Alas! for the pleasant peace we knew,In the happy summers of long ago,When the rivers were bright, and the skies were blue,By the homes of Henrico:We dreamed of wars that were far away,And read, as in fable, of blood that ran,Where the James and Chickahominy stray,Through the groves of Powhattan.'Tis a dream come true; for the afternoonsBlow bugles of war, by our fields of grain,And the sabres clink, as the dark dragoonsCome galloping up the lane;The pigeons have flown from the eves and tiles,The oat-blades have grown to blades of steel,And the Huns swarm down the leafy aislesOf the grand old Commonweal.They have torn the Indian fisher's nets,Where flows Pamunkey toward the sea,And blood runs red in the rivulets,That babbled and brawled in glee;The corpses are strewn in Fairoak glades,The hoarse guns thunder from Drury's Ridge,The fishes that played in the cove, deep shades,Are frightened from Bottom Bridge.I would that the year were blotted away,And the strawberry grew in the hedge again;That the scythe might swing in the tangled hay,And the squirrel romp in the glen;The walnut sprinkle the clover slopes,Where graze the sheep and the spotted steer;And the winter restore the golden hopes,That were trampled in a year.
Alas! for the pleasant peace we knew,In the happy summers of long ago,When the rivers were bright, and the skies were blue,By the homes of Henrico:We dreamed of wars that were far away,And read, as in fable, of blood that ran,Where the James and Chickahominy stray,Through the groves of Powhattan.
'Tis a dream come true; for the afternoonsBlow bugles of war, by our fields of grain,And the sabres clink, as the dark dragoonsCome galloping up the lane;The pigeons have flown from the eves and tiles,The oat-blades have grown to blades of steel,And the Huns swarm down the leafy aislesOf the grand old Commonweal.
They have torn the Indian fisher's nets,Where flows Pamunkey toward the sea,And blood runs red in the rivulets,That babbled and brawled in glee;The corpses are strewn in Fairoak glades,The hoarse guns thunder from Drury's Ridge,The fishes that played in the cove, deep shades,Are frightened from Bottom Bridge.
I would that the year were blotted away,And the strawberry grew in the hedge again;That the scythe might swing in the tangled hay,And the squirrel romp in the glen;The walnut sprinkle the clover slopes,Where graze the sheep and the spotted steer;And the winter restore the golden hopes,That were trampled in a year.
On Friday, June 13, I made one of my customary trips to White House, in the company of O'Ganlon. The latter individual, in the course of a "healthy dash" that he made down the railroad ties,—whereby two shoes shied from his mare's hoofs,—reined into a quicksand that threatened to swallow his steed. He afterward left his sword at Summit Station, and I, obligingly, rode back three miles to recover it. We dined at Daker's, where Glumley sat beside the baby-face, pursuant to his art-duties, and the plump, red-cheeked miss sat beside me. O'Ganlon was entertained by the talkative daughter, who drove him quite mad; so that, when we resumed our horses, he insisted upon a second "healthy dash," and disappeared through a strip of woods. I followed, rationally, and had come to a blacksmith's shop, at the corner of a diverging road, when I was made aware of some startling occurrence in my rear. A mounted officer dashed past me, shouting some unintelligible tidings, and he was followed in quick succession by a dozen cavalry-men, who rode as if the foul fiend was at their heels. Then came a teamster, bare-backed, whose rent harness trailed in the road, and directly some wagons that were halted before the blacksmith's, wheeled smartly, and rattled off towards White House.
"What is the matter, my man?" I said to one of these lunatics, hurriedly.
"The Rebels are behind!" he screamed, with white lips, and vanished.
I thought that it might be as well to take some other road, and so struck off, at a dapper pace, in the direction of the new landing at Putney's or "Garlic." At the same instant I heard the crack of carbines behind, and they had a magical influence upon my speed. I rode along a stretch of chestnut and oak wood, attached to the famous Webb estate, and when I came to a rill that passed by a little bridge, under the way, turned up its sandy bed and buried myself in the under-brush. A few breathless moments only had intervened, when the roadway seemed shaken by a hundred hoofs. The imperceptible horsemen yelled like a war-party of Camanches, and when they had passed, the carbines rang ahead, as if some bloody work was being done at every rod.
I remained a full hour under cover; but as no fresh approaches added to my mystery and fear, I sallied forth, and kept the route to Putney's, with ears erect and expectant pulses. I had gone but a quarter of a mile, when Idiscerned, through the gathering gloom, a black, misshapen object, standing in the middle of the road. As it seemed motionless, I ventured closer, when the thing resolved to a sutler's wagon, charred and broken, and still smoking from the incendiaries' torch. Further on, more of these burned wagons littered the way, and in one place two slain horses marked the roadside. When I emerged upon the Hanover road, sounds of shrieks and shot issued from the landing at "Garlic," and, in a moment, flames rose from the woody shores and reddened the evening. I knew by the gliding blaze that vessels had been fired and set adrift, and from my place could see the devouring element climbing rope and shroud. In a twinkling, a second light appeared behind the woods to my right, and the intelligence dawned upon me that the cars and houses at Tunstall's Station had been burned. By the fitful illumination, I rode tremulously to the old head-quarters at Black Creek, and as I conjectured, the depot and train were luridly consuming. The vicinity was marked by wrecked sutler's stores, the embers of wagons, and toppled steeds. Below Black Creek the ruin did not extend: but when I came to White House the greatest confusion existed. Sutlers were taking down their booths, transports were slipping their cables, steamers moving down the stream. Stuart had made the circuit of the Grand Army to show Lee where the infantry could follow.
A subtle enemy had of late joined the Confederate cause against the invaders. He was known as Pestilence, and his footsteps were so soft that neither scout nor picket could bar his entrance. His paths were subterranean,—through the tepid swamp water, the shallow graves of the dead; and aerial,—through the stench of rotting animals, the nightly miasms of bog and fen. His victims were not pierced, or crushed, or mangled, but their deaths were not less terrible, because more lingering. They seemed to wither and shrivel away; their eyes became at first very bright, and afterward lustreless; their skins grew hard and sallow; their lips faded to a dry whiteness; all the fluids of the body were consumed; and they crumbled to corruption before life had fairly gone from them.
This visitation has been, by common consent, dubbed "the Chickahominy fever," and some have called it the typhus fever. The troops called it the "camp fever," and it was frequently aggravated by affections of the bowels and throat. The number of persons that died with it was fabulous. Some have gone so far as to say that the army could have better afforded the slaughter of twenty thousand men, than the delay on the Chickahominy. The embalmers were now enjoying their millennium, and a steam coffin manufactory was erected at White House, where twenty men worked day and night, turning out hundreds of pineboxes. I had, occasion, in one of my visits to the depot, to repair to the tent of one of the embalmers. He was a sedate, grave person, and when I saw him, standing over the nude, hard corpse, he reminded me of the implacable vulture, looking into the eyes of Prometheus. His battery and tube were pulsing, like one's heart and lungs, and the subject was being drained at the neck. I compared the discolored body with the figure ofIanthe, as revealed in Queen Mab, but failed to see the beautifulness of death.
"If you could only make him breathe, Professor," said an officer standing by.
The dry skin of the embalmer broke into chalky dimples, and he grinned very much as a corpse might do:—
"Ah!" he said, "thenthere would be money made."
