Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1915-01-07
A SOLDIERS
VISION
By Nj. QUAD
Copyright. 1914. by Associated Lit
erary Press

the front or our brigade picket had
been murdered ON his post every night.
The front was mile long. with the
posts within ten rods of each other,
and bushwacker had crept up on the
lone picket with all the craft of an
Apache and stabbed him to death.
The one assassin had killed twenty
two men before any great stir was
made about it All that was done
when the matter was finally taken hold
Of was to put two, three and four men
on post in place of one and to send
out small parties to look for needle
in haystack. as it were.
That all these murders had been
committed by one single hand no one
doubted. A knife had been used in
every instance.
On the night that the order was is
sued to double the men on the posts |
was i'll in my tent with sore throat
and fever. My tent mates were ON
guard or detail, and | realized that l
was light headed. | could not fall into
d sound sleep, but dozed at intervals.
and the noises of the camp were con-
fused with queer Dreams Of sud
den this confusion cleared away. and
] had what you call either dream or
vision. | saw man in the uniform
Of a Federal captain. mounted on
dark bay horse, ride up to a farm
house. The face and form of rider and
horse were as plain to me as if / had
seen them in my normal state of health
at monday. The captain was a man
of about thirty. blue eyed. with brown
hair. brown mustache and front
tooth filled with gold. At the corner
Of the left eye was small scar from
a wound inflicted years before.
AS the officer descended from the
saddle and hitched his horse to the
fence l saw woman's face at the
window for moment. The same face
was seen again for q moment as she
opened the door for the captain. She
was a tall. dark haired woman, and
the face bore smile
AS suddenly as the vision came it
was blotted out, but it returned again.
This time the captain was mounted.
and it was night. 1t was the same
house, and his horse wanted to speed
too fast and was pulled in. | could not
make out how l followed on, but fol
low l did, and we had just descended
a hill and were crossing a creek by
plank bridge when there came q red
flash, followed by the report of fire.
arm, and the captain threw up his
arms and lurched to the right and fell
out of the saddle. The horse sprang
to the left off the bridge. which had no
rail. landed in the creek and went off
among the underbrush. saw that the
officer was dragged along with his foot
in the stirrup | also saw the man
who had fired the shot. He was tall and
glittering black eyes and dressed in
the rough clothes of farmer.
When one of my tent mates came in
at once related the dream or vision
to him. but neither of us attached any
Importance to it. One with fever al
ways has queer dreams and fancies.
A week had gone by and | was all
right again when read in a Wash
ington paper of the singular disappear
ance of a captain in our brigade. This
officer, so it was stated, had left camp
on a certain afternoon on his horse and
had not been heard of since. My VI
sion came back to me so clearly and
was so sure that it furnished clew
that | reported to my captain. He
ridiculed the idea. but sent me to the
colonel My statements were received
with SMILE but ] was given a pass
and a note to the brigadier general.
He was a gruff old dog and he called
me fool before | had spoken ten
words. When | had given close de-
scription of the missing officer he be-
gan to listen. and the result was that
| went out with a squad to search
We passed for two miles over a road
had never set foot on before. We
came to a farmhouse ! had never seen
in my waking moments. We found the
black haired woman, and she corrobo-
rated my story of the captains arrival.
She was a widow. living with her
mother and the captain had been call
ing for many weeks, and 1t was case
Of love. horse had gnawed fence
rail; horse had paved up the earth;
the captains horse was bay. When
we returned to the bridge we found
the marks where the bushwhacker had
Jumped. We found where the iron
shoes Of the horse had scraped the
stones and where he had clambered
out In the woods; mile away. we
found the horse and the rider.
The captain had been shot through
the body. He had been dragged by the
stirrup until his body had become tan
gled among the underbrush. The horse
had eaten every bush and limb within
reach, but had been without water and
was just able to stand His rider was
probably dead within five minutes aft
er being shot. You may have made up
your mind to hear that the assassin
was also discovered through my dream.