Scene among the Rifle-Pits before Petersburg.
Scene among the Rifle-Pits before Petersburg.
Scene among the Rifle-Pits before Petersburg.
Great forts stood at intervals all along the line as far as the eye could see, and at these the men toiled day and night all summer long, adding defence to defence, and making "assurance doubly sure," until the forts stood out to the eye of the beholder, with their sharp angles and well-defined outlines, formidable structures indeed. Without attempting to describe them in technical military language, I will simply ask you to imagine a piece of level ground, say two hundred feet square, surrounded by a bank of earth about twenty feet in height, with rows of gabions[4]and sand-bags arranged on top of the embankment, and at intervals along the sides embrasures or port-holes, at which the great cannon were planted,—and you will have some rough notion of what one of our forts looked like. Somewhere within the inclosure, usually near the centre of it, was the magazine, where the powder and shells were stored. This was made by digging a deep place something like a cellar, covering it over withheavy logs, and piling up earth and sand-bags on the logs, the whole, when finished, having the shape of a small round-topped pyramid. At the rear was left a small passage, like a cellar-way, and through this the ammunition was brought up. If ever the enemy could succeed in dropping a shell down that little cellar-door, or in otherwise piercing the magazine, then good by to the fort and all and everybody in and around it!
On the outside of each large fort there were, of course, all the usual defences of ditch,abatis, andchevaux-de-frise, to render approach very dangerous to the enemy.
The enemy had fortifications like ours,—long lines of breastworks, with great forts at commanding positions; and the two lines were so near that, standing in one of our forts, I could have carried on a conversation with a man in the fort opposite. I remember, while on the picket-line one evening, watching a body of troops moving along the edge of a wood within the enemy's works, and quite easily distinguishing the color of their uniforms.
I have said already that, inside of ourbreastworks, one was quite secure against the enemy's bullets. But bullets were not the only things we had to look out for,—there were the shell, the case-shot, and I know not what shot besides. Every few hours these would be dropped behind our breastworks, and often much execution was done by them. To guard against these missiles, each mess built what was called a "bomb-proof," which consisted of an excavation about six feet square by six deep, covered with heavy logs, the logs covered with earth, a little back cellar-way being left on the side away from the enemy. Into this bomb-proof we could dart the moment the shelling began, and be as safe as in our own mother's kitchen. Our shelter-tents we pitched on top of the bomb-proof, and in this upper story we lived most of the time, dropping down occasionally into the cellar.
Bang! bang! bang!
"Fall into your pits, boys!" and in a trice there wasn't so much as a blue coat in sight.
Familiarity breeds contempt,—even of danger; and sometimes we were caught. Thus, one day, when there had been no shelling for a long time, and we had grown somewhat careless,and were scattered about under the trees, some sleeping and others sitting on top of the breastworks to get a mouthful of fresh air, all of a sudden the guns of one of the great forts opposite us opened with a rapid fire, dropping shells right among us. Of course there was a "scatteration" as we tried to fall into our pits pell-mell; but, for all our haste, several of us were severely hurt. There was a boy from Philadelphia,—I forget his name,—sitting on the breastworks writing a letter home; a piece of shell tore off his arm with the pen in his hand. A lieutenant received an iron slug in his back, while a number of other men were hurt. And such experiences were of frequent occurrence.
A great victory had been gained by our cavalry somewhere (I think by Sheridan), and one evening an orderly rode along the line to each regimental headquarters, distributing despatches containing an account of the victory, with instructions that the papers be read to the men. Cheers were given all along the line that night, and a shotted salute was ordered at daylight the next morning.
The Magazine where the Powder and Shells were stored.
The Magazine where the Powder and Shells were stored.
The Magazine where the Powder and Shells were stored.
At sunrise every available gun from theAppomattox to the Weldon Railroad must have been brought into service and trained against the enemy's works, for the noise was terrific. And still further to increase the din, the Johnnies, supposing it to be a grand assault along the whole line, replied with every gun they could bring to bear, and the noise was so great that you would have thought the very thunders of doom were rolling. After the firing had ceased, the Johnnies were informed that "we have only been giving three iron cheers for the victory Sheridan has gained up the valley lately." There was, I presume, some regret on the other side over the loss of powder and shot. At all events, whenever, after that, similar iron cheers were given, and this was not seldom the case, the enemy preserved a moody silence.
After remaining in our works for about a month, we were relieved by other troops and marched off to the left in the direction of the Weldon Railroad, which we took after severe fighting. We held it, and at once fortified our position with a new line of works, thus cutting off one of the main lines of communication between Petersburg and the South.
In what way to account for it I know not, but so it is, that soldiers always have been, and I suppose always will be, merry-hearted fellows and full of good spirits. One would naturally suppose that, having so much to do with hardship and danger every day, they would be sober and serious above the generality of men. But such was by no means the case with our Boys in Blue. In camp, on the march, nay even in the solemn hour of battle, there was ever and anon a laugh passing down the line or some sport going on amongst the tents. Seldom was there wanting some one noted for his powers of storytelling, to beguile the weary hours about the camp-fire at the lower end of the company street, or out among the pines on picket. Few companies could be found without somenative-born wag or wit, whose comical songs or quaint remarks kept the boys in good humor, while at the same time each and all, according to the measure of their several capacities, were given to playing practical jokes of one kind or other for the general enlivenment of the camp.
