The Trials of the Soldiers Wife

The Trials of the Soldier's Wife, by

Alex St. Clair Abrams This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: The Trials of the Soldier's Wife A Tale of the Second American Revolution
Author: Alex St. Clair Abrams
Release Date: March 10, 2006 [EBook #17955]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRIALS OF THE SOLDIER'S WIFE ***

Produced by Curtis Weyant, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images produced by the Wright American Fiction Project.)

Transcriber's Note:
The author states in the Appendix "The book which our readers have just completed perusing, is filled with many errors; too many, in fact, for any literary work to contain."
Only the very obvious errors have been corrected.

THE TRIALS
OF
THE SOLDIER'S WIFE:
A TALE OF THE
SECOND AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

BY ALEX. ST. CLAIR ABRAMS.

ATLANTA, GEORGIA:
1864.
Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1864,
BY THE AUTHOR,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Confederate States for the Northern District of Georgia.

DEDICATION
TO
COLONEL JOHN H. JOSSEY.
Of Macon, Georgia.
MY DEAR SIR--
Accept from me the dedication of this little work as a token of appreciation for the kind friendship you have ever displayed towards me. Wishing you all the happiness and prosperity that can fall to mortal man, believe me.
Your Friend,
THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE.
The plot of this little work was first thought of by the writer in the month of December, 1862, on hearing the story of a soldier from New Orleans, who arrived from Camp Douglas just in time to see his wife die at Jackson, Mississippi. Although the Press of that city made no notice of it, the case presented itself as a fit subject for a literary work. If the picture drawn in the following pages appears exaggerated to our readers, they will at least recognize the moral it contains as truthful.
Trusting that the public will overlook its many defects, the Author yet hopes there will be found in this little book, matter of sufficient interest to while away the idle hour of the reader.
ATLANTA, April 20th, 1864.

THE TRIALS
OF
THE SOLDIER'S WIFE.
CHAPTER FIRST.
THE "CRESCENT CITY"--THE HUSBAND'S DEPARTURE.
Kind reader, have you ever been to New Orleans? If not, we will attempt to describe the metropolis of the Confederate States of America.
New Orleans is situated on the Mississippi river, and is built in the shape of a crescent, from which it derives the appellation of "Crescent City." The inhabitants--that is, the educated class--are universally considered as the most refined and aristocratic members of society on the continent. When we say aristocratic, we do not mean a pretension of superiority above others, but that elegance and etiquette which distinguish the parvenu of society, and the vulgar, but wealthy class of citizens with which this country is infested. The ladies of New Orleans are noted for their beauty and refinement, and are certainly, as a general thing, the most accomplished class of females in the South, except the fair reader into whose hands this work may fall.
It was in the month of May, 1861, that our story commences. Secession had been resorted to as the last chance left the South for a preservation of her rights. Fort Sumter, had fallen, and from all parts of the land troops were pouring to meet the threatened invasion of their homes. As history will record, New Orleans was not idle in those days of excitement. Thousands of her sons came forward at the first call, and offered their services for the good of the common cause, and for weeks the city was one scene of excitement from the departure of the different companies to Virginia.
Among the thousands who replied to the first call of their country, was Alfred Wentworth, the confidential clerk of one of the largest commission houses in the city. He was of respectable family, and held a high position in society, both on account of his respectability and the elevated talent he had displayed during his career in the world. He had been married for about five years, and two little children--one a light-eyed girl of four summers, and the other an infant of two years--were the small family with which heaven had blessed him.
After joining a company of infantry, and signing the muster roll, Alfred returned home to his wife and informed her of what he had done, expecting that she would regret it. But the patriotic heart of his wife would not reproach him for having performed his duty; so heaving a sigh as she looked at the child in her arms, and the little girl on her fathers knee, a tear trickled down her flushed cheek as she