This text is part of:
[302] or more, going up a hill and through a piece of woods. On the other side of this wood, just before the main road is regained, in a low spot, a sort of ravine, Captain Rennie was met by three men with United States army clothing, though without coats, who, pointing their pistols, called on him to halt. He replied, ‘There's some mistake, you're of my side.’ He was again asked, ‘Do you surrender?’ Looking about him he saw that on one side was an impassable ravine, in front these three men, on the other side three more, and behind three others, all clothed in the same way, but armed and aiming at him and his orderly. So he surrendered himself as a prisoner. His captors said to him, ‘Well for you that you did; for we should have served you as we did young Parker, General Meade's Aid, the other day.’ ‘How was that?’ he asked. They replied that they had halted him at the same spot; that he did not surrender, but put spurs to his horse to pass through them, and that therefore two of them had fired at him and he had fallen dead; that they had buried him near by in a place somewhat cleared, where there were some scrub oaks,—and they pointed out the grave to Captain Rennie. Captain Rennie's orderly had dined with one of these men a week before, supposing him to be, as he professed, a Union man. With one exception they declared themselves to be Mosby's men. Thus ended a short life, just on the verge of manhood. Arthur went to the war entirely from feelings of patriotism. He was by nature a scholar, and had little taste for a soldier's life. The rough experience of the army had strengthened him and developed his manliness, and he had found that rest of spirit which comes from the performance of duty. The tenderness of his affections, his strong sense of justice, his disinterestedness and generosity, endeared him to his family. He was fastidious in the choice of his friends, and nearly all whom he most loved have fallen with him in the same glorious struggle. Shall we not believe that they are all rejoicing with us now in the emancipation of a race? Religious feeling was the foundation of that patriotic ardor which
Sever and Francis, 1866.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.