Red-tape and pigeon-hole generals
by Henry Morford · English · Gutenberg #23565 · 537,490 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Red-tape and pigeon-hole generals
as seen from the ranks during a campaign in the Army of the Potomac
Author: Henry Morford
William Hepburn Armstrong
Jacob G. Frick
Release date: November 20, 2007 [eBook #23565]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/23565
Credits: Produced by D. Alexander and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
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RED-TAPE
AND
PIGEON-HOLE GENERALS:
AS SEEN FROM THE RANKS
DURING A
+Campaign in the Army of the Potomac+.
BY
A CITIZEN-SOLDIER.
"We must be brief when Traitors brave the Field."
NEW YORK:
_Carleton, Publisher, 413 Broadway._
M DCCC LXIV.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by
GEO. W. CARLETON,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for
the Southern District of New York.
R. CRAIGHEAD,
Printer, Stereotyper, and Electrotyper
+Carton Building+,
_81, 83, and 85 Centre Street_.
PREFACE.
"Greek-fire has shivered the statue of John C. Calhoun in the streets of
the City of Charleston,"--so the papers say. Whether true or not, the
Greek-fire of the righteous indignation of a loyal people is fast
shattering the offspring of his infamous teachings,--the armed treason
of the South, and its more cowardly ally the insidious treachery that
lurks under doubtful cover in the loyal States. In thunder tones do the
masses declare, that now and for ever, they repudiate the Treason and
despise the Traitor. Nobly are the hands of our Honest President
sustained in prosecuting this most righteous war.
In a day like this, the least that can be expected of any citizen
is--duty. We are all co-partners in our beneficent government. We should
be co-laborers for her defence. Jealous of the interests of her brave
soldiery; for they are our own. Proud of their noble deeds; they
constitute our National Heritage.
If these campaign sketches, gathered in actual service during 1862-3,
and grouped during the spare hours of convalescence from a camp fever,
correct one of the least of the abuses in our military machinery--if
they lighten the toil of the humblest of our soldiers, or nerve anew the
resolves of loyalty tempted to despair, the writer will have no reason
to complain of labor lost. Great latitude of excuse for the existence of
abuses must be allowed, when we consider the suddenness with which our
volunteers sprang into ranks at the outset of the Rebellion. Now that
the warfare is a system, there is less reason for their continuance.
Reformers must, however, remember, that to keep our citizen-soldiery
effective, they must not make too much of the citizen and too little of
the soldier. Abuses must be corrected under the laws; but to be
corrected at all they must first be exposed.
Drunkenness, half-heartedness, and senseless routine, have done much to
cripple the patriotic efforts of our people. The patriotism of the man
who at this day doubts the policy of their open reproof can well be
questioned. West Point has, in too many instances, nursed imbecility and
treason; but in our honest contempt for the small men of whom, in common
with other institutions, she has had her share,--we must not ignore
those bright pages of our history adorned with the skill and heroism of
her nobler sons. McClellanism did not follow its chief from Warrenton;
or Burnside's earnestness, Hooker's dash, and Meade's soldierly stand at
Gettysburg, backed as they were by the heroic fighting of the Army of
the Potomac, would have had, as they deserved, more decisive results.
The Young Men of the Land would the writer address in the following
pages--"because they are strong," and in their strength is the nation's
hope. In certain prospect of victory over the greatest enemy we have yet
had as a nation--the present infamous rebellion--we can well await
patiently the correction of minor evils.
"Meanwhile we'll sacrifice to liberty,
Remember, O my friends! the laws, the rights,
The generous plan of power delivered down
From age to age by your renowned forefathers,
(So dearly bought, the price of so much blood;)
Oh, let it never perish in your hands!
But piously transmit it to your children.
Do thou, great liberty! inspire our souls,
And make our lives in thy possession happy.
Or our deaths glorious in thy just defence."
February, 1864.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. PAGE
The Advent of our General of Division--Camp near Frederick City,
Maryland--The Old Revolutionary Barracks at Frederick--An Irish
Corporal's Recollections of the First Regiment of Volunteers from
Pennsylvania--Punishment in the Old First, 9
CHAPTER II.
The Treason at Harper's Ferry--Rebel Occupation of Frederick--Patriotism
of the Ladies of Frederick--A Rebel Guard nonplussed by a Lady--The
Approach to Antietam--Our Brigadier cuts Red-Tape--THE BLUNDER OF THE
DAY AFTER ANTIETAM--The Little Irish Corporal's idea of Strategy, 15
CHAPTER III.
The March to the River--Our Citizen Soldiery--Popularity of Commanders,
how Lost and how Won--The Rebel Dead--How the Rebels repay Courtesy, 27
CHAPTER IV.
A Regimental Baker--Hot Pies--Position of the Baker in line of
Battle--Troubles of the Baker--A Western Virginia Captain on a Whiskey
Scent--The Baker's Story--How to obtain Political Influence--Dancing
Attendance at Washington--What Simon says--Confiscation of Whiskey, 33
CHAPTER V.
The Scene at the Surgeon's Quarters--Our Little Dutch Doctor--Incidents
of his Practice--His Messmate the Chaplain--The Western Virginia
Captain's account of a Western Virginia Chaplain--His Solitary Oath--How
he Preached, how he Prayed, and how he Bush-whacked--His Revenge of
Snowden's Death--How the little Dutch Doctor applied the Captain's
Story, 47
CHAPTER VI
A Day at Division Head-Quarters--The Judge Advocate--The tweedle-dum and
tweedle-dee of Red-Tape as understood by Pigeon-hole Generals--Red Tape
Reveries--French Authorities on Pigeon-hole Investigations--An
Obstreperous Court and Pigeon-hole Strictures--Disgusting Head-Quarter
Profanity, 59
CHAPTER VII.
A Picket-Station on the Upper Potomac--Fitz John's Rail Order--Rails for
Corps Head-Quarters _versus_ Rails for Hospitals--The Western Virginia
Captain--Old Rosy, and How to Silence Secesh Women--The Old Woman's
Fixin's--The Captain's Orderly, 70
CHAPTER VIII.
The Reconnoissance--Shepherdstown--Punch and Patriotism--Private Tom on
West Point and Southern Sympathy--The Little Irish Corporal on John
Mitchell--A Skirmish--Hurried Dismounting of the Dutch Doctor and
Chaplain--Battle of Falling Waters not intended--Story of the Little
Irish Corporal--Patterson's Folly, or Treason, 83
CHAPTER IX.
Reconnoissance concluded--What we Saw and What we didn't See, and what
the Good Public Read--Pigeon-hole Generalship and the Press--The
Preacher Lieutenant and how he Recruited--Comparative Merits of Black
Union Men and White Rebels--A Ground Blast, and its effect upon a
Pigeon-hole General--Staff Officers Striking a Snag in the Western
Virginia Captain--Why the People have a right to expect Active Army
Movements--Red Tape and the Sick List--Pigeon-holing at Division
Head-quarters, 100
CHAPTER X.
Departure from Sharpsburg Camp--The Old Woman of Sandy Hook--Harper's
Ferry--South sewing Dragon's Teeth by shedding Old John's Blood--The
Dutch Doctor and the Boar--Beauties of Tobacco--Camp Life on the
Character--Patrick, Brother to the Little Corporal--General Patterson no
Irishman--Guarding a Potato Patch in Dixie--The Preacher Lieutenant on
Emancipation--Inspection and the Exhorting Colonel--The Scotch Tailor on
Military Matters, 116
CHAPTER XI.
Snicker's Gap--Private Harry on the "Anaconda"--Not inclined to turn
Boot-Black--"Oh! why did you go for a Soldier?"--The
ex-News-Boy--Pigeon-hole Generalship on the March--The Valley of the
Shenandoah--A Flesh Carnival--The Dutch Doctor on a Horse-dicker--An Old
Rebel, and how he parted with his Apple-Brandy--Toasting the
"Union"--Spruce Retreats, 137
CHAPTER XII.
The March to Warrenton--Secesh Sympathy and Quarter-Master's
Receipts--Middle-Borough--The Venerable Uncle Ned and his Story of the
Captain of the Tigers--The Adjutant on Strategy--Red Tapism and
Mac-Napoleonism--Movement Stopped--Division Head-Quarters out of
Whiskey--Stragglers and Marauders--A Summary Proceeding--Persimmons and
Picket-Duty--A Rebellious Pig--McClellanism, 160
CHAPTER XIII.
Camp near Warrenton--Stability of the Republic--Measures, not Men,
regarded by the Public--Removal of McClellan--Division Head-Quarters a
House of Mourning--A Pigeon-hole General and his West Point
Patent-Leather Cartridge-Box--Head-Quarter Murmuring and
Mutterings--Departure of Little Mac and the Prince--Cheering by Word of
Command--The Southern Saratoga--Rebel Regret at McClellan's Departure, 178
CHAPTER XIV.
A Skulker and the Dutch Doctor--A Review of the Corps by Old Joe--A
Change of Base; what it means to the Soldier, and what to the
Public--Our Quarter-Master and General Hooker--The Movement by the Left
Flank--A Division General and Dog driving--The Desolation of Virginia--A
Rebel Land-Owner and the Quarter-Master--"No Hoss, Sir!"--The Poetical
Lieutenant unappreciated--Mutton or Dog?--Desk Drudgery and Senseless
Routine, 193
CHAPTER XV.
Red-Tape and the Soldier's Widow--Pigeon-holing at Head-Quarters and
Weeping at the Family Fireside--A Pigeon-hole General Outwitted--Fishing
for a Discharge--The Little Irish Corporal on Topographical
Engineers--Guard Duty over a Whiskey Barrel, 210
CHAPTER XVI.
The Battle of Fredericksburg--Screwing Courage up to the Sticking
Point--Consolations of a Flask--Pigeon-hole Nervousness--Abandonment of
Knapsacks--Incidents before, during, and after the Fight, 225
CHAPTER XVII.
The Sorrows of the Sutler--The Sutler's Tent--Generals manufactured by
the Dailies--Fighting and Writing--A Glandered
Horse--Courts-martial--Mania of a Pigeon-hole General on the
Subject--Colonel and Lieutenant Colonel in Strait-Jackets, 247
CHAPTER XVIII.
Dress Coats _versus_ Blouses--Military Law--Bill the
Cook--Courts-Martial--Important Decision in Military Law--A Man with Two
Blouses on, can be compelled to put a Dress Coat on top--A Colored
French Cook and a Beefy-browed Judge-Advocate--The Mud March--No
Pigeon-holing on a Whiskey Scent--Old Joe in Command--Dissolution of
Partnership between the Dutch Doctor and the Chaplain, 264
CHAPTER XIX.
The Presentation Mania--The Western Virginia Captain in the War
Department--Politeness and Mr. Secretary Stanton--Capture of the Dutch
Doctor--A Genuine Newspaper Sell, 283
CHAPTER XX.
The Army again on the Move--Pack Mules and Wagon Trains--A Negro
Prophetess--The Wilderness--Hooped Skirts and Black Jack--The Five Days'
Fight at Chancellorsville--Terrible Death of an Aged Slave--A
Pigeon-hole General's "Power in Reserve," 295
CHAPTER XXI.
The Pigeon-hole General and his Adjutant, under Charges--The Exhorting
Colonel's Adieu to the Sunday Fight at Chancellorsville; Reasons
thereof--Speech of the Dutch Doctor in Reply to a Peace-Offering from
the Chaplain--The Irish Corporal stumping for Freedom--Black Charlie's
Compliments to his Master--Western Virginia at the Head of a Black
Regiment, 313
RED-TAPE
AND
PIGEON-HOLE GENERALS.
CHAPTER I.
_The Advent of our General of Division--Camp near Frederick City,
Maryland--The Old Revolutionary Barracks at Frederick--An Irish
Corporal's Recollections of the First Regiment of Volunteers from
Pennsylvania--Punishment in the Old First._
"Our new Division-General, boys!" exclaimed a sergeant of the 210th
Pennsylvania Volunteers, whose attention and head were turned at the
clatter of horses' hoofs to the rear. "I heard an officer say that he
would be along to-day, and I recognise his description."
The men, although weary and route-worn, straightened up, dressed their
ranks, and as the General and Staff rode past, some enthusiastic soldier
proposed cheers for our new Commander. They started with a will, but the
General's doubtful look, as interpreted by the men, gave little or no
encouragement, and the effort ended in a few ragged discordant yells.
"He is a strange-looking old covey any how," said one of the boys in an
undertone. "Did you notice that red muffler about his neck, and how
pinched up and crooked his hat is, and that odd-looking moustache, and
how savagely he cocks his eyes through his spectacles?"
"They say," replied the sergeant, "that we are the first troops that he
has commanded. He was a staff officer before in the Topographical Corps.
Didn't you notice the T.C. on his coat buttons?"
"And is he going to practise upon us?" blurts out a bustling red-faced
little Irish corporal. "Be Jabers, that accounts for the crooked cow
road we have marched through the last day--miles out of the way, and
niver a chance for coffee."
"You are too fast, Terence," said the sergeant; "if he belongs to the
Topographical Corps, he ought at least to know the roads."
"And didn't you say not two hours ago that we were entirely out of the
way, and that we had been wandering as crooked as the creek that flows
back of the old town we are from, and nearly runs through itself in a
dozen places?"
The sergeant admitted that he had said so, but stated that perhaps the
General was not to blame, and added somewhat jocosely: "At any rate the
winding of the creek makes those beautiful walks we have so much enjoyed
in summer evenings."
"Beautiful winding walks! is it, sergeant! Shure and whin you have your
forty pound wait upon your back, forty rounds of lead and powdher in
your cartridge-box, and twenty more in your pocket, three days' rations
in your haversack, a musket on your shoulder, and army brogans on your
throtters, you are just about the first man that I know of to take
straight cuts."
* * * * *
It was a close warm day near the middle of September. The roads were
dusty and the troops exhausted. Two days previously the brigade to which
they belonged had left the pleasantest of camps, called "Camp Whipple"
in honor of their former and favorite Division Commander. Situated in an
orchard on the level brow of a hill that overlooked Washington, the
imposing Capitol, the broad expanse of the Potomac dotted with frequent
craft, the many national buildings, and scenery of historic interest,
the men left it with regret, but carried with them recollections that
often in times of future depression revived their patriotic ardor.
Over dusty roads, through the muddy aqueduct of the Chesapeake and Ohio
Canal, hurried on over the roughly paved streets of Georgetown, and
through the suburbs of Washington, they finally halted for the night,
and, as it chanced through lack of orders, for the succeeding day also,
near Meridian Hill. Under orders to join the Fifth Army Corps commanded
by Major-General Fitz John Porter, to which the Division had been
previously assigned, the march was resumed on the succeeding day, which
happened to be Sunday, and in the afternoon of which our chapter opens.
A march of another day brought the Brigade to a recent Rebel camp
ground. Traces of their occupancy were found not only in their
depredations in the neighborhood destructive of railroad bridges, but
also in letters and wall-paper envelopes adorned with the lantern-jawed
phiz of Jefferson Davis. The latter were sought after with avidity as
soon as ranks were broken and tents pitched; the more eagerly perhaps
for the reason that during the greater part of their previous month of
service they had been frequently within sound of rebel cannon, although
but once under their fire. During the previous day, in fact, they had
marched to the music of the artillery of South Mountain.
That night awakened lively recollections in the mind of Terence McCarty,
our lively little Irish corporal. His duty for the time as corporal of a
relief gave him ample opportunity to indulge them. He had belonged to
the old First Pennsylvania Regiment of three months men, that a little
over a year before, when Maryland was halting between loyalty and
disloyalty, had spent its happiest week of service in the yard of the
revolutionary barracks in the city of Frederick. Terence was but two
short miles from the spot. Brimfull of the memories, he turned to a
comrade, who had also belonged to the First, and who with others chanced
to stand near.
"I say, Jack! Do you recollect the ould First and Frederick, and do you
know that we are but two miles and short ones at that from the blissed
ould white-washed barracks, full of all kind of quare guns and canteens
looking like barrels cut down; and the Parade Ground where our ould
Colonel used to come his 'Briskly, men! Briskly,' when he'd put us
through the manual, and where so many ladies would come to see our
ivolutions, and where they set the big table for us on the Fourth, and
where--"
"Hold on, corporal! you can't give that week's history to-night."
"I was only going to obsarve, Jack, that I feel like a badly used man."
"How so, Terence?"
"Why you see nearly ivery officer, commissioned and non-commissioned, of
the ould First has been promoted. The Colonel was too ould for service,
or my head on it, he would have had a star. Just look at the captains
by way of sample--Company A, a Lieutenant-Colonel, expecting and
desarving an eagle ivery day; Company B, a Lieutenant-Colonel; Company
C, our own Lieutenant-Colonel; Company D, a Brigadier for soldierly
looks, daring, and dash; Company E, a Captain in an aisy berth in the
regular service; Company F, a Colonel; Company G, a Major; Company H, a
Lieutenant-Colonel; Company I, I have lost sight of, and the
lion-hearted captain of Company K, doing a lion's share of work at the
head of a regiment in Tennessee. Now, Jack, the under officers and many
privates run pretty much the same way, but not quite as high. Bad luck
to me, I was fifth corporal thin and am eighth now--promoted
crab-fashion. Fortune's wheel gives me many a turn, Jack! but always
stops with me on the lower side."
"I saw you on the upper side once," retorted Jack roguishly.
"And whin? may I ask."
"When, do you say? why, when you took about half a canteen too much, and
that same old colonel had you tied on the upper side of a barrel on the
green in front of the barracks."
"Bad luck to an ill-natured memory, Jack, for stirring that up," replied
the corporal, breaking in upon the laughter that followed, "but I now
recollect, it was the day before you slipped the guard whin the colonel
gave you a barrel uniform with your head through the end, and kept me
for two mortal long hours in the hot sun, a tickling of you under the
nose with a straw, and daubing molasses on your chaps to plaze the
flies, to the great admiration of a big crowd of ladies and gentlemen."
Jack subsided, and the hearty laughter at the corporal's ready retort
was broken a few minutes later by a loud call for the corporal of the
guard, which hurried Terence away, dispersed the crowd, and might as
well end this chapter.
CHAPTER II.
_The Treason at Harper's Ferry--Rebel Occupation of
Frederick--Patriotism of the Ladies of Frederick--A Rebel Guard
nonplussed by a Lady--The Approach to Antietam--Our Brigadier cuts Red
Tape--The Blunder of the day after Antietam--The little Irish Corporal's
idea of Strategy._
The Brigade did not rest long in its new camp. The day and a half,
however, passed there had many incidents to be remembered by. Fish were
caught in abundance from the beautiful Monocacy. But the most impressive
scene was the long procession of disarmed, dejected men, who had been
basely surrendered at Harper's Ferry, and were now on their way
homeward, on parole. Many and deep were the curses they uttered against
their late commanders. "Boys, _we've_ been sold! Look out," cried a
comely bright-eyed young officer of eighteen or thereabouts. "That we
have," added a chaplain, who literally bore the cross upon his shoulders
in a pair of elegant straps. When will earnest men cease to be foiled in
this war by treacherous commanders? was an inquiry that pressed itself
anxiously home.
But the thunders of Antietam were reverberating through that mountainous
region, distinctly heard in all their many echoes, and of course the
all-absorbing topic. At 3 P. M. orders came to move a short distance
beyond Frederick. The division was rapidly formed, and the men marched
joyously along through the streets of Frederick, already crowded with
our own and Rebel wounded, to the sound of lively martial music; but
none more joyously than the members of the old First, whose
recollections were brisk of good living as they recognised in many a
lady a former benefactress. Bradley T. Johnson's race, that commenced
with his infamously prepared and lying handbills, was soon run in
Frederick. No one of the border cities has been more undoubtedly or
devotedly patriotic. Its prominent ministers at an early day took bold
positions. The ladies were not behind, and many a sick and wounded
soldier will bless them to his latest hour. The world has heard of the
well deserved fame of Florence Nightingale. History will hold up to a
nation's gratitude thousands of such ministering angels, who, moving in
humbler circles, perhaps, are none the less entitled to a nation's
praise. "Great will be their reward."
To show the spirit that emboldened the ladies of Frederick, a notable
instance is related as having occurred during the Rebel occupation of
the city under General Stuart. Many Union ladies had left the place. Not
so, however, with Mrs. D., the lively, witty, and accomplished wife of a
prominent Lutheran minister. The Union sick and wounded that remained
demanded attention, and for their sake, as well as from her own high
spirit, she resolved to stay. Miss Annie C., the beautiful and talented
daughter of Ex-U. S. Senator C., an intimate friend of Mrs. D., through
like devotion, also remained. Rebel officers, gorgeous in grey and gilt
lace, many of them old residents of the place, strutted about the
streets. The ragged privates begged from door to door. Mrs. D., and her
friend had been separated several days--a long period considering their
close intimacy and their present surroundings. Mrs. D. resolved to visit
her, and with her to resolve was to execute. Threading her way through
the crowded streets, heeding not the jeers or insults of the rebel
soldiery, she soon came in front of the Cooper Mansion, to find a rebel
flag floating from an upper window, and a well dressed soldierly looking
greyback, with bayonet fixed, pacing his beat in front. Nothing daunted,
Mrs. D. approached. "Halt," was the short sharp hail of the sentinel, as
he brought his bayonet to the charge. "Who is quartered here?" asked
Mrs. D., gradually nearing the sentry. "Maj.-Gen. Stuart," was the brief
reply, "I want to visit a lady acquaintance in the house." "My orders
are strict, madam, that no one can cross my beat without a pass." "_Pass
or no pass, I must and will go into that house_," and quick as thought
this frail lady dashed aside the bayonet, sprang across the beat, and
entered the hall, while the sentry confused, uncertain whether he should
follow or not, stood a minute or two before resuming his step. From an
upper window Gen. Stuart laughed heartily at the scene, and was loud in
praise of her tact and pluck.
