The Earth Trembled | Page 5

subsequent events. The roots of personality
strike deep, and the taproot, heredity, runs back into the being of those
who lived and suffered before we were born.
Gentle Mary Burgoyne should have been part of a happier day and
generation. The bright hopes of a speedily conquered peace were dying
away; the foolish bluster on both sides at the beginning of the war had

ceased, and the truth so absurdly ignored at first, that Americans, North
and South, would fight with equal courage, was made clearer by every
battle. The heavy blows received by the South, however, did not
change her views as to the wisdom and righteousness of her cause, and
she continued to return blows at which the armies of the North reeled,
stunned and bleeding. Mary was not permitted to exult very long,
however, for the terrible pressure was quickly renewed with an
unwavering pertinacity which created misgivings in the stoutest hearts.
The Federals had made a strong lodgment on the coast of her own State,
and were creeping nearer and nearer, often repulsed yet still advancing
as if impelled by the remorseless principle of fate.
At last, in the afternoon of a day early in April, events occurred never
to be forgotten by those who witnessed them. Admiral Dupont with his
armored ships attempted to reduce Fort Sumter and capture the city.
Thousands of spectators watched the awful conflict; Mary Wallingford
and her aunt, Mrs. Hunter, among them. The combined roar of the guns
exceeded all the thunder they had ever heard. About three hundred
Confederate cannon were concentrated on the turreted monitors, and
some of the commanders said that "shot struck the vessels as fast as the
ticking of a watch." It would seem that the ships which appeared so
diminutive in the distance must be annihilated, yet Mary with her
powerful glass saw them creep nearer and nearer. It was their shots, not
those of her friends, that she watched with agonized absorption, for
every tremendous bolt was directed against the fort in which was her
father.
The conflict was too unequal; the bottom of the harbor was known to
be paved with torpedoes, and in less than an hour Dupont withdrew his
squadron in order to save it from destruction.
In strong reaction from intense excitement, Mary's knees gave way, and
she sank upon them in thankfulness to God. Her aunt supported her to
her room, gave restoratives, and the daughter in deep anxiety waited for
tidings from her father. He did not come to her; he was brought, and
there settled down upon her young life a night of grief and horror which
no words can describe. While he was sighting a gun, it had been struck

by a shell from the fleet, and when the smoke of the explosion cleared
away he was seen among the debris, a mangled and unconscious form.
He was tenderly taken up, and after the conflict ended, conveyed to his
home. On the way thither he partially revived, but reason was gone. His
eyes were scorched and blinded, his hearing destroyed by the
concussion, and but one lingering thought survived in the wreck of his
mind. In a plaintive and almost childlike tone he continually uttered the
words, "I was only trying to defend my city and my home."
Hour after hour he repeated this sentence, deaf to his child's entreaties
for recognition and a farewell word. His voice grew more and more
feeble until he could only whisper the sad refrain; at last his lips moved
but there was no sound; then he was still.
For a time it seemed as if Mary would soon follow him, but her aunt,
her white face tearless and stern, bade her live for her husband and her
unborn child. These sacred motives eventually enabled her to rally, but
her heart now centred its love on her husband with an intensity which
made her friends tremble for her future. His visits had been few and
brief, and she lived upon his letters. When they were delayed, her eyes
had a hunted, agonized look which even her stoical aunt could not
endure.
One day about midsummer she found the stricken wife, unconscious
upon the floor with the daily paper in her clenched hand. When at last
the physician had brought back feeble consciousness and again
banished it by the essential opiate, Mrs. Hunter read the paragraph
which, like a bolt, had struck down her niece. It was from an account of
a battle in which the Confederates had been worsted and were being
driven from a certain vantage point. "At this critical moment," ran the
report, "Colonel Wallingford, with his thinned regiment, burst through
the crowd of fugitives rushing down the road, and struck the pursuing
enemy such a stinging blow as