Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 21.djvu/350

 342 Southern Historical Society Papers.

to have lost heart, however, but looked forward patiently and pray- erfully to a happy end of her many trials and deprivations.

When, in 1862, little Julia was born, Mrs. Jackson met alone and uncomplainingly her illness. The baby was five months old before there was a lull in the fierce strife in which General Jackson was so powerful a motor, which allowed the young wife to take the child to its father, and she, with the infant and a nurse, went to find him in the field. After jolting over miles of new-made road, Mrs. Jackson at length found shelter and the comfort of her husband's companion- ship, but this indulgence lasted only a little over nine days. The dreaded call to arms was issued to confront General Hooker's ad- vancing army, and the non-combatants were ordered on to Rich- mond. General Jackson hurried, fasting to the field, after a hasty farewell, expressing the hope that he might find time to return to bid his dear ones loving God-speed, but this privilege was not to be granted. Time passed, and the roar of battle shook to its founda- tion, and Mrs. Jackson was forced to leave the scenes of her happy reunion, while a procession of litters bearing the wounded was being brought into the yard for medical attention. Haunted by the memory of carnage and death, the poor young wife, with a child's faith and a woman's anguish, left her treasure on the battle-field. Then came the death wound, and after a week's detention, Mrs. Jackson reached her husband's death-bed. Spent with the anguish of his wounds, he lay dying, too near the silence of the grave to do more than murmur to his wife: "Speak louder, I want to hear all you say," and feebly to caress his baby with a whispered " My sweet one, my treasure," while the innocent smiled in his dying face. Then was the heartbroken wife and mother given strength to minis- ter both these objects of her love. From her firm lips the dying hero learned that the gates of Heaven -were ajar for his entrance. Controlling her bitter grief, she sang for him the sacred songs on which his fainting spirit soared upward to its rest. When all was over and she had followed him to his grave, she again sought her father's roof, and there hid her bowed head among her own people, to live only for her baby. In strict retirement, the young widow husbanded her means until her daughter was grown a pretty, graceful young woman, and then, to promote her child's happiness, the mother emerged from the privacy in which she had lived since her husband's death, and visited both the Southern and Northern