But all this time our division has been moving through the streets of
Frederick, in fact has reached what was to have been its camping ground
for the night. The reader will excuse me; older heads and more exact
pens have frequently, when ladies intervened, made much longer
digressions.
The halt was but for a moment. An aide-de-camp, weary-looking, on a
horse covered with foam, dashed up to the division commander, bearing an
order from the commander-in-chief that the division must join its corps
at Antietam without delay. The fight might be renewed in the morning,
and if so, fresh troops were needed. The order was communicated through
the brigade commanders to commanders of regiments, while the subordinate
field officers went from company to company encouraging the men, telling
them that a glorious victory had been gained, that the rebels were
hemmed in by the river on three sides, and our army in front; that there
was but one ford, and that a poor one, and that the rebels must either
take to the river indiscriminately, be cut to pieces, or surrender. In
short, that we had them.
These statements were received with the most enthusiastic applause. As
the Division proceeded on its march, they were confirmed by reports of
spectators and wounded men in ambulances. What was the most significant
fact to the men who had seen the thousands of stragglers and skulkers
from the second battle of Bull Run, was the entire absence of straggling
or demoralization of any kind. Our troops must have been victorious, was
the ready and natural suggestion. The thought nerved them, and pushing
up their knapsacks, and hitching up their pantaloons, they trudged with
a will up the mountain slope.
That mountain slope!--it would well repay a visit from one of our large
cities, to descend that mountain a bright summer afternoon. A sudden
turn in the road brings to view the sun-gilded spires of the city of
Frederick, rising as if by enchantment from one of the loveliest of
valleys. Many of the descriptions of foreign scenery pale before the
realities of this view. When will our Hawthornes and our Taylors be just
to the land of their birth?
Scenery on that misty night could not delay the troops. The mountain-top
was gained. About half way down the northern slope of the mountain the
Division halted to obtain the benefits of a spring fifty yards from the
road. A steep path led to it, and one by one the men filed down to fill
their canteens. The delay was terribly tedious, and entirely
unnecessary, as five minutes' inquiry among the men, many of whom were
familiar with the road, would have informed the Commanding General of
abundance of excellent water, a short mile beyond, and close by the
wayside. Pride, which prevails to an unwarranted extent among too many
regular officers, is frequently the cause of much vexation. Inquiry and
exertion to lighten the labors of our brave volunteers would, with every
earnest officer, be unceasing. A short distance further a halt was
ordered for coffee, that "sublime beverage of Mocha," indispensable in
camp or in the field. Strange to say, our brigadier, who habitually
confined himself closely to cold water, was one of the most particular
of officers in ordering halts for coffee.
South Mountain was crossed, but in the dusky light little could be seen
of the devastation caused by the late battle. "Yonder," said a wounded
man who chanced to be passing, "our gallant General lost his life." The
brave, accomplished Reno! How dearly our national integrity is
maintained! Brave spirit, in your life you thought it well worth the
cost; your death can never be considered a vain sacrifice!
Boonsboro' was entered about day-break. The road to Sharpsburg was here
taken, and at 7-1/2 A. M., having marched during that night twenty-eight
miles, the Division stood at arms near the battle-ground along a road
crowded with ammunition trains. Inquiry was made as to the ammunition,
and the number of rounds for each man ordered to be increased
immediately from forty to sixty.
"Pioneer! hand me that axe," said our brigadier, dismounting.
"Sergeant," addressing the sergeant of the ammunition guard, "hand out
those boxes." "The Division General has given strict orders, if you
please, General, that the boxes must pass regularly through the hands of
the ordnance officer," said the sergeant, saluting. "I am _acting_
ordnance officer; hand out the boxes!" was the command, that from its
tone and manner brooked no delay. A box was at his feet. In an instant a
clever blow from the muscular arm of the hero of Winchester laid it
open. Another and another, until the orderly sergeant had given the
required number of rounds to every man in the brigade. "Attention!
Column! Shoulder Arms! Right Face! Right Shoulder Shift Arms!" and at a
quickstep the brigade moved towards the field.
After passing long trains of ambulances and ammunition wagons, the boys
were saluted as they passed through the little town of Keetysville by
exhortations from the wounded, who crowded every house, and forgot their
wounds in their enthusiasm. "Fellows, you've got 'em! Give 'em h--l!"
yelled an artillery sergeant, for whom a flesh wound in the arm was
being dressed at the window by a kind-hearted looking country woman.
"Give it to 'em!" "They're fast!" "This good lady knows every foot of
the ground, and says so." The good lady smiled assent, and was saluted
with cheer upon cheer. Dead horses, a few unburied men, marks of shot in
the buildings, now told of immediate proximity to the field. A short
distance further, and the Division was drawn up in line of battle,
behind one of the singular ridges that mark this memorable ground.
Fragments of shells, haversacks, knapsacks, and the like, told how hotly
the ground had been contested on the previous day. The order to load
was quickly obeyed, and the troops, with the remainder of the Fifth
Corps in their immediate neighborhood, stood to arms.
A large number of officers lined the crest of the ridge, and thither,
with leave, the Colonel and Lieut.-Colonel of the 210th repaired. The
scene that met their view was grand beyond description. Another somewhat
higher and more uniform ridge, running almost parallel to the ridge or
rather connected series of ridges on one of which the officers stood,
was the strong position held by the rebels on the previous day. Between
the ridges flowed the sluggish Antietam, dammed up for milling purposes.
Beyond, on the crest of the hill, gradually giving way, were the rebel
skirmishers; our own were as gradually creeping up the slope. The
skirmishers were well deployed upon both sides; and the parallel flashes
and continuous rattle of their rifles gave an interest to the scene,
ineffaceable in the minds of spectators.
"Do you hear that shell, you can see the smoke just this side of
Sharpsburg on our left," said the Colonel, addressing his companion.
"There it bursts," and a puff of white smoke expanded itself in the air
fifty yards above one of our batteries posted on a ridge on the left.
Two pieces gave quick reply. "Officers, to your posts," shouted an
aide-de-camp, and forthwith the officers galloped to their respective
commands.
"Boys, the ball is about to open, put your best foot foremost," said the
Colonel to his regiment. The men, excited, supposing themselves about to
pass their first ordeal of battle, straightened up, held their pieces
with tightened grips, and nervously awaited the "forward." Beyond the
sharp crack of the rifles, however, no further sound was heard. Hour
after hour passed. At length an aide from the staff of the Division
General cantered to where the Brigadier, conversing with several of his
field officers, stood, and informed him that it was the pleasure of the
Division General that the men should be made comfortable, _as no
immediate attack was apprehended_. "No immediate attack apprehended!"
echoed the Colonel. "Of course not. Why don't we attack them?"
The aide flushed, said somewhat excitedly: "That was the order I
received, sir."
"Boys, cook your coffee," said our Brigadier, somewhat mechanically--a
brown study pictured in his face.
The field officers scattered to relieve their hunger, or rather their
anxiety as to the programme of the day.
"Charlie," said the Lieut.-Col., addressing a good-humored looking
Contraband, "get our coffee ready."
The Colonel, with the other field and staff officers, seated themselves
upon knapsacks unslung for their accommodation, silently, each
apparently waiting upon the other to open the conversation. In the
meantime several company officers who had heard of the order gathered
about them.
"I don't understand this move at all," at length said the Colonel
nervously. "Here we are, with a reserve of thirty thousand men who have
not been in the fight at all, with ammunition untouched, perfectly fresh
and eager for the move. The troops that were engaged yesterday have for
the most part had a good night's rest and are ready and anxious for a
brush to-day. The rebels, hemmed in on three sides by the river--with a
miserable ford, and that only in one place, as every body knows, and as
there is no earthly excuse for our generals not knowing, as this ground
was canvassed often enough in the three months' service. Why don't we
advance?" continued the Colonel, rising. "Their sharpshooters are near
the woods now, and when they reach it, they'll run like Devils. Why
don't we advance? We can drive them into the river, if they like that
better than being shelled; or they can surrender, which they would
prefer to either. And as to force, I'll bet we have one third more."
The Colonel, an impressive, fine-looking man, six feet clear in his
socks, of thirty-eight or thereabouts, delivered the above with more
than his usual earnestness.
The Adjutant, of old Berks by birth, rather short in stature, thick-set,
with a mathematically developed head, was the first to rejoin.
"It can't be for want of ammunition, Colonel! This corps has plenty. An
officer in a corps engaged yesterday told me that they had enough, and
you all saw the hundreds of loaded ammunition wagons that we passed in
the road close at hand--and besides, what excuse can there be? The Rebs
I understand did not get much available ammunition at the ferry. They
are far from their base of supplies, while we are scant fifteen miles
from one railroad, and twenty-eight from another, and good roads to
both."
"Be easy," said the Major, a fine specimen of manhood, six feet two and
a half clear of his boots, an Irishman by birth, the brogue, however, if
he ever had any, lost by an early residence in this country. "Be easy.
Little Mac is a safe commander. We tried him, Colonel, in the Peninsula,
and I'll wager my pay and allowances, and God knows I need them, that
he'll have his army safe."
"Yes, and the Rebel army too," snappishly interrupted the Colonel.
"I have always thought," said the Lieut.-Col., "that the test of a great
commander was his ability to follow up and take advantage of a victory.
One thousand men from the ranks would bear that test triumphantly
to-day. It is a wonder that our Union men stiffened in yesterday's
fight, whose blue jackets we can see from yonder summit in the rear of
our sharpshooters, do not rise from the dead, and curse the halting
imbecility that is making their heroic struggles, and glorious deaths,
seemingly vain sacrifices."
"Too hard, Colonel, too hard," says the Major.
"Too hard! when results are developing before our eyes, so that every
servant, even, in the regiment can read them. Mark my word for it,
Major; Lee commenced crossing last evening, and by the time we creep to
the river at five hundred yards a day, if at all, indeed, he will have
his army over, horse, foot, and dragoons, and leave us the muskets on
the field, the dead to bury, farm-houses full of Rebel wounded to take
care of, and the battle-ground to encamp upon--a victory barely worth
the cost. Why not advance, as the Col. says. The worst they can do in
any event is to put us upon the defensive, and they can't drive us from
this ground."
"If old Rosecranz was only here," sang out a Captain, who had been
itching for his say, and who had seen service in Western Virginia, "he
wouldn't let them pull their pantaloons and shirts off and swim across,
or wade it as if they were going out a bobbing for eels. When I was in
Western Virginia----"
"If fighting old Joe Hooker could only take his saddle to-day," chimed
in an enthusiastic company officer, completely cutting off the Captain,
"he'd go in on his own hook."
"And it would be," sang out a beardless and thoughtless Lieutenant--
"Old Joe, kicking up ahind and afore
And the Butternuts a caving in, around old Joe."
The apt old song might have given the Lieutenant a little credit at any
other time, but the matter in hand was too provokingly serious. Coffee
and crackers were announced, the field officers commenced their meal in
silence, and the company officers returned to their respective quarters.
The troops rested on their arms all that afternoon, at times lounging
close to the stacks. Upon the face of every reflecting officer and
private, deep mortification was depicted. It did not compare, however,
with the chagrin manifested by the Volunteer Regiments who had been
engaged in the fight, and whose thinned ranks and comrades lost made
them closely calculate consequences. Not last among the reflecting class
was our little Irish corporal.
"Gineral," said he, advancing cap in hand, to our always accessible
Brigadier, as he sat leisurely upon his bay--"Gineral! will you permit a
corporal, and an Irishman at that, to spake a word to ye?"
"Certainly, corporal!" the fine open countenance of the General relaxing
into a smile.
"Gineral! didn't we beat the Rebs yesterday?"
"So they say, corporal."
"Don't the river surround them, and can they cross at more than one
place, and that a bad one, as an ould woman whose pig I saved to-day
tould me?"
"The river is on their three sides, and they have only one ford, and
that a bad one, corporal."
"Thin why the Divil don't we charge?"
"Corporal!" said the General, laughing, "I am not in command of the
army, and can't say."
"Bad luck to our stars that ye aren't, Gineral! there would be somebody
hurt to-day thin, and it would be the bluidy Butthernuts, I'm thinking."
The corporal gave this ready compliment as only an Irishman can, and
withdrew.
At dusk orders were received for the men to sleep by their arms. But
there was no sleep to many an eye until a late hour that night. Never
while life lasts will survivors forget the exciting conversations of
that day and night. "Tired nature," however, claimed her dues, and one
by one, officers and privates at late hours betook themselves to their
blankets. The stars, undisturbed by struggles on this little planet,
were gazed at by many a wakeful eye. Those same stars will look down as
placidly upon the future faithful historian, whose duty it will be to
place first in the list of cold, costly military mistakes, the blunder
of the day after the battle of Antietam.
CHAPTER III.
_The March to the River--Our Citizen Soldiery--Popularity of Commanders
how Lost and how Won--The Rebel Dead--How the Rebels repay Courtesy._
An early call to arms was sounded upon the succeeding morning, and the
Division rapidly formed. The batteries that had been posted at
commanding points upon the series of ridges during the previous day and
night were withdrawn, and the whole Corps moved along a narrow road,
that wound beautifully among the ridges.
The Volunteer Regiments were unusually quiet; the thoughts of the night
previous evidently lingered with them. The American Volunteer is no mere
machine. Rigorous discipline will give him soldierly
characteristics--teach him that unity of action with his comrades and
implicit obedience of orders are essential to success. But his
independence of thought remains; he never forgets that he is a citizen
soldier; he reads and reflects for himself. Few observant officers of
volunteers but have noticed that affairs of national polity, movements
of military commanders, are not unfrequently discussed by men in
blouses, about camp fires and picket stations, with as much practical
ability and certainly quite as courteously, as in halls where
legislators canvass them at a nation's cost. It has been justly
remarked that in no army in the world is the average standard of
intelligence so high, as in the American volunteer force. The same
observation might be extended to earnestness of purpose and honesty of
intention. The doctrine has long since been exploded that scoundrels
make the best soldiers. Men of no character under discipline will fight,
but they fight mechanically. The determination so necessary to success
is wanting. European serfs trained with the precision of puppets, and
like puppets unthinking, are wanting in the dash that characterizes our
volunteers. That creature of impulse the Frenchman, under all that is
left of the first Napoleon, the shadow of a mighty name, will charge
with desperation, but fails in the cool and quiet courage so essential
in seeming forlorn resistance. In what other nation can you combine the
elements of the American volunteer? It may be said that the British
Volunteer Rifle Corps would prove a force of similar character. In many
respects undoubtedly they would; as yet there is no basis of comparison.
Their soldierly attainments have not been tested by the realities of
war.
There was ample food for reflection. On the neighboring hills heavy
details of soldiers were gathering the rebel dead in piles preparatory
to committing them to the trenches, at which details equally heavy,
vigorously plied the pick and spade. Our own dead, with few exceptions,
had already been buried; and the long rows of graves marked by head and
foot boards, placed by the kind hands of comrades, attested but too
sadly how heavily we had peopled the ridges.
While the troops were _en route_, the Commander-in-Chief in his hack and
four, followed by a staff imposing in numbers, passed. The Regulars
cheered vociferously. The applause from the Volunteers was brief,
faint, and a most uncertain sound, and yet many of these same Volunteer
Regiments were rapturous in applause, previous to and during the battle.
Attachment to Commanders so customary among old troops--so desirable in
strengthening the morale of the army--cannot blind the intelligent
soldier to a grave mistake--a mistake that makes individual effort
contemptible. True, a great European Commander has said that soldiers
will become attached to any General; a remark true of the times
perhaps--true of the troops of that day,--but far from being true of
volunteers, who are in the field from what they consider the necessity
of the country, and whose souls are bent upon a speedy, honorable, and
victorious termination of the war.
A glance at the manner in which our Volunteer Regiments are most
frequently formed, will, perhaps, best illustrate this. A town meeting
is called, speeches made appealing to the patriotic, to respond to the
necessities of the country; lists opened and the names of mechanics,
young attorneys, clerks, merchants, farmers' sons, dry-goods-men and
their clerks, and others of different pursuits, follow each other in
strange succession, but with like earnestness of purpose. An intelligent
soldiery gathered in this way, will not let attachments to men blind
them as to the effects of measures.
About 10 A. M., our brigade was drawn up in line of battle on a ridge
overlooking the well riddled little town of Sharpsburg. Arms were
stacked, and privilege given many officers and men to examine the
adjacent ground. A cornfield upon our right, along which upon the north
side ran a narrow farm road, that long use had sunk to a level of two
and in most places three feet, below the surface of the fields, had been
contested with unusual fierceness. Blue and grey lay literally with
arms entwined as they fell in hand to hand contest. The fence rails had
been piled upon the north side of the road, and in the rifle pit formed
to their hand with this additional bulwark, they poured the most galling
of fires with comparative impunity upon our troops advancing to the
charge. A Union battery, however, came to the rescue, and an enfilading
fire of but a few moments made havoc unparalleled. Along the whole line
of rebel occupation, their bodies could have been walked upon, so
closely did they lie. Pale-faced, finely featured boys of sixteen, their
delicate hands showing no signs of toil, hurried by a misguided
enthusiasm from fond friends and luxurious family firesides, contrasted
strangely with the long black hair, lank looks of the Louisiana Tiger,
or the rough, bloated, and bearded face of the Backwoodsman of Texas. A
Brigadier, who looked like an honest, substantial planter, lay half over
the rails, upon which he had doubtless stood encouraging his men, while
lying half upon his body were two beardless boys, members of his staff,
and not unlikely of his family. Perhaps all the male members of that
family had been hurried at once from life by that single shell. The
sight was sickening. Who, if privileged, would be willing to fix a limit
to God's retributive justice upon the heads of the infamous, and in many
instances cowardly originators of this Rebellion!
Cavalry scouting parties brought back the word that the country to the
river was clear of the rebels, and in accordance with what seemed to be
the prevailing policy of the master-mind of the campaign, immediate
orders to move were then issued. The troops marched through that village
of hospitals,--Sharpsburg--and halted within a mile and a half of the
river, in the rear of a brick dwelling, which was then taken and
subsequently used as the Head-Quarters of Major-General Fitz John
Porter. A line of battle was again formed, arms stacked, and an order
issued that the ground would be occupied during the night.
In the morning the march was again resumed by a road which wound around
the horseshoe-shaped bend in the river. When approaching the river,
firing was heard, apparently as if from the other side, and a short
distance further details were observed carrying wounded men and ranging
them comfortably around the many hay and straw stacks of the
neighborhood. Inquiry revealed that a reconnoitring party, misled by the
apparent quiet of the other side, had crossed, fallen into an ambuscade,
and under the most galling of fires, artillery and musketry, kept up
most unmercifully by the advancing rebels, who thus ungraciously repaid
the courtesy shown them the day after Antietam--had been compelled to
recross that most difficult ford. Our loss was frightful--one new and
most promising regiment was almost entirely destroyed.
The men thought of the dead earnestness of the rebels, and as they moved
forward around the winding Potomac--deep, full of shelving, sunken
rocks, from the dam a short distance above the ford, that formerly fed
the mill owned by a once favorably known Congressman, A. R. Boteler, to
where it was touched by our line--they reviewed with redoubled force,
the helplessness of the rebels a few days previously, and to say the
least, the carelessness of the leader of the Union army.
The regimental camp was selected in a fine little valley that narrowed
into a gap between the bluffs, bordering upon the canal, sheltered by
wood, and having every convenience of water. The rebels had used it but
a few days previously, and the necessity was immediate for heavy details
for police duty. And here we passed quite unexpectedly six weeks of days
more pleasant to the men than profitable to the country, and of which
something may be said in our two succeeding chapters.
CHAPTER IV.