To hear these embalmers converse with each other was like listening to the witch sayings in Macbeth. It appeared that the arch-fiend of embalming was a Frenchman named Sonça, or something of that kind, and all these worthies professed to have purchased his "system." They told grisly anecdotes of "operations," and experimented with chemicals, and congratulated each other upon the fever. They would, I think, have piled the whole earth with catacombs of stony corpses, and we should have no more green graves, but keep our dead with us as household ornaments.
The negroes did not suffer with the fever, although their quarters were close and filthy. Their Elysium had come; there was no more work. They slept and danced and grinned, and these three actions made up the sum of their existence. Such people to increase and multiply I never beheld. There were scores of new babies every day; they appeared to be born by twins and triplets; they learned to walk in twenty-four hours; and their mothers were strong and hearty in less time. Such soulless, lost, degraded men and women did nowhere else exist. The divinity they never had; the human they had forgotten; they did no great wrongs,—thieving, quarrelling, deceiving,—but they failedto do any rights, and their worship was animal, and almost profane. They sang incongruous mixtures of hymns and field songs:—
"Oh! bruddern, watch an' pray,watchan' pray!De harvest am a ripenin' our Lord an' Marser say!Oh! ho! yo! dat ole coon, de serpent, ho! oh!Watch an' pray!"
"Oh! bruddern, watch an' pray,watchan' pray!De harvest am a ripenin' our Lord an' Marser say!Oh! ho! yo! dat ole coon, de serpent, ho! oh!Watch an' pray!"
I have heard them sing such medleys with tears in their eyes, apparently fervid and rapt. A very gray old man would lead off, keeping time to the words with his head and hands; the mass joining in at intervals, and raising a screaming alleluja. Directly they would all rise, link hands, and proceed to dance the accompaniment. The motion would be slow at first, and the method of singing maintained; after a time they would move more rapidly, shouting the lines together; and suddenly becoming convulsed with strange excitement, they would toss up their arms, leap, fall, groan, and, seemingly, lose consciousness. Their prayers were earnest and vehement, but often degenerated to mere howls and noises. Some of both sexes had grand voices, that rang like bugles, and the very impropriety of their music made it fascinating. It used to seem to me that any of the great composers might have borrowed advantageously some of those original negro airs. In many cases, their owners came within the lines, registered their allegiance, and recovered the negroes. These were often veritable Shylocks, that claimed their pounds of flesh, with unblushing reference to the law. The poor Africs went back cowed and tearful, and it is probable that they were afterward sent to the far South, that terribleterra incognitato a border slave.
Among the houses to which I resorted was that of a Mr. Hill, one mile from White House. He had a thousand acres of land and a valuable fishery on the Pamunkey. The latter was worth, in good seasons, two thousand dollars ayear. He had fished and farmed with negroes; but these had leagued to run away, and he sent them across the river to a second farm that he owned in King William County. It was at Hill's house that the widow Custis was visiting when young Washington reined at the gate, on his road to Williamsburg. With reverent feelings I used to regard the old place, and Hill frequently stole away from his formidable military household, to talk with me on the front porch. Perhaps in the same moonlights, with the river shimmering at their feet, and the grapevine shadowing the creaky corners,—their voices softened, their chairs drawn very close, their hands touching with a thrill,—the young soldier and his affianced had made their courtship. I sometimes sat breathless, thinking that their figures had come back, and that I heard them whispering.
Hill was a Virginian,—large, hospitable, severe, proud,—and once I ventured to speak upon the policy of slavery, with a view to develop his own relation to the "institution." He said, with the swaggering manner of his class, that slavery was a "domestic" institution, and that therefore no political law could reach it. I insinuated, quietly, that no political law should therefore sustain it, and took exception to the idea that what was domestic was therefore without the province of legislation. When I exampled polygamy, Hill became passionate, and asked if I was an abolitionist. I opined that I was not, and he so far relented as to say that slavery was sanctioned by divine and human laws; that it was ultimately to be embraced by all white nationalities, and that the Caucasian was certain, in the end, to subjugate and possess every other race. He pointed, with some shrewdness, to the condition of the Chinese in California and Australia, and epitomized the gradual enslaving of the Mongol and Malay in various quarters of the world.
"As to our treatment of niggers," he said, curtly, "I never prevaricate, as some masters do, in that respect. Iwhip my niggers when they want it! If they are saucy, or careless, or lazy, I have 'em flogged. About twice a year every nigger has to be punished. If they ain't roped over twice a year, they take on airs and want to be gentlemen. A nigger is bound by no sentiment of duty or affection. You must keep him in trim by fear."
Among the victims of the swamp fever, were Major Larrabee, and Lieutenant-Colonel Emory, of the Fifth Wisconsin regiment; I had been indebted to them for many a meal and draught of spirits. I had talked with each of them, when the camps were darkened and the soldiery asleep. Larrabee was a soldier by nature,—adventurous, energetic, intrepid, aggressive. He had been a country Judge in Wisconsin, and afterwards a member of Congress. When the war commenced, he enlisted as a common soldier, but public sentiment forced the State Government to make him a Major. Emory was a mild, reflective, unimpassioned gentleman,—too modest to be eminent, too scrupulous to be ambitious. The men were opposites, but both capital companions, and they were seized with the fever about the same time. The Major was removed to White House, and I visited him one day in the hospital quarters. Surgeon General Watson, hospital commandant, took me through the quarters; there was quite a town of sick men; they lay in wall-tents—about twenty in a tent,—and there were daily deaths; those that caught the fever, were afterwards unfit for duty, as they took relapses on resuming the field. The tents were pitched in a damp cornfield; for the Federals so reverenced their national shrines, that they forbade White House and lawn to be used for hospital purposes. Under the best circumstances, a field hospital is a comfortless place; but here the sun shone like a furnace upon the tents, and the rains drowned out the inmates. If a man can possibly avoid it, let him never go to the hospital: for he will be called a "skulker," or a "shyster," that desires to escape the impending battle. Twenty hot, feverish, tossingmen, confined in a small tent, like an oven, and exposed to contumely and bad food, should get a wholesome horror of war and glory.
So far as I could observe and learn, the authorities at White House carried high heads, and covetous hands. In brief, they lived like princes, and behaved like knaves. There was one—whose conduct has never been investigated—who furnished one of the deserted mansions near by, and brought a lady from the North to keep it in order. He drove a span that rivalled anything in Broadway, and his wines were luscious. His establishment reminded me of that of Napoleon III. in the late Italian war, and yet, this man was receiving merely a Colonel's pay. My impression is that everybody at White House robbed the Government, and in the end, to cover their delinquencies, these scoundrels set fire to an immense quantity of stores, and squared their accounts thus: "Burned on the Pamunkey, June 28, commissary, quartermaster's, and hospital stores, one million dollars."
The time was now drawing to a close that I should pass amid the familiar scenes of this region. The good people at Daker's were still kindly; but having climbed into the great bed one night, I found my legs aching, my brain violently throbbing, my chest full of pain and my eyes weak. When I woke in the morning my lips were fevered, I could eat nothing, and when I reached my saddle, it seemed that I should faint. In a word, the Chickahominy fever had seized upon me. My ride to New Bridge was marked by great agony, and during much of the time I was quite blind. I turned off, at Gaines's Mill, to rest at Captain Kingwalt's; but the old gentleman was in the grip of the ague, and I forebore to trouble him with a statement of my grievances. Skyhiski made me a cup of tea, which I could not drink, and Fogg made me lie on his "poncho." It was like old times come back, to hear them all speak cheerfully, and the man Clover said that if there "warn't" a battle soon, heknew what he'd do, he did! he'd go home, straight as a buck!
