The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866

Excerpt

CHAPTER I.

"This is the seventy-fifth pair! Pretty well for us in so short a time!" said the Colonel's wife.

"Yes, but we must give Aunt Marian the credit of a very large proportion; at least ten pairs have come from her."

"I have nothing to do but to knit; none to knit for at home but my cat," I replied, rather shortly, to the soft voice that had given me credit for such extraordinary industry. Afterwards I looked up at Percy Lunt, and tried to think of some pleasant thing to say to her; but in vain,—the words wouldn't come. I did not like her, and that is the truth.

Thirty of us were assembled as usual, at our weekly "Soldiers' Aid Circle." We always met at the house of her father, Colonel Lunt, because its parlors were the largest in Barton, and because Mrs. Lunt invited us to come every week at three o'clock in the afternoon, and stay till nine, meanwhile giving us all tea. The two parlors, which opened into each other as no others in Barton did, were handsomely furnished with articles brought from France; though, for that matter, they did not look very different from Barton furniture generally, except, perhaps, in being plainer. Just now the chairs, lounges, and card-table were covered with blue yarn, blue woollen cloth, unbleached cotton, and other things requisite for the soldiers. They, the soldiers, had worn out the miserable socks provided by government in two days' marching, and sent up the cry, to the mothers and sisters in New England, "Give us such stockings as you are used to knitting for us!"

That home-cry found its answer in every heart. Not a hand but responded. Every spare moment was given to the needs of the soldiers. For these were not the materials of a common army. These were all our own brothers, lovers, husbands, fathers. And shame to the wife, daughter, or sister who would know them to be sufferers while a finger remained on their hands to be moved! So, day by day, at soldiers' meetings, but much more at home, the army of waiters and watchers wrought cheerfully and hopefully for the loved ones who were "marching along." In Barton we knitted while we talked, and at the Lyceum lectures. Nay, we threatened even to take our knitting to meeting,—for it seemed, as we said, a great waste of time to be sitting so long idle.

This had gone on for more than months. We had begun to count the war by years. Did we bate one jot of heart or hope for that? No more than at the beginning. We continued to place the end of the struggle at sixty or ninety days, as the news came more or less favorable to the loyal cause. But despair of the Republic? Never. Not the smallest child in Barton. Not a woman, of course. And through these life-currents flowing between each soldier and his home, the good heart and courage of the army was kept up through all those dismal reverses and bloody struggles that marked the early part of the years of sixty-two and three.

We kept writing to our Barton boys, and took care of them, both in tent and field. And in every box sent on to the Potomac went letters from all the soldiers' families, and photographs to show how fast the children were growing, and how proud the sisters were of the brave brothers who were upholding the flag at the price of their lives....