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Soldier rest, thy warfare o’er,
Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking;
Dream of battlefields no more,
Morn of toil, nor night of waking.
MAMMY PJIILLTS’ WATCH
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T WAS tho spring of
It P 18f to A warm sun
I j f* sin city jta spread upon a border tho
I J banks of tho out Mississippi on
—r. city from which some wero fleeing to get
away from Yankee territory, some to escape
the reported advance of tho boys in gray,
and some to join either tho Union or Con¬
federate armies. For days there had been
an ice gorge in the river. At midnight with¬
out warning, with a roaring and a cracking,
the ice had broken up and gono off with tho
current. As morning dawned all was activ¬
ity on the levee. People wore hurrying to
and fro. Lazy negroes that had been torpid
with cold, were slowly crawling out from
among tho cotton bales. From tho long
black pipes of steamers—whoso captains dur¬
ing their period of enforced idleness had for¬
gotten their rivalries, and whose boats had
in the meanwhile been resting quietly side
by side—wreaths of smoke were curling and
drifting away in tho wind. Vehicles bearing
passengers and freight, struggled for place
on the levee. The cracking of whips,
tho braying of mules, tho “heave ho,”
“heave ho” of the roustabout, tho shouts of
tho mates as they hurried tho men in no
gentle terms to get on with the freight, mado
up a combination of sounds, a scene nowhere
to be witnessed save on the levee of a southern
river city.
Among the carriages hurrying to one of the
tteamers about to depart for tho south was
ono containing a gentleman and by his side
a lady, his junior, and evidently an invalid.
In attendance upon tho lady was an old
colored woman, bent with age, but eager and
willing to perform the duties of a nurse.
The gentlemau carried his delicate com¬
panion over the gang plank and up into the
cabin, where ho laiu her on a sofa. Kneeling
beside her and taking her hand in his, he
gazed upon her os if lie would engrave for
ever upon his heart the sweet smile that
responded to his. Yet they were sad smiles;
it was health, a sad parting. The young wife, broken j
in was about to depart for their
former homo in Louisiana. Tho husband, a
Confederate officer, was to go to report for
duty to Gen. Albert 8. Johnston, and was j
destined soon after to inarch with his regi
meut to join the force which Gen. Pember
ton was then collecting at Vicksburg.
. i Surely, Robert,” the young wife said, as
sho held him when ho endeavored to break
away from her with a view to ending the
parting, so hitter to Kith of them; ‘surely
it Will ail la. over soon, and you will join
me. and at once-tho moment ix-aoo is de
daml--wont you."
Let a,, nope, ho said manfully. I will.
lie turned and hurried away. Mammy P uller
fo ioraal her master as ho p^lliransMho
to the sturean in the bow of the boat.
Done you fret. Mars Robert, houcy, sho
said; “ole Phillis’ll care for missy like she
did for you when you was nothen but a little
pickaninny on her brcs’.”
Robert Gibson tried to speak to her, but ho
could not. His lips moved but no words
camo. Ho pressed the old woman’s black
hand, and hurried down the staircase and
out on the crowded levee. Once he turned
and looketl back at the boat that held his
treasure. The last sight that met his gaze was
tho figure of the mammy straining her eyes
to discover him among the crowd. An hour
after the steamer was stan iing down the
river while the negro dock hands stood in
the bow singing that strange weird melody
once heard never forgotten.
When they reached a point near Island No.
10, they lnul come to the advance of the Con
federate lines. They were passed through,
and within a few days were again on another
steamer, moving southward.
As the days passed, nearer and nearer
camo the boat to the sunny south. Here
and there on the river banks the tender green
of t he poplars and the sheen of the Spanish
moss told that spring was waking, and soon
song of the mocking bird brought cheer
the weary heart of the invalid, which in
of all i‘ i courage could not rise to
Mammy Phillis hovered over her
young mistre ss with loving care, beguiling
her as well she could with dreams of the
future when Mars’ Robert should come home
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MAMMY PHILLIS’ WATCH.
covered with glory which should rival Solo
mon's. But she saw with agony untold that
“the silver bowl was broken.” Her young
mistress' life faded and flickered, rallied for
a day, relapsed, flared for a moment like a
candle in its socket then went out altogether,
One morning the bell on the steamer was
struck, the fires were banked, and her prow
turn a toward the snore. It was but a few
miles south of Vicksburg. The boat tied to
the landing, a procession of the passengers
boro the lifeless charge of Mammy Phillis to
the shore, and there, after several of the
deckhands had dug a grave, reverently laid
body in it. The steamer had lain to”
at an opening in the forest. Huge cypress
trees throw their dark shadows into the un
known depths, trailing moss waved its gray
tresse9 jn the summer breeze, birds were
caroling in all the tree tops, and the mag
no i ia and climbing jessamine filled tho soft
air with their delicious perfume. Sad eyes
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looked on as the rough steamboat hands per
formed their strange office. Was there no
j one to offer a prayer for this sweet spirit in
all that company,? No! Only the uncovered
heads of the rough sailors and the few stran
gers there gathered bore witness to the un¬
usual scene. A moment more and they had
recrossed the gangplank. Mammy Phillis
stood like a statue where she had placed her¬
self at the head of the grave, deaf to all en¬
treaties to go with the rest.