"Becoz," said the man Clover, flourishing his hands, "I volunteered to fight. Tofight, sir! not to dig and drive team. Here we air, sir, stuck in the mud, burnin' with fever, livin' on hardtack. And thair's Richmond! Just thair! You can chuck a stone at it, if you mind to. A'ter awhile them rebbils'll pop out, and fix us. Why ain't we led up, sa-a-y?"
The man Clover represented common sentiment among the troops at this time; but I told him that in all probability he would soon be gratified with a battle. My prediction was so far correct, that when I met the man Clover on the James River, a week afterward, he said, with a rueful countenance—
"Sa-a-a-y! It never rains but it pours, does it?"
As I rode from the camp of the Pennsylvania Reserves, at noon, on the 21st of June, I seemed to feel a gloomy premonition of the calamities that were shortly to fall upon the "Army of the Potomac." I passed in front of Hogan house; through the wood above the mill; along Gaines's Lane, between his mansion and his barn; across a creek, tributary to the Chickahominy; and up the ploughed hills by a military road, toward Grapevine Bridge. Lieutenant-Colonel Heath, of the Fifth Maine Regiment, was riding with me, and we stopped at the tip of an elevated field to look back upon the scene. I was very sick and weary, and I lay my head upon the mane of my nag, while Heath threw a leg across his saddle pommel, and straightened his slight figure; we both gazed earnestly.
The river lay in the hollow or ravine to the left, and a few farm-houses sat among the trees on the hill-tops beyond. A battery was planted at each house, and we could see the lines of red-clay parapets marking the sites. From the roof of one of the houses floated a speck of canvas,—the revolutionary flag. A horseman or two moved shadow-likeacross a slope of yellow grain. Before and back the woods belted the landscape, and some pickets of both sides paced the river brink: they did not fire upon each other.
Our side of the Chickahominy was not less peaceful. A couple of batteries lay below us, in the meadows; but the horses were dozing in the harness, and the gunners, standing bolt upright at the breech, seemed parts of their pieces; the teamsters lay grouped in the long grass. Immediately in front, Gaines's Mansion and outhouses spotted a hillside, and we could note beyond a few white tents shining through the trees. The roof of the old mill crouched between a medley of wavy fields and woods, to our right, and just at our feet a tiny rill divided Gaines's Mill from our own. Behind us, over the wilderness of swamp and bog-timber, rose Smith's redoubt, with the Federal flag flaunting from the rampart.
"Townsend," said Heath, as he swept the whole country with his keen eye, "do you know that we are standing upon historic ground?"
He had been a poet and an orator, and he seemed to feel the solemnity of the place.
"It may become historic to-morrow," I replied.
"It is so to-day," he said, earnestly; "not from battle as yet;thatmay or may not happen; but in the pause before the storm there is something grand; and this is the pause."
He took his soft beaver in his hand, and his short red hair stood pugnaciously back from his fine forehead.
"The men that have been here already," he added, "consecrated the place; young McClellan, and bluff, bull-headed Franklin; the one-armed devil, Kearney, and handsome Joe Hooker; gray, gristly Heintzelman; white-bearded, insane Sumner; Stuart, Lee, Johnston, the Hills——"
"Why not," said I, laughingly, "Eric the red,—the redoubtable Heath!"
"Why not?" he said, with a flourish; "Fate may have something in store for me, as well as for these."
I have thought, since, how terribly our light conversation found verification in fact. If I had said to Heath, that, at the very moment, Jefferson Davis and his Commander-in-chief were sitting in the dwelling opposite, reconnoitring and consulting; that, even now, their telescopes were directed upon us; that the effect of their counsel was to be manifest in less than a week; that one of the bloodiest battles of modern times was to be fought beside and around us; that six days of the most terrible fighting known in history were to ensue; that my friend and comrade was standing upon the same clods which would be reddened, at his next coming, with his heart's blood; and that the trenches were to yawn beneath his hoofs, to swallow himself and his steed,—if I had foretold these things as they were to occur, I wonder if the "pause before the storm" would have been less awful, and our ride campward less sedate. Poor Heath! Gallant New Englander! he called at my bedside, the sixth day following, as I lay full of pain, fear, and fever, and after he bade me good by, I heard his horse's hoofs ringing down the lane. Ten minutes afterward he was shot through the head.
When I reached Michie's, at three o'clock, I had to be helped from the saddle, and the fever was raging in my whole body before nightfall. My hands were flushed, my face hot, but my feet were quite cold, and I was seized with chills that seemed to shake my teeth from my head. Mrs. Michie made me a bowl of scorching tea, and one of the black-girls bathed my limbs in boiling water. The fever dreams came to me that night, in snatches of burning sleep, and toward morning I lay restlessly awake, moving from side to side, famishing for drink, but rejecting it, when they brought it to my lips. The next day, my kind hostess gave me some nourishing soup, but after a vain effort to partake of it, I was compelled to put it aside. O'Ganlon procured some pickled fruit and vegetables from a sutler, which I ate voraciously, quaffing the vinegar like wine. Some of myregimental friends heard of my illness, and they sent me quiet luxuries, which gladdened me, though I did not eat. During the day I had some moments of ease, when I tried to read. There was a copy of Wordsworth's poems in the house, and I used to repeat stanzas from "Peter Bell," till they rang, in eddies of rhyme, through my weak brain, and continued to scan and jangle far into the nights. Some of these fever-dreams were like delusions in delirium: peopled with monsters, that grinned and growled. Little black globules used to leer from corners, and after a time they began to revolve toward me, increasing as they came, and at length rolling like mountains of surge. I frequently woke with a scream, and found my body in profuse perspiration. There were fiery snakes, also, that, at first, moved slowly around me, and I followed them with red and terrified eyes. After awhile they flashed in circles of lightning, and hissed showers of sparks, until I became quite crazed with fear. The most horrible apparitions used to come to my bedside, and if I dropped to sleep with any thought half formed or half developed, the odd half of that thought became impregnated, somehow, and straightway loomed up a goblin, or a giant, or a grotesque something, that proceeded to torture me, like a sort of Frankenstein, for having made it. Amid all these ghastly things, there came beautiful glimpses of form, scene, and sensation, that straightway changed to horrors. I remember, for example, that I was gliding down a stream, where the boughs overhead were as shady as the waters, and there were holy eyes that seemed to cool my fever; but suddenly the stream became choked with corpses, that entangled their dead limbs with mine, until I strangled and called aloud,—waking up O'Ganlon and some reporters who proposed to give me morphine, that I might not alarm the house.
How the poor soldiers fared, in the hot hospitals, I shudder to think; but a more merciful decree spared my life, and kind treatment met me at every hand. Otherwise, I believe, I should not be alive to-day to write this story; for the fever had seized me in its severest form, and I had almost tutored myself to look upon my end, far from my home and on the very eve of my manhood.
O'Ganlon, at last, resolved to send me to White House, and started thither one day, to obtain a berth for me upon a Sanitary steamer. The next day an ambulance came to the door. I tried to sit up in bed, and succeeded; I feebly robed myself and staggered to the stairs. I crawled, rather than walked, to the hall below; but when I took a chair, and felt the cool breeze from the oaks fanning my hair, I seemed to know that I should get well.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!" pealed some cannon at the moment, and all the windows shook with the concussion.
