The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1876-03-02
.@riginal S'.t|.u':!rg. Stu!
BERKELEY HALL.
BY "LA CAROLINE"
CHAPTER VIII.

-aa =" CHAPTER VIII.
eve are kneelng at thy throne, Father
~ Low at thy throne to-day;
O,'bless and save our stricken land,
Remove this scourge away.
Gloom gathers round each cheerful hearth,
shade Is on each brow;
o, Father hear our humble prayer,
And save our country now"
Nearly four years of hard fighting and
intense suffering had marked the short
but, brilliant; career of the Confederate
States Of America as a Nation among
the sovereignties of the earth. Although
but little of the soil Of the old Palmetto
State had yet been .desecrated by the
treadof brothers armed to work her woe,
she, like her, sister States, had drunk
deeply of the bitter cup of bereavement
and suffering; and nobly had her soldiers
done their part on the many, many bat
tle.feldsi siof our fair Southernland., The
inmates Of. nearly. every home were clad
in;garments of mourning, but their faces
wore, the expression Of, lofty endurance,
mingled with cheerful and hopeful reli-
ance upon the truth of their, sacred
cause. mrs IL ~. ..ti:;h.,to 5a" 81.
Our friends at Berkley Hall had not
escaped the fate Of their, fellows. Col.
Maham had fallen early in the struggle
One of the first victims offered on the
shrine ofo Southern liberty. Walter,
having received "a military education,
had been assigned command of battal-
ion of artillery, but quickly was his
young life Of promise and distinction
ended; At the battle Of he was
wounded, captured and sent to prison,
where he contracted low and lingering
fever. Owing to the influence of his
former classmate and friend, Hubert
Gray, he was paroled and removed to
the home of Mrs. Gray, the mother of
his friend. There the young patriot
terminated. his short but noble life. A
second time was Mrs. Maham called
upon to weep over the ruin Of fond hopes
and high expectations.
In Mrs. Gray, Walter found an humble
and devoted follower of the Master, and
long and sweet were the talks they had
together of the fair land of promise to
which the young soldier. was SO soon
going. Mrs. Gray loved Walter Maham,
:not-enly. because the Master had said
love your enemies; not only because he
was the dearest friend of her own idol
lied boy, But she loved him for his noble
and endearing qualities, his high cour-
age, his calm fortitude, his gentle courte-
sy, his grateful affection, his Christ-ike
humility, and although she warped as
her feelings were by sectional prejudices
and abolition sentiments) could not ap-
p1eciate from his standpoint his lofty
patriotism, yet she learned to respect and
even admire the purity of motive and
the devotion to his country displayed by
the young soldier; and when, after many
weeks of patient suffering, the stranger
youth breathed his last, with his head
pillowed on her breast, the kiss she
pressed upon his brow and the tears she
shed were tokens of truest love and sor-
row.
His mortal remains rest far away from
the old church yard where the signing
pines chant their mournful requiem over
the graves Of his forefathers, but tenderly
and kindly by the side of her own loved
dead Mrs. Gray laid him, and with gen
tie hands. planted; ;sweetSSAowers over the
sod under which our young hero, clad in
his soldiers garb of grey, waits the trump
of the last great Easter morn!
With a heart brim full of Christian
sympathy and love, Mrs. Gray wrote to
the sorrow-stricken mother of Walter
Maham.: 'eYour beautiful and lofty mag
nolia tree has been transplanted into the
Paradise of God, there to live and bloom
foreverp 0, wonderful loye oh, exalted
faith, that can so calm our stormy passions
and lift US above the prejudices and dis
cordance of our poor humanity as to i'm
pei us, men and women, to perform acts
of christian charity towards those whom
civil war, appealing to our basest pas
sions, would tempt us to treat as our
enemies!
At the close of the year 1864, we find
. Mrs. Maham and her daughter the only
white occupants of the Hall, and every
thing in and around the old home wear
ing the appearance of a departure. The
negroes looked mysti6ed and most Of
them sorrowful. The old house already
looked desolate. The rooms had been
dismantled of everything like drapery.
China, silver, nearly everything of value
had been packed away for safe keeping.
In the parlor divans, fauteuils, chairs and
furniture generally had been sewed up
in linen, looking like sombre ghosts OF
past brightness. If any one venturcd to