_A Regimental Baker--Hot Pies--Position of the Baker in line of
Battle--Troubles of the Baker--A Western Virginia Captain on a Whiskey
Scent--The Baker's Story--How to obtain Political Influence--Dancing
Attendance at Washington--What Simon says--Confiscation of Whiskey._
Besides the indispensables of quartermaster and sutler the 210th had
what might be considered a luxury in the shape of a baker, who had
volunteered to accompany the regiment, and furnish hot cakes, bread, and
pies. Tom Hudson was an original in his way, rather short of stature,
far plumper and more savory-looking than one of his pies, with a
pleasing countenance and twinkling black eye, that meant humor or
roguishness as circumstances might demand, and a never-ending supply of
what is always popular, dry humor. He was just the man to manage the
thousand caprices of appetite of a thousand different men. While in
camps accessible to the cities of Washington and Alexandria, matters
moved smoothly enough. His zinc-plated bakery was always kept fired up,
and a constant supply of hot pies dealt out to the long strings of men,
who would stand for hours anxiously awaiting their turn. A movement of
the baker's interpreted differently by himself and the men, at one time
created considerable talk and no little feeling. On several occasions
the trays were lifted out of the oven, and the pies dashed upon the
out-spread expectant hands, with such force as to break the too often
half-baked undercrust. In consequence the juices would ooze out, trickle
scalding hot between the fingers, and compel the helpless man to drop
the pie. One unfortunate fellow lost four pies in succession. As they
cost fifteen cents apiece, the pocket was too much interested to let the
matter escape notice. A non-commissioned officer, who had lost a pie,
savagely returned to the stand, and demanded another pie or his money.
The baker was much too shrewd for that. The precedent, if set, would
well nigh exhaust his stock of pies, and impoverish his cash drawer.
"I say," said the officer, turning to the men, "it is a trick. He wants
to sell as many pies as he can. He knows well enough that when one falls
in this mud fifteen cents are gone slap."
"Now, boys," said the baker blandly, "you know me better than that. I'd
scorn to do an act of that kind for fifteen cents. You know how it
is--what a rush there always is here. You want the pies as soon as
baked, and baking makes them hot. Now I want to accommodate you all as
soon as possible, and of course I serve them out as soon as baked. You
had better all get tin-plates or boards."
"That won't go down, old fellow," retorted the officer. "You know that
there is hardly a tin-plate in camp, and boards are not to be had."
A wink from the baker took the officer to the private passage in the
rear of his tent. What happened there is known but to the two, but ever
after the officer held his peace. Not so with the men. However, as the
pies were not dealt out as hot in future, the matter gradually passed
from their minds.
To make himself popular with the men, Tom resorted to a variety of
expedients, one of which was to assure them that in case of an
enterprise that promised danger, he would be with them. He was taken up
quite unexpectedly. An ammunition train on the morning of the second
battle of Bull Run, bound to the field, required a convoy. The regiment
was detailed. Tom's assertions had come to the ears of the regimental
officers, and without being consulted, he was provided with a horse, and
told to keep near the Adjutant. There was a drizzling rain all day long,
but through it came continually the booming of heavy ordnance.
"Colonel! how far do you suppose that firing is?" "And are they Rebel
cannon?" were frequent inquiries made by Tom during the day. About noon
he asserted that he could positively ride no further. But ride he must
and ride he did. The Regiment halted near Centreville, having passed
Porter's Corps on the way and convoyed the Train to the required point.
After a short halt the homeward route was taken and Tom placed in the
rear. By some accident, frequent when trains take up the road, he became
separated from the Regiment and lost among the teams. The Regiment moved
on, and as it was now growing dark, turned into a wood about half a mile
distant, for the night. Tom had just learned his route, when "ping!"
came a shell from a Rebel battery on a hill to the left, exploded among
some team horses, and created awful confusion. He suddenly forgot his
soreness, and putting spurs to his horse at a John Gilpin speed, rode
by, through and over, as he afterwards said, the teams. The shells flew
rapidly. Tom dodged as if every one was scorching his hair, at the same
time giving a vigorous kick to the rear with both heels. At his speed
he was soon by the teams; in fact did not stop until he was ten Virginia
miles from that scene of terror. But we will meet him again in the
morning.
The Regiment was soon shelled out of the wood, and compelled to continue
its march. Three miles further they encamped in a meadow, passed a wet
night without shelter, and early next morning were again upon the road.
Thousands of stragglers lined the way, living upon rations plundered
from broken-down baggage wagons--lounging lazily around fires that were
kept in good glow by rails from the fences near which they were built.
The preceding day these stragglers and skulkers were met in squads at
every step of the road. At a point sufficiently remote from danger,
their camps commenced. In one of these camps, situated in a fence
corner, the baker was espied, stretched at full length and fast asleep,
upon two rails placed at a gentle slope at right angles to the fence.
Surrounding him were filthy, mean-looking representatives of
half-a-dozen various regiments--the Zouave more gay than gallant in
flaming red breeches--blouses, dress coats, and even a pair of shoulder
straps, assisted to complete the crowd. Near by was tied his jaded
horse.
The baker was awakened. To his surprise, as he said, he saw the
regiment, as he had supposed them to be much nearer home than himself.
One of his graceless comrades, however, bluntly contradicted this, and
accused him of being mortally frightened when he halted the night
before, as although they assured him that he was full ten miles from
danger, he insisted that these rifled guns had terribly long range. The
baker remonstrated, and quietly resumed his place by the Adjutant and
Colonel.
"I have been thinking, Colonel," said he, in the course of a half hour,
riding alongside of the Colonel, and speaking in an undertone, "that I
ran a great risk unnecessarily."
"Why?" asked the Colonel.
"You see my exhortations are worth far more to the men than my example.
When they crowd my quarters, as they do every morning, I never fail to
deal out patriotic precepts with my pies."
"But particularly the pies," retorted the Colonel.
"That is another branch of my case," slily continued the baker.
"Suppose, if such a calamity can be dwelt upon, that I had been killed,
and there was only one mule between me and death, who would have run my
bakery? who," elevating his voice, "would have furnished hot rolls for
the officers, and warm bread cakes and pies for the men? Riding along
last night, these matters were all duly reflected upon, and I wound up,
by deciding that the regiment could not afford to lose me."
"But you managed to lose the regiment," replied the Colonel.
"Pure accident that, I assure you, upon honor. Now in line of battle I
have taken pains to ascertain my true position, but this confounded
marching by the flank puts me out of sorts. In line of battle the
quartermaster says he is four miles in the rear--the sutler says that he
is four miles behind the quartermaster, and as it would look singular
upon paper to shorten the distance for the baker, besides other good
reasons, I suppose I am four miles behind the sutler."
"Completely out of range for all purposes," observed the Adjutant, who
had slily listened with interest.
"There is a good reason for that position, it is well chosen, and shows
foresight," continued the baker, dropping his rein, and enforcing his
remarks by apt gestures. "Suppose we are in line of battle, and the
Rebels in line facing us at easy rifle range. Their prisoners say that
they have lived for a month past on roasted corn and green apples. Now
what will equal the daring of a hungry man! These Rebel Commanders are
shrewd in keeping their men hungry; our men have heart for the fight, it
is true, but the rebels have a stomach for it--they hunger for a chance
at the spoils. The quartermaster then with his crackers, as they must
not be needlessly inflamed, must be kept out of sight--the sutler, too,
with his stores, must be kept shady--but above all the baker. Suppose
the baker to be nearer," said he, with increased earnestness, "and a
breeze should spring up towards their lines bearing with it the smell of
warm bread, the rebels would rise instanter on tip-toe, snuff a
minute--concentrate on the bakery, and no two ranks or columns doubled
on the centre, could keep the hungry devils back. Our line pierced, we
might lose the day--lose the day, sir."
"And the baker," said the Major, joining in the laugh caused by his
argument.
Shortly after that march, matters went indifferently with the baker.
Camp was changed frequently, and over the rough roads he kept up with
difficulty.
A week after the battle of Antietam, after satisfying himself fully of
the departure of the Rebels, he arrived in camp. He had picked up by the
way an ill-favored assistant, whose tent stood on the hill side some
little distance from the right flank of the regiment.
Two nights after his arrival there was a commotion in camp. A tonguey
corporal, slightly under regulation size, in an exuberance of spirits,
had mounted a cracker-box almost immediately in front of the sutler's
tent, and commenced a lively harangue. He told how he had left a
profitable grocery business to serve his country--his pecuniary
sacrifices--but above all, the family he had left behind.
"And you've blissed them by taking your characther with you," chimed in
the little Irish corporal.
"Where did you steal your whiskey?" demanded a second.
The confusion increased, the crowd was dispersed by the guard, all at
the expense of the sutler's credit, as it was rumored that he had
furnished the stimulant.
The sutler indignantly demanded an investigation, and three officers,
presumed to possess a scent for whiskey above their fellows, were
detailed for the duty. One of these was our friend the Virginia captain.
Under penalty of losing his stripes, the corporal confessed that he had
obtained the liquor at the baker's. Thither the following evening the
detail repaired. The assistant denied all knowledge of the liquor. He
was confronted with the corporal, and admitted the charge, and that but
three bottles remained.
"By ----," said our Western Virginia captain, hands in pocket, "I smell
ten more. There are just thirteen bottles or I'll lose my straps."
The confidence of the captain impressed the detail, and they went to
work with a will--emptying barrels of crackers, probing with a bayonet
sacks of flour, etc. A short search, to the pretended amazement of the
assistant, proved the correctness of the captain's scent. The baker was
sent for, and with indignant manner and hands lifted in holy horror, he
poured volley after volley of invective at the confounded assistant.
"But, gentlemen," said the baker, dropping his tone, "I've known worse
things than this to happen. I've known even bakers to get tight."
"And your bacon would have stood a better chance of being saved if you
had got tight, instead of putting a non-commissioned officer in that
condition," said one of the detail. "The Colonel, I am afraid, Tom, will
clear you out."
"Well," sighed the baker, after a pause of a moment, "talk about Job and
all the other unfortunates since his day, why not one of them had my
variety of suffering. Did you ever hear any of my misfortunes?"
"We see one."
"My life has been a series of mishaps. I prosper occasionally in small
things, but totals knock me. God help me if I hadn't a sure port in a
storm--a self-supporting wife. For instance--but I can't commence that
story without relieving my thirst." A bottle was opened, drinks had all
around, and the baker continued--
"You see, gentlemen, when Simon was in political power, I waggled
successfully and extensively among the coal mines in Central
Pennsylvania. In those localities voters are kept underground until
election day, and they then appear above often in such unexpected force
as to knock the speculations of unsophisticated politicians. But Simon
was not one of that stripe. He knew his men--the real men of influence;
not men that have big reputations created by active but less widely
known under-workers, but the under-workers themselves. Simon dealt with
these, and he rarely mistook his men. Now I was well known in those
parts--kept on the right side of the boys, and the boys tried to keep on
the right side of me, and Simon knew it. No red tape fettered Simon, as
the boys say it tied our generals the other side of Sharpsburg in order
to let the Rebs have time to cross. If the measures that his shrewd
foresight saw were necessary for the suppression of this Rebellion, at
its outbreak, had been adopted, we would be encamped somewhat lower down
in Dixie than the Upper Potomac--if indeed there would be any necessity
for our being in service at all.
"He was not a man of old tracks, like a ground mole; indeed like some
military commanders who seem lost outside of them; but of ready
resources and direct routes, gathering influence now by one means and
then by another, and perhaps both novel. Now Simon set me at work in
this wise.
"'Tom,' one morning, says an old and respected citizen of our place, who
knew my father and my father's father, and me as an unlucky dog from my
cradle, 'Tom, did ever any idea of getting a permanent and profitable
position--say, as you are an excellent penman--as clerk in one of the
departments at Harrisburg or Washington, enter your head?'
"At this I straightened up, drew up my shirt collar, pulled down my
vest, and said with a sort of hopeful inquiry, 'Why should there?'
"'Tom, you are wasting your most available talent. Do you know that you
have influence--and political influence at that?'
"Another hitch at my shirt collar and pull at my vest, as visions of the
Brick Capitol at Harrisburg and the White one at Washington danced
before my eyes.
"'Did you ever reflect, Tom, upon the source of political power?'
continued the old gentleman, and without waiting for an answer,
fortunately, as I was fast becoming dumbfoundered, 'the people, Tom, the
people; not you and I, so much as that miner,' said he, pointing to a
rough ugly-looking fellow that I had kicked out of my wife's
bar-room--or, rather, got my ostler to do it--two nights before, 'That
man, Tom, is a representative of thousands; we may represent but
ourselves. Now these people are controlled. They neither think nor act
for themselves, as a general rule; somebody does that for them. Now,' as
he spoke, trying to take me by a pulled-out button-hole, 'you might as
well be that somebody as any man I know.'
"'Why, Lord bless you, Mr. Simpson, I can't do my own thinking, and as
to acting, my wife says I am acting the fool all day long.'
"'Tom, you don't comprehend me, you know our county sends three members
to the State Legislature, and that they elect a United States Senator.'
"'Yes.'
"'Well, now, our county can send Simon C---- to the United States
Senate.'
"'But our county oughtn't to do it,'--my whig prejudices that I had
imbibed with my mother's milk coming up strong.
"'Tut, tut, Tom, didn't I stand shoulder to shoulder with your father in
the old Clay Legion? Whiggery has had its day, and Henry Clay would
stand with us now.'
"'But with Simon's?'
"'Yes, Simon's principles have undergone a wholesome change.'
"I couldn't see it, but didn't like to contradict the old man, and he
continued.
"'Now, Thomas, be a man; you have influence. I know you have it.' Here I
straightened up again. 'Just look at the miners who frequent your hotel,
each of them has influence, and don't you think that you could control
their votes? Should you succeed, Simon's Scotch blood will never let him
forget a friend.'
"'Or forgive an enemy,' I added.
"'Tom, don't let your foolish prejudices stand in the way of your
success. Your father would advise as I do.'
"'Mr. S., I'll try.'
"'That's the word, Tom,' said the old man, patting me on the shoulder.
'It runs our steam-engines, builds our factories, in short, has made our
country what it is.'
"I took Mr. S.'s hand, thanked him for his suggestions, with an effort
swallowed my prejudices against the old Chieftain, and resolved to work
as became my new idea of my position.
"By the way, the recollection of that effort to swallow makes my throat
dry, and it's a long time between drinks."
Another round at the bottle, and Tom resumed.
"'Well, work I did, like a beaver; there wasn't a miner in my
neighborhood that I didn't treat, and a miner's baby that I didn't kiss,
and often their wives, as some unprincipled scoundrel one day told Mrs.
Hudson, to the great injury of my ears and shins for almost a week, and
the upshot of the business was, that my township turned a political
somerset. Friends of Simon's, in disguise, went to Harrisburg, were
successful, and I was not among the last to congratulate him.
"'Mr. Hudson,' said the Prince of politicians, 'how can I repay you for
your services?'
"Like a fool, as my wife always told me I was, I made no suggestion, but
let the remark pass with the tameness of a sheep--merely muttering that
it was a pleasure to serve him. Simon went to Washington--made no
striking hits on the floor, but was great on committees.
"Another idea entered my noddle, this clip without the aid of Mr. S. My
penmanship came into play. Days and nights of most laborious work
produced a full length portrait of Simon, that at the distance of ten
feet could not be distinguished from a fine engraving. I seized my
opportunity, found Simon in cozy quarters opposite Willard's, and
presented it in person. He was delighted--his daughter was delighted--a
full-faced heavily bearded Congressman present was delighted, and after
repeated assurances of 'thine to serve,' on the part of the Senator, I
crossed to my hotel--not Willard's--hadn't as yet sufficient elevation
of person and depth of purse for that,--but an humbler one in a back
street. Next day I saw my handiwork in the Rotunda--the admiration of
all but a black long-haired puppy, an M. C. and F. F. V., as I
afterwards learned, who said to a lady at his elbow who had admired it,
'Practice makes some of the poor clerks at the North tolerably good
pensmen.' I could have kicked him, but thought it might interfere with
the little matter in hand.
"'Tom,' said the senatorial star of my hopes one day, when my purse had
become as lean as a June shad, 'Tom, there is a place of $800 a year, I
have in view. A Senator is interfering, but I think it can be managed.
You must have patience, these things take time. I will write to you as
early as any definite result is attained.'
"Relying on Simon's management, which in his own case had never failed,
next morning saw me in the cars with light heart and lighter purse,
bound for home and Mrs. H., who I am always proud to think regretted my
absence more than my presence, although she would not admit it.
"Days passed; months passed; my wife reproached me with lost time--my
picture was gone; I had not heard from Simon; I ventured to write; next
mail brought a letter rich in indefinite promises.
"Years passed, and Simon was Secretary of War at a time when the office
had influence, position, and patronage, unequalled in its previous
history. 'Now is your time, Tom,' something within whispered--not
conscience--for that did not seem to favor my connection with Simon.
"I wrote again. Quarter-Masters, Clerks by the thousands, Paymasters--I
was always remarkably ready in disposing of funds--and Heaven only knows
what not were wanted in alarming numbers. Active service was proposed by
Simon; but you know, gentlemen, I am constitutionally disqualified for
that. And after tediously waiting months longer, I succeeded without
Simon's aid in obtaining my present honorable but unfortunate position.
"And that reminds me of the whiskey, another round, men." It was taken;
Tom's idea was to drink the detail into forgetfulness of their errand.
But he missed his men. He might as well have tried to lessen a sponge by
soaking it. The Virginia Captain announced that the Colonel had ordered
them to confiscate the whiskey for the use of the Hospital, and to the
Surgeon's quarters the detail must next proceed. The Captain gathered up
the bottles. The detail bowed themselves out of the tent, and poor Tom
thought his misfortunes crowned, as he saw them leave laboring under a
load of liquor inside and out. At the Surgeon's tent we will again see
them.
CHAPTER V.
_The Scene at the Surgeon's Quarters--Our Little Dutch Doctor--Incidents
of his Practice.--His Messmate the Chaplain--The Western Virginia
Captain's account of a Western Virginia Chaplain--His Solitary oath--How
he Preached, how he Prayed, and how he Bush-whacked--His revenge of
Snowden's death--How the little Dutch doctor applied the Captain's
Story._
Taps had already been sounded before the detail arrived at the Surgeon's
tent. The only Surgeon present had retired to his blankets. Aroused by
the blustering, he soon lit a candle, and sticking the camp candlestick
into the ground, invited them in.
And here we must introduce the Assistant-Surgeon, or rather the little
Dutch Doctor as he was familiarly called by the men. Considering his
character and early connexion with the regiment, we are at fault in not
giving him an earlier place in these pages.
The Doctor was about five feet two in height, hardly less in
circumference about the waist, of an active habit of body and turn of
mind, eyes that winked rapidly when he was excited, and a movable scalp
which threw his forehead into multiform wrinkles as cogitations beneath
it might demand. A Tyrolese by birth, he was fond of his Father-land,
its mountain songs, and the customs of its people. Topics kindred to
these were an unfailing fund of conversation with him. Thoroughly
educated, his conversation in badly-broken English, for he made little
progress in acquiring the language, at once amused and instructed. Among
his fellow surgeons and officers of his acquaintance, he ranked high as
a skilful surgeon on account of superior attainments, acquired partly
through the German Universities and partly in the Austrian service,
during the campaign of Magenta, Solferino, and the siege of Mantua. With
a German's fondness for music, he beguiled the tedium of many a long
winter evening. With his German education he had imbibed radicalism to
its full extent. Thoroughly conversant with the Sacred Scriptures he was
a doubter, if not a positive unbeliever, from the Pentateuch to
Revelation. In addition to this, his flings at the Chaplain, his
messmate, made him unpopular with the religiously inclined of the
regiment. He had besides, the stolidity of the German, and their cool
calculating practicalism. This did not always please the men. They
thought him unfeeling.
"What for you shrug your shoulders?' said he on one occasion to a man
from whose shoulders he was removing a large fly blister.
"It hurts."
"Bah, wait till I cuts your leg off--and you know what hurts."
"Here, you sick man, here goot place," said he, addressing a man just
taken to the hospital with fever, in charge of an orderly sergeant, at
surgeon's call, "goot place, nice, warm, dead man shust left." Remarks
such as these did not, of course, tend to increase the comfort of the
men; they soon circulated among the regiment, were discussed in
quarters, and as may be supposed greatly exaggerated, and all at the
Doctor's cost. But the Doctor pursued the even tenor of his way,
entirely unmindful of them.
About the time of which we write, a clever, honest man died of a disease
always sudden in its termination, rheumatic attack upon the heart. The
Doctor had informed him fully of his disease, and that but little could
be done for it. The poor man, however, was punctual in attendance at
Surgeon's Call, and insisted upon some kind of medicine. Bread pills
were furnished. One morning, after great complaint of pain about the
heart, and a few spasms, he died. His comrades, shocked, thought his
death the effect of improper medicine. The Doctor's pride was touched.
He insisted upon calling in other surgeons; the pills found in his
pocket were analyzed, and discovered to be only bread. The corpse was
opened, and the cause of death fully revealed. As the Doctor walked away
in stately triumph, some of the men who had been boisterous against him,
approached by way of excusing their conduct, and said that now they were
perfectly satisfied. "What you know!" was his gruff reply, "you not know
a man's heart from a pig's."
Many like incidents might be told--but we must not leave these Captains
standing too long at the door of the tent; with the production of the
light in they came, with the remark that they had brought hospital
supplies. In the meantime several officers, field and company, attracted
by the noise and whiskey; came in from regimental head-quarters.
