THE SOLDIER BOY

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER

I. The Battle of Pinchbrook
II. The Somers Family
III. Taming a Traitor
IV. The Committee come out, and Tom goes in
V. The Attic Chamber
VI. The Way is Prepared
VII. A Midnight Adventure
VIII. Signing the Papers
IX. The Departure
X. Company K
XI. In Washington
XII. On to Richmond
XIII. The Battle of Bull Run
XIV. After the Battle
XV. Tom a Prisoner
XVI. A Perplexing Question
XVII. Dinner and Danger
XVIII. The Rebel Soldier
XIX. Through the Gap
XX. Down the Shenandoah
XXI. The Problem of Rations
XXII. The Picket Guard
XXIII. The End of the Voyage
XXIV. Budd's Ferry
XXV. In the Hospital
XXVI. Tom is Sentimental
XXVII. The Confederate Deserter
XXVIII. On the Peninsula
XXIX. The Battle of Williamsburg
XXX. More of the Battle
XXXI. Glory and Victory
XXXII. "Honorable Mention"
XXXIII. Lieutenant Somers and Others




THE SOLDIER BOY;

OR,

TOM SOMERS IN THE ARMY.




CHAPTER I.

THE BATTLE OF PINCHBROOK.


"Fort Sumter has surrendered, mother!" shouted Thomas Somers, as he rushed
into the room where his mother was quietly reading her Bible.

It was Sunday, and the exciting news had been circulated about the usually
quiet village of Pinchbrook Harbor. Men's lips were compressed, and their
teeth shut tight together. They were indignant, for traitors had fired
upon the flag of the United States. Men, women, and children were roused
by the indignity offered to the national emblem. The cannon balls that
struck the walls of Sumter seemed at the same time to strike the souls of
the whole population of the North, and never was there such a great
awakening since the Pilgrim Fathers first planted their feet upon the rock
of Plymouth.

"Fort Sumter has surrendered!" shouted the indignant young patriot again,
as his mother looked up from the blessed volume.

"You don't say so!" exclaimed Mrs. Somers, as she closed the Bible, and
removed her spectacles.

"Yes, mother. The infernal rebels hammered away at the fort for two days,
and at last we had to give in."

"There'll be terrible times afore long," replied the old lady, shaking her
head with prophetic earnestness.

"The President has called for seventy-five thousand volunteers, and I tell
you there'll be music before long!" continued the youth, so excited that
he paced the room with rapid strides.

"What's the matter, Thomas?" asked a feeble old gentleman, entering the
room at this moment.

"Fort Sumter has surrendered, gran'ther," repeated Thomas, at the top of
his lungs, for the aged man was quite deaf; "and the President has called
for seventy-five thousand men to go down and fight the traitors."

"Sho!" exclaimed the old man, halting, and gazing with earnestness into
the face of the boy.

"It's a fact, gran'ther."

"Well, I'm too old to go," muttered gran'ther Greene; "but I wa'n't
older'n you are when I shouldered my firelock in 1812. I'm too old and
stiff to go now."

"How old were you, gran'ther, when you went to the war?" asked Thomas,
with more moderation than he had exhibited before.

"Only sixteen, Thomas; but I was as tall as I am now," replied the
patriarch, dropping slowly and cautiously into the old-fashioned high-back
chair, by the side of the cooking stove.

"Well, I'm sixteen, and I mean to go."

"You, Thomas! You are crazy! You shan't do any thing of the kind,"
interposed Mrs. Somers. "There's men enough to go to the war, without such
boys as you are."

"You ain't quite stout enough to make a soldier, Thomas. You ain't so big
as I was, when I went off to York state," added gran'ther Greene.