An Echo of Antietam

An Echo Of Antietam, by
Edward Bellamy

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Title: An Echo Of Antietam 1898
Author: Edward Bellamy
Release Date: September 21, 2007 [EBook #22702]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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AN ECHO OF ANTIETAM
By Edward Bellamy
1898

I
The air was tremulous with farewells. The regiment, recruited within
sight of the steeples of Waterville, and for three months in camp just
outside the city, was to march the next morning. A series of great
battles had weakened the Federal armies, and the authorities at
Washington had ordered all available men to the front.
The camp was to be broken up at an early hour, after which the
regiment would march through the city to the depot to take the cars.
The streets along the route of the march were already being decorated
with flags and garlands. The city that afternoon was full of soldiers
enjoying their last leave of absence. The liquor shops were crowded
with parties of them drinking with their friends, while others in threes
and fours, with locked arms, paraded the streets singing patriotic songs,
sometimes in rather maudlin voices, for to-day in every saloon a soldier
might enter, citizens vied for the privilege of treating him to the best in
the house. No man in a blue coat was suffered to pay for anything.
For the most part, however, the men were sober enough over their
leave-taking. One saw everywhere soldiers and civilians, strolling in
pairs, absorbed in earnest talk. They are brothers, maybe, who have
come away from the house to be alone with each other, while they talk
of family affairs and exchange last charges and promises as to what is
to be done if anything happens. Or perhaps they are business partners,
and the one who has put the country's business before his own is giving
his last counsels as to how the store or the shop shall be managed in his
absence. Many of the blue-clad men have women with them, and these
are the couples that the people oftenest turn to look at. The girl who has
a soldier lover is the envy of her companions to-day as she walks by his
side. Her proud eyes challenge all who come, saying, "See, this is my
hero. I am the one he loves."
You could easily tell when it was a wife and not a sweetheart whom the
soldier had with him. There was no challenge in the eyes of the wife.
Young romance shed none of its glamour on the sacrifice she was

making for her native land. It was only because they could not bear to
sit any longer looking at each other in the house that she and her
husband had come out to walk.
In the residence parts of the town family groups were gathered on
shady piazzas, a blue-coated figure the centre of each. They were trying
to talk cheerfully, making an effort even to laugh a little.
Now and then one of the women stole unobserved from the circle, but
her bravely smiling face as she presently returned gave no inkling of
the flood of tears that had eased her heart in some place apart. The
young soldier himself was looking a little pale and nervous with all his
affected good spirits, and it was safe to guess that he was even then
thinking how often this scene would come before him afterwards, by
the camp-fire and on the eve of battle.
In the village of Upton, some four or five miles out of Waterville, on a
broad piazza at the side of a house on the main street, a group of four
persons were seated around a tea-table.
The centre of interest of this group, as of so many others that day, was a
soldier. He looked not over twenty-five, with dark blue eyes, dark hair
cut close to his head, and a mustache trimmed crisply in military
fashion. His uniform set off to advantage an athletic figure of youthful
slender-ness, and his bronzed complexion told of long days of practice
on the drill-ground in the school of the company and the battalion. He
wore the shoulder-straps of a second lieutenant.
On one side of the soldier sat the Rev. Mr. Morton, his cousin, and on
the other Miss Bertha Morton, a kindly faced, middle-aged lady, who
was her brother's housekeeper and