"Must see if goot," and the Doctor applied the bottle to his lips; it
was not a favorite drink of his, and tasted badly in lieu of Rhine wine
or lager.
"May be goot whiskey."
"Let practical whiskey drinkers have a chance," said two or three at
once, and the bottle went its round.
The test was not considered satisfactory until another and another had
been emptied.
The increasing confusion aroused the Chaplain, who hitherto had been
snugly ensconced beneath his blankets in the corner opposite the Doctor.
"Here, Chaplain, your opinion, and don't let us hear anything about
putting the bottle to your neighbor's lips," said a rough voice in the
crowd. The Chaplain politely declined, with the remark that they
appeared too anxious to put the bottle to their own lips to require any
assistance from their neighbors.
"Chaplain not spiritually minded," muttered the Doctor, "so far but
three preaches, and every preach cost government much as sixty tollar."
The calculation at the Chaplain's expense, amused the crowd, and annoyed
the Chaplain, who resumed his blankets.
"When I was in Western Virginny, under Rosecrans,"--
"The old start and good for a yarn," said an officer.
"Good for facts," replied the Chief of the Detail.
"Never mind, Captain, we'll take it as fact," said the Adjutant.
"We had a chaplain that was a chaplain in every sense of the word."
"Did he drink and swear?" inquired a member of the Detail.
"On long marches and in fights he had a canteen filled with what he
called chaplain's cordial, about one part whiskey and three water. I
tasted it, but with little comfort. One day, a member of Rosy's staff
seeing him pulling at it, asked for it, and after a strong pull, told
the chaplain that he was weak in spiritual things. 'Blessed are the poor
in spirit,' was the quick answer of the chaplain. As to swearing, he was
never known to swear but once.
"I heard an officer tell the Adjutant a day or two ago, that what was
considered the prettiest sentence in the English language, had been
written by a smutty preacher. I don't recollect the words as he repeated
it, but it was about an old officer, who nursed a young one, and some
one told him the young one would die. The old officer excited, said, 'By
G--d, he sha'nt die.' It goes on to say then that an Angel flew up to
heaven, to enter it in the great Book of Accounts, and that the Angel
who made the charge cried over it and blotted it out. That is the
substance anyhow. Well, sir, if the Third Virginny's Chaplain's oath was
ever recorded it is in the same fix."
"Well, tell us about it, how it happened," exclaimed several.
"Why you see, Rosy sent over one day for a Major who had lately come
into the Division, and told him that 300 rebels were about six miles to
our left, in the bushes along a creek, and that he should take 300 men,
and kill, capture, or drive them off. The Major was about to make a
statement. 'That's all, Major,' with a wave of his hand for him to
leave, 'I expect a good account.'
"That was Rosy's style: he told an officer what he wanted, and he
supposed the officer had gumption enough to do it, without bothering
him, as some of our red-tape or pigeon-hole Generals, as the boys call
them, do with long written statements that a memory like a tarred stick
couldn't remember--telling where these ten men must be posted, those
twenty-five, and another thirty, etc. I wonder what such office Generals
think--that the Rebels will be fools enough to attack us when we want
them to, or take ground that we would like to have them make a stand
on."
"Captain, we talk enough ourselves about that; on with the story."
"Well, four companies, seventy-five strong each, were detailed to go
with him, and mine among the number, from our regiment. The chaplain got
wind of it, and go he would. By the time the detail was ready, he had
his bullets run, his powder-horn and fixin's on, and long Tom, as he
called his Kentucky rifle, slung across his shoulder."
"His canteen?" inquired an officer disposed to be a little troublesome.
"Don't recollect about that," said the Captain, somewhat curtly.
"On the march he mixed with the men, talked with them about all kinds of
useful matters, and gave them a world of information.
"We had got about a mile from where we supposed the Rebels were; my
company, in advance as skirmishers, had just cleared a wood, and were
ten yards in the open, when the Butternuts opened fire from a wood ahead
at long rifle range. One man was slightly wounded. We placed him against
a tree with his back to the Rebels, and under cover of the woods were
deciding upon a plan of attack, when up gallops our fat Major with just
breath enough to say, 'My God, what's to be done?'
"I'll never forget the chaplain's look at that. He had unslung long Tom;
holding it up in his right hand, he fairly yelled out, 'Fight, by G--d!
Boys, follow me.' And we did follow him. Skirting around through
underbrush to our left, concealed from the Rebs, we came to an open
again of about thirty yards. The Rebs had retired about eighty yards in
the wood to where it was thicker.
"Out sprang the Chaplain, making a worm fence, Indian fashion, for a big
chestnut. We followed in same style. My orderly was behind another
chestnut about ten feet to the Chaplain's left, and slightly to his
rear. There was for a spell considerable random firing, but no one hurt,
and the Rebs again retired a little. We soon saw what the Chaplain was
after. About eighty-five yards in his front was another big chestnut,
and behind it a Rebel officer. They blazed away at each other in fine
style--both good shots, as you could tell by the bark being chipped, now
just where the Chaplain's head was, and now just where the officer's
was. The officer was left-handed. The Chaplain could fire right or left
equally well. By a kind of instinct for fair play and no gouging that
even the Rebs feel at times, the rest on both sides looked at that
fight, and wouldn't mix. My orderly had several chances to bring the
Rebel. Their rifles cracked in quick succession for quite a spell. The
Chaplain, at last, not wanting an all-day affair of it, carefully again
drew a bead on a level with the chip marks on the left of the Rebel
tree. He had barely time to turn his head without deranging the aim,
when a ball passed through the rim of his hat. As he turned his head, he
gave a wink to the orderly, who was quick as lightning in taking a hint.
A pause for nearly a minute. By and by the Rebel pokes his head out to
see what was the matter. Seeing the gun only, and thinking the Chaplain
would give him a chance when he'd take aim, he did not pull it in as
quick as usual. My orderly winked,--a sharp crack, and the Rebel officer
threw up his hands, dropped his rifle, and fell backward, with well nigh
an ounce ball right over his left eye, through and through his head. Our
men cheered for the Chaplain. The Rebs fired in reply, and rushed to
secure the body. That cost them three more men, but they got their
bodies, and fast as legs could carry them, cut to their fort about
three miles to their rear. We of course couldn't attack the fort, and
returned to camp. The boys were loud in praise of the Chaplain. Their
chin music, as they called camp rumors, had it that the officer killed
was a Rebel chaplain. Old Rosy, when he heard of it, laughed, and swore
like a trooper. I hear he has got over swearing now--but it couldn't
have been until after he left Western Virginny. I heard our Chaplain say
that he heard a brother chaplain say, and he believed him to be a
Christian,--that he believed that the Apostle Paul himself would learn
to swear inside of six months, if he entered the service in Western
Virginny. Washington prayed at Trenton, and swore at Monmouth, and I
don't believe that the War Department requires Chaplains to be better
Christians than Washington. Our old Chaplain used to say that there were
many things worse than swearing, and that he didn't believe that men
often swore away their chances of heaven."
"Comforting gospel for you, captain," said that troublesome officer.
"He was a bully chaplain," continued the captain, becoming more
animated, probably because the regimental chaplain, turtle-like, had
again protruded his head from between the blankets. "He had no long
tailed words or doctrines that nobody understood, that tire soldiers,
because they don't understand them, and make them think that the
chaplain is talking only to a few officers. That's what so often keeps
men away from religious services. Our chaplain used to say that you
could tell who Paul was talking to by his style of talk. I can't say how
that is from my own reading; but I always heard that Paul was a sensible
man, and if so he certainly would suit himself to the understanding of
his crowd."
"Our old chaplain talked right at you. No mistake he meant
you--downright, plain, practical, and earnest. He'd tell his crowd of
backwoodsmen, flatboatmen and deck hands--the hardest customers that the
gospel was ever preached to,--'That the war carried on by the Government
was the most righteous of wars; they were doing God's service by
fighting in it. On the part of the rebels it was the most unnatural and
wicked of wars. They called it a second Revolutionary War, the
scoundrels! When my father and your father, Tom Hulzman,' said he,
addressing one of his hearers, 'fought in the Revolution, they fought
against a tyrannical monarchy that was founded upon a landed
aristocracy--that is, rich big feeling people, that owned very big
farms. The Government stands in this war, if any thing, better than our
fathers stood. We fight against what is far worse than a landed
aristocracy, meaner in the sight of God and more hated by honest men,
this accursed slave aristocracy, that will, if they whip us--(Can't do
that, yell the crowd.) No, they can't. If they should, we would be no
better than the poor whites that are permitted to live a dog's life on
some worn-out corner of a nigger-owner's plantation. Would you have your
children, Joe Dixon, insulted, made do the bidding of some long-haired
lank mulatto nabob? (Never, says Joe.) Then, boys, look to your arms,
fire low, and don't hang on the aim. We must fight this good fight out,
and thank God we can do it. If we die, blessed will be our memory in the
hearts of our children. If we live and go to our firesides
battle-scarred, our boys can say, 'See how dad fought, and every scar in
front,' and we'll be honored by a grateful people.' And he'd tell of the
sufferings of their parents, wives, and children, if we didn't succeed,
till the water courses on the dirty faces of his crowd would be as plain
as his preaching.
"And pray! he'd pray with hands and eyes both open, in such a way that
every one believed it would have immediate attention; that God would
damn the Rebellion; and may be next day he'd have Long Tom doing its
full share in hurrying the rebels themselves to damnation.
"And kind hearted! why old Tim Larkins, who had a wound on the shin that
wouldn't heal, told me with tears in his eyes that he had been mother,
wife, and child to him. He went about doing good.
"And now I recollect," and the Captain's eye glistened as he spoke, "how
he acted when young Snowden was wounded. Snowden was a slender,
pale-faced stripling of sixteen, beloved by every body that knew him,
and if ever a perfect Christian walked this earth, he was one, even if
he was in service in Western Virginny. The chaplain was fond of company,
and, as was his duty, mixed with the men. Snowden was reserved, much by
himself, and had little or no chance to learn bad habits; that is the
only way I can account for his goodness. I often heard the chaplain tell
the boys to imitate Snowden, and not himself; 'you'll find a pure mouth
there, boys, because the heart is pure; you'll see no letters of
introduction to the devil,' as the chaplain called cards, 'in his
knapsack.' By the way, he was so hard on cards, that even the boatmen,
who knew them better than their A B C's, were ashamed to play them. He
would say, 'Snowden is brave as man can be; he has a right to be, he is
prepared for every fate. A christian, boys, makes all the better soldier
for his being a Christian,' and he would tell us of Washington, Col.
Gardner, that preacher that suffered, fought and died near Elizabeth, in
the Jerseys, and others.
"In bravery, none excelled Snowden. We were lying down once, but about
sixty yards from a wood chuck full of rebels, when word was sent that
our troops on the left must be signalled, to charge in a certain way.
Several understood the signs, but Snowden first rose, mounted a stump,
and did not get off although receiving flesh wounds in half-a-dozen
different places, and his clothing cut to ribands, until he saw the
troops moving as directed. How we gritted our teeth as we heard the
bullets whiz by that brave boy. I have the feeling yet. We thought his
goodness saved him. His was goodness! Not that kind that will stare a
preacher full in the face from a cushioned pew on Sunday, and gouge you
over the counter on Monday, but the genuine article. His time was yet to
come.
"One day we had driven the rebels through a rough country some miles,
skirmishing with their rear-guard; the Chaplain and Snowden with my
company foremost. We neared a small but deep creek the rebels had
crossed, and trying to get across, we were scattered along the bank. I
heard a shot, and as I turned I saw poor Snowden fall, first on his knee
and then on his elbow. I called the Chaplain. They were messmates--he
loved Snowden as his own child, and always called him 'my boy.' He
rushed to him, 'My boy, who fired that shot?' The lad turned to a clump
of bushes about 80 yards distant on the other side of the creek. Long
Tom was in hand, but the rebel was first, and a ball cut the Chaplain's
coat collar. The flash revealed him; in an instant long Tom was in
range, and another instant saw a Butternut belly face the sun. Dropping
his piece, falling upon his knee, he raised Snowden gently up with his
left hand. 'I am dying,' whispered the boy, 'tell my mother I'll meet
her in heaven.' The Chaplain raised his right hand, his eyes swimming
in tears, and in tones that I'll never forget, and that make me a better
man every time I think of them, he said, 'O God, the pure in heart is
before thee, redeem thy promise, and reveal thyself.' A slight gurgle,
and with a pleasant smile playing upon his countenance, the soul of John
Snowden, if there be justice in heaven, went straight up to the God who
gave it." Tears had come to the Captain's eyes, and were glistening in
the eyes of most of the crowd.
The Dutch doctor alone was unmoved. Stoically he remarked, "Very goot
story, Captain, goot story, do our Chaplain much goot."
The crowd left quietly--all but the Captain, who, never forgetting
business in the hurry of the moment, drew a receipt for the transfer of
thirteen bottles of whiskey to the hospital department, which the doctor
signed without reading.
CHAPTER VI.
_A Day at Division Head-Quarters--The Judge Advocate--The tweedle-dum
and tweedle-dee of Red-Tape as understood by Pigeon-hole
Generals--Red-tape Reveries--French Authorities on Pigeon-hole
Investigations--An Obstreperous Court and Pigeon-hole
Strictures--Disgusting Head-Quarter Profanity._
"The General commanding Division desires to see Lieutenant Colonel ----,
210th Regiment, P. V., Judge Advocate, immediately," were words that met
the eye of the latter officer, as he unfolded a note handed him by an
orderly. It was about nine in the forenoon of a fine day in October.
Buckling on his sword, and ordering his horse, he rode at a lively
canter to the General's Head-Quarters.
"Colonel," said the General, pulling vigorously at the same time at the
left side of his moustache, as if anxious that his teeth should take
hold of it, "I have sent for you in regard to this Record. Do you know,
sir, that this Record has given me a d----d sight of trouble; why, sir,
I consulted authorities the greater part of last night, French and
American."
"In regard to what point, General?"
"In regard to what point? In regard to all the points, sir. There, sir,
is the copy made of that order detailing the Court. It reads, 'Detailed
for the Court,' whereas it should be 'Detail for the Court.' My mind is
not made up fully as to whether the variance vitiates the Record or not.
The authorities appear to be silent upon that point. To say the least,
it is d----d awkward."
"General, the copy is a faithful one of the order issued from your
Head-Quarters."
"From my Head-Quarters, sir? By G--d, Colonel, that can't be. If I have
been particular, and have prided myself upon any one thing, it has been
upon having papers drawn strictly according to the Regulations. And I
have tried to impress it upon my clerks. That infernal blunder made at
my Head-Quarters! I'll soon see how that is." And the General, Record in
hand, took long strides, for a little man, towards the Adjutant's tent.
"Captain," said he, addressing an officer who was best known in the
Division as a relative of a leading commander, and whose only claim to
merit--in fact, it had to counterbalance many habits positively
bad--consisted of his reposing under the shadow of a mighty name, "where
is the original order detailing this Court?" "Here, General," said a
clerk, producing the paper. The General's eye rested for a moment upon
it, then throwing it upon the table, he burst out passionately:
"Captain, this is too G--d d--n bad after all my care and trouble in
giving you full instructions. Is it possible that the simplest order
can't be made out without my supervision, as if, by G--d, it was my
business to stand over your desks all day long, see every paper folded,
endorsement made, and the right pigeon-hole selected? This won't do. I
give full instructions, and expect them carried out. By G--d," continued
the General, striding vehemently across to his marquee, "they must be
carried out."
"Colonel, I see that you are not accountable for this. If the d----d
fool had only made it 'Detail of the Court,' it might have passed
unnoticed."
"General," suggested the Colonel, "would not that have been improper?
Would it not have implied an already existing organization of the court?
whereas the phrase in the order is intended merely to indicate who shall
compose the court."
"It would have looked better, sir," said the General, somewhat sharply.
"Colonel, you are not to blame for this; you can return to quarters,
sir."
The Colonel bowed himself out, remounted his black horse, and while
riding at a slow walk, could not but wonder if the Government would not
have been the gainer if it had made it the business of the General to
fold and endorse papers, and dust pigeon-holes. It was generally
understood that this occupation had been, previous to his being placed
in command of the Division, the sum-total of the General's military
experience. And how high above him did this red-tapism extend? The
General had been on McClellan's staff, and through his influence,
doubtless, acquired his present position. Were its trifling details
detaining the grand army of the Potomac from an onward movement in this
most favorable weather, to the great detriment of national finances, the
encouragement of the Rebellion, and the depression of patriots
everywhere? Must the earnestness of the patriotic, self-sacrificing
thousands in the field, be fettered by these cobwebs, constructed by men
interested in pay and position? If so, then in its widest sense, is the
utterance of an intelligent Sergeant, made a few days previous, true,
that red-tape was a greater curse to the country than the rebellion. The
loyal earnest masses would soon, if unfettered, have found leaders
equally loyal and earnest--Joshuas born in the crisis of a righteous
cause, whose unceasing blows would not have allowed the rebels breathing
spells. It is not too late; but how much time, blood, to say nothing of
money, have been expended in ascertaining that a great Union military
leader thought the war in its best phase a mere contest for boundaries.
The black halted at the tent door, was turned over to his attendant, and
the Lieut.-Colonel joined his tent companion the Colonel.
His stay was brief. In the course of a few minutes an orderly in great
haste handed him the following note:
"The General commanding Division desires to see Lieut.-Colonel ----
without delay."
The saddle, not yet off the black, was readjusted, and again the
Judge-Advocate cantered over the gentle bluffs to Division
Head-Quarters.
"Colonel," said the General, hardly waiting for his entrance, "these
mistakes multiply so, as I proceed in my duty as Reviewing Officer, that
I am utterly confounded as to what course to pursue."
"Will you please point them out, General?"
"Point out the Devil!--will you point to something that is strictly in
accordance with the regulations? Here you have 'Private John W. Holman,
Co. I, 212th Regt. P. V.,' and then not two lines below, it is, John W.
Holman, Private, Co. I, 212th Reg. P. V.' Now, by G--Colonel, one is
certainly wrong, and _that_ blunder did not come from Division
Head-Quarters."
"Will the General please indicate which is correct?"
"Indicate! that's the d----l of it, that is the perplexing question; my
French authorities are silent on the subject, and yet, sir, you must
see that one must be wrong."
"That does not follow, General; it would be considered a mere clerical
error. Records that I have seen have titles preceding and following
both."
"There is no such thing in military law as a mere clerical error. Every
thing is squared here by the regulations and military law. The General
or Colonel who is unfortunate in consequence of strictly following
these, will not, by military men, regular officers at least, be held
accountable. Do not understand me as combating your knowledge of the
law, Colonel; you may have excused, in your practice, bad records
successfully on the ground of 'clerical errors,' but it will not do in
the army. There's where volunteer officers make their mistakes; they
don't think and act concertedly as regulars do. Individual judgment
steps in too often, and officers' judgments play the D--l in the army.
Now, in France, their rules in regard to this, are unusually strict."
"They order this matter better in France then," observed the Colonel,
mechanically making use of the hackneyed opening sentence of "The
Sentimental Journey." "And they manage them better, Sir;--Another thing,
Colonel," quickly added the General, "t's must be crossed and i's
carefully dotted. There are several omissions of this kind that might
have sent the Record back. By the way, whose hand-writing is this copy
in?" said the General, looking earnestly at the Colonel. "A clerk's,
sir." "A clerk! Another d----d pretty piece of business," continued the
General, rising. "Colonel, that record is not worth a G--d d--n not a
G--d d--n, Sir! Who ever heard of a clerk being employed? no clerk has a
right to know any thing of the proceedings."
"I have been informed, General, and have observed from published reports
of proceedings of courts-martial, that clerks are in general use."
"Can't be! Colonel, can't be! By G--d, there is another perplexing
matter for my already over-taxed time, and yet the senseless people
expect Generals to move large armies, and plan big battles, when their
hands are full of these d----d business details that cannot be neglected
or delayed."
The General resumed his seat, ran his fingers through his hair with
frightful rapidity, as if gathering disconcerted and scattered ideas,
for a moment or two, and then looking up dismissed the Colonel.
The black was again in requisition; and again the Colonel's thoughts,
with increased feelings of disgust, were directed to what he could not
but think the trifling details that, as the General admitted, delay the
movements of great armies, and the striking of heavy blows. T's must be
crossed when we ought to be crossing the Potomac; i's dotted when we
ought to be dotting Virginia fields with our tents. And war so
proverbially, so historically uncertain, has its rules, which, if
adhered to, will save commanders from censure--judgment not allowed to
interfere. It would appear so from many movements in the history of the
Army of the Potomac. What would that despiser of senseless details,
defier of rules laid down by inferior men, and cutter of red tape, as
well as master-genius in the art of war, the Great, the First Napoleon,
have said to all this. Shades of Washington, Marion, Morgan, all the
Revolutionary worthies, Jackson, all our Volunteer Officers, of whose
military records we are justly proud--
"Of the mighty can it be
That this is all remains of thee!"
Generals leading armies such as the world never before saw, fettering
movements on the field by the movements of trifling office details at
the desk, which viewed in the best light are the most contemptible of
excuses for delay.
