"'Man needs but little here below,Nor needs that little long.'"
"'Man needs but little here below,Nor needs that little long.'"
"'Man needs but little here below,Nor needs that little long.'"
"'Man needs but little here below,
Nor needs that little long.'"
"You're rather poor at quoting poetry, Andy," answered Pointer, "because I need more than a little here below: I need at least six inches."
But the shoes! Coarse, broad-soled, low-heeled "gunboats," as we afterward learned to call them—what a time there was getting into them. Here came one fellow down thestreet with shoes so big that they could scarcely be kept on his feet, while over yonder another tugged and pulled and kicked himself red in the face over a pair thatwouldnot go on. But by trading off, the large men gradually got the large garments and the little men the small, so that in a few days we were all pretty well suited.
I remember hearing about one poor fellow in another company, a great strapping six-footer, who could not be suited. The largest shoe furnished by the Government was quite too small. The giant tried his best to force his foot in, but in vain. His comrades gathered about him, and laughed, and chaffed him unmercifully, whereupon he exclaimed,—
"Why, you don't think they are allboysthat come to the army, do you? A man like me needs a man's shoe, not a baby's."
There was another poor fellow, a very small man, who had received a very large pair of shoes, and had not yet been able to effect any exchange. One day the sergeant was drilling the company on the facings—Right-face, Left-face, Right-about-face—and of course watched his men's feet closely, tosee that they went through the movements promptly. Observing one pair of feet down the line that never budged at the command, the sergeant, with drawn sword, rushed up to the possessor of them, and in menacing tones demanded,—
"What do you mean by not facing about when I tell you? I'll have you put in the guard-house, if you don't mind."
"Why—I—did, sergeant," said the trembling recruit.
"You did not, sir. Didn't I watch your feet? They never moved an inch."
"Why, you see," said the man, "my shoes are so big that they don't turn when I do. I go through the motions on the inside of them!"
Although Camp Curtin was not so much a camp of instruction as a camp of equipment, yet once we had received our arms and uniforms, we were all eager to be put on drill. Even before we had received our uniforms, every evening we had some little drilling under command of Sergeant Cummings, who had been out in the three months' service. Clothed in citizens' dress and armed withsuch sticks and poles as we could pick up, we must have presented a sorry appearance on parade. Perhaps the most comical figure in the line was that of old Simon Malehorn, who, clothed in a long linen duster, high silk hat, blue overalls, and loose slippers, was forever throwing the line into confusion by breaking rank and running back to find his slipper, which he had lost in the dust somewhere, and happy was he if some one of the boys had not quietly smuggled it into his pocket or under his coat, and left poor Simon to finish the parade in his stocking-feet.
Awkward enough in the drill we all were, to be sure. Still, we were not quite so stupid as a certain recruit of whom it was related that the drill sergeant had to take him aside as an "awkward squad" by himself, and try to teach him how to "mark time." But alas! the poor fellow did not know his right foot from his left, and consequently could not follow the order, "Left! Left!" until the sergeant, driven almost to desperation, lit on the happy expedient of tying a wisp of straw on one foot and a similar wisp of hay on the other, and then put the command in a somewhatagricultural shape—"Hay-foot, Straw-foot! Hay-foot, Straw-foot!" whereupon it is said he did quite well; for if he did not know his left foot from his right, he at least could tell hay from straw.
One good effect of our having been detained in Camp Curtin for several weeks was that we thus had the opportunity of forming the acquaintance of the other nine companies, with which we were to be joined in one common regimental organization. Some of these came from the western and some from the eastern part of the State; some were from the city, some from inland towns and small villages, and some from the wild lumber regions. Every rank, class, and profession seemed to be represented. There were clerks, farmers, students, railroad men, iron-workers, lumbermen. At first we were all strangers to one another. The different companies, having as yet no regimental life to bind them together as a unit, naturally regarded each other as foreigners rather than as members of the same organization. In consequence of this, there was no little rivalry between company and company, together with no end of friendly chaffingand lively banter, especially about the time of roll-call in the evening. The names of the men who hailed from the west were quite strange, and a long-standing source of amusement to the boys from the east, andvice versâ. When the Orderly-Sergeant of Company I called the roll, the men of Company B would pick out all the outlandish-sounding surnames and make all manner of puns on them, only to be paid back in their own coin by similar criticisms oftheirroll. Then there were certain forms of expression peculiar to the different sections from which the men came, strange idiomatic usages of speech, amounting at times to the most pronounced provincialisms, which were a long-continued source of merriment. Thus the Philadelphia boys made all sport of the boys from the upper tier of counties because they said "I be going deown to teown," and invariably used "I make out to" for "I am going to," or "I intend to." Some of the men, it was observed, called every species of board, no matter how thin, "a plank;" and every kind of stone, no matter how small, "a rock." How the men laughed one evening when a high wind cameup and blew the dust in dense clouds all over the camp, and one of the western boys was heard to declare that he had "a rock in his eye!"
