The Earth Trembled

general elation, believing that independence, recognition abroad, and peace had been virtually secured. All the rant about Northern cowa

uprising of the North followed closely, and presaged anything but a speedy termination of the conflict. Major Burgoyne was not a Hotspur, and he grew thoughtful and depressed in spirit, although he sedulously concealed the fact from his associates. The shadow of coming events began to fall upon him, and his daughter gradually divined his lack of hopefulness. The days were already sad and full of an

s family. Her stern, sad face added to the young wife's depression, for the stricken woman had been rendered intensely bitter by her loss. Mary was too gentle in nature to hate readily, yet wrathful gleams would be emitted at times even from her blue eyes, as her aunt inveighed in her hard monotone against the "monstrous wrong of the North." They saw their side

essential to account for my characters and to explain subsequent events. The roots of personality strike d

urage, was made clearer by every battle. The heavy blows received by the South, however, did not change her views as to the wisdom and righteousness of her cause, and she continued to return blows at which the armies of the North reeled, stunned and bleeding. Mary was not permitted to exult very long, however, for

er, among them. The combined roar of the guns exceeded all the thunder they had ever heard. About three hundred Confederate cannon were concentrated on the turreted monitors, and some of the commanders said that "shot struck the vessels as fast as the ticking of a watch." It would seem that the ships

own to be paved with torpedoes, and in less than an hour Dupo

night of grief and horror which no words can describe. While he was sighting a gun, it had been struck by a shell from the fleet, and when the smoke of the explosion cleared away he was seen among the debris, a mangled and unconscious form. He was tenderly taken up, and after the conflict ended, conveyed to his home. On t

tion and a farewell word. His voice grew more and more feeble until he could only whi

ed motives eventually enabled her to rally, but her heart now centred its love on her husband with an intensity which made her friends tremble for her future. His vis

from a certain vantage point. "At this critical moment," ran the report, "Colonel Wallingford, with his thinned regiment, burst through the crowd of fugitives rushing down the road, and struck the pursuing enemy such a stinging blow as to check its advance. If the heroic colonel and his little band could only have been supported at this instant the position might have been regained. As it was, they were simp

der at the sound of Gilmore's guns as they thundered against Forts Sumter and Wagner. A faithful colored woman who had been a slave in the family from infancy watched unweariedly beside her, giving place only to the stern-visaged aunt, whose touch and words were gentle, but who had lost the power to disguise the bitterness of her heart. She tried to awaken

there was a strange, demoniac shriek through the air followed by an explosion which in the still night was t

s," she exclaimed. "Dem

The faithful doctor came hurriedly of hi

y cheerily, "Come, Mary, here is a fine l

ing. Let me see my child and kiss her. Th

y nodded his head in acquiescence. In a few moments more the br

in its whiteness and rigidity, the aunt took up the child. Her tone revealed the i