1 files changed, 6927 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/44970-0.txt b/44970-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b58d640
--- /dev/null
+++ b/44970-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,6927 @@
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44970 ***
+
+Transcriber's note:
+    The original spelling of words has been retained. Italic
+    text has been marked with _underscores_. Minor spelling
+    inconsistencies, mainly hyphenated words, have been
+    harmonized. Obvious typos have been corrected.
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: READY FOR THE FRONT.]
+
+
+
+
+    THE RECOLLECTIONS
+
+    OF
+
+    A DRUMMER-BOY
+
+    BY
+
+    HARRY M. KIEFFER
+
+    LATE OF THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH REGIMENT
+    PENNSYLVANIA VOLUNTEERS
+
+    ILLUSTRATED
+
+    "_Forsan et hæc olim meminisse juvabit_"
+
+    VIRGIL, ÆNEID I. 203
+
+    [Illustration]
+
+    BOSTON
+    JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY
+
+    1883
+
+
+
+
+    COPYRIGHT, 1881, BY HARRY M. KIEFFER, AND 1883, BY
+    THE CENTURY CO.
+
+    _All rights reserved._
+
+
+    Cambridge:
+
+    PRINTED BY JOHN WILSON AND SON,
+    UNIVERSITY PRESS.
+
+
+
+
+    TO
+
+    THE OFFICERS AND MEN
+
+    OF
+
+    THE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH REGIMENT
+    PENNSYLVANIA VOLUNTEERS,
+
+    And to their Children,
+
+    _THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED_.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+As some apology would seem to be necessary for the effort, herewith
+made, to add yet one more volume to the already overcrowded shelf
+containing the Nation's literature of the great Civil War, it may
+be well to say a few words in explanation of the following pages.
+
+Several years ago the writer prepared a brief series of papers for
+the columns of _St. Nicholas_, under the title of "Recollections of
+a Drummer-Boy." It was thought that these sketches of army life, as
+seen by a boy, would prove enjoyable and profitable to children in
+general, and especially to the children of the men who participated
+in the great Civil War, on one side or the other; while the belief
+was entertained that they might at the same time serve to revive
+in the minds of the veterans themselves long-forgotten or but
+imperfectly remembered scenes and experiences in camp and field. In
+the outstart it was not the author's design to write a connected
+story, but rather simply to prepare a few brief and hasty sketches
+of army life, drawn from his own personal experience, and suitable
+for magazine purposes. But these, though prepared in such intervals
+as could with difficulty be spared from the exacting duties of
+a busy professional life, having been so kindly received by the
+editors of _St. Nicholas_, as well as by the very large circle
+of the readers of that excellent magazine, and the writer having
+been urgently pressed on all sides for more of the same kind, it
+was thought well to revise and enlarge the "Recollections of a
+Drummer-Boy," and to present them to the public in permanent book
+form. In the shape of a more or less connected story of army life,
+covering the whole period of a soldier's experience from enlistment
+to muster-out, and carried forward through all the stirring scenes
+of camp and field, it was believed that these "Recollections," in
+the revised form, would commend themselves not only to the children
+of the soldiers of the late war, but to the surviving soldiers
+themselves; while at the same time they would possess a reasonable
+interest for the general reader as well.
+
+From first to last it has been the author's design, while
+endeavoring faithfully to reflect the spirit of the army to which
+he belonged, to avoid all needless references of a sectional
+nature, and to present to the public a story of army life which
+should breathe in every page of it the noble sentiment of "malice
+towards none, and charity for all."
+
+In all essential regards, the following pages are what they profess
+to be,--the author's personal recollections of three years of army
+life in active service in the field. In a few instances, it is
+true, certain incidents have been introduced which did not properly
+fall within the range of the writer's personal experience; but
+these have been admitted merely as by the way, or for the sake
+of being true to the spirit rather than to the letter. Facts
+and dates have been given as accurately as the author's memory,
+aided by a carefully kept army journal, would permit; while the
+names of officers and men mentioned in the narrative are given as
+they appear in the published muster-rolls, with the exception of
+several instances, easily recognized by the intelligent reader, in
+which, for evident reasons, it seemed best to conceal the actors
+beneath fictitious names. While speaking of the matter of names, an
+affectionate esteem for a faithful boyhood's friend and subsequent
+army messmate constrains the writer to mention that, as "Andy" was
+the name by which Fisher Gutelius, "high private in the rear rank,"
+was commonly known while wearing the blue, it has been deemed well
+to allow him to appear in the narrative under cover of this, his
+army _sobriquet_.
+
+As no full and complete history of the One Hundred and Fiftieth
+Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers has ever yet been written, it is
+hoped that these Recollections of one of its humblest members may
+serve the purpose of recalling to the minds of surviving comrades
+the stirring scenes through which they passed, as well as of
+keeping alive in coming time the name and memory of an organization
+which deserved well of its country during the ever-memorable days
+of now more than twenty years ago.
+
+The author herewith acknowledges his indebtedness for certain
+facts to a brief sketch of the One Hundred and Fiftieth Regiment
+Pennsylvania Volunteers by Thomas Chamberlain, late Major of the
+same; and to John C. Kensill, late sergeant of Company F, for
+valuable information; and to the editors of _St. Nicholas_ for
+their uniform courtesy and encouragement.
+
+It cannot fail to interest the reader to know that the
+illustrations signed A. C. R. were drawn by Allen C. Redwood, who
+served in the Confederate army, and witnessed, albeit from the
+other side of the fence, many of the scenes which his graphic
+pencil has so admirably depicted.
+
+With these few words of apology and explanation, the author
+herewith places THE RECOLLECTIONS OF A DRUMMER-BOY in the hands of
+a patient and ever-indulgent public.
+
+    H. M. K.
+
+    NORRISTOWN, PA.,
+    March 1, 1883.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+    CHAPTER            PAGE
+
+    I. OFF TO THE WAR                             15
+
+    II. FIRST DAYS IN CAMP                        34
+
+    III. ON TO WASHINGTON                         49
+
+    IV. OUR FIRST WINTER QUARTERS                 60
+
+    V. A GRAND REVIEW                             71
+
+    VI. ON PICKET ALONG THE RAPPAHANNOCK          76
+
+    VII. A MUD-MARCH AND A SHAM-BATTLE            89
+
+    VIII. HOW WE GOT A SHELLING                  107
+
+    IX. IN THE WOODS AT CHANCELLORSVILLE         117
+
+    X. THE FIRST DAY AT GETTYSBURG               128
+
+    XI. AFTER THE BATTLE                         152
+
+    XII. THROUGH "MARYLAND, MY MARYLAND"         159
+
+    XIII. PAINS AND PENALTIES                    171
+
+    XIV. A TALE OF A SQUIRREL AND THREE
+    BLIND MICE                                   187
+
+    XV. "THE PRIDE OF THE REGIMENT"              201
+
+    XVI. AROUND THE CAMP-FIRE                    214
+
+    XVII. OUR FIRST DAY IN "THE WILDERNESS"      221
+
+    XVIII. A BIVOUAC FOR THE NIGHT               235
+
+    XIX. "WENT DOWN TO JERICHO AND FELL
+    AMONG THIEVES"                               245
+
+    XX. IN THE FRONT AT PETERSBURG               257
+
+    XXI. FUN AND FROLIC                          272
+
+    XXII. CHIEFLY CULINARY                       290
+
+    XXIII. HATCHER'S RUN                         300
+
+    XXIV. KILLED, WOUNDED, OR MISSING?           305
+
+    XXV. A WINTER RAID TO NORTH CAROLINA         314
+
+    XXVI. "JOHNNY COMES MARCHING HOME!"          324
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+
+                                                      PAGE
+
+    READY FOR THE FRONT                     _Frontispiece_
+
+    VIGNETTE                                             8
+
+    THE COMPANY STARTS FOR THE WAR                      26
+
+    TAILPIECE                                           48
+
+    IN WINTER-QUARTERS                                  62
+
+    WAITING TO BE REVIEWED BY THE PRESIDENT             72
+
+    TAILPIECE                                           75
+
+    IN A DANGEROUS PART OF HIS BEAT                     84
+
+    THE QUARTERMASTER'S TRIUMPH                        102
+
+    TAILPIECE                                          106
+
+    GENERAL DOUBLEDAY DISMOUNTS AND SIGHTS THE
+    GUN                                                112
+
+    TAILPIECE                                          116
+
+    A SURGEON WRITING UPON THE POMMEL OF HIS
+    SADDLE AN ORDER FOR AN AMBULANCE                   118
+
+    A SKIRMISH AFTER A HARD DAY'S MARCH                140
+
+    AT CLOSE QUARTERS THE FIRST DAY AT GETTYSBURG      144
+
+    ON THE MARCH TO AND FROM GETTYSBURG                156
+
+    TAILPIECE                                          158
+
+    "I'VE GOT HIM, BOYS!"                              168
+
+    DRUMMING SNEAK-THIEVES OUT OF CAMP                 172
+
+    TAILPIECE                                          186
+
+    TAILPIECE                                          213
+
+    CHRISTMAS EVE AROUND THE CAMP-FIRE                 216
+
+    SICK                                               220
+
+    A SCENE IN THE FIELD-HOSPITAL                      228
+
+    ARMY BADGES                                        236
+
+    "GENERAL GRANT CAN'T HAVE ANY OF THIS WATER!"      242
+
+    "ANDY HAD BOUGHT THE SORREL FOR TEN DOLLARS"       254
+
+    "BETTER GIT OFF'N DAT DAR MULE!"                   260
+
+    FINDING A WOUNDED PICKET IN A RIFLE-PIT            262
+
+    SCENE AMONG THE RIFLE-PITS BEFORE PETERSBURG       266
+
+    THE MAGAZINE WHERE THE POWDER AND SHELLS
+    WERE STORED                                        270
+
+    "FALL IN FOR HARD-TACK!"                           292
+
+    THE CONFLICT AT DAYBREAK IN THE WOODS AT
+    HATCHER'S RUN                                      304
+
+    WRECKING THE RAILWAY                               316
+
+    THE CHARGE ON THE CAKES                            326
+
+    THE WELCOME HOME                                   330
+
+
+
+
+    THE RECOLLECTIONS
+
+    OF
+
+    A DRUMMER-BOY.
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+THE RECOLLECTIONS
+
+OF
+
+A DRUMMER-BOY.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+OFF TO THE WAR.
+
+
+"It is no use, Andy, I cannot study any more. I have struggled
+against this feeling, and have again and again resolved to shut
+myself up to my books and stop thinking about the war; but when
+news comes of one great battle after another, and I look around in
+the school-room and see the many vacant seats once occupied by the
+older boys, and think of where they are and what they may be doing
+away down in Dixie, I fall to day-dreaming and wool-gathering over
+my books, and it is just no use. I cannot study any more. I might
+as well leave school and go home and get at something else."
+
+But my companion was apparently too deeply interested in
+unravelling the intricacies of a sentence in Cæsar to pay much
+attention to what I had been saying. For Andy was a studious boy,
+and the sentence with which he had been wrestling when the bell
+rang for recess could not at once be given up. He had therefore
+carried his book with him on our walk as we strolled leisurely up
+the green lane which led past the "Old Academy," and, with his
+copy of Cæsar spread out before him, lay stretched out at full
+length on the greensward, in the shade of a large cherry-tree,
+whose fruit was already turning red under the warm spring sun. It
+was a beautiful, dreamy day in May, early in the summer of 1862,
+the second year of the great Civil War. The air was laden with the
+sweet scent of the young clover, and vocal with the song of the
+robin and the bluebird. The sky was cloudless overhead, and the
+soft spring breeze blew balmily up from the south. Behind us were
+the hills, covered with orchards, and beneath us lay the quiet
+little village of M----, with its one thousand inhabitants, and
+beyond it the valley, renowned far and wide for its beauty, while
+in the farther background deep-blue mountains rose towering toward
+the sky.
+
+My companion, apparently quite indifferent to the languid influence
+of the season, resolutely persevered at his task until he had
+triumphantly mastered it. Then, closing the book and clasping his
+hands behind his head as he rolled around on his back, he looked at
+me with a smile and said,--
+
+"Oh! you only have the spring-fever, Harry."
+
+"No, I haven't, Andy; it was the same last winter. And don't you
+remember how excited _you_ were when the news came about Fort
+Sumter last spring? You would have enlisted right off, had your
+father consented. Or, may be, _you_ had the spring-fever then?"
+
+"I'm all over that now, and for good and all. I want to study, and
+as I cannot study and keep on thinking of the war all the time, why
+I just stop thinking about the war as well as I can."
+
+"Well," said I, "I cannot. Look at our school: why, there are
+scarcely any large boys left in it any more, only little fellows
+and the girls. For my part, I ought to get at something else."
+
+"What would you get at? You would feel the same anywhere else.
+There is Ike Zellers, the blacksmith, for example. When I came
+past his shop this morning on my way to school, instead of being
+busy with hammer and tongs as he should have been, there he was,
+sitting on an old harrow outside his shop-door whittling a stick,
+while Elias Foust was reading an account of the last battle from
+some newspaper. I shouldn't wonder if Elias and Ike both would be
+enlisting some one of these days. It is the same everywhere. All
+people feel the excitement of the war--storekeepers, tradesmen,
+farmers, and even the women; and we school-boys are no exception."
+
+"Would you enlist, Andy, if your father would consent? You are old
+enough."
+
+"I don't think I should, Harry. I want to stick to study. But there
+is no telling what a person may do when he is once taken down with
+this war-fever. But you are too young to enlist; they wouldn't take
+you. And you had therefore better make up your mind to stick to
+school and help me at my Cæsar. If you want war, there's enough of
+it in old Julius here to satisfy the most bloodthirsty, I should
+think."
+
+"You will find more about war, and of a more romantic kind too,
+in Virgil and Homer when you get on so far in your studies, Andy.
+But the wars of Cæsar and the siege of Troy, what are they when
+compared with the great war now being waged in our own time and
+country? The nodding plumes of Hector and the shining armor of
+all old Homer's heroes do not seem to me half so interesting or
+magnificent as the brave uniforms in which some of our older
+school-fellows occasionally come home on furlough."
+
+"Up there on the hillside," said Andy, suddenly rising from his
+reclining posture, "is cousin Joe Gutelius, hoeing corn in his
+father's lot. Let's go up and see what he has to say about the war."
+
+We found Joe busy and hard at work with the young corn. He was
+a fine young fellow, perhaps twenty-two or twenty-three years
+of age, tall, well built, of a fine manly bearing, and looked a
+likely subject for a recruiting-officer, as, in response to our
+loud "Hello, Joe!" he left his unfinished row and came down to the
+fence for a talk.
+
+"Rather a warm day for work in a cornfield, isn't it, Joe?"
+
+"Well, yes," said Joe, as he threw down his hoe and mounted the
+top rail, wiping away the perspiration, which stood in great beads
+on his brow. "But I believe I'd rather hoe corn than go to school
+such beautiful weather. Nearly kill me to be penned up in the old
+Academy such a day as this."
+
+"That's what's the matter with Harry, here," said Andy. "He's got
+the spring-fever, I tell him; but he thinks he has the war-fever. I
+told him we'd come up here and see what you had to say about it."
+
+"About what? About the spring-fever, or about the war?"
+
+"Why, about the war, of course, Joe," said Andy with a smile.
+
+"Well, boys, I know what the war-fever is like. I had a touch of
+it last winter when the Fifty-first boys went off, and I came very
+near going along with them, too. But my brothers, Charlie and Sam,
+both wanted to go, and I declared that if they went I'd go too;
+and mother took it so much to heart that we all had to give it up.
+Charlie and Sam came near joining a cavalry company some months
+ago, and I shouldn't wonder much if they did get off one of these
+days; but as for myself, I guess I'll have to stay at home and take
+care of the old folks."
+
+"And I tell Harry, here," said Andy, "that he had better stick to
+books and help me with my Cæsar."
+
+"Or he might get a hoe and come and help me with my corn," said
+Joe, with a smile; "that would take both the spring-fever and the
+war-fever out of him in a jiffy. But there is your bell calling you
+to your books. Poor fellows, how I pity you!"
+
+That my companion would persevere in his purpose of "sticking
+to books," as he called it, I had no doubt. For besides being
+naturally possessed of a resolute will, he was several years
+my senior, and therefore presumably less liable to be carried
+away by the prevailing restlessness of the times. But for myself
+study continued to grow more and more irksome as the summer drew
+on apace, so that when, before the close of the term, a former
+schoolmate began to "raise a company," as it was called, for the
+nine months' service, unable any longer to endure my restless
+longing for a change, I sat down at my desk one day in the
+school-room and wrote the following letter home:--
+
+   DEAR PAPA: I write to ask whether I may have your permission to
+   enlist. I find the school is fast breaking up; most of the boys
+   are gone. I can't study any more. _Won't_ you let me go?
+
+Poor father! In the anguish of his heart it must have been that he
+sat down and wrote: "You may go!" Without the loss of a moment I
+was off to the recruiting-office, showed my father's letter, and
+asked to be sworn in. But alas! I was only sixteen, and lacked two
+years of being old enough, and they would not take me unless I
+could swear I was eighteen, which, of course, I could not and would
+not do.
+
+So, then, back again to the school when the fall term opened early
+in August, 1862, there to dream over Horace, and Homer, and that
+one poor little old siege of Troy, for a few days more, while Andy
+at my side toiled manfully at his Cæsar. The term had scarcely well
+opened, when, unfortunately for my peace of mind, a gentleman who
+had been my school-teacher some years previously, began to raise
+a company for the war, and the village at once went into another
+whirl of excitement, which carried me utterly away; for they said
+I could enlist as a drummer-boy, no matter how young I might be,
+provided I had my father's consent. But this, most unfortunately,
+had been meanwhile revoked. For, to say nothing of certain
+remonstrances on the part of my father during the vacation, there
+had recently come a letter saying,--
+
+   MY DEAR BOY: If you have not yet enlisted, do not do so; for
+   I think you are quite too young and delicate, and I gave my
+   permission perhaps too hastily, and without due consideration.
+
+But alas! dear father, it was too late then, for I had set my
+very heart on going. The company was nearly full, and would leave
+in a few days, and everybody in the village knew that Harry was
+going for a drummer-boy. Besides, the very evening on which the
+above letter reached me we had a grand procession which marched
+all through the village street from end to end, and this was
+followed by an immense mass-meeting, and our future captain, Henry
+W. Crotzer, made a stirring speech, and the band played, and the
+people cheered and cheered again, as man after man stepped up and
+put his name down on the list. Albert Foster and Joe Ruhl and Sam
+Ruhl signed their names, and then Jimmy Lucas and Elias Foust and
+Ike Zellers and several others followed; and when Charlie Gutelius
+and his brother Sam stepped up, with Joe at their heels declaring
+that "if they went he'd go too," the meeting fairly went wild with
+excitement, and the people cheered and cheered again, and the band
+played "Hail Columbia!" and the "Star-Spangled Banner," and "Away
+Down South in Dixie," and--in short, what in the world was a poor
+boy to do?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was an immense crowd of people at the depot that midsummer
+morning, more than twenty years ago, when our company started off
+to the war. It seemed as if the whole county had suspended work
+and voted itself a holiday, for a continuous stream of people, old
+and young, poured out of the little village of L----, and made its
+way through the bridge across the river, and over the dusty road
+beyond, to the station where we were to take the train.
+
+The thirteen of us who had come down from the village of M---- to
+join the larger body of the company at L----, had enjoyed something
+of a triumphal progress on the way. We had a brass band to start
+with, besides no inconsiderable escort of vehicles and mounted
+horsemen, the number of which was steadily swelled to quite a
+procession as we advanced. The band played, and the flags waved,
+and the boys cheered, and the people at work in the fields cheered
+back, and the young farmers rode down the lanes on their horses, or
+brought their sweethearts in their carriages, and fell in line with
+the dusty procession. Even the old gatekeeper, who could not leave
+his post, became much excited as we passed, gave "three cheers for
+the Union forever," and stood waving his hat after us till we were
+hid from sight behind the hills.
+
+Reaching L---- about nine in the morning, we found the village all
+ablaze with bunting, and so wrought up with the excitement that all
+thought of work had evidently been given up for that day. As we
+formed in line and marched down the main street toward the river,
+the sidewalks were everywhere crowded with people,--with boys who
+wore red-white-and-blue neckties, and boys who wore fatigue-caps;
+with girls who carried flags, and girls who carried flowers; with
+women who waved their kerchiefs, and old men who waved their
+walking-sticks; while here and there, as we passed along, at
+windows and doorways, were faces red with long weeping, for Johnny
+was off to the war, and maybe mother and sisters and sweetheart
+would never, never see him again.
+
+  [Illustration: THE COMPANY STARTS FOR THE WAR.]
+
+Drawn up in line before the station, we awaited the train. There
+was scarcely a man, woman, or child in that great crowd around
+us but had to press up for a last shake of the hand, a last good
+by, and a last "God bless you, boys!" And so, amid cheering, and
+hand-shaking, and flag-waving, and band-playing, the train at last
+came thundering in, and we were off, with the "Star-Spangled
+Banner" sounding fainter and farther away, until it was drowned and
+lost to the ear in the noise of the swiftly rushing train.
+
+For myself, however, the last good by had not yet been said, for I
+had been away from home at school, and was to leave the train at a
+way station some miles down the road, and walk out to my home in
+the country, and say good by to the folks at home; and that was the
+hardest part of it all, for good by then might be good by forever.
+
+If anybody at home had been looking out of door or window that hot
+August afternoon, more than twenty years ago, he would have seen,
+coming down the dusty road, a slender lad, with a bundle slung over
+his shoulder, and--but nobody _was_ looking down the road, nobody
+was in sight. Even Rollo, the dog, my old playfellow, was asleep
+somewhere in the shade, and all was sultry, hot, and still. Leaping
+lightly over the fence by the spring at the foot of the hill,
+I took a cool draught of water, and looked up at the great red
+farmhouse above with a throbbing heart, for that was home, and many
+a sad good by had there to be said, and said again, before I could
+get off to the war!
+
+Long years have passed since then, but never have I forgotten how
+pale the faces of mother and sisters became when, entering the
+room where they were at work, and throwing off my bundle, in reply
+to their question, "Why, Harry! where did _you_ come from?" I
+answered, "I come from school, and I'm off for the war!" You may
+well believe there was an exciting time of it in the dining-room of
+that old red farmhouse then. In the midst of the excitement, father
+came in from the field and greeted me with, "Why, my boy, where did
+_you_ come from?" to which there was but the one answer, "Come from
+school, and off for the war!"
+
+"Nonsense! I can't let you go! I thought you had given up all idea
+of that. What would they do with a mere boy like you? Why, you'd be
+only a bill of expense to the Government. Dreadful thing to make me
+all this trouble!"
+
+But I began to reason full stoutly with poor father. I reminded
+him, first of all, that I would not go without his consent; that
+in two years, and perhaps in less, I might be drafted and sent
+amongst men unknown to me, while here was a company commanded by my
+own school-teacher, and composed of acquaintances who would look
+after me; that I was unfit for study or work while this fever was
+on me, and so on; till I saw his resolution begin to give way, as
+he lit his pipe and walked down to the spring to think the matter
+over.
+
+"If Harry is to go, father," mother says, "hadn't I better run
+up to the store and get some woollens, and we'll make the boy an
+outfit of shirts to-night yet?"
+
+"Well--yes; I guess you had better do so."
+
+But when he sees mother stepping past the gate on her way, he halts
+her with,--
+
+"Stop! That boy can't go! I _can't_ give him up!"
+
+And shortly after, he tells her that she "had better be after
+getting that woollen stuff for shirts;" and again he stops her at
+the gate with,--
+
+"Dreadful boy! Why _will_ he make me all this trouble? I _can not_
+let my boy go!"
+
+But at last, and somehow, mother gets off. The sewing-machine is
+going most of the night, and my thoughts are as busy as it is,
+until far into the morning, with all that is before me that I have
+never seen, and all that is behind me that I may never see again.
+
+Let me pass over the trying good by the next morning, for Joe is
+ready with the carriage to take father and me to the station, and
+we are soon on the cars, steaming away toward the great camp,
+whither the company already has gone.
+
+"See, Harry, there is your camp!" And looking out of the
+car-window, across the river, I catch, through the tall tree tops,
+as we rush along, glimpses of my first camp,--acres and acres of
+canvas, stretching away into the dim and dusty distance, occupied,
+as I shall soon find, by some ten or twenty thousand soldiers,
+coming and going continually, marching and countermarching, until
+they have ground the soil into the driest and deepest dust I ever
+saw.
+
+I shall never forget my first impressions of camp life as father
+and I passed the sentry at the gate. They were anything but
+pleasant; and I could not but agree with the remark of my father,
+that "the life of a soldier must be a hard life indeed." For as we
+entered that great camp, I looked into an A tent, the front flap
+of which was thrown back, and saw enough to make me sick of the
+housekeeping of a soldier. There was nothing in that tent but dirt
+and disorder, pans and kettles, tin cups and cracker-boxes, forks
+and bayonet-scabbards, greasy pork and broken hard-tack in utter
+confusion, and over all and everywhere that insufferable dust.
+Afterward, when we got into the field, our camps in summer-time
+were models of cleanliness, and in winter models of comfort, as
+far, at least, as axe and broom could make them so; but this,
+the first camp I ever saw, was so abominable, that I have often
+wondered it did not frighten the fever out of me.
+
+But once among the men of the company, all this was soon forgotten.
+We had supper,--hard-tack and soft bread, boiled pork and strong
+coffee (in tin cups),--fare that father thought "one could live
+on right well, I guess;" and then the boys came around and begged
+father to let me go; "they would take care of Harry; never you
+fear for that;" and so helped on my cause, that that night, about
+eleven o'clock, when we were in the railroad station together, on
+the way home, father said,--
+
+"Now, Harry, my boy, you are not enlisted yet. I am going home on
+this train; you can go home with me now, or go with the boys. Which
+will you do?"
+
+To which the answer came quickly enough,--too quickly and too
+eagerly, I have often since thought, for a father's heart to bear
+it well,--
+
+"Papa, I'll go with the boys!"
+
+"Well, then, good by, my boy! And may God bless you and bring you
+safely back to me again!"
+
+The whistle blew "Off brakes!" the car-door closed on father, and I
+did not see him again for three long, long years!
+
+Often and often as I have thought over these things since, I have
+never been able to come to any other conclusion than this: that it
+was the "war-fever" that carried me off, and that made poor father
+let me go. For that "war-fever" was a terrible malady in those
+days. Once you were taken with it, you had a very fire in the bones
+until your name was down on the enlistment-roll. There was Andy,
+for example, my schoolfellow, and afterward my messmate for three
+ever-memorable years. I have had no time to tell you how Andy came
+to be with us; but with us he surely was, notwithstanding he had so
+stoutly asserted his determination to quit thinking about the war
+and stick to his books.
