore tried to tempt his appetite in every way; and often, when I have brought him some delicacy, he has pointed me to some one near him, with the words, “Please give it to him; he cares for such things more than I do.”

His love for his mother, and anxiety to spare her all unnecessary suffering on his account, was very beautiful, and attracted me to him from the first. His weakness was so great that he was utterly unable, for a long time, even to feed himself, and of course, could not write. When I offered to do so for him, he declined, saying, that she knew, through a friend, that he was here; and that the sight of a strange hand, with the conviction that it would bring that he was too ill to write for himself, would be worse for her than to wait for a little while.

One day, some time afterwards, I came to his bedside and found a paper lying there with a few unmeaning scratches, as I thought, upon it; he held them up to me.

“The best I could do.”

“What were you trying to do?” said I; “did you mean that for drawing?”

A look of intense disappointment passed over his face.

“I was afraid so,” said he; “then it would frighten her, as I thought. I meant it for my signature, and I’ve looked at it, and looked at it, and hoped it didn’t look as bad as I thought, at first; but if you ask what I’m trying to do, when you see it, the game’s up, and it’s no use.”

I assured him that such a signature would be far stronger proof of the real state of the case, than any letter I could send telling the facts, and giving the reasonable ground for hope which we now felt. But he still preferred to wait; and ere very long we found, by pinning the paper to the table, to keep it firm, he could execute a tolerably legible epistle. The weeks rolled on, and, by slow degrees, he regained his strength; his bright, hopeful disposition, even temper, and uniform cheerfulness, were great aids to his recovery; and we watched his improvement with great satisfaction, and at last had the pleasure of seeing him able to be up, and even out, for a short time.

He came to me, one morning, in our ladies’ room, saying, “Miss ——, would it be troubling you too much, to ask you to write to mother?”

“Brought to it, at last!” said I. “Why do you ask me now, Robinson, when you have refused so often before, and can write for yourself?”

“That’s just it; she won’t believe what I say; thinks I’m fooling her, and pretending to be better than I really am; and has an idea they’re going to take my arm off, and I’m keeping it from her; and I thought if you’d just write, and tell her it wasn’t coming off, she’d be sure to believe you.”

“Sure to believe a stranger in preference to her own son, Robinson? Does that tell well for the son?”

“Yes, ma’am, I think so; she knows you could have no object in deceiving her; while the thing I care most for in the world, is to keep her from fretting, and she knows it.”

There was no combating this reasoning, and in a short time I received a beautiful answer to my letter, well written and well expressed, confirming all that Robinson had told us:—That he was the youngest son, and had always been carefully and tenderly brought up; that he had two brothers, the only other children—one had gone to Texas, before the breaking out of the rebellion, and never having heard from him since, they feared he had been pressed into the rebel service; fortunately she had never heard, and I trust, now, never may hear what Robinson had told us,—that, while pressing on, at the battle of Fair Oaks, over heaps of the enemy’s dead, he saw an up-turned face on the field, wounded or dead, he knew not which,—that face, he said, he never could mistake—it was that of his brother!

We tried to convince him that this was most improbable—that his imagination was excited at the time, and that the dread that such a thing might happen had been “father to the thought;” but in vain; we never could persuade him to the contrary; and yet, whether from a doubt in his mind, or the dread of the pain it must cause, he never, as we afterwards found, had made any allusion to the subject in his letters home.

One morning, after he had been able to be about, and even out for some weeks, I was surprised, on going into his ward, to find him in bed again.

“Why, Robinson, I am sorry to see you there! What have you been doing?”

He hesitated, twisted the end of his coverlet, but made no answer.

“Nothing wrong, I’m very sure of that. It wasn’t your own fault, was it?” said I, fearing he thought I doubted him, as so many of the relapses here are caused by excess, the moment the men are able to be out, and I well knew there was no such danger here.

He looked up at me, at once, with his clear, honest eyes, and said, “Yes, Miss ——, all my own fault; but I thought she worried so——”

“Your mother?” I questioned.

“Yes, ma’am; and if I could just slip my arm into my coat-sleeve long enough to have my picture taken, she’d see it was better, and it would set her mind at rest more than all the letters I could write.”