This time the old black was not unsaddled;--a fortunate thought, as
another request for the immediate presence of the Judge Advocate
compelled him to take his dinner of boiled beans hasty and hot.
Whatever the reader may think of the General's condition of mind during
the preceding interviews, it was to reach its fever heat in this. The
Colonel saw, as he entered the marquee, that his forced calmness of
demeanor portended a storm. Whether the Colonel thought that a
half-emptied good-sized tumbler of what looked like clear brandy which
stood on the table before him, had anything to do with it, the reader
must judge for himself.
"Colonel, I had made up my mind to forward that Record with the mistakes
I have already indicated to you, but after all I am pained to state that
the total disregard of duty by the Court, and perhaps by yourself, in
trifling--yes, by G--d--" here the General could keep in no longer, and
rising with hand clinching the Record firmly, continued,--"trifling with
a soldier's duty, the regulations, and the safety of the army will not
allow it. Colonel, you are a lawyer, and is it possible that you can't
see what that d----d Court has done?"
"I would be happy to be informed in what respect they have erred,
General."
"Happy to be informed! how they have erred! By G--d, Colonel, you take
this outrageous matter cool. That Record," said the General, holding it
up, and waving it about his head,--the red tape with which the Judge
Advocate had adorned it plentifully, if for no other purpose than to
cover a multitude of mistakes, all the while streaming in the
air,--"that Record is a disgrace to the Division. What does that Record
show?" At this he threw it violently into a corner of the tent. "It
shows, by G--d, that here was an enlisted soldier in the United States
Army, found sleeping on his post in the dead hour of night, in the
presence of the enemy, and yet--" said the General, lifting both hands
clenched, "a pack of d----d volunteer officers detailed as a court let
him off. Yes, I'll be G--d d----d," and his arms came down slapping
against his hips, "let him off, with what? why a reprimand at dress
parade, that isn't worth a d--n as a punishment. Here was a chance to
benefit the Division; yes, sir, a military execution would do this
Division good. It needs it; we'll have a d----d sight now to be
court-martialed. What will General McClellan say with that record before
him? Think of that, Colonel.'
"I would be much more interested in what Judge Advocate Holt would say,
General, on account of his vastly superior ability in that department;
and as to the death penalty, General, I conscientiously think it would
be little short of, if not quite, murder." The General had resumed his
seat, but now arose as if about to interrupt;--but the Colonel
continued:--
"General, that boy is but seventeen, with a look that indicates
unmistakably that he is half an idiot. He has an incurable disease that
tends to increase his imbecility. His memory, if he ever had any, is
completely gone. The Articles of War, or instructions of officers as to
picket duty, would not be remembered by him a minute after utterance,
and not understood when uttered. I have thought since that I should have
entered a plea of insanity for him. He had not previously been upon
duty for a month, and was that day placed on by mistake. The Court, if
it had had the power, would have punished the officer that recruited him
severely. He ought to be discharged; and the Court was informed that his
application for discharge, based upon an all-sufficient surgeon's
certificate, was forwarded to your head-quarters a month ago, and has
not since been heard from. Besides, this was not a picket station, but a
mere inside regimental camp guard."
The Colonel spoke rapidly, but with coolness;--all the while the
General's eyes, fairly glowing, were gazing down intently upon him.
"Colonel, if your manner was not respectful, I would think that you
intended insulting me by your d----d provoking coolness. Conscience!"
said the General, sneeringly, "conscience or no conscience, that man
must be duly sentenced. By G--d, I order it. You must reconvene the
Court without delay. It is well seen it is not a detail of Regulars.
Conscience wouldn't trouble them when a d----d miscreant was upon trial.
A boy of seventeen! Seventeen or thirty-seven! By G--d! he is a soldier
in the Army of the United States, and must be tried and punished as a
soldier. An idiot! What need you care about the brains of a soldier? If
he has the army cap on his head, that's all you need require. Plea of
insanity, indeed! We want no lawyer's tricks here. And as to that
discharge, if it is detained at my head-quarters, it is because it was
not properly folded or endorsed--may be will not fit neatly in the
pigeon-hole. Colonel," continued the General, moderating his tone
somewhat, "I must animadvert--by G--d, I must animadvert severely upon
that Record."
"General," quietly interrupted the Colonel, "you will publish your
animadversion, I trust, so that it can be read at dress parades, and the
Division have the benefit of it."
"There, Colonel," said the General, twitching his moustache violently,
"there it is again. You appear perfectly courteous--but that remark is
cool contempt. I want you to understand," his tones louder, and
gesticulations violent, "that you must take my strictures, tell the
court that they must impose the sentence I direct, and leave conscience
to me, and no d----d plea of insanity about it."
"General," observed the Colonel, rising, "I am the counsel of the
prisoner as well as of the United States. I cannot and will not injure
my own conscience, wrong the prisoner, or humiliate the Government by
insisting upon a death penalty."
"Read my strictures to the court, and do your duty, sir, or I'll
court-martial the whole d----d establishment. Go and re-assemble your
court forthwith."
As he said this he handed a couple of closely written sheets of large
sized letter-paper, tied with the inevitable red-tape, to the Colonel.
The Colonel bowed himself out, and the chair in front of the
pigeon-holes of the camp desk was again occupied by a living embodiment
of red-tape.
The court was forthwith notified. It immediately met. The strictures
were read, and in case of many sentences, especially towards the close,
from necessity re-read by the Judge Advocate. After considerable
laughter over the document, and some little indignation at the
unwarranted dictation of "their commanding General," of which title the
General had taken especial pains to remind them at least every third
sentence, the court decided not to change the sentence, and directed the
Judge Advocate to embody their reasons for the character of the
sentence in his report. The reasons, much the same as those stated to
the General by the Judge Advocate, were reduced to writing, and duly
forwarded, with the record signed and attested, to their "commanding
General." That record, like some other court-martial records of the
Division, has not since been heard of as far as the Judge Advocate or
any member of the court is informed. The poor boy a few days afterwards
entered a hospital, not again to rejoin his regiment. His application
for discharge has not been heard of. With no prospect of being fit for
active service--dying by inches in fact,--he is compelled at Government
expense to follow the regiment in an ambulance from camp to camp, and on
all its tedious marches.
The profanity in the foregoing chapter has doubtless disgusted the
reader quite as much as its utterance did the Judge Advocate. And yet
hundreds of the Division who have heard the General on hundreds of other
occasions, the writer feels confident will certify that it is rather a
mild mood of the General's that has been described. The habit is
disgusting at all times. Many able Generals are addicted to the habit;
but they are able in spite of it. That their influence would be
increased without it, cannot be denied. It has been well said to be
"neither brave, polite, nor wise." But now when the hopes of the nation
centre in the righteousness of their cause, and thousands of prayers
continually ascend for its furtherance from Christians in and out of
uniform, how utterly contemptible! how outrageously wicked! for an
officer of elevated position, to profane the Name under which those
prayers are uttered, and upon which the nation relies as its "bulwark,"
"its tower of strength," a very "present help in this its time of
trouble."
CHAPTER VII.
_A Picket-Station on the Upper Potomac--Fitz John's Rail Order--Rails
for Corps Head-Quarters_ versus _Rails for Hospitals--The Western
Virginia Captain--Old Rosy, and How to Silence Secesh Women--The Old
Woman's Fixin's--The Captain's Orderly._
Picket duty, while in this camp, was light. Even the little tediousness
connected with it was relieved by the beautifully romantic character of
the scenery. Confined entirely to the river front, the companies
detailed were posted upon the three bluffs that extended the length of
that front, and on the tow-path of the canal below.
The duty, we have said, was light. It could hardly be considered
necessary, in fact, were it not to discipline the troops. The bluffs
were almost perpendicular, varying between seventy-five and one hundred
feet in height. Immediately at their base was the Chesapeake and Ohio
canal, averaging six feet in depth. A narrow towing-path separated it
from the Potomac, which, in a broad, placid, but deep stream, broken
occasionally by the sharp points of shelving rocks, mostly sunken, that
ran in ridges parallel with the river course, flowed languidly; the
water being dammed below as before mentioned.
On one of the most inclement nights of the season, the Company
commanded by our Western Virginia captain had been assigned the
towing-path as its station. No enemy was in front, nor likely to be,
from the manner in which that bank of the river was commanded by our
batteries. In consequence, a few fires, screened by the bushes along the
river bank, were allowed. Around these, the reserve and officers not on
duty gathered.
In a group standing around a smoky fire that struggled for existence
with the steadily falling rain, stood our captain. His unusual silence
attracted the attention of the crowd, and its cause was inquired into.
"Boys, I'm disgusted; for the first time in my life since I have been in
service; teetotally disgusted with the way things are carried on. I'm no
greenhorn at this business either," continued the captain, assuming, as
he spoke, the position of a soldier, and although somewhat ungainly when
off duty, no man in the corps could take that position more correctly,
or appear to better advantage. "I served five years as an enlisted man
in an artillery regiment in the United States army, and left home in the
night when I wasn't over sixteen, to do it; part of that time was in the
Mexican war. Yes, sir, I saw nearly the whole of that. Since then, I've
been in service nearly ever since this Rebellion broke out, and the
hardest kind of service, and under nearly all kinds of officers, and by
all that's holy, I never saw anything so mean nor was as much disgusted
as I was to-day. Boys! when shoulder-straps with stars on begin to think
that we are not human beings, of flesh and blood, liable to get sick,
and when sick, needing attention like themselves, it's high time those
straps change shoulders. These damp days we, and especially our sick,
ought to be made comfortable. One great and good soldier that I've often
heard tell of, wounded, of high rank, and who lived a long time ago,
across the ocean, refused, although dying for want of drink, to touch
water, until a wounded private near him first had drunk. That's the
spirit. A man that'll do that, is right, one hundred chances to one in
other respects. We have had such Generals, we have them now, and some
may be in this corps, but it don't look like it."
"Well, Captain, what did you see?"
"Well, I had sent my Sergeant to get a few rails to keep a poor boy
comfortable who had a high fever, and who could not get into the
hospital for want of room. The wood that was cut from the hill was
green, and the poor fellow had been nearly smoked to death. The Sergeant
went with a couple of men, and was coming back, the men having two rails
apiece, when just as they got the other side of the Toll-gate on the
hill, the Provost-Guard stopped them, told them there was an order
against their using rails, and they must drop them. It did no good to
say that they were for a sick man, that was no go. They thought they had
to do it, and did it. They hadn't come fifty yards toward camp, before
one of those big six-mule corps-teams that have been hauling rails for
the last four days, came along, and the rails were pitched into the
wagon. When I heard of it I was wrothy. I cut a bee-line for the
Adjutant and got the Order, and there it was in black and white, that no
more fences--rebel fences--should be destroyed, and no more rails used.
Now, I knew well that these corps-teams had hauled and hauled until the
whole establishment, from General Porter down to his Darkies, were in
rails up to their eyes, and then, when they had their own fill, this
order comes, and we, poor devils, might whistle. Here were our hospitals
like smoke-houses, not fit for human beings, and especially the sick. It
was a little too d----d mean. I couldn't stand it. The more I thought of
it the madder I got, and I got fighting mad, when I thought how often
that same General in his kid gloves, fancy rig, and cloak thrown back
from his shoulders to show all the buttons and stars, had passed me
without noticing my salute. He never got a second chance, and never
will. I started off, took three more men than the Sergeant had; went to
the first fence I could find, and that was about two miles--for the
corps-teams had made clean work--loaded my men and myself, and started
back. The Provost-Guard was at the old place; I was bound to pass them
squarely.
"'Captain,' said the Sergeant, 'we have orders to stop all parties
carrying rails.'
"'By whose orders?'
"'General Porter's.'
"'I am one of General Porter's men. I have authority for this, sir,'
said I, looking him full in the eye.
"'Boys, move on!' and on we did move. When the Lieut. saw us filing left
over the hill towards camp, he sent a squad after us. But it was too
late. The Devil himself couldn't have had the rails in sight of my
company quarters, and I told him so.
"'I'll report you to the Division General, and have you
court-martialed, sir.'
"'Very well,' although I knew the General had a mania for
courts-martial. 'I have been court-martialed four times, and cleared
every clip.'
"'Now let that court-martial come; somebody's meanness will see the
light,' thought I.
"Old Rosy, boys, was the man. I said I was disgusted, but we mustn't get
discouraged. We have some earnest men--yes, I believe, plenty of them;
but they're not given a fair show. It'll all come right, though, I
believe. Men with hearts in them; and Rosy, let me tell you, is no runt
in that litter.
"'Captain,' said he to me one day when I had gone to his head-quarters
according to orders, 'I have something that must be done without delay,
and from what I've seen of you, you are just the man for the work. I
passed our hospital a few minutes ago, and I thought it was about to
blaze; the smoke came out of the windows, chimney, doors, and every
little crack so damnably. I turned around and went in, and found that
the smoke had filled it, and that the poor fellows were suffering
terribly. Now, Captain, they have no dry wood, and they must have some
forth with, and I'll tell you where to get it.
"'The other day I rode by a nest of she-rebels, and found that they had
cord upon cord of the best hickory piled up in the yard, as if cut by
their husbands, before leaving, for use this winter. They have made
provision enough for our hospital too. Now take three army wagons, as
many men as you need, and go about three miles out the Little Gap Road
till you come to a new weather-boarded house at the Forks. Make quick
work, Captain.'
"I did make quick work in getting there, for that was about ten, and
about half-past eleven the government wagons were in the yard of the
house and my company in front.
"'We have no chickens,' squalled an old woman from a second-story
window, 'nor pigs, nor anything--all gone. We are lone women.'
"'Only in the day-time, I reckon,' said my orderly; the same fellow
that winked at the chaplain. He was one of the roughest fellows that
ever kept his breath over night. Long, lank, ill-favored, a white
scrawny beard, stained from the corners of his mouth with tobacco juice;
but for all, I'd pick him out of a thousand for an orderly. He was
always there, and his rifle--he always carried his own--a small bore,
heavy barrel, rough-looking piece, never missed.
"As the old woman was talking from the window, a troop of women, from
eighteen to forty years old--but I am a better judge of horses' ages
than women's; they slip us up on that pint too often--came rushing out
of the door. They made all kinds of inquiries, but I set my men quietly
to work loading the wood.
"'Now, Captain, you shan't take that wood,' said a well-developed
little, rather pretty, black-haired woman, but with those peculiar black
eyes, full of the devil, that you only see among the Rebels, and that
the Almighty seems to have set in like lanterns in lighthouses to show
that their bearers are not to be trusted. 'You shan't take that wood!'
raising her voice to a scream. The men worked on quietly, and I
overlooked the work.
"'You dirty, greasy-looking Yankee,' said another, 'born in some
northern poor-house.'
"'And both parents died in jail, I'll bet.'
"'If our Jim was only here, he'd handle the cowardly set in less time
than one of them could pick up that limb.'
"'You chicken thief, you come by it honestly. Your father was a thief
before you, and your mother--'
"This last roused me. I could hear nothing bad of her from man or woman.
"'You she-devil,' said I, turning to her, 'not one word more.' She
turned toward the house.
"But they annoyed the men, and I concluded to keep them still.
"'Sergeant,' said I, addressing the orderly, and nearing the house, the
women close at my heels. 'Sergeant, as our regiment will camp near here
to-morrow, we might as well look out for a company hospital. How big is
that house?'
"'Large enough, Captain; thirty by fifty at least.'
"'How many rooms?'
"'About three, I reckon, on first floor, and I guess the upper story is
all in one, from its looks through the window. Plenty of room. Bully
place, and what is more, plenty of ladies to nurse the poor boys.
"The noses of the women not naturally cocked, became upturned at this
last remark of the sergeant's. But they had become silent, and looked
anxious.
"'Sergeant, here's paper and pencil, just note down the names of the
sick, and the rooms we'll put them in, so as to avoid confusion.'
"The sergeant ran the sharp end of the pencil half an inch in his mouth,
and on the palm of his horny hand commenced the list, talking all the
while aloud--slowly, just as if writing--'Let me see. My mem'y isn't
more than an inch long, and there's a blasted lot of 'em.
"'Jim Smith, Bob Riley, Larry Clark, got small-pox; Larry all broke out
big as old quarters, put 'em in back room down stairs.' The women got
pale, but small-pox had been common in those parts. 'George Johnson,
Bill Davis, got the mumps.' 'The mumps, Sally, the mumps, them's what
killed George, and they're so catchin'--whispered one of the women--and
continued the sergeant, 'Bill Thatcher, George Clifton the
chicken-pox.' 'O Lord, the chicken-pox,' said another woman, 'it killed
my two cousins before they were in the army a week.'--'Put them four,'
said the sergeant, 'in the middle room down stairs. Save the kitchen for
cookin', and up stairs put Jim Williams, Spooky Johnson, Tom Hardy, Dick
Cramer, and the little cook boy; all got the measles.' 'The measles!'
screamed out half-a-dozen together. 'Good-Lord, we'll be killed in a
week.' 'They say,' said another black eye, 'that that crack Mississippi
Brigade took the measles at Harper's Ferry, and died like flies. They
had to gather them from the bushes, and all over. Brother Tom told me.
He said our boys were worked nearly to death digging graves.'
"'That was a good thing,' observed the sergeant.
"'You beast!' said the little old woman advancing towards him, and
shaking her fist in his face.
"'And what will become of us women?' screamed she.
"'A pretty question for an old lady; we calculate that you ladies will
wait on the sick,' drily remarked the sergeant.
"At this the women, thinking their case hopeless, with downcast looks
quietly filed into the house.
"The boys by this time had about done loading the teams. All the while I
had watched the manners of the women closely and the house, and I came
to the conclusion that it would pay to make a visit inside.
"A guard was placed on the outside, and telling the sergeant and two men
to follow, I entered. It was all quiet below, but we found when we had
reached the top of the steps, and stood in the middle of the big room up
stairs, the women in great confusion, some in a corner of the room, and
a few sitting on the beds. Among the latter, sitting as we boys used to
say on her hunkers, with hands clasped about her knees, was the old
woman. Besides the beds the only furniture in the room was a large,
roughly made, double-doored wardrobe that stood in one corner.
"We hadn't time to look around before the old woman screeched out--
"'You won't disturb my private fixin's, will you?'
"'I rather think not,' slowly said the sergeant, giving her at the same
time a comical look.
"Notwithstanding repeated and tearful assurances that there was nothing
there, that the men had taken off all the arms, hadn't left lead enough
to mend a hole in the bottom of the coffee-pot, etc., etc., we began to
search the beds, commencing at one corner. There were two beds between
us and the old woman's, and although we shook ticks and bolsters, and
made otherwise close examination, we discovered nothing beyond the
population usually found in such localities in Western Virginia.
"The old woman was fidgety. Her face, that at two reflections would have
changed muscatel into crab apple vinegar, was more than usually
wrinkled. 'O Lord, nothing here,' groaned she, as she sat with her back
to the head-board. She did not budge an inch as we commenced at her bed.
"The sergeant had gone to the head-board, I to the foot. I saw a twinkle
in his eye as he turned over the rough comfort, his hand reached
down--he drew it up gradually, and the old woman slid as gradually from
the lock to the muzzle of a long Kentucky rifle. 'O Lord,' groaned she,
as she keeled over on her right side at the foot of the bed.
"A glow of admiration overspread the Sergeant's face as he looked at
that rifle.
"'Well, I swow, old woman, is this what you call a private fixin'?'
said the Sergeant. 'A queer bed-fellow you've got; and just look,
Captain,' said he, trying the ramrod, 'loaded, capped, and half cocked.'
"The heavy manner in which the old lady fell over satisfied me that we
hadn't all the armory, and I directed her to leave the bed and stand on
the floor.
"'Can't, can I, Ann?' addressing one of the women.
"'No, marm can't, she is helpless.'
"'Got the rheumatics, had 'em a year and better,' groaned the old woman.
"'Hadn't 'em when you shook your fist under my nose in the yard,' said
the Sergeant. 'Get off the bed;' catching the old woman by the arm, he
helped her off. She straightened up with difficulty, holding her clothes
at the hips with both hands. 'Hold up your hands,' said the Sergeant. He
was about to assist her, when not relishing that, she lifted them up; as
she did so, there was a heavy rattling sound on the floor. The old woman
jumped about a foot from the floor clear out of a well filled pillow
cushion, dancing and yelling like an Indian. Some hardware must have
struck her toe and made her forget her rheumatism.
"That bag had two Colt's navy size, two pistols English make, with all
the trappings for both kinds, and two dozen boxes of best make English
water proof caps.
"'Old woman,' said the Sergeant with a chuckle, 'your private fixin's as
you call 'em, are worth hunting for.'
"But the old woman had reached the side of a bed, and was too much
engaged in holding her toe, to notice the remark.
"The other beds were searched, but with no success. I had noticed while
the old woman was hopping about a short fat woman getting behind some
taller ones in the corner and arranging her clothing. The old woman's
contrivance made me think the corner worth looking at.
