The Portland daily press., 1888-01-16

and borne away to Libby, not for many
weeks learning the fate of either OF the lads.
The two boys in different uniforms found
their way into the "whitewashed walls" of
one of the row of hospitals that lay directly
underneath browning Lookout, beyond
Fort Negley. They got on swlmmlngly to-
gether, and the ugly wound was fast matur-
ing into its ugly scar. When in the Novem-
Der days following, Grant came and with
the Union hosts drove off the besetting
enemy, the lads from the hospital porch
watched Hooker's battle 'above the Clouds,
and the blazing cannonade along Mission
Ridge. One day big-hearted General Namo,
riding by saw the two drummers in the diff
ferent uniforms, and learned their story, and
calling them to his Headquarters with bless
ings to both he discharged the one and sent
him TO cheer the mother in the Northern
home, and sent the other through the lines
with personal letter to General Bragg, and
he too was sent home. They were to meet
again as strangely in peace as it had been IN
war.
Our battle field visitors searched long and
hopingly for some familiar object that would
fix the locality of our Johnny Reb drummer
boys apprehension it was indeed ne ne
has so longed to lead his beloved wlle anu
the other treasures of his heart to the very
spot. But time and change had covered az ~
the traces by which he might nave iounu 'i'o
spot. ..ta -,
81 die so want to find, ne salu, tne sely
place where the Union drummer boy hrst
'' sne ~ nj Uncle c. exclaimed Maude,
elasning her pretty hands together.
aAnd the place, if could, where the good
captain, whose brave soldier saved me, was
taken prisoner; , -, o,.,. an
wish he was here with US.
For the children, you see, knew this part
of the story well. They also knew Something
about the remainder OF 1t; but father ana
mother knew it by heart.
The war over, the Confederate drummer
boy became a student at - college, and in
the ladies' department Alice - was
sweet Northern girl, two years his Junior
Reading their Latin together. they somehow
got their conjugati0ns and their translations
mixed up. Just as young folks have done be-
fore and siuce Alice was just the sort of a
girl, in her Northern bloom and beauty, TO
capture the heart of a -Southerner whose
blood had been cooled as his had, by the
bullets incision and the surgeons knife.
The scars, moreover, soon dimmed out Of
sight under the veil that love learns to place
over the things we would not see.
Alice - had learned to return his deep
love before she knew the story of his scars,
which all flashed out suddenly one day at
Alice's home, when they all got to compar-
ing notes about the war, and that her broth
er's drummer hoy was he who nursed her
now affianeed husband, and her father was
the captain who had had him brought in
from his place of certain death.
We were received at a quiet little country
church in Ohio, and went to live in South
ern home from whose veranda you can see
the top of Kenesaw mountain.
AS the little party were starting back to
their carriage to return TO that far-dStant
home, little Maude asked:-
''Mamma, where is Uncle G. now?"
"Out West, my darling" she replied. And
SO he was there, dear friend; but to-day ne
was out over the same ground and following
the strangely tangled threads of some of the
strange but true stories of the war.