Once we got afield, however, there was developed such a feeling of regimental unity as soon obliterated whatever natural antagonisms may at first have existed between the different companies. Peculiarities of speech of course remained, and a generous and wholesome rivalry never disappeared; but these were a help rather than a hindrance. For in military, as in all social life, there can be no true unity without some diversity in the component parts,—a principle which is fully recognized in our national motto, "E pluribus unum."
After two weeks in that miserable camp at the State capital, we were ordered to Washington; and into Washington, accordingly, one sultry September morning, we marched, after a day and a night in the cars on the way thither. Quite proud we felt, you may be sure, as we tramped up Pennsylvania Avenue, with our new silk flags flying, the fifes playing "Dixie," and we ten little drummer-boys pounding away, awkwardly enough, no doubt, under the lead of a white-haired old man, who had beatenhisdrum, nearly fifty years before, under Wellington, at the battle of Waterloo. We were green, raw troops, as anybody could tell at a glance; for we were fair-faced yet, and carried enormous knapsacks. I remember passing some old troops somewhere near Fourteenth Street, and beingpainfully conscious of the difference between them and us.They, I observed, had no knapsacks; a gum-blanket, twisted into a roll, and slung carelessly over the shoulder, was all the luggage they carried. Dark, swarthy, sinewy men they were, with torn shoes and faded uniforms, but with an air of self-possession and endurance that came only of experience and hardship. They smiled on us as we passed by,—a grim smile of half pity and half contempt,—just as we in our turn learned to smile on other new troops a year or two later.
By some unpardonable mistake, instead of getting into camp forthwith on the outskirts of the city, whither we had been ordered for duty at the present, we were marched far out into the country, under a merciless sun, that soon scorched all the endurance out of me. It was dusty; it was hot; there was no water; my knapsack weighed a ton. So that when, after marching some seven miles, our orders were countermanded, and we faced about to return to the city again, I thought it impossible I ever should reach it. My feet moved mechanically, everything along the road wasin a misty whirl; and when at nightfall Andy helped me into the barracks near the Capitol from which we had started in the morning, I threw myself, or rather perhaps fell, on the hard floor, and was soon so soundly asleep that Andy could not rouse me for my cup of coffee and ration of bread.
I have an indistinct recollection of being taken away next morning in an ambulance to some hospital, and being put into a clean white cot. After which, for days, all consciousness left me, and all was blank before me, save only that, in misty intervals, I saw the kind faces and heard the subdued voices of Sisters of Mercy,—voices that spoke to me from far away, and hands that reached out to me from the other side of an impassable gulf.
Nursed by their tender care back to returning strength, no sooner was I able to stand on my feet once more than, against their solemn protest, I asked for my knapsack and drum, and insisted on setting out forthwith in quest of my regiment, which I found had meanwhile been scattered by companies about the city, my own company and another havingbeen assigned to duty at "Soldiers' Home," the President's summer residence. Although it was but a distance of three miles or thereabouts, and although I started out in search of "Soldiers' Home" at noon, so conflicting were the directions given me by the various persons of whom I asked the road, that it was nightfall before I reached it. Coming then at the hour of dusk to a gateway leading apparently into some park or pleasure-ground, and being informed by the porter at the gate that this was "Soldiers' Home," I walked about among the trees, in the growing darkness, in search of the camp of Company D, when, just as I had crossed a fence, a challenge rang out,—
"Halt! Who goes there?"
"A friend."
"Advance, friend, and give the countersign!"
"Hello, Elias!" said I, peering through the bushes, "is that you?"
"That isn't the countersign, friend. You'd better give the countersign, or you're a dead man!"
Saying which, Elias sprang back in trueZouave style, with his bayonet fixed and ready for a lunge at me.