+
+He was on his way to school the very morning the company was
+leaving the village, with no idea of going along; but seeing this,
+that, and the other acquaintance in line, what did he do but run
+across the street to an undertaker's shop, cram his school-books
+through the broken window, take his place in line, and march off
+with the boys without so much as saying good by to the folks at
+home! And he did not see his Cæsar and Greek grammar again for
+three years.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+FIRST DAYS IN CAMP.
+
+
+Our first camp was located on the outskirts of Harrisburg, Pa.,
+and was called "Camp Curtin." It was so named in honor of Governor
+Andrew G. Curtin, the "War Governor" of the State of Pennsylvania,
+who was regarded by the soldiers of his State with a patriotic
+enthusiasm second only to that with which they, in common with all
+the troops of the Northern States, greeted the name of Abraham
+Lincoln.
+
+Camp Curtin was not properly a camp of instruction. It was rather
+a mere rendezvous for the different companies which had been
+recruited in various parts of the State. Hither the volunteers
+came by hundreds and thousands for the purpose of being mustered
+into the service, uniformed and equipped, assigned to regiments,
+and shipped to the front as rapidly as possible. Only they who
+witnessed it can form any idea of the patriotic ardor, amounting
+often to a wild enthusiasm, with which volunteering went on in
+those days. Companies were often formed, and their muster-rolls
+filled, in a week, sometimes in a few days. The contagion of
+enlisting and "going to the war" was in the very atmosphere. You
+could scarcely accompany a friend to a way station on any of the
+main lines of travel, without seeing the future wearers of blue
+coats at the car-windows and on the platforms. Very frequently
+whole trains were filled with them, speeding away to the State
+capital as swift as steam could carry them. They poured into
+Harrisburg, company by company, usually in citizens' clothes, and
+marched out of the town a week or so later, regiment by regiment,
+all glorious in bright new uniforms and glistening bayonets,
+transformed in a few days from citizens into soldiers, and destined
+for deeds of high endeavor on many a bloody field.
+
+Shortly after our arrival in camp, Andy and I went to town to
+purchase such articles as we supposed a soldier would be likely to
+need,--a gum-blanket, a journal, a combination knife, fork, and
+spoon, and so on to the end of the list. To our credit I have it to
+record that we turned a deaf ear to the solicitations of a certain
+dealer in cutlery who insisted on selling us each a revolver, and
+an ugly looking bowie-knife in a bright red morocco sheath.
+
+"Shentlemens, shust de ting you vill need ven you goes into de
+battle. Ah, see dis knife, how it shines! Look at dis very fine
+revolfer!"
+
+But Moses entreated in vain, while his wife stood at the shop-door
+looking at some regiment marching down the street to the depot,
+weeping as if her heart would break, and wiping her eyes with the
+corner of her apron from time to time.
+
+"Ah, de poor boys!" said she. "Dere dey go again, off to de great
+war, away from deir homes, and deir mutters, deir wives and deir
+sweethearts, all to be kilt in de battle! Dey will nefer any more
+coom back. Oh, it is so wicked!"
+
+But the drums rattled on, and the crowd on the sidewalk gazed and
+cheered, and Moses behind his counter smiled pleasantly as he
+cried up his wares and went on selling bowie-knives and revolvers
+to kill men with, while his wife went on weeping and lamenting
+because men would be killed in the wicked war, and "nefer any more
+coom back." The firm of Moses and wife struck us as a very strange
+combination of business and sentiment. I do not know how many
+knives and pistols Moses sold, nor how many tears his good wife
+shed, but if she wept whenever a regiment marched down the street
+to the depot, her eyes must have been turned into a river of tears;
+for the tap of the drum and the tramp of the men resounded along
+the streets of the capital by day and by night, until people grew
+so used to it that they scarcely noticed it any more.
+
+The tide of volunteering was at the full during those early fall
+days of 1862. But the day came at length when the tide began to
+turn. Various expedients were then resorted to for the purpose of
+stimulating the flagging zeal of Pennsylvania's sons. At first the
+tempting bait of large bounties was presented--county bounties,
+city bounties, State and United States bounties--some men towards
+the close of the war receiving as much as one thousand dollars, and
+never smelling powder at that. At last drafting was of necessity
+resorted to, and along with drafting came all the miseries of
+"hiring substitutes," and so making merchandise of a service of
+which it is the chief glory that it shall be free.
+
+But in the fall of '62 there had been no drafting yet, and large
+bounties were unknown--and unsought. Most of us were taken quite
+by surprise when, a few days after our arrival in camp, we were
+told that the County Commissioners had come down for the purpose of
+paying us each the magnificent sum of fifty dollars. At the same
+time, also, we learned that the United States Government would
+pay us each one hundred dollars additional, of which, however,
+only twenty-five were placed in our hands at once. The remaining
+seventy-five were to be received only by those who might safely
+pass through all the unknown dangers which awaited us, and live to
+be mustered out with the regiment three years later.
+
+Well, it was no matter then. What cared we for bounty? It seemed a
+questionable procedure, at all events, this offering of money as a
+reward for an act which, to be a worthy act at all, asks not and
+needs not the guerdon of gold. We were all so anxious to enter the
+service, that, instead of looking for any artificial helps in that
+direction, our only concern was lest we might be rejected by the
+examining surgeon and not be admitted to the ranks.
+
+For soon after our arrival, and before we were mustered into the
+service, every man was thoroughly examined by a medical officer,
+who had us presented to him one by one, _in puris naturalibus_,
+in a large tent, where he sharply questioned us--"Teeth sound?
+Eyes good? Ever had this, that, and the other disease?"--and
+pitiable was the case of that unfortunate man who, because of bad
+hearing, or defective eyesight, or some other physical blemish,
+was compelled to don his citizen's clothes again and take the next
+train for home.
+
+After having been thoroughly examined, we were mustered into the
+service. We were all drawn up in line. Every man raised his right
+hand while an officer recited the oath. It took only a few minutes,
+but when it was over one of the boys exclaimed: "Now, fellows, I'd
+like to see any man go home if he dare. We belong to Uncle Sam now."
+
+Of the one thousand men drawn up in line there that day, some
+lived to come back three years later and be drawn up in line again,
+almost on that identical spot, for the purpose of being mustered
+out of the service. And how many do you think there were? Not more
+than one hundred and fifty.
+
+As we now belonged to Uncle Sam, it was to be expected that he
+would next proceed to clothe us. This he punctually did a few days
+after the muster. We had no little merriment when we were called
+out and formed in line and marched up to the quartermaster's
+department at one side of the camp to draw our uniforms. There were
+so many men to be uniformed, and so little time in which to do it,
+that the blue clothes were passed out to us almost regardless of
+the size and weight of the prospective wearer. Each man received
+a pair of pantaloons, a coat, cap, overcoat, shoes, blanket, and
+underwear, of which latter the shirt was--well, a revelation to
+most of us both as to size and shape and material. It was so rough,
+that no living mortal, probably, could wear it, except perhaps one
+who wished to do penance by wearing a hair shirt. Mine was promptly
+sent home along with my citizen's clothes, with the request
+that it be kept as a sort of heir-loom in the family for future
+generations to wonder at.
+
+With our clothes on our arms, we marched back to our tents,
+and there proceeded to get on the inside of our new uniforms.
+The result was in most cases astonishing! For, as might have
+been expected, scarcely one man in ten was fitted. The tall men
+had invariably received the short pantaloons, and presented an
+appearance, when they emerged from their tents, which was equalled
+only by that of the short men who had, of course, received the
+long pantaloons. One man's cap was perched away up on the top of
+his head, while another's rested on his ears. Andy, who was not
+very tall, waddled forth into the company street amid shouts of
+laughter, having his pantaloons turned up some six inches or more
+from the bottoms, declaring that "Uncle Sam must have got the
+patterns for his boys' pantaloons somewhere over in France; for he
+seems to have cut them after the style of the two French towns,
+Toulon and Toulouse."
+
+"Hello, fellows! what do you think of this? Now just look here,
+will you!" exclaimed Pointer Donachy, the tallest man in the
+company, as he came out of his tent in a pair of pantaloons that
+were little more than knee-breeches for him, and began to parade
+the street with a tent-pole for a musket. "How in the name of the
+American eagle is a man going to fight the battles of his country
+in such a uniform as this? Seems to me that Uncle Sam must be a
+little short of cloth, boys."
+
+"Brother Jonathan generally dresses in tights, you know," said some
+one.
+
+"Ah," said Andy, "Pointer's uniform reminds one of what the poet
+says,--
+
+    "'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 the street 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
+that _would_ not 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 all _boys_ that 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, to see 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 with such
+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 somewhat agricultural
+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 chaffing and 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, and _vice 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 of _their_ roll. 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 came up 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_."
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+ON TO WASHINGTON.
+
+
+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 beaten _his_ drum, 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 being
+painfully 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 was in 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 having been 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 true Zouave 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 up and 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 than ours,--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, or
+stepped 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 the purpose
+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!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+OUR FIRST WINTER QUARTERS.
+
+
+"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.
+
+  [Illustration: IN WINTER-QUARTERS.]
+
+And now began a busy time. We were to build 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
+just _would_ run 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 on
+picket, 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.
+
+  [1] A "mess" is a number of men who eat together.
+
+There, for instance, was a mess over in Company A, composed of men
+from the city. They had _one_ kind 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 he borrowed
+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 two feet 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. The last 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 the log 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's _gone_!"
+
+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 the men 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+A GRAND REVIEW.
+
+
+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 its camps 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.
+
+  [Illustration: 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 of prelude. 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 no
+_bend_ in 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 is not 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.
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+ON PICKET ALONG THE RAPPAHANNOCK.
+
+
+"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-commissioned officer,--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, or
+discussing 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 passed up 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-going
+to sleep, but I'm tired. Every time you come up to this end of your
+beat, speak to me, will you? for I _might_ fall 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 in my 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."
+
+  [Illustration: IN A DANGEROUS PART OF HIS BEAT.]
+
+But apparently Johnny is in no hurry to load up again, and likes
+the deep shadow of his tree too well to walk his beat any more, for
+we wait impatiently for a long while and see nothing of him. By
+and by we hear him calling over: "I say, Yank!"
+
+"Well, Johnny?"
+
+"If you won't shoot, I won't."
+
+"Rather late in the morning to make such an offer, isn't it? Didn't
+you shoot just now?"
+
+"You see, my old gun went off by accident."
+
+"That's a likely yarn o' yours, Johnny!"
+
+"But it's an honest fact, any way."
+
+"Well, Johnny, next time your gun's going to go off in that
+uncomfortable way, you will oblige us chaps over here by holding
+the muzzle down toward Dixie, or somebody'll turn up his toes to
+the daisies before morning yet."
+
+"All right, Yank," said Johnny, stepping out from behind his tree
+into the bright moonlight like a man, "but we can lick you, any
+way!"
+
+"Andy, do you think that fellow's gun went off by accident, or was
+the rascal trying to hurt somebody?"
+
+"I think he's honest in what he says, Harry. His gun might have
+gone off by accident. There's no telling, though; he'll need a
+little watching, I guess."
+
+But Johnny paces his beat harmlessly enough for the remainder of
+the hour, singing catches of song, and whistling the airs of Dixie,
+while we pace ours as leisurely as he, but, with a wholesome regard
+for guns that go off so easily of themselves, we have a decided
+preference for the dark shadows, and are cautious lest we linger
+too long on those parts of our several beats where the bright
+moonbeams lie.
+
+It must not be supposed that the sentries of the two armies were
+forever picking one another off whenever opportunity offered; for
+what good did it do to murder each other in cold blood? It only
+wasted powder, and did not forward the issue of the great conflict
+at all. Except at times immediately before or after a battle, or
+when there was some specially exciting reason for mutual defiance,
+the pickets were generally on friendly terms, conversed freely
+about the news of the day, exchanged newspapers, coffee, and
+tobacco, swapped knives, and occasionally had a friendly game of
+cards together. Sometimes, however, picket duty was but another
+name for sharpshooting and bushwhacking of the most dangerous and
+deadly sort.
+
+When we had been relieved, and got back to our little bivouac under
+the elms on the lawn, and sat down there to discuss the episode of
+the night, I asked Andy,--
+
+"What was that piece of poetry you read to me the other day, about
+a picket being shot? It was something about 'All quiet along the
+Potomac to-night.' Do you remember the words well enough to repeat
+it?"
+
+"Yes, I committed it to memory, Harry; and if you wish, I'll recite
+it for your benefit. We'll just imagine ourselves back in the dear
+old Academy again, and that it is 'declamation-day,' and my name is
+called, and I step up and declaim:--
+
+
+"ALL QUIET ALONG THE POTOMAC TO-NIGHT.
+
+    "All quiet along the Potomac, they say,
+      Except, now and then, a stray picket
+    Is shot, as he walks on his beat to and fro,
+      By a rifleman hid in the thicket.
+    'Tis nothing--a private or two, now and then,
+      Will not count in the news of the battle;
+    Not an officer lost--only one of the men,
+      Moaning out, all alone, the death-rattle.
+
+    "All quiet along the Potomac to-night,
+      Where the soldiers lie peacefully dreaming;
+    Their tents, in the rays of the clear autumn moon,
+      O'er the light of the watch-fires are gleaming.
+    A tremulous sigh of the gentle night-wind
+      Through the forest-leaves softly is creeping,
+    While stars up above, with their glittering eyes,
+      Keep guard, for the army is sleeping.
+
+    "There's only the sound of the lone sentry's tread,
+      As he tramps from the rock to the fountain,
+    And thinks of the two, in the low trundle-bed,
+      Far away in the cot on the mountain.
+    His musket falls slack--his face, dark and grim,
+      Grows gentle with memories tender,
+    As he mutters a prayer for the children asleep--
+      For their mother--may Heaven defend her!
+
+    "He passes the fountain, the blasted pine-tree--
+      His footstep is lagging and weary;
+    Yet onward he goes, through the broad belt of light,
+      Toward the shades of the forest so dreary.
+    Hark! was it the night-wind that rustled the leaves?
+      Was it the moonlight so wondrously flashing?
+    It looked like a rifle--'Ha! Mary, good by!'
+      And the life-blood is ebbing and plashing!
+
+    "All quiet along the Potomac to-night--
+      No sound save the rush of the river:
+    While soft falls the dew on the face of the dead,--
+      The picket's off duty forever!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+A MUD-MARCH AND A SHAM BATTLE.
+
+
+We had been quietly lying in our winter quarters there at Belle
+Plains some two months and more, without having yet had much to
+vary the dull monotony of a soldier's everyday life. There was,
+of course, plenty of work in the way of picket duty and endless
+drilling, and no lack of fun in the camp of one kind or other; but
+of all this we gradually wearied, and began to long for something
+new. Not that we were especially anxious for the fatigues of the
+march and the stirring scenes of the battle-field (of all which we
+were so far blissfully ignorant): we simply felt that we were tired
+of the monotony of camp life, and, knowing that great things were
+before us, with all the ardor of young men for strange experiences
+and new adventures, we gradually became more and more anxious for
+the campaign to open. Alas! we knew not what it was we wished for;
+for when this celebrated campaign of '63 was ended, the few of us
+who remained to build our second winter quarters had seen quite
+enough of marching and fighting to last us the rest of our natural
+days.
+
+However, it was with feelings of relief that we suddenly received
+orders for the march early in the afternoon of Monday, April 20.
+As good luck would have it, Andy and I had just finished a hearty
+meal consisting in the main of apple-fritters; for by this time we
+had repaired our chimney, which had been destroyed by the fire, and
+had several times already prepared our fritters without burning our
+house down over our heads in the operation. Having finished our
+meal, we were lying lazily back against our knapsacks, disputing as
+to whose turn it was to wash the dishes, when Andy, hearing some
+outcry which I had not noticed, suddenly leaped out of the little
+door in the side of our cabin into the company street, exclaiming
+as he did so,--
+
+"What's that, sergeant? What's up?"
+
+"Orders to move, that's all, my boy," said the sergeant. "Orders to
+move. Pack up immediately."
+
+"Where are we going?" queried a dozen voices in chorus; for the
+news spread like fire in a clearing, and the boys came tumbling
+out of their cabins pell-mell and gathered about the sergeant in a
+group.
+
+"You tell me, and I'll tell you," answered the sergeant, with a
+shrug of his shoulders, as he shouted,--
+
+"Pack up immediately, men! We go in light marching order. No
+knapsacks; only a shelter or a gum-blanket, and three days' rations
+in your haversacks; and be lively now!"
+
+It was not long before we were all ready, with our thirty
+hard-tack, a piece of pork, and a little coffee and sugar in our
+haversacks, and our gum-blankets or shelters rolled and twisted
+into a shape somewhat resembling an immense horse-collar, slung
+over the shoulder diagonally across the body, as was universally
+the custom with the troops when knapsacks were to be dispensed with
+in winter, or had been thrown away in summer. We drummer-boys,
+tightening our drums and tuning them up with a tap-tap-tap of
+the drumstick, took station on the parade-ground up on the hill,
+awaiting the adjutant's signal to beat the assembly. At the first
+tap of our drums the whole regiment, in full view below us,
+poured out of quarters, like ants tumbling out of their hill when
+disturbed by the thrust of a stick. As the men fell into line and
+marched by companies up the hill to the parade-ground where the
+regiment was ordinarily formed, cheer upon cheer went up; for the
+monotony of camp life was now plainly at an end, and we were at
+last to be up and doing, though where, or how, or what, no one
+could tell.
+
+When a drum-head is wet, it at once loses all its peculiar charm
+and power. On the present occasion our drum-heads were soon soaked,
+for it was raining hard. So, unloosening the ropes, we slung our
+useless sheepskins over our shoulders, as the order was given,
+"Forward--route-step--march!" The order "route-step" was always
+a welcome and merciful command, and the reader must bear in mind
+that troops on the march always go by the "route-step." They march
+usually four abreast, indeed, but make no effort to keep step;
+for marching in that way, though good enough for a mile or two on
+parade, would soon become intolerable if kept up for any great
+distance. In "route-step" each man picks his way, selecting his
+steps at his pleasure, and carrying or shifting his arms at his
+convenience. Even then, marching is no easy matter, especially when
+it is raining, and you are marching over a clay soil,--and it did
+seem to us that the soil about Belle Plains was the toughest and
+most slippery clay in the world, at least in the roads that wound,
+serpent-like, around the hills amongst which we were marching,
+where, as we well knew, many a poor mule during the winter had
+stuck fast, and had to be literally pulled out or left to die in
+his tracks after the harness had been ripped off his back.
+
+At first, however, we had tolerable marching, for we took across
+the fields, and kept well upon the high ground as long as we could.
+We passed some good farms and comfortable looking houses, where
+we should have liked to stop and buy bread and butter, or get
+"hoecake" and milk; but there was no time for that, for we made no
+halt longer than was necessary to allow the rear to "close up,"
+and then were up and away again at a swift pace.
+
+The afternoon wore on. Night set in, and we began to wonder, in
+all the simplicity of new troops, whether Uncle Sam expected us to
+march all night as well as all day? To make matters still worse, as
+night fell dark and drizzling, we left the high ground and came out
+on the main road of those regions; and if we never before knew what
+Virginia mud was like, we knew it then. It was not only knee-deep,
+but also so sticky, that when you set one foot down, you could
+scarcely pull the other out. As for myself, I found my side-arms
+(if indeed they merited the name) a provoking incumbrance.
+Drummer-boys carried no arms except a straight thin sword fastened
+to a broad leathern belt about the waist. Of this we had been in
+the outstart quite proud, and had kept it polished with great
+care. However, this "toad-sticker," as we were pleased to call
+it, on this mud-march caused each of us drummer-boys a world of
+trouble, and well illustrated the saying that "pride goeth before
+a fall." For as we groped about in the darkness and slid and
+plunged about in the mud, this miserable sword was forever getting
+tangled up with the wearer's legs, so that before he was aware of
+it, down he went on his face in the mud. My own weapon gave me so
+many falls that night, that I was quite out of conceit with it.
+When we reached camp after this march was done, I handed it to the
+quartermaster, agreeing to pay the price of it thrice over rather
+than carry it any more. The rest of the drummer-boys, I believe,
+carried theirs as far as Chancellorsville, and there solemnly hung
+them up on an oak-tree, where they are unto this day, if nobody has
+found them and carried them off as trophies of war.
+
+We had a little darky along with us on this march who had an
+experience which was quite as provoking to him as it was amusing
+to us. The darky's name was Bill. Other name he had none, except
+"Shorty," which had been given him by the boys because of his
+remarkably short stature. For although he was as strong as a man,
+and quite as old-featured, he was nevertheless so dwarfed in
+size that the name Shorty seemed to become him better than his
+original name of Bill. Well, Shorty had been employed by one of
+our captains as cook, or, as seemed more likely on the present
+occasion, as a sort of sumpter-mule. For the captain, having an eye
+to comfort on the march, had loaded the poor darky with a pack of
+blankets, tents, pans, kettles, and general camp equipage, so large
+and bulky, that it is no exaggeration to say that Shorty's pack
+was quite as large as himself. All along it had been a wonder to
+us how he had managed to pull through so far with all that immense
+bundle on his back; but, with strength far beyond his size, he had
+trudged doggedly on at the captain's heels, over hill and through
+field, until we came at nightfall to the main road. There, like
+many another sumpter-mule, he stuck fast in the mud, so that, puff
+and pull as he might, he could not pull either foot out, and had to
+be dragged out by two men, to the great merriment of all who in the
+growing darkness were aware of Shorty's misfortune.
+
+At length it became so dark that no one was able to see an inch
+before his face, and we lost the road. Torches were then lighted,
+in order to find it. Then we forded a creek, and then on and on
+we went, till at length we were allowed to halt and fall out on
+either side of the road into a last year's cornfield, to "make
+fires and cook coffee."
+
+To make a fire was a comparatively easy matter, notwithstanding
+the rain; for some one or other always had matches, and there were
+plenty of rails at hand, and these were dry enough when split open
+with a hatchet or an axe. In a few moments the fence around the
+cornfield was carried off rail by rail, and everywhere was heard
+the sound of axes and hatchets, the premonitory symptoms of roaring
+camp-fires, which were soon everywhere blazing along the road.
+
+"Harry," said Lieutenant Dougal, "I haven't any tin cup, and when
+you get your coffee cooked, I believe I'll share it with you; may
+I?"
+
+"Certainly, lieutenant. But where shall I get water to make the
+coffee with? It's so dark, that nobody can see how the land lies so
+as to find a spring."
+
+Without telling the lieutenant what I did, I scooped up a tin cup
+full of water (whether clear or muddy I could not tell; it was too
+dark to see) out of a corn-furrow. I had the less hesitation in
+doing so, because I found all the rest were doing the same, and I
+argued that if they could stand it, why I could too--and so could
+the lieutenant. Tired and wet and sleepy as I was, I could not
+help but be sensible of the strange, weird appearance the troops
+presented, as, coming out of the surrounding darkness, I faced
+the brilliant fires with groups of busy men about them. There
+they sat, squatting about the fires, each man with his quart tin
+cup suspended on one end of his iron ramrod or on some convenient
+stick, and each eager and impatient to be the first to bring his
+cup to the boiling-point. Thrusting my cup in amongst the dozen
+others already smoking amid the crackling flames, I soon had the
+pleasure of seeing the foam rise to the surface,--a sure indication
+that my coffee was nearly done. When the lieutenant and I had
+finished drinking it, I called his attention to the half inch of
+mud in the bottom of the cup, and asked him how he liked coffee
+made out of water taken from a last year's corn-furrow? "First
+rate," he replied, as he took out his tobacco pouch and pipe for a
+smoke, "first rate; gives it the real old 'Virginny' flavor, you
+see."
+
+We were not permitted, however, to enjoy the broad glare of our
+fires very long after our coffee was disposed of, for we soon
+heard the command to "fall in" coming down the line. It was now
+half-past eleven o'clock, and away we went again slap-dash in the
+thick darkness and bottomless mud. At three o'clock in the morning,
+during a brief halt, I fell asleep while sitting on my drum, and
+tumbled over into the road from sheer exhaustion. Partly aroused by
+my fall, I spread out my shelter on the road where the mud seemed
+the shallowest, and lay down to sleep, chilled to the bone and
+shivering like an aspen.
+
+At six o'clock we were roused up, and a pretty appearance we
+presented too, for every man was covered with mud from neck to
+heel. However, daylight having now come to our assistance, we
+marched on in merrier mood in the direction of Port Royal, a
+place or village on the Rappahannock some thirty miles below
+Fredericksburg, and reached our destination about ten o'clock that
+forenoon.
+
+As we emerged from the woods and came out into the open fields,
+with the river in full view about a fourth of a mile in front,
+we fully believed that now, at last, we were to go at once into
+battle. And so, indeed, it seemed, as the long column halted in a
+cornfield a short distance from the river, and the pontoon trains
+came up, and the pioneers were sent forward to help lay the bridge,
+and signal-flags began flying, and officers and orderlies began to
+gallop gayly over the field--of course we were now about to go into
+our first battle.
+
+"I guess we'll have to cross the river, Harry," said Andy, as we
+stood together beside a corn shock and watched the men putting down
+the pontoons, "and then we'll have to go in on 'em and gobble 'em
+up."
+
+"Yes; gobbling up is all right. But suppose that over in the woods
+yonder, on the other side the river, there might happen to be a
+lot of Johnnies watching us, and all ready to sweep down on us and
+gobble _us_ up, while we are crossing the river--eh? That wouldn't
+be nearly so nice, would it?"
+
+"Hah!" exclaimed Andy, "I'd just like to see 'em do it once! Look
+there! There come the boys that'll take the Johnnies through the
+brush!"
+
+Looking in the direction in which Andy was pointing, that is,
+away to the skirt of the woods in our rear, I beheld a battery of
+artillery coming up at full gallop towards us and making straight
+for the river.
+
+"Just you wait, now," said Andy, with a triumphant snap of his
+fingers, "till you hear those old bull-dogs begin to bark, and
+you'll see the Johnnies get up and dust!"
+
+As the battery came near the spot where we were standing, and could
+be plainly seen, I exclaimed:
+
+"Why, Andy, I don't believe those dogs can bark at all! Don't you
+see? They are wooden logs covered over with black gum-blankets
+and mounted on the front-wheels of wagons, and--as sure as you're
+alive--it's our quartermaster on his gray horse in command of the
+battery!"
+
+"Well, I declare!" said Andy, with a look of mingled surprise and
+disappointment.
+
+There was no disputing the fact. Dummies they were, those cannon
+which Andy had so exultingly declared were to take the Johnnies
+through the brush; and we began at once to suspect that this
+whole mud-march was only a miserable ruse, or feint of war, got
+up expressly for the purpose of deceiving the enemy and making
+him believe that the whole Union army was there in full force,
+when such was by no means the case. So there was not going to be
+any battle after all, then? Such indeed, as we learned a little
+later in the day, was the true state of things. Nevertheless the
+pioneers went on with their work of putting down the pontoon-boats
+for a bridge, and our gallant quartermaster, on his bobtail gray,
+with drawn sword, and shouting out his commands like a veritable
+major-general, swept by us with his battery of wooden guns, and
+then away out into the field like a whirlwind, apparently bent on
+the most bloody work imaginable. Now the battery would dash up and
+unlimber and get into position here; then away on a gallop across
+the field and go into position there; while the quartermaster would
+meanwhile swing his sword and shout himself hoarse, as if in the
+very crisis of a battle.
