A War-Time Wooing | Page 2

instructed to write to
the adjutant and say how gratified they were to find their efforts so
kindly appreciated. More than one of the girls wished that she were
secretary just then, and all of them hoped the adjutant would answer.
He did, and sent, moreover, a photographic group of several officers
taken at regimental headquarters. Each figure was numbered, and on
the back was an explanation setting forth the names of the officers, the
item which each had received as his share, and, where it was known,
the name of the fair manufacturer. The really useful items, it would
seem, had been handed to the enlisted men, and the officers had
reserved for themselves only such articles as experience had proved to

be of no practical value. The six in the picture had all chosen
"Havelocks," and opposite the name of Bessie Warren was that of
Second Lieutenant Paul Revere Abbot. Reference to the "group" again
developed the fact that Mr. Abbot was decidedly the handsomest
soldier of the party--tall, slender, youthful, with clear-cut and resolute
features and a decidedly firm, solid look about him that was
distinguishable in a group of decidedly distinguished-looking men.
There followed much laughing talk and speculation and theory among
the girls, but the secretary was instructed to write another letter of
thanks, and did so very charmingly, and mention was made of the
circumstance that several of their number had brothers or cousins at the
front. Then some of the society had happened, too, to have a
photograph taken in the quaint uniform, with cap and apron, which they
had worn at a recently given "Soldiers' Fair," and one of their
number--not Miss Warren--sent a copy of this to the camp of the--th
Massachusetts. Central figure in this group was Bessie Warren,
unquestionably the loveliest girl among them all, and one day there
came to her a single photograph, a still handsomer picture of Mr. Paul
Revere Abbot, and a letter in a hand somewhat stiff and cramped, in
which the writer apologized for the appearance of the scrawl, explained
that his hand had been injured while practising fencing with a comrade,
but that having seen her picture in the group he could not but
congratulate himself on having received a "Havelock" from hands so
fair, could not resist the impulse to write and personally thank her, and
then to inquire if she was a sister of Guthrie Warren, whom he had
known and looked up to at Harvard as a "soph" looks up to a senior;
and he enclosed his picture, which would perhaps recall him to
Guthrie's mind.
Her mother had been dead many years, and Bessie showed this letter to
her father, and with his full consent and with much sisterly pride wrote
that Guthrie was indeed her brother; that he, too, had taken up arms for
his country and was at the front with his regiment, though nowhere
near their friends of the--th Massachusetts (who were watching the
fords of the Potomac up near Edward's Ferry), and that she had sent the
photograph to him.

One letter seemed to lead to another, and those from the Potomac
speedily became very interesting, especially when the papers
mentioned how gallantly Lieutenant Paul Abbot had behaved at Ball's
Bluff and how hard he had tried to save his colonel, who was taken
prisoner. Guthrie returned the photograph to Bess, with a letter which
the doctor read attentively. He remembered Paul Abbot as being a
leader in the younger set at Harvard, and was delighted to hear of him
"under the colors," where every Union-loving man should be--where,
as he recalled him, he knew Abbot must be, for he belonged to one of
the oldest and best families in all Massachusetts; he was a gentleman
born and bred, and would make a name for himself in this war. Guthrie
only wished there were some of that stamp in his own regiment, but he
feared that there were few who had the stuff of which the Abbots were
made--there were too many ward politicians. "But I've cast my lot with
it and shall see it through," wrote Guthrie. Poor fellow! poor father!
poor loving-hearted Bessie! The first volley from the crouching gray
ranks in those dim woods back of Seven Pines sent the ward politicians
in mad rush to the rear, and when Guthrie Warren sprang for the colors,
and waved them high in air, and shouted for the men to rally and follow
him, it was all in vain--all as vain as the effort to stop the firing made
by the chivalric Virginia colonel, who leaped forward, with a few
daring men at his back, to capture the resolute Yankee and his precious
flag. They got them; but the life-blood was welling from the hero's