The Project Gutenberg eBook of Under the Stars and Bars; Memories of Four Years Service with the Oglethorpes, of Augusta, Georgia, by Walter A. Clark.

left their hiding places and came out barking, not at the lion, but at me, yelping, "Radical!" "Radical!" "Radical!" The words had barely left his lips when a huge dog standing in the centre of the aisle, began barking loudly and vigorously, with his eyes fixed on Mr. Hill. I do not know that the speaker, in imitation of a certain minister's reputed habit of inserting, "Cry here," at the close of the pathetic passages in his manuscript, had inserted "Bark here" in his notes, but I do know that the impromptu illustration fitted in so pertinently that the storm of applause, that greeted it, would have lifted the roof if such a result had been possible. For several minutes there was perfect pandemonium. As the wave of sound rolled and swelled and rose and fell to rise in larger volume than before the speaker faced the audience with the shadow of a smile upon his face and when the last ripple of applause had died away he said: "My friends, I meant no reflection on that dog."

I have had the privilege of hearing Toombs, Stephens, Johnson and Howell Cobb, the first two, a number of times. I claim no ability to make intelligent comparison among these distinguished Georgians. But basing an estimate simply upon their effect upon myself and upon others as I have observed it, I should say that while in epigrammatic force, in the ability to pack thought into limited space, Mr. Toombs had no equal among them, yet in effective oratory, in the power to sway an audience at his will, whether in the domain of ice-cold logic or in the higher realms where only angels soar, Mr. Hill probably towered above them all. The peroration to his appeal for the pardon of Wm. A. Choice had few equals in all the range of English forensic literature. It has not been preserved, and in the forty years that have elapsed since its delivery, my memory retains but a single sentence, and with that I close this sketch: "Even from the lips of the murdered man, a voice comes back to us today, as soft as evening zephyrs through an orange grove and as warm as an angel's heart. 'Forgive him, save him, for he knew not what he did.'"

THE REBEL CHAPLAIN AND THE DYING BOY IN BLUE.

The touching incident recorded in the following verses occurred on a bloody Western battlefield in the old war days in the '60's. Rev. J. B. McFerrin, formerly of Nashville, Tenn., and now in Heaven, an able and honored minister of the Methodist church, and for four years a Confederate chaplain in the army of Tennessee, was the Christian hero of this tenderly pathetic story. His untiring devotion to the sick and wounded amid the dangers and hardships of camp and field are gratefully remembered by his surviving comrades, while his gentle kindness to a stricken foe, will be embalmed in the loving memory of every veteran of both the "Blue and Grey."

'Twas evening on the battle field;
O'er trampled plain, with carnage red
The lines in blue were forced to yield.
Leaving their dying and their dead.

All day 'mid storm of shot and shell,
With smoking crest, war's crimson tide
Had left its victims where they fell,
Nor heeding if they lived or died.

And now the cannon's roar was dumb,
The "Rebel Yell" was hushed and still;
The shrieking shell, the bursting bomb
Were silent all on plain and hill.

From out the lines of faded grey
To where the battle's shock was spent,
A rebel chaplain made his way,
On mercy's kindly mission bent.

He kneeled beside a stricken foe,
Whose life was ebbing fast away,
And then in gentle words and low,
He asked if he might read and pray?

"No, no," the wounded man replied,
"My throat is parched, my lips are dry,"
And in his agony he cried
"Oh, give me water, or I'll die."

The chaplain hurried o'er the strand
And in the stream his cup he dips,
Then hastening back, with gentle hand
He pressed it to his waiting lips.

"Now shall I read?" he asked again,
While bleak winds blew across the wold,
"No," said the soldier in his pain,
"I'm growing cold, I'm growing cold."

Then in the wintry twilight air
His "coat of grey" the chaplain drew,
Leaving his own chilled body bare,
To warm the dying boy in blue.

The soldier turned with softened look,
With quivering lip, and moistened eye,
And said: "If you, in all that book
Can find for me the reasons why,

A rebel chaplain such as you,
Should show the kindness you have shown
To one who wears the Union blue,
I'll hear them gladly, every one."

In tender tones the good man read
Of love and life beyond the grave,
And then in earnest prayer he plead
That God would pity, heal and save.

Above the "Blue"—above the "Grey"
Shone no Cathedral's lofty spire,
Yet I am sure the songs that day
Were chanted by an Angel Choir.

The evening darkened into night,
The shadows fell on wold and strand,
But in their hearts gleamed softer light
Than ever shone on sea or land.

And ere the wintry night was o'er,
Beyond the sunset's purpled hue,
The stars rose on a fairer shore
To greet the dying boy in blue.

Long years have come and gone since then,
Long years the good man lived to bless
With kindly deed, his fellow men,
And then to die in perfect peace.

And when in Heaven's eternal day,
They met before His throne of light,
There was no blue, there was no grey,
For both were robed in God's own white.

Transcriber's Note: Obvious errors in spelling and punctuation have been silently corrected in this HTML version.