Catoctin clarion. [volume] (Mechanicstown, Md.) 1871-1940, 1878-09-26

in his horse in obedience to the dread
summons he was, as if by magic, sur
rounded by twenty or thirty fierce
and heavily armed men, whom his
prac ticed eye told where the most un-
relenting foes that the uniform he
wore eyer had. His heart sank with
in him, brave as he was, for he knew
there was no mercy in the breast of a
bushwacker, for such they were.
A few questions were were put to
him by the leader of the band, but
they were more for form sake than
anything else. His uniform was a
mute answer for all they wished to
know, while from his pockets, which
were rapidly turned inside out, was
the commission drawn forth, which
made them more eager for his blood.
The leader of the band was d man
near his own age, and to him he ap.
pealed that he be treated as prison
er Of war. His request was treated
with degision, and a moment more his
legs were pinioned, and an omlnous
rope with Il moose at its end dangIel
from the limb Of an adjacent tree
A gain he appealed to his inhuman
captors, and inplored them to let him
see his wife and child bnt for mo-
ment before he died. But even us he
supplicated, the leader put the fatal
loop around his neck, gave II signal
with his hand, and the unfortunate
man was swung off into eternity with
a prayer for his widowed Nif4 aud or.
phaned child upon his lips.
The next day the corpse was dis.
covered swinging in the wind by II
passing soldier, who, stopping at the
next house, (Which happened to be
the home OF the officer told the wo-
man that there was a man hanging
dead short distance down the road,
and it was better, perhaps, he should
receive a christian burial. This was
not unfrequent news il that locality,
and Nearly all the men being in the
army the sd work of interring the
dead and caring for the wounded de-
volved upon the lone women. And
faithfully and tenderly was it done,
too, for they knew not but their owu
loved ones We're being cared for ia a
similar manner far off in some distant
State.
So the woman procured help Of
others of her sex who l;vel in the
neighborhood, and together they pro-
ceeded on their sad mission. AS they
approached the corpse a strange fore
boiling passed through the mind of
the woman who led them, for there
was something familiar in that sus-
pended form, even in the midst of it's
unnatural surroundings. The blool
rushed back to her heart as she near
ell it, Suddenly the breeze swayed
it round, and--oh, horror! in its dis
tortcl features she beheld the linet-
Inents of her iloIized husband, the
father Of her child, and she swooned
away in dead faint upon the ground
at the feet Of him who in life was her
all.
Cruel was the blow that dashed
down with one fell stroke all her
earthly happiness, and in her agony
she prayed for death, that she might
join her murdered love in immortal
ity; but the plaintive wall of her
sweet baby aroused her to sense of
duty, and she felt that she had some.
thing to live for and protect. /
Tenderly and revereutly was the
soldier husband laid at rest in his
narrow home by the sorrowful wom-
en-, hose sympathetic grief Was his
only burial service. But the fairest
flowers Of The field and the forest
We're gathered by the grief,stricken
widow and planted upon his grave
In the sunny days of summer sh,
would make daily pilgrimage by the
lonely grave, and sit with tender
while her child prattlcd
over the sod beneath which its father
was moldering away.
Ten years passed. And though
time had healed the wounds in her
heart, the love for him who had been
,he husband Of her youth was still
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