There was Corporal Harter, for example, of my own company. I do not single him out as a remarkable wit, or in any sense as a shining light in our little galaxy of Boys in Blue; but choose him rather as an average specimen. More than one was the trick which Harter played on Andy and myself—though I cannot help but remember, also, that he sometimes had good ground for so doing, as the following will show.
It was while we were yet lying around Washington during the winter of 1863, that Harter and I one day secured a "pass" and went into the city. In passing the Treasury Department we found a twenty-five cent note. We had at first a mind to call on the Secretary of the Treasury and ask whether he had lost it, as we had found it in front of his establishment; but thinking that it would notgo very far toward paying the expenses of the war, and reflecting that even if it did belong to Uncle Sam, we belonged to Uncle Sam too, and so where could be the harm of our keeping it and laying it out on ourselves?—we finally concluded to spend it at a certain print-shop on Pennsylvania Avenue, where were exposed for sale great numbers of colored pictures of different generals and statesmen, a prize of cheap gilt jewelry being given with each picture. For the jewelry we cared not a whit; but the pictures each of us was anxious to possess, for they would make very nice decorations for our tents, we thought. Having, then, purchased a number of these with our treasure-trove, and having received from the shopkeeper a handful of brass earrings, which neither of us wanted (for what in the world did a soldier want with brass earrings, or even with gold ones, for the matter of that?), we took our way to the park, west of the Capitol buildings, and sat down on a bench.
"Now, Harry," said the corporal, as he sat wistfully looking at a picture of a general dressed in the bluest of blue uniforms, who,with sword drawn and horse at full gallop, dismounted cannon in the rear and clouds of blue smoke in front, was apparently leading his men on to the desperate charge. The men had not come on the field yet, but it was of course understood by the general's looks that they were coming somewhere in the background. A person can't haveeverythingin a picture, at the rate of four for a quarter, with a handful of earrings thrown in to clinch the bargain,—all of which, no doubt, passed rapidly through the corporal's mind as he examined the pictures,—"Now, Harry, how will we divide 'em?"
"Well, corporal," answered I, "suppose we do it this way: we'll toss up a penny for it. 'Heads I win, tails you lose,' you know. If it comes head I'll take the pictures and you'll take the jewelry; if it comes tail you'll take the jewelry and I'll take the pictures. That's fair and square, isn't it?"
The corporal's head could not have been very clear that morning, or he would have seen through this nicely laid little scheme as clearly as one can see through a grindstone with a hole in the middle. But the propositionwas so rapidly announced, and set forth with such an appearance of candor and exact justice, that, not seeing the trap laid for him, he promptly got out a penny from his pocket, and balancing it on his thumb-nail, while he thoughtfully squinted up toward a tree-top near by, said,—
"I guess that's fair. Here goes—but, hold on. How is it, now? Say it over again."
"Why, it's as plain as the nose on your face, man. Don't you see? If it comes head, then I take the pictures and you take the jewelry. If it comes tail, then you take the jewelry and I take the pictures. Nothing could be plainer than that; so, flop her up, corporal."
"All right, Harry. Here she go—. But hold on!" said he, as a new light seemed to dawn on his mind, while he raised his cap and thoughtfully scratched his head. "Let me see. Ah! you young rascal! You're sharp, you are! Going to gobble up the whole grist of illuminated generals and statesmen, and leave me this handful of brass earrings and breastpins to send home to the girl I left behind me—eh?"
But every dog has his day, and whether or not Harter bided his time for retaliation, or had quite forgotten about 'heads I win, tails you lose,' by the time we got down into Virginia, yet so it was that in more than one camp he gave Andy and myself a world of trouble. More than one evening in winter-quarters, as we sat about our fire, cartridges were dropped down our chimney by some unseen hand, driving us out of our tent in a jiffy; and it was not seldom that our pan of frying hard-tack was sent a flying by a sudden explosion. It was wasted breath to ask who did it.
We were lying in camp near the Rappahannock some time along in the fall of 1863, when Andy said one day,—
"Look here, Harry, let's have someroastbeef once. I'm tired of this everlasting frying and frizzling, and my mouth just waters for a good roast. And I've just learned how to do it, too, for I saw a fellow over here in another camp at it, and I tell you it's just fine. You see, you take your chunk of beef and wrap it up in a cloth or newspaper, and then you get some clay and cover it thick allover with the clay, until it looks like a big forty-pound cannon-ball, and then you put it in among the red-hot coals, and it bakes hard like a brick; and when it's done, you just crack the shell off, and out comes your roast fit for the table of a king."
We at once set to work, and all went well enough till Harter came along that way. While Andy was off for more clay, and I was looking after more paper, Harter fumbled around our beef, saying he didn't believe we could roast it that way.
"Just you wait, now," said Andy, coming in with the clay; "we'll show you."
So we covered our beef thick with stiff clay, and rolled the great ball into the camp-fire, burying it among the hot ashes and coals, and sat down to watch it, while the rest of the boys were boiling their coffee and frying their steaks for dinner. The fire was a good one, and there were about a dozen black tin cups dangling on as many long sticks, their several owners squatting about in a circle,—when all of a sudden, with a terrific bang, amid a shower of sparks and hot ashes, the coffee-boilers were scattered, right and left, and adozen quarts of coffee sent hissing and sizzling into the fire. Our poor roast beef was a sorry looking mess indeed when we picked it out of the general wreck.
