Year: 1864

81 must pass the lines, Colonel y


81 am sorry, my dear madam, to
deny your request; but our orders can
not be departed FROM" was the answer
of the gray-haired officer who sat be-
fore the camp-table and addressed a
young girl who stood just inside the
tent.


"And can it be possible that men
who profess to have human sympathy
can issue such orders ?''


"Certainly, young lady. Why not ?
The soldier has every attendance, and
the presence of an amateur nurse could
not fail to irritate and trouble him,
therefore retarding his recovery


"Colonel, this is no argument, but
sophistry. l have asked permission to
pass that l may seek one whom your
own surgeons report as mortally wound
ed Do you intend that he shall die
without friend by his side who can
carry his last message to his far-of
home, and to the old mother who will
prize it beyond all other words that
will be spoken to her in this life ?''


The old man leaned his head upon
his hand to conceal the tears that were
trickling down his cheeks, but in a mo-
ment he reused himself


"The case is vary hard" he said,
slowly; but the good soldier wants only
his comrades about him when his life
is going ont. Some one among them
will bear his dying message. You
must not urge me young lady; / am a
soldier and cannot depart from my or
ders. / have no discretion"


The girl turned away with a white
face and clenched hands and walked
silently out from the camp. Many a
cap was touched respectfully to her as
she passed, for her errand was known
to the soldiers, and however much they
may have acknowledged the necessity
of the harsh order that shut her away
from the wounded man whom she
sought, there was many one among
them that would have lacked the firm
ness of the old colonel, when he denied
the passionately worded plea of the
blue-eyed girl who had just gone away.


The smoke of the terrible struggle
at Murfreesboro had not yet cleared
away, and though week had passed
away since the day of the battle, order
had not yet been brought from the ter
rible chaos. The dead were buried,
but living were scarcely yet the recipi-
ent of the care necessary to keep those
who were struggling between death
and life on the right side. The hospi-
tails were crowded, and the surgeons
knife, that testing steel to the bravery
of the soldier, was busy in every ward.


As invariable occurs Immediately af-
ter battle, crowds of civilians, bent
on every imaginable arrend, focked to
the camp. Relatives seeking the dead
and the living; news-mongers, and pa
paper correspondents, anxious to pick
up anything of incident to freed the
hungry appetite of the public; peddlers
and camp followers thieves and gam
blers, all in one heterogeneous mass,
sought entrance within the federal
lines. 1t was this influx that brought
the order under which Eleanor Price
had been denied the privilege of seek
ing in tho hospitals Lieut.. Frank Cor
don, her playmate in childhood, her
unfinching champion in school days,
and affianeed husband in manhood.


In the long roughly constructed
shed, improvised for a hospital, with
diving men on every side, with horror
and disorder, so that it could not be
shut away from the sight, lay the figure
of a man, young and with well cut
features, but gaunt and haggard.
Above the husk matrass upon which
he was stretched hung the coat that
had just been removed from his body,
and upon the well worn and weather
beaten straps that showed its owner of
the rank Of first Lieutenant. He had