The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1878-05-08

A Tragic Story and Its Singular Ter.
minafiOn.
[sedalIa lMo.l Bazoo.l

Ad1c VI OnC vi bhG t4AOSJ QlHOTCe
cases of which we have ever heard. The
following Is the story:
A lady sued for a divorce in Joplin re-
Gently, and when it came up the startling
developments of which we write were
brought TO light, and upon their strength
they were granted.
In 1868 the lady, then young and hand
some maiden, resident of Stone county
southwest Missouri, married a worthy young
man, to whom she had long been engaged.
Their union was a happy one and. as both
had been reared in the vicinity and were be-
loved and respected by all, they received the
klndest benisons of all who knew them.
But the war was raging around them, and
their locality was alternately occupied by
each of the contending armies A draft was
about to be made, and the young husband a
month after his marriage, concluded to take
advantage OF the governments liberal offers
and enlist, rather than run the risk OF being
forced into its ranks without any eruolu-
ment save the meager pay of a private. SO
So he voluntarily enlisted and became a
private in the ranks of the Union army.
His courage and intelligence soon gained
the respect of his officers and fellowmen.
and in several hard fought battles he distin-
guished himself to such an extent that his
name was forwarded to the department
headquarters in st. Louis, and in short
time returned emblazoned in a second
ucubc0dIG MISSION.
The regiment was then stationed in north
ern Arkansas, and at this opportune mo-
ment, when he was So near TO all he held
dear for a son was born to HIM in his alb
sence), he could not resist the temptation to
obtain short leave of absence and visit his
wife and child.
This TO him high. priced boon was easily
obtained, and with his commission in his
pocket he mounted his horse and started for
home With pacer hasta no rurcuaI brS
journey, his mind being filled with bright
visions of happy meeting with his hearts
idols. At length the well-rememberedl land
marks came to view.
He was close to home.
A few hundred yards of the leafy forest
and he would be in the opening where he
could see the smoke from the cot that con-
tanned his treasures.
How he would surprise them
How his wife would cry for Joy,
How his bright eyed babe would
Haiti came q fierce order in stentorian
tones from the brush that surrounded the
road. Ere he could rein in his horse In
obedience to the dread summons he was, as
il by magic, surrounded by twenty or thirty
fierce and heavily armed men. whom his
practiced eye told him were the most unre-
lenting foes that the uniform he wore ever
had His heart sank within him, brave as
he was, for he knew there was no mercy in
the breast of a bushwhacker, for such they
were.
A few questions were pat to him by the
leader of the band, but they were more for
forms 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 commits
SION drawn forth, which made them more
eager for his blood.
The leader of the band was a man near his
own age, and to him he appealed and de-
manded that he be treated as prisoner of
war His request was treated with derision,
and moment more his legs were pinioned,
and an ominous rope with moose at its end
dangled from the limb of an adjacent tree
Again he appealed to his inhuman captors,
and implored them to let HIM see his wife
and child but for a moment before he died.
But even as he duplicated, the leader put the
fatal loop around his neck, gave a signal
with hi hand, and the unfortunate man was
swung off.into eternity with prayer for his
widowed wife and orphaned child upon his
lips.
The next day the corpse was discovered
swaying In the wind by passing soldier
who, stopping at the next house (which hap.
pened to be the home OF the ofseer), told the
woman that there was man hanging dead
short distance down the road, and it was
better, perhaps, he should receive Christian
burial. This was not unfreqrent news in
that locality, and nearly all the men being
in the army, the sad work of interring the
dead and caring for the wounded devolved
upon the lone women. And faithfully and
tenderly was it done, too, for they knew not
but their own loved ones were being cared
for in similar manner far off in some dis.
tant state.
So the woman procured help of others OF
her sex who lived in the neighborhood, and
together they proceeded on their mission.
As they approached the corpse a strange
foreboding passed through the mind of the
woman who led them, for there was some.
thing familiar in that suspended form, even
in the midst of its unnatural surroundings.
The blood rushed back to her heart as she
neared it, Suddenly the breeze swayed it
round, and-ob, horror! in its distorted fea-
lures she beheld the lineaments of her idol
lied 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 immortali-
ty; but the plaintive wall of Ter sweet babe
aroused her to a sense OF duty, and she felt
that she had something to live for and pro-
teet.
Tenderly and reverently was the soldier
husband laid at rest in his narrow home by
these sOrrOwful women, whose sympathetic
grief was his only burial service. But the
fairest flowers of the field and the forest
were gathered by the grief-stricken widow
and planted upon his grave. In the sunny
days of summer she would make daily pill
grimages by the lonely grave, and sit with
tender memories while her child prattled
ever 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 bad been the husband OF her youth
was still faithful. Her child had become
youth, and needed the stern, restraining
hand and experienced counsel of a father.
She too, a weak, lone woman, was tired of
fighting the battle of life, and yielded to the
supplications of a man who bore good ,
character They were married, and IheiD
lives blended into happy, even tenor of
connubial existence. He treated her kindly
and affectionatelyl was father 10 her son,
and an honest industrious bread winner for
them all. She loved and respected hina, and
her future seemed TO her full recompense for
the weary past
1t was seldom she referred to it. He never.