Directly we heard volleys of musketry, and then the camps were astir. Horses went hither and thither; signal flags flashed to-and-fro; a battery of the Reserve Artillery dashed down the lane.
I felt my strength coming back with the excitement; I even smiled feebly as the guns thundered past.
"Take away your ambulance, old fellow," I said, "I shan't go home till I see a battle."
The Confederates had been waiting two months for McClellan's advance. Emboldened by his delay they had gathered the whole of their available strength from remote Tennessee, from the Mississippi, and from the coast, until, confident and powerful, they crossed Meadow Bridge on the 26th of June, 1862, and drove in our right wing at Mechanicsville. The reserves of Gen. McCall were stationed here; they made a wavering resistance,—wherein four companies of Bucktails were captured bodily,—and fell back at nightfall upon Porter's Corps, at Gaines's Mill. Fitz John Porter commanded the brigades of Gens. Sykes and Morrell,—the former made up solely of regulars. He appeared to have been ignorant of the strength of the attacking party, and he telegraphed to McClellan, early on Thursday evening, that he required no reinforcements, and that he could hold his ground. The next morning he was attacked in front and flank; Stewart's cavalry fell on his right, and turned it at Old Church. He formed at noon in new line of battle, from Gaines's House, along the Mill Road to New Coal Harbor; but stubbornly persisted in the belief that he could not be beaten. By three o'clock he had been driven back two miles, and all his energies were unavailing to recover a foot of ground. He hurled lancers and cavalry upon the masses of Jackson and the Hills, but the butternut infantry formed impenetrable squares, hemmed in withrods of steel, and as the horsemen galloped around them, searching for previous points, they were swept from their saddles with volleys of musketry. He directed the terrible fire of his artillery upon them, but though the gray footmen fell in heaps, they steadily advanced, closing up the gaps, and their lines were like long stretches of blaze and ball. Their fire never slackened nor abated. They loaded and moved forward, column on column, like so many immortals that could not be vanquished. The scene from the balloon, as Lowe informed me, was awful beyond all comparison,—of puffing shells and shrieking shrapnel, with volleys that shattered the hills and filled the air with deathly whispers. Infantry, artillery, and horse turned the Federal right from time to time, and to preserve their order of battle the whole line fell back toward Grapevine Bridge. At five o'clock Slocum's Division of volunteers crossed the creek from the south side, and made a desperate dash upon the solid columns of the Confederates. At the same time Toombs's Georgia Brigade charged Smith's redoubt from the south side, and there was a probability of the whole of both armies engaging before dark.
My fever of body had so much relinquished to my fever of mind, that at three o'clock I called for my horse, and determined to cross the bridge, that I might witness the battle.
It was with difficulty that I could make my way along the narrow corduroy, for hundreds of wounded were limping from the field to the safe side, and ammunition wagons were passing the other way, driven by reckless drivers who should have been blown up momentarily. Before I had reached the north side of the creek, an immense throng of panic-stricken people came surging down the slippery bridge. A few carried muskets, but I saw several wantonly throw their pieces into the flood, and as the mass were unarmed, I inferred that they had made similar dispositions. Fear, anguish, cowardice, despair, disgust, were the predominant expressions of the upturned faces. The gaunt trees, towering from the current, cast a solemn shadow upon the moving throng, and as the evening dimness was falling around them, it almost seemed that they were engulfed in some cataract. I reined my horse close to the side of a team, that I might not be borne backward by the crowd; but some of the lawless fugitives seized him by the bridle, and others attempted to pull me from the saddle.
"Gi' up that hoss!" said one, "what business you got wi' a hoss?"
"That's my critter, and I am in for a ride; so you get off!" said another.
I spurred my pony vigorously with the left foot, and with the right struck the man at the bridle under the chin. The thick column parted left and right, and though a howl of hate pursued me, I kept straight to the bank, cleared the swamp, and took the military route parallel with the creek, toward the nearest eminence. At every step of the way I met wounded persons. A horseman rode past me, leaning over his pommel, with blood streaming from his mouth and hanging in gouts from his saturated beard. The day had been intensely hot and black boys were besetting the wounded with buckets of cool lemonade. It was a common occurrence for the couples that carried the wounded on stretchers to stop on the way, purchase a glass of the beverage, and drink it. Sometimes the blankets on the stretchers were closely folded, and then I knew that the man within was dead. A little fellow, who used his sword for a cane, stopped me on the road, and said—
"See yer! This is the ball that jes' fell out o' my boot."
He handed me a lump of lead as big as my thumb, and pointed to a rent in his pantaloons, whence the drops rolled down his boots.
"I wouldn't part with that for suthin' handsome," he said; "it'll be nice to hev to hum."
As I cantered away he shouted after me—
"Be sure you spell my name right! it's Smith, with an 'E'—S-m-i-t-h-e."
In one place I met five drunken men escorting a wounded sergeant; the latter had been shot in the jaw, and when he attempted to speak, the blood choked his articulation.
"You let go him, pardner," said one of the staggering brutes, "he's not your sergeant. Go 'way!"
"Now, sergeant," said the other, idiotically, "I'll see you all right, sergeant. Come, Bill, fetch him over to the corn-crib and we'll give him a drink."
Here the first speaker struck the second, and the sergeant, in wrath, knocked them both down. All this time the enemy's cannon were booming close at hand.
I came to an officer of rank, whose shoulder-emblem I could not distinguish, riding upon a limping field-horse. Four men held him to his seat, and a fifth led the animal. The officer was evidently wounded, though he did not seem to be bleeding, and the dust of battle had settled upon his blanched, stiffening face, like grave-mould upon a corpse. He was swaying in the saddle, and his hair—for he was bare-headed—shook across his white eyeballs. He reminded me of the famous Cid, whose body was sent forth to scare the Saracens.
A mile or more from Grapevine Bridge, on a hill-top, lay a frame farm-house, with cherry trees encircling it, and along the declivity of the hill were some cabins, corn-sheds, and corn-bins. The house was now a Surgeon's headquarters, and the wounded lay in the yard and lane, under the shade, waiting their turns to be hacked and maimed. I caught a glimpse through the door, of the butchers and their victims; some curious people were peeping through the windows at the operation. As the processions of freshly wounded went by, the poor fellows, lying on their backs, looked mutely at me, and their great eyes smote my heart.
Something has been written in the course of the warupon straggling from the ranks, during battle. But I have seen nothing that conveys an adequate idea of the number of cowards and idlers that so stroll off. In this instance, I met squads, companies, almost regiments of them. Some came boldly along the road; others skulked in woods, and made long detours to escape detection; a few were composedly playing cards, or heating their coffee, or discussing the order and consequences of the fight. The rolling drums, the constant clatter of file and volley-firing,—nothing could remind them of the requirements of the time and their own infamy. Their appreciation of duty and honor seemed to have been forgotten; neither hate, ambition, nor patriotism could force them back; but when the columns of mounted provosts charged upon them, they sullenly resumed their muskets and returned to the field. At the foot of the hill to which I have referred the ammunition wagons lay in long lines, with the horses' heads turned from the fight. A little beyond stood the ambulances; and between both sets of vehicles, fatigue-parties were going and returning to and from the field. At the top of the next hill sat many of the Federal batteries, and I was admonished by the shriek of shells that passed over my head and burst far behind me, that I was again to look upon carnage and share the perils of the soldier.