We always believed that Harter had somehow smuggled a cartridge into that beef of ours while our backs were turned, and we determined to pay him back in his own coin on the very first favorable opportunity. It was a long time, however, before the coveted opportunity came; in fact it was quite a year afterward, and happened in this wise.
We were lying in front of Petersburg, some little while after the celebrated Petersburg mine explosion, of which my readers have no doubt often heard. We were playing a game of chess one day, Andy and I, behind the high breastworks. Our chessmen we had whittled out of soft white pine with our jack-knives. I remember we were at first puzzled to know how to distinguish our men; for, all being whittled out of white pine, both sides were of course alike white, and it was impossible to keep them from getting sadly confused during the progress of the game. At length, however, we hit onthe expedient of staining one half of our men with tincture of iodine, which we begged of the surgeon, and then they did quite well. Our kings we called generals,—one Grant, the other Lee,—the knights were cavalry, the castles forts, the bishops chaplains, and the pawns Yanks and Johnny Rebs. We were deep in a game of chess with these our men one day, when Andy suddenly broke a long silence by saying:
"Harry, do you remember how Harter blew up our beef-roast last year down there along the Rappahannock? And don't you think it's pretty nearly time we should pay him back? Because if you do, I've got a plan for doing it."
"Yes, Andy, I remember it quite well; but then, you know, we are not quite sure he did it. Besides, he was corporal then, and he's captain now, and he might play the mischief with us if he catches us at any nice little game of that sort."
"Oh, pshaw!" exclaimed Andy, as he threw out his cavalry on my right flank. "He won't find out; and if he does, 'all's fair in love, war, and controversy,' you know, andI'm sure we can rely on his good nature, even if he does get a little riled."
On examining into matters at the conclusion of the game, we found that the captain was on duty somewhere, and that, so far, the coast was clear. Entering his tent, we found a narrow bunk of poles on either side, with an open space of several feet between the two. Here, while Andy set out in search of ammunition, I was set to digging a six-inch square hole in the ground, into which we emptied the powder of a dozen cartridges, covering all carefully with earth, and laying a long train, or running fuse, out of the rear of the tent.
When Harter came in for dinner, and was comfortably seated on his bunk with his cup of bean-soup on his knee, suddenly there was a fiz-z-z and a boom! and Harter came dashing out of his tent, covered with gravel and bespattered with bean soup, to the great merriment of the men, who instantly set up shouts of—
"Fall in your pits!"
"Petersburg mine explosion!"
"'Nother great Union victory!"
Did he get cross? Well, it was natural he should feel a little vexed when the fur was so rudely brushed the wrong way; but he tried not to show it, and laughed along with the rest; for in war, as in peace, a man must learn to join in a laugh at his own expense sometimes, as well as to make merry over the mishaps of others.
A famous and favorite kind of sport, especially when we had been long lying in camp in summer, or were in quarters in winter, was what was commonly known as "raiding the sutler."
We heard a great deal in those days about "raids." We read in the newspapers which occasionally fell into our hands, or heard on the picket-line, of raids into Maryland and raids into Pennsylvania, sometimes by Mosby's men, and sometimes by Stuart's cavalry; and it was quite natural, when growing weary of the dull monotony of camp life, to look around for some one to raid. Very often the sutler was the chosen victim. He was selected, not because he was a civilian and wore citizen's clothes, but chiefly because ofwhat seemed to the boys the questionable character of his pursuit,—making money out of the soldiers. "Here we are,"—for so the men would reason—"here we are,—left home and took our lives in our hands—in for 'three years or sooner shot'—get thirteen dollars a month and live on hard-tack; and over there is that sutler, at whose shop a man may spend a whole month's pay and hardly get enough to make a single good meal—it's a confounded mean business!"
The sutler seldom enjoyed much respect, as how could he when he flourished and fattened on our hungry stomachs? Of course, if a man spent the whole of his month's pay for ginger-cakes and sardines, why it was his own fault. He did not need to spend his money if he did not choose to do so. But it was hardly in human nature to live on pork, bean-soup, and hard-tack day after day, and not feel the mouth water at the sight of the sutler's counter, with its array of delicacies, poor and common though they were. Besides, the sutler usually charged most exorbitant prices—two ginger-cakes for five cents, four apples for a quarter, eighty cents for a small can ofcondensed milk, and ninety for a pound of butter, which Andy usually denounced in vigorous Biblical terms as being as strong as Samson and as old as Methuselah. Maybe the sutler's charges were none too high, when his many risks were duly considered; for he was usually obliged to transport his goods a great distance, over almost impassable roads, and was often liable to capture by the enemy's foraging parties, besides being exposed to numerous other fortunes of war, whereby he might lose his all in an hour. But soldiers in search of sport were not much disposed to take a just and fair view of all his circumstances. What they saw was only this—that they wanted somebody to raid, and who could be a fitter subject than the sutler?
The sutler's establishment was a large wall tent, usually pitched on the side of the camp farthest away from the colonel's quarters. It was therefore in a somewhat exposed and tempting position. Whenever it was thought well to raid him, the men of his own regiment would usually enter into a contract with those of some neighboring regiment—
"You fellows come over here some nightand raid our sutler, and then we'll come over to your camp some night and raid your sutler. Will you do it?"