So to satisfy this mother’s heart, the poor wounded shoulder had been forced into its sleeve, giving him, as it did, several weeks of added suffering and confinement to his bed. Can any one wonder that such a man should have won his way to our hearts;—or at our regret, when we found he was to be transferred to another hospital, at some distance from the city? We thus lost sight of him for many months. Several times when I asked after him, at our own hospital, I was told that he had been there but a short time since; sometimes the week before; sometimes only the day before; but it so happened that we never met. His wound, they told me, was far from well, varying very much; some days giving hope that it would heal, and then bursting out again. I had received many and urgent letters from his mother, before he left us, begging me to use all the influence I could bring to bear, to have him transferred to a hospital near his home; (this was, of course, before the present order on that subject had been given) but on applying to the surgeon, I found that he considered his wound far too serious to attempt the journey, and that Robinson so fully agreed with him, that I wrote the poor disappointed mother to that effect, trying to console her with the hope of restoring him to her, ere very long, perfectly cured. The winter slipped away; the pressure of present hospital duties and interests had almost crowded out all thoughts of Robinson, when I am surprised, one sunny April afternoon, to receive a note from one of our lady visitors, telling me of Robinson’s extreme illness, and that it is scarcely supposed he can recover.

An hour later finds M. and myself driving rapidly out to the hospital where he now is; and here we are at the gates; how shall we enter! Ah! we do not now fear a guard with a bayonet, as we should have done some time since; and fifteen minutes more suffices for all the necessary “red tape” connected with admittance, and we are at the door of Robinson’s ward, listening to the wardmaster’s answer to our question:

“Yes, ladies, walk in; but he won’t know you; he’s too low, and he’s flighty all the time.”

“Won’t know us!” Robinson not know us! We cannot believe that; but see! he is leading the way; and we follow to a bed where lies a man tossing restlessly, and talking, or rather muttering to himself in an indistinct tone; his bandaged shoulder and arm resting on a pillow, for an operation has been performed—a large piece of bone extracted—and the result still doubtful. Doubtful? No; too certain; that face is enough. Poor mother in your western home, you can never look upon your boy, till you meet at the final Bar, in the presence of your Judge! God in his mercy grant that it may be to spend a happy eternity together!

And yet, as we stand, we find ourselves almost doubting whether this can really be our merry, laughing, whistling Robinson. Little hope, indeed, that he will recognize us, but let us try.

“Robinson, do you know me?” He starts, and in a moment the vacant gaze changes into one of his old bright smiles of recognition.

“Know you! Why shouldn’t I know you? How long it is, Miss ——, since I have seen you,—and you too,” added he, stretching out his hand to M.; but even as he spoke, his expression changed, and his mind wandered again.

And this was the end of all our care—this the result of so many weary months of suffering. He seemed pleased at our coming, and would answer any direct question, but could not sustain a conversation of even a few moments. We found our old friend, “handsome Harry,” of concert memory, who had been transferred at the same time, established here as Robinson’s devoted nurse, although entirely unable to move without crutches. He told us that the surgeon had told him that morning, that if his family wished to see him, he had better telegraph for them at once. Robinson heard us, and catching the word “telegraph,” said quickly, “Don’t telegraph; father’s poor, and he might come on; I’ll be better soon, and get a furlough, and go out to them.”

“But, Robinson,” said I, “you are very ill; perhaps you may not be better, and you would like to see your father.”

“I don’t think I’m very ill—they said so to-day; but I think I’ll come round soon.”

The next moment he was on the field, and evidently going over the fatal “Fair Oaks” fight.

His friend Harry told us that it had been his most earnest desire and longing to see his father; and that he had urged him, some days ago, if he should be worse, to let them know at home. I therefore wrote the telegram on his table, and we drove to the office on our return to the city, that no time might be lost.

I was detained at home for the two succeeding days; but some of our ladies went out to see him each day, as he was a general favorite; one lady going in a pouring rain, although she knew that she would have nearly a mile to walk after leaving the cars; their report of the case was most unfavorable. On the third day, the Rev. Mr. ——, who had been a most constant and faithful friend to Robinson, in our hospital, went out with me. When we arrived, we found him in a terrible state of excitement; he had been talking, and was now almost shrieking, and dashing himself from side to side.

“It’s no use speaking to him, to-day,” said the wardmaster; “he don’t know anybody.”

But once again I tried it, and once again he extended his hand, and repeated my name, and then said, “And Mr. ——, how very kind in him to come!”

I sat down by him, and tried to soothe and calm that dreadful restlessness; his mind was too much gone for words, I only gently stroked his brow and fanned him. “I am out on the water; out on the water!” was his one cry, from a low tone, ascending till it amounted almost to a scream. Truly he was “out on the water,” and where was compass or chart for the final voyage? Those words, with the constant repetition of his brother’s name, were the last I ever heard him utter. The only moment of calmness I noticed, was when Mr. —— knelt at his bedside and repeated those soul-soothing Prayers, from the “Visitation of the Sick.” He attempted no conversation, for we well knew Robinson was in no state to bear it. We had felt from the first, that Prayer for him, was all that we could offer; not with him, as his intervals of consciousness were merely momentary. His father had not yet arrived, and there appeared little hope that he could now do so, in time, as he was very much lower than on my last visit, and evidently sinking. As our presence could give him no comfort, we left him with heavy hearts.

