A Civil War Soldier's Sword

BROWN, FRENCH

Posted By: Sharon R Becker (email)
Date: 3/13/2015 at 08:59:51

The Leon Reporter
Leon, Decatur County, Iowa
publication date unknown

A Soldier’s Sword

Dr. A. BROWN has in his possession a carved handle and associated with it is a most pathetic romance.

The sword was given him by MAGGIE FRENCH, she receiving it took it from a dead comrade’s hand on a southern battlefield. The story is that three comrades, while stationed in the south land, made the acquaintance of two beautiful southern girls. The acquaintances ripened into true affection, and many times these Union soldiers boys would steal away from camp to make a pilgrimage to the shrine of love and beauty, where under the magnolia tree, delighted with the fragrance of fine and blooming flowers, and the confederacy. The comrade whose life went out on a southern battlefield and from whose dead hand the sword was taken, was the accepted suitor of one the southern girls and both were looking forward with eager hearts and pulse-quicking anticipation to the happy time when the cruel war would close. On night as these two sat in a vine-covered arbor listening the solemn, never-ceasing murmur of the waves of that monarch stream upon whose banks they both had strayed in childhood – although separated by a thousand miles of forest, swamp and prairie – they plighted their troth and the happy girl, with love’s ingenuity traced upon the handle of her Union soldier’s sword, a double heart and the initial letters of their names, interwoven with a wreath of vines and flowers.

With the morning came the call to battle and in a mad charge upon a rebel rifle pit the fair-haired lover fell mortally wounded. His comrade paused a moment in the wild charge and saw the blue eyes close in death, still fixed upon the sword where love’s fingers had traced those symbols of affections. He took the sword, intending carry it to the lady and tell her the story of her lover’s death, leave this one memento for love to cherish. However, without an opportunity to bid his own sweetheart good-bye he was ordered away with his regiment and within a few weeks received his death wounded in line of battle.

MAGGIE FRENCH, an old colored lady, cared for him during the few days he lingered in pain, while in fancy strolling by the side of the girl he loved, under the blue southern skies.

Transcription by Sara LeFleur