+
+It was, then, all, alas! a ruse, and there wouldn't be any battle
+after all! I think the general feeling among the men was one
+of disappointment, when about nine o'clock that night we were
+all withdrawn from the riverside under cover of darkness, and
+bivouacked in the woods to our rear, where we were ordered to
+make as many and as large fires as we could, so as to attract the
+enemy's attention, and make him believe that the whole Army of
+the Potomac was concentrating at that point; whereas the truth
+was that, instead of making any movement thirty miles _below_
+Fredericksburg, the Union army, ten days later, crossed the
+river thirty miles _above_ Fredericksburg, and met the enemy at
+Chancellorsville.
+
+  [Illustration: THE QUARTERMASTER'S TRIUMPH.]
+
+But I have never forgotten our gallant quartermaster, and what a
+fine appearance he made as the commanding officer of a battery of
+artillery. It was an amusing sight; for the reader must remember
+that a quartermaster, having to do only with army supplies, was
+a non-combatant, that is to say, he did no fighting, and in most
+cases "stayed by the stuff" among his army wagons, which were
+usually far enough to the rear in time of battle. Thinking of this
+little episode on our first mud-march, there comes to my mind a
+conversation I recently had with a gentleman, my neighbor, who was
+also a quartermaster in the Union army.
+
+"I was down in Virginia on business last spring," said the
+ex-quartermaster, "in the neighborhood of Warrenton. (You remember
+Warrenton? Fine country down there.) And I found the people very
+kind and friendly, and inclined to forget the late unpleasantness.
+Well, one man came up to me, and says he:
+
+"'Major, you were in the war, weren't you?'
+
+"'Yes,' said I, 'I was; but (I might as well admit it) I was on the
+other side of the fence. I was in the Union army.'
+
+"'You were? Well, Major, did you ever kill anybody?'
+
+"'Oh yes,' said I; 'lots of 'em,--lots of 'em, sir.'
+
+"'You don't tell me!' said the Virginian. 'And if I might be so
+bold as to ask--how did you generally kill them?'
+
+"'Well,' said I, 'I never like to tell, because bragging is not
+in my line; but I'll tell you. You see, I never liked this thing
+of shooting people. It seemed to me a barbarous business, and
+besides, I was a kind of Quaker, and had conscientious scruples
+about bearing arms. And so, when the war broke out and I found
+I'd have to enter the army, maybe, whether I wanted to or not,
+I enlisted and got in as a quartermaster, thinking that in that
+position I wouldn't have to kill anybody with a gun, anyhow. But
+war is a dreadful thing, a dreadful thing, sir. And I found that
+even a quartermaster had to take a hand at killing people; and the
+way I took for it was this: I always managed to have a good swift
+horse, and as soon as things would begin to look a little like
+fighting, and the big guns would begin to boom, why I'd clap spurs
+to my horse and make for the rear as fast as ever I could. And then
+when your people would come after me, they never _could_ catch me;
+they'd always get out of breath trying to come up to me. And in
+that way I've killed dozens of your people, sir, dozens of them,
+and all without powder or ball. They couldn't catch me, and always
+died for want of breath trying to get hold of me!'"
+
+We slept in the woods that night under the dark pines and beside
+our great camp-fires; and early the next morning took up the line
+of march for home. We marched all day over the hills, and as the
+sun was setting, came at last to a certain hilltop whence we could
+look down upon the odd-looking group of cabins and wigwams which we
+recognized as our camp, and which we hailed with cheers as our home.
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+HOW WE GOT A SHELLING.
+
+
+"Pack up!" "Fall in!" All is stir and excitement in the camp. The
+bugles are blowing "boots and saddles" for the cavalry camped above
+us on the hill; we drummer-boys are beating the "long roll" and
+"assembly" for the regiment; mounted orderlies are galloping along
+the hillside with great yellow envelopes stuck in their belts; and
+the men fall out of their miserable winter-quarters, with shouts
+and cheers that make the hills about Falmouth ring again. For the
+winter is past; the sweet breath of spring comes balmily up from
+the south, and the whole army is on the move,--whither?
+
+"Say, Captain, tell us where are we going?" But the captain doesn't
+know, nor even the colonel,--nobody knows. We are raw troops yet,
+and have not learned that soldiers never ask questions about
+orders.
+
+So, fall in there, all together, and forward! And we ten little
+drummer-boys beat gayly enough "The Girl I left behind me," as the
+line sweeps over the hills, through the woods, and on down to the
+river's edge.
+
+And soon here we are, on the Rappahannock, three miles below
+Fredericksburg. We can see, as we emerge from the woods, away over
+the river, the long line of earthworks thrown up by the enemy,
+and small dark specks moving about along the field, in the far,
+dim distance, which we know to be officers, or perhaps cavalry
+pickets. We can see, too, our own first division laying down the
+pontoon-bridge, on which, according to a rumor that is spreading
+among us, we are to cross the river and charge the enemy's works.
+
+Here is an old army letter lying before me, written on my drum-head
+in lead pencil, in that stretch of meadow by the river, where I
+heard my first shell scream and shriek:--
+
+    "NEAR RAPPAHANNOCK RIVER, Apr. 28th.
+
+   "DEAR FATHER,--We have moved to the river, and are just going
+   into battle. I am well, and so are the boys.--Your affect. son,
+
+    "HARRY."
+
+But we do not go into battle this day, nor next day, nor at all
+at this point; for we are making only a "feint," though we do not
+know it now, to attract the attention of the enemy from the main
+movement of the army at Chancellorsville, some twenty-five or
+thirty miles farther up the river. The men are in good spirits and
+all ready for the fray; but as the day wears on without further
+developments, arms are stacked, and we begin to roam about the
+hills. Some are writing letters home, some sleeping, some even
+fishing in a little rivulet that runs by us, when, toward three
+o'clock in the afternoon, and all of a sudden, the enemy opens fire
+on us with a salute of three shells fired in rapid succession, not
+quite into our ranks, but a little to the left of us. And see!
+over there where the 'Forty-third lies, to our left, come three
+_stretchers_, and you can see deep crimson stains on the canvas
+as they go by us on a lively trot to the rear; for "the ball is
+opening, boys," and we are under fire for the first time.
+
+I wish I could convey to my readers some faint idea of the noise
+made by a shell as it flies shrieking and screaming through
+the air, and of that peculiar _whirring_ sound made by the
+pieces after the shell has burst overhead or by your side. So
+loud, high-pitched, shrill, and terrible is the sound, that one
+unaccustomed to it would think at first that the very heavens were
+being torn down about his ears!
+
+How often I have laughed and laughed at myself when thinking of
+that first shelling we got there by the river! For up to that time
+I had had a very poor, old-fashioned idea of what a shell was like,
+having derived it probably from accounts of sieges in the Mexican
+war.
+
+I had thought a shell was a hollow ball of iron, filled with
+powder and furnished with a fuse, and that they threw it over
+into your ranks, and there it lay, hissing and spitting, till the
+fire reached the powder, and the shell burst and killed a dozen
+men or so; that is, if some venturesome fellow didn't run up and
+stamp the fire off the fuse before the miserable thing went off!
+Of a _conical_ shell, shaped like a minie-ball, with ridges on
+the outside to fit the grooves of a rifled cannon, and exploding
+by a percussion-cap at the pointed end, I had no idea in the
+world. But that was the sort of thing they were firing at us
+now,--Hur-r-r--bang! Hur-r-r--bang!
+
+Throwing myself flat on my face while that terrible shriek is
+in the air, I cling closer to the ground while I hear that low,
+whirring sound near by, which I foolishly imagine to be the sound
+of a burning fuse, but which, on raising my head and looking up and
+around, I find is the sound of pieces of exploded shells flying
+through the air about our heads! The enemy has excellent range of
+us, and gives it to us hot and fast, and we fall in line and take
+it as best we may, and without the pleasure of replying, for the
+enemy's batteries are a full mile and a half away, and no Enfield
+rifle can reach half so far.
+
+"Colonel, move your regiment a little to the right, so as to get
+under cover of yonder bank." It is soon done; and there, seated on
+a bank about twenty feet high, with our backs to the enemy, we let
+them blaze away, for it is not likely they can tumble a shell down
+at an angle of forty-five degrees.
+
+And now, see! Just to the rear of us, and therefore in full
+view as we are sitting, is a battery of our own coming up into
+position at full gallop,--a grand sight indeed! The officers with
+swords flashing in the evening sunlight, the bugles clanging out
+the orders, the carriages unlimbered, and the guns run up into
+position; and now, that ever beautiful drill of the artillery in
+action, steady and regular as the stroke of machinery! How swiftly
+the man that handles the swab has prepared his piece, while the
+runners have meanwhile brought up the little red bag of powder and
+the long conical shell from the caisson in the rear! How swiftly
+they are rammed home! The lieutenant sights his piece, the man with
+the lanyard with a sudden jerk fires the cap, the gun leaps five
+feet to the rear with the recoil, and out of the cannon's throat,
+in a cloud of smoke, rushes the shell, shrieking out its message of
+death into the lines a mile and a half away, while our boys rend
+the air with wild hurrahs, for the enemy's fire is answered!
+
+Now ensues an artillery duel that keeps the air all quivering
+and quaking about our ears for an hour and a half, and it is all
+the more exciting that we can see the beautiful drill of the
+batteries beside us, with that steady swabbing and ramming, running
+and sighting, and bang! bang! bang! The mystery is how in the world
+they can load and fire so fast.
+
+"Boys, what are you trying to do?"
+
+  [Illustration: GENERAL DOUBLEDAY DISMOUNTS AND SIGHTS THE GUN.]
+
+It is Major-General Abner Doubleday, our division-commander, who
+reins in his horse and asks the question. He is a fine-looking
+officer, and is greatly beloved by the boys. He rides his horse
+beautifully, and is said to be one of the finest artillerists in
+the service, as he may well be, for it was his hand that fired the
+first gun on the Union side from the walls of Fort Sumter.
+
+"Why, General, we are trying to put a shell through that stone barn
+over there; it's full of sharpshooters."
+
+"Hold a moment!" and the general dismounts and sights the gun.
+"Try that elevation once, sergeant," he says; and the shell
+goes crashing through the barn a mile and a half away, and the
+sharpshooters come pouring out of it like bees out of a hive. "Let
+them have it so, boys." And the general has mounted, and rides,
+laughing, away along the line.
+
+Meanwhile, something is transpiring immediately before our eyes
+that amuses us greatly. Not more than twenty yards away from us
+is another high bank, corresponding exactly with the one we are
+occupying, and running parallel with it, the two hills inclosing a
+little ravine some twenty or thirty yards in width.
+
+This second high bank, the nearer one, you must remember, faces the
+enemy's fire. The water has worn out of the soft sand-rock a sort
+of cave, in which Darkie Bill, our company cook, took refuge at
+the crack of the first shell. And there, crouching in the narrow
+recess of the rock, we can see him shivering with affright. Every
+now and then, when there is a lull in the firing, he comes to the
+wide-open door of his house, intent upon flight, and, rolling up
+the great whites of his eyes, is about to step out and run, when
+Hur-r-r--bang--crack! goes the shell, and poor scared Darkie Bill
+dives into his cave again head-first, like a frog into a pond.
+
+After repeated attempts to run and repeated frog-leaps backward,
+the poor fellow takes heart and cuts for the woods, pursued by
+the laughter and shouts of the regiment, for which he cares far
+less, however, than for that terrible shriek in the air, which, he
+afterward told us, "was a-sayin' all de time, 'Where's dat nigger!
+Where's dat nigger! Where's dat nigger!'"
+
+As nightfall comes on, the firing ceases. Word is passed around
+that under cover of night we are to cross the pontoons and charge
+the enemy's works; but we sleep soundly all night on our arms, and
+are awaked only by the first streaks of light in the morning sky.
+
+We have orders to move. A staff-officer is delivering orders to
+our colonel, who is surrounded by his staff. They press in toward
+the messenger, standing immediately below me as I sit on the bank,
+when the enemy gives us a morning salute, and the shell comes
+ricochetting over the hill and tumbles into a mud-puddle about
+which the group is gathered; the mounted officers crouch in their
+saddles and spur hastily away, the foot officers throw themselves
+flat on their faces into the mud; the drummer-boy is bespattered
+with mud and dirt; but fortunately the shell does not explode, or
+my readers would never have heard how we got our first shelling.
+
+And now, "Fall in, men!" and we are off on a double-quick in a
+cloud of dust, amid the rattle of canteens and tin cups, and the
+regular _flop, flop_ of cartridge-boxes and bayonet-scabbards,
+pursued for two miles by the hot fire of the enemy's batteries, for
+a long, hot, weary day's march to the extreme right of the army at
+Chancellorsville.
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+IN THE WOODS AT CHANCELLORSVILLE.
+
+
+It is no easy matter to describe a long day's march to one who
+knows nothing of the hardships of a soldier's life. That a body of
+troops marched some twenty-five or thirty miles on a certain day
+from daylight to midnight, from one point to another, seems, to one
+who has not tried it, no great undertaking. Thirty miles! It is
+but an hour's ride in the cars. Nor can the single pedestrian, who
+easily covers greater distances in less time, have a full idea of
+the fatigue of a soldier as he throws himself down by the roadside,
+utterly exhausted, when the day's march is done.
+
+Unnumbered circumstances combine to test the soldier's powers of
+endurance to the very utmost. He has, in the first place, a heavy
+load to carry. His knapsack, haversack, canteen, ammunition,
+musket, and accoutrements are by no means a light matter at the
+outset, and they grow heavier with every additional mile of the
+road. So true is this, that, in deciding what of our clothing to
+take along on a march and what to throw away, we soon learned to
+be guided by the soldiers' proverb that "what weighs an ounce in
+the morning weighs a pound at night." Then, too, the soldier is not
+master of his own movements, as is the solitary pedestrian; for he
+cannot pick his way, nor husband his strength by resting when and
+where he may choose. He marches generally "four abreast," sometimes
+at double-quick, when the rear is closing up, and again at a most
+provokingly slow pace when there is some impediment on the road
+ahead. Often his canteen is empty, no water is to be had, and he
+marches on in a cloud of dust, with parched throat and lips and
+trembling limbs,--on and on, and still on, until about the midnight
+hour, at the final "Halt!" he drops to the ground like a shot,
+feverish, irritable, exhausted in body and soul.
+
+It would seem a shame and a folly to take troops thus utterly worn
+out, and hurl them at midnight into a battle the issue of which
+hangs trembling in the balance. Yet this was what they came pretty
+near doing with us, after our long march from four miles below
+Fredericksburg to the extreme right of the army at Chancellorsville.
+
+  [Illustration: A SURGEON WRITING UPON THE POMMEL OF HIS SADDLE AN
+  ORDER FOR AN AMBULANCE.]
+
+I have a very indistinct and cloudy recollection of that march.
+I can quite well remember the beginning of it, when at the early
+dawn the enemy's batteries drove us, under a sharp shell-fire, at a
+lively double-quick for the first four miles. And I can well recall
+how, at midnight, we threw ourselves under the great oak-trees
+near Chancellorsville, and were in a moment sound asleep amid
+the heaven-rending thunder of the guns, the unbroken roll of the
+musketry, and the shouts and yells of the lines charging each other
+a quarter of a mile to our front. But when I attempt to call up
+the incidents that happened by the way, I am utterly at a loss. My
+memory has retained nothing but a confused mass of images: here a
+farmhouse, there a mill; a company of stragglers driven on by the
+guard; a surgeon writing upon the pommel of his saddle an order
+for an ambulance to carry a poor exhausted and but half-conscious
+fellow; an officer's staff or an orderly dashing by at a lively
+trot; a halt for coffee in the edge of a wood; filling a canteen
+(oh, blessed memory!) at some meadow stream or roadside spring;
+and on, and on, and on, amid the rattle of bayonet-scabbards and
+tin cups, mopping our faces and crunching our hard-tack as we
+went,--this, and such as this, is all that will now come to mind.
+
+But of events toward nightfall the images are clearer and more
+sharply defined. The sun is setting, large, red, and fiery-looking,
+in a dull haze that hangs over the thickly-wooded horizon. We are
+nearing the ford where we are to cross the Rappahannock. We come to
+some hilltop, and--hark! A deep, ominous growl comes, from how many
+miles away we know not; now another; then another!
+
+On, boys, on! There is work doing ahead, and terrible work it is,
+for two great armies are at each other's throat, and the battle is
+raging fierce and high, although we know nothing as yet of how it
+may be going.
+
+On,--on,--on!
+
+Turning sharp to the left, we enter the approach to the ford, the
+road leading, in places, through a deep cut,--great high pine-trees
+on either side of the road shutting out the little remaining light
+of day. Here we find the first actual evidences of the great battle
+that is raging ahead: long lines of ambulances filled with wounded;
+yonder a poor fellow with a bandaged head sitting by a spring; and
+a few steps away another, his agonies now over; here, two men,
+one with his arm in a sling supporting the other, who has turned
+his musket into a crutch; then more ambulances, and more wounded
+in increasing numbers; orderlies dashing by at full gallop, while
+the thunder of the guns grows louder and closer as we step on the
+pontoons and so cross the gleaming river.
+
+"Colonel, your men have had a hard day's march; you will now let
+them rest for the night."
+
+It is a staff-officer whom I hear delivering this order to our
+colonel, and a sweeter message I think I never heard. We cast
+wistful eyes at the half-extinguished camp-fires of some regiment
+that has been making coffee by the roadside, and has just moved
+off, and we think them a godsend, as the order is given to "Stack
+arms!" But before we have time even to unsling knapsacks, the
+order comes, "Fall in!" and away we go again, steadily plodding
+on through that seemingly endless forest of scrub-pine and oak,
+straight in the direction of the booming guns ahead.
+
+Why whippoorwills were made I do not know; doubtless for some wise
+purpose; but never before that night did I know they had been made
+in such countless numbers. Every tree and bush was full of them, it
+seemed. There were thousands of them, there were tens of thousands
+of them, there were millions of them! And every one whistling, as
+fast as it could, "Who-hoo-hoo! Who-hoo-hoo! Who-hoo-hoo!" Had they
+been vultures or turkey-buzzards,--vast flocks of which followed
+the army wherever we went, almost darkening the sky at times, and
+always suggesting unpleasant reflections,--they could not have
+appeared more execrable to me. Many were the imprecations hurled
+at them as we plodded on under the light of the great red moon,
+now above the tree-tops, while still from every bush came that
+monotonous half-screech, half-groan, "Who-hoo-hoo! Who-hoo-hoo!"
+
+But, O miserable birds of ill-omen, there is something more ominous
+in the air than your lugubrious night-song! There is borne to our
+ears at every additional step the deepening growl of the cannon
+ahead. As the moon mounts higher, and we advance farther along the
+level forest-land, we hear still more distinctly another sound--the
+long, unbroken roll of musketry.
+
+Forward now, at double-quick, until we are on the outskirts of the
+battle-field.
+
+Shells are crashing through the tall tree-tops overhead.
+
+"Halt! Load at will! Load!"
+
+In the moonlight that falls shimmering across the road, as I look
+back over the column, I see the bright steel flashing, while the
+jingle of the ramrods makes music that stirs the blood to a quicker
+pulse. A well-known voice calls me down the line, and Andy whispers
+a few hurried words into my ear, while he grasps my hand hard. But
+we are off at a quick step. A sharp turn to the left, and--hark!
+The firing has ceased, and they are "charging" down there! That
+peculiar, and afterward well-known, "Yi! Yi! Yi!" indicates a
+struggle for which we are making straight and fast.
+
+At this moment comes the order: "Colonel, you will countermarch
+your men, and take position down this road on the right. Follow
+me!" The staff-officer leads us half a mile to the right, where,
+sinking down utterly exhausted, we are soon sound asleep.
+
+Of the next day or two I have but an indistinct recollection. What
+with the fatigue and excitement, the hunger and thirst, of the last
+few days, a high fever set in for me. I became half-delirious,
+and lay under a great oak-tree, too weak to walk, my head nearly
+splitting with the noise of a battery of steel cannon in position
+fifty yards to the left of me. That battery's beautiful but
+terrible drill I could plainly see. My own corps was put on
+reserve: the men built strong breastworks, but took no part in the
+battle, excepting some little skirmishing. Our day was yet to come.
+
+One evening,--it was the last evening we spent in the woods at
+Chancellorsville,--a sergeant of my company came back to where we
+were, with orders for me to hunt up and bring an ambulance for one
+of the lieutenants who was sick.
+
+"You see, Harry, there are rumors that we are going to retreat
+to-night, for the heavy rains have so swollen the Rappahannock that
+our pontoons are in danger of being carried away, and it appears
+that, for some reason or other, we've got to get out of this at
+once under cover of night, and lieutenant can't stand the march.
+So you will go for an ambulance. You'll find the ambulance-park
+about two miles from here. You'll take through the woods in that
+direction,"--pointing with his finger,--"until you come to a path;
+follow the path till you come to a road; follow the road, taking to
+the right and straight ahead, till you come to the ambulances."
+
+Although it was raining hard at the time, and had been raining
+for several days, and though I myself was probably as sick as the
+lieutenant, and felt positive that the troops would have started in
+retreat before I could get back, yet it was my duty to obey, and
+off I went.
+
+I had no difficulty in finding the path; and I reached the road
+all right. Fording a stream, the corduroy bridge of which was all
+afloat, and walking rapidly for a half-hour, I found the ambulances
+all drawn up ready to retreat.
+
+"We have orders to pull out from here at once, and can send an
+ambulance for no man. Your lieutenant must take his chance."
+
+It was getting dark fast, as I started back with this message. I
+was soaked to the skin, and the rain was pouring down in torrents.
+To make bad worse, in the darkness I turned off from the road at
+the wrong point, missed the path, and quite lost my way! What was
+to be done? If I should spend much time where I was, I was certain
+to be left behind, for I felt sure that the troops were moving off;
+and yet I feared to make for any of the fires I saw through the
+woods, for I knew the lines of the two armies were near each other,
+and I might, as like as not, walk over into the lines of the enemy.
+
+Collecting my poor fevered faculties, I determined to follow the
+course of a little stream I heard plashing down among the bushes to
+the left. By and by I fixed my eye on a certain bright camp-fire,
+and determined to make for it at all hazards, be it of friend or of
+foe. Judge of my joyful surprise when I found it was burning in
+front of my own tent!
+
+Standing about our fire trying to get warm and dry, our fellows
+were discussing the question of the retreat about to be made. But I
+was tired and sick, and wet and sleepy, and did not at all relish
+the prospect of a night-march through the woods in a drenching
+rain. So, putting on the only remaining dry shirt I had left (I had
+_two_ on already, and they were soaked through), I lay down under
+my shelter, shivering and with chattering teeth, but soon fell
+sound asleep.
+
+In the gray light of the morning we were suddenly awakened by a
+loud "Halloo there, you chaps! Better be digging out of this! We're
+the last line of cavalry pickets, and the Johnnies are on our
+heels!"
+
+It was an easy matter for us to sling on our knapsacks and rush
+after the cavalry-man, until a double-quick of two miles brought us
+within the rear line of defences thrown up to cover the retreat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE FIRST DAY AT GETTYSBURG.
+
+
+"Harry, I'm getting tired of this thing. It's becoming monotonous,
+this thing of being roused every morning at four, with orders
+to pack up and be ready to march at a moment's notice, and then
+lying around here all day in the sun. I don't believe we are going
+anywhere, anyhow."
+
+We had been encamped for six weeks, of which I need give no special
+account, only saying that in those "summer quarters," as they might
+be called, we went on with our endless drilling, and were baked and
+browned, and thoroughly hardened to the life of a soldier in the
+field.
+
+The monotony of which Andy complained did not end that day, nor
+the next. For six successive days we were regularly roused at four
+o'clock in the morning, with orders to "pack up and be ready to
+move immediately!" only to unpack as regularly about the middle of
+the afternoon. We could hear our batteries pounding away in the
+direction of Fredericksburg, but we did not then know that we were
+being held well in hand till the enemy's plan had developed itself
+into the great march into Pennsylvania, and we were let off in hot
+pursuit.
+
+So, at last, on the 12th of June, 1863, we started, at five o'clock
+in the morning, in a north-westerly direction. My journal says:
+"Very warm, dust plenty, water scarce, marching very hard. Halted
+at dusk at an excellent spring, and lay down for the night with
+aching limbs and blistered feet."
+
+I pass over the six days' continuous marching that followed,
+steadily on toward the north, pausing only to relate several
+incidents that happened by the way.
+
+On the 14th we were racing with the enemy--we being pushed on to
+the utmost of human endurance--for the possession of the defences
+of Washington. From five o'clock of that morning till three the
+following morning,--that is to say, from daylight to daylight,--we
+were hurried along under a burning June sun, with no halt longer
+than sufficient to recruit our strength with a hasty cup of coffee
+at noon and nightfall. Nine, ten, eleven, twelve o'clock at night,
+and still on! It was almost more than flesh could endure. Men fell
+out of line in the darkness by the score, and tumbled over by the
+roadside, asleep almost before they touched the ground.
+
+I remember how a great tall fellow in our company made us laugh
+along somewhere about one o'clock that morning,--"Pointer," we
+called him,--an excellent soldier, who afterward fell at his
+post at Spottsylvania. He had been trudging on in sullen silence
+for hours, when all of a sudden, coming to a halt, he brought
+his piece to "order arms" on the hard road with a ring, took off
+his cap, and, in language far more forcible than elegant, began
+forthwith to denounce both parties to the war, "from A to Izzard,"
+in all branches of the service, civil and military, army and navy,
+artillery, infantry, and cavalry, and demanded that the enemy
+should come on in full force here and now, "and I'll fight them
+all, single-handed and alone, the whole pack of 'em! I'm tired of
+this everlasting marching, and I want to fight!"
+
+"Three cheers for Pointer!" cried some one, and we laughed heartily
+as we toiled doggedly on to Manassas, which we reached at three
+o'clock A. M., June 15th. I can assure you we lost no time in
+stretching ourselves at full length in the tall summer grass.
+
+"James McFadden, report to the adjutant for camp guard! James
+McFadden! Anybody know where Jim McFadden is?"
+
+Now that was rather hard, wasn't it? To march from daylight to
+daylight, and lie down for a rest of probably two hours before
+starting again, and then to be called up to stand throughout those
+precious two hours on guard duty!
+
+I knew very well where McFadden was, for wasn't he lying right
+beside me in the grass? But just then I was in no humor to tell.
+The camp might well go without a guard that night, or the orderly
+might find McFadden in the dark if he could.
+
+But the rules were strict, and the punishment was severe, and poor
+McFadden, bursting into tears of vexation, answered like a man:
+"Here I am, Orderly; I'll go." It was hard.