When I reached there the next day, I found that an order had been given prohibiting all admittance for visitors to his ward, as the surgeon thought that Robinson had been excited by those he had seen the day before, but that his father had come, and that we could see him; he had arrived that morning.

There are few things connected with this hospital work which I recall with more pleasure than the simple, earnest gratitude of this bronzed and weather-beaten old man, for the trifling kindnesses which we had been able to offer to his boy. There was something about him altogether so real, so honest, genuine, and sincere, that one could not help feeling drawn to him at once. He was a rough, plain, Western man, primitive in the extreme; but no one could listen to him without the consciousness that a warm, true, noble heart, beat beneath that uncouth exterior.

Had the telegram been a day later, he could not have reached here for nearly a week longer. The train, which only runs on certain days, left the morning after he received the news; he had travelled night and day, making every connection, and performing the journey as rapidly as it could be done.

His boy, he said, had recognized him, and he was pleased to find him better than he had hoped for. He thought with care he would get well now, and he was going at once to telegraph the good news to his wife.

We were thunderstruck; how could he be so deceived? For although we had not seen Robinson that day, we well knew he was in a condition from which he could not rally. It seemed therefore no kindness to allow his mother to be tortured with false hope, and we earnestly represented (hard as it seemed to do so) that the surgeons did not look for any improvement; but all in vain,—he had seen sickness—he had seen doctors mistaken before now—his boy was going to get well; so he accompanied us to the telegraph station, and sent his message. That evening I was told some one wanted to see me, from the —— hospital, and on going out, was met by the words, “Miss ——, my boy’s gone, my boy’s gone!” and a burst of sobs, which seemed as though it must shake that poor old frame to pieces.

He had scarcely left, in the morning, to send his hopeful telegram, when the change took place, and Robinson breathed his last just as his father reached his bedside. The blow fell heavier, as we had feared, from the strong hope he had persisted in entertaining, and even then it seemed as though he were too much bewildered and stunned to realize fully what had occurred. There was something inexpressibly touching in the grief of that poor, bowed-down old man, shattered as he was, too, by hard travel and loss of rest; and yet I hardly knew how to comfort him, or to answer that sad appeal, “How can I go back to his mother without him?” Deep grief must ever bear with it a reverence of its own, and this seemed something one scarcely dared meddle with.

He said the funeral was to take place the next afternoon, and begged that the ladies who had been so kind to him would be present for his mother’s sake; he thought it would comfort her to know it. I readily consented, and promised to inform the others.

He rose to go, and drawing a little paper from his pocket, said, “I thought maybe you might care for this; it is a lock of my boy’s hair, which I cut off for you, and I thought his mother would be glad to know you had it.”

I expressed my feelings in a few words, which seemed to soothe and gratify him.

That poor mother seemed never out of his thoughts; and again and again would he repeat that piteous question, “How can I go back to her without him?”

But he need not have feared; that mother’s heart was anchored on the Rock which alone can withstand the storms of earth. Listen to but one sentence from her first letter (to one of the ladies, who had been a kind and constant correspondent,) after that sad return.

“At first it seemed I could not bear it. My bright-faced, joyous boy—my sunbeam! But soon came the thought, how short the journey would be for me to go to him, and that my sunbeam would now shed its ray upon me from the sky, to light my path onward and upward.”

It would be of little avail, to go into the dreary details of that dreariest afternoon. Touching in the extreme did it seem to see the little band (for the ladies willingly agreed to the request to be present) take their places as mourners, with the father; mourners in reality, though so lately strangers; mourners, for we claimed a right to grieve; for was it not, as I have said, a young life, given for our country as well as his?—for the one common cause, which forms so strong a bond between all loyal hearts?

A heavy, pouring rain added to the general gloom; the only comfort came from the words of our Burial Service, which must always fall with blessed balm upon the sorrowful soul. It was performed at his father’s request, and with the permission of the surgeon in charge, by Robinson’s kind and true friend, the Rev. Mr. ——, to whom I have alluded before.

It was a long, long time ere I could forget the face of that broken-hearted old father, as—everything over—he stood at the door, as we drove off, leaving him lonely and desolate among strangers. He was to start that night alone, in the rain, on his sad, homeward journey, and seemed to long to keep us with him to the last; and how we longed to stay to comfort him! But we must say goodbye, and with a long, warm grasp of that rough hand, we parted, and one more hospital sorrow was over.

Brave, gentle, heroic heart! The aching limb, the suffering frame, the strained, excited nerves are stilled forever. Robinson sleeps in a land of strangers; but the turf that covers that “soldier’s grave” will be moistened and kept green by the tears of those who can never forget that bright example of noble unselfishness, and beautiful patience under severest suffering and trial.