The question at once occurred to me: Can I stand fire? Having for some months penned daily paragraphs relative to death, courage, and victory, I was surprised to find that those words were now unusually significant. "Death" was a syllable to me before; it was a whole dictionary now. "Courage" was natural to every man a week ago; it was rarer than genius to-day. "Victory" was the first word in the lexicon of youth yesterday noon; "discretion" and "safety" were at present of infinitely more consequence. I resolved, notwithstanding these qualms, to venture to the hill-top: but at every step flitting projectiles took my breath. The music of the battle-field, I have oftenthought, should be introduced in opera. Not the drum, the bugle, or the fife, though these are thrilling, after their fashion; but the music of modern ordnance and projectile, the beautiful whistle of the minie-ball, the howl of shell that makes unearthly havoc with the air, the whiz-z-z of solid shot, the chirp of bullets, the scream of grape and canister, the yell of immense conical cylinders, that fall like redhot stoves and spout burning coals.
All these passed over, beside, beneath, before, behind me. I seemed to be an invulnerable something at whom some cunning juggler was tossing steel, with an intent to impinge upon, not to strike him. I rode like one with his life in his hand, and, so far as I remember, seemed to think of nothing. No fear,per se; no regret; no adventure; only expectancy. It was the expectancy of a shot, a choking, a loud cry, a stiffening, a dead, dull tumble, a quiver, and—blindness. But with this was mingled a sort of enjoyment, like that of the daring gamester, who has played his soul and is waiting for the decision of the cards. I felt all his suspense,morethan his hope; and withal, there was excitement in the play. Now a whistling ball seemed to pass just under my ear, and before I commenced to congratulate myself upon the escape, a shell, with a showery and revolving fuse, appeared to take the top off my head. Then my heart expanded and contracted, and somehow I found myself conning rhymes. At each clipping ball,—for I could hear them coming,—a sort of coldness and paleness rose to the very roots of my hair, and was then replaced by a hot flush. I caught myself laughing, syllabically, and shrugging my shoulders, fitfully. Once, the rhyme that came to my lips—for I am sure there was no mind in the iteration—was the simple nursery prayer—
"Now I lay me down to sleep,"
"Now I lay me down to sleep,"
I continued to say "down to sleep," "down to sleep," "down to sleep," till I discovered myself, when I ceased. Then a shell, apparently just in range, dashed toward me, and the words spasmodically leaped up: "Now's your time. This is your billet." With the same insane pertinacity I continued to repeat "Now's your time, now's your time," and "billet, billet, billet," till at last I came up to the nearest battery, where I could look over the crest of the hill; and as if I had looked into the crater of a volcano, or down the fabled abyss into hell, the whole grand horror of a battle burst upon my sight. For a moment I could neither feel nor think. I scarcely beheld, or beholding did not understand or perceive. Only the roar of guns, the blaze that flashed along a zigzag line and was straightway smothered in smoke, the creek lying glassily beneath me, the gathering twilight, and the brownish blue of woods! I only knew that some thousands of fiends, were playing with fire and tossing brands at heaven,—that some pleasant slopes, dells, and highlands were lit as if the conflagration of universes had commenced. There is a passage of Holy Writ that comes to my mind as I write, which explains the sensation of the time better than I can do:—
"He opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.
"And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth."—Revelation, ix. 2, 3.
In a few moments, when I was able to compose myself, the veil of cloud blew away or dissolved, and I could see fragments of the long columns of infantry. Then from the far end of the lines puffed smoke, and from man to man the puff ran down each line, enveloping the columns again, so that they were alternately visible and invisible. At points between the masses of infantry lay field-pieces, throbbing with rapid deliveries, and emitting volumes of white steam. Now and then the firing slackened for a short time, when Icould remark the Federal line, fringed with bayonets, stretching from the low meadow on the left, up the slope, over the ridge, up and down the crest, until its right disappeared in the gloaming of wood and distance. Standards flapped here and there above the column, and I knew, from the fact that the line became momentarily more distinct, that the Federals were falling stubbornly back. At times a battery would dash a hundred yards forward, unlimber, and fire a score of times, and directly would return two hundred yards and blaze again. I saw a regiment of lancers gather at the foot of a protecting swell of field; the bugle rang thrice, the red pennons went upward like so many song birds, the mass turned the crest and disappeared, then the whole artillery belched and bellowed. In twenty minutes a broken, straggling, feeble group of horsemen returned; the red pennons still fluttered, but I knew that they were redder for the blood that dyed them. Finally, the Federal infantry fell back to the foot of the hill on which I stood; all the batteries were clustering around me, and suddenly a column of men shot up from the long sweep of the abandoned hill, with batteries on the left and right. Their muskets were turned towards us, a crash and a whiff of smoke swept from flank to flank, and the air around me rained buck, slug, bullet, and ball!
The incidents that now occurred in rapid succession were so thrilling and absorbing that my solicitude was lost in their grandeur. I sat like one dumb, with my soul in my eyes and my ears stunned, watching the terrible column of Confederates. Each party was now straining every energy,—the one for victory, the other against annihilation. The darkness was closing in, and neither cared to prolong the contest after night. The Confederates, therefore, aimed to finish their success with the rout or capture of the Federals, and the Federals aimed to maintain their ground till nightfall. The musketry was close, accurate, and uninterrupted. Every second was marked by a discharge,—the one firing, the other replying promptly. No attempt was now made to remove the wounded; the coolness of the fight had gone by, and we witnessed only its fury. The stragglers seemed to appreciate the desperate emergency, and came voluntarily back to relieve their comrades. The cavalry was massed, and collected for another grand charge. Like a black shadow gliding up the darkening hillside, they precipitated themselves upon the columns: the musketry ceased for the time, and shrieks, steel strokes, the crack of carbines and revolvers succeeded. Shattered, humiliated, sullen, the horse wheeled and returned. Then the guns thundered again, and by the blaze of the pieces, the clods and turf were revealed, fitfully strewn with men and horses.
The vicinity of my position now exhibited traces of the battle. A caisson burst close by, and I heard the howl of dying wretches, as the fires flashed like meteors. A solid shot struck a field-carriage not thirty yards from my feet, and one of the flying splinters spitted a gunner as if he had been pierced by an arrow. An artillery-man was standing with folded arms so near that I could have reached to touch him; a whistle and a thumping shock and he fell beneath my nag's head. I wonder, as I calmly recall these episodes now, how I escaped the death that played about me, chilled me, thrilled me,—but spared me! "They are fixing bayonets for a charge. My God! See them come down the hill."
In the gathering darkness, through the thick smoke, I saw or seemed to see the interminable column roll steadily downward. I fancied that I beheld great gaps cut in their ranks though closing solidly up, like the imperishable Gorgon. I may have heard some of this next day, and so confounded the testimonies of eye and ear. But I knew that there was a charge, and that the drivers were ordered to stand by their saddles, to run off the guns at any moment. The descent and bottom below me, were now all ablaze, anddirectly above the din of cannon, rifle, and pistol, I heard a great cheer, as of some salvation achieved.
"The Rebels are repulsed! We have saved the guns!"
A cheer greeted this announcement from the battery-men around me. They reloaded, rammed, swabbed, and fired, with naked arms, and drops of sweat furrowed the powder-stains upon their faces. The horses stood motionless, quivering not half so much as the pieces. The gristly officers held to their match-strings, smothering the excitement of the time. All at once there was a running hither and thither, a pause in the thunder, a quick consultation—
"'Sdeath! They have flanked us again."