"Now, Elias," said I, "you know me just as well as I know myself, and you know I haven't the countersign; and if you're going to kill me, why, don't stand there crouching like a cat ready to spring on a mouse, but up and at it like a man. Don't keep me here in such dreadful suspense."
"Well, friend without the countersign, I'll call up the corporal, and he may kill you,—you're a dead man, any way!" Then he sang out,—
"Corporal of the guard, post number three!"
From post to post it rang along the line, now shrill and high, now deep and low: "Corporal of the guard, post number three!" "Corporal of the guard, post number three!"
Upon which up comes the corporal of the guard on a full trot, with his gun at a right-shoulder shift, and saying,—
"Well, what's up?"
"Man trying to break my guard."
"Where is he?"
"Why there, beside that bush."
"Come along, you there; you'll be shot for a spy to-morrow morning at nine o'clock."
"All right, Mr. Corporal, I'm ready."
Now all this was fine sport; for Corporal Harter and Elias were both of my company, and knew me quite as well as I knew them; but they were bent on having a little fun at my expense, and the corporal had marched me off some distance toward headquarters, beyond the ravine, when again the call rang along the line,—
"Corporal of the guard, post number three!" "Corporal of the guard, post number three!"
Back the corporal trotted me to Elias.
"Well, what in the mischief's up now?"
"Another fellow trying to break my guard, corporal."
"Well, where is he? Trot him out! We'll have a grand execution in the morning! The more the merrier, you know; and 'Long live the Union!'"
"I'm sorry, corporal, but the fact is I killed this chap myself. I caught him trying to climb over the gate there, and he wouldn't stop nor give the countersign, and so I upand at him, and ran my bayonet through him, and there he is!"
And sure enough, there he was,—a big fat 'possum!
"All right, Elias; you're a brave soldier. I'll speak to the colonel about this, and you shall have two stripes on your sleeve one of these days."
And so, with the 'possum by the tail and me by the shoulder, he marched us off to headquarters, where, the 'possum being thrown down on the ground, and I handed over to the tender mercies of the captain, it was ordered that—
"This young man should be taken down to Andy's tent, and a supper cooked, and a bed made for him there; and that henceforth and hereafter he should beat reveille at daybreak, retreat at sundown, tattoo at nine p.m., and lights out a half-hour later."
Nothing, however, was said about the execution of spies in the morning, although it was duly ordained that the 'possum, poor thing, should be roasted for dinner the next day.
Never was there a more pleasant camp thanours,—there on that green hillside across the ravine from the President's summer residence. We had light guard duty to do, and that of a kind we esteemed a most high honor; for it was no less than that of being special guards for President Lincoln. But the good President, we were told, although he loved his soldiers as his own children, did not like being guarded. Often did I see him enter his carriage before the hour appointed for his morning departure for the White House, and drive away in haste, as if to escape from the irksome escort of a dozen cavalry-men, whose duty it was to guard his carriage between our camp and the city. Then when the escort rode up to the door, some ten or fifteen minutes later, and found that the carriage had already gone, wasn't there a clattering of hoofs and a rattling of scabbards as they dashed out past the gate and down the road to overtake the great and good President, in whose heart was "charity for all, and malice toward none!"
Boy as I was, I could not but notice how pale and haggard the President looked as he entered his carriage in the morning, orstepped down from it in the evening, after a weary day's work in the city; and no wonder, either, for those September days of 1862 were the dark, perhaps the darkest, days of the war. Many a mark of favor and kindness did we receive from the President's family. Delicacies, such as we were strangers to then, and would be for a long time to come, found their way from Mrs. Lincoln's hand to our camp on the green hillside; while little Tad, the President's son, was a great favorite with the boys, fond of the camp, and delighted with the drill.
One night, when all but the guards on their posts were wrapped in great-coats and sound asleep in the tents, I felt some one shake me roughly by the shoulder, and call:
"Harry! Harry! Get up quick and beat the long roll; we're going to be attacked. Quick, now!"
Groping about in the dark for my drum and sticks, I stepped out into the company street, and beat the loud alarm, which, waking the echoes, brought the boys out of their tents in double-quick time, and set the whole camp in an uproar.
"What's up, fellows?"
"Fall in, Company D!" shouted the orderly.
"Fall in, men," shouted the captain; "we're going to be attacked at once!"
Amid the confusion of so sudden a summons at midnight, there was some lively scrambling for guns, bayonets, cartridge-boxes, and clothes.