"The women sulkily and slowly gave way, and another pillow-case was
found on the floor, from which a brace of pistols, one pair of long
cowhide riding boots, three heavy-bladed bowie knives, and some smaller
matters, were obtained.
"The wardrobe was the only remaining thing, and on it as a centre the
women had doubled their columns.
"'Oh, Captain, don't,' said several at once beseechingly, 'we're all
single women, and that has our frocks and fixin's in it,' as I touched
the wardrobe.
"'As far as I've seed there is not much difference between married
women's fixin's and single ones,' coolly said the Sergeant.
"'There is not one of us married, Captain.'
"'Sorry for that,' said the Sergeant, leisurely eyeing the women. 'If
you'd take advice from a Yankee, some of you had better hurry up.'
"The women were indignant, but smothered it, having ascertained that a
passionate policy would not avail.
"By this time one of the men had succeeded with his bayonet in forcing a
door. The Sergeant had laid his hand on the door, when a pretty face,
lit up with those same devilish black eyes, was looking into his half
winningly, and a pair of small hands were clasping his arm. The
Sergeant's head gradually fell as if to hear what she had to say, when
magnetism, a desire to try experiments, or call it what you will, as
'love,' although said to 'rule the camp,' has little really to do with
the monotony of actual camp scenes, or the horrors of the field
itself,--at any rate the Sergeant's head dropped suddenly,--a loud
smack, followed instantly by the dull sound of a blow,--and the
Sergeant gently rubbed an already blackening eye, while the woman was
engaged in drawing her sleeve across her mouth. Like enough some tobacco
juice went with the sleeve, for the corners of the Sergeant's mouth were
regular sluices for that article.
"The Sergeant's eye did not prevent him from opening the door, however.
"'Well, I declare, brother Jim's forgot his clothes and sword,' said one
of the women, manifesting much surprise.
"'Do you call that brother Jim's clothes?' said the Sergeant, grasping a
petticoat, above which appeared the guard of a cavalry sabre, and
holding both up to view. 'I tell you it's no use goin' on,' said the
Sergeant, somewhat more earnestly, his eye may be smarting a little,
'we're bound to go through it if it takes the hair off.' The women
squatted about on the beds, down-hearted enough.
"And through it we went, getting five more sabres and belts, and two
Sharp's rifles complete in that side, and a cavalry saddle, holsters
with army pistols, bridles, and a rifled musket, in the other side; all
bran new. There was nothing in the lower story or cellar.
"When I showed Rosy our plunder--and it hadn't to be taken to his tent
either--when he heard of it, he came out as anxious and pleased as any
of the boys,--he was a General interested in our luck more than his own
pay,--he clapped me on the shoulder right before my men, and all the
officers and men looking on, and said: 'Captain, you're a regular trump.
Three cheers, boys, for the Captain and company.' And as he started them
himself, the boys did give 'em, too. 'Captain, you'll not be
forgotten--be easy on that point.' And I was easy, until a fit of
sickness that I got put my fortune for the time out of Rosy's hands. The
men never forgot that trip. The Sergeant often said though, it was the
only trip he wasn't altogether pleased with, because, I suppose, his
black eye was a standing joke."
Just then, a sentinel's hail and the reply, "Grand Rounds," "Field
Officer of the day," hurried the Captain off, and the crowd to their
posts.
CHAPTER VIII.
_The Reconnoissance--Shepherdstown--Punch and Patriotism--Private Tom on
West Point and Southern Sympathy--The Little Irish Corporal on John
Mitchel--A Skirmish--Hurried Dismounting of the Dutch Doctor and
Chaplain--Battle of Falling Waters not intended--Story of the Little
Irish Corporal--Patterson's Folly, or Treason._
An old German writer has said that "six months are sufficient to
accustom an individual to any change in life." As he might fairly be
supposed to have penned this for German readers and with the fixed
habits and feelings of a German, if true at all, it ought to hold good
the world over. As we are more particularly interested in camps at
present, we venture the assertion that six weeks will make a soldier
weary of any camp. With our Sharpsburg camp, however, perhaps this
feeling was assisted by the consciousness so frequently manifested in
the conversation of the men that the army should be on the move.
Hundreds of relatives and friends had taken advantage of the proximity
of the camp to a railroad station to pay us a visit, and with them of
course came eatables--not in the army rations--and delicacies of all
kinds prepared by thoughtful heads and willing hands at home. Not
unfrequently the marquees of the officers were occupied by their
families, who, in their enjoyment of the novelties of camp life, the
drills, and dress parades of the regiment, treasured up for home
consumption, brilliant recollections of the sunny side of war. All this,
to say nothing of the scenery, the shade of the wood, that from the
peculiar position of the camp, so gratefully from early noon extended
itself, until at the hour for dress parade the regiment could come to
the usual "parade rest" entirely in the shade. But the roads were good,
the weather favorable, the troops effective, and the inactivity was a
"ghost that would not down" in the sight of men daily making sacrifices
for the speedy suppression of the Rebellion. The matter was constantly
recurring for discussion in the shelter tent as well as in the marquees,
in all its various forms. A great nation playing at war when its capital
was threatened, and its existence endangered. A struggle in which inert
power was upon one side, and all the earnestness of deadly hatred and
blind fanaticism upon the other. An enemy vulnerable in many ways, and
no matter how many loyal lives were lost, money expended by the
protraction of the war, but to be assailed in one. But why multiply? Ten
thousand reasons might be assigned why a military leader, without an
aggressive policy of warfare, unwilling to employ fully the resources
committed to him, should not succeed in the suppression of a Rebellion.
The nation suffered much in the treason that used its high position to
cloak the early rebel movement to arms, and delayed our own
preparations; but more in the incapacity or half-heartedness that made
miserable use of the rich materials so spontaneously furnished.
In the improvement of the Regiment the delay at the Sharpsburg camp was
not lost. The limited ground was well used, and Company and Battalion
drills steadily persevered in, brought the Regiment to a proficiency
rarely noticed in regiments much longer in the field.
"Three days' cooked rations, sixty rounds of ammunition, and under arms
at four in the morning. How do you like the smack of that, Tom?"
"It smacks of war," says Tom, "and it's high time." The first speaker
had doffed the gown of the student in his senior year, greatly against
the wishes of parents and friends, to don the livery of Uncle Sam. One
would scarcely have recognised in the rough sunburned countenance,
surmounted by a closely fitting cap, once blue but now almost red, and
not from the blood of any battle-field--in the course slovenly worn blue
blouse pantaloons, unevenly suspended, and wide unblacked army shoes,
the well dressed, graceful accomplished student that commended himself
to almost universal admiration among the young ladies of his
acquaintance. The second speaker, thinking that a more opportune war had
never occurred to demand the silence of the law amid resounding arms,
had left his desk in an attorney's office, shelved his Blackstone, and
with a courage that never flinched in the field of strife or in toilsome
marches where it can perhaps be subjected to a severer test, had
thoroughly shown that the resolution with which he committed himself to
the war was one upon which no backward step would be taken. They were
old friends, and fast messmates. Their little dog-tent, as the shelter
tents were called, had heard from each many an earnest wish that their
letters might smell of powder.
The feeling then with which George uttered this piece of news, and the
joy of Tom as he heard it, can be appreciated.
"What authority have you, George?"
"Old Pigeon-hole's. I heard him, while on duty about his Head-quarters
to-day, tell a Colonel, that the move had been ordered; that the War
Department had been getting uncommonly anxious, and that it interfered
with certain examinations he was making into very important papers."
"I'll warrant it. I would like to see any move in a forward direction
that would not interfere with some arrangement of his. His moves are on
paper, and a paper General is just about as valuable to the country as a
paper blockade."
"Is the movement general?"
"I think it is."
"Of course then it interferes. George, did you ever hear any patriotism
about those Head-quarters? You have been a great deal about them."
"No, but I have seen a good deal of punch in that neighborhood."
"I'll warrant it--more punch than patriotism. A great state of affairs
this. There are too many of these half-hearted Head-quarters in the
army. They ought to be cleaned out, and I believe that before this
campaign is through it will be done. If it is not done, the country is
lost."
"Country lost! why of course; that is almost admitted about that
establishment. They say we may be able to pen them up, and as they don't
say any more they must think that is about all. I heard a young
officer--a Regular--who seems to be intimate up there say: that there
was no use of talking--that men that fought the way the Southerners--he
didn't use the word Rebels--did, could not be conquered,--that they
were too much for our men, etc., etc. I could have kicked the
shoulder-strapped coward or traitor, may be both, but if I had, old
Pigeon-hole would have had a military execution for the benefit of the
Volunteers in short order. And then he strutted, talking treason and
squirting tobacco juice--and all the while our Government supporting the
scoundrel. West Point was on his outside, but his conversation and
vacant look told me plainly enough that outside of a Government position
the squirt had not brains enough to gain a day's subsistence. But he's
one of Pigey's 'my Regulars,' and to us Volunteers he can put himself on
his dignity with a '_Procul_, _Procul_, _este Profani_.'"
"George, don't stir me up on that subject any more. I get half mad when
I think that Uncle Sam's worst enemies are those of his own household.
We had better anticipate the Captain's order about this in our
preparations, and not be up half the night."
"Even so, Tom."
George was correct; as to a move at least, for early dawn saw the
Division and a detachment from another Division, en route to the river.
There was the usual quiet in the camps along which they passed, showing
that George was mistaken as to the move being general. The troops
marching through a winding and wooded defile, passed the deservedly well
known Brigade of General Meagher. "Here's Ould Ireland Boys," said the
little Irish Corporal, pointing, as his face glowed with pride, to the
flag adorned with "The Harp of Ould Ireland, and the Shamrock so green,"
the emblems of the Emerald Isle.
"Their General is an Irishman thrue to the sod, none of your rinegade
spalpeens like John Mitchel--fighting for slave-holders in Ameriky, and
against the Lords and Dukes in Ould Ireland, and the slave-holders as
Father Mahan tould me the worst of the two, more aristocratic,
big-feeling, and tyrannical than the English nobility. He said, too,
that the blackguard could never visit the ould sod again unless he
landed in the night-time, and hid himself by day in a bog up to his
eyes, and even then the Father said he believed the blissed mimory of
St. Patrick,
'Who drove the Frogs into the Bogs,
And banished all the Varmint,'
would clean him out after the rist of the varmin."
"Three cheers for the Irish Brigade" greeted the Corporal's remarks.
The troops crossed with difficulty and delay at the only ford--and
wondered with reason at the activity of the Rebels in having transported
across not only their army and baggage, but hundreds if not thousands of
their dead and wounded. The road winding around the high rocks on the
Virginia side, must have been in more peaceful times a favorite drive
for the gentry of the neighborhood. Shepherdstown itself adorns a most
commanding position. On the occasion of this Union visit its inhabitants
appeared intensely Secesh. Not so in the early history of the rebellion;
when Patterson's column "dragged its slow length along" through the
valley of the Shenandoah. Scouting parties then saw Union flags from
many a window. True, they streamed from dwellings owned by the
merchants, mechanics, and laborers, the real muscle of the country; but
this was true of most of the towns of the Border States, and more early
energetic action in affording these classes protection would have
secured us the aid of their strong hands. As it was, these resources
were in great measure frittered away--gradually drawn by what appeared
an irresistible influence into the vortex of the Rebellion--or scattered
wanderingly through the Loyal States, and worn down and exhausted in the
support of dependent and outcast families.
Sharpsburg was greatly altered. The yellow Rebel Flag designated almost
every other building as a Hospital. Their surgeons in grey pompously
paraded the streets. As the troops marched through, they were subjected
to almost every description of insult. One interesting group of Rebel
petticoated humanity standing in front of premises that would not have
passed inspection by one of our Pennsylvania Dutch housewives, held
their noses by way of showing contempt.
"Guess you have to do that, about them diggins. When did you scrub
last?" said a bright-eyed officer's servant, whom a few years' service
as a news-boy had taught considerable shrewdness.
To annoy others "My Maryland" and "John Brown" were sung by the men.
Around a toll-house at the west end of town, occupied by an old lady
whose husband had been expelled with a large number of other patriotic
residents, had congregated some wives of exiled loyal husbands, who were
not afraid to avow their attachment for the old Union, by words of
encouragement and waving of handkerchiefs. They were backed by a reserve
force of negroes of both sexes, whose generous exhibition of polished
ivories, to say the least, did not represent any great displeasure at
the appearance of the troops.
"There are the Reserves," said one of the boys, pointing to where the
negroes stood.
"Yes, and if they were called in the issue of this Rebellion would be
speedy and favorable," said a Captain in musical tones, "and I can't
think but that this costly child's play will drive the nation into their
use much sooner than many expect. Let them understand that they are the
real beneficiaries of this war, and they will not stay their hands. And
why shouldn't we use them? 'They are one of the means that God and
nature have placed in our hands,' and old Virginia can't object to that
doctrine."
"But, Captain," said his First Lieutenant, "would you fight alongside of
a darkie?"
"Would you drive a darkie away if he came to assist you in a struggle
for life?"
"Yes, but we have men enough without their aid."
"You forget, Lieutenant, that, as matters now are, we have them fighting
against us."
"How so?"
"They raise the crops that feed the Rebel army. They are just as much,
perhaps not as directly, but just as really fighting against us as the
founders who cast their cannon. And as to fighting alongside of them,
they may have quite as many prejudices against fighting alongside of us.
There is no necessity of interfering with either. Organize colored
regiments; appoint colored line officers if efficient, and white field
and staff officers, until they attain sufficient proficiency for
command. As to their fighting qualities, military records attest them
abundantly. The shrewd 'nephew of his uncle' has used them for years."
The earnest argument of the Captain made a deep impression upon the men.
The desperation of our case, depressed finances, heavy hospital lists,
and many other causes, independently of abstract justice, are fast
removing that question beyond the pale of prejudice.
A halt was ordered, and the men rested on the sward that bordered the
hard pike, and in the immediate neighborhood of the village cemetery. It
was literally crowded with graves, many of them fresh. Large additions
had been made from surrounding fields, and they too were closely taken
up by ridges covering the dead of Antietam.
The surrounding country had suffered little from the ravages of war.
Visited occasionally by scouting parties--principally cavalry--of both
sides, there had been none of the occupation by large bodies of troops,
which levels fences, destroys crops, and speedily gives the most fertile
of countries the seeming barrenness of the desert. The valley had a
reputation that ran back to an ante-Revolutionary date for magnificence
of scenery and fertility of soil. Washington, with all the enthusiasm of
ardent youth, paid it glowing encomiums in his field-notes of the
Fairfax surveys. In later times, when the destinies of our struggling
colonies rested upon his ample shoulders, the leaders of the faction
opposed to him--for great and good as he was, he had jealous, bitter,
and malignant enemies--settled a few miles beyond Shepherdstown, at what
has since been known as Leetown. The farms, with few exceptions, had
nothing of the slovenly air, dilapidated, worn-out appearance, that
characterized other parts of Virginia. Upon inquiry we found that the
large landowners were in the habit of procuring tenants from the lower
counties of Pennsylvania, and that the thrift and close cultivation were
really imported. In the course of time these tenants, with their
customary acquisitiveness, became landowners themselves, and their farms
were readily distinguishable by the farm buildings, and particularly by
the large substantial red bank barns.
The troops moved on to a wood, skirting either side of the road, and
were thrown into line of battle. The country was gently rolling, and the
woods in front that crowned the summit of the low ridges were shelled
before advancing. Occasionally Rebel horsemen could be seen rapidly
riding from one wood to another, making observations from some
commanding point.
In line of battle by Brigade, flanked by skirmishers, the advance was
made. To the troops this, although toilsome, was unusually exciting.
Through woods, fields of corn whose tall tops concealed even the mounted
officers, and made the men, like quails in standing grain, be guided by
the direction of the sound of the command, rather than by the touch of
elbows to the centre,--over the frequent croppings out of ledges of
rock, through the little streams of this plentifully watered country,
the movement slowly progressed. They had not advanced far when a shell
screamed over their heads, uncomfortably close to the Surgeon and
Chaplain, some fifty yards in the rear, and mangled awfully a straggler
at least half a mile further back. As may be supposed, his fate was a
standing warning against straggling for the balance of the campaign.
Notwithstanding further compliments from the rebels, who appeared to
have our range, a roar of laughter greeted the dexterity with which the
Chaplain and Surgeon ducked and dismounted at the sound of the first
shell. Of about a size, and both small men, they fairly rolled from
their horses. The boys had it that the little Dutch Doctor grabbed at
his horse's ear, or rather where it ought to have been; as the horse was
formerly in the Rebel service, and was picked up by the Doctor after the
battle of Antietam, minus an ear, lost perhaps through a cut from an
awkward sabre, and missing it fell upon his hands and knees in front of
the horse's feet.
As the shells grew more frequent and direct in range, the men were
ordered to halt and lie down. The field officers dismounted, and were
joined by the Chaplain and Doctor leading their horses.
"Colonel, I no ride that horse," said the Doctor, sputtering and
brushing the dust off his clothes.
"Why not, Doctor?"
"Too high--very big--" touching the top of the shoulder of the bony
beast, and almost on tip-toe to do it, "had much fall, ground struck me
hard," continued he, his eyes snapping all the while.
"Well, Doctor," remarked one of the other field officers, "we have told
you all along that if you ever got in range with that horse, your life
would hardly be worth talking about."
"They not know him," anxiously said the Doctor.
"Of course they know him. He has the best and plainest ear-mark in the
world."
"Pretty close shoot that, anyhow."
The result of this conversation was, that in the further movement the
Doctor led his horse during the day.
The firing ceased with no damage, save the bruises of the Doctor, and
those received by our tonguey little Corporal, who asserted that the
windage of a shell knocked him off a fence. As he fell into a stone
heap, it is more than probable that he had some good reason for the
movement--besides, why cannot Corporals suffer from wounds of that kind,
frequently so fashionable among officers of higher grade?
The onward movement was resumed. In the course of half an hour the
cannonading again opened, interspersed with occasional volleys of
musketry. The rattling of musketry became incessant. Advancing under
cover of rocky bluffs, the shells passed harmlessly over the Brigade. We
soon ascertained that the Rebels had made a stand at a point where our
advance, from the character of the country, necessarily narrowed into
the compass of a strip of meadow-land. Here a brigade of Rebel infantry
were drawn up in line of battle. Their batteries posted on a neighboring
height, were guided by signals, the country not admitting of extended
observation. The contest was brief. The gleam of the bayonets as they
fell for the charge, broke the Rebel line, and they retired in
considerable confusion to the wood in their rear. Our batteries soon
shelled them from those quarters, and the advance continued--the
skirmishers of both sides keeping up a rattling fire. Some Rebel
earthworks were passed, and late in the afternoon the track of the
Baltimore and Ohio railroad was crossed. The Rebels, before leaving, had
done their utmost to complete the destruction of that much abused road.
At intervals of every one hundred yards, piles of ties surmounted by
rails were upon fire. These were thrown down by our men. About half a
mile beyond the road, in a finely sodded valley, the troops were halted
for the night, pickets posted, and the men prepared their meals closely
in the rear of their stacks. The night was a pleasant one. An open air
encampment upon such a night is one of the finest phases of a soldier's
life. Meals over, the events of the day were discussed, or such matters
as proved of interest to the different groups.
One group we must not pass unnoticed. The majority lounged lazily upon
the grass, some squatted upon their knapsacks, while a large stone was
given by common consent to a tall, fine-looking Lieutenant, the
principal officer present.
"Corporal," said he, addressing the little Irish Corporal, "do you know
how near we are to Martinsburg?"
"Faith I don't, Lieutenant."
"I do not know the exact distance myself, but we are not over three or
four miles from the road that we took when we guarded the ammunition
train from Martinsburg to Charlestown."
"Oh, it's the ould First ye are spaking about, is it? Ov coorse I
ricollect Martinsburg, and the markit-house where I guarded the fifty
nagurs that Gineral Patterson had ordered to be arrested for having
stripes on their pantaloons, Uncle Sam's buttons on their caps, and
belts with these big brass U. S. plates on. Oh, but it was a swate
crowd. The poor divils were crowded like cattle on cars, and it was one
of the hot smothering nights. I couldn't help thinkin', that by and by,
if our armies didn't move faster, the nagurs would have little trouble
gettin' into uniforms. They have a nat'ral concate about such things.
One poor fellow rolled the whites of his eyes awfully, and almost cried
when I ordered him out of his red breeches."
"The day has not come yet, and need not," rejoined the Lieutenant, "if
our generals do their duty. Don't you recollect how we were hurried from
Frederick, and after marching seven miles out of the way, made good time
for all to Williamsport--how bayonets appeared to glisten upon every
road leading into the town; and then our crossing the river, the band
all the while playing 'The Star-spangled Banner,' and the march we made
to Martinsburg, passing over the ground where the battle of Falling
Waters had but a few days before been fought? If that battle had been
followed up as it should have been, Johnson would never have reached
Bull Run."
"Be jabers! do you know, Lieutenant, that that fight was all a mistake
upon our part? Shure, our ginerals niver intended it."
A laugh, with the inquiry "how he knew that?" followed.