It was generally agreed to, this courteous offer of friendly offices; and great, though indescribable, was the sport which often resulted. For when all had been duly arranged and made ready, some dark night when the sutler was sleeping soundly in his tent, a skirmish line from the neighboring regiment would cautiously pick its way down the hill and through the brush, and silently surround the tent. One party, creeping close in by the wall of the tent, would loosen the ropes and remove them from the stakes on the one side, while another party on the other side, at a given signal, would pull the whole concern down over the sutler's head. And then would arise yells and cheers for a few moments, followed by immediate silence as the raiding party would steal quietly away.
Did they steal his goods? Very seldom; for soldiers are not thieves, and plunder was not the object, but only fun. Why did not the officers punish the men for doing this? Well, sometimes they did. But sometimesthe officers believed the sutler to be exorbitant in his charges and oppressive to the men, and cared little how soon he was cleared out and sent a-packing; and therefore they enjoyed the sport quite as well as the men, and often did as Nelson did when he put his blind eye to the telescope and declared he did not see the signal to recall the fleet. They winked at the frolic and came on the scene usually in ample time to condole with the sutler, but quite too late to do him any service.
Thus, once when the sutler was being raided he hastily sent for the "officer of the day," whose business it was to keep order in the camp. But he was so long in coming, that the boys were in the height of their sport when he arrived; and not wishing to spoil their fun, he gave his orders in two quite different ways,—one in a very loud voice, intended for the sutler to hear, and the other in a whisper, designed for the boys:—
(Loud.) "Get out of this! Put you all in the guard-house!"
(Whisper.) "Pitch in, boys! Pitch in, boys!"
The sutler's tent was often a favorite loungingplace with the officers. One evening early a party of about a dozen officers were seated on boxes and barrels in the sutler's establishment. All of them wanted cigars, but no one liked to call for them, for cigars were so dear that no one cared about footing the bill for the whole party, and yet could not be so impolite as to call for one for himself alone. As they sat there with the flaps of the tent thrown back, they could see quite across the camp to the colonel's quarters beyond.
"Now, boys," said Captain K——, "I see the chaplain coming down Company C street, and I think he is coming here; and if he does come here we'll have some fun at his expense. We all want cigars, and we might as well confess what is an open secret, that none of us dares to call for a cigar for himself alone, nor feels like footing the bill for the whole party. Well, let the sutler set out a few boxes of cigars on the counter, so as to have them handy when they are needed, and you follow my lead, and we'll see whether we can't somehow or other make the chaplain yonder pay the reckoning."
The chaplain in question, be it remembered,made some pretension to literature, and considered himself quite an authority in camp on all questions pertaining to orthography, etymology, syntax, and prosody; and presumed to be an umpire in all matters which might from time to time come into discussion in the realm of letters. So, when he came into the sutler's tent, Captain K—— saluted him with,—
"Good evening, Chaplain; you're just the very man we want to see. We've been having a little discussion here, and as we saw you coming we thought we'd submit the question to you for decision."
"Well, gentlemen," said the chaplain, with a smile of gratification, "I shall be only too happy to render you what poor assistance I can. May I inquire what may be the question under discussion?"
"It is but a small thing," replied the captain; "you might, I suppose, call it more amatter of tastethan anything else. It concerns a question of emphasis, or rather, perhaps, of inflection, and it is this: Would you say, 'Gentlemen, will you have a cigár?' or 'Gentlemen, will you have a cigàr?'"
Pushing his hat forward as he thoughtfully scratched his head, the chaplain, after a pause, responded,—
"Well, there don't seem to be much difference between the two. But, on consideration, I believe I would say, 'Gentlemen, will you have a cigár?'"
"Certainly!" exclaimed they all, in full and hearty chorus, as they rushed up to the counter in a body and each took a handful of cigars with a "Thank you, Chaplain," leaving their bewildered literary umpire to pay the bill,—which, for the credit of his cloth, I believe he did.
It was Frederick the Great, I believe, who said that "An army, like a serpent, goes upon its belly,"—which was but another way of saying that if you want men to fight well, you must feed them well.
Of provisions, Uncle Sam usually gave us a sufficiency; but the table to which he invited his boys was furnished with little variety and less delicacy. On first entering the service, the drawing of our rations was not a small undertaking, for there were nearly a hundred of us in the company, and it takes a considerable weight of bread and pork to feed a hundred hungry stomachs. But after we had been in the field a year or two, the call, "Fall in for your hard-tack!" was leisurely responded to by only about a dozen men,—lean, sinewy, hungry-looking fellows, each with his haversackin hand. I can see them yet as they sat squatting around a gum-blanket spread on the ground, on which were a small heap of sugar, another of coffee, and another of rice, may be, which the corporal was dealing out by successive spoonfuls, as the boys held open their little black bags to receive their portion, while near by lay a small piece of salt pork or beef, or possibly a dozen potatoes.
Much depended, of course, on the cooking of the provisions furnished us. At first we tried a company cook; but we soon learned that the saying of Miles Standish,—
"If you wish a thing to be well done,You must do it yourself, you must not leave it to others!"
"If you wish a thing to be well done,You must do it yourself, you must not leave it to others!"