"I say, Bill, you've got my coat on!"
"Where's my cap?"
"Andy, you scamp, you've got my shoes!"
"Fall in, men, quick; no time to look after shoes now. Take your arms and fall in."
And so, some shoeless, others hatless, and all only half dressed, we formed in line and marched out and down the road at double-quick for a mile; then halted; pickets were thrown out; an advance of the whole line through the woods was made among tangled bushes and briers, and through marshes, until, as the first early streaks of dawn were shooting up in the eastern sky, our orders were countermanded, and we marched back to camp, to find—that the whole thing was a ruse, planned by some of the officers for thepurpose of testing our readiness for work at any hour. After that, we slept with our shoes on.
But poor old Peter Blank,—a man who should never have enlisted, for he was as afraid of a gun as Robinson Crusoe's man Friday,—poor old Peter was the butt for many a joke the next day. For amid the night's confusion, and in the immediate prospect, as he supposed, of a deadly encounter with the enemy, so alarmed did he become that he at once fell to—praying! Out of consideration for his years and piety, the captain had permitted him to remain behind as a guard for the camp in our absence, in which capacity he did excellent service, excellent service! But oh, when we sat about our fires the next morning, frying our steaks and cooking our coffee, poor Peter was the butt of all the fun, and was cruelly described by the wag of the company as "the man that had a brave heart, but a most cowardly pair of legs!"
"Well, fellows, I tell you what! I've heard a good deal about the balmy breezes and sunny skies of Old Virginny, but if this is a specimen of the sort of weather they have in these parts, I, for one, move we 'right-about-face' and march home."
So saying, Phil Hammer got up from under the scrub-pine, where he had made his bed for the night, shaking the snow from his blanket and the cape of his overcoat, while a loud "Ha! ha!" and an oft-repeated "What do you think of this, boys?" rang along the hillside on which we had found our first camping-place on "Old Virginia's Shore."
The weather had played us a most deceptive and unpleasant trick. We had landed the day before, as my journal says, "at Belle Plains, at a place called Platt's Landing,"having been brought down from Washington on the steamer "Louisiana;" had marched some three or four miles inland in the direction of Falmouth, and had halted and camped for the night in a thick undergrowth of scrub-pine and cedar. The day of our landing was remarkably fair. The skies were so bright, the air was so soft and balmy, that we were rejoiced to find what a pleasant country it was we were getting into, to be sure; but the next morning, when we drummer-boys woke the men with our loud reveille, we were all of Phil's opinion, that the sunny skies and balmy breezes of this new land were all a miserable fiction. For as man after man opened his eyes at the loud roll of our drums, and the shout of the orderly: "Fall in, Company D, for roll-call!" he found himself covered with four inches of snow, and more coming down. Fortunately, the bushes had afforded us some protection; they were so numerous and so thick that one could scarcely see twenty rods ahead of him, and with their great overhanging branches had kindly kept the falling snow out of our faces, at least while we slept.
In Winter-Quarters.
In Winter-Quarters.
In Winter-Quarters.
And now began a busy time. We were tobuild winter quarters—a work for which we were but poorly prepared, either by nature or by circumstance. Take any body of men out of civilized life, put them into the woods to shift for themselves, and they are generally as helpless as children. As for ourselves, we were indeed "Babes in the Wood." At least half the regiment knew nothing of wood-craft, having never been accustomed to the use of the axe. It was a laughable sight to see some of the men from the city try to cut down a tree! Besides, we were poorly equipped. Axes were scarce, and worth almost their weight in gold. We had no "shelter-tents." Most of us had "poncho" blankets; that is to say, a piece of oilcloth about five feet by four, with a slit in the middle. But we found our ponchos very poor coverings for our cabins; for the rain justwouldrun down through that unfortunate hole in the middle; and then, too, the men needed their oilcloths when they went on picket, for which purpose they had been particularly intended. This circumstance gave rise to frequent discussion that day: whether to use the poncho as a covering for the cabin, and get soaked onpicket, or to save the poncho for picket, and cover the cabin with brushwood and clay? Some messes[1]chose the one alternative, others the other; and as the result of this preference, together with our ignorance of wood-craft and the scarcity of axes, we produced on that hillside the oddest looking winter quarters a regiment ever built! Such an agglomeration of cabins was never seen before nor since. I am positive no two cabins on all that hillside had the slightest resemblance to each other.
