Before the Dawn by Joseph Alexander Altsheler, A

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 Before the Dawn, by Joseph Alexander Altsheler
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Before the Dawn, by Joseph Alexander Altsheler
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Title: Before the Dawn A Story of the Fall of Richmond
Author: Joseph Alexander Altsheler
Release Date: May 4, 2007 [EBook #21321]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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Produced by Taavi Kalju and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
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Before the Dawn
A Story of the Fall of Richmond
By
JOSEPH A. ALTSHELER
NEW YORK DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 1903
Copyright, 1903, by Doubleday, Page & Company Published April, 1903
OTHER BOOKS BY JOSEPH A. ALTSHELER
The Sun of Saratoga
A Soldier of Manhattan
 Before the Dawn, by Joseph Alexander Altsheler
3
A Herald of the West
The Last Rebel
In Circling Camps
In Hostile Red
The Wilderness Road
My Captive
For the rhyming pun, given by a member of The Mosaic Club, and quoted in the third chapter of this book, the
author is indebted to T. C. DeLeon's "
Four Years in Rebel Capitals
."
CONTENTS
I. A Woman in Brown 3
II. A Man's Mother 16
III. The Mosaic Club 25
IV. The Secretary Moves 40
V. An Elusive Face 52
VI. The Pursuit of a Woman 71
VII. The Cottage in the Side Street 83
VIII. The Pall of Winter 97
IX. Robert and Lucia 117
X. Feeding the Hungry 131
XI. Mr. Sefton Makes a Confidence 137
XII. A Flight by Two 150
XIII. Lucia's Farewell 162
XIV. Prescott's Ordeal 170
XV. The Great Rivals 181
XVI. The Great Revival 193
XVII. The Wilderness 204
XVIII. Day in the Wilderness 206
 Before the Dawn, by Joseph Alexander Altsheler
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XIX. Night in the Wilderness 223
XX. The Secretary Looks On 236
XXI. A Delicate Situation 248
XXII. The Lone Sentinel 264
XXIII. Out of the Forest 269
XXIV. The Despatch Bearer 280
XXV. The Mountain General 292
XXVI. Calypso 300
XXVII. The Secretary and the Lady 323
XXVIII. The Way Out 334
XXIX. The Fall of Richmond 346
XXX. The Telegraph Station 360
XXXI. The Coin of Gold 370
BEFORE THE DAWN
CHAPTER I
5
CHAPTER I
A WOMAN IN BROWN
A tall, well-favoured youth, coming from the farther South, boarded the train for Richmond one raw, gusty
morning. He carried his left arm stiffly, his face was thin and brown, and his dingy uniform had holes in it,
some made by bullets; but his air and manner were happy, as if, escaped from danger and hardships, he rode
on his way to pleasure and ease.
He sat for a time gazing out of the window at the gray, wintry landscape that fled past, and then, having a
youthful zest for new things, looked at those who traveled with him in the car. The company seemed to him,
on the whole, to lack novelty and interest, being composed of farmers going to the capital of the Confederacy
to sell food; wounded soldiers like himself, bound for the same place in search of cure; and one woman who
sat in a corner alone, neither speaking nor spoken to, her whole aspect repelling any rash advance.
Prescott always had a keen eye for woman and beauty, and owing to his long absence in armies, where both
these desirable objects were scarce, his vision had become acute; but he judged that this lone type of her sex
had no special charm. Tall she certainly was, and her figure might be good, but no one with a fair face and
taste would dress as plainly as she, nor wrap herself so completely in a long, brown cloak that he could not
even tell the colour of her eyes. Beautiful women, as he knew them, always had a touch of coquetry, and
never hid their charms wholly.
Prescott's attention wandered again to the landscape rushing past, but finding little of splendour or beauty, it
came back, by and by, to the lone woman. He wondered why she was going to Richmond and what was her
name. She, too, was now staring out of the window, and the long cloak hiding her seemed so shapeless that he
concluded her figure must be bad. His interest declined at once, but rose again with her silence and evident
desire to be left alone.
As they were approaching Richmond a sudden jar of the train threw a small package from her lap to the floor.
Prescott sprang forward, picked it up and handed it to her. She received it with a curt "Thanks," and the noise
of the train was so great that Prescott could tell nothing about the quality of her voice. It might or might not be
musical, but in any event she was not polite and showed no gratitude. If he had thought to use the incident as
an opening for conversation, he dismissed the idea, as she turned her face back to the window at once and
resumed her study of the gray fields.
"Probably old and plain," was Prescott's thought, and then he forgot her in the approach to Richmond, the
town where much of his youth had been spent. The absence of his mother from the capital was the only regret
in this happy homecoming, but he had received a letter from her assuring him of her arrival in the city in a day
or two.
When they reached Richmond the woman in the brown cloak left the car before him, but he saw her entering
the office of the Provost-Marshal, where all passes were examined with minute care, every one who came to
the capital in those times of war being considered an enemy until proved a friend. Prescott saw then that she
was not only tall, but very tall, and that she walked with a strong, graceful step. "After all, her figure may be
good," he thought, revising his recent opinion.
Her pass was examined, found to be correct, and she left the office before his own time came. He would have
asked the name on her pass, but aware that the officer would probably tell him to mind his own business, he
refrained, and then forgot her in the great event of his return home after so long a time of terrible war. He took
his way at once to Franklin Street, where he saw outspread before him life as it was lived in the capital of the
Confederate States of America. It was to him a spectacle, striking in its variety and refreshing in its brilliancy,
as he had come, though indirectly, from the Army of Northern Virginia, where it was the custom to serve
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