"If you wish a thing to be well done,You must do it yourself, you must not leave it to others!"
"If you wish a thing to be well done,
You must do it yourself, you must not leave it to others!"
applied to cooking quite as well as to courting. We therefore soon dispensed with our cook, and although scarcely any of us knew how to cook so much as a cup of coffee when we took the field, a keen appetite, aided by that necessity which is ever the mother of invention, soon taught us how bean-soup should be made and hard-tack prepared.
Hard-tack! It is a question which I havemuch debated with myself while writing, whether this chapter should not be entitled "Hard-Tack." For as this article of diet was the grand staff of life to the Boys in Blue, it would seem that but little could be said of the culinary art in camp without involving some mention of hard-tack at almost every turn.
"Fall in for Hard Tack!"
"Fall in for Hard Tack!"
"Fall in for Hard Tack!"
As I write, there lies before me on my table an innocent-looking cracker, which I have faithfully preserved for years. It is about the size and has the general appearance of an ordinary soda biscuit. If you take it in your hand, you will find it somewhat heavier than an ordinary biscuit, and if you bite it—but no; I will not let you bite it, for I wish to see how long I can keep it. But if you were to reduce it to a fine powder, you would find that it would absorb considerably more water than an equal weight of wheat-flour; showing that in the making of hard-tack the chief object in view is to stow away the greatest amount of nourishment in the smallest amount of space. You will also observe that this cracker is very hard. This you may perhaps attribute to its great age. But if you imaginethat its age is to be measured only by the years which have elapsed since the war, you are greatly mistaken; for there was a common belief among the boys that our hard-tack had been baked long before the commencement of the Christian era! This opinion was based upon the fact that the letters B. C. were stamped on many, if not indeed all, of the cracker-boxes. To be sure there were some wiseacres who shook their heads, and maintained that these mysterious letters were the initials of the name of some army contractor or inspector of supplies; but the belief was wide-spread and deep-seated that they were without a doubt intended to set forth the era in which our bread had been baked.
For our hard-tack were very hard; you could scarcely break them with your teeth—some of them you could not fracture with your fist. Still, as I have said, there was an immense amount of nourishment stowed away in them, as we soon discovered when once we had learned the secret of getting at it. It required some experience and no little hunger to enable one to appreciate hard-tack aright,and it demanded no small amount of inventive power to understand how to cook hard-tack as they ought to be cooked. If I remember correctly, in our section of the army we had not less than fifteen different ways of preparing them. In other parts, I understand, they had discovered one or two ways more; but with us, fifteen was the limit of the culinary art when this article of diet was on the board.
On the march they were usually not cooked at all, but eaten in the raw state. In order, however, to make them somewhat more palatable, a thin slice of nice fat pork was cut down and laid on the cracker, and a spoonful of good brown sugar put on top of the pork, and you had a dish fit for a—soldier. Of course the pork had just come out of the pickle, and was consequently quite raw; but fortunately we never heard oftrichinæin those days. I suppose they had not yet been invented. When we halted for coffee, we sometimes had fricasseed hard-tack—prepared by toasting them before the hot coals, thus making them soft and spongy. If there was time for frying, we either dropped them into the fat in thedry state and did them brown to a turn, or soaked them in cold water and then fried them, or pounded them into a powder, mixed this with boiled rice or wheat flour, and made griddle-cakes and honey—minus the honey. When, as was generally the case on a march, our hard-tack had been broken into small pieces in our haversacks, we soaked these in water and fried them in pork-fat, stirring well and seasoning with salt and sutler's pepper, thus making what was commonly known as a "Hishy-hashy, or a hot-fired stew."
But the great triumph of the culinary art in camp, to my mind, was a hard-tack pudding. This was made by placing the biscuit in a stout canvas bag, and pounding bag and contents with a club on a log, until the biscuit were reduced to a fine powder. Then you added a little wheat-flour (the more the better), and made a stiff dough, which was next rolled out on a cracker-box lid, like pie-crust. Then you covered this all over with a preparation of stewed dried apples, dropping in here and there a raisin or two, just for "auld lang syne's" sake. The whole wasthen rolled together, wrapped in a cloth, boiled for an hour or so, and eaten with wine sauce. The wine was, however, usually omitted, and hunger inserted in its stead.
Thus you see what truly vast and unsuspected possibilities reside in this innocent-looking three-and-a-half-inch-square hard-tack lying here on my table before me. Three like this specimen made a meal, and nine were a ration; and this is what fought the battles for the Union.
The army hard-tack had but one rival, and that was the army bean. A small white roundish soup-bean it was, such as you have no doubt often seen. It was quite as innocent looking as its inseparable companion, the hard-tack, and, like it, was possessed of possibilities which the uninitiated would never suspect. It was not so plastic an edible as the hard-tack, indeed; that is to say, not capable of entering into so many different combinations, nor susceptible of so wide a range of use, but the one great dish which might be made of it was so pre-eminently excellent, that it threw hishy-hashy and hard-tack pudding quite into the shade. This was "bakedbeans." No doubt bean-soup was very good, as it was also very common; but oh, "baked beans!"
I had heard of the dish before, but had never, even remotely, imagined what toothsome delights lurked in the recesses of a camp-kettle of beans baked after the orthodox backwoods fashion, until one day Bill Strickland, whose home was in the lumber regions, where the dish had no doubt been first invented, said to me,—
"Come round to our tent to-morrow morning; we're going to have baked beans for breakfast. If you will walk around to the lower end of our Company street with me, I'll show you how we bake beans up in the country I come from."
