fluence in high authority. The
boy wasn't fully conscious at the trial."

"We must appeal to Mr. Stanton."

"As well appeal to the devil. They say the order came from his office."

"A boy of nineteen!" she exclaimed. "It's a shame. I'm looking for his
mother. You told me to telegraph to Richmond for her."

"Yes, I'll never forget his cries that night, so utterly pitiful and
childlike. I've heard many a cry of pain, but in all my life nothing so
heartbreaking as that boy in fevered delirium talking to his mother. His
voice is one of peculiar tenderness, penetrating and musical. It goes
quivering into your soul, and compels you to listen until you swear it's
your brother or sweetheart or sister or mother calling you. You should
have seen him the day he fell. God of mercies, the pity and the glory of
it!"

[Illustration: "YOUR BROTHER SPRANG FORWARD AND CAUGHT HIM IN HIS ARMS."]

"Phil wrote me that he was a hero and asked me to look after him. Were you
there?"

"Yes, with the battery your brother was supporting. He was the colonel of
a shattered rebel regiment lying just in front of us before Petersburg.
Richmond was doomed, resistance was madness, but there they were, ragged
and half starved, a handful of men, not more than four hundred, but their
bayonets gleamed and flashed in the sunlight. In the face of a murderous
fire he charged and actually drove our men out of an entrenchment. We
concentrated our guns on him as he crouched behind this earthwork. Our own
men lay outside in scores, dead, dying, and wounded. When the fire
slacked, we could hear their cries for water.

"Suddenly this boy sprang on the breastwork. He was dressed in a new gray
colonel's uniform that mother of his, in the pride of her soul, had sent
him.

"He was a handsome figure--tall, slender, straight, a gorgeous yellow sash
tasselled with gold around his waist, his sword flashing in the sun, his
slouch hat cocked on one side and an eagle's feather in it.

"We thought he was going to lead another charge, but just as the battery
was making ready to fire he deliberately walked down the embankment in a
hail of musketry and began to give water to our wounded men.

"Every gun ceased firing, and we watched him. He walked back to the
trench, his naked sword flashed suddenly above that eagle's feather, and
his grizzled ragamuffins sprang forward and charged us like so many
demons.

"There were not more than three hundred of them now, but on th