"Didn't I hear a Big Gineral, that I was acting as orderly for while in
Martinsburg--for they made orderlies of corporals thim days--tell a
richly-dressed old lady, 'That it was our policy to teach our misguided
Southern brethren, by an imposing show of strength, how hopeless it
would be to fight against the Government.' The lady said, 'That would
save much bloodshed, would become a Christian nation, and would return
them as friends to their old way of thinking. 'Yes, madam!' said the
Gineral, 'there is no bitter feeling in our breasts,' clasping his
breast. 'The masses south will soon see their country surrounded by
volunteers in great numbers, and that the war, if protracted, must
involve them all in ruin. When the war is over, madam, fanatics on both
sides can be hung.'
"'That was a dreadful affair at Falling Waters, General,' said the lady,
with a strange twinkle in her eyes.
"'Yes, madam,' replied the General, coloring up to his ears, 'a blunder
of some of our volunteer officers. Ordinary military prudence made us
send forward some force to reconnoitre before crossing the main army.
These troops were to fall back if the enemy appeared in force. Not
understanding their orders, or carried away by the excitement of the
moment, they engaged the enemy with the unfortunate results to which you
allude.'
"Av it would have been proper for a corporal, I would have asked the
Gineral what Johnny Reb would do while we were taching him all that.
Thim's the Gineral's exact words, for I paid particular attention. I put
them thegither with what I had heard from a Wisconsin boy, and I got the
whole history of that fight."
"Let's have it," shouted the crowd, now considerably increased, "at
once!"
"Well, you see, they were sent forward to reconnoitre, as the Gineral
said, and there was a Wisconsin regiment of bear hunters and the like,
and a Pennsylvania regiment of deer hunters and Susquehannah raftsmen
pretty well forward. These Wisconsin chaps, in dead earnest, brought
their rifles along all the way from Wisconsin, and, like the
Susquehannah fellows, they couldn't kape hands off the trigger if there
was any game about.
"Well, they got to Falling Waters without stirring up anything; you
recollect, Lieutenant, where that rebel officer's house was burned down,
and then the battery that was along with them, seeing some
suspicious-looking Grey Backs dodging in and out of a wood, let them
have a few round of shells just to see whether they were in force or
not, according to orders. The Rebs made tracks for a low piece of ground
behind a ridge, and then formed line of battle. Our men, with a yell,
went forward, and when they saw the Rebs in line, these two Colonels,
thinking they had been sent out to fight, and that their men didn't
carry guns for nothing, ordered them to fire; and then they ordered them
to load again, in order to relave their hips as much as possible from
the load of ammunition; and then they fired again; and then, gittin'
excited, and thinkin' this work too slow, and that it wouldn't do to
take such bright bayonets home, they ordered a charge, and cheering,
yelling, and howling, our boys went at the Rebs. The Rebs didn't stand
to meet them, but fell back behind a barn. The batteries burned
that,--and then they tried to form line again, but no use. As soon as
our fellows gave the yell, they were off like all possessed. They had
prepared to run by tearing the fences down; and then it was trying to
form line, and breaking as soon as our fellows howled a little, all the
way for five long miles to Martinsburg; and the last our boys saw of the
Rebs was their straight coat-tails at the south end of the town. And
that was the whole battle of Falling Waters; and may be Ould Patterson
wouldn't have got to Martinsburg if them Colonels had reported the Rebs
in force, and not got excited.
"But how did you hear all this? You forget that part of it."
"And couldn't you let that go? I thought I could concale that.
"Well, you know, Lieutenant, our ould Colonel boarded at the Brick
Hotel, along the Railroad, above where the long strings of locomotives
were burned, as the Gineral says, by our 'misguided southern friends;'
and I was about there considerably on duty. One afternoon, a
jolly-looking little chap, one of the Wisconsin boys, and one after my
own heart--and he proved it, too, by trating me to several drinks--came
along with a Rebel Artillery officer's coat under his arm. And we looked
at the coat, and talked and drank, and drank and talked, until the
Wisconsin chappy put it on, just to show me how the Rebel officer looked
in it. It was a fine grey, trimmed with gold lace and scarlet, and the
Wisconsin chappy looked gay in it, barring the sleeves were several
inches too long, and the waist buttons came down nearly a foot too far,
and it was too big round the waist. And he showed me after every drink
what he did and what the Officer did,--and, to tell the plain truth, we
got a drop too much,--and the Wisconsin chappy got turning back-hand
springs against the side of the hotel, and I tried to do the same, to
the great sport of the crowd. But it didn't last long. A corporal's
guard took--or rather carried--us to the guard-house, and towards
morning, when we sobered up, he tould me the whole story."
"Pretty well put together, Terry."
"And the blissed truth, ivery word of it."
The night was wearing away--work before them in the morning--and the
group dispersed for their blankets, from which we will not disturb them
until the succeeding chapter.
CHAPTER IX.
_Reconnoissance concluded. What we Saw and What we didn't See, and what
the Good Public Read--Pigeon-hole Generalship and the Press--The
Preacher Lieutenant and how he Recruited--Comparative Merits of Black
Union Men and White Rebels--A Ground Blast, and its effect upon a
Pigeon-hole General--Staff Officers Striking a Snag in the Western
Virginia Captain--Why the People have a right to expect active Army
Movements--Red Tape and the Sick List--Pigeon-holing at Division
Head-quarters._
In the misty morning arms were taken and the forward resumed. Occasional
Rebel corpses passed showed the work of our sharpshooters. In a short
time the ground again prevented the movement in line of battle, and the
troops marched by the flank over a road well wooded on each side, until
they reached what proved to be the farthest point made by the
reconnoissance--a large open plateau, bounded on the north and west by a
wooded ridge to which it gradually rose, and which was said to border
the Oppequan. On the south, at an average distance of five hundred yards
from the road, was a strip of timber land. Slightly west by south, but
upon the north side of the road, was a rise of ground, in the rear of
which, but upon the south side of the road, were a farmer's house and
out-buildings. The troops pursued their march until the head of the
column arrived opposite the house. Suspicious-looking horsemen were
discovered on the edge of the woods that crowned the ridge. The order
was given that the troops should leave the road and take cover on its
south side, a position not commanded by the ridge. The order was not
executed before a Rebel officer, on a white-tailed dun horse, the tail
particularly conspicuous against the dark background of the wood, was
observed signalling to the extreme right of what was now supposed to be
the Rebel line. Almost instantly some half a dozen pieces of artillery
were placed in position, at various points on the brow of the circular
ridge, completely commanding, in fact flanking our position. Our troops,
however, were not disturbed, although every instant expecting a salute
from the batteries, as the range was easy and direct. While the troops
were being placed in position behind the house the batteries were posted
on the rise. A few hours passed in this position. The Rebel batteries in
plain view, horsemen continually emerging and disappearing in the wood.
Was it the force that we had driven before us? or were the Rebels in
force upon that ridge, making the Oppequan their line of defence? Better
ground upon which to be attacked could not be chosen. The long distance
to be traversed under fire of any number of converging batteries, would
have slaughtered men by the thousands. But again, if the Rebels were in
force, why did they not attack us? Outflanking us was easy. With a
superior force our retreat could easily be intercepted, and if we
escaped at all, it would be with heavy loss. Their batteries threatened,
but no firing. All was quiet, save the noise made by the men in
stripping an orchard in their immediate front, and the commands of their
officers in ordering them back to the ranks.
The quiet was provoking, and all manner of discussion as to the Rebel
force, movements, etc., was indulged in. Many contended that they were
but threatening--others, that they were in force, that was their line of
defence, and the plateau in front their battle-ground. This decision the
General in command seems to have arrived at, as the flaming telegrams in
the Dailies, in the course of a day or two, announced that the Rebels
were discovered in great force, strongly posted in a most defensible
position. After the lapse of an hour or two, the order for the homeward
march was given, and strange to say, that although marching by the flank
the last man had disappeared from their view, behind the cover of the
wood, before they opened fire. They then commenced shelling the woods
vigorously, and continued firing at a respectful distance, doing no
damage, until night set in. In the course of the afternoon it commenced
raining, and continued steadily throughout the night. The troops
encamped for the night in Egyptian darkness, and what was worse, in a
meadow fairly deluged with water.
"Well, what does all this mean?" inquired one of a crowd, huddled
together, hooded by blanket and oil-cloth, protecting themselves as best
they could from the falling rain, for sleep was out of question to all
but the fortunate few who can slumber in puddles.
"What does it all mean, Charlie? Why it means a blind upon Uncle Abraham
and his good people. That's what it means."
"Well, Lieutenant, I am surprised that a man of your usual reserve and
correct conversation, should talk in that style about our commander."
"Sergeant, it is high time that not only individuals, whether reserved
or not, but the people at large should denounce this delay that is
wearing out the life of the nation. Weeks have passed since the battle
of Antietam, and after repeated urgings on the part of the President,
and repeated promises on the part of our commander, we have this
beggarly apology for a movement. Yes, sir, apology for a movement.
To-morrow's Dailies will tell in flaming capitals, how the Rebels were
posted in large force in a strong position, and in line of battle upon
the Oppequan, intimating thereby that further delay will be unavoidable
to make our army equal to a movement. Now this humbugging an earnest
people is unfair, unworthy of a great commander, and if he be humbugged
himself again as with the Quaker guns at Manassas, the sooner the
country knows it the better for its credit and safety. How can any
living man tell that the batteries we saw to-day upon the ridge, are not
the batteries we drove before us yesterday? The probability is that they
are."
The speaker, as intimated by the Sergeant, was a man of reserve, quiet,
and to the last degree inoffensive in his manner. A professing
Christian, consistent in, and not ashamed of his profession, he had the
respect of his command, and a friend in every acquaintance in the
regiment. Educated for the ministry, he threw aside his theological text
books on the outbreak of the Rebellion, and bringing into requisition
some earlier lessons learned at a Military Academy, he opened a
recruiting list with the zeal of a Puritan. It was not circulated, as is
customary, in bar-rooms, but taking it to a rural district, he called a
meeting in the Township Church, and in the faith of a Christian and the
earnestness of a patriot, he eloquently proclaimed his purpose and the
righteousness of the war. Success on a smaller scale, but like that of
Peter the Hermit, followed his endeavor, and his quota of the Company
was soon made up by the enlistment of nearly every able-bodied young man
in the Township. His recruits fairly idolized him, and in their rougher
and more unlettered way, were equally earnest advocates of the
suppression of the Rebellion by any and every means.
"Your Abolitionism will crop out from time to time, like the ledges of
rock in the country we have just been passing through," said a Junior
Lieutenant.
"Call it Abolitionism, or what you will," replied his Senior. "I am for
the suppression of the Rebellion by the speediest means possible. I am
for the abolition of everything in the way of its suppression."
"You would abolish the Constitution, I suppose, if you thought it in the
way."
"I would certainly amend the Constitution, had I the power, to suit the
exigencies of the times. What is the Constitution worth without a
country for it to control?"
"There it comes. Anything to ease the nigger."
"Yes, sir, I thank God that this Rebellion strikes a death-blow at
slavery. That wherever a Federal bayonet gleams in a slave State, we can
see a gleam of eternal truth lighting up the gloom of slavery. The
recent Proclamation of the President was all that was needed to place
our cause wholly upon the rock of God's justice, and on that base the
gates of the hell of slavery and treason combined, shall not prevail
against it."
"Preaching again, Lieutenant," said our Western Virginia Captain, who
was the Lieutenant's Senior officer, as he strolled leisurely toward the
crowd. "I tell you, Lieutenant, if Old Abe don't make better
preparations to carry out his Proclamation, he had better turn Chinese
General at once."
"Give him time, Captain. January 1 may bring preparations that we little
dream of. At any rate, it places us in a proper position before the
world. What ground had we to expect sympathy from the anti-slavery
people of Europe, when we made no effort to release the millions
enslaved in the South from bondage?"
"As far as using the negroes as soldiers is concerned, it seems a day
behind the fair. It should have been issued earlier. Why, we could have
had them by thousands in Western Virginny, and officers in our regiment,
who were with him, tell me that Patterson could have mustered an army of
them. Instead of that they were driven from his lines, and when they
brought him correct information as to the Rebels at Winchester, it was
'don't believe the d----d nigger,' and all this while he dined and wined
with the Rebel nabobs about Charlestown. Boys, we commenced this war
wrong. I'm a Democrat, and always have been one; but I'm not afraid to
say that we've all along been trying our best to make enemies of the
only real friends we have inside of Rebel lines. Now, I don't like the
nigger better than some of my neighbors; but in my opinion, a black
Union man is better than a white Rebel any day. To say nothing of their
fighting, why don't our Generals use them as servants, and why are they
not our teamsters and laborers? Look at our able-bodied men detailed for
servants about Pigeon-hole's Head-quarters."
"Well, Captain," interrupted the Sergeant, "Pigey has a big
establishment, and see if the papers don't make him out a big General
for this daring reconnoissance."
"This daring tomfoolery! If he'd come back to old Rosecrans with his
story about a few pieces of artillery posted on a ridge, Rosy would want
to know why the d----l he didn't find out what was behind them."
"He showed great experience a few weeks ago," continued the Sergeant,
"when the Western fellows let off one of their ground blasts. 'Where did
that shell explode?' inquired Pigey, galloping up with his staff and
orderlies to our Regimental Head-quarters. 'I heard no shell,' says the
Colonel. 'Nor I,' says the Lieut.-Colonel. 'I did hear a ground blast,'
said the Lieut.-Colonel, 'such as the boys in the Regiment below
occasionally make from the rebel cartridges they find.' 'Ground blast!
h--l!' says the General, excitedly, his eyes flashing from under his
crooked cocked hat: 'Don't you think that an officer of my experience
and observation would be able to distinguish the explosion of a shell
from that of a ground blast?' 'No shell exploded, General,' said the
Colonel, 'within the limits of my regiment.' 'The d----l it
didn't--would you have me disbelieve my own ears? Now, I have issued
orders enough about permitting these unexploded shells to lie about, and
I purpose holding the Colonels responsible for all damage. Suppose that
explosion was heard at corps head-quarters, as it doubtless was, and the
inquiry is made from what quarter the rebels threw the shell, what reply
am I, as the commanding General of this division, to make?'
"'Tell them that it was a ground blast,' said a Second Lieutenant,
politely saluting. 'I have just been down and saw the hole it made.'
"'You saw the hole! and just below here! The d----l you did! D--n the
ground blasts!' and the General turned his horse's head and started
towards division head-quarters at a full gallop, followed by his
grinning staff."
"He's not to blame so much, boys," remarked the Captain. "He was a quiet
clerk in the Topographical Department when the war broke out, I've been
told, and I've no doubt he dusted the pigeon-holes in his charge
carefully, and folded the papers neatly. When McClellan looked about for
material to fill up his big staff with, who was so well calculated to
attend to the topography of his battle-fields, considering that he
fought so few, and most of those he had to fight on the Peninsula, the
rebels got next day, as our Division General. Now, as Little Mac is not
particularly noted for close acquaintance with rebel shells, the General
has had small chance of knowing what kind of noise they do make when
they burst. His great blunder, or rather, the Government's, is his
taking command of a division, if it has but two brigades. I heard a
Major say he had greatness thrust upon him. He's a small man in a big
place. West Point has turned out some big men, like Rosecrans, Grant,
Hooker, and many others that are a credit to the country--men of genuine
talent, who have none of those foolish prejudices, that the regulars are
the only soldiers, and that volunteers are a mere make-shift, that can't
be depended upon. And West Point, like all other institutions, has had
its share of small men, that come from it with just brains enough to
carry a load of prejudice against volunteers and the volunteer service,
and a very little knowledge of the ordinary run of military matters. An
officer of real ability will never be a slave to prejudice. These small
men are the Red-Tapists of the army--the Pigeon-Hole-Paper Generals, and
being often elevated and privileged unduly, because they are from West
Point, they play the very devil in their commands. Our corps commander,
who was a teacher there, has brought a full share of the last kind into
the corps.
"I wander about a good deal among other camps of this corps, pick up
information and make myself acquainted without standing on ceremony. I
never wait for that. I always had a habit of doing it, and I honestly
believe, from what I see and hear, there has been a studied effort, from
some high commander, to teach these young regular officers
treason,--yes, boys, treason,--because when a man tells me that we can't
conquer the Rebels, and that after a while we'll have to make peace,
etc., I set him down for a traitor; he is aiding and abetting the
enemies of his country. If that ain't treason I'd like to know what is."
"The Captain headed off a lot of young regulars the other evening a
little the prettiest," said the Sergeant.
"Let's have it!" said a dozen in the crowd, now considerably increased.
"The Captain," continued the Sergeant, "had asked me to take a walk with
him after dress-parade, and we strolled along the Sharpsburg road
towards Corps Head-quarters. As we got just beyond the house and barn
where the Rebel wounded are, we came upon a crowd of officers,
commissioned and non-commissioned, and some privates. A quite young
officer, with a milk-and-water face and a moustache like mildew on a
damp Hardee, was talking very excitedly about the Administration not
appreciating General McClellan; that there wasn't intellect enough there
to appreciate a really great military genius; that European officers
praised him as our greatest General, and that even the Rebel officers
said that they feared him more than any of our Commanders; and yet all
the while the Abolition Administration tied his hands and fettered his
movements, and all because Little Mac wasn't crazy enough to say that
the Rebels could be subjugated and their armies exterminated, as some
fanatical Regulars and nearly all the Volunteer officers pretend to say.
'Now, I believe,' said the officer, thrusting his thumbs between his
armpits and his vest, and puffing out his breast pompously, 'I believe,
as Little Mac says, 'we can drive them to the wall;' we can lessen the
limits of their country; but, gentlemen, after all, there will have to
be a peace.'
"I thought," said the Sergeant, "the Captain was going to break in upon
him here. He threw back his cap till the rim was on top of his head,
rammed his hands into his pockets, and edged his way a little further
into the crowd, towards the speaker; but he didn't, and the speaker went
on to say:
"'There are the people, too, crazy about a forward movement. Why don't
they come down and shoulder muskets themselves?'
"The Captain could hold in no longer. He drew his hands out of his
pockets, straightened them along his side, like a game rooster
stretching his wings just before a fight, and sidling up to the officer,
looking at him out of the corner of his eye, he burst out--
"'Why don't they shoulder muskets themselves? I'll tell you
why,--because we are here to do it for them. They have sent us, they pay
us, and they've a right to talk, and I hope they will talk. Anything
like a decent forward movement of this Corps would have saved the
disgrace of the second Bull Run battle. We all know how the Corps lagged
along the road-side, and the Rebel cannon all the while thundering in
the ears of its Commander.'
"'A Volunteer officer, I suppose,' said the young officer, somewhat
sneeringly. 'Where have you ever seen service?'
"'Yes, sir, a Volunteer officer,' said the Captain straightening up,
facing full the officer, and eyeing him until his face grew paler.
'Where have I seen service? In Mexico, as private in the 4th Regular
Artillery, while you were eating pap with a spoon, you puppy! You had
better have stayed at that business; it was an honest one, at any rate,
and Uncle Sam would have been saved some pay that you draw, while, like
a dishonest sneak, you preach treason.'
"'How dare you insult a Regular officer?' said a gold-striped, dandified
fellow, as he twisted the ends of his moustache into rat-tails.
"'Who the d----l are you?' said the Captain, turning on him so suddenly
that the officer commenced to back; 'with your gold lace on your
shoulders that may mean anything or nothing. What are you anyhow?
Captain? Lieutenant? Clerk? or Orderly? Those straps are a good come
off, boys.' The crowd laughed. 'I suppose he thinks he's a staff
officer.'
"'I am, and a Lieutenant in the Regular army,' said the officer angrily,
and giving the word 'Regular' the full benefit of his voice.
"'Regular and be d----d,' retorted the Captain. 'I want you both to
understand that I am a Captain in the Volunteer service of the United
States; that that service is by Act of Congress on a footing with the
Regular service, and that I'll always talk in this style when I hear
treason. I am the superior officer of you both, and have a right to talk
to you. I've been in service since the Rebellion broke out, and by the
mother of Moses, I never heard treason preached by officers in Uncle
Sam's uniform till I got into this Corps. It makes my blood boil, and I
won't stand it. Pretty doctrine you are trying to teach these soldiers;
but I know by their faces they understand the matter better than you,
and you can't do them any damage.' 'That's so,' sang out several of the
crowd. 'You fellows all talk alike. I have heard dozens of you talk in
the same way, and I believe your ideas are stocked from a higher source.
There is something wrong in the head of this Grand Army of the Potomac.
The way it's managed, grand only in reviews.'
"'We shall report you, sir,' said the Rat-tailed Moustache, 'for
speaking disrespectfully of your superior officers.'
"'Report as quick as you please. About that time you'll find another
report at the War Department, against two Regular Lieutenants, for
speaking discouraging and disloyal sentiments.'
"'A Volunteer officer would stand a big chance at the Department making
a complaint against Regulars,' said the officer, as they both backed out
of the crowd, followed by a couple of non-commissioned officers and
privates.