It was about three o'clock in the afternoon, and the boys were already busy. They had an immense camp-kettle about two thirds full of parboiled beans. Near by they had dug a hole in the ground, about three feet square and two deep, in which and on top of which a great fire was to be made about dusk, so as to get the hole thoroughly heated and full of red-hot coals by the timetattoosounded.Into this hole the camp-kettle was then set, with several pounds of fat pork on the top of the beans, and securely covered with an inverted mess-pan. It was sunk into the red-hot coals, by which it was completely concealed, and was left there all night to bake, one of the camp-guards throwing a log on the fire from time to time during the night, to keep matters a-going.
Early the next morning some one shook me roughly, as I lay sleeping soundly in my bunk,—
"Get up, Harry. Breakfast is ready. Come over to our tent. If you never ate baked beans before, you never ate anything worth eating."
I found three or four of the boys seated around the camp-kettle, each with a tin plate on his knee and a spoon in his hand, doing their very best to establish the truth of the adage that "the proof of the pudding is in the eating." Now it is a far more difficult matter to describe the experiences of the palate than of either the eye or the ear, and therefore I shall not attempt to tell the reader how very good baked beans are. The only troublewith a camp-kettle full of this delicious food was that it was gone so soon. Wheredidit get to, anyhow? It was something like Father Tom's quart of drink,—"an irrational quantity, because it was too much for one and too little for two."
Still, too much of a good thingistoo much; and one might get quite too much of beans (except in the state above described), as you will find if you ask some friend or acquaintance who was in the war to sing you the song of "The Army Bean." And remember, please, to ask him to sing the refrain to the tune sometimes called "Days of Absence," and to pull up sharp on the last word,—
"Beans for breakfast,Beans for dinner,Beans for supper,—Beans!"
"Beans for breakfast,Beans for dinner,Beans for supper,—Beans!"
"Beans for breakfast,Beans for dinner,Beans for supper,—Beans!"
"Beans for breakfast,
Beans for dinner,
Beans for supper,—
Beans!"
While we were yet before Petersburg, two divisions of our corps (the Fifth), with two divisions of the Ninth, leaving the line of works at the Weldon Railroad, were pushed out still farther to the left, with the intention of turning the enemy's right flank.
Starting out, therefore, early on the morning of Thursday, October 27, 1864, with four days' rations in our haversacks, we moved off rapidly by the left, striking the enemy's picket-line about ten o'clock.
"Pop! pop! pop! Boom! boom! boom! We're in for it again, boys; so, steady on the left there, and close up."
Away into the woods we plunge in line of battle, through briers and tangled undergrowth, beneath the great trees dripping withrain. We lose the points of the compass, and halt every now and then to close up a gap in the line by bearing off to the right or left. Then forward we go through the brush again, steady on the left and guide right, until I feel certain that officers as well as men are getting pretty well "into the woods" as to the direction of our advance. It is raining, and we have no sun to guide us, and the moss is growing on the wrong side of the trees. I see one of our generals sitting on his horse, with his pocket-compass on the pommel of his saddle, peering around into the interminable tangle of brier and brush, with an expression of no little perplexity.
Yet still on, boys, while the pickets are popping away, and the rain is pouring down. The evening falls early and cold, as we come to a stand in line of battle and put up breastworks for the night.
We have halted on the slope of a ravine. Minié-balls are singing over our heads as we cook our coffee, while sounds of axes and falling trees are heard on all sides; and still that merry "z-i-p! z-i-p!" goes on among the tree-tops and sings us to sleep at length, as we liedown shivering under our India-rubber blankets, to get what rest we may.
How long we had slept I did not know, when some one shook me, and in a whisper the word passed around:
"Wake up, boys! Wake up, boys! Don't make any noise, and take care your tin cups and canteens don't rattle. We've got to get out of this on a double jump!"
We were in a pretty fix indeed! In placing the regiments in position, by some blunder, quite excusable, no doubt, in the darkness and the tangled forest, we had been unwittingly pushed beyond the main line,—were, in fact, quite outside the picket-line! It needed only daylight to let the enemy see his game, and sweep us off the boards. And daylight was fast coming in the east.
Long after, a Company A boy, who was on picket that night, told me that, upon going to the rear somewhere about three o'clock, to cook a cup of coffee at a half-extinguished fire, a cavalry picket ordered him back within the lines.
"The lines are not back there; my regiment is out yonder in front, on skirmish!"
"No," said the cavalry-man, "our cavalry is the extreme picket-line, and our orders are to send in all men beyond us."
"Then take me at once to General Bragg's headquarters," said the Company A boy.
When General Bragg learned the true state of affairs, he at once ordered out an escort of five hundred men to bring in our regiment.
Meanwhile we were trying to get back of our own accord.
"This way, men!" said a voice in a whisper ahead.
"This way, men!" said another voice in the rear.
That we were wandering about vainly in the darkness, and under no certain leadership, was evident, for I noticed in the dim light that, in our tramping about in the tangle, we had twice crossed the same fallen tree, and so must have been moving in a circle.