There, for instance, was a mess over in Company A, composed of men from the city. They hadonekind of cabin, an immense square structure of pine-logs, about seven feet high, and covered over the top, first with brushwood, and then coated so heavily with clay that I am certain the roof must have been two feet thick at the least. It was hardly finished before some wag had nicknamed it "Fortress Monroe."
Then there was Ike Zellers, of our own company; he invented another style of architecture, or perhaps I should rather say heborrowed it from the Indians. Ike would have none of your flat-roofed concerns; he would build a wigwam. And so, marking out a huge circle, in the centre of which he erected a pole, and around the pole a great number of smaller poles, with one end on the circle and the other end meeting in the common apex, covering this with brush, and the brush with clay, he made for himself a house that was quite warm, indeed, but one so fearfully gloomy, that within it was as dark at noon as at midnight. Ominous sounds came afterward from the dark recesses of "The Wigwam;" for we were a "skirmish regiment," and Ike was our bugler, and the way he tooted all day long, "Deploy to the right and left," "Rally by fours," and "Rally by platoons," was suggestive of things yet to come.
Then there was my own tent, or cabin, if indeed I may dignify it with the name of either; for it was a cross between a house and a cave. Andy and I thought we would follow the advice of the Irishman, who, in order to raise his roof higher, dug his cellar deeper. We resolved to dig down some three feet; "and then, Harry, we'll log her up about twofeet high, cover her with ponchos, and we'll have the finest cabin in the row!" It took us about three days to accomplish so stupendous an undertaking, during which time we slept at night under the bushes as best we could, and when our work was done, we moved in with great satisfaction. I remember the door of our house was a mystery to all visitors, as, indeed, it was to ourselves until we "got the hang of it," as Andy said. It was a hole about two feet square, cut through one end of the log part of the cabin, and through it you had to crawl as best you could. If you put one leg in first, then the head, and then drew in the other leg after you, you were all right; but if, as visitors generally did, you put in your head first, you were obliged to crawl in on all fours in a most ungraceful and undignified fashion.
That was a queer-looking camp all through. If you went up to the top of the hill, where the Colonel had his quarters, and looked down, a strange sight met your eyes. By the time the next winter came, however, we had learned how to swing an axe, and we built ourselves winter quarters that reflected no little credit on our skill as experienced woodsmen. Thelast cabin we built—it was down in front of Petersburg—was a model of comfort and convenience: ten feet long by six wide and five high, made of clean pine-logs straight as an arrow, and covered with shelter tents; a chimney at one end, and a comfortable bunk at the other; the inside walls covered with clean oat-bags, and the gable ends papered with pictures cut from illustrated papers; a mantelpiece, a table, a stool; and we were putting down a floor of pine-boards, too, one day toward the close of winter, when the surgeon came by, and, looking in, said:
"No time to drive nails now, boys; we have orders to move!" But Andy said:
"Pound away, Harry, pound away; we'll see how it looks, anyhow, before we go!"
I remember an amusing occurrence in connection with the building of our winter quarters. I had gone over to see some of the boys of our company one evening, and found they had "logged up" their tent about four feet high, and stretched a poncho over it to keep the snow out, and were sitting before a fire they had built in a chimney-place at one end. The chimney was built up only as high as thelog walls reached, the intention being to "cat-stick and daub" it afterward to a sufficient height. The mess had just got a box from home, and some one had hung nearly two yards of sausage on a stick across the top of the chimney, "to smoke." And there, on a log rolled up in front of the fire, I found Jimmy Lucas and Sam Ruhl sitting smoking their pipes, and glancing up the chimney between whiffs every now and then, to see that the sausage was safe. Sitting down between them, I watched the cheery glow of the fire, and we fell to talking, now about the jolly times they were having at home at the holiday season, and again about the progress of our cabin-building, while every now and then Jimmy would peep up the chimney on one side, and shortly after Sam would squint up on the other. After sitting thus for half an hour or so, all of a sudden, Sam, looking up the chimney, jumped off the log, clapped his hands together, and shouted:
"Jim, it'sgone!"
Gone it was; and you might as well look for a needle in a haystack as search for two yards of sausage among troops building winter quarters on short rations!
