Jasper County Democrat, Volume 14, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 May 1911 — THE STORY OF A WAR VETERAN [ARTICLE]

THE STORY OF A WAR VETERAN

A Soldier’s Sacrifice For the Woman He Loved.

A generation ago while traveling I was obliged to spend a Sunday in a small town. In the morning after breakfast to kill time I strolled into the country. Spring was coming on. the sun was shining warm and bright the birds were singing and the buds opening. Passing a cemetery. I turned in at the open gate. In one corner a man and a boy of perhaps four years of age were looking over a group of headstones of uniform style. 1 sauntered to where they were and saw at a glance that they marked the graves of soldiers who had died in Union armies daring the civil war. I spoke to the man. asking for information, and he told me that the spot had been set apart by the authorities and as many bodies of tbe country's soldier boys as possible brought back and interred there. ‘There’s Jack Kilburn.” .be said, pointing. “He and I enlisted on the same day. Over there lies Gordon Whitcomb, who was shot down beside me at Shiloh. Tom Porter, just beyond, died in hospital, all chnms of mine." I noticed a headstone on which was cut:

RAYMOND HALL. He Died For the Girl He Loved.

“It looks as though there might be a 1 story behind that epitaph," I remarked. ■ “That? Oh, uo—only a plain inci- j dent." Then, unconscious that he was giving a romance, he told me the inci-! dent: Those were exciting days when we fellows inarched away to the tune of The Girl I Left Behind Me/ and the worst of it was that several of us were leaving behind the same girl. She was the belle of the town, and we were all in love with her. But there was no chance for more than one. tbe one the ■ girl loved, though there were two who ; led all the rest. These two were Ray- j mond Hall and another fellow who— \ well, the other fellow was Jim Martin. ' Hall was desperately In love with the girl, but it was the other fellow who had taken her fancy—nobody knew why, for Hall was certainly the better man of the two. He didn’t know that his rival had got ahead of him till after the regiment got down into Kentucky. , Then he saw letters coming in for Jim j Martin addressed in a hand that he recognized. “In some people love seems to work like a disease. I mean those cases you ; read about in the newspapers where ) they kill themselves or the one they | love or sometimes a rival. Hall suffer- ; ed like one of these, but he didn't kill ; anybody. He exposed himself recklessly when we were under fire, and it j looked as If he were trying to get himself killed, but no one knew whether he was or not, for he was a reticent fellow and kept his own secret. ‘Two years passed, two years of campaigning and hard fighting, during which the rivals fought shoulder to shoulder. Raymond always seemed to Jim to be resisting some terrible temptation, and in a fight when Hall was In his rear Martin felt uncomfortable. Yon see. they were in the same company, and under fire men get excited and sometimes kill a man in front.

“Well, in time the rivals were both taken prisoner in the same fight While being transported south with other prisoners in a box car the whole car load took up some of the flooring and got out Of course the guard went after them in hot haste, not stopping for a surrender when getting sight of one of them, but shooting him down as he ran. It happened that the rivals ran in the same direction and took refuge in some bushes very near together. Presently they heard a voice: ‘“There’s one of ’em down in those boshes.’

“ ‘Jim,’ said Raymond, speaking rapidly. ‘l’m going to run for It.’ “ ‘Don’t you do it,’ said Jim. ‘They’ll shoot you sure. If we lie low’—- *“ ‘The chances are they’ll kill us both. They think there’s only one here. I’ll run and draw the fire. You live to go back and make the little girl happy.’ "There was no time for more words nor for any sort of protest on Jim’s part. A Confederate was coming with a cocked gun. Raymond jumped up and ran like a deer. There was a shot, and he dropped dead. Then the Confederate went back to his comrades. “Martin lay low till all was quiet then went out and found his rival dead. There’s no use trying to tell how a man would feel at such a time. Just think of him having suspected his friend of wanting to kill him, and here he was dead that the girl he loved might be happy with his rival. Martin buried the body in a fence corner with a big tree directly north, noted the place to know it again, then set off on two weeks' skulking till he got into the Union lines. Soon after the grave was within our pickets, and Martin took up Hall's body and sent it north.” The man stopped speaking and, tabbing his little boy by the hand, was _ __ “Who placed the headstone?” “The girl.” * V “And what became of the man who was saved for her?” “He married her.” “Thank you for your story, Mr.”— I gave him time to help me out “Martin,’’ he supplied. “I’m Jim Martin.”