SHOULDER-STRAPS
By
Henry Morford
T.B. Peterson & Bros.
PHILADELPHIA.
SHOULDER-STRAPS.
A
NOVEL
OF
NEW YORK AND THE ARMY,
1862.
By HENRY MORFORD.
PHILADELPHIA:
T.B. PETERSON & BROTHERS,
306 CHESTNUT STREET.
Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1863, by
T.B. PETERSON & BROTHERS,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States,
in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
TO
DR. R. SHELTON MACKENZIE,
WHO
HAS ALREADY RECEIVED SO MANY DEDICATIONS,
THAT THEY HAVE BECOME
AN OLD, OLD STORY,—
THIS VOLUME IS
RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
BY
HIS GRATEFUL FRIEND AND CO-LABORER,
THE AUTHOR.
New York City, July, 1863.
PREFACE.
Several months have necessarily elapsed since the commencement of thisnarration. Within that time many and rapid changes have occurred, bothin national situation and in private character. As a consequence, theremay be several words, in earlier portions of the story, that would nothave been written a few months later. The writer has preferred not tomake any changes in original expression, but to set down, instead, inreferences, the dates at which certain portions of the work werewritten. In one instance important assistance has been derived from awriter of ability and much military experience; and that assistance isthankfully acknowledged in a foot-note to one of the appropriatechapters. Some readers may be disappointed not to find a work moreextensively military, under such a title and at this time; but the aimof the writer, while giving glances at one or two of our most importantbattles, has been chiefly to present a faithful picture of certainrelations in life and society which have grown out, as side-issues, fromthe great struggle. At another time and under different circumstances,the writer might feel disposed to apologize for the great liberty ofepisode and digression, taken with the story; but in the days of VictorHugo and Charles Reade, and at a time when the text of the preacher inhis pulpit, and the title of a bill in a legislative body, are alikemade the threads upon which to string the whole knowledge of the speakerupon every subject,—such an apology can scarcely be necessary. Itshould be said, in deference to a few retentive memories, that twochapters of this story, now embraced in the body of the work, wereoriginally written for and published in the Continental Monthly, lastfall, the publication of the whole work through that medium, at firstdesigned, being prevented by a change of management and a contractmutually broken.
New York City, July, 1863.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
Two Friends—Walter Lane Harding and Tom Leslie—Merchant andJournalist—A Torn Dress and a Stalwart Champion—Tom Leslie'sStory of Dexter Ralston—Three Meetings—An Incident on thePotomac—The Inauguration of Lincoln—A Warning of the VirginiaSecessio