In an instant I seemed overwhelmed with men. For a moment I thought the enemy had surrounded us.
"It's all up," said one; "I shall cross the river."
I wheeled my horse, fell in with the stream of fugitives, and was borne swiftly through field and lane and trampled fence to the swampy margin of the Chickahominy. At every step the shell fell in and among the fugitives, adding to their panic. I saw officers who had forgotten their regiments or had been deserted by them, wending with the mass. The wounded fell and were trodden upon. Personal exhibitions of valor and determination there were; but the main body had lost heart, and were weary and hungry.
As we approached the bridge, there was confusion and altercation ahead. The people were borne back upon me. Curses and threats ensued.
"It is the Provost-guard," said a fugitive, "driving back the boys."
"Go back!" called a voice ahead. "I'll blow you to h—ll, if you don't go back! Not a man shall cross the bridge without orders!"
The stragglers were variously affected by this intelligence. Some cursed and threatened; some of the wounded blubbered as they leaned languidly upon the shoulders of their comrades. Others stoically threw themselves on theground and tried to sleep. One man called aloud that the "boys" were stronger than the Provosts, and that, therefore, the "boys" ought to "go in and win."
"Where's the man that wants to mutiny?" said the voice ahead; "let me see him!"
The man slipped away; for the Provost officer spoke as though he meant all he said.
"Nobody wants to mutiny!" called others.
"Three cheers for the Union."
The wounded and well threw up their hats together, and made a sickly hurrah. The grim officer relented, and he shouted stentoriously that he would take the responsibility of passing the wounded. These gathered themselves up and pushed through the throng; but many skulkers plead injuries, and so escaped. When I attempted to follow, on horseback, hands were laid upon me and I was refused exit. In that hour of terror and sadness, there were yet jests and loud laughter. However keenly I felt these things, I had learned that modesty amounted to little in the army; so I pushed my nag steadily forward and scattered the camp vernacular, in the shape of imprecations, left and right.
"Colonel," I called to the officer in command, as the line of bayonets edged me in, "may I pass out? I am a civilian!"
"No!" said the Colonel, wrathfully. "This is no place for a civilian."
"That's why I want to get away."
"Pass out!"
I followed the winding of the woods to Woodbury's Bridge,—the next above Grapevine Bridge. The approaches were clogged with wagons and field-pieces, and I understood that some panic-stricken people had pulled up some of the timbers to prevent a fancied pursuit. Along the sides of the bridge many of the wounded were washing their wounds in the water, and the cries of the teamsters echoed weirdly through the trees that grew in the river.At nine o'clock, we got under way,—horsemen, batteries, ambulances, ammunition teams, infantry, and finally some great siege 32s. that had been hauled from Gaines's House. One of these pieces broke down the timbers again, and my impression is that it was cast into the current. When we emerged from the swamp timber, the hills before us were found brilliantly illuminated with burning camps. I made toward head-quarters, in one of Trent's fields; but all the tents save one had been taken down, and lines of white-covered wagons stretched southward until they were lost in the shadows. The tent of General McClellan alone remained, and beneath an arbor of pine boughs, close at hand, he sat, with his Corps Commanders and Aides, holding a council of war. A ruddy fire lit up the historical group, and I thought at the time, as I have said a hundred times since, that the consultation might be selected for a grand national painting. The crisis, the hour, the adjuncts, the renowned participants, peculiarly fit it for pictorial commemoration.
The young commander sat in a chair, in full uniform, uncovered. Heintzelman was kneeling upon a fagot, earnestly speaking. De Joinville sat apart, by the fire, examining a map. Fitz John Porter was standing back of McClellan, leaning upon his chair. Keyes, Franklin, and Sumner, were listening attentively. Some sentries paced to and fro, to keep out vulgar curiosity. Suddenly, there was a nodding of heads, as of some policy decided; they threw themselves upon their steeds, and galloped off toward Michie's.
As I reined at Michie's porch, at ten o'clock, the bridges behind me were blown up, with a flare that seemed a blazing of the Northern Lights. The family were sitting upon the porch, and Mrs. Michie was greatly alarmed with the idea that a battle would be fought round her house next day.
O'Ganlon, of Meagher's staff, had taken the fever, and sent anxiously for me, to compare our symptoms.
I bade the good people adieu before I went to bed, and gave the man "Pat" a dollar to stand by my horse while I slept, and to awake me at any disturbance, that I might be ready to scamper. The man "Pat," I am bound to say, woke me up thrice by the exclamation of—
"Sure, yer honor, there's—well—to pay in the yard! I think ye and the Doctor had better ride off."
On each of those occasions, I found that the man Pat had been lonesome, and wanted somebody to speak to.
What a sleep was mine that night! I forgot my fever. But another and a hotter fever burned my temples,—the fearful excitement of the time! Whither were we to go, cut off from the York, beaten before Richmond,—perhaps even now surrounded,—and to be butchered to-morrow, till the clouds should rain blood? Were we to retreat one hundred miles down the hostile Peninsula,—a battle at every rod, a grave at every footstep? Then I remembered the wounded heaped at Gaines's Mill, and how they were groaning without remedy, ebbing at every pulse, counting the flashing drops, calling for water, for mercy, for death. So I found heart; for I was not buried yet. And somehow I felt that fate was to take me, as the great poet took Dante, through other and greater horrors.
The scene presented in Michie's lawn and oak grove, on Saturday morning, was terribly picturesque, and characteristic of the calamity of war. The well was beset by crowds of wounded men, perishing of thirst, who made frantic efforts to reach the bucket, but were borne back by the stronger desperadoes. The kitchen was swarming with hungry soldiers who begged corn-bread and half-cooked dough from the negroes. The shady side-yard was dotted with pale, bruised, and bleeding people, who slept out their weariness upon the damp grass, forgetful, for the moment, of their sores. Ambulances poured through the lane, in solemn procession, and now and then, couples of privates bore by some wounded officer, upon a canvas "stretcher." The lane proving too narrow, at length, for the passing vehicles, the gate-posts and fence were torn up, and finally, the soldiers made a footway of the hall of the dwelling.
The retreat had been in progress all night, as I had heard the wagons through my open windows. By daylight the whole army was acquainted with the facts, that we were to resign our depot at White House, relinquish the North bank of the river, and retire precipitately to the shores of the James. A rumor—indignantly denied, but as often repeated—prevailed among the teamsters, surgeons, and drivers, that the wounded were to be left in the enemy'shands. It shortly transpired that we were already cut off from the Pamunkey. A train had departed for White House at dawn, and had delivered its cargo of mortality safely; but a second train, attempting the passage, at seven o'clock had been fired into, and compelled to return. A tremendous explosion, and a shaft of white smoke that flashed to the zenith, informed us, soon afterward, that the railroad bridge had been blown up.
About the same time, the roar of artillery recommenced in front, and regiments that had not slept for twenty hours, were hurried past us, to take position at the entrenchments. A universal fear now found expression, and helpless people asked of each other, with pale lips—
"How far have we to walk to reach the James?"
