C

THE OLD SERGEANT.

BY FORCEYTHE WILLSON.

OME a little nearer, Doctor,-thank you !-let me take the cup:

Draw your chair up,-draw it closer,-just another little sup!

Maybe you may think I 'm better; but I'm pretty well

used up,

Doctor, you've done all you could do, but I'm just a going up!

"Feel my pulse, sir, if you want to, but it ain't much use to try-"

"Never say that," said the surgeon, as he smothered down a sigh;

"It will never do, old comrade, for a soldier to say die !" "What you say will make no difference, Doctor, when you come to die.

"Doctor, what has been the matter? "-" You were very faint, they say;

You must try to get to sleep now."-"Doctor, have I been away?"

'Not that anybody knows of!" "Doctor

please to stay!

Doctor,

There is something I must tell you, and you won't have long to stay!

"I have got my marching orders, and I 'm ready now to

go;

Doctor, did you say I fainted!-But it could n't ha' been

So,

For as sure as I 'm a Sergeant, and was wounded at Shiloh,

I 've this very night been back there, on the old field of Shiloh !

"This is all that I remember: The last time the lighter

came,

And the lights had all been lowered, and the noises much

the same,

He had not been gone five minutes before something called my name :

ORDERLY SERGEANT-ROBERT BURTON!'-just that way it called my name.

"And I wondered who could call me so distinctly and so slow,

Knew it could n't be the lighter, he could not have

spoken so;

Vol. II.

And I tried to answer, 'Here, sir!' but I could n't make

it go!

For I could n't move a muscle, and I could n't make it go!

"Then I thought: It's all a nightmare, all a humbug and a bore:

Just another foolish grapevine *—and it won't come any

more;

But it came, sir, notwithstanding, just the same way as before:

'ORDERLY SERGEANT-ROBERT BURTON!' even plainer than before.

"That is all that I remember, till a sudden burst of light,

And I stood beside the river, where we stood that Sunday

night,

Waiting to be ferried over to the dark bluffs opposite, When the river was perdition and all hell was opposite!

"And the same old palpitation came again in all its power,

And I heard a bugle sounding, as from some celestial tower;

*The troops during the war were accustomed to express their incredulity, when news could not be traced to a trustworthy source, by saying that the tidings had been received by "grapevine telegraph." Hence a canard was called a "grapevine."-EDITOR.

And the same mysterious voice said: 'IT IS THE ELEVENTH HOUR!

ORDERLY SERGEANT-ROBERT BURTON-IT IS THE ELEVENTH HOUR!'

"Doctor Austin !-what day is this?"-"It is Wednesnesday night, you know."

"Yes,-to-morrow will be New Year's, and a right good time below!

What time is it, Doctor Austin?"-" Nearly twelve." "Then don't you go!"

Can it be that all this happened—all this—not an hour ago!

"There was where the gun-boats opened on the dark, rebellious host,

And where Webster semi-circled his last guns upon the

coast;

There were still the two log-houses, just the same, or else their ghost,—

And the same old transport came and took me over— or its ghost!

"And the old field lay before me all deserted far and wide:

There was where they fell on Prentice,-there McClernand met the tide;

There was where stern Sherman rallied, and where Hurlbut's heroes died,

Lower down, where Wallace charged them, and kept charging till he died.

"There was where Lew Wallace showed them he was of the canny kin,

There was where old Nelson thundered, and where Rousseau waded in;

Then McCook sent 'em to breakfast and we all began to win

There was where the grape-shot took me, just as we began to win.

"Now, a shroud of snow and silence over every thing was spread;

And but for this old blue mantle and the old hat on my head,

I should not have even doubted, to this moment I was dead,

For my footsteps were as silent as the snow upon the dead!

"Death and silence !-Death and silence! all around me as I sped!

And behold a mighty TOWER, as if builded to the dead,To the Heaven of the heavens, lifted up its mighty head, Till the Stars and Stripes of Heaven all seemed waving from its head!