+
+Two weeks later, both McFadden and the orderly went where there is
+neither marching nor standing guard any more.
+
+Now comes a long rest of a week in the woods near the Potomac; for
+we have been marching parallel with the enemy, and dare not go
+too fast, lest by some sudden and dexterous move in the game he
+should sweep past our rear in upon the defences of Washington. And
+after this sweet refreshment, we cross the Potomac on pontoons,
+and march, perhaps with a lighter step, since we are nearing home,
+through the smiling fields and pleasant villages of "Maryland, my
+Maryland." At Poolesville, a little town on the north bank of the
+Potomac, we smile as we see a lot of children come trooping out of
+the village school,--a merry sight to men who have seen neither
+woman nor child these six months and more, and a touching sight to
+many a man in the ranks as he thinks of his little flaxen-heads in
+the far-away home. Ay, think of them now, and think of them full
+tenderly too, for many a man of you shall never have child climb
+on his knee any more!
+
+As we enter one of these pleasant little Maryland
+villages,--Jefferson by name,--we find on the outskirts of the
+place two young ladies and two young gentlemen waving the good old
+flag as we pass, and singing "Rally round the Flag, Boys!" The
+excitement along the line is intense. Cheer on cheer is given by
+regiment after regiment as we pass along, we drummer-boys beating,
+at the colonel's express orders, the old tune, "The Girl I left
+behind me," as a sort of response. Soon we are in among the hills
+again, and still the cheering goes on in the far distance to the
+rear.
+
+Only ten days later we passed through the same village again, and
+were met by the same young ladies and gentlemen, waving the same
+flag and singing the same song. But though we tried twice, and
+tried hard, we could not cheer at all; for there's a difference
+between five hundred men and one hundred,--is there not? So, that
+second time, we drooped our tattered flags, and raised our caps
+in silent and sorrowful salute. Through Middletown next, where a
+rumor reaches us that the enemy's forces have occupied Harrisburg,
+and where certain ladies, standing on a balcony and waving their
+handkerchiefs as we pass by, in reply to our colonel's greeting,
+that "we are glad to see so many Union people here," answer, "Yes;
+and we are glad to see the Yankee soldiers too."
+
+From Middletown, at six o'clock in the evening, across the mountain
+to Frederick, on the outskirts of which city we camp for the night.
+At half-past five next morning (June 29th) we are up and away,
+in a drizzling rain, through Lewistown and Mechanicstown, near
+which latter place we pass a company of Confederate prisoners,
+twenty-four in number, dressed in well-worn gray and butternut,
+which makes us think that the enemy cannot be far ahead. After
+a hard march of twenty-five miles, the greater part of the way
+over a turnpike, we reach Emmittsburg at nightfall, some of us
+quite barefoot, and all of us footsore and weary. Next morning
+(June 30th) at nine o'clock we are up and away again, "on the
+road leading towards Gettysburg," they say. After crossing the
+line between Maryland and Pennsylvania, where the colonel halts
+the column for a moment, in order that we may give three rousing
+cheers for the Old Keystone State, we march perceptibly slower, as
+if there were some impediment in the way. There is a feeling among
+the men that the enemy is somewhere near. Towards noon we leave the
+public road, and taking across the fields, form in line of battle
+along the rear of a wood, and pickets are thrown out. There is an
+air of uncertainty and suspicion in the ranks as we look to the
+woods, and consider what our pickets may possibly unmask there.
+But no developments have yet been made when darkness comes, and we
+bivouac for the night behind a strong stone wall.
+
+Passing down along the line of glowing fires in the gathering
+gloom, I come on one of my company messes squatting about a fire,
+cooking supper. Joe Gutelius, corporal and color-guard from our
+company, is superintending the boiling of a piece of meat in a tin
+can, while Sam Ruhl and his brother Joe are smoking their pipes
+near by.
+
+"Boys, it begins to look a little dubious, don't it? Where is Jimmy
+Lucas?"
+
+"He's out on picket in the woods yonder. Yes, Harry, it begins to
+look a little as if we were about to stir the Johnnies out of the
+brush," says Joe Gutelius, throwing another rail on the fire.
+
+"If we do," says Joe Ruhl, "remember that you have the post of
+honor, Joe, and 'if any man pulls down that flag, shoot him on the
+spot!'"
+
+"Never you fear for that," answers Joe Gutelius. "We of the
+color-guard will look out for the flag. For my part, I'll stay a
+dead man on the field before the colors of the 150th are disgraced."
+
+"You'll have some tough tussling for your colors, then," says Sam.
+"If the Louisiana Tigers get after you once, look out!"
+
+"Who's afraid of the Louisiana Tigers? I'll back the Buck-tails
+against the Tigers any day. Stay and take supper with us, Harry!
+We are going to have a feast to-night. I have the heart of a beef
+boiling in the can yonder; and it is done now. Sit up, boys, get
+out your knives and fall to."
+
+"We were going to have boiled lion heart for supper, Harry," says
+Joe Ruhl with mock apology for the fare, "but we couldn't catch
+any lions. They seem to be scarce in these parts. Maybe we can
+catch a tiger to-morrow, though."
+
+Little do we think, as we sit thus cheerily talking about the
+blazing fire behind the stone-wall, that it is our last supper
+together, and that ere another nightfall two of us will be sleeping
+in the silent bivouac of the dead.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Colonel, close up your men, and move on as rapidly as possible."
+
+It is the morning of July 1st, and we are crossing a bridge over
+a stream, as the staff-officer, having delivered this order for
+us, dashes down the line to hurry up the regiments in the rear. We
+get up on a high range of hills, from which we have a magnificent
+view. The day is bright, the air is fresh and sweet with the
+scent of the new-mown hay, and the sun shines out of an almost
+cloudless sky, and as we gaze away off yonder down the valley to
+the left--look! Do you see that? A puff of smoke in mid-air! Very
+small, and miles away, as the faint and long-coming "boom" of the
+exploding shell indicates; but it means that something is going on
+yonder, away down in the valley, in which, perhaps, we may have a
+hand before the day is done. See! another--and another! Faint and
+far away comes the long-delayed "boom!" "boom!" echoing over the
+hills, as the staff-officer dashes along the lines with orders to
+"double-quick! double-quick!"
+
+Four miles of almost constant double-quicking is no light work at
+any time, least of all on such a day as this memorable first day
+of July, for it is hot and dusty. But we are in our own State now,
+boys, and the battle is opening ahead, and it is no time to save
+breath. On we go, now up a hill, now over a stream, now checking
+our headlong rush for a moment, for we _must_ breathe a little. But
+the word comes along the line again, "double-quick," and we settle
+down to it with right good-will, while the cannon ahead seem to be
+getting nearer and louder. There's little said in the ranks, for
+there is little breath for talking, though every man is busy enough
+thinking. We all feel, somehow, that our day has come at last--as
+indeed it has!
+
+We get in through the outskirts of Gettysburg, tearing down the
+fences of the town-lots and outlying gardens as we go; we pass a
+battery of brass guns drawn up beside the Seminary, some hundred
+yards in front of which building, in a strip of meadow-land, we
+halt, and rapidly form the line of battle.
+
+"General, shall we unsling knapsacks?" shouts some one down the
+line to our division-general, as he is dashing by.
+
+"Never mind the knapsacks, boys; it's the State now!"
+
+And he plunges his spurs into the flanks of his horse, as he takes
+the stake-and-rider fence at a leap, and is away.
+
+"Unfurl the flags, Color-guard!"
+
+"Now, forward, double----"
+
+"Colonel, we're not loaded yet!"
+
+A laugh runs along the line as, at the command "Load at
+will--load!" the ramrods make their merry music, and at once the
+word is given, "Forward, double-quick!" and the line sweeps up that
+rising ground with banners gayly flying, and cheers that rend the
+air,--a sight, once seen, never to be forgotten.
+
+I suppose my readers wonder what a drummer-boy does in time of
+battle. Perhaps they have the same idea I used to have, namely,
+that it is the duty of a drummer-boy to beat his drum all the time
+the battle rages, to encourage the men or drown the groans of the
+wounded! But if they will reflect a moment, they will see that
+amid the confusion and noise of battle, there is little chance of
+martial music being either heard or heeded. Our colonel had long
+ago given us our orders:
+
+"You drummer-boys, in time of an engagement, are to lay aside your
+drums and take stretchers and help off the wounded. I expect you to
+do this, and you are to remember that, in doing it, you are just
+as much helping the battle on as if you were fighting with guns in
+your hands."
+
+And so we sit down there on our drums and watch the line going
+in with cheers. Forthwith we get a smart shelling, for there is
+evidently somebody else watching that advancing line besides
+ourselves; but they have elevated their guns a little too much, so
+that every shell passes quite over the line and ploughs up the
+meadow-sod about _us_ in all directions.
+
+  [Illustration: A SKIRMISH AFTER A HARD DAY'S MARCH]
+
+Laying aside our knapsacks, we go to the Seminary, now rapidly
+filling with the wounded. This the enemy surely cannot know, or
+they wouldn't shell the building so hard! We get stretchers at the
+ambulances, and start out for the line of battle. We can just see
+our regimental colors waving in the orchard, near a log-house about
+three hundred yards ahead, and we start out for it--I on the lead,
+and Daney behind.
+
+There is one of our batteries drawn up to our left a short distance
+as we run. It is engaged in a sharp artillery duel with one of
+the enemy's, which we cannot see, although we can hear it plainly
+enough, and straight between the two our road lies. So, up we
+go, Daney and I, at a lively trot, dodging the shells as best we
+can, till, panting for breath, we set down our stretcher under an
+apple-tree in the orchard, in which, under the brow of the hill,
+we find the regiment lying, one or two companies being out on the
+skirmish line ahead.
+
+I count six men of Company C lying yonder in the grass--killed,
+they say, by a single shell. Close beside them lies a tall,
+magnificently built man, whom I recognize by his uniform as
+belonging to the "Iron Brigade," and therefore probably an Iowa
+boy. He lies on his back at full length, with his musket beside
+him--calm-looking as if asleep, but having a fatal blue mark on
+his forehead and the ashen pallor of death on his countenance.
+Andy calls me away for a moment to look after some poor fellow
+whose arm is off at the shoulder; and it was just time I got away,
+too, for immediately a shell plunges into the sod where I had been
+sitting, tearing my stretcher to tatters, and ploughing up a great
+furrow under one of the boys who had been sitting immediately
+behind me, and who thinks, "That was rather close shaving, wasn't
+it, now?" The bullets whistling overhead make pretty music with
+their ever-varying "z-i-p! z-i-p!" and we could imagine them so
+many bees, only they have such a terribly sharp sting. They tell
+me, too, of a certain cavalry-man (Dennis Buckley, Sixth Michigan
+cavalry it was, as I afterwards learned--let history preserve
+the brave boy's name) who, having had his horse shot under him,
+and seeing that first-named shell explode in Company C with such
+disaster, exclaimed, "That is the company for me!" He remained with
+the regiment all day, doing good service with his carbine, and he
+escaped unhurt!
+
+"Here they come, boys; we'll have to go in at them on a charge,
+I guess!" Creeping close around the corner of the log-house, I
+can see the long lines of gray sweeping up in fine style over the
+fields; but I feel the colonel's hand on my shoulder.
+
+"Keep back, my boy; no use exposing yourself in that way."
+
+As I get back behind the house and look around, an old man is seen
+approaching our line through the orchard in the rear. He is dressed
+in a long blue swallow-tailed coat and high silk hat, and coming up
+to the colonel, he asks:
+
+"Would you let an old chap like me have a chance to fight in your
+ranks, colonel?"
+
+"Can you shoot?" inquires the colonel.
+
+"Oh yes, I can shoot, I reckon," says he.
+
+"But where are your cartridges?"
+
+"I've got 'em here, sir," says the old man, slapping his hand on
+his trousers pocket.
+
+And so "old John Burns," of whom every school-boy has heard, takes
+his place in the line and loads and fires with the best of them,
+and is left wounded and insensible on the field when the day is
+done.
+
+Reclining there under a tree while the skirmishing is going on in
+front and the shells are tearing up the sod around us, I observe
+how evidently hard pressed is that battery yonder in the edge of
+the wood, about fifty yards to our right. The enemy's batteries
+have excellent range on the poor fellows serving it. And when the
+smoke lifts or rolls away in great clouds for a moment, we can
+see the men running, and ramming, and sighting, and firing, and
+swabbing, and changing position every few minutes to throw the
+enemy's guns out of range a little. The men are becoming terribly
+few, but nevertheless their guns, with a rapidity that seems
+unabated, belch forth great clouds of smoke, and send the shells
+shrieking over the plain.
+
+  [Illustration: AT CLOSE QUARTERS THE FIRST DAY AT GETTYSBURG.]
+
+Meanwhile, events occur which give us something more to think of
+than mere skirmishing beloved brigadier-general, Roy Stone,
+stepping out a moment to reconnoitre the enemy's position and
+movements, is seen by some sharpshooter off in a tree, and is
+carried, severely wounded, into the barn. Our colonel, Langhorne
+Wister, assumes command of the brigade. Our regiment, facing
+westward, while the line on our right faces to the north, is
+observed to be exposed to an enfilading fire from the enemy's
+guns, as well as from the long line of gray now appearing in
+full sight on our right. So our regiment must form in line and
+"change front forward," in order to come in line with the other
+regiments. Accomplished swiftly, this new movement brings our line
+at once face to face with the enemy's, which advances to within
+fifty yards, and exchanges a few volleys, but is soon checked and
+staggered by our fire.
+
+Yet now, see! Away to our left, and consequently on our flank, a
+new line appears, rapidly advancing out of the woods a half-mile
+away, and there must be some quick and sharp work done now, boys,
+or, between the old foes in front and the new ones on our flank,
+we shall be annihilated. To clear us of these old assailants in
+front before the new line can sweep down on our flank, our brave
+colonel, in a ringing command, orders a charge along the whole
+line. Then, before the gleaming and bristling bayonets of our
+"Buck-tail" brigade, as it yells and cheers, sweeping resistlessly
+over the field, the enemy gives way and flies in confusion. But
+there is little time to watch them fly, for that new line on our
+left is approaching at a rapid pace; and, with shells falling thick
+and fast into our ranks, and men dropping everywhere, our regiment
+must reverse the former movement by "changing front to rear," and
+so resume its original position facing westward, for the enemy's
+new line is approaching from that direction, and if it takes us in
+flank, we are done for.
+
+To "change front to rear" is a difficult movement to execute even
+on drill, much more so under severe fire; but it is executed now
+steadily and without confusion, yet not a minute too soon! For the
+new line of gray is upon us in a mad tempest of lead, supported by
+a cruel artillery fire, almost before our line can steady itself to
+receive the shock. However, partially protected by a post-and-rail
+fence, we answer fiercely, and with effect so terrific that the
+enemy's line wavers, and at length moves off by the right flank,
+giving us a breathing space for a time.
+
+During this struggle, there had been many an exciting scene
+all along the line as it swayed backward and forward over the
+field,--scenes which we have had no time to mention yet.
+
+See yonder, where the colors of the regiment on our right--our
+sister regiment, the 149th--have been advanced a little, to draw
+the enemy's fire, while our line sweeps on to the charge. There
+ensues about the flags a wild _mêlée_ and close hand-to-hand
+encounter. Some of the enemy have seized the colors and are making
+off with them in triumph, shouting victory. But a squad of our own
+regiment dashes out swiftly, led to the rescue of the stolen colors
+by Sergeant John C. Kensill, of Company F, who falls to the ground
+before reaching them, and amid yells and cheers and smoke, you see
+the battle-flags rise and fall, and sway hither and thither upon
+the surging mass, as if tossed on the billows of a tempest, until,
+wrenched away by strong arms, they are borne back in triumph to the
+line of the 149th.
+
+See yonder, again! Our colonel is clapping his hand to his cheek,
+from which a red stream is pouring; our lieutenant-colonel, H.
+S. Huidekoper, is kneeling on the ground, and is having his
+handkerchief tied tight around his arm at the shoulder; Major
+Thomas Chamberlain and Adjutant Richard L. Ashurst both lie low,
+pierced with balls through the chest; one lieutenant is waving his
+sword to his men, although his leg is crushed at the knee; three
+other officers of the line are lying over there, motionless now
+forever. All over the field are strewn men wounded or dead, and
+comrades pause a moment in the mad rush to catch the last words
+of the dying. Incidents such as these the reader must imagine
+for himself, to fill in these swift sketches of how the day was
+won--and lost!
+
+Ay, lost! For the balls which have so far come mainly from our
+front, begin now to sing in from our left and right, which means
+that we are being flanked. Somehow, away off to our right, a
+half-mile or so, our line has given way, and is already on retreat
+through the town, while our left is being driven in, and we
+ourselves may shortly be surrounded and crushed--and so the retreat
+is sounded.
+
+Back now along the railroad cut we go, or through the orchard and
+the narrow strip of woods behind it, with our dead scattered around
+on all sides, and the wounded crying piteously for help.
+
+"Harry! Harry!" It is a faint cry of a dying man yonder in the
+grass, and I _must_ see who it is.
+
+"Why, Willie! Tell me where you are hurt," I ask, kneeling down
+beside him; and I see the words come hard, for he is fast dying.
+
+"Here in my side, Harry. Tell--mother--mother----"
+
+Poor fellow, he can say no more. His head falls back, and Willie is
+at rest forever!
+
+On, now, through that strip of woods, at the other edge of which,
+with my back against a stout oak, I stop and look at a beautiful
+and thrilling sight. Some reserves are being brought up; infantry
+in the centre, the colors flying and officers shouting; cavalry on
+the right, with sabres flashing and horses on a trot; artillery on
+the left, with guns at full gallop sweeping into position to check
+the headlong pursuit,--it is a grand sight, and a fine rally; but
+a vain one, for in an hour we are swept off the field, and are in
+full retreat through the town.
+
+Up through the streets hurries the remnant of our shattered corps,
+while the enemy is pouring into the town only a few squares away
+from us. There is a tempest of shrieking shells and whistling balls
+about our ears. The guns of that battery by the woods we have
+dragged along, all the horses being disabled. The artillery-men
+load as we go, double-charging with grape and canister.
+
+"Make way there, men!" is the cry, and the surging mass crowds
+close up on the sidewalks to right and left, leaving a long lane
+down the centre of the street, through which the grape and canister
+go rattling into the ranks of the enemy's advance-guard.
+
+And so, amid scenes which I have neither space nor power to
+describe, we gain Cemetery Ridge towards sunset, and throw
+ourselves down by the road in a tumult of excitement and grief,
+having lost the day through the overwhelming force of numbers, and
+yet somehow having gained it too (although as yet we know it not),
+for the sacrifice of our corps has saved the position for the
+rest of the army, which has been marching all day, and which comes
+pouring in over Cemetery Ridge all night long.
+
+Ay, the position is saved; but where is our corps? Well may our
+division-general, Doubleday, who early in the day succeeded to the
+command when our brave Reynolds had fallen, shed tears of grief as
+he sits there on his horse and looks over the shattered remains of
+that First Army Corps, for there is but a handful of it left. Of
+the five hundred and fifty men that marched under our regimental
+colors in the morning, but one hundred remain. All our field and
+staff officers are gone. Of some twenty captains and lieutenants,
+but one is left without a scratch, while of my own company only
+thirteen out of fifty-four sleep that night on Cemetery Ridge,
+under the open canopy of heaven. There is no roll-call, for
+Sergeant Weidensaul will call the roll no more; nor will Joe
+Gutelius, nor Joe Ruhl, nor McFadden, nor Henning, nor many others
+of our comrades whom we miss, ever answer to their names again
+until the world's last great reveille.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+AFTER THE BATTLE.
+
+
+I had frequently seen pictures of battle-fields, and had often
+read about them; but the most terrible scenes of carnage my boyish
+imagination had ever figured fell far short of the dreadful reality
+as I beheld it after the great battle of the war. It was the
+evening of Sunday, July 5, 1863, when, at the suggestion of Andy,
+we took our way across the breastworks, stone fences, and redoubts,
+to look over the battle-field. Our shattered brigade had been
+mainly on reserve during the last three days; and as we made our
+way through the troops lying in our front, and over the defences of
+stone and earth and ragged rocks, the scene among our troops was
+one for the pencil of a great artist.
+
+Scattered about irregularly were groups of men discussing the
+battle and its results, or relating exciting incidents and
+adventures of the fray: here, one fellow pointing out bullet-holes
+in his coat or cap, or a great rent in the sleeve of his blouse
+made by a flying piece of shell; there, a man laughing as he held
+up his crushed canteen, or showed his tobacco-box with a hole in
+the lid and a bullet among his "fine cut"; yonder, knots of men
+frying steaks and cooking coffee about the fire, or making ready
+for sleep.
+
+Before we pass beyond our own front line, evidences of the terrible
+carnage of the battle environ us on all sides. Fresh, hastily dug
+graves are there, with rude head-boards telling the poor fellows'
+names and regiments; yonder, a tree on whose smooth bark the names
+of three Confederate generals, who fell here in the gallant charge,
+have been carved by some thoughtful hand. The trees round about are
+chipped by the balls and stripped almost bare by the leaden hail,
+while a log-house near by in the clearing has been so riddled with
+shot and shell that scarcely a whole shingle is left to its roof.
+
+But sights still more fearful await us as we step out beyond the
+front line, pick our way carefully among the great rocks, and walk
+down the slope to the scene of the fearful charge. The ground has
+been soaked with the recent rains, and the heavy mist which hangs
+like a pall over the field, together with the growing darkness,
+renders objects but indistinctly visible, and all the more ghastly.
+As the eye ranges over so much of the field as the shrouding
+mist allows us to see, we behold a scene of destruction terrible
+indeed, if ever there was one in all this wide world! Dismounted
+gun-carriages, shattered caissons, knapsacks, haversacks, muskets,
+bayonets, accoutrements, scattered over the field in wildest
+confusion,--horses (poor creatures!) dead and dying,--and, worst
+and most awful of all, dead men by the hundreds! Most of the men in
+blue have been buried already, and the pioneers yonder in the mist
+are busy digging trenches for the poor fellows in gray.
+
+As we pass along, we stop to observe how thickly they lie, here and
+there, like grain before the scythe in summer-time,--how firmly
+some have grasped their guns, with high, defiant looks,--and how
+calm are the countenances of others in their last solemn sleep;
+while more than one has clutched in his stiffened fingers a piece
+of white paper, which he waved, poor soul, in his death-agony, as
+a plea for quarter, when the great wave of battle had receded and
+left him there, mortally wounded, on the field.
+
+I sicken of the dreadful scene,--can endure it no longer,--and beg
+Andy to "Come away! Come away! It's too awful to look at any more!"
+
+And so we get back to our place in the breastworks with sad,
+heavy hearts, and wonder how we ever could have imagined war so
+grand and gallant a thing when, after all, it is so horribly
+wicked and cruel. We lie down--the thirteen of us that are left
+in the company--on a big flat rock, sleeping without shelter, and
+shielding our faces from the drizzling rain with our caps as best
+we may, thinking of the dreadful scene in front there, and of the
+sad, heavy hearts there will be all over the land for weary years,
+till kindly sleep comes to us, with sweet forgetfulness of all.
+
+Our clothes were damp with the heavy mists and drizzling rain
+when we awoke next morning, and hastily prepared for the march
+off the field and the long pursuit of the foe through the waving
+grain-fields of Maryland. Having cooked our coffee in our blackened
+tin cups, and roasted our slices of fresh beef, stuck on the end of
+a ramrod and thrust into the crackling fires, we were ready in a
+moment for the march, for we had but little to pack up.
+
+Straight over the field we go, through that valley of death where
+the heavy charging had been done, and thousands of men had been
+swept away, line after line, in the mad and furious tempest of the
+battle. Heavy mists still overhang the field, even dumb Nature
+seeming to be in sympathy with the scene, while all around us, as
+we march along, are sights at which the most callous turn faint.
+Interesting enough we find the evidences of conflict, save only
+where human life is concerned.
+
+  [Illustration: ON THE MARCH TO AND FROM GETTYSBURG.]
+
+We stop to wonder at the immense furrow yonder which some shell has
+ploughed up in the ground; we call one another's attention to a
+caisson shivered to atoms by an explosion, or to a tree cut clean
+off by a solid shot, or bored through and through by a shell. With
+pity we contemplate the poor artillery-horses hobbling, wounded
+and mangled, about the field, and we think it a mercy to shoot them
+as we pass. But the dead men! Hundreds of torn and distorted bodies
+yet on the field, although thousands already lie buried in the
+trenches. Even the roughest and rudest among us marches awed and
+silent, as he is forced to think of the terrible suffering endured
+in this place, and of the sorrow and tears there will be among the
+mountains of the North and the rice-fields of the far-off South.
+
+We were quiet, I remember, very quiet, as we marched off that great
+field; and not only then, but for days afterwards, as we tramped
+through the pleasant fields of Maryland. We had little to say, and
+we all were pretty busily thinking. Where were the boys who, but
+a week before, had marched with us through those same fragrant
+fields, blithe as a sunshiny morn in May? And so, as I have told
+you, when those young ladies and gentlemen came out to the end
+of that Maryland village to meet and cheer us after the battle,
+as they had met and cheered us before it, we did not know how
+heavy-hearted we were until, in response to their song of "Rally
+round the Flag, Boys!" some one proposed three cheers for them. But
+the cheers would not come. Somehow, after the first hurrah, the
+other two stuck in our throats or died away soundless on the air.
+And so we only said: "God bless you, young friends; but we can't
+cheer to-day, you see!"
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THROUGH "MARYLAND, MY MARYLAND."
+
+
+Our course now lay through Maryland, and we performed endless
+marches and countermarches over turnpikes and through field and
+forest.
+
+After crossing South Mountain,--but stop, I just _must_ tell you
+about that, it will take but a paragraph or two. South Mountain
+Pass we entered one July evening, after a drenching rain, on the
+Middletown side, and marched along through that deep mountain
+gorge, with a high cliff on either side, and a delightful stream
+of fresh water flowing along the road; emerging on the other side
+at the close of day. Breaking off the line of march by the right
+flank, we suddenly crossed the stream, and were ordered up the
+mountain-side in the gathering darkness. We climbed very slowly at
+first, and more slowly still as the darkness deepened and the path
+grew steeper and more difficult. At about nine o'clock, orders were
+given to "sleep on arms," and then, from sheer fatigue, we all fell
+sound asleep, some lying on the rocks, some sitting bolt upright
+against the trees, some stretched out at full length on beds of
+moss or clumps of bushes.
+
+What a magnificent sight awaited us the next morning! Opening
+our eyes at peep o' day, we found ourselves high up on top of a
+mountain-bluff overlooking the lovely valley about Boonesboro. The
+rains were past; the sun was just beginning to break through the
+clouds; great billows of mist were rolling up from the hollows
+below, where we could catch occasional glimpses of the movements of
+troops,--cavalry dashing about in squads, and infantry marching in
+solid columns. What may have been the object of sending us up that
+mountain, or what the intention in ordering us to fell the trees
+from the mountain-top and build breastworks hundreds of feet above
+the valley, I have never learned. That one morning amid the mists
+of the mountain, and that one grand view of the lovely valley
+beneath, were to my mind sufficient reason for being there.
