The Earth Trembled | Page 4

will live on this side of the border longer than it will
take us to reach the ground and drive them off." The Northern press
responded in kind: "No man of sense," it was declared, "could for a
moment doubt that this much-ado-about-nothing would end in a month.
The Northern people are simply invincible. The rebels, a mere band of
ragamuffins, will fly like chaff before the wind on our approach." Thus
the wretched farces of bluster continued on either side until in blood,
agony, and heartbreak, Americans learned to know Americans.
President Lincoln, however, had called out seventy-five thousand
troops, and these men were not long in learning that they could not
walk over the South in three months. The South also discovered that

these same men could not be terrified into abandoning the attempt.
There were thoughtful men on both sides who early began to recognize
the magnitude of the struggle upon which they had entered. Among
these was Major Burgoyne, and the presentiment grew upon him that
he would not see the end of the conflict. When, therefore, impetuous
young Wallingford urged that he might call Mary his wife before he
marched to distant battlefields, the father yielded, feeling that it might
be well for her to have another protector besides himself. The union
was solemnized in old St. Michael's Church, where Mary's mother and
grandmother had been married before her; a day or two of quiet and
happiness was vouchsafed, and then came the tidings of the first great
battle of the war. Charleston responded with acclamations of triumph;
bells sent out their merriest peals; cannon thundered from every fort on
the harbor, but Mary wept on her husband's breast. Among the
telegrams of victory had come an order for his regiment to go North
immediately. Not even a brief honeymoon was permitted to her.

CHAPTER II
LOVE'S AGONY
As the exaggerated reports of a magnificent Confederate victory at Bull
Run continued to pour in, Major Burgoyne shared for a time in the
general elation, believing that independence, recognition abroad, and
peace had been virtually secured. All the rant about Northern cowardice
appeared to be confirmed, and he eagerly waited for the announcement
that Washington had been captured by Johnston's victorious army.
Instead, came the dismal tidings from his only sister that her husband,
Captain Hunter, had been killed in the battle over which he had been
rejoicing. Then for some mysterious reason the Southern army did not
follow the Federals, who had left the field in such utter rout and panic.
It soon appeared that the contending forces were occupying much the
same positions as before. News of the second great uprising of the
North followed closely, and presaged anything but a speedy
termination of the conflict. Major Burgoyne was not a Hotspur, and he

grew thoughtful and depressed in spirit, although he sedulously
concealed the fact from his associates. The shadow of coming events
began to fall upon him, and his daughter gradually divined his lack of
hopefulness. The days were already sad and full of anxiety, for her
husband was absent. He had scouted the idea of the Yankees standing
up before the impetuous onset of the Southern soldiers, and his words
had apparently proved true, yet even those Northern cowards had killed
one closely allied to her before they fled. Remembering, therefore, her
husband's headlong courage, what assurance of his safety could she
have although victory followed victory?
Major Burgoyne urged his widowed sister to leave her plantation in the
charge of an overseer and make her home with him. "You are too near
the probable theatre of military operations to be safe," he wrote, "and
my mind cannot rest till you are with us in this city which we are
rapidly making impregnable." The result was that she eventually
became a member of his family. Her stern, sad face added to the young
wife's depression, for the stricken woman had been rendered intensely
bitter by her loss. Mary was too gentle in nature to hate readily, yet
wrathful gleams would be emitted at times even from her blue eyes, as
her aunt inveighed in her hard monotone against the "monstrous wrong
of the North." They saw their side with such downright sincerity and
vividness that the offenders appeared to be beyond the pale of humanity.
Few men, even though the frosts of many winters had cooled their
blood and ripened their judgment, could reason dispassionately in those
days, much less women, whose hearts were kept on the rack of torture
by the loss of dear ones or the dread of such loss.
It is my purpose to dwell upon the war, its harrowing scenes and
intense animosities, only so far as may be essential to account for my
characters and to explain