people were crying. But they kept the peace of the republic.
Old Jamie understood nothing of this. He only saw and wondered; saw the soldiery, saw old Mr. Bowdoin leaning from a window as a young man on the sidewalk tried to drag down a flag that hung from it, with a black coffin stitched to the blue field.[1]
"Young man," cried the old gentleman, "leave that flag alone; it's my property!"
"I am an American," cried the youth, "and I'll not suffer the flag of my country to be so disgraced!"
"I too am an American, and damme, sir, 'tis the flag in the street there that's disgraced!"
The fellow slunk away, but Jamie had ceased to listen, for the negro was now in front of him, and there, among the rough band of slave-catchers, his desperate appearance hid by no uniform, a rough felt hat upon his dissolute face, a bowie-knife slung by his waist, there, doing this work in the world, old Jamie saw and recognized the husband of his little girl,—St. Clair.
- ↑ A fact, but the man who thus assaulted the flag lived to command a company in the Union army.
