impetuously. The check was of very great advantage, however, for it gave
our vastly outnumbered troops more time to rally in a stronger position."

This brief paragraph contained the substance of all that was ever learned
of the young husband, and his mangled remains filled an unknown grave. His
wife had received the blow direct, and she never rallied. Week after week
she moaned and wept upon her bed when the physician permitted
consciousness. Even in the deep sleep produced by opiates, she would
shudder 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 maternal instincts in the wife, but in vain, for there are wounds
of the spirit, like those of the body, which are fatal. All efforts to
induce the widow to leave the city, already within reach of the Federal
guns, were unavailing, and she was the more readily permitted to have her
own way, because, in the physician's opinion, the attempt would prove
fatal.

Meanwhile her time was drawing near. One August night she was dozing, and
moaning in her sleep, when suddenly there was a strange, demoniac shriek
through the air followed by an explosion which in the still night was
terrifically loud. The invalid started up and looked wildly at her sable
nurse, who was trembling like a leaf.

"O Lawd hab mercy, Missus," she exclaimed. "Dem Yankees shellin' de town."

Mrs. Hunter was instantly at the bedside. The faithful doctor came
hurriedly of his own accord, and employed all his skill.