And now, as the day is dawning in the east, and the enemy's pickets see us trying to steal away, a large force is ordered against us, and comes sweeping down with yells and whistling bullets,—just as the escort of five hundred, with reassuring cheers, comes up from the rear to our support!
Instantly we are in the cloud and smoke of battle. A battery of artillery, hastily dragged up into position, opens on the charging line of gray with grape and canister, while from bush and tree pours back and forth the dreadful blaze of musketry. For half an hour, the conflict rages fierce and high in the dawning light and under the dripping trees,—the officers shouting, and the men cheering and yelling and charging, often fighting hand to hand and with bayonets locked in deadly encounter, while the air is cut by the whistling lead, and the deep bass of the cannon wakes the echoes of the forest.
But at last the musketry-fire gradually slackens, and we find ourselves out of danger.
The enemy's prey has escaped him, and, to the wonder of all, we are brought within the lines again, begrimed with smoke and leaving many of our poor fellows dead or wounded on the field.
Anxiously every man looked about for his chum and messmates, lost sight of during the whirling storm of battle in the twilight woods. And I, too, looked; but where was Andy?
The Conflict at Daybreak in the Woods at Hatcher's Run.
The Conflict at Daybreak in the Woods at Hatcher's Run.
The Conflict at Daybreak in the Woods at Hatcher's Run.
Andy was nowhere to be found.
All along the line of battle-worn men, now gathered in irregular groups behind the breastworks, and safe from the enemy, I searched for him—and searched in vain. Not a soul had tidings of him. At last, however, a soldier with his blouse-sleeve ripped up and a red-stained bandage around his arm, told me that, about daylight, when the enemy came sweeping down on us, he and Andy were behind neighboring trees. He himself received a ball through the arm, and was busy trying to stop the flow of blood, when, looking up, he saw Andy reel, and, he thought,fall. He was not quite sure it was Andy, but he thought so.
Andy killed! What should I do without Andy?—the best and truest friend, the mostcompanionable messmate, that a soldier ever could hope to have! It could not be! I would look farther for him.
Out, therefore, I went, over the breastworks to the picket-line, where the rifles were popping away at intervals. I searched among trees and behind bushes, and called and called, but all in vain. Then the retreat was sounded, and we were drawn off the field, and marched back to the fortifications which we had left the day before.
Toward evening, as we reached camp, I obtained permission to examine the ambulance-trains, in search of my chum. As one train after another came in, I climbed up and looked into each ambulance; but the night had long set in before I found him—or thought I had found him. Raising my lantern high, so as to throw the light full on the face of the wounded man lying in a stupor on the floor of the wagon, I was at first confident it was Andy; for the figure was short, well-built, and had raven black hair.
"Andy! Andy! Where are you hurt?" I cried.
But no answer came. Rolling him on hisback and looking full into his face, I found, alas! a stranger—a manly, noble face, too, but no life, no signs of life, in it. There were indeed a very low, almost imperceptible breathing and a faint pulse—but the man was evidently dying.
About a week afterward, having secured a pass from corps headquarters, I started for City Point to search the hospitals there for my chum. The pass allowed me not only to go through all the guards I might meet on my way, but also to ride free to City Point over the railroad—"General Grant's Railroad," we called it.
Properly speaking, this was a branch of the road from City Point to Petersburg, tapping it about midway between the two places, and from that point following our lines closely to the extreme left of our position. Never was road more hastily built. So rapidly did the work advance, that scarcely had we learned such a road was planned, before one evening the whistle of a locomotive was heard down the line only a short distance to our right. No grading was done. The ties were simply laid on the top of the ground,the rails were nailed fast, and the rolling-stock was put on without waiting for ballast; and there the railroad was—up hill and down dale, and "as crooked as a dog's hind leg." At only one point had any cutting been done, and that was where the road, after climbing a hill, came within range of the enemy's batteries. The first trains which passed up and down afforded a fine mark and were shelled vigorously, the enemy's aim becoming with daily practice so exact that nearly every train was hit somewhere. The hill was then cut through, and the fire avoided. It was a rough road, and the riding was full of fearful jolts; but it saved thousands of mules, and enabled General Grant to hold his position during the winter of the Petersburg siege.
I was obliged to make an early start, for the train left General Warren's headquarters about four o'clock in the morning. When I reached the station, I found on the platform a huge pile of boxes and barrels, nearly as high as a house, which I was informed was the Fifth Corps' share of a grand dinner which the people of New York had just sentdown to the Army of the Potomac. Before the train arrived I had seen enough to cause me to fear that a very small portion of the contents of those boxes and barrels would ever find its way into the haversack of a drummer-boy. For I had not been contemplating the pile with a wistful eye very long, before a certain sergeant came out of a neighboring tent with a lantern in his hand, followed by two darkies, one of whom carried an axe.
"Knock open that bar'l, Bill," said the sergeant.
Bill did so. The sergeant, thrusting in his hand, pulled out a fat turkey and a roll of butter.
"Good!" said he. "Now let's see what's in that box."
Smash went Bill's axe into the side of the box.
"Good again!" said the sergeant, taking out a chicken, several tumblers of jelly, and a great pound-cake, which latter made me feel quite homesick. "Now, Bill," continued the sergeant, "let's have breakfast."
City Point was a stirring place at thattime. It was General Grant's headquarters, and the depot of all supplies for the army; and here I found the large hospitals which I meant to search for Andy, although I scarcely hoped to find him.
