Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1907-05-14
IN I0vE ! AND MaHr.
An incident Which Brings Out Their
Simple Ethics.

This is q true story, and I tell all
that know Of it, and, being wholly
true, It is d very short story and very
sad, writes David Starr Jordan in Har-
per's Weekly. 1t was In 1876, eleven
years after the close of the civil war.
I had taken the train at Louisville on
that branch Of the Louisville and
Nashville railroad which then found
It's terminus at Livingstone, in Rock
Castle county, in Kentucky, A lady
shared my seat Ia the train as far as
Grab Orchard Springs. She was come
~ and well dressed, q condition not un-
common in Kentucky, and withal sad
eyed, and in those days that, too, was
common, north and south.
Before we had reached Crab Orchard
she told me her story, and this Is 1t, as
well as / can recall it: "A
She was In Kentucky on a visit to
kinsfolk at Crab Orchard. Her home
was on plantation in the Tennessee
bottoms not far from the town Of Cor
NTH, In Mississippi. In the days When
the struggles Of the war centered
about Corinth and Shiloh this planta-
ton was between the Confederate and
Union lines, mos often just inside the
latter. She was a southern woman,
with all the intensity Of feeling which
this implied in better times, and her
two brothers were officers In the Con-
federate army. Though she had no
love for the blue, vet soldier Is a sol
dier, and a man is a man. There was
q lieutenant of the Federal scouts he
may have been sergeant but that
does not matter who had charmed her
into sort Of friendliness by his bright
wit and his boyish good humor. Some
where in Ohio he claimed as his home,
and when stationed on the plantation
he and his men had shown a degree Of
consideration and courtesy not always
seen among soldiers. Moreover, she
had let him tell something of his life
at home. He spoke of his sister and
his mother, and there were times when
she almost forgot the hated army of
invaders to which he belonged, but not
for long, and one night--for the planta-
ton was between the lines a group Of
Confederate officers came In, and she
heard them tell Of a scheme to cut off
this Ohio squad and the young fellow
in command Of it. They were sure that
they knew how they could do 1t.
The next day the boy rode up to the
plantation again. He brought his sis
ter's picture and the mothers, too, and
the picture of the farmhouse in Ohio.
Should she put him on his guard? Just
a word would be enough. Should she
be true to herself as a woman, or
should she be true to the cause OF her
brothers, to Mississippi, to the south ?
And at last the problem settled itself,
for the boy rode away unwarned. And
when, after the little skirmish, they
brought him back to the house again,
the pictures were stained with blood.
| These pictures she still holds. And
this was the question she asked me-
the question she has doubtless asked
Of many others, for all this had hap.
pened thirteen years before: Did j. dc
right? What should / have donei
What could have done? 3s5.$ 81
4 And to this question there can be no
answer. In love and war there is nc
standard code Of ethics. The story 81
war Is written In the blood OF men and
the tears Of swomen.