+
+Refreshed by a day's rest on the mountain-top, we march down into
+the valley on the 10th, exhilarated by the sweet, fresh mountain
+air, as well as by the prospect, as we suppose, of a speedy
+end being put to this cruel war. For we know that the enemy is
+somewhere crossing the swollen Potomac back into Virginia, in a
+crippled condition, and we are sure he will be finally crushed in
+the next great battle, which cannot now be many hours distant.
+And so we march leisurely along, over turnpikes and through
+grain-fields, on the edge of one of which, by and by, we halt in
+line of battle, stack arms, and, with three cheers, rush in a
+line for a stake-and-rider fence, with the rails of which we are
+to build breastworks. It is wonderful how rapidly that Maryland
+farmer's fence disappears! Each man seizing a rail, the fence
+literally walks off, and in less than fifteen minutes it reappears
+in the shape of a compact and well-built line of breastworks.
+
+But scarcely is the work completed when we are ordered into the
+road again, and up this we advance a half-mile or so, and form
+in line on the left of the road and on the skirt of another
+wheat-field. We are about to stack arms and build a second line of
+works, when--
+
+Z-i-p! z-i-p! z-i-p!
+
+Ah! It is music we know right well by this time! Three light puffs
+of smoke rise yonder in the wheat-field, a hundred yards or so
+away, where the enemy's pickets are lying concealed in the tall
+grain. Three balls go singing merrily over my head--intended, no
+doubt, for the lieutenant, who is acting-adjutant, and who rides
+immediately in front of me, with a bandage over his forehead, but
+who is too busy forming the line to give much heed to his danger.
+
+"We'll take you out o' that grass a-hopping, you long-legged
+rascals!" shouts Pointer, as the command is given:
+
+"Deploy to right and left as skirmishers,"--while a battery of
+artillery is brought up at a gallop, and the guns are trained on
+a certain red barn away across the field, from which the enemy's
+sharpshooters are picking off our men.
+
+Bang! Hur-r-r! Boom! One, two, three, four shells go crashing
+through the red barn, while the shingles and boards fly like
+feathers, and the sharpshooters pour out from it in wild haste.
+The pickets are popping away at one another out there along the
+field and in the edge of the wood beyond; the enemy is driven
+in and retreats, but we do not advance, and the expected battle
+does not come off after all, as we had hoped it would. For in the
+great war-council held about that time, as we afterwards learned,
+our generals, by a close vote, have decided not to risk a general
+engagement, but to let the enemy get back into Virginia again,
+crippled, indeed, but not crushed, as every man in the ranks
+believes he well might be.
+
+As we step on the swaying pontoons to recross the Potomac into old
+Virginia, there are murmurs of disappointment all along the line.
+
+"Why didn't they let us fight? We could have thrashed them now,
+if ever we could. We are tired of this everlasting marching and
+countermarching up and down, and we want to fight it out and be
+done with it."
+
+But for all our feelings and wishes, we are back again on the south
+side of the river, and the column of blue soon is marching along
+gayly enough among the hills and pleasant fields about Waterford.
+
+We did not go very fast nor very far those hot July days, because
+we had very little to eat. Somehow or other our provision trains
+had lost their reckoning, and in consequence we were left to
+subsist as best we could. We were a worn, haggard-looking, hungry,
+ragged set of men. As for me--out at knee and elbow, my hair
+sticking out in tufts through holes in the top of my hat, my shoes
+in shreds, and my haversack empty--I must have presented a forlorn
+appearance indeed. Fortunately, however, blackberries were ripe
+and plentiful. All along the road and all through the fields,
+as we approached Warrenton, these delicious berries hung on the
+vines in great luscious clusters. Yet blackberries for supper and
+blackberries for breakfast give a man but little strength for
+marching under a July sun all day long. So Corporal Harter and I
+thought, as we sat one morning in a clover-field where we were
+resting for the day, busy boiling a chicken at our camp-fire.
+
+"Where did you get that chicken, Corporal?" said I.
+
+"Well, you see, Harry, I didn't steal her, and I didn't buy her,
+neither. Late last night, while we were crossing that creek, I
+heard some fellow say he had carried that old chicken all day since
+morning, and she was getting too heavy for him, and he was going to
+throw her into the creek; and so I said I'd take her, and I did,
+and carried her all night, and here she is now in the pan, sizzling
+away, Harry."
+
+"I'm afraid, Corporal, this is a fowl trick."
+
+"Fair or fowl, we'll have a good dinner, any way."
+
+With an appetite ever growing keener as we caught savory whiffs
+from the steaming mess-pan, we piled up the rails on the fire and
+boiled the biddy, and boiled, and boiled, and boiled her from morn
+till noon, and from noon to night, and couldn't eat her then, she
+was so tough!
+
+"May the dogs take the old grizzle-gizzard! I'm not going to break
+my teeth on this old buzzard any more," shouted the corporal, as
+he flung the whole cartilaginous mass into a pile of brush near by.
+"It _was_ a fowl trick, after all, Harry, wasn't it?"
+
+Thus it chanced that, when we marched out of Warrenton early
+one sultry summer morning, we started with empty stomachs and
+haversacks, and marched on till noon with nothing to eat. Halting
+then in a wood, we threw ourselves under the trees, utterly
+exhausted. About three o'clock, as we lay there, a whole staff of
+officers came riding down the line--the quartermaster-general of
+the Army of the Potomac and staff, they said it was. Just the very
+man we wanted to see! Then broke forth such a yell from hundreds of
+famished men as the quartermaster-general had probably never heard
+before nor ever wished to hear again:
+
+"Hard-tack!"
+
+"Coffee!"
+
+"Pork!"
+
+"Beef!"
+
+"Sugar!"
+
+"Salt!"
+
+"Pepper!"
+
+"Hard-tack! Hard-tack!"
+
+The quartermaster and staff put their spurs to their horses and
+dashed away in a cloud of dust, and at last, about nightfall, we
+got something to eat.
+
+By the way, this reminds me of an incident that occurred on one of
+our long marches; and I tell it just to show what sometimes is the
+effect of short rations.
+
+It was while we were lying up at Chancellorsville in an immense
+forest that our supply of pork and hard-tack began to give out.
+We had, indeed, carried with us into the woods eight full days'
+rations in our knapsacks and haversacks; but it rained in torrents
+for several days, so that our hard-tack became mouldy, the roads
+were impassable, transportation was out of the question, and we
+were forced to put ourselves on short allowance.
+
+"I wish I had some meat, Harry," said Pete Grove, anxiously
+inspecting the contents of his haversack; "I'm awful hungry for
+meat."
+
+"Well, Pete," said I, "I saw some jumping around here pretty lively
+a while ago. Maybe you could catch it."
+
+"_Meat_ jumping around here? Why what do you mean?"
+
+"Why frogs, to be sure--frogs, Pete. Did you never eat frogs?"
+
+"Bah! I think I'd be a great deal hungrier than I am now, ever to
+eat a frog! Ugh! No, indeed! But where is he? I'd like the fun of
+hunting him, anyhow."
+
+So saying, he loaded his revolver, and we sallied forth along the
+stream, and Pete, who was a good marksman, in a short time had laid
+out Mr. Froggy at the first shot.
+
+"Now, Pete, we'll skin him, and you shall have a feast fit for a
+king."
+
+So, putting the meat into a tin cup with a little water, salt, and
+pepper, boiling it for a few minutes, and breaking some hard-tack
+into it when done, I set it before him. I need hardly say that when
+he had once tasted the dish he speedily devoured it, and when he
+had devoured it, he took his revolver in hand again, and hunted
+frogs for the rest of that afternoon.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Drum and fife have more to do with the discipline of an army than
+an inexperienced person would imagine. The drum is the tongue
+of the camp. It wakes the men in the morning, mounts the guard,
+announces the dinner-hour, gives a peculiar charm to dress-parade
+in the evening, and calls the men to quarters with its pleasant
+tattoo at night. For months, however, we had had no drums. Ours
+had been lost, with our knapsacks, at Gettysburg. [And I will here
+pause to say that if any good friend across the border has in his
+possession a snare-drum with the name and regiment of the writer
+clearly marked on the inside of the body, and will return the same
+to the owner thereof, he will confer no small favor, and will be
+overwhelmed with an ocean of thanks!]
+
+  [Illustration: "I'VE GOT HIM, BOYS!"]
+
+We did not know how really important a thing a drum is until,
+one late September day, we were ordered to prepare for a
+dress-parade--a species of regimental luxury in which we had not
+indulged since the early days of June.
+
+"Major, you don't expect us drummer-boys to turn out, do you?"
+
+"Certainly. And why not, my boy?"
+
+"Why, we have no drums, Major!"
+
+"Well, your fifers have fifes, haven't they? We'll do without the
+drums; but you must all turn out, and the fifers can play."
+
+So when we stood drawn up in line on the parade-ground among the
+woods, and the order was given:
+
+"Parade rest! Troop, beat off!"
+
+Out we drummers and fifers wheeled from the head of the line, with
+three shrill fifes screaming out the rolls, and started at a slow
+march down the line, while every man in the ranks grinned, and we
+drummer-boys laughed, and the officers joined us, until at last the
+whole line, officers and men alike, broke out into loud haw-haws at
+the sight. The fifers couldn't whistle for laughing, and the major
+ordered us all back to our places when only half down the line,
+and never even attempted another parade until a full supply of
+brand-new drums arrived for us from Washington.
+
+Then the major picked out mine for me, I remember, and it proved to
+be the best in the lot.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+PAINS AND PENALTIES.
+
+
+Among all civilized nations the "rules of war" seem to have been
+written with an iron hand. The laws by which the soldier in
+the field is governed are of necessity inexorable, for strict
+discipline is the chief excellence of an army, and a ready
+obedience the chief virtue of the soldier. Nothing can be more
+admirable in the character of the true soldier than his prompt and
+unquestioning response to the trumpet-call of duty. The world can
+never forget, nor ever sufficiently admire, a Leonidas with his
+three hundred Spartans at Thermopylæ, the Roman soldier on guard
+at the gates of the perishing Pompeii, or the gallant six hundred
+charging into the "valley of death" at Balaklava. Disobedience to
+orders is the great sin of the soldier, and one that is sure to
+be punished, for at no other time does Justice wear so stern and
+severe a look as when she sits enthroned amidst the camps of armed
+men.
+
+In different sections of the army, various expedients were resorted
+to for the purpose of correcting minor offences. What particular
+shape the punishment should assume depended very much upon the
+inventive faculty of the Field and Staff, or of such officers of
+the line as might have charge of the case.
+
+Before taking the field, a few citizen sneak-thieves were
+discovered prowling amongst the tents. These were promptly drummed
+out of camp to the tune of the "Rogue's March," the whole regiment
+shouting in derision as the miserable fellows took to their heels
+when the procession reached the limits of the camp, where they were
+told to begone and never show their faces in camp any more, on pain
+of a more severe treatment.
+
+  [Illustration: DRUMMING SNEAK-THIEVES OUT OF CAMP.]
+
+If, as very seldom happened, it was an enlisted man who was caught
+stealing, he was often punished in the following way: A barrel,
+having one end knocked out and a hole in the other large enough to
+allow one's head to go through, was slipped over the culprit's
+shoulders. On the outside of the barrel the word THIEF! was
+printed in large letters. In this dress he presented the ludicrous
+appearance of an animated meal-barrel; for you could see nothing
+of him but his head and legs, his hands being very significantly
+confined. Sometimes he was obliged to stand or sit (as best he
+could) about the guard-house, or near by the colonel's quarters,
+all day long. At other times he was compelled to march through the
+company streets and make the tour of the camp under guard.
+
+Once in the field, however, sneak-thieves soon disappeared. Nor was
+there frequent occasion to punish the men for any other offences.
+Nearly, if not quite all of the punishments inflicted in the field
+were for disobedience in some form or other. Not that the men were
+wilfully disobedient. Far from it. They knew very well that they
+must obey, and that the value of their services was measured wholly
+by the quality of their obedience. It very rarely happened, even
+amid the greatest fatigue after a hard day's march, or in the face
+of the most imminent danger, that any one refused his duty. But
+after a long and severe march, a man is so completely exhausted
+that he is likely to become irritable and to manifest a temper
+quite foreign to his usual habit. He is then not himself, and may
+in such circumstances do what at other times he would not think of
+doing.
+
+Thus it once happened in my own company that one of the boys took
+it into his head to kick over the traces. We had had a long hot
+day's march through Maryland on the way down from Gettysburg, and
+were quite worn out. About midnight we halted in a clover field on
+a hillside for rest and sleep. Corporal Harter, who was the only
+officer, commissioned or non-commissioned, that we had left to us
+after Gettysburg, called out:
+
+"John D----, report to the adjutant for camp guard."
+
+Now John, who was a German, by the way, did not like the prospect
+of losing his sleep, and had to be summoned a second time before
+replying:
+
+"Corporal, ich thu's es net!" (Corporal, I won't do it.)
+
+Tired though we all were, we could not help laughing at the
+preposterous idea of a man daring to disobey the corporal. As
+the boys jerked off their accoutrements and began to spread down
+their gum-blankets on the fragrant clover wet with the dew, they
+were greatly amused at this singular passage between John and the
+corporal.
+
+"Come on, John. Don't make a Dutch dunce of yourself. You know you
+_must_ go."
+
+"Ich hab' dir g'sawt, ich thu's es net" (I have told you I won't do
+it), insisted John.
+
+"Pitch in, John!" shouted some one from his bed in the clover.
+"Give it to him in Dutch; that'll fetch him."
+
+"Oh, hang it!" said the corporal. "Come on, man. What do you mean?
+You know you've got to go."
+
+"Ich hab' dir zwei mohl g'sawt, ich thu's es gar net" (I have told
+you twice that I will certainly not do it).
+
+"Ha! ha! It beats the Dutch!" said some one.
+
+"Something rotten in Denmark!" exclaimed another.
+
+"Put him in the guard-house!" suggested a third from under his
+gum-blanket.
+
+"Plague take the thing!" said the corporal, perplexed. "Pointer,"
+continued he, "put on your accoutrements again, get your gun, and
+take John under arrest to the adjutant."
+
+"Come on, John," said Pointer, buckling on his belt, "and be mighty
+quick about it too. I don't want to stand about here arguing all
+night; I want to get to roost. Come along!"
+
+The men leaned up on their elbows in their beds on the clover,
+interested in knowing how John would take _that_.
+
+"Well," said he, scratching his head and taking his gun in hand,
+"Corporal, ich glaub' ich det besser geh" (Corporal, I guess I'd
+better go).
+
+"Yes," said Pointer with a drawl, "I guess you 'besser' had, or
+the major'll make short work with you and your Dutch. What in the
+name of General Jackson did you come to the army for, if you ain't
+a-going to obey orders?"
+
+If while we were lying in camp a man refused his duty, he was at
+once haled to the guard-house, which is the military name for
+lock-up. Once there, at the discretion of the officers, he was
+either simply confined and put on bread and water, or maybe
+ordered to carry a log of wood, or a knapsack filled with stones,
+"two hours on and two off," day and night, until such time as he
+was deemed to have done sufficient penance. In more extreme cases
+a court-martial was held, and the penalty of forfeiture of all pay
+due, with hard labor for thirty days, or the like, was inflicted.
+
+"Tying up by the thumb" was sometimes adopted. Down in front of
+Petersburg, out along the Weldon Railroad, I once saw thirteen
+colored soldiers tied up by their thumbs at a time. Between two
+pine-saplings a long pole had been thrown across and fastened at
+either end about seven feet from the ground. To this pole thirteen
+ropes had been attached at regular intervals, and to each rope a
+darky was tied by the thumb in such a way that he could just touch
+the ground with his heel and keep the rope taut. If any one will
+try the experiment of holding up his arm in such a position for
+only five minutes, he will appreciate the force of the punishment
+of being tied up by the thumbs for a half day.
+
+In some regiments they had a high wooden horse, which the offender
+was made to mount; and there he was kept for hours in a seat as
+conspicuous as it was uncomfortable.
+
+One day, down in front of Petersburg, a number of us had been
+making a friendly call on some acquaintances over in another
+regiment. As we were returning home we came across what we took
+to be a well, and wishing a drink we all stopped. The well in
+question, as was usual there, was nothing but a barrel sunk in
+the ground; for at some places the ground was so full of springs
+that, in order to get water, all you had to do was to sink a box
+or barrel, and the water would collect of its own accord. Stooping
+down and looking into the well in question, Andy discovered a man
+standing in the well and bailing out the water.
+
+"What's he doing down there in that hole?" asked some one of our
+company.
+
+"He says he's in the gopher-hole," said Andy, with a grin.
+
+"Gopher-hole! What's a gopher-hole!"
+
+"Why," said the guard, who was standing near by, and whom we had
+taken for the customary guard on the spring, "you see, comrades,
+our colonel has his own way of punishin' the boys. One thing he
+won't let 'em do--he won't let 'em get drunk. They may drink as
+much as they want, but they must not get drunk. If they do, they
+go into the gopher-hole. Jim, there, is in the gopher-hole now.
+That hole has a spring in the bottom, and the water comes in pretty
+fast; and if Jim wants to keep dry he's got to keep dippin' all the
+time, or else stand in the water up to his neck--and Jim isn't so
+mighty fond o' water neither."
+
+Late in the fall of 1863, while we were lying in camp somewhere
+among the pine woods along the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, we
+were one day marched out to witness the execution of a deserter.
+Instances of desertion to the enemy's lines were extremely rare
+with us; but whenever they occurred, the unfortunate offenders, if
+caught, were dealt with in the most summary manner, for the doom of
+the deserter is death.
+
+The poor fellow who was to suffer the highest penalty of military
+law on the present occasion was, we were informed, a Maryland boy.
+Some months previously he had deserted his regiment for some cause
+or other, and had gone over to the enemy. Unfortunately for him it
+happened that in one of the numerous skirmishes we were engaged in
+about that time, he was taken prisoner, in company with a number of
+Confederate soldiers. Unfortunately, also, for the poor fellow, it
+chanced that he was captured by the very company from which he had
+deserted. The disguise of a Confederate uniform, which might have
+stood him in good stead had he fallen into any other hands, was
+now of no avail. He was at once recognized by his former comrades
+in arms, tried by court-martial, found guilty, and sentenced to be
+shot.
+
+So, one October morning, orders came to the effect that the whole
+division was to turn out at one o'clock, to witness the execution
+of the sentence. I need hardly say that this was most unwelcome
+news. Nobody wished to see so sad a sight. Some of the men begged
+to be excused from attendance, and others could not be found when
+our drums beat the "assembly;" for none could well endure, as they
+said, "to see a man shot down like a dog." It was one thing to
+shoot a fellow mortal, or to see him shot, in battle; but this
+was quite a different thing. A squad of men had been detailed to
+shoot the poor fellow, Elias Foust, of our company, being among
+the number. But Elias, to his credit be it recorded, begged off,
+and had some one else appointed in his stead. One could not help
+but pity the men who were assigned to this most unpleasant duty,
+for if it be painful only to see a man shot, what must it not be
+to shoot him with your own hand? However, in condescension to this
+altogether natural and humane aversion to the shedding of blood,
+and in order to render the task as endurable as possible, the
+customary practice was observed:--On the morning of the execution
+an officer, who had been appointed for the purpose, took a number
+of rifles, some twelve or fourteen in number, and loaded all of
+them carefully with powder and ball, _except one_, this one being
+loaded with blank cartridge, that is, with powder only. He then
+mixed the guns so thoroughly that he himself could scarcely tell
+which guns were loaded with ball and which one was not. Another
+officer then distributed the guns to the men, not one of whom
+could be at all certain whether his particular gun contained a ball
+or not, and all of whom could avail themselves of the full benefit
+of the doubt in the case.
+
+It was one of those peculiarly impressive autumn days when all that
+one sees or hears conspires to fill the mind with an indefinable
+feeling of sadness. There was the chirp of the cricket in the air,
+and the far-away chorus of the myriads of insects complaining that
+the year was done. There was all the impressiveness of a dull
+sky, a dreamy haze over the field, a yellow and brown tinge on
+the forest, accompanied by that peculiarly mournful wail of the
+breeze as it sighed and moaned dolefully among the branches of the
+pines,--all joining in chanting a requiem, it seemed to me, for the
+poor Maryland boy whose sands were fast running out.
+
+At the appointed hour the division marched out and took position in
+a large field, or clearing, surrounded on all sides by pine-woods.
+We were drawn up so as to occupy three sides of a great hollow
+square, two ranks deep and facing inward, the fourth side of
+the square (where we could see that a grave had been recently
+dug) being left open for the execution. Scarcely were we well in
+position, when there came to our ears, wafted by the sighing autumn
+wind, the mournful notes of the "Dead March." Looking away in the
+direction whence the music came, we could see a long procession
+marching sadly and slowly to the measured stroke of the muffled
+drum. First came the band, playing the dirge; next, the squad of
+executioners; then a pine coffin, carried by four men; then the
+prisoner himself, dressed in black trousers and white shirt, and
+marching in the midst of four guards; then a number of men under
+arrest for various offences, who had been brought out for the sake
+of the moral effect it was hoped this spectacle might have upon
+them. Last of all came a strong guard.
+
+When the procession had come up to the place where the division
+was formed, and had reached the open side of the hollow square,
+it wheeled to the left and marched all along the inside of the
+line from the right to the left, the band still playing the dirge.
+The line was long and the step was slow, and it seemed that they
+never would get to the other end. But at long last, after having
+solemnly traversed the entire length of the three sides of the
+hollow square, the procession came to the open side of it, opposite
+to the point from which it had started. The escort wheeled off.
+The prisoner was placed before his coffin, which was set down in
+front of his grave. The squad of twelve or fourteen men who were to
+shoot the unfortunate man took position some ten or twelve yards
+from the grave, facing the prisoner, and a chaplain stepped out
+from the group of division officers near by, and prayed with and
+for the poor fellow a long, long time. Then the bugle sounded. The
+prisoner, standing proudly erect before his grave, had his eyes
+bandaged, and calmly folded his arms across his breast. The bugle
+sounded again. The officer in charge of the squad stepped forward.
+Then we heard the command, given as calmly as if on drill,--
+
+"Ready!"
+
+"Aim!"
+
+Then, drowning out the third command, "Fire!" came a flash of
+smoke and a loud report. The surgeons ran up to the spot. The
+bands and drum-corps of the division struck up a quick-step as
+the division faced to the right and marched past the grave, in
+order that in the dead form of its occupant we might all see that
+the doom of the deserter is death. It was a sad sight. As we
+moved along, many a rough fellow, from whom you would hardly have
+expected any sign of pity, pretending to be adjusting his cap so as
+to screen his eyes from the glare of the westering sun, could be
+seen furtively drawing his hand across his face and dashing away
+the tears that could not be kept from trickling down the bronzed
+and weather-beaten cheek. As we marched off the field, we could
+not help being sensible of the harsh contrast between the lively
+music to which our feet were keeping step, and the fearfully solemn
+scene we had just witnessed. The transition from the "Dead March"
+to the quick-step was quite too sudden. A deep solemnity pervaded
+the ranks as we marched homeward across the open field and into
+the sombre pine-woods beyond, thinking, as we went, of the poor
+fellow's home somewhere among the pleasant hills of Maryland, and
+of the sad and heavy hearts there would be there when it was known
+that he had paid the extreme penalty of the law.
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+A TALE OF A SQUIRREL AND THREE BLIND MICE.
+
+
+"Andy, what is a shade-tail?"
+
+We were encamped in an oak-forest on the eastern bank of
+the Rappahannock, late in the fall of 1863. We had built no
+winter-quarters yet, although the nights were growing rather
+frosty, and had to content ourselves with our little "dog-tents,"
+as we called our shelters, some dozen or so of which now
+constituted our company row. I had just come in from a trip through
+the woods in quest of water at a spring near an old deserted
+log-house about a half-mile to the south of our camp, when,
+throwing down my heavy canteens, I made the above interrogatory of
+my chum.
+
+Andy was lazily lying at full length on his back in the tent,
+reclining on a soft bed of pine-branches, or "Virginia feathers,"
+as we called them, with his hands clasped behind his head, lustily
+singing--
+
+    "Tramp, tramp, tramp! the boys are marching!
+    Cheer up, comrades, they will come!
+    And beneath the starry flag
+    We shall breathe the air again--"
+
+"What's that?" asked he, ceasing his song before finishing the
+stanza, and rising up on his elbow.
+
+"I asked whether you could tell me what a shade-tail is?"
+
+"A shade-tail! Never heard of it before. Don't believe there is any
+such thing. I know what a buck-tail is, though. There's one," said
+he, pulling a fine specimen out from under his knapsack. "That just
+came in the mail while you were gone. The old buck that chased the
+flies with that brush for many a year was shot up among the Buffalo
+mountains last winter, and my father bought his tail of the man who
+killed him, and has sent it to me. It cost him just one dollar."
+
+Buck-tails were in great demand with us in those days, and happy
+indeed was the man who could secure so fine a specimen as Andy now
+proudly held in his hand.
+
+"But isn't it rather large?" inquired I. "And it's nearly all
+white, and would make an excellent mark for some Johnny to shoot
+at, eh?"
+
+"Never you fear for that. 'Old Trusty' up there," said he,
+pointing to his gun hanging along underneath the ridge-pole of the
+tent,--"'Old Trusty' and I will take care of Johnny Reb."
+
+"But, Andy," continued I, "you haven't answered my question yet.
+What is a shade-tail?"
+
+"A shade-tail," said he, meditatively,--"how should I know? I
+know precious well what a _detail_ is, though; and I'm on one for
+to-morrow. We go across the river to throw up breastworks."
+
+"I forgot," said I, "that you have not studied Greek to any extent
+yet. If you live to get home and go back to school again at the old
+Academy, and begin to dig Greek roots in earnest, you will find
+that a shade-tail is a--squirrel. For that is what the old Greeks
+called the bonny bush-tail. Because, don't you see, when a squirrel
+sits up on a tree with his tail turned up over his back, he makes a
+shade for himself with his tail, and sits, as it were, under the
+shadow of his own vine and fig-tree."
+
+"Well," said Andy, "and what if he does? What's to hinder him?"
+
+"Nothing," answered I, entering the tent and lying down beside him
+on the pile of Virginia feathers; "only I saw one out here in the
+woods as I came along, and I think I know where his nest is; and
+if you and I can catch him, or, what would be better still, if we
+can capture one of his young ones (if he has any), why we might
+tame him and keep him for a pet. I've often thought it would be a
+fine thing for us to have a pet of some kind or other. Over in the
+Second Division, there is one regiment that has a pet crow, and
+another has a kitten. They go with the men on all their marches,
+and they say that the kitten has actually been wounded in battle,
+and no doubt will be taken or sent up North some day and be a great
+curiosity. Now why couldn't we catch and tame a shade-tail?"
