Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 May 1896 — WHERE THE BATTLE WAS FOUGHT. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WHERE THE BATTLE WAS FOUGHT.

‘fl ft OLD up your right «—J|,> hand, my man.” I The witness held la [I up his left HSnd, and the judge, believing that he was defiant, pIW \ said with a show of Mr J anger: m \ “Hold up your right hand and take the oath!”

Again the left nand was raised, and the fndge, turning to a deputy, shouted: “Arrest that man for contempt of court. Ha refuses to hold up his right hand.” “Judge,” said the man, a dilapidated specimen of humanity, “I can’t hold up my right hand—l left it at Gettysburg a good many years ago. But I can swear all right with my left hand.” There was a sensation in court. No •ne had noticed that the artificially stuffed sleeve was tucked into the coat pocket at the wrist, giving the figure that defiant air that haa aroused the anger of the presiding officer. Now when they knew that bo hand was there, a thrill of sympathy ran through the crowd, and the judge was visibly agitated and even apologized. “I did not know that you had been a soldier,” he said gently, as if that fact were excuse enough for any lapse of duty •n the present occasion. “I am a soldier yet,” said the man in tho witness box; “once a soldier always a soldier, is my creed. I’m under marching orders and likely to join my regiment any time. It’s many years since I first went soldiering, i was a likely chap ttwo. judge.” T “let, yes,” said the judge, who had been staring fixedly at the man while his face, flushed and paled with some secret amotion, “but this is hardly the time or place for reminiscences. Your testimony In the case on hand is all that is required bow. Counsel for the defense will examine this witness," and the judge turned to other business as if the subject no longer interested him.

But he had not done with it. When he want out of the court house on his way home, the one-armei soldier was waiting for him, and he stopped with an impatient air to hear what he had to say. It was •rident that the man had been drinking, and his general appearance was more down at the heels than before. “Judge,” he asked, with tipsy gravity, “might your name be Shields?” “Yes, my name is Shields. Have you any further business with me? I am In something of a hurry.” “So’m I, Judge Shields. I’ve been waitIng over thirty years to ask you a question and get an answer. You don’t happen to know me, judge?” “No,” came the low answer as the judge looked into the face of the soldier with a shifting earnestness, taking in the whole flgure in that uncertain way, “I don’t think I ever saw you before.” “Think again, my friend—you are my friend, ain’t you—did you ever know a young man—a robust, strapping fellow—named Leonard Hurst?” “My God, man, Leonard Hurst died during the war—he was killed in the battle Of Gettysburg, and is buried up in yonder cemetery,” “Is he?' That’s news to me, Hiram Shields, and it’s a lie. He had a friend—a young man like himself—no, not like him, tor Leonard Hurst would have given his life for that friend, and thought it no sacrifice —but the friend didn’t enlist. He staid at nome, and while Hurst was fighting the enemy at the front, Shields, his friend, won his promised wifo away from him, married the girl Leonard Hurst had loted all his life.” ‘Til hear the story at another time,” •aid Shields, who was in a panic of nervousness over this strange recital. “You’ll hear it now,” retorted the other nan, swaying back and forth, yet speak-

log with the utmost distinctness. “Leonard Hurst went away with drums beatta S> and flags flying, and he was gone three years. One of those years he spent la a Southern prison—the fortune of war. Be came home a wreck, to be nursed back to life and strength by those for whose aake he had suffered —he came home to fad himself a dead man!” The dry lips of the judge worked conralslvely, but he said no word. “Hl# friend had buried him. A stone at the foot of his grave had his name and. ■amber, gathered from the prison hospital. He was dead and buried, and his friend had married his sweetheart.” “You are excited,” said Shields, finding his voice; “come home with me and ” “You haven’t heard it all yet Maybe poo thins it was hard to stand in front of a fire of shot and shell, and be torn Moader by. cannon balls. Why, man, that was nothing, to thi soldier, to what he ■offered when he came home and found himself shut-out of.the; ranks of living ■sen —read his own name on a gravestone, •nd heard his friends talk of his death. And that was nothing to the fact that the girl who swore fealty to him had married his false friend. When he knew that, the hit tern ess of death had passed. It was «he*a first anc last real battle was faaght, when h« conquered himself, and hi the man life who had made earth a “'““■t- » . ..

“Have you no pension?” asked the judge suddenly. “Pension? Do they pension dead men?” The judge was trembling violently. ,As the effects of tL > liquor wore off, the soldier became more excitable, and erratic lights flashed from his sunken eyes. His whole expression was a menace to the man who stood trembling before him. But when his strange companion with a sudden swift motion caught him by the throat, Shields made no resistance, and the other holding him thus a moment, threw ■him off contemptuously. “Tell me to my face I am dead,” sneered the soldier with livid lips, “you who robbed me of the dearest thing I had in life—and of life itself! Assassin! She. too, is dead—perhaps you killed her?” “Hurst,” said Shields, wiping the drops of ghastly fear from his pallid face, “if you are indeed a living man, listen to me.

It may be some satisfaction to you to know that Mabel never loved me, although she was my wife. She died with your name on her lips. She believed you dead, and kept your grave green with her tears.” “Say that againl” cried the soldier. “Ob, my God, it pays to have been dead and buried all these years, to know that after all she was true. I had it in my mind to kill you; yes, I meant it when I had my hand at your throat, but those words have saved you! God will settle the account between us!” “He has settled it,” answered Shields solemnly. “He closed the account when he refused-, me Mabel’s love —when He took her from me as the worst punishment He could inflict. But I honestly believed that you were dead—that it was your shattered form I brought from the battlefield and buried up yonder.” “That gave you a right to love Mabel?” “No”—Shields hung his bead in bitter grief and aflame —“I —I had tried to win her before that, but she would apt listen to me —she never would have listened, but for your death—and, Hurst, that knowledge killed her. She was my wife in name, but her heart was witn you.” The soldier lifted his shabby cap with reverence. He raised his eyes to the blue canopy of heaven, and his lips moved in prayer. l ‘l hive fought my last battle,” he said, extending his one poor hand to Shields, “#e are friends from this hour, comrade.” ‘‘You have called me comrade,” said Shields, his eyes filling with tears; “I am 9£> soldier, but I know what that word means. We are comrades for the rest of the march—we will part no more. From this hoar my home is your home.” Thus It came about that these two became to each other even as David and Jonathan, united by a friendship surpassing the love of woman. Nor is the unknown soldier whd sleeps far from home and friends forgotten. On each Memorial day flags wave and flowers bloom over his dust and a white-haired man and a onearmed soldier sit there to talk over the strange enigma of his last resting place. “Enough if on the page of war and glory, Some hand has writ his name.”

“CAUGHT HIM BY THE THROAT.”

“THE SOLDIER LIFTED' HIS SHABBY CAP WITH REVERENCE.”