He dispatched orders to the men scattered up and
down the Brazos from Washington to Fort Bend--a distance of
eighty miles--to join him on the march to Harrisburg, and he
struck his own camp at the time he had specified.
In less than twenty-four hours they reached San Felipe, a
distance of twenty-eight miles. The suffering of the women
and children on that march can never be told. Acts of heroism
on the part of the men and of fortitude on the part of
the women that are almost incredible, marked every step of the
way. The Senora sat in her wagon, speechless, and lost in a
maze of melancholy anguish. She did not seem to heed want, or
cold, or wet, or the utter misery of her surroundings. Her
soul had concentrated all its consciousness upon the strand of
hair she continually smoothed through her fingers. Dr. Worth,
in his capacity of physician, accompanied the flying families,
and he was thus able to pay some attention to his distraught
wife; but she answered nothing he said to her. If she looked
at him, her eyes either flamed with anger, or expressed
something of the terror to be seen in the eyes of a hunted
animal. It was evident that her childish intelligence had
seized upon him as the most obvious cause of all her loss and
misery.
The condition of a wife so beloved almost broke his heart.
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