+
+"Yes," said Andy, becoming a little interested; "he could be taught
+to perch on Pointer's buck-horns in camp, and could ride on your
+drum on the march."
+
+Pointer, you must know, was the tallest man in the company,
+and therefore stood at the head of the line when the company
+was formed. When we enlisted, he brought with him a pair of
+deer-antlers as an appropriate symbol for a Buck-tail company,--no
+doubt with the intention of making both ends meet. Now the idea of
+having a live tame squirrel to perch on Pointer's buck-horns was a
+capital one indeed.
+
+But as the first thing to be done in cooking a hare is to catch the
+hare, so we concluded that the first thing to be done in taming
+a squirrel was to catch the squirrel. This gave us a world of
+thought. It would not do to shoot him. We could not trap him. After
+discussing the merits of smoking him out of his hole, we determined
+at last to risk cutting down the tree in which he had his home, and
+trying to catch him in a bag.
+
+That afternoon, when we thought he would likely be at home taking a
+nap, having provided ourselves with an axe, an old oat-bag, and a
+lot of tent rope, we cautiously proceeded to the old beech-tree on
+the outskirts of the camp, where our intended pet had his home.
+
+"Now, you see, Andy," said I, pointing up to a crotch in the tree,
+"up there is his front door; there he goes out and comes in. My
+plan is this: one of us must climb the tree and tie the mouth of
+the bag over that hole somehow, and come down. Then we will cut the
+tree down, and when it falls, if old shade-tail is at home, like as
+not he'll run into the bag; and then, if we can be quick enough, we
+can tie a string around the bag, and there he is!"
+
+Andy climbed the tree and tied the bag. After he had descended, we
+set vigorously to work at cutting down the beech. It took us about
+half an hour to make any serious inroad upon the tough trunk. But
+by and by we had the satisfaction of seeing the tree apparently
+shiver under our blows, and at last down it came with a crash.
+
+We both ran toward the bag as fast as we could, ready to secure
+our prize; but we found, alas! that squirrels sometimes have two
+doors to their houses, and that while we had hoped to bag our
+bush-tail at the front door, he had merrily skipped out the back
+way. For scarcely had the tree reached the ground, when we both
+beheld our intended pet leaping out of the branches and running up
+a neighboring tree as fast as his legs could carry him.
+
+"Plague take it!" said Andy, wiping the perspiration from his face,
+"what shall we do now? I guess you'd better run to camp and get a
+little salt to throw on his tail."
+
+"Never mind," said I, "we'll get him yet, see if we don't. I see
+him up there behind that old dry limb peeping out at us--there he
+goes!"
+
+Sure enough, there he did go, from tree-top to tree-top,
+"lickerty-skoot," as Andy afterward expressed it, and we after him,
+quite losing our heads, and shouting like Indians.
+
+As ill luck would have it, our shade-tail was making straight for
+the camp, on the outskirts of which he was discovered by one of the
+men, who instantly gave the alarm--"A squirrel! a squirrel!" In a
+moment all the boys in camp not on duty came running pell-mell,
+Sergeant Kensill's black-and-tan terrier, Little Jim (of whom more
+anon), leading the way. I suppose there must have been about a
+hundred men together, and all yelling and shouting too, so that
+the poor squirrel checked his headlong course high up on the dead
+limb of a great old oak-tree. Then, forming a circle around the
+tree, with "Little Jim" in the midst, the boys began to shout and
+yell as when on the charge,--
+
+"Yi-yi-yi! Yi-yi-yi!"
+
+Whereat the poor squirrel was so terrified, that, leaping straight
+up and out from his perch into open space, in sheer affright and
+despair, down he came tumbling tail over head into the midst of the
+circle, which rapidly closed about him as he neared the ground.
+With yells and cheers that made the wood ring, a hundred hands were
+stretched out as if to catch him as he came down. But Little Jim
+beat them all. True to his terrier blood and training, he suddenly
+leaped up like a shot, seized the squirrel by the nape of the neck,
+gave him a few angry shakes, which ended his agony, and carried him
+off triumphantly in his mouth to the tent of his owner, Sergeant
+Kensill, of Company F.
+
+That evening, as we sat in our tent eating our fried hard-tack,
+Andy remarked, while sipping his coffee from his black tin cup,
+that if buck-tails were as hard to catch as shade-tails, they were
+well worth a dollar apiece any day; and that he believed a crow, or
+one of those young pigs we found running wild in the woods when we
+came to that camp, or something of that sort, would make a better
+pet than a squirrel.
+
+"Well," said I, "we caught those pigs, anyhow, didn't we? But
+didn't they squeal! Fortunately they were so much like oysters that
+they couldn't get away from us, and all found their way into our
+frying-pans at last."
+
+"I fail to apprehend your meaning," said Andy, with mock gravity,
+setting down his black tin cup on the gum-blanket. "By what right
+or authority, sir, do you presume to tell me that a pig is like an
+oyster?"
+
+"Why, don't you see? A pig is like an oyster _because he can't
+climb a tree_! And that's the reason why we caught him."
+
+"Bah!" exclaimed Andy; "that's a miserable joke, that is."
+
+"Yet you must admit that it is a most happy circumstance that a pig
+cannot climb a tree, or we should have missed more than one good
+meal of fresh pork. Yet although we failed to make a pet of the
+squirrel because he _could_ climb a tree, and of the pig because he
+_could not_, we shall make a pet of something or other yet. Of that
+I am certain."
+
+It was some months later, and not until we were safely established
+in winter-quarters, that we finally succeeded in our purpose of
+having something to pet. I was over at Brigade headquarters one
+day, visiting a friend who had charge of several supply-wagons.
+Being present while he was engaged in overhauling his stores, I
+found in the bottom of a large box, in which blankets had been
+packed away, a whole family of mice. The father of the family
+promptly made his escape; the mother was killed in the capture, and
+one little fellow was so injured that he soon died; but the rest,
+three in number, I took out unhurt. As I laid them in the palm of
+my hand, they at once struck me as perfect little beauties. They
+were very young and quite small, being no larger than the end of my
+finger, with scarcely any fur on them, and their eyes quite shut.
+Putting them into my pocket and covering them with some cotton
+which my friend gave me, I started home with my prize. Stopping
+at the surgeon's quarters on reaching camp, I begged a large
+empty bottle (which I afterward found had been lately filled with
+pulverized gum arabic), and somewhere secured an old tin can of
+the same diameter as the bottle. Then I got a strong twine, went
+down to my tent, and asked Andy to help me make a cage for my pets,
+which with pride I took out of my pocket and set to crawling and
+nosing about on the warm blankets on the bunk.
+
+"What are you going to do with that bottle?" inquired Andy.
+
+"Going to cut it in two with this string," said I, holding up my
+piece of twine.
+
+"Can't be done!" asserted he.
+
+"Wait and see," answered I.
+
+Procuring a mess-pan full of cold water, and placing it on the
+floor of the tent near the bunk on which we were sitting, I wound
+the twine once around the bottle a few inches from the bottom, in
+such a way that Andy could hold one end of the bottle and pull one
+end of the twine one way, while I held the other end of the bottle
+and pulled the other end of the twine the other way, thus causing
+the twine, by means of its rapid friction, to heat the bottle in a
+narrow, straight line all around. After sawing away in this style
+for several minutes, I suddenly plunged the bottle into the pan of
+cold water, when it at once snapped in two along the line where the
+twine had passed around it, and as clean and clear as if it had
+been cut by a diamond. Then, melting off the top of the old tin
+can by holding it in the fire, I fastened the body of the can on
+the lower end of the bottle. When finished, the whole arrangement
+looked like a large long bottle, the upper part of which was glass
+and the lower tin. In this way I accomplished the double purpose
+of providing my pets with a dark chamber and a well-lighted
+apartment, at the same time preventing them from running away.
+Placing some cotton on the inside of both can and bottle for a bed,
+and thrusting a small sponge moistened with sweetened water into
+the neck of the bottle, I then put my pets into their new home.
+Of course they could not see, for their eyes were not yet open;
+neither did they at first seem to know how to eat; but as necessity
+is the mother of invention with mice as well as with men, they
+soon learned to toddle forward to the neck of the bottle and suck
+their sweet sponge. In a short time they learned also to nibble at
+a bit of apple, and by and by could crunch their hard-tack like
+veritable veterans.
+
+The bottle, as has already been said, had been filled with
+pulverized gum arabic. Some of this still adhering to the inside
+of the bottle, was gradually brushed off by their growing fur; and
+it was amusing to see the little things sit on their haunches and
+clean themselves of the sticky substance. Sometimes they would
+all three be busy at the same time, each at himself; and again
+two of them would take to licking the third, rubbing their little
+red noses all over him from head to tail in the most amusing way
+imaginable.
+
+Gradually they grew very lively, and became quite tame, so that we
+could take them out of their house into our hands, and let them
+hunt about in our pockets for apple-seeds or pieces of hard-tack.
+We called them Jack, Jill, and Jenny, and they seemed to know their
+names. When let out of their cage occasionally for a romp on the
+blankets, they would climb over everything, running along the inner
+edge of the eave-boards and the ridge-pole, but never succeeded
+in getting away from us. It was a comical sight to see Little Jim
+come in to look at them. A mouse was almost the highest possible
+excitement to Jim; for a mouse was second cousin to a rat, no
+doubt, as Jim looked at matters; and just say "rats!" to Jim, if
+you wanted to see him jump! He would come in and look at our pets,
+turn his head from one side to the other, and wrinkle his brow,
+and whine and bark; but we were determined he should not kill our
+mousies as he had killed our shade-tail a few months before.
+
+What to do with our pets when spring came on and winter-quarters
+were nearly at an end, we knew not. We could not take them along on
+the march, neither did we like to leave them behind; for it seemed
+cruel to leave Jack, Jill, and Jenny in the deserted and dismantled
+camp to go back to the barbarous habits of their ancestors. On
+consideration, therefore, we concluded to take them back to the
+wagon train and leave them with the wagoner, who, though at first
+he demurred to our proposal, at last consented to let us turn them
+loose among his oat-bags, where I doubt not they had a merry time
+indeed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+"THE PRIDE OF THE REGIMENT."
+
+
+The pet-making disposition which had led Andy and me to take so
+much trouble with our mice was not confined to ourselves alone. The
+disposition was quite natural, and therefore very general among the
+men of all commands. Pets of any and all kinds, whether chosen from
+the wild or the domestic animals, were everywhere in great esteem,
+and happy was the regiment which possessed a tame crow, squirrel,
+coon, or even a kitten.
+
+Our own regiment possessed a pet of great value and high esteem
+in Little Jim, of whom some incidental mention has already been
+made. As Little Jim enlisted with the regiment, and was honorably
+mustered out of the service with it at the close of the war, after
+three years of as faithful service as so little a creature as he
+could render the flag of his country, some brief account of him
+here may not be out of place.
+
+Little Jim, then, was a small rat-terrier, of fine-blooded stock,
+his immediate maternal ancestor having won a silver collar in a
+celebrated rat-pit in Philadelphia. Late in 1859, while yet a
+pup, he was given by a sailor friend to John C. Kensill, with
+whom he was mustered into the United States service "for three
+years or during the war," on Market Street, Philadelphia, Pa.,
+late in August, 1862. Around his neck was a silver collar with the
+inscription,--"Jim Kensill, Co. F., 150th Regt. P. V."
+
+He soon came to be a great favorite with the boys, not only of
+his own company, but of the entire regiment as well, the men
+of the different companies thinking quite as much of him as if
+he belonged to each of them individually, and not to Sergeant
+Kensill, of Company F., alone. On the march he would be caught
+up from the roadside where he was doggedly trotting along, and
+given a ride on the arms of the men, who would pet him and talk
+to him as if he were a child, and not a dog. In winter-quarters,
+however, he would not sleep anywhere except on Kensill's arm and
+underneath the blankets; nor was he ever known to spend a night
+away from home. On first taking the field, rations were scarce
+with us, and for several days fresh meat could not be had for poor
+Jim, and he nearly starved. Gradually, however, his master taught
+him to take a hard-tack between his fore-paws, and, holding it
+there, to munch and crunch at it till he had consumed it. He soon
+learned to like hard-tack, and grew fat on it too. On the march to
+Chancellorsville he was lost for two whole days, to the great grief
+of the men. When his master learned that he had been seen with a
+neighboring regiment, he had no difficulty in finding volunteers
+to accompany him when he announced that he was about to set out
+for the recapture of Jim. They soon found where he was. Another
+regiment had possession of him, and laid loud and angry claim to
+him; but Kensill and his men were not to be frightened, for he
+knew the Buck-tails were at his back, and that sooner than give up
+Little Jim there would be some rough work. As soon as Jim heard
+his master's sharp whistle, he came bounding and barking to his
+side, overjoyed to be at home again, albeit he had lost his silver
+collar, which his thievish captors had cut from his neck, in order
+the better to lay claim to him.
+
+He was a good soldier too, being no coward, and caring not a wag
+of his tail for the biggest shells the Johnnies could toss over at
+us. He was with us under our first shell fire at "Clarke's Mills,"
+a few miles below Fredericksburg, in May, 1863, and ran barking
+after the very first shell that came screaming over our heads. When
+the shell had buried itself in the ground, Jim went up close to
+it, crouching down on all fours, while the boys cried "Rats! rats!
+Shake him, Jim! Shake him, Jim!" Fortunately that first shell did
+not explode, and when others came that did explode, Jim, with true
+military instinct, soon learned to run after them and bark, but to
+keep a respectful distance from them.
+
+On the march to Gettysburg he was with us all the way, but when we
+came near the enemy, his master sent him back to William Wiggins,
+the wagoner; for he thought too much of Jim to run the risk of
+losing him in battle. It was a pity Jim was not with us out in
+front of the Seminary the morning of the first day, when the fight
+opened; for as soon as the cannon began to boom, the rabbits began
+to run in all directions, as if scared quite out of their poor
+little wits; and there would have been fine sport for Jim with the
+cotton-tails, had he only been there to give them chase.
+
+In the first day's fight Jim's owner, Sergeant John C. Kensill,
+while bravely leading the charge for the recapture of the 149th
+Pennsylvania Regiment's battle-flags (of which some brief account
+has been elsewhere given), was wounded and left for dead on
+the field, with a bullet through his head. He, however, so far
+recovered from his wound that in the following October he rejoined
+the regiment, which was then lying down along the Rappahannock
+somewhere. In looking for the regiment, on his return from a
+Northern hospital, Sergeant Kensill chanced to pass the supply
+train, and saw Jim busy at a bone under a wagon. Hearing the old
+familiar whistle, Jim at once looked up, saw his master, left his
+bone, and came leaping and barking in greatest delight to his
+owner's arm.
+
+On the march he was sometimes sent back to the wagon. Once he came
+near being killed. To keep him from following the regiment or from
+straying and getting lost in search of it, the wagoner had tied
+him to the rear axle of his wagon with a strong twine. In crossing
+a stream, in his anxiety to get his team over safely, the wagoner
+forgot all about poor little Jim, who was dragged and slashed
+through the waters in a most unmerciful way. After getting safely
+over the stream, the teamster, looking back, found poor Jim under
+the rear of the wagon, being dragged along by the neck, more dead
+than alive. He was then put on the sick-list for a few days; but
+with this single exception he had never a mishap of any kind, and
+was always ready for duty.
+
+His master having been honorably discharged before the close of the
+war because of wounds, Jim was left with the regiment in care of
+Wiggins, the wagoner. When the regiment was mustered out of service
+at the end of the war, Little Jim was mustered out too. He stood
+up in rank with the boys and wagged his tail for joy that peace
+had come, and that we were all going home. I understand that his
+discharge-papers were regularly made out, the same as those of the
+men, and that they read somewhat as follows,--
+
+   TO ALL WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: Know ye that _Jim Kensill_,
+   Private, Company F, 150th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers, who
+   was enrolled on the twenty-second day of August, One Thousand
+   Eight Hundred and Sixty-Two, to serve three years or during
+   the war, is hereby DISCHARGED from the service of the United
+   States, this twenty-third day of June, 1865, at Elmira, New
+   York, by direction of the Secretary of War.
+
+   (No objection to his being re-enlisted is known to exist.)
+
+   Said _Jim Kensill_ was born in Philadelphia in the State of
+   Pennsylvania, is six years of age, six inches high, dark
+   complexion, black eyes, black and tan hair, and by occupation
+   when enrolled a Rat Terrier.
+
+   Given at Elmira, New York, this twenty-third day of June, 1865.
+
+    JAMES R. REID,
+
+    CAPT. 10TH U. S. INF'Y. A. C. M.
+
+Before parting with him, the boys bought him a silver collar, which
+they had suitably inscribed with his name, regiment, and the
+principal engagements in which he had participated. This collar,
+which he had honorably earned in the service of his country in war,
+he proudly wore in peace to the day of his death.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Although not pertaining to the writer's own personal recollections,
+there yet may be appropriately introduced here some brief mention
+of another pet, who, from being "the pride of his regiment,"
+gradually arose to the dignity of national fame. I mean Old Abe,
+the war eagle of the Eighth Wisconsin Volunteers.
+
+Whoever it may have been that first conceived the idea, it was
+certainly a happy thought to make a pet of an eagle. For the eagle
+is our national bird, and to carry an eagle along with the colors
+of a regiment on the march, and in battle, and all through the
+whole war, was surely very appropriate indeed.
+
+Old Abe's perch was on a shield, which was carried by a soldier,
+to whom, and to whom alone, he looked as to a master. He would not
+allow any one to carry or even to handle him except this soldier,
+nor would he ever receive his food from any other person's hands.
+He seemed to have sense enough to know that he was sometimes a
+burden to his master on the march, however, and as if to relieve
+him, would occasionally spread his wings and soar aloft to a great
+height, the men of all regiments along the line of march cheering
+him as he went up. He regularly received his rations from the
+commissary, the same as any enlisted man. Whenever fresh meat was
+scarce and none could be found for him by foraging parties, he
+would take things into his own claws, as it were, and go out on a
+foraging expedition himself. On some such occasions he would be
+gone two or three days at a time, during which nothing whatever was
+seen of him; but he would invariably return, and seldom came back
+without a young lamb or a chicken in his talons. His long absences
+occasioned his regiment not the slightest concern, for the men knew
+that though he might fly many miles away in quest of food, he would
+be quite sure to find them again.
+
+In what way he distinguished the two hostile armies so accurately
+that he was never once known to mistake the gray for the blue, no
+one can tell. But so it was that he was never known to alight save
+in his own camp and amongst his own men.
+
+At Jackson, Mississippi, during the hottest part of the battle
+before that city, Old Abe soared up into the air and remained there
+from early morning till the fight closed at night, having, no
+doubt, greatly enjoyed his bird's-eye view of the battle. He did
+the same at Mission Ridge. He was, I believe, struck by the enemy's
+bullets two or three times; but his feathers were so thick, that
+his body was not much hurt. The shield on which he was carried,
+however, showed so many marks of the enemy's balls, that it looked
+on top as if a groove-plane had been run over it.
+
+At the Centennial celebration held in Philadelphia in 1876, Old
+Abe occupied a prominent place on his perch on the west side of
+the nave in the Agricultural building. He was still alive, though
+evidently growing old, and was the observed of all observers.
+Thousands of visitors from all sections of the country paid their
+respects to the grand old bird, who, apparently conscious of the
+honors conferred upon him, overlooked the sale of his biography
+and photographs going on beneath his perch with entire satisfaction.
+
+As was but just and right, the soldier who had carried him during
+the war continued to have charge of him after the war was over,
+until the day of his death, which occurred at the Capitol of
+Michigan some two or three years ago.
+
+Proud as the Wisconsin boys justly were of Old Abe, the Twelfth
+Indiana Regiment possessed a pet of whom it may be truly said that
+he enjoyed a renown scarcely second to that of the wide-famed war
+eagle. This was "Little Tommy," as he was familiarly called in
+those days,--the youngest drummer-boy, and so far as the writer's
+knowledge goes, the youngest enlisted man, in the Union Army. The
+writer well remembers having seen him on several occasions. His
+diminutive size and childlike appearance, as well as his remarkable
+skill and grace in handling the drum-sticks, never failed to make
+an impression on the beholder. Some brief and honorable mention of
+Little Tommy, the pride of the Twelfth Indiana Regiment, may with
+propriety find a place in these "Recollections of a Drummer-Boy."
+
+Thomas Hubler was born in Fort Wayne, Allen County, Indiana,
+October 9th, 1851. When two years of age, the family removed to
+Warsaw, Indiana. On the outbreak of the war, his father, who had
+been a German soldier of the truest type, raised a company of men,
+in response to President Lincoln's first call for seventy-five
+thousand troops. Little Tommy was among the first to enlist in his
+father's company, the date of enrolment being April 19th, 1861. He
+was then nine years and six months old.
+
+The regiment to which the company was assigned was with the Army of
+the Potomac throughout all its campaigns in Maryland and Virginia.
+At the expiration of its term of service in August, 1862, Little
+Tommy re-enlisted, and served to the end of the war, having been
+present in some twenty-six battles in all. He was greatly beloved
+by all the men of his regiment, and was a constant favorite amongst
+them. It is thought that he beat the first "long roll" of the great
+Civil War. He is still living in Warsaw, Indiana, and bids fair
+to be the latest survivor of the great and grand army of which he
+was the youngest member. With the swift advancing years the ranks
+of the soldiers of the late war are being rapidly thinned out, and
+those who yet remain are showing signs of age. The "Boys in Blue"
+are thus, as the years go by, almost imperceptibly turning into
+the "Boys in Gray;" and as Little Tommy, the youngest of them all,
+sounded their first reveille, so may he yet live to beat their last
+tattoo.
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+AROUND THE CAMP-FIRE.
+
+
+What glorious camp-fires we used to have in the fall of the year
+1863! It makes one rub his hands together yet, just to think of
+them. The nights were getting cold and frosty, so that it was
+impossible to sleep under our little shelters with comfort; and so
+half the night was spent around the blazing fires at the ends of
+the company streets.
+
+I always took care that there should be a blazing good fire for
+our little company, anyhow. My duties were light, and left me
+time, which I found I could spend with pleasure in swinging an
+axe. Hickory and white-oak saplings were my favorites; and with
+these cut into lengths of ten feet, and piled up as high as my
+head on wooden fire-dogs, what a glorious crackle we would have by
+midnight! Go out there what time of night you might please,--and
+you were pretty sure to go out to the fire three or four times a
+night, for it was too bitterly cold to sleep in the tent more than
+an hour at a stretch,--you would always find a half-dozen of the
+boys sitting about the fire on logs, smoking their pipes, telling
+yarns, or singing odd catches of song. As I recall those weird
+night-scenes of army life,--the blazing fire, the groups of swarthy
+men gathered about, the thick darkness of the forest, where the
+lights and shadows danced and played all night long, and the rows
+of little white tents covered with frost--it looks quite poetical
+in the retrospect; but I fear it was sometimes prosy enough in the
+reality.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"If you fellows would stop your everlasting arguing there, and go
+out and bring in some wood, it would be a good deal better; for
+if we don't have a big camp-fire to-night we'll freeze in this
+snow-storm."
+
+So saying, Pointer threw down the butt-end of a pine-sapling he had
+been half-dragging, half-carrying out of the woods in the edge of
+which we were to camp, and, axe in hand, fell to work at it with a
+will.
+
+There was, indeed, some need of following Pointer's good advice,
+for it was snowing fast, and was bitterly cold. It was Christmas
+Eve, 1863, and here we were, with no protection but our little
+shelters, pitched on the hard, frozen ground.
+
+Why did we not build winter-quarters, do you ask? Well, we had
+already built two sets of winter-quarters, and had been ordered
+out of them in both instances, to take part in some expedition or
+other; and it was a little hard to be houseless and homeless at
+this merry season of the year, when folks up North were having such
+happy times, wasn't it? But it is wonderful how elastic the spirits
+of a soldier are, and how jolly he can be under the most adverse
+circumstances.
+
+  [Illustration: CHRISTMAS EVE AROUND THE CAMP-FIRE.]
+
+"Well, Pointer, they hadn't any business to put me out of the mess.
+That was a mean trick, any way you take it."
+
+"If we hadn't put you out of our mess, you'd have eaten up our
+whole box from home in one night. He's an awful glutton, Pointer."
+
+"Say, boys! I move we organize ourselves into a court, and try this
+case," said Sergeant Cummings. "They've been arguing and arguing
+about this thing the whole day, and it's time to take it up and put
+an end to it. The case is--let's see; what'll we call it? I'm not
+a very good hand at the legal lingo, but I suppose if we call it a
+'motion to quash a writ of ejectment,' or something of that sort,
+we'll be within the lines of the law. Let me now state the case:
+Shell _versus_ Diehl and Hottenstein. These three, all members
+of Company D, after having lived, messed, and sojourned together
+peaceably for a year or more, have had of late some disagreement,
+quarrel, squabble, fracas, or general tearing out, the result of
+which said disagreement, quarrel, squabble, et cetery, et cetery,
+has been that the hereinbeforementioned Shell has been thrown out
+of the mess and left to the cold charities of the camp; and he,
+the said Shell, now lodges a due and formal complaint before this
+honorable court, presently sitting on this pile of pine-brush, and
+humbly prays and petitions reinstatement in his just rights and
+claims, _sine qua non, e pluribus unum, pro bono publico_!"
+
+"Silence in the court!"
+
+To organize ourselves into a court of justice was a matter of a
+few moments. Cummings was declared judge, Ruhl and Ransom his
+assistants. A jury of twelve men, good and true, was speedily
+impanelled. Attorneys and tipstaves, sheriff and clerk were
+appointed, and in less time than it takes to narrate it, there we
+were, seated on piles of pine-brush around a roaring camp-fire,
+with the snow falling fast, and getting deeper every hour, trying
+the celebrated case of "Shell _versus_ Diehl and Hottenstein."
+And a world of merriment we had out of it, you may well believe.
+When the jury, after having retired for a few moments behind a
+pine-tree, brought in a verdict for the plaintiff, it was full one
+o'clock on Christmas morning, and we began to drop off to sleep,
+some rolling themselves up in their blankets and overcoats, and
+lying down, Indian fashion, feet to the fire; while others crept
+off to their cold shelters under the snow-laden pine-trees for what
+poor rest they could find, jocularly wishing one another a "Merry
+Christmas!"
+
+Time wore away monotonously in the camp we established there, near
+Culpeper Court-house. All the more weary a winter was it for me,
+because I was so sick that I could scarcely drag myself about. So
+miserable did I look, that one day a Company B boy said, as I was
+passing his tent:
+
+"Young mon, an' if ye don't be afther pickin' up a bit, it's my
+opinion ye'll be gathered home to your fathers purty soon."
+
+I was sick with the same disease which slew more men than fell in
+actual battle. We had had a late fall campaign, and had suffered
+much from exposure, of which one instance may suffice:
+
+We had been sent into Thoroughfare Gap to hold that mountain pass.