One evening Andy and I were going to have a feast, consisting in the main of a huge dish of apple-fritters. We bought the flour and the apples of the sutler at enormous figures, for we were so tired of the endless monotony of bacon, beef, and bean-soup, that we were bent on having a glorious supper, cost or no cost. We had a rather small chimney-place, in which Andy was superintending the heating of a mess-pan half full of lard, while I was busying myself with the flour, dough, and apples, when, as ill-luck would have it, the lard took fire and flamed up the chimney with a roar and a blaze so bright that it illuminated the whole camp from end to end. Unfortunately, too, for us, four of our companies had been recruited in the city, and most of them had been in the volunteer fire department, in which service they had gained an experience, useful enough to them on the present occasion, but most disastrous to us.
No sooner was the bright blaze seen pouring high out of the chimney-top of our modest little cabin, than at least a half-dozen fire companies were on the instant organized for the emergency. The "Humane," the "Fairmount," the"Good-will," with their imaginary engines and hose-carriages, came dashing down our company street with shouts, and yells, and cheers. It was but the work of a moment to attach the imaginary hose to imaginary plugs, plant imaginary ladders, tear down the chimney and demolish the roof, amid a flood of sparks, and to the intense delight of the firemen, but to our utter consternation and grief. It took us days to repair the damage, and we went to bed with some of our neighbors, after a scant supper of hard-tack and coffee.
How did we spend our time in winter quarters, do you ask? Well, there was always enough to do, you may be sure, and often it was work of the very hardest sort. Two days in the week the regiment went out on picket, and while there got but little sleep and suffered much from exposure. When they were not on picket, all the men not needed for camp guard had to drill. It was nothing but drill, drill, drill: company drill, regimental drill, brigade drill, and once even division drill. Our regiment, as I have said, was a skirmish regiment, and the skirmish-drill is no light work, let me tell you. Many an evening themen came in more dead than alive after skirmishing over the country for miles around, all the afternoon. Reveille and roll-call at five o'clock in the morning, guard mount at nine, company drill from ten to twelve, regimental drill from two to four, dress-parade at five, tattoo and lights out at nine at night, with continual practice on the drum for us drummer-boys—so our time passed away.
On a certain day near the beginning of April, 1863, we were ordered to prepare for a grand review of our corps. President Lincoln, Mrs. Lincoln, Master Tad Lincoln (who used to play among our tents at "Soldiers' Home"), and some of the Cabinet officers, were coming down to look us over and see what promise we gave for the campaign soon to open.
Those who have never seen a grand review of well-drilled troops in the field have never seen one of the finest and most inspiring sights the eyes of man can behold. I wish I could impart to my readers some faint idea of the thrilling scene which must have presented itself to the eyes of the beholders when, on the morning of the ninth day of April, 1863, our gallant First Army Corps, leaving itscamps among the hills, assembled on a wide, extended plain for the inspection of our illustrious visitors.
As regiment after regiment, and brigade after brigade, came marching out from the surrounding hills and ravines, with flags gayly flying, bands and drum corps making such music as was enough to stir the blood in the heart of the most indifferent to a quicker pulse, and well-drilled troops that marched in the morning sunlight with a step as steady as the stroke of machinery,—ah! it was a sight to be seen but once in a century! And when those twenty thousand men were all at last in line, with the artillery in position off to one side on the hill, and ready to fire their salute, it seemed well worth the President's while to come all the way from Washington to look at them.
Waiting to be reviewed by the President.
Waiting to be reviewed by the President.
Waiting to be reviewed by the President.
But the President was a long, long time in coming. The sun, mounting fast toward noon, began to be insufferably hot. One hour, two hours, three hours were passing away, when, at last, far off through a defile between the hills, we caught sight of a great cloud of dust.
"Fall in, men!" for now here they come, sure enough. Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln in a carriage, escorted by a body of cavalry and groups of officers, and at the head of the cavalcade Master Tad, big with importance, mounted on a pony, and having for his especial escort a boy orderly, dressed in a cavalry-man's uniform, and mounted on another pony! And the two little fellows, scarce restraining their boyish delight, outride the company, and come on the field in a cloud of dust and at a full gallop,—little Tad shouting to the men, at the top of his voice: "Make way, men! Make way, men! Father's a-coming! Father's a-coming!"
Then the artillery breaks forth into a thundering salute, that wakes the echoes among the hills and sets the air to shivering and quaking about your ears, as the cavalcade gallops down the long line, and regimental standards droop in greeting, and bands and drum corps, one after another, strike up "Hail to the Chief," till they are all playing at once in a grand chorus that makes the hills ring as they never rang before.