Into hospital-tents at one end and out at the other, looking from side to side at the long white rows of cots, and inquiring as I went, I searched long and almost despairingly, until at last—there he was, sitting on his cot, his head neatly bandaged, writing a letter!
Coming up quietly behind him, I laid my hand on his shoulder with: "Andy, old boy, have I found you at last? I thought you were killed!"
"Why, Harry!—God bless you!"
The story was soon told. "A clip in the head, you see, Harry, out there among the trees when the Johnnies came down on us, yelling like demons,—all got black before me as I reeled and fell. By and by, coming to myself a little, I begged a man of a strange regiment to help me off, and so I got down here. It's nothing much, Harry, and I'll soon be with you again,—not nearly so bad asthat poor fellow over there, the man with the black hair. His is a wonderful case. He was brought in the same day I was, with a wound in the head which the doctors said was fatal. Every day we expected him to die; but there he lies yet, breathing very low, conscious, but unable to speak or to move hand or foot. Some of his company came yesterday to see him. They had been with him when he fell, had supposed him mortally wounded, and had taken all his valuables out of his pockets to send home—among them was an ambrotype of his wife and child. Well, you just should have seen that poor fellow's face when they opened that ambrotype and held it before his eyes! He couldn't speak or reach out his hand to take the picture; and there he lay, convulsed with feeling, while tears rolled down his cheeks."
On looking at him, I found it was the very man I had seen in the ambulance and mistaken for Andy.
Before returning to camp on the evening train, I strolled along the wharf and watched the boats coming and going, lading and unlading their cargoes of army supplies. Acompany of colored soldiers was doing guard duty at one point along the wharf. They were evidently proud of their uniforms, and big with importance generally. By and by two officers came leisurely walking toward the wharf, one of whom I at once recognized as General Grant. He was smoking a cigar. As the two stood on the edge of the wharf, looking up the river and conversing in low tones, one of the colored guards came up behind them and tapped the general on the shoulder.
"Beg pardon, Gen'l," said the guard, giving the military salute, "but dere ain't no smokin' allowed on dis yere warf."
"Are those your orders?" asked the general, with a quiet smile.
"Yes, sah; dem's de orders."
Promptly taking his cigar from his lips, the general threw it into the water.
On my return to camp late in the evening, I found that the comrade with whom I was messing during Andy's absence had already "turned in" for the night. Leaning upon his elbow on his bunk, as I was stirring up the fire, in order to make a cup of coffee, he said,—
"There is your share of the dinner the New York people sent down to the Army of the Potomac."
"Where?" inquired I, looking around everywhere in all the corners of the tent. "I don't see it."
"Why, there on your knapsack in the corner."
On looking toward the spot indicated, I found one potato, half an onion, and the gristly end of a chicken-wing!
"You see," continued my messmate, "the New York people meant well, but they have no idea how big a thing this Army of the Potomac is, and they did not stop to consider how many toll-gates their dinner would have to pass in order to reach us. By the time corps, division, brigade, regimental, and company headquarters had successively inspected and taken toll out of the boxes and barrels, there was precious little left for the high private in the rear rank."
About the beginning of December, 1864, we were busy building cabins for the winter. Everywhere in the woods to our rear were heard the sound of axes and the crash of falling trees. Men were carrying pine-logs on their shoulders, or dragging them along the ground with ropes, for the purpose of building our last winter-quarters; for of the three years for which we had enlisted, but a few months remained. The camp was a scene of activity and interest on all sides. Here were some men "notching" the logs to fit them firmly together at the corners; yonder, one was hewing rude Robinson Crusoe boards for the eaves and gables; there, a man was digging clay for the chimney, which his messmate was cat-sticking up to a proper height; while some had already stretched their sheltersover rude cabins, and were busy cooking their suppers. Just then, as ill-luck would have it in those uncertain days, an orderly rode into camp with some orders from headquarters, and all building was directed to be stopped at once.
"We have orders to move, Andy," said I, coming into the half-finished cabin where Andy (lately returned from hospital) was chinking the cracks in the side of the house.
"Orders to move! Why, where in the world are we going this time of year? I thought we had tramped around enough for one campaign, and were going to settle down for the winter."
"I don't know where we're going; but they say the Sixth Corps will relieve us in the morning, and we are to pull out, anyhow."
We were not deceived. At daylight next morning, December 6th, we did "pack up and fall in" and move out from our fortified camp, away to the rear, where we lay all day massed in the woods, with nothing to do but to speculate as to the direction we were to take.
From daylight of Wednesday, December7th, we marched, through rain and stiff mud, steadily toward the South, crossing the Nottaway River on pontoons at 8P. M., and halting at midnight for such rest as we could find on the cold damp soil of a cornfield. Next day on again we went, straight toward the South, through Sussex Court-house at 10A. M., halting at dusk near the Weldon and Petersburg Railway, about five miles from the North Carolina line.
Though we did not then know what all this meant, we soon learned that it was simply a winter raid on the enemy's communications; the intention being to destroy the Weldon road, and so render it useless to him. True, we had already cut that same road near Petersburg; but the enemy still brought his supplies on it from the South, near to the point where our lines were thrown across, and by means of wagons carried these supplies around our left, and safely into Petersburg.