"'You d----d butterflies,' roared the Captain after them. 'I'll bet ten
dollars to one that you only stayed in service when the war broke out,
because you thought you could trust greenbacks better than Confederate
scrip.'
"'You shall hear from us,' replied Rat-tail, as they walked on.
"'Am ready to hear from both at once now, you cowardly sneaks,' sang out
the Captain. 'Don't believe you ever smelt powder, or ever will, if you
can help it.'
"'Boys,' said the Captain, who had the sympathies of the crowd that
remained strongly with him. 'These shallow-brained fellows and some
older ones that wear stars, that havn't head enough to cut loose from
the Red-tape prejudice against us Volunteers, are a curse to the Army of
the Potomac. Is it any wonder that this Grand Army, burdened with
squirts of that stripe, is a burlesque and a disgrace to the country for
its inefficiency. In the West, where Regular officers, unprejudiced, go
hand in hand with Volunteers, we make progress. But what's the use of
talking, the body won't move right if the heart's rotten.'
"'True as preachin',' said one of the men, and the sentiment seemed
approved by the crowd, as we gradually took up the homeward step."
"Has the Sergeant told 'the whole truth,' and nothing but the truth?"
inquired a Lieutenant, a lawyer at home, of the Captain.
"Yes, sir," replied the Captain firmly, "and I'll stick by the whole of
it, and a good deal more."
"Well, I've been slow about believing many statements that I have
heard," continued the Lieutenant; "but to-day I heard some facts from a
Colonel in the Second Brigade that fairly staggered me. His Regiment,
through some Red-tape informality, has been without tents. In
consequence, considerable sickness, principally fever, has prevailed.
Some time ago he made a request to Division Head-quarters, for
permission to clean out and use the white house that stands near his
Regiment, and that, until lately, was full of wounded rebels, as a
hospital. Corps Head-quarters must be heard from. After considerable
delay, the men in the meanwhile sickening and dying, the request was
denied. The sickness, through the rains, increased, and the application
was renewed with like success. The owner, who was a Rebel sympathizer,
was opposed, and other like excuses, that in the urgency of the case
should not have been considered at all, were given. The sickness became
alarming in extent. The Regiment was entirely without shelter, save that
made from the few pine boughs to be had in the neighborhood. The Colonel
took some boards that the rebels had spared from the fence surrounding
the house, and with them endeavored to increase the comfort of the men.
In the course of a day or two, a bill was sent to him from
Head-quarters, with every board charged at its highest value, with the
request to pay, and with notice that in failure of immediate payment the
amount would be charged upon his pay-roll. This treatment disgusted the
Colonel, who is a gentleman of high tone and the kindliest feelings, and
angered by the heartlessness that denied him proper shelter for his
sick, now increased to a number frightfully large, with a heavy share of
mortality, he cut red-tape, sent over a detail to the house, had it
cleansed of Rebel filth, and filled it with the sick. The poor fellows
were hardly comfortable in their new quarters, before an order came from
Division Head-quarters for their immediate removal.
"'I have no place to take them to; they are sick, and must be under
shelter,' was the Colonel's reply.
"'The Commanding General of the Division orders their instant removal,'
was the order that followed.
"'The Commanding General of Division must take the responsibility of
their removal on his own head,' was the spirited reply of the Colonel.
"That evening towards sunset, the second edition of Old Pigeon, 'Squab,'
as the boys called him, rode up with the air of 'one having authority,'
and in a conceited manner informed the Colonel that the General
commanding the Division had directed him to place him under arrest. Now
these things I know to be facts. I took pains to inform myself."
The Lieutenant's story elicited many ejaculations of contempt for the
heartlessness of some in high places; but they were cut short by the
Captain's stating that he knew the circumstances to be true, and that
Old Pigeon stated the Colonel should wait for his hospital tents, the
requisition for which had been sent up months before. It was shelved in
some pigeon-hole, and the Colonel was to stand by and see his men sicken
and die, while a rebel farmer's house near by would have saved many of
them.
"But we're in for it, boys. No use of talking. Obedience is lesson No. 1
of the soldier, and you know that we must not 'mutter or murmur' against
our Commanding General, which position Old Pigey so often reminds us he
holds. The old fellow half suspects that if he didn't, we'd forget it
from day to day; for Lord knows there is nothing about the man but his
position to make any one remember it. Now I am determined to have some
sleep."
"Sleep! such a night as this?" said one of the crowd.
"Of course; we'll need it to-morrow, and an old soldier ought to be able
to sleep anywhere, in any kind of weather."
The Captain left. There was a partial dispersing of the crowd, but many
a poor fellow shivered in that pelting rain the night long.
The morning found the enemy at a respectful distance, and the homeward
route was quietly resumed. Late in the afternoon the advance entered
Shepherdstown. At this time the rear was shelled vigorously, and as the
troops continued their passage through the town cavalry charges were
made upon both sides. That only ford was again crossed, and the evening
was well advanced ere the troops regained their camps.
A day later, and the Dailies, through their respective reporters, told
an astonished public how the brilliant and daring reconnoissance had
discovered qualities of great generalship in a man who but a short time
before had figured as a quiet literary man in the seclusion of an
office.
"And, be jabers," said our little Irish Corporal, on hearing it read,
"Uncle Sam would have gained by paying him to stay in that office."
CHAPTER X.
_Departure from Sharpsburg Camp--The Old Woman of Sandy Hook--Harper's
Ferry--South sewing Dragon's Teeth by shedding Old John's Blood--The
Dutch Doctor and the Boar--Beauties of Tobacco--Camp Life on the
Character--Patrick, Brother to the Little Corporal--General Patterson no
Irishman--Guarding a Potatoe Patch in Dixie--The Preacher Lieutenant on
Emancipation--Inspection and the Exhorting Colonel--The Scotch Tailor on
Military Matters._
October was drawing to a close rapidly, when, at last, after repeated
false alarms, the actual movement of the army commenced. No one, unless
himself an old campaigner, can appreciate the feelings of the soldier at
the breaking up of camp. Anxious for a change of scenery as he may be,
the eye will linger upon each familiar spot, the quarters, the parade
ground, and rocky bluff and wooded knoll, until memory's impress bears
the lasting distinctness of a lifetime. Those leaving could not banish
from their minds, even if disposed, the thought that, although but a
temporary sojourn for them, it had proved to be the last resting-place
of many of their comrades. The hospital, more dreaded than the field,
had contributed its share to the mounds that dotted the hills from the
strife of Antietam.
"There is not an atom of this earth
But once was living man--"
was a day dream, doubtless, of the poetic boy of eighteen; but how
suggestive it becomes, when we consider how many thousands and hundreds
of thousands of mounds rising upon every hill in the border States,
attest devotion to the cause of the Union, or treason, in this foulest
of Rebellions.
The route lay, after passing the village of Sharpsburg, through a narrow
valley, lying cosily between the spurs of two ridges that appeared to
terminate at the Ferry. On either hand the evidences of the occupation
of the country by a large army were abundant. Fences torn down, ground
trampled, and fields destitute of herbage. The road bordering the canal,
along which is built the straggling village of Sandy Hook, was crowded
with the long wagon trains of the different Corps. A soldier could as
readily distinguish the Staff from the Regimental wagons, as the Staff
themselves from Regimental officers. The slick, well fed appearance of
the horses or mules of Staff teams, usually six in number, owing to
abundance of forage and half _loaded_ wagons, were in striking contrast
with the four half fed, hide-bound beasts usually attached to the
overloaded Regimental wagons. Order after order for the reduction of
baggage, that would reduce field officers to a small valise apiece,
while many line officers would be compelled to march without a change of
clothing, did not appear to lessen the length of Staff trains. That the
transportation was unnecessarily extensive, cannot be doubted. That the
heaviest reduction could have been made with Head-quarter trains, is
equally true.
"Grey coats one day and blue coats the next," said an old woman clad in
homespun grey, who came out of a low frame house as the troops slowly
made their way past the teams through the village of Sandy Hook.
"Right on this rock is where General Jackson rested hisself," continued
the old woman.
"Were there many Rebs about?" inquired one of the men.
"Right smart of them, I reckon;" replied the old woman; "but Lord! what
a lookin' set of critters. Elbows and knees out; many of them hadn't
shoes, and half of them that had had their toes out. You boys are
dandies to them. And tired too, and hungry. Gracious! the poor fellows,
when their officers weren't about, would beg for anything almost to eat.
Why, my daughter Sal saw them at the soap-fat barrel! They said they
were nearly marched and starved to death. And their officers didn't look
much better. Lord! it looks like a pic-nic party to see you blue coats,
with your long strings of wagons, and all your other fixins. You take
good care of your bellies, the way you haul the crackers and bacon. Old
Jackson never waits for wagons. That's the way he gets around you so
often."
"Look here, old woman," roared out one of the men, "you had better dry
up."
"Yes, and he'll get around you again," continued the old woman in a
louder key. "You think you're going to bag him, do you. You're some on
baggin'; but he'll give you three days' start and beat you down the
valley. They acted like gentlemen, too, didn't touch a thing without
leave, and you fellows have robbed me of all I have."
"They were in 'My Maryland,' and wanted to get the people all straight,"
suggested one of the boys.
The old lady did not take the hint, but kept on berating the fresh men
as they passed--taunting them by disparaging comparison with the Rebel
troops. A neighbor, by informing them of the fact of her having two
sons in the Rebel service, imparted the secret of her interest.
* * * * *
And there is the Ferry, so often pictured, or attempted to be, by pen
and pencil. Either art has failed, and will fail, to do justice to that
sublimely grand mountain scenery. Not quite three years ago, an iron old
man, who perished with the heroism of a Spartan, or rather, to be just,
the faith of a Christian; but little more than a year in advance of the
dawn of the day of his hope, centred upon this spot the eyes of a
continent. A crazy fanatic, was the cry, but--
"Thy scales, Mortality, are just
To all that pass away."
Time will reveal that it was not the freak of a madman, but rather a
step in the grand progress of universal emancipation, and that Old John
had foundations for his purposed campaign, quite as substantial as those
upon which better starred enterprises have succeeded.
"Lor, Massa, if Old John had only had these men," said a wench to one of
Patterson's Captains, as he paused for a few moments while drilling his
command at Charlestown, during that fruitless campaign, so formidable in
preparation, and so much more disgraceful than that of Old John in its
termination, for the latter, in his dying heroism, won the admiration of
a world.
"Why, what could Old John have done with them?" replied the Captain.
"Golly, Massa," said the wench, with a knowing grin; "he would have
walked right through Virginny, and he'd have had plenty of help too. I
knows, many a nigger about here that didn't say nuthin', would have
jined him."
"Why didn't they join him?"
"Lor, Massa, they didn't know it in time. Hadn't any chance. Massa
wanted us to go see him hung; but only the youngsters went. We colored
pussons neber forget Old John. No sah!"
The men wound their way as best they could beneath the precipitous and
towering rocks of the Maryland Heights, through the teams that blocked
up the road, and a short distance above the Railroad Bridge, filed to
the left, and crossed upon the pontoons. As they passed the Engine
House, the utmost endeavors of the officers could not prevent a bulge to
the right, so great was the anxiety to see the scene of Old John's
heroic but hopeless contest. Denounced by pro-slavery zealots as a
murderer, by the community at large as a fanatic, who fifty years hence
will deny him honorable place in the list of martyrs for the cause of
eternal truth!
The town itself was almost a mass of ruins; both sides, at various
stages of the war, having endeavored to effect its destruction. Another
pontoon bridge was crossed, bridging the Shenandoah--sparkling on its
rocky bed--the _Dancing Water_, as termed by the Aborigines, with their
customary graceful appropriateness. To one fond of mountain scenery, and
who is not? the winding road that follows the Shenandoah to its
junction, then charmingly bends to the course of the Potomac, is
intensely interesting. But why should an humble writer weary the
reader's patience by expatiating upon scenery, the sight of which
Jefferson declared well worth a visit across the Atlantic, at a day when
such visits were tedious three month affairs, and uncertain at that? War
now adds a bristling horror to the shaggy mountain tops, and from the
hoarse throats of heavy cannon often "leap from rock to rock the
beetling crags among" well executed counterfeits of "live thunder."
The Potomac is followed but a short distance, the road winding by an
easy ascent up the mountain ridge, and descending as easily into a
narrow and fruitful valley. In this valley, four miles from the Ferry, a
halt was ordered, and the Division rested for the night and succeeding
day, in a large and well sodded field.
"Gentlemen," said our Brigadier, in a sly, good-humored way, as he rode
up to the field officers of the Regiment, "the field upon which you are
encamped, and all the land, almost as far as you can see, on the left of
yon fence, belong to a Rebel now holding the rank of Major in the Rebel
service. All I need say, I suppose, gentlemen," and the General left to
communicate the important information to the other Regiments of the
Brigade. As a fine flock of sheep, some young cattle, a drove of porkers
that from a rear view gave promise of prime Virginia hams, and sundry
flocks of chickens, had been espied as the men marched into the field,
the General's remarks were eminently practical and suggestive.
"Charlie, what's the state of the larder?" said the Major, with his
usual thoughtfulness, addressing the cheerful mess cook.
"Some boiled pork and crackers. Poor show, sir!" Such fare, after a hard
day's march, in sight of a living paradise of beef, mutton, pork, and
poultry, would have been perfectly inexcusable; and forthwith, the
Major, "the little Dutch Doctor," and a short, stoutly-built Lieutenant,
all armed to the teeth, started off to reconnoitre, and ascertain in
what position the Rebel property was posted. As they went they canvassed
the respective merits of beef, mutton, pork and poultry, until a short
grunt from a porker, as he crossed the Doctor's path, ended the
discussion. The Major and Lieutenant cocked their pistols, but withheld
firing, as they saw the Doctor prostrate, holding by both hands the hind
leg of a patriarch of the flock.
"Oh, Heavens! we don't want that old boar!" cried out at once both the
Major and Lieutenant.
"Goot meat, make strong, goot for health, very," said the Doctor,
holding on with the grasp of a vice, while the boar fairly dragged him,
face to the ground, "after the manner of all creeping things." The
Doctor was in a fix. Help his companions would not give. He could not
hold the boar by one hand alone. After being considerably bruised, he
was compelled to release his hold, to his intense disgust, which he
evinced as he raised himself up, puffing like a porpoise, by
gesticulating furiously, and muttering a jargon in which the only thing
intelligible was the oft-repeated word, "tam." A well-directed shot from
the Major, shortly afterwards, brought down a royal "Virginia mutton,"
as the camp phrase is. Another from the Lieutenant grazed the rear of a
fine young porker's ham; but considerable firing, a long chase, and many
ludicrous falls occurred, before that pig was tightly gripped between
the legs of the Lieutenant.
The expedition was so successful that the aid of some privates was
called in to help carry to quarters the rich spoils of the chase. As for
the Doctor,--after the refusal of assistance in his struggle, he walked
homeward in stately but offended dignity, and shocked the Chaplain, as
he was occasionally in the habit of doing, by still muttering "tam."
A person enjoying the comforts of home, testy as to the broiling of a
mutton-chop perhaps, for real, unalloyed enjoyment of appetite should
form one of a camp circle, toasting, at a blazing fire, as the shades
of evening gather round, steaks freshly cut with a camp-knife from flesh
that quivered with remaining life but a moment before, assisting its
digestion by fried hardees, and washing both down by coffee innocent of
cream. That is a feast, as every old campaigner will testify; but to be
properly appreciated a good appetite is all essential. To attain that,
should other resources fail, the writer can confidently recommend a
march, say of about fifteen miles, over rough or dusty roads.
And then, as the appetites of the men are sated by the hardy provender
of Uncle Sam, varied, as in this instance, by Virginia venison, and they
respectively fall back and take to
"Sublime Tobacco! glorious in a pipe;"
what more pleasant than the discussion of the doings of the day, or of
the times, the recital of oft-repeated and ever-gaining yarns, or the
heart-stirring strains of national ballads, while each countenance is
lit with the ever-varying glow of the fire.
Upon this evening not only Head-quarters but the Regiment was exultant
in the feast upon the fat of a rebellious land. To add to their comfort
several large stacks of hay and straw had been deprived of their fair
proportions, and preparations had been made for the enjoyment of rest
upon beds that kings would envy, could they but have the sleepers' sound
repose.
The morrow had been set apart as a day of rest--a fact known to the
Regiment, and their fireside enjoyment was accordingly prolonged.
The camp, more than any other position in life, develops the greatest
inconsistencies in poor human nature. The grumbler of the day's march is
very frequently the joker of the bivouac. The worse, at the expense of
man's better qualities, are rapidly strengthened, and the least particle
of selfishness, however concealed by a generous nature at the period of
enlistment, fearfully increases its power with every day of service. The
writer remembers well a small, slightly-built, bow-legged fellow, who
would murmur without ceasing upon the route, continually torment his
officers for privilege to fall out of ranks to adjust his knapsack,
fasten a belt, or some such like purpose, who, on the halt, would amuse
his comrades for hours in performing gymnastic feats upon out-spread
blankets. Another, who at home flourished deservedly under the sobriquet
of "Clever Billy," became, in a few brief months of service, the most
surly, snappish, and selfish of his mess.
Pipe in mouth, their troubles are puffed away in the gracefully
ascending smoke. Many a non-user of the weed envies in moody silence the
perfect satisfaction resting upon the features of his comrade thus
engaged. Non-users are becoming rare birds in the army. So universal is
the habit, that the pipe appears to belong to the equipment, and the
tobacco-pouch, suspended from a button-hole of the blouse, is so
generally worn that one would suppose it to have been prescribed by the
President as part of the uniform.
The crowd gathered about the Head-quarters had largely increased, and
while luxuriating upon the straw, time passed merrily. The Colonel, who
never let an opportunity to improve the discipline of his command pass
unimproved, seized the occasion of the presence of a large number of
officers to impress upon them the necessity of greater control of the
men upon the march. The easy, open, but orderly route-step of the
Regulars was alluded to--their occupying the road alone, and not spread
out and straggling like a drove of cattle. A stranger seeing our
Volunteers upon the march would not give them credit for the soldierly
qualities they really possess. Curiosity, so rampant in the Yankee,
tempts him continually to wander from the ranks to one or other side of
the road.
"Well, Colonel," said a tall Lieutenant, "the Regulars look prim and
march well, but they have done little fighting, as yet, in this Army of
the Potomac."
"You forget the Peninsula," replied the Colonel.
"Oh, there they were caught unexpectedly, and forced into it. In this
Corps they are always in reserve; and that's what their officers
like,--everything in reserve but pay and promotion. It is rather
doubtful whether they will fight."
"Ov coorse they'll fight," said the little Irish Corporal, half rising
from his straw on the outskirts of the crowd; "Ov coorse they will.
They're nearly all my own countrymen. I know slathers of them; and did
you iver in your born days know an Irishman that wouldn't fight,
anywhere, any time, and for anything, if he had anybody to fight?"
"And a quart of whiskey in him," interrupts the Adjutant. "As Burns says
of the Scotch--
"'Wi' Tippeny they fear nae evil,
Wi' Usquebagh they'll face the Devil.'"
"Now, don't be comparing an Irishman, if you plaze, Adjutant, to a
scratch-back Scotchman. The raal Irishman has fire enough in his bluid;
but there's no denying a glass of potheen is the stuff to regulate it.
Talk about Rigulars or Volunteers fighting;--it's the officers must do
their duty, and there's no fear thin of the men."
"What did you enlist for, anyway, Terence?" broke in a Second
Lieutenant.
"It's aisy seeing that it wasn't for a Lieutenant's pay," retorted
Terence, to the amusement of the crowd, and then, as earnestness
gathered upon his countenance, he continued: "I enlisted for revinge,
and there's little prospect of my seeing a chance for it."
"For revenge?" said several.
"Yis, for revinge. I had worked early and late at a liv'ry stable, like
a nagur, to pay the passage money of my only brother to this country.
Faith, he was a broth of a boy, the pride of all the McCarthy's,"--tears
welled in his eyes as he continued,--"just three years younger than
mysilf, a light, ruddy, nately put togither lad as iver left the bogs;
and talk about fightin'!--the divil was niver in him but in a fight, and
thin you'd think he was all divil. That was Patrick's sport, and fight
he would, ivery chance, from the time whin he was a bit of a lad, ten
years ould, and bunged the ould schoolteacher's eyes in the parish
school-house. Will, he got a good berth in a saloon in the Bowery, where
they used Patrick in claning out the customers whin they got noisy, and
he'd do it nately too, to the satisfaction of his employer. He did well
till a recruiting Sergeant--bad luck to him--that knew the McCarthys in
the ould country, found him out, and they drank and talked about ould
times, and the Sergeant tould him that the army was the place for
Irishmen,--that there would be lots of fightin'. The chance of a fight
took Patrick, and nixt day he left the city in a blouse, as Fourth
Corporal in an Irish Rigiment, and a prouder looking chappie, as his own
Captain tould me, niver marched down Broadway. And thin to think he was
murthered by my own Gineral."
"Who? How was that?" interrupted half a dozen at once.
"Gineral Patters
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