It was doubtful, at this time, that any one knew the route to that river. A few members of the signal corps had adventured thither to open communication with the gunboats, and a small cavalry party of Casey's division had made a foray to New Market and Charles City Court House. But it was rumored that Wise's brigade of Confederates was now posted at Malvern Hills, closing up the avenue of escape, and that the whole right wing of the Confederate army was pushing toward Charles City. Malvern Hills, the nearest point that could be gained, was about twenty miles distant, and Harrison's Landing—presumed to be our final destination—was thirty miles away. To retreat over this distance, encumbered with baggage, the wounded and the sick, was discarded as involving pursuit, and certain calamity. Cavalry might fall upon us at every turning, since the greater portion of our own horse had been scouting between White House and Hanover, when the bridges were destroyed, and was therefore separated from the main army. At eight o'clock—weak with fever and scarcely able to keep in the saddle—I joined Mr. Anderson of theHerald, and rode toward the front, that I might discover the whereabouts of the new engagement. Winding through a cart-track in Michie's Woods, we came upon fully one third of the whole army, or the remnant of all that portion engaged at Gaines's Mill;—the Reserves, Porter's Corps, Slocum's division, and Meagher's brigade,—perhaps thirty-thousand men. They covered the whole of Tent's farm, and were drawn up in line, heavily equipped, with their colors in position, field officers dismounted, and detachments from each regiment preparing hot coffee at certain fires. A very few wagons—and these containing only ammunition—stood harnessed beside each regiment. In many cases the men lay or knelt upon the ground. Such hot, hungry, weary wretches, I never beheld. During the whole night long they had been crossing the Chickahominy, and the little sleep vouchsafed them had been taken in snatches upon the bare clay. Travelling from place to place, I saw the surviving heroes of the defeat: Meagher looking very yellow and prosaic; Slocum,—small, indomitable, active; Newton,—a little gray, a trifle proud, very mercurial, and curiously enough, a Virginian; Meade,—lithe, spectacled, sanguine; and finally General McCall, as grave, kindly odd and absent, as I had found him four months before. The latter worthy was one of the first of the Federal Generals to visit Richmond. He was taken prisoner the second day afterward, and the half of his command was slain or disabled.
I went to and fro, obtaining the names of killed, wounded and missing, with incidents of the battle as well as its general plan. These I scrawled upon bits of newspaper, upon envelopes, upon the lining of my hat, and finally upon my shirt wristbands. I was literally filled with notes before noon, and if I had been shot at that time, endeavors to obtain my name would have been extremely difficult. I should have had more titles than some of the Chinese princes; some parts of me would have been found fatally wounded, and others italicized for gallant behavior. Indeed, I should have been shot in every part, taken prisonerat every place, killed outright in every skirmish, and marvellously saved through every peril. My tombstone would have been some hundreds of muster-rolls and my obituary a fortune to a newspaper. I recollect, with some amusement, the credit that each regiment took upon itself for distinguished behavior. There were few Colonels that did not claim all the honors. I fell in with a New Jersey brigade, that had been decimated of nearly half itsquota, and a spruce young Major attempted to convey an idea of the battle to me. He said, in brief, that the New Jersey brigade, composed mainly of himself and his regiment, and some few organizations of little consequence,—although numbering ten thousand odd soldiers,—had received the whole shock of a quantity of "Rebels." The said "Rebels" appeared to make up one fourth part of the population of the globe. There was no end to them. They seemed to be several miles deep, longer and more crooked than the Pamunkey, and stood with their rear against Richmond, so that they couldn't fall back, even if they wanted to. In vain did the New Jersey brigade and his regiment attack them with ball and bayonet. How the "Rebels" ever withstood the celebrated charge of his regiment was altogether inexplicable.
In the language of the Major,—"the New Jersey brigade,—and my regiment,—fit, and fit, and fit, and give 'em 'get out!' But sir, may I be——, well there (expression inadequate), we couldn't budge 'em. No, sir! (very violently,) not budge 'em, sir!Itold the boys to walk at 'em with cold steel. Says I: 'Boys, steel'ill fetch 'em, or nothin' under heaven!' Well, sir, at 'em we went,—me and the boys. There ain't been no sich charge in the whole war! Not in the whole war, sir! (intensely fervid;) leave it to any impartial observer if there has been! We went up the hill, square in the face of all their artillery, musketry, cavalry, sharpshooters, riflemen,—everything, sir! Everything! (energetically.) One o' my men overheard the Rebel General say, as we came up: says he,—'that's the gamest thing I ever see.' Well! we butchered 'em frightful. We must a killed a thousand or two of 'em, don't you think so, Adjutant? But, sir,—it was all in vain. No go, sir! no, sir, no go! (impressively.) And the New Jersey brigade and my regiment fell back, inch by inch, with our feet to the foe (rhetorically.) Is that so, boys?"
The "boys," who had meantime gathered around, exclaimed loudly, that it was "true as preachin," and the Major added, in an undertone that his name was spelled * * *.
"But where were Porter's columns?" said I, "and the Pennsylvania Reserves?"
"I didn't see 'em," said the Major: "I don't think they was there. If they had a been, why wa'n't they on hand to save my regiment, and the New Jersey brigade?"
It would be wrong to infer from these vauntings, that the Federals did not fight bravely and endure defeat unshrinkingly. On the contrary, I have never read of higher exemplifications of personal and moral courage, than I witnessed during this memorable retreat. And the young Major's boasting did not a whit reduce my estimate of his efficiency. For in America, swaggering does not necessarily indicate cowardice. I knew a Captain of artillery in Smith's division, who was wordier than Gratiano, and who exaggerated like Falstaff. But he was a lion in action, and at Lee's Mills and Williamsburg his battery was handled with consummate skill.
From Trent's farm the roadway led by a strip of corduroy, through sloppy, swampy woods, to an open place, beyond a brook, where Smith's division lay. The firing had almost entirely ceased, and we heard loud cheers running up and down the lines, as we again ventured within cannon range. On this spot, for the second time, the Federals had won a decided success. And in so far as a cosmopolitan could feel elated, I was proud, for a moment, of the valor of mydivision. The victors had given me meals and a bed, and they had fed my pony when both of us were hungry. But the sight of the prisoners and the collected dead, saddened me somewhat.
These two engagements have received the name of the First and Second battles of Golding's Farm. They resulted from an effort of Toombs's Georgia brigade to carry the redoubt and breastworks of General Smith. Toombs was a civilian, and formerly a senator from Georgia. He had no military ability, and his troops were driven back with great slaughter, both on Friday and Saturday. Among the prisoners taken was Colonel Lamar of (I think) the 7th Georgia regiment. He passed me, in a litter, wounded, as I rode toward the redoubt.
Lamar was a beautiful man, shaped like a woman, and his hair was long, glossy, and wavy with ringlets. He was a tiger, in his love of blood, and in character self-willed and vehement. He was of that remarkable class of Southern men, of which the noted "Filibuster" Walker was the great exponent. I think I may call him an apostle of slavery. He believed it to be the destiny of our pale race to subdue all the dusky tribes of the earth, and to evangelize, with the sword, the whole Western continent, to the uses of master and man. Such people were called disciples of "manifest destiny." He threw his whole heart into the war; but when I saw him, bloodless, panting, quivering, I thought how little the wrath of man availed against the justice of God. From Smith's on the right, I kept along a military road, in the woods, to Sedgwick's and Richardson's divisions, at Fairoaks. Richardson was subsequently slain, at the second battle of Bull Run. He was called "Fighting Dick," and on this particular morning was talking composedly to his wife, as she was about to climb to the saddle. His tent had been taken down, and soldiers were placing his furniture in a wagon. A greater contrast I never remarked, than the ungainly, awkward, and roughGeneral, with his slight, trim, pretty companion. She had come to visit him and had remained until commanded to retire. I fancied, though I was separated some distance, that the little woman wept, as she kissed him good by, and he followed her, with frequent gestures of good-hap, till she disappeared behind the woods. I do not know that such prosaic old soldiers are influenced by the blandishments of love; but "Fighting Dick" never wooed death so recklessly as in the succeeding engagements of New Market and Malvern Hills.