+Breaking camp there at daylight in a drenching rain, we marched all
+day long, through mud up to our knees, and soaked to the skin by
+the cold rain; at night we forded a creek waist-deep, and marched
+on with clothes frozen almost stiff; at one o'clock the next
+morning we lay down utterly exhausted, shivering helplessly, in
+wet clothes, without fire, and exposed to the north-west wind that
+swept the vast plain keen and cold as a razor. Whoever visits the
+Soldiers' Cemetery near Culpeper will there find a part of the
+sequel of that night-march; the remainder is scattered far and wide
+over the hills of Virginia, and in forgotten places among the pines.
+
+Could we have had home care and home diet, many would have
+recovered. But what is to be done for a sick man whose only choice
+of diet must be made from pork, beans, sugar, and hard-tack? Home?
+Ah yes, if we only _could_ get home for a month! Homesick? Well,
+no, not exactly. Still we were not entire strangers to the feelings
+of that poor recruit who was one day found by his lieutenant
+sitting on a fallen pine-tree in the woods, crying as if his heart
+would break.
+
+"Why," said the lieutenant, "what are you crying for, you big baby,
+you?"
+
+"I wish I was in my daddy's barn, boo, hoo!"
+
+"And what would you do if you were?"
+
+The poor fellow replied, between his sobs: "Why, if I was in my
+daddy's barn, _I'd go into the house mighty quick_!"
+
+  [Illustration: SICK.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+OUR FIRST DAY IN "THE WILDERNESS."
+
+
+At last the long winter, with its deep snows and intense cold,
+was gone, and on May 4, 1864, at four o'clock in the morning, we
+broke camp. In what direction we should march, whether north,
+south, east, or west, none of us had the remotest idea; for the
+pickets reported the Rapidan River so well fortified by the enemy
+on the farther bank, that it was plainly impossible for us to
+break their lines at any point there. But in those days we had a
+general who had no such word as "impossible" in his dictionary, and
+under his leadership we marched that May morning straight for and
+straight across the Rapidan, in solid column. All day we plodded
+on, the road strewn with blankets and overcoats, of which the army
+lightened itself now that the campaign was opening; and at night
+we halted, and camped in a beautiful green meadow.
+
+Not the slightest suspicion had we, as we slept quietly there that
+night, of the great battle, or rather series of great battles,
+about to open on the following day. Even on that morrow, when we
+took up the line of march and moved leisurely along for an hour or
+two, we saw so few indications of the coming struggle, that, when
+we suddenly came upon a battery of artillery in position for action
+by the side of the road, some one exclaimed:
+
+"Why, hello, fellows! that looks like business!"
+
+Only a few moments later, a staff-officer rode up to our regiment
+and delivered his orders:
+
+"Major, you will throw forward your command as skirmishers for the
+brigade."
+
+The regiment at once moved into the thick pine-woods, and was lost
+to sight in a moment, although we could hear the bugle clanging out
+its orders, "deploy to right and left," as the line forced its way
+through the tangled and interminable "Wilderness."
+
+Ordered back by the major into the main line of battle, we
+drummer-boys found the troops massed in columns along a road, and
+we lay down with them among the bushes. How many men were there we
+could not tell. Wherever we looked, whether up or down the road,
+and as far as the eye could reach, were masses of men in blue.
+Among them was a company of Indians, dark, swarthy, stolid-looking
+fellows, dressed in our uniform, and serving with some Iowa
+regiment, under the command of one of their chiefs as captain.
+
+But hark!
+
+"Pop! Pop! Pop-pop-pop!" The pickets are beginning to fire, the
+"ball is going to open," and things will soon be getting lively.
+
+A venturesome fellow climbs up a tall tree to see what he can see,
+and presently comes scrambling down, reporting nothing in sight but
+signal-flags flying over the tree-tops, and beyond them nothing but
+woods and woods for miles.
+
+Orderlies are galloping about, and staff-officers are dashing up
+and down the line, or forcing their way through the tangled bushes,
+while out on the skirmish line is the ever-increasing rattle of the
+musketry,--
+
+"Pop-pop! Pop-pop-pop!"
+
+"Fall in, men! Forward, guide right!"
+
+There is something grand in the promptitude with which the order
+is obeyed. Every man is at his post. Forcing its way as best it
+can through the tangled undergrowth of briers and bushes, across
+ravines and through swamps, our whole magnificent line advances,
+until, after a half-hour's steady work, we reach the skirmish line,
+which, hardly pressed, falls back into the advancing column of blue
+as it reaches a little clearing in the forest. Now we see the lines
+of gray in the edge of the woods on the other side of the little
+field; first their pickets behind clumps of bushes, then the solid
+column appearing behind the fence, coming on yelling like demons,
+and firing a volley that fills the air with smoke and cuts it with
+whistling lead. Sheltered behind the trees, our line reserves its
+fire, for it is likely that the enemy will come out on a charge,
+and then we'll mow them down!
+
+With bayonets fixed, and yells that make the woods ring, here they
+come, boys, through the clearing, on a dead run! And now, as you
+love the flag that waves yonder in the breeze, up, boys, and let
+them have it! Out from our Enfields flashes a sheet of flame,
+before which the lines of gray stagger for a moment; but they
+recover and push on, then reel again and quail, and at length fly
+before the second leaden tempest, which sweeps the field clear to
+the opposite side.
+
+With cheers and shouts of "Victory!" our line, now advancing
+swiftly from behind its covert of the trees, sweeps into and across
+the clearing, driving back the enemy into the woods from which they
+had so confidently ventured.
+
+The little clearing over which the lines of blue are advancing is
+covered with dead and dying and wounded men, among whom I find
+Lieutenant Stannard, of my acquaintance.
+
+"Harry, help me, quick! I'm bleeding fast. Tear off my suspender,
+or take my handkerchief and tie it as tight as you can draw it
+around my thigh, and help me off the field."
+
+Ripping up the leg of his trousers with my knife, I soon check the
+flow of blood with a hard knot,--and none too soon, for the main
+artery has been severed. Calling a comrade to my assistance, we
+succeed in reaching the woods, and make our way slowly to the rear
+in search of the division-hospital.
+
+Whoever wishes to know something of the terrible realities of
+war should visit a field-hospital during some great engagement.
+No doubt my young readers imagine war to be a great and glorious
+thing, and so, indeed, in many regards it is. It would be idle
+to deny that there is something stirring in the sound of martial
+music, something strangely uplifting and intensely fascinating in
+the roll of musketry and the loud thunder of artillery. Besides,
+the march and the battle afford opportunities for the unfolding
+of manly virtue, and as things go in this disjointed world, human
+progress seems to be almost impossible without war.
+
+Yet still, war is a terrible, a horrible thing. If my young readers
+could have been with us as we helped poor Stannard off the field
+that first day in "the Wilderness;" if they could have seen the
+surgeons of the first division of our corps as we saw them, when
+passing by with the lieutenant on a stretcher,--they would, I
+think, agree with me that if war is a necessity, it is a dreadful
+necessity. There were the surgeons, busy at work, while dozens of
+poor fellows were lying all around on stretchers awaiting their
+turns.
+
+"Hurry on, boys, hurry on! Don't stop here; I can't stand it!"
+groaned our charge.
+
+So we pushed on with our burden, until we saw our division-colors
+over in a clearing among the pines, and on reaching this we came
+upon a scene that I can never adequately describe.
+
+There were hundreds of the wounded already there; other hundreds,
+perhaps thousands, were yet to come. On all sides, within and just
+without the hastily erected hospital-tents, were the severely and
+dangerously wounded, while great numbers of slightly wounded men,
+with hands or feet bandaged or heads tied up, were lying about
+the sides of the tents or out among the bushes. The surgeons were
+everywhere busy,--here dressing wounds; there, alas! stooping down
+to tell some poor fellow, over whose countenance the pallor of
+death was already spreading, that there was no longer any hope for
+him; and down yonder, about a row of tables, each under a fly,[2]
+stood groups of them, ready for their dreadful and yet helpful work.
+
+  [2] A piece of canvas stretched over a pole and fastened to
+  tent-pins by long ropes; having no walls, it admits light on all
+  sides.
+
+  [Illustration: A SCENE IN THE FIELD-HOSPITAL.]
+
+To one of these groups we carried poor Stannard, and I stood by
+and watched. The sponge saturated with chloroform was put to his
+face, rendering him unconscious while the operation of tying the
+severed artery was performed. On a neighboring table was a man
+whose leg was being taken off at the thigh, and who, chloroformed
+into unconsciousness, interested everybody by singing at the top of
+his voice, and with a clear articulation, five verses of a hymn to
+an old-fashioned Methodist tune, never once losing the melody nor
+stopping for a word. I remember seeing another poor fellow with his
+arm off at the shoulder, lying on the ground and resting after the
+operation. He appeared to be very much amused at himself, because
+(he said, in answer to my inquiry as to what he was laughing at)
+he had felt a fly on his right hand, and when he went to brush it
+off with his left there was no right hand there any more! I
+remember, too, seeing a tall prisoner brought in and laid on the
+table,--a magnificent specimen of physical development, erect, well
+built, and strong looking, and with a countenance full of frank and
+sturdy manliness. As the wounded prisoner was stretched out on the
+table, the surgeon said,--
+
+"Well, Johnny, my man, what is the matter with you, and what can we
+do for you to-day?"
+
+"Well, Doctor, your people have used me rather rough to-day. In the
+first place, there's something down in here," feeling about his
+throat, "that troubles me a good deal."
+
+Opening his shirt-collar, the surgeon found a deep blue mark an
+inch or more below the "Adam's apple." On pressing the blue lump
+a little with the fingers, out popped a "minié" ball, which had
+lodged just beneath the skin.
+
+"Lucky for you that this was a 'spent ball,' Johnny," said the
+surgeon, holding the bullet between his fingers.
+
+"Give me that, Doctor--give me that ball; I want it," said Johnny,
+eagerly reaching out his left hand for the ball. Then he carefully
+examined it, and put it away into his jacket-pocket.
+
+"And now, Doctor, there's something else, you see, the matter with
+me, and something more serious too, I'm afraid. You see, I can't
+use my right arm. The way was this: we were having a big fight out
+there in the woods. In the bayonet-charge I got hold of one of your
+flags, and was waving it, when all on a sudden I got an ugly clip
+in the arm here, as you see."
+
+"Never mind, Johnny. We shall treat you just the same as our own
+boys, and though you are dressed in gray, you shall be cared for as
+faithfully as if you were dressed in blue, until you are well and
+strong again."
+
+Never did I see a more delighted or grateful man than he, when,
+awakened from his deep chloroform sleep, he was asked whether he
+did not think his arm had better come off now?
+
+"Just as you think best, Doctor."
+
+"Look at your arm once, Johnny."
+
+What was his glad surprise to find that the operation had been
+already performed, and that a neat bandage was wound about his
+shoulder!
+
+The most striking illustration of the power of religion to sustain
+a man in distress and trial, I saw there in that field-hospital.
+
+We had carried Stannard into a tent, and laid him on a pile of
+pine-boughs, where, had he only been able to keep quiet, he would
+have done well enough. But he was not able to keep quiet. A more
+restless man I never saw. Although his wound was not considered
+necessarily dangerous, yet he was evidently in great fear of
+death, and for death, I grieve to say, he was not at all prepared.
+He had been a wild, wayward man, and now that he thought the end
+was approaching, he was full of alarm. As I bent over him, trying
+my best, but in vain, to comfort and quiet him, my attention was
+called to a man on the other side of the tent, whose face I thought
+I knew, in spite of its unearthly pallor.
+
+"Why, Smith," said I, "is this you? Where are you hurt?"
+
+"Come turn me around and see," he said.
+
+Rolling him over carefully on his side, I saw a great, cruel wound
+in his back.
+
+My countenance must have expressed alarm when I asked him, as
+quietly as I could, whether he knew that he was very seriously
+wounded, and might die.
+
+Never shall I forget the look that man gave me, as, with a strange
+light in his eye, he said:
+
+"I am in God's hands; I am not afraid to die."
+
+Two or three days after that, while we were marching on rapidly in
+column again, we passed an ambulance-train filled with wounded on
+their way to Fredericksburg. Hearing my name called by some one, I
+ran out of line to an ambulance, in which I found Stannard.
+
+"Harry, for pity's sake, have you any water?"
+
+"No, lieutenant; I'm very sorry, but there's not a drop in my
+canteen, and there's no time now to get any."
+
+It was the last time I ever saw him. He was taken to
+Fredericksburg, submitted to a second operation, and died; and I
+have always believed that his death was largely owing to want of
+faith.
+
+Six months, or maybe a year, later, Smith came back to us with a
+great white scar between his shoulders, and I doubt not he is
+alive and well to this day.
+
+And there was Jimmy Lucas too. They brought him in about the middle
+of that same afternoon, two men bearing him on their arms. He was
+so pale, that I knew at a glance he was severely hurt. "A ball
+through the lungs," they said, and "he can't live." Jimmy was of my
+own company, from my own village. We had been school-fellows and
+playmates from childhood almost, and you may well believe it was
+sad work to kneel down by his side and watch his slow and labored
+breathing, looking at his pallid features, and thinking--ah, yes,
+that was the saddest of all!--of those at home. He would scarcely
+let me go from him a moment, and when the sun was setting, he
+requested every one to go out of the tent, for he wanted to speak
+a few words to me in private. As I bent down over him, he gave me
+his message for his father and mother, and a tender good by to his
+sweetheart, begging me not to forget a single word of it all if
+ever I should live to see them; and then he said:
+
+"And, Harry, tell father and mother I thank them now for all their
+care and kindness in trying to bring me up well and in the fear of
+God. I know I have been a wayward boy sometimes, but my trust is in
+him who said,'Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden,
+and I will give you rest.' My hope is in God, and I shall die a
+Christian man."
+
+When the sun had set that evening, poor Jimmy had entered into
+rest. He was buried somewhere among the woods that night, and no
+flowers are strewn over his grave on "Decoration Day" as the years
+go by, for no head-board marks his resting-place among the moaning
+pines; but "the Lord knoweth them that are his."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+A BIVOUAC FOR THE NIGHT.
+
+
+If from any cause whatsoever one happened to have lost his command,
+or to have strayed away from or to have been left behind by his
+regiment, he could usually tell with tolerable certainty, as he
+trudged along the road among the men of another command, what
+part of the army he was with, and whether any of his own corps or
+division were anywhere near by; and he could tell this at a glance,
+without so much as stopping to ask a question. Do you ask how? I
+answer, by the badges the men wore on their caps.
+
+  [Illustration: ARMY BADGES.]
+
+An admirable and significant system of badges was adopted for the
+entire Union army. The different corps were distinguished by the
+_shapes_, the different divisions by the _colors_, of their several
+badges. Thus the First Corps wore a round badge, the Second a
+clover-leaf, the Third a diamond, the Fifth a Maltese cross, the
+Sixth a Roman cross, the Ninth a shield, the Eleventh a crescent,
+the Twentieth a star,[3] and so on. As each corps usually included
+three divisions, and as it was necessary to distinguish each of
+these from the other two, the three good old colors of the flag
+were chosen for this purpose,--red, white, and blue,--red for the
+First Division of each corps, white for the Second, and blue for
+the Third. Thus a round red badge meant First Division, First
+Corps; a round white, Second Division, First Corps; a round
+blue, Third Division, First Corps; and so on for the other corps.
+Division and corps headquarters could always be known by their
+flags, bearing the badges of their respective commands. As the men
+were all obliged to wear their proper badges, cut out of cloth or
+colored leather, on the top of their caps, one could always tell
+at a glance what part of the Army of the Potomac he was with.
+In addition to this, some regiments were distinguished by some
+peculiarity of uniform. Our own brigade was everywhere known as
+"The Buck-tails," for we all wore buck-tails on the side of our
+caps.
+
+  [3] Later in the service the Twelfth Corps wore the star.
+
+It was in this way that I was able to tell that none of my own
+brigade, division, or even corps were anywhere near me, as, late
+one evening about the middle of May, 1864, I wearily trudged along
+the road, in the neighborhood of Spottsylvania Court-house, in
+search of my regiment. I had lost the regiment early in the day,
+for I was so sick and weak when we started in the morning, that
+it was scarcely possible for me to drag one foot after the other,
+much less to keep up at the lively pace the men were marching.
+Thus it had happened that I had been left behind. However, after
+having trudged along all day as best I could, when nightfall came
+on I threw myself down under a pine-tree along the road which led
+through the woods, stiff and sore in limb, and half bewildered by
+a burning fever. All around me the woods were full of men making
+ready their bivouac for the night. Some were cooking coffee and
+frying pork, some were pitching their shelters, and some were
+already stretched out sound asleep. But all, alas! wore the red
+Roman cross. Could I only have espied a Maltese cross somewhere,
+I should have felt at home; for then I should have known that the
+good old Fifth Corps was near at hand. But no blue Maltese cross
+(the badge of my own division) was anywhere to be seen. As I lay
+there with half-closed eyes, feverishly wondering where in the
+world I was, and heartily wishing for the sight of some one wearing
+a buck-tail on his cap, I heard a well-known voice talking with
+some one out in the road, and, leaning upon my elbow, called out
+eagerly:
+
+"Harter! Hello! Harter!"
+
+"Hello! Who are you?" replied the sergeant, peering in amongst the
+trees and bushes. "Why, Harry, is that you? And where in the world
+is the regiment?"
+
+"That's just what I'd like to know," answered I. "I couldn't keep
+up, and was left behind, and have been lost all day. But where have
+you been? I haven't seen you this many a day."
+
+"Well," said he, as he brought his gun down to a rest and leaned
+his two hands on the muzzle, "you see the Johnnies spoiled my
+good looks a little back there in the Wilderness, and I was sent
+to the hospital. But I couldn't stand it there, wounded and dying
+men all around one; and concluded to shoulder my gun and start out
+and try to find the boys. Look here," continued he, taking off a
+bandage from the side of his face and displaying an ugly-looking
+bullet-hole in his right cheek. "See that hole? It goes clean
+through, and I can blow through it. But it don't hurt very much,
+and will no doubt heal up before the next fight. Anyhow, I have the
+chunk of lead that made that hole here in my jacket pocket. See
+that!" said he, taking out a flattened ball from his vest-pocket
+and rolling it around in the palm of his hand. "Lodged in my mouth,
+right between my teeth. But I'm tired nearly to death tramping
+around all day. Let's put up for the night. Shall we strike up a
+tent, or bunk down here under the pines?"
+
+We concluded to put up a shelter, or rather, I should say, Harter
+did so; for I was too sick and weak to think of anything but sleep
+and rest, and lay there at full length on a bed of soft pine
+shatters, dreamily watching the sergeant's preparations for the
+night. Throwing off his knapsack, haversack, and accoutrements,
+he took out his hatchet, trimmed away the lower branches of two
+pine-saplings which stood some six feet apart, cut a straight
+pole, and laid it across from one to the other of these saplings,
+buttoned together two shelters and threw them across the
+ridge-pole, staked them down at the corners, and throwing in his
+traps, exclaimed:
+
+"There you are, 'as snug as a bug in a rug.' And now for water,
+fire, and a supper."
+
+A fire was soon and easily built, for dry wood was plenty; and
+soon the flames were crackling and lighting up the dusky woods.
+Taking our two canteens, Harter started off in search of water,
+leaving me to stretch myself out in the tent and--heartily wish
+myself at home.
+
+For soldiering is all well enough so long as one is strong and
+well. But when a man gets sick he is very likely to find that all
+the romance of marching by day and camping by night is suddenly
+gone, and that there is, after all, no place like home. For one,
+I was fully conscious of this as I lay there in the tent awaiting
+the sergeant's return. The sounds which came to my ears from the
+woods all around me,--of strong men's voices, some shouting and
+some conversing in low tones; the noise of axes and of falling
+trees; the busy, bee-like hum, losing itself amongst the trees and
+in the far distance; the bright glare of the many fires, and the
+dancing lights and shadows which seemed to people the forest with
+ghostlike forms,--all this, although at another time it would have
+had a singular charm, now awakened no response in me. One draught
+of water at the "Big Spring" at home, which I knew at that very
+moment was gushing cool and clear as crystal out of the hillside,
+and on the bottom of which I could in vision see the white pebbles
+lying, would have been worth to me all, and more than all, the
+witchery of our bivouac for the night. And I would have given more
+for a bed on the hard floor on the landing at the head of the
+stairs at home--I would not have asked for a bed--than for a dozen
+nights spent in the finest camps in the Army of the Potomac. But
+the thought of the Big Spring troubled me most. It seemed to me I
+could see it with my eyes shut, and that I could hear the water as
+it came gushing out of the hillside and flowed down to the meadow,
+plashing and rippling----
+
+"I tell you, Harry," said the sergeant, suddenly interrupting my
+vision as he stepped into the circle of light in front of our
+little tent, and flung down his canteens, "there isn't anything
+like military discipline. I went down the road here about a
+quarter of a mile and came out near General Grant's headquarters,
+in a clearing. Down at the foot of a hill right in front of his
+headquarters is a spring: but it seems the surgeon of some
+hospital near by had got there before the general, and had placed
+a guard on the spring to keep the water for the wounded. As I came
+up, I heard the guard say to a darky who had come to the spring for
+water with a bucket,--
+
+"'Get out of that, you black rascal; you can't have any water here.'
+
+"'Guess I kin,' said the darky. 'I want dis yere water for Gen'l
+Grant; an' ain't he a commandin' dis yere army, or am you?'
+
+"'You touch that water and I'll run my bayonet through you,' said
+the guard. 'General Grant can't have any water at this spring till
+my orders are changed.'
+
+"The darky, saying that he'd 'see 'bout dat mighty quick,' went up
+the hill to headquarters, and returned in a few moments declaring
+that
+
+"'Gen'l Grant said dat you got to gib me water outen dis yere
+spring.'
+
+  [Illustration: "GENERAL GRANT CAN'T HAVE ANY OF THIS WATER!"]
+
+"'You go back and tell General Grant, for me,' said the corporal
+of the guard, who came up at the moment, 'that neither he nor any
+other general in the Army of the Potomac can get water at this
+spring till my orders are changed.'
+
+"Now, you see," continued Harter, as he gave me a tin cup on a
+stick to hold over the fire for coffee, while he cut down a slice
+of pork, "there's something mighty fine in the idea of a man
+standing to his post though the heavens fall, and obeying the
+orders given him when he is put on guard, so that even though the
+greatest generals in the army send down contrary orders to him,
+he'll die before he'll give in. A man is mighty strong when he is
+on guard and obeys orders. Though he's only a corporal, or even
+a private, he can command the general commanding the army. But I
+don't believe General Grant sent that darky for water a second
+time."
+
+Supper was soon ready, and soon disposed of. Then, without further
+delay, while the shadows deepened into thick night in the forest,
+we rolled ourselves up in our blankets and stretched ourselves out
+with our feet to the fire. Dreamily watching the blazing light of
+our little camp fire, and thinking each his own thoughts of things
+which had been and things which might be, we both soon fell sound
+asleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+"WENT DOWN TO JERICHO AND FELL AMONG THIEVES."
+
+
+On the morning of May 23d, 1864, after a good and refreshing
+sleep, we took up the line of march and moved rapidly all day in
+a southerly direction, "straight for Richmond," according to our
+somewhat bewildered conception of the geography of those parts.
+With the exception of an occasional skirmish and some heavy
+cannonading away along the horizon, we had seen and heard but
+little of the enemy for several days. Where he was we did not know.
+We only hoped that, after the terrible fighting of the last two
+weeks, commencing at the Wilderness on the 5th, he had had enough
+of it and had taken to his heels and run away--
+
+    "Away down South in Dixie's land,
+            Away, away,"
+
+and that we should never again see anything of him but his back.
+Alas! for the presumption. And alas! for the presumption of the
+innumerable company and fellowship of cooks, camp-followers, and
+mule-drivers, who, emboldened by the quietude of the last few
+days, had ventured to come up from the rear, and had joined each
+his respective regiment, and were marching along bravely enough,
+as on the evening of this same May 23d we approached North Anna
+River, which we were to cross at a place called Jericho Ford. As we
+came near to the river, we found the supply and ammunition-trains
+"parked" to the rear of a wood a short distance from Jericho, so
+that as we halted for a while in the edge of the woods nearest to
+the stream, everything wore so quiet and unsuspicious a look, that
+no one dreamed of the enemy being anywhere near at hand. Under
+the impression that we should probably halt there for the night,
+I gathered up a number of the boys' canteens and started out in
+search of water, taking my course toward an open meadow which lay
+to the right and close to the river's edge. There was a cornfield
+off to the left, across which I could see the troops leisurely
+marching in the direction of the bridge. As I stooped down to fill
+my canteens, another man came up on the same errand as had brought
+me there. From where I was, I could see the bridge full of troops
+and the general rabble of camp followers carelessly crossing. But
+scarcely had I more than half filled my first canteen, when the
+enemy, lying concealed in the woods on the other side of the river,
+opened fire.
+
+Boom! Bang! Whir-r-r! Chu-ck!
+
+"Hello!" said I to my companion, "the ball is going to open!"
+
+"Yes," answered he with a drawl and a certain supercilious look,
+as if to intimate that few besides himself had ever heard a shell
+crack before--"Yes; but when you have heard as many shells busting
+about your head as I have"--
+
+Whir-r-r! Chu-ck! I could hear the terrific shriek of the shell
+overhead, and the sharp _thud_ of the pieces as they tore up the
+meadow sod to the right and left of us; whereupon my brave and
+boastful friend, leaving his sentence to be completed and his
+canteens to be filled some other day, cut for the rear at full
+speed, ducking his head as he went. Finding an old gateway near
+by, with high stone posts on either side, I took refuge there;
+and feeling tolerably safe behind my tall defence, turned about
+and looked toward the river. It is said that there is but a step
+from the sublime to the ridiculous; and surely laughable indeed
+was the scene which greeted my eyes. Everything was in confusion,
+and all was helter-skelter, skurry, and skedaddle. There was the
+bridge in open view, full of a struggling mass of men, horses,
+and mules,--the troops trying to force their way over to the
+other side, and the yelling crowd of camp-followers equally bent
+on forcing their way back; some jumping or being tumbled off the
+bridge, while others were swept, _nolens volens_, over to the other
+side, and there began to plunge into the dirty ooze of the stream,
+with the evident intention of getting on the safe side of things as
+speedily as possible, while all the time the shells flew shrieking
+and screaming through the air as though the demons had been let
+loose. Between me and the river was a last year's cornfield, over
+which the rabble now came swift and full, fear furnishing wings
+to flight,--and happy indeed was he who had no mule to take care
+of! One poor fellow who had had his mule heavily laden with camp
+equipage when he crossed over, was now making for the rear with his
+mule at a full trot, but in sad plight himself; for he was hatless,
+covered with mud, and quite out of breath, had lost saddle, bag,
+and baggage, and had nothing left but himself, the mule, and the
+halter. Another immediately in front of me had come on well enough
+until he arrived in the middle of the open field, where the shells
+were falling rather thick, when his mule took it into his head that
+flight was disgraceful, and that he would retreat no farther,--no,
+not an inch. There he stood like a rock, the poor driver pulling at
+his halter and frantically kicking the beast in the ribs, but all
+to no avail; while all around him, and past him, swept the crowd of
+his fellow cooks and coffee-coolers in full flight for the rear.