But all this is only a flourish by way ofprelude. The real beauty of the review is yet to come, and can be seen only when the cavalcade, having galloped down the line in front and up again on the rear, has taken its stand out yonder immediately in front of the middle of the line, and the order is given to "pass in review."
Notice now, how, by one swift and dexterous movement, as the officers step out and give the command, that long line is broken into platoons of exactly equal length; how, straight as an arrow, each platoon is dressed; how the feet of the men all move together, and their guns, flashing in the sun, have the same inclination. Observe particularly how, when they come to wheel off, there is nobendin the line, but they wheel as if the whole platoon were a ramrod made to revolve about its one end through a quarter-circle; and now that they are marching thus down the field and past the President, what a grandeur there is in the steady step and onward sweep of that column of twenty thousand boys in blue!
But once we have passed the President and gained the other end of the field, it isnot nearly so fine. For we must needs finish the review in a double-quick, just by way of showing, I suppose, what we could do if we were wanted in a hurry,—as indeed we shall be, not more than sixty days hence! Away we go, then, on a dead run off the field, in a cloud of dust and amid a clatter of bayonet-scabbards, till, hid behind the hills, we come to a more sober pace, and march into camp just as tired as tired can be.
"Harry, wouldn't you like to go out on picket with us to-morrow? The weather is pleasant, and I'd like to have you for company, for time hangs rather heavy on a fellow's hands out there; and, besides, I want you to help me with my Latin."
Andy was a studious fellow, and carried on his studies with greater or less regularity during our whole time of service. Of course we had no books, except a pocket copy of "Cæsar;" but to make up for the deficiency, particularly of a grammar, I had written out the declensions of the nouns and the conjugations of the verbs on odd scraps of paper, which Andy had gathered up and carried in a roll in his breast-pocket, and many were the lessons we had together under the canvas or beneath the sighing branches of the pines.
"Well, old boy, I'd like to go along first-rate; but we must get permission of the adjutant first."
Having secured the adjutant's consent, and provided myself with a gun and accoutrements, the next morning, at four o'clock, I set out, in company with a body of some several hundred men of the regiment. We were to be absent from camp for two days, at the expiration of which time we were to be relieved by the next detail.
It was pleasant April weather, for the season was well advanced. Our route lay straight over the hills and through the ravines, for there were no roads, fences, nor fields. But few houses were to be seen, and from these the inhabitants had, of course, long since disappeared. At one of these few remaining houses, situated some three hundred yards from the river's edge, our advance picket-reserve was established, the captain in command making his headquarters in the once beautiful grounds of the mansion, long since deserted and left empty by its former occupants. The place had a very distressing air of neglect. The beautiful lawn in front,where merry children had no doubt played and romped in years gone by, was overgrown with weeds. The large and commodious porch, where in other days the family gathered in the evening-time and talked and sang, while the river flowed peacefully by, was now abandoned to the spiders and their webs. The whole house was pitifully forlorn looking, as if wondering why the family did not come back to fill its spacious halls with life and mirth. Even the colored people had left their quarters. There was not a soul anywhere about.
We were not permitted either to enter the house or to do any damage to the property. Pitching our shelter-tents under the outspreading branches of the great elms on the lawn in front of the house, and building our fires back of a hill in the rear to cook our breakfast, we awaited our turn to stand guard on the picket-line, which ran close along the river's edge.
It may be interesting to my young readers to know more particularly how this matter of standing picket is arranged and conducted. When a body of men numbering, let us say,for the sake of example, two hundred in all, go out on picket, the detail is usually divided into two equal parts, consisting in the supposed case of one hundred each. One of these companies of a hundred goes into a sort of camp about a half mile from the picket-line,—usually in a woods or near by a spring, if one can be found, or in some pleasant ravine among the hills,—and the men have nothing to do but make themselves comfortable for the first twenty-four hours. They may sleep as much as they like, or play at such games as they please, only they must not go away any considerable distance from the post, because they may be very suddenly wanted, in case of an attack on the advance picket-line.