From Seven Pines to the right of Richardson's head-quarters, ran a line of alternate breastwork, redoubt, and stockade. The best of these redoubts was held by Captain Petit, with a New York Volunteer battery. I had often talked with Petit, for he embodied, as well as any man in the army, the martial qualifications of a volunteer. He despised order. Nobody cared less for dress and dirt. I have seen him, sitting in a hole that he hollowed with his hands, tossing pebbles and dust over his head, like another Job. He had profound contempt for any man and any system that was not "American." I remember asking him, one day, the meaning of the gold lace upon the staff hats of the Irish brigade.
"Means run like shell!" said Petit, covering me with dirt.
"Don't the Irish make the best soldiers?" I ventured.
"No!" said Petit, raining pebbles, "I had rather have one American than ten Irishmen."
The fighting of Petit was contrary to all rule; but I think that he was a splendid artillery-man. He generally mounted the rampart, shook his fist at the enemy, flung up his hat, jumped down, sighted the guns himself, threw shells with wonderful accuracy, screamed at the gunners, mounted the rampart again, halloed, and, in short, managed to do more execution, make more noise, attract more attention and throw more dirt than anybody in the army. His redoubtwas small, but beautifully constructed, and the parapet was heaped with double rows of sandbags. It mounted rifled field-pieces, and, at most times, the gunners were lying under the pieces, asleep. Not any of the entrenched posts among the frontier Indians were more enveloped in wilderness than this. The trees had been felled in front to give the cannon play, but behind and on each side belts of dense, dwarf timber covered the boggy soil. To the left of Petit, on the old field of Seven Pines, lay the divisions of Hooker and Kearney, and thither I journeyed, after leaving the redoubtable volunteer. Hooker was a New Englander, reputed to be the handsomest man in the army. He fought bravely in the Mexican war, and afterwards retired to San Francisco, where he passed a Bohemian existence at the Union Club House. He disliked McClellan, was beloved by his men, and was generally known as "Old Joe." He has been one of the most successful Federal leaders, and seems to hold a charmed life. In all probability he will become Commander-in-chief of one of the grand armies.
Kearney has passed away since the date of which I speak. He was known as the "one-armed Devil," and was, by odds, the best educated of all the Federal military chiefs. But, singularly enough, he departed from all tactics, when hotly afield. His personal energy and courage have given him renown, and he loved to lead forlorn hopes, or head storming-parties, or ride upon desperate adventures. He was rich from childhood, and spent much of his life in Europe. For a part of this time he served as a cavalry-man with the French, in Algiers. In private life he was equally reckless, but his tastes were scholarly, and he was generous to a fault. Both Kearney and Hooker were kind to the reporters, and I owe the dead man many a favor. General Daniel Sickles commanded a brigade in this corps. To the left, and in the rear of Heintzelman's corps, lay the divisions of Casey and Couch, that had relapsed into silence since their disgrace at Seven Pines. General Casey was a thin-haired old gentleman, too gracious to be a soldier, although I believe that he is still in the service. His division comprised the extreme left of the Grand Army, and bordered upon a deep, impenetrable bog called "White Oak Swamp." It was the purpose of McClellan to place this swamp between him and the enemy, and defend its passage till his baggage and siege artillery had obtained the shelter of the gunboats, on the shores of the James. I rode along this whole line, to renew my impressions of the position, and found that sharp skirmishing was going on at every point. When I returned to Savage's, where McClellan's headquarters had temporarily been pitched, I found the last of the wagons creaking across the track, and filing slowly southward. The wounded lay in the out-houses, in the trains of cars, beside the hedge, and in shade of the trees about the dwelling. A little back, beside a wood, lay Lowe's balloon traps, and the infantry "guard," and cavalry "escort" of the Commander-in-chief were encamped close to the new provost quarters, in a field beyond the orchard. An ambulance passed me, as I rode into the lane; it was filled with sufferers, and two men with bloody feet, crouched in the trail. From the roof of Savage's house floated the red hospital flag. Savage himself was a quiet Virginia farmer, and a magistrate. His name is now coupled with a grand battle.
I felt very hungry, at four o'clock, but my weak stomach revolted at coarse soldier fare, and I determined to ride back to Michie's. I was counselled to beware; but having learned little discretion afield, I cantered off, through a trampled tillage of wheat, and an interminable woods. In a half hour I rode into the familiar yard; but the place was so ruined that I hardly recognized it. Not a panel of fence remained: the lawn was a great pool of slime; the windlass had been wrenched from the well; a few gashed and expiring soldiers lay motionless beneath the oaks, the fields were littered with the remains of camps, and the old dwellingstood like a haunted thing upon a blighted plain. The idlers, the teamsters, and the tents were gone,—all was silence,—and in the little front porch sat Mrs. Michie, weeping; the old gentleman stared at the desolation with a working face, and two small yellow lads lay dolorously upon the steps. They all seemed to brighten up as I appeared at the gate, and when I staggered from my horse, both of them took my hands. I think that tears came into all our eyes at once, and the little Ethiops fairly bellowed.
"My friends," I said, falteringly, "I see how you have suffered, and sympathize with you, from my heart."
"Our beautiful property is ruined," said Mrs. Michie, welling up.
"Yer's five years of labor,—my children's heritage,—the home of our old age,—look at it!"
The old gentleman stood up gravely, and cast his eyes mournfully around.
"I have nobody to accuse," he said; "my grief is too deep for any hate. This is war!"
"What will the girls say when they come back?" was the mother's next sob; "they loved the place: do you think they will know it?"
I did not know how to reply. They retained my hands, and for a moment none of us spoke.
"Don't think, Mr. Townsend," said the chivalrous old gentleman again, "that we like you less because some of your country people have stripped us. Mother, where is the gruel you made for him?"
The good lady, expecting my return, had prepared some nourishing chicken soup, and directly she produced it. I think she took heart when I ate so plentifully, and we all spoke hopefully again. Their kindness so touched me, that as the evening came quietly about us, lengthening the shadows, and I knew that I must depart, I took both their hands again, doubtful what to say.
"My friends,—may I say, almost my parents? for youhave been as kind,—good by! In a day, perhaps, you will be with your children again. Richmond will be open to you. You may freely go and come. Be comforted by these assurances. And when the war is over,—God speed the time!—we may see each other under happier auspices."
"Good by!" said Mr. Michie; "if I have a house at that time, you shall be welcome."
"Good by," said Mrs. Michie; "tell your mother that a strange lady in Virginia took good care of you when you were sick."
I waved a final adieu, vaulted down the lane, and the wood gathered its solemn darkness about me. When I emerged upon Savage's fields, a succession of terrible explosions shook the night, and then the flames flared up, at points along the railroad. They were blowing up the locomotives and burning the cars. At the same hour, though I could not see it, White House was wrapped in fire, and the last sutler, teamster, and cavalry-man had disappeared from the shores of the Pamunkey.
I tossed through another night of fever, in the captain's tent of the Sturgis Rifles,—McClellan's body guard. And somehow, again, I dreamed fitfully of the unburied corpses on the field of Gaines's Mill.