“Where missy lies, dare I lie,” was all she
would say.
At last they left her. As the boat
moved away they heard her cry, “How long,
oh Lord, how long!” The sun went down,
silence reigned in the vast wilderness and the
stars looked down upon the solitary form of
Mammy Phillis, faithful almost unto death,
* ♦ * * Sfc * *
It was the summer of 1803. Grant and
Sherman wore investing Vicksburg.. For
more than a 3 *ear old Mammy Phillis had
watched over the grave of her mistress on
that shore in the wilderness. An old cabin
had been deserted by its tenants as being in
too close proximity to the lawlessness of war,
and in this the old woman had made her
homo. From a plantation not far distant
ehe had drawn what scanty subsistence she
needed, and there she stayed and watched
and prayed that Mars’ Robert should come
and relieve her of her lonely vigil.
One day the old woman thought she heard
tho booming of distant guns. Was it guns
or was it thunder? Sho stepped to the cabin
door to listen. The sounds came nearer.
Then she heard volleys. Then the sounds
seemed to recede, then to advance, yet with
each advance drawing nearer, till at last the
forest about her resounded with tbs deafen¬
ing roar of artillery, the sharp rattle of
musketry, the shouts of men, the neighing cf
horses. During the presence of these mighty
concussions old Phillis sat crouched in the
corner of her cabin praying the Lord to take
her to his “ Kingdom come.”
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Then the sounds grew further and further;
thenoise 0 f the cannon became again a low
mnttori ng, and the volleys of musketry died
away into an occasional distant shot,
Now it happened bv a strange fate that
this battle brought tho end of Phillis’watch,
When the oM womnn folmd strength and
rourageto go out of her cabin, she found
near it the dead and the dying. A temporary
hos ., jtal „as established within a few rods,
and who should be brought dying to the old
creature’s cabin, but her beloved Mars
Robert. aged
None of the arts with which the
nurse had soothed him as a child would
avail now to bring him strength. No gentle
ministrations or tender words could rouse
him from his deathlike stupor. W ith • his
head upon her breast she crooned over him,
till the present vanished and he was her own
little “pickaninny” at the old plantation
lorne, and she sang the song he loved to hear
is a child as she rocked too and fro:
Come friends come, done stop at Jordan
When de waters roll away,
Take up de staff an hurry on, . J
For de Lord won’t let you stray
Into de promised land.
Hurry on, hurry onl
Mammy looked down and saw the eyes of
the wounded soldier open, but a smile of rec¬
ognition was all that passed between her
and her beloved master.
“Bress de Lord he done gone to lieben, an
when de angel Gabrel blojpr de horn for db
battle to begin, Mars’ Robert go fine dat Yank
what shot him an pay him back, or Mammy
Phillis don’t know nuffin ob de meanin oh
de Scripters.” dusky
Frotn far and near they came, a
crowd to pay the last tribute of respect to the
young massa, and he was laid to rest by the
side of his loved one, in the lonely forest.
Mammy sat in the door of her cabin, gray and
blind waiting for the sound of Gabriel’s horn,
firm in the belief that somehow when Mars’
Robert finds that Yank she will be there to
see.
One day after peace came, a boat landed
at the bank near mammy’s cabin. A gentle¬
man came ashore and took the old woman
away. He was her young master’s father.
Mammy went back with him to Louisiana,and
when she went “into de promised land” she
was watched by those of fairer complexion,
and who were no less faithful to her than she
had been to her “Mars” and “Missy.”
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GEN. LEE.
Greeh yV- Tribute to Southern Women,
Nor would our survey of the great struggle
bo complete without a recognition of the fact
that the spirit evinced by the women of the
south, while even more intense and vehe¬
ment, prompted them to efforts and sacri¬
fices equally practical and beneficent. Their
means were limited and they unaccustomed
to persistent labor; but they gave to their
brothei*s and sons, in field and hospital, every
solace for their hardships and sufferings
which affection could devise and unwearying
devotion provide. True, they did not (as had
often been threatened) seize the arms that
dropped uoia tue hands of their vanquished
j kinsmen, but they did whatever they could
to mitigate the hardships of the soldier’s lot
and insure the triumph of the-Confederacy.•
, —“American Conuiet” Appendix
THE LAST GUN.
At sunset on May 18, 1SG5, between Palmetto
ranch and the Boca Chico strait, in Texas, the
Sixty-second United States Colored infantry fired
the last volley of the war.
Thank God! The bloody crowned days are past:
Our patieut hopes are at last;
And sounds of heroes bugle, home drum from and strife. life
But lead our
Thank God. we see on every hand
Breast orchards high the bend, ripening the herds grain increase. crops stand;
The
Then, oo, thank God, thank God fur peace!