The other band of one hundred takes position only a short distance to the rear of the line where the pickets pace to and fro on their beats, and is known as the advance picket-post. It is under the charge of a captain or Lieutenant, and is divided into three parts, each of which is called a "relief," the three being known as the first, the second, and the third relief, respectively. Each of these is under the charge of a non-commissionedofficer,—a sergeant or corporal,—and must stand guard in succession, two hours on and four off, day and night, for the first twenty-four hours, at the end of which time the reserve one hundred in the rear march up and relieve the whole advance picket-post, which then goes to the rear, throws off its accoutrements, stacks its arms, and sleeps till it can sleep no more. I need hardly add that each picket is furnished with the countersign, which is regularly changed every day. While on the advance picket-post no one is permitted to sleep, whether on duty on the line or not, and to sleep on the picket-line is death! At or near midnight a body of officers, known as "The Grand Rounds," goes all along the line, examining every picket, to see that "all is well."
Andy and I had by request been put together on the second relief, and stood guard from eight to ten in the morning, two to four in the afternoon, and eight to ten and two to four at night.
It was growing dark as we sat with our backs against the old elms on the lawn, telling stories, singing catches of songs, ordiscussing the probabilities of the summer campaign, when the call rang out: "Fall in, second relief!"
"Come on, Harry—get on your horse-hide and shooting-iron. We have a nice moonlight night for it, any way."
Our line, as I have said, ran directly along the river's edge, up and down which Andy and I paced on our adjoining beats, each of us having to walk about a hundred yards, when we turned and walked back, with gun loaded and capped and at a right-shoulder-shift.
The night was beautiful. A full round moon shone out from among the fleecy clouds overhead. At my feet was the pleasant plashing of the river, ever gliding on, with the moonbeams dancing as if in sport on its rippling surface, while the opposite bank was hid in the deep, solemn shadows made by the overhanging trees. Yet the shadows were not so deep there but that occasionally I could catch glimpses of a picket silently pacing his beat on the south side of the river, as I was pacing mine on the north, with bayonet flashing in the patches of moonlight as he passedup and down. I fell to wondering, as I watched him, what sort of man he was? Young or old? Had he children at home, may be, in the far-off South? Or a father and mother? Did he wish this cruel war was over? In the next fight may be he'd be killed! Then I fell to wondering who had lived in that house up yonder, and what kind of people they were. Were the sons in the war? And the daughters, where were they? and would they ever come back again and set up their household gods in the good old place once more? My imagination was busy trying to picture the scenes that had enlivened the old plantation, the darkies at work in the fields, and the—
"Hello, Yank! We can lick you!"
"Beautiful night, Johnny, isn't it?"
"Y-e-s, lovely!"
But our orders are to hold as little conversation with the pickets on the other side of the river as necessary, and so, declining any further civilities, I resume my beat.
"Harry, I'm going to lie down here at the upper end of your beat," says the sergeant who has charge of our relief. "I ain't a-goingto sleep, but I'm tired. Every time you come up to this end of your beat, speak to me, will you? for Imightfall asleep."
"Certainly, sergeant."
The first time I speak to him, the second, and the third, he answers readily enough, "All right, Harry;" but at the fourth summons he is sound asleep. Sleep on, sergeant, sleep on! Your slumbers shall not be broken by me, unless the "Grand Rounds" come along, for whom I must keep a sharp lookout, lest they catch you napping and give you a pretty court-martial! But Grand Rounds or no, you shall have a little sleep. One of these days you, and many more of us besides, will sleep the last long sleep that knows no waking. But hark! I hear the challenge up the line! I must rouse you, after all.
"Sergeant! Sergeant! Get up—Grand Rounds!"
"Halt! Who goes there?"
"The Grand Rounds."
"Advance, officer of the Grand Rounds, and give the countersign."
An officer steps out from the group that is half-hidden in the shadow, and whispers inmy ear, "Lafayette," when the whole body silently and stealthily passes down the line.
Relieved at ten o'clock, we go back to our post at the house, and find it rather hard work to keep our eyes open from ten to two o'clock, but sleep is out of the question. At two o'clock in the morning the second relief goes out again, down through the patch of meadow, wet with the heavy dew, and along down the river to our posts. It is nearly three o'clock, and Andy and I are standing talking in low tones, he at the upper end of his beat and I at the lower end of mine, when—
Bang! And the whistle of a ball is heard overhead among the branches. Springing forward at once by a common impulse, we get behind the shelter of a tree, run out our rifles, and make ready to fire.
"You watch up-river, Harry," whispers Andy, "and I'll watch down; and if you see him trying to handle his ramrod, let him have it, and don't miss him."