heart. If we are true to our duty, true to ourselves, and true to posterity we will come out of this struggle gloriously triumphant, and transmit to our children a country redeemed and a liberty unfettered. . .

CHAPTER III

THE SOLDIER-HUSBAND [continued]. 1863-1864

T

HE Seventeenth was in Virginia and Maryland until March, 1863, when it was transported, with the Ninth Corps, to Louisville, Kentucky. It was stationed in various parts of the State until ordered to join General Grant, then at Vicksburg, Mississippi. Captain Burrows records some of his experiences while in Louisville in letters to his wife:

UNITED STATES HOTEL,

LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY, March 30, 1863

It would do your soul good to visit this State in these times. You find no neutral men or women. The Union people are warm, true friends, and you cannot be with them but a moment before you seem to have known them for years. While marching up town on our arrival I met a lady and gentleman who stopped me. Both shook hands warmly, welcomed us to the State, and their dark Southern eyes, moistened with tears, told of the noble, true spirit within.

Two of the most prominent ladies at the supper were Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Haskin,—both unflinchingly loyal women. They asked me to call upon

them before I left the city. . . . Mrs. Johnson has spent most of her time in the hospitals of the city, and was at the battle of P. Landing, administering to the wounded and dying. I wish you could see her dark eyes flash as she talks of this Rebellion. She is surrounded by traitors, and yet from every window in her house waves the Stars and Stripes. When Bragg was within five miles of the city and demanding its surrender, and thousands of families were moving across the river, she threw our flag from every window, and said that she would not desert it, never! eral Nelson rode by the house and complimented her upon her bravery. Mrs. Haskin is Mrs. Johnson's daughter, and she and her husband were born there, and are both unflinching in their loyalty. I should like to have him talk with some of our Copperheads at the North. Oh! how he despises them! He is a slaveholder, but says that slavery is the cause of this trouble, and that the war must not end till the last vestige of it is swept from the land. He says that if the South succeed, and Kentucky links her destiny with her, he will abandon his State.

Gen

How pleasant it is for the soldier to find such warm greetings in a traitor's land! But do not think that all the people are so. In walking along the streets we could easily tell the loyal people. The "Reb" ladies are the meanest creatures I ever saw.

We

would meet them, and they would turn out as far as the sidewalk would allow, and even hold up their dresses, as if passing something too foul to touch. Miserable fools! I wonder if they thought it offended us! We met four or five little girls, and they turned up their noses, and Captain Tyler remarked, “You are a little Reb," when the whole group joined in saying, "We are Rebels too."

BARDSTOWN, Kentucky,
April 1, 1863

But it would do us no

I wish we had more Butlers. good if we had, for our weak-kneed Administration would lay them on the shelf at the behest of every conservative demagogue. The President knows that Jeff Davis and his clique don't like Butler, and to please them he has deprived the Nation of his services! Out with such a milk-and-water man! But let it work. All may be well yet.

And all was yet to be well. The boy-Captain, heart-broken over the scenes of death and desolation, could not see it, but even with his criticism he had faith to believe it. The little space of two years gave him the power to understand the quiet but far-seeing, long-suffering Lincoln.

LEBANON, KENTUCKY, Sabbath Eve, April 5, 1863

When we entered this place we took possession of the printing press, and tomorrow we strike off the first

issue of the "Union Vidette," as we call it. I will send you a copy, Jennie. It is real fun to soldier out here in Kentucky, because the people are divided and so earnest. The traitors are spunky and insolent, the Union people warm and true.

News of the illness of his little daughter brings out an expression of the depth of his devotion. Even the threatened dissolution of the Nation is forgotten in his anxiety for her health and life:

LEBANON, Kentucky, Wednesday, April 8, 1863

I am pained that our little darling has been sick. Poor thing! Has she not suffered enough! What crime has she committed that she must thus be tormented even in infancy! Pardon that thought, that seems to reflect upon Him who orders all things well. Oh! Jennie, take good care of her. Do not suffer a single care or sorrow to ruffle the sunny deep of her gentle spirit. Remember a father's love for her, how he dotes upon her, and shapes his every act for her future good. And keep her! Oh, Jennie, what a world this would be to us if that star in our heaven should go down! Heaven spare us the affliction! Jennie, do not take out her little letters, please. I want to see them. Those tracings made by her hand would be meaningless to others, but to you and me they have a language, oh, how dear! I could sit