+
+As soon as the firing began to cease a little, I started off for
+the regiment, which had meanwhile changed position. In searching
+for it, I passed the forage and ammunition-trains, which were
+parked to the rear of the woods, and within easy range of the
+enemy's guns,--which latter fact the enemy, fortunately, did not
+know. One who has not actually seen them can scarcely form any
+adequate idea of the vast numbers of white-covered wagons which
+followed our armies, carrying food, forage, and ammunition; nor can
+any one who has not actually witnessed a panic among the drivers
+of these wagons, form any conception of the terror into which they
+were sometimes thrown. The drivers of the ammunition-wagons were
+especially anxious to keep well out of range of shells,--and no
+wonder! For if a shot from the enemy's guns were to fall amongst a
+lot of wagons laden with percussion shells, the result may perhaps
+be imagined. It was no wonder, therefore, that the driver of an
+ammunition-wagon, with six mules in front of him and several tons
+of death and destruction behind him, felt somewhat nervous when he
+heard the whirr of the shells over the tops of the pines.
+
+In searching for the regiment I passed one of these trains. A
+commissary sergeant was dealing out forage to his men, who were
+standing around him in a circle, each holding open a bag for his
+oats, which the commissary was alternately dealing out to them with
+a bucket,--a bucketful to this man, then to the next, and so on
+around the circle. It was plain, however, to any observer that he
+was more concerned about the shells than interested in the oats,
+for he dodged his head every time a shell cracked, which happened
+just about the time he was in the act of pouring a bucketful of
+oats into a bag.
+
+While I was looking at them, Page, a Michigan boy who was well
+known to me, came up on his horse in search of our division forage
+train, for he was orderly to our brigadier-general, and wanted oats
+for his horses. Stopping a moment to contemplate the scene I was
+admiring, he said,--
+
+"You just keep an eye on my horse a minute, will you, and I'll show
+you how I get oats for my horses when forage is scarce."
+
+It was very often a difficult matter for the mounted officers to
+get forage for their horses; for our movements were so many and so
+sudden, that it was plainly impossible for the trains to follow
+us wherever we went. Often when we halted at night the wagons were
+miles and miles away from us, and sometimes we did not get a sight
+of them for a week, or even longer. Then the poor hard-ridden
+horses would have to suffer. But it was well known that Page could
+get oats when nobody else could. Though the wagon trains were many
+miles in the rear, Page seldom permitted his horses to go to bed
+supperless. Though an American by birth, he was a Spartan in craft,
+and had a wit as keen and sharp as a razor. It was said that,
+rather than have his horses go without their allowance, he would
+if necessary sit up half the night, after a hard day's march, and
+wait till everybody else was sound asleep, and then quietly slip
+from under the heads of the orderlies of other commands the very
+oat-bags which, in order to guard them the more securely, they were
+using for their pillows; for oats Page would have for the general's
+horse, by hook or by crook.
+
+"You see the commissary yonder?" said Page to me in a half-whisper,
+as he dismounted and threw an empty bag over his arm and gave his
+waist-belt a hitch: "he's a coward, he is. Look at him how he
+jukes his head at every crack of the cannon! Don't know whether
+he's dealing out oats to the right man or not. Just you keep an eye
+on my horse, will you?"
+
+Now Page had no right in the least to draw forage rations there,
+for that was not our division-train. But as he did not know where
+our division-train was, and as all the oats belonged to Uncle Sam
+anyhow, why where was the harm of getting your forage wherever you
+could?
+
+Pushing his way into the circle of teamsters, who were too much
+engaged in watching for shells to notice the presence of a
+stranger, Page boldly opened his bag, while Mr. Commissary, ducking
+his head between his shoulders at every boom of the guns, poured
+four bucketfuls of oats into the bag of the new-comer, whereupon
+Page shouldered his prize, mounted his horse, and rode away with a
+smile on his face which said as plainly as could be, "That's the
+way to do it, my lad!"
+
+In the wild _mêlée_ of that May evening there at Jericho,--where
+evidently we had all fallen among thieves,--there was no little
+confusion as to the rights of property; _meum_ and _tuum_ got
+sadly mixed; some horses had lost their owners, and some owners
+had lost their horses; and the same was the case with the mules.
+So that by the time things began to get quiet again, some of the
+boys had picked up stray horses, or bought them for a mere song. On
+coming up with the regiment, I found that Andy had just concluded
+a bargain of this sort. He had bought a sorrel horse. The animal
+was a great raw-boned, ungainly beast, built after the Gothic style
+of horse architecture, and would have made an admirable sign for
+a feed-store up North, as a substitute for "Oats wanted; inquire
+within." However, when I came up, Andy had already concluded the
+bargain, and had become the sole owner and proprietor of the sorrel
+horse for the small consideration of ten dollars.
+
+"Why, Andy!" exclaimed I, "what in the name of all conscience do
+you want with a horse? Going to join the cavalry?"
+
+  [Illustration: "ANDY HAD BOUGHT THE SORREL FOR TEN DOLLARS."]
+
+"Well," said Andy, with a grin, "I took him on a speculation. Going
+to feed him up a little"----
+
+"Glad to hear it," said I; "he needs it sadly."
+
+"Yes; going to feed him up and then sell him to somebody, and
+double my money on him, you see. You may ride him on the march and
+carry our traps. I guess the colonel will give you permission. And,
+you know, that would be a capital arrangement for you, for you are
+so sick and weak that you are often left behind on the march."
+
+"Thank you, old boy," said I with a shrug. "You always were a good,
+kind, thoughtful soul; but if the choice must be between joining
+the general cavalcade of coffee-coolers on this old barebones of
+yours and marching afoot, I believe I'd prefer the infantry."
+
+However, we tied a rope around the neck of _Bonaparte_, as we
+significantly called him, fastened him up to a stake, rubbed him
+down, begged some oats of Page, and pulled some handfuls of young
+grass for him, and so left him for the night.
+
+I do not think Andy slept well that night. How could he after so
+bold a dash into the horse-market? Grotesque images of the wooden
+horse of ancient Troy, and of Don Quixote on his celebrated
+Rosinante charging the windmills, were no doubt hopelessly mixed up
+in his dreams with wild vagaries of General Grant at the head of
+Mosby's men fiercely trying to force a passage across Jericho Ford.
+For daylight had scarcely begun to peep into the forest the next
+morning, when Andy rolled out from under the blankets and went to
+look after Bonaparte. I was building a fire when he came back. It
+seemed to me that he looked a little solemn.
+
+"How's Bony this morning, Andy?" inquired I.
+
+Andy whistled a bit, stuck his hands into his pockets, mounted a
+log, took off his cap, made a bow, and said:
+
+"Comrades and fellow-citizens, lend me your ears, and be silent
+that you may hear! This is my first and last speculation in
+horseflesh. _Bony is gone!_"
+
+It was indeed true. We had fallen among thieves, and they had even
+baffled Andy's plan for future money-making; for none of us ever
+laid eyes on Bony again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+IN THE FRONT AT PETERSBURG.
+
+
+"Andy, let's go a-swimming."
+
+"Well, Harry, I don't know about that. I'd like to take a good
+plunge; but, you see, there's no telling how soon we may move."
+
+It was the afternoon of Tuesday, June 14, 1864. We had been
+marching and fighting almost continually for five weeks and more,
+from the Wilderness to Spottsylvania, over the North Anna, in at
+Cold Harbor, across the Pamunky and over the Chickahominy to the
+banks of the James River, about a mile and a half from which we
+were now lying, along a dusty road. We were sunburned, covered with
+dust, and generally used up, so that a swim in the river would be a
+refreshment indeed.
+
+Having learned from one of the officers that the intention
+evidently was to remain where we then were until the entire corps
+should come up, and that we should probably cross the river at or
+somewhere near that point, we resolved to risk it.
+
+So, over a cornfield we started at a good pace. We had not gone
+far, when we discovered a mule tied up in a clump of bushes, with
+a rope around his neck. And this long-eared animal, as Gothic
+as Bonaparte in his style of architecture, we decided, after a
+solemn council of war, to declare contraband, and forthwith we
+impressed him into service, intending to return him, after our
+bath, on our way back to camp. Untying Bucephalus from the bush, we
+mounted, Andy in front and I on behind, each armed with a switch,
+and we rode along gayly enough, with our feet dangling among the
+corn-stalks.
+
+For a while all went well. We fell to talking about the direction
+we had come since leaving the Pamunky; and Andy, who was usually
+such an authority on matters geographical and astronomical that on
+the march he was known in the company as "the compass," confessed
+to me as we rode on that he himself had been somewhat turned about
+in that march over the Chickahominy swamp.
+
+"And as for me," said I, "I think this is the awfullest country to
+get turned about in that I ever did see. Why, Andy, while we were
+lying over there in the road it seemed to me that the sun was going
+down in the east. Fact! But when I took my canteen and went over
+a little ridge to the rear to look for water for coffee, I found,
+on looking up, that on that side of the ridge the sun was all
+right. Yet when I got back to the road and looked around, judge of
+my surprise when I found the whole thing had somehow swung around
+again, and the sun was going down in the east! And you may judge
+still further of my surprise, Andy, when, on going and walking
+back and forth across that ridge, I found one particular spot from
+which, if I looked in one direction, the sun was going down all
+right in the west; but if in the opposite direction, he was going
+down all wrong, entirely wrong, in the east!"
+
+"Whoa dar! Whoa dar! Whar you gwine wid dat dar mule o' mine? Whoa,
+Pete!"
+
+The mule stopped stock-still as we caught sight of the black
+head and face of a darky boy peering forth from the door of a
+tobacco-house that we were passing. Possibly, he was the owner
+of the whole plantation now, and the mule Pete might be his only
+live-stock.
+
+"Where are we going, Pompey? Why we're going 'on to Richmond!'"
+
+"On ter Richmon'! An' wid dat dar mule o' mine! 'Clar to goodness,
+sodgers, can't git along widout dat mule. Better git off'n dat dar
+mule!"
+
+"Whip him up, Andy!" shouted I.
+
+"Come up, Bucephalus!" shouted Andy.
+
+And we both laid on right lustily. But never an inch would that
+miserable mule budge from the position he had taken on hearing the
+darky's voice, until all of a sudden, and as if a mine had been
+sprung under our feet, there was such a striking out of heels and
+such an uncomfortable elevation in the rear, the angle of which
+was only increased by increased cudgelling, that at last, with an
+enormous spring, Andy and I were sent flying off into the corn.
+
+  [Illustration: "BETTER GIT OFF'N DAT DAR MULE!"]
+
+"Yi! yi! yi! Didn' I say better git off'n dat dar mule o' mine? Yi!
+yi! yi!"
+
+Laughing as heartily as the darky at our misadventure, we felt that
+it would be safer to make for the river afoot. We had a glorious
+plunge in the waters of the James, and returned to the regiment at
+sunset, greatly refreshed.
+
+The next day we crossed the James in steamboats. There were
+thousands of men in blue all along both shores; some were crossing,
+some were already over, and others were awaiting their turn. By the
+middle of the forenoon we were all well over, and it has been said
+that, had we pushed on without delay, the story of the siege of
+Petersburg would have read quite differently. But we waited,--for
+provisions, I believe,--and during this halt the whole corps took
+a grand swim in the river. We marched off at three o'clock in the
+afternoon, over a dusty road and without fresh water, and reached
+the neighborhood of Petersburg at midnight, but did not get into
+position until after several days of hard fighting in the woods.
+
+It would be impossible to give a clear and interesting account
+of the numerous engagements in which we took part around that
+long-beleaguered city, where for ten months the two great armies
+of the North and South sat down to watch and fight each other
+until the end came. For, after days and days of manoeuvring and
+fighting, attack and sally, it became evident that Petersburg could
+not be carried by storm, and there was nothing for it but to sit
+down stubbornly, and, by cutting off all railroad supplies and
+communications, starve it into surrender.
+
+It may be interesting, however, to tell something of the everyday
+life and experience of our soldiers during that great siege.
+
+  [Illustration: FINDING A WOUNDED PICKET IN A RIFLE-PIT.]
+
+Digging becomes almost an instinct with the experienced soldier. It
+is surprising how rapidly men in the field throw up fortifications,
+how the work progresses, and what immense results can be
+accomplished by a body of troops in a single night. Let two armies
+fight in the open field one evening--by the next morning both are
+strongly intrenched behind rifle-pits and breastworks, which it
+will cost either side much blood to storm and take. If spades and
+picks are at hand when there is need of fortifications, well;
+if not, bayonets, tin cups, plates, even jack-knives, are pressed
+into service until better tools arrive; and every man works like a
+beaver.
+
+Thus it was that although throughout the 18th of June the fighting
+had been severe, yet, in spite of weariness and darkness, we set to
+work, and the morning found us behind breastworks; these we soon
+so enlarged and improved that they became well-nigh impregnable.
+At that part of the line where our regiment was stationed, we
+built solid works of great pine-logs, rolled up, log on log, seven
+feet high and banked with earth on the side toward the enemy, the
+whole being ten feet through at the base. On the inside of these
+breastworks we could walk about perfectly safe from the enemy's
+bullets, which usually went singing harmlessly over our heads.
+
+On the outside of these works were further defences. First, there
+was the ditch made by throwing up the ground against the logs;
+then, farther out, about twenty or thirty yards away, was the
+_abatis_--a peculiar means of defence made by cutting off the tops
+and heavy limbs of trees, sharpening the ends, and planting them
+firmly in the ground in a long row, the sharpened ends pointing
+toward the enemy, the whole being so close and so compacted
+together with telegraph-wires everywhere twisted in, that it was
+impossible for a line of battle to get through it without being cut
+off to a man. Here and there, at intervals, were left gaps wide
+enough to admit a single man, and it was through these man-holes
+that the pickets passed out to their pits beyond.
+
+Fifty yards in front of the _abatis_ the pickets were stationed.
+When first the siege began, picketing was dangerous business.
+Both armies were bent on fight, and picketing meant simply
+sharpshooting. As a consequence, at first the pickets were
+posted only at night, so that from midnight to midnight the poor
+fellows lay in their rifle-pits under a broiling July sun, with
+no protection from the intolerable heat, excepting the scanty
+shade of a little pine-brush erected overhead, or in front of the
+pit as a screen. There the picket lay, flat on his face, picking
+off the enemy's men whenever he could catch sight of a head, or
+even so much as a hand; and right glad would he be if, when the
+long-awaited relief came at length, he had no wounds to show.
+
+But later on, as the siege progressed, this murderous state of
+affairs gradually disappeared. Neither side found it pleasant or
+profitable, and nothing was gained by it. It decided nothing, and
+only wasted powder and ball. And so, gradually the pickets on both
+sides began to be on quite friendly terms. It was no unusual thing
+to see a Johnny picket--who would be posted scarcely a hundred
+yards away, so near were the lines--lay down his gun, wave a piece
+of white paper as a signal of truce, walk out into the neutral
+ground between the picket-lines, and meet one of our own pickets,
+who, also dropping his gun, would go out to inquire what Johnny
+might want to-day.
+
+"Well, Yank, I want some coffee, and I'll trade tobacco for it."
+
+"Has any of you fellows back there some coffee to trade for
+tobacco? 'Johnny Picket,' here, wants some coffee."
+
+Or maybe he wanted to trade papers, a Richmond _Enquirer_ for a
+New York _Herald_ or _Tribune_, "even up and no odds." Or he only
+wanted to talk about the news of the day--how "we 'uns whipped you
+'uns up the valley the other day;" or how "if we had Stonewall
+Jackson yet, we'd be in Washington before winter;" or maybe he only
+wished to have a friendly game of cards!
+
+There was a certain chivalrous etiquette developed through this
+social intercourse of deadly foemen, and it was really admirable.
+Seldom was there breach of confidence on either side. It would have
+gone hard with the comrade who should have ventured to shoot down
+a man in gray who had left his gun and come out of his pit under
+the sacred protection of a piece of white paper. If disagreement
+ever occurred in bartering, or high words arose in discussion,
+shots were never fired until due notice had been given. And I find
+mentioned in one of my old army letters that a general fire along
+our entire front grew out of some disagreement on the picket-line
+about trading coffee for tobacco. The two pickets couldn't agree,
+jumped into their pits, and began firing, the one calling out:
+"Look out, Yank, here comes your tobacco." Bang!
+
+And the other replying: "All right, Johnny, here comes your
+coffee." Bang!
+
+  [Illustration: 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 with heavy 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!
+
+  [4] Bottomless wicker-baskets, used to strengthen earthworks.
+
+On the outside of each large fort there were, of course, all the
+usual defences of ditch, _abatis_, and _chevaux-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 our breastworks, 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.
+
+  [Illustration: THE MAGAZINE WHERE THE POWDER AND SHELLS WERE
+  STORED.]
+
+At sunrise every available gun from the Appomattox 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+FUN AND FROLIC.
+
+
+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 some
+native-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 not go
+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
+have _everything_ in 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 proposition was 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 some _roast_ beef 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
+all over 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 a dozen 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 on the
+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, and I'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
+of what 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
+of condensed 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 night and 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 sometimes the 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 lounging place 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 a _matter of taste_ than 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+CHIEFLY CULINARY.
+
+
+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
+haversack in 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!"
+
+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 have much 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.
+
+  [Illustration: "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 imagine that 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 of _trichinæ_ in 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 the
+dry 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 was then 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
+"baked beans." 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 time _tattoo_
+sounded. 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 trouble with a
+camp-kettle full of this delicious food was that it was gone so
+soon. Where _did_ it 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 thing _is_ too 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!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+"HATCHER'S RUN."
+
+
+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 with
+rain. 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 lie down 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?
+
+  [Illustration: THE CONFLICT AT DAYBREAK IN THE WOODS AT HATCHER'S
+  RUN.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+KILLED, WOUNDED, OR MISSING?
+
+
+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 most companionable 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 his back 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 sent down 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 that time. 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 as that 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. A company 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."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+A WINTER RAID TO NORTH CAROLINA.
+
+
+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 shelters
+over 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, December 7th, we marched, through rain
+and stiff mud, steadily toward the South, crossing the Nottaway
+River on pontoons at 8 P. 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 10 A. 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.
+
+  [Illustration: WRECKING THE RAILWAY.]
+
+Never was railway more completely destroyed. The morning after we
+had reached the scene of operations, in the drizzling rain and
+falling sleet, the whole command was set to work. As far as the eye
+could see down the road were men in blue, divested of weapons
+and accoutrements, prying and wrenching and tearing away at iron
+rails and wooden ties. It was a well-built road, and hard to tear
+up. The rails were what are known as "T" rails, and each being
+securely fastened to its neighbor at either end by a stout bar of
+iron or steel, which had been forced into the groove of the T, the
+track was virtually two long unbroken rails throughout its whole
+length.
+
+"No use tryin' to tear up them rails from the ties, Major," said an
+old railroader, with a touch of his cap. "The plagued things are
+all spliced together at the j'ints, and the only way to get them
+off is to pry up the whole thing, rails, ties, and all, and then
+split the ties off from the rails when you've got her upside down."
+
+So, with fence-rails for levers, the men fell to work, prying and
+heave-I-ho-ing, until one side of the road, ties, track, and all,
+pulled and wrenched by thousands of strong arms, began to loosen
+and move, and was raised gradually higher and higher. Forced at
+last to a perpendicular, it was pushed over and laid upside down,
+with a mighty cheer from the long line of wreckers!
+
+Once the thing was started it was easy enough to roll miles and
+miles of it over without a break. And so brigade after brigade
+rolled it along; tearing and splitting off the ties, and wrenching
+away the rails.
+
+It was not enough, however, merely to destroy the track. The rails
+must be made forever useless as rails. Accordingly, the ties were
+piled in heaps, or built up as children build corn-cob houses, and
+then the heaps were fired. The rails were laid across the top of
+the burning pile, where they soon became red-hot in the middle, and
+bent themselves double by the weight of their ends, which hung out
+beyond the reach of the fire. In some cases, however, a grim and
+humorous conceit led to a more artistic use of the heated rails,
+for many of them were taken and carried to some tree hard by, and
+twisted two or three times around the trunk, while not a few of the
+men hit on the happy device of bending the rails, some into the
+shape of a U, and others into the shape of an S, and setting them
+up by pairs against the fences along the line, in order that, in
+this oft-repeated iron U S, it might be seen that Uncle Sam had
+been looking around in those parts.
+
+When darkness came, the scene presented by that long line of
+burning ties was wild and weird. Rain and sleet had been falling
+all day, and there was frost as well, and we lay down at night
+with stiff limbs, aching bones, and chattering teeth. Everything
+was covered with a coating of ice; so that Andy and I crept under
+a wagon for shelter and a dry spot to lie down in. But the horses,
+tied to the wheels, gave us little sleep. Scarcely would we fall
+into a doze, when one of the horses would poke his nose between
+the wheels, or through the spokes, and whinny pitifully in our
+ears. And no wonder, either, we thought, when, crawling out at
+daybreak, we found the poor creatures covered with a coating of
+ice, and their tails turned to great icicles. The trees looked very
+beautiful in their magnificent frost-work; but we were too cold and
+wet to admire anything, as our drums hoarsely beat the "assembly,"
+and we set out for a two days' wet and weary march back to camp in
+front of Petersburg.
+
+Both on the way down and on the retreat, we passed many fine farms
+or plantations. It was a new country to us, and no other Northern
+troops had passed through it. One consequence of this was that we
+were everywhere looked upon with wonder by the white inhabitants,
+and by the colored population as deliverers sent for their express
+benefit.
+
+All along the line of march, both down and back, the overjoyed
+darkies flocked to us by hundreds, old and young, sick and well,
+men, women, and children. Whenever we came to a road or lane
+leading to a plantation, a crowd of darkies would be seen hurrying
+pell-mell down the lane toward us. And then they would take their
+places in the colored column that already tramped along the road
+in awe and wonderment beside "de sodjers." There were stout young
+darkies with bundles slung over their backs, old men hobbling along
+with canes, women in best bib and tucker with immense bundles on
+their heads, mothers with babes in their arms, and a barefooted
+brood trotting along at their heels; and now and then one would
+call out anxiously to some venturesome boy:
+
+"Now, you Sam! Whar you goin' dar? You done gone git run ober by de
+sodjers yit, you will."
+
+"Auntie, you've got a good many little folks to look after, haven't
+you?" some kindly soldier would say to one of the mothers.
+
+"Ya-as, Cunnel, right smart o' chilluns I'se got yere; but I'se
+a-gwine up Norf, an' can't leabe enny on 'em behind, sah."
+
+Fully persuaded that the year of jubilee had come at last, the poor
+things joined us, from every plantation along the road, many of
+them mayhap leaving good masters for bad, and comfortable homes for
+no homes at all. Occasionally, however, we met some who would not
+leave. I remember one old, gray-headed, stoop-shouldered uncle who
+stood leaning over a gate, looking wide-eyed at the blue-coats and
+the great exodus of his people.
+
+"Come along, uncle," shouted one of the men. "Come along,--the year
+of jubilee is come!"
+
+"No, sah. Dis yere chile's too ole. Reckon I better stay wid ole
+Mars'r."
+
+When we halted at nightfall in a cotton-field, around us was
+gathered a great throng of colored people, houseless, homeless,
+well-nigh dead with fatigue, and with nothing to eat. Near where
+we pitched our tent, for instance, was a poor negro woman with
+six little children, of whom the oldest was apparently not more
+than eight or nine years of age. The whole forlorn family crouched
+shivering together in the rain and sleet. Andy and I thought, as we
+were driving in our tent-pins:
+
+"That's pretty hard now, isn't it? Couldn't we somehow get a
+shelter and something to eat for the poor souls?"
+
+It was not long before we had set up a rude but serviceable
+shelter, and thrown in a blanket and built a fire in front for
+them, and set Dinah to cooking coffee and frying bacon for her
+famishing brood.
+
+Never shall I forget how comical those little darkies looked as
+they sat cross-legged about the fire, watching the frying-pan and
+coffee-pot with great eager eyes!
+
+Dinah, as she cooked, and poked the fire betimes, told Andy and me
+how she had deserted the old home at the plantation,--a home which
+no doubt she afterward wished she had never left.
+
+"When we heerd dat de Yankees was a-comin'," said she, "de folks
+all git ready fer to leabe. Ole Mars' John, he ride out de road dis
+way, an' young Mars' Harry, he ride out de road dat way, fer to
+watch if dey was a-comin'; and den ebbery now an' den one or udder
+on 'em'd come a-ridin' up to de house an' say, 'Did ye see anyt'ing
+on 'em yit? Did ye hear whar dey is now?' An' den one mawning,
+down come young Mars' Harry a-ridin' his hoss at a gallop,--'Git
+out o' dis! Git out o' dis! De Yankees is a-comin'! De Yankees is
+a-comin'!' and den all de folks done gone cl'ar out an' leabe us
+all 'lone, an' so when we see de sodjers comin' we done cl'ar out
+too,--ki-yi!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+"JOHNNY COMES MARCHING HOME."
+
+
+We had just come out of what is known as the "Second Hatcher's Run"
+fight, somewhere about the middle of February, 1865. The company,
+which was now reduced to a mere handful of men, was standing about
+a smoking fire in the woods, discussing the engagement and relating
+adventures, when some one came in from brigade headquarters,
+shouting the following message: "Say, boys, good news! They told me
+over at headquarters that we are to be sent North to relieve the
+'regulars' somewhere."
+
+Ha! ha! ha! That was an old story,--too old to be good, and too
+good to be true. For a year and more we had been hearing that same
+good news,--"Going to Baltimore," "Going to Washington," and so
+forth, and we always ended with going into battle instead, or off
+on some long raid.
+
+So we didn't much heed the tidings; we were too old birds to be
+caught with chaff.
+
+But, in spite of our incredulity, the next morning we were marched
+down to General Grant's branch of the Petersburg Railway, loaded on
+box-cars, and carried to City Point, where we at once embarked on
+two huge steamers, which we found awaiting us.
+
+For two days and nights we were cooped up in those miserable boats.
+We had no fire, and we suffered from the cold. We had no water for
+thirty-six hours, and, of course, no coffee; and what is life to a
+soldier without coffee? All were sea-sick, too, for the weather was
+rough. And so, what with hunger and thirst, cold and sea-sickness,
+we landed one evening at Baltimore more dead than alive.
+
+No sooner were we well down the gangplank than the crowd of apple
+and pie women that stood on the wharf made quick sales and large
+profits. Then we marched away to a "soldiers' retreat" and were
+fed. Fed! We never tasted so grand a supper as that before or
+since--"salt horse," dry bread and coffee! The darkies that
+carried around the