The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1879-08-14
A Policeman's Romance.

''Now look here" responded the de-
tective, at seems to me as though your
readers had had feast of blood for the
past week. To begin with, there was
the Silver Leaf Grove tragedy, and the
list closed not two hours ago with that
damnable razor-cutting case you wit
messed If you cared for it, l could give
you something just as interesting and a
great deal more romantic than all these
brutal rows put together"
"What's it about was the query.
"About that man over there" and the
speaker pointed to a stalwart Saxon in
the uniform of the force, whose tawny
moustache and closely cropped hair set
off to advantage face moulded in the
lines of command.
"Now, you wouldn't think" continued
the detective, shat man had gone
through siege and march, and battle, and
starvation and Imprisonment, to get his
wife, would youl But it's just through
combination of all those circumstances
that he chances today to be happily
married and the father of a family.
The loungers about the great bare
room had gathered nearer during the
conversation, and the chorused entreaty
now was: "Tell us the story, Ed
"Well, boys, ! don't exactly know as
have right to show up mans pri-
vate affairs in this way, but as it's yarn
of the war that more than one of you can
appreciate from actual experience, I'll
give it to you. To begin with, l don't
think there's one here but what has heard
of the Thirty-sixth Illinois Volunteers
that good old regiment which lost more
soldiers in battle and less from disease
than any other regiment in the service
We'll, along in the last lays of 1862, the
Thirty-sixth found itself a part and
parcel of the fight at Stone river. |
don't think, by the way, that any one
event of the war contained more discom-
fort, hardship and loss than that same
fight. On the third day after the skirm-
ishing had begun, our boys lay right
alongside the Forty.second Indiana, in
which command our friend Blank there
yonder, had warm personal friend.
When we got to the front and the bullets
began to whistle and the guns to bang,
the Thirty-sixth was moved over out OF
the way to give Phil. Sheridan chance
at the rebs. AS they went tearing along
through the hell OF smoke and the rain
of lead, Blank CHANGED on his Hoosier
friend, fat on the ground and gasping
his last. He got out of the ranks and
stopped moment. My dear boy he
said, can do anything for you ? No,
came the feeble reply. I've got my
route for the other shore. Yet, if you'd
take my trinkets and send the news of
my death to the dear ones at home, you'd
make dying mans mind more at rest
than it now u.s.
$50 there Oh that awful battlefield,
Blank knelt down, took the address of
sister, murmured short prayer, and be-
fore rising closed his comrades eyes in
death Then he went in again savager
than ever, and no man in the army ex-
perienced fiercer delight than he when
the battered Confederates fed the field.
"Well, he wrote to that sister, and
detailed the story of her brothers death.
A reply reached him and regular cor
respondence followed But you know
the ups and downs of soldiers life.
In the Fall, September, / think, came
the Chickamauga affair. The Thirty
sixth went in with flag inscribed "Pea
Ridge" "Perryville," "Stone River
and they brought it out riddled with
balls and hallowed with glory. They
had inspiration for fighting, too, that
day. Sheridan was there, and McCook
and Lyle, who was killed, and who, by
the way, wrote that stirring poem about
Cleopatra, which begins
~ am dying. Egypt. dying"
Well, Blank happened to be among the
unlucky ones. A ball laid him flat,
and when he came to he was a prisoner.
You can't get him to talk much about
it, but during his ten months at Ander-
sonville he doubtless suffered all that
man can suffer and live His friends
thought him dead, the lady to whom he
had been writing thought him dead, too;
20 when he was exchanged and got a
furlough, he concluded to keep up the
delusion little longer. He went over
to Indiana, to the quiet place where his
dead friends sister lived, and one day
called incognito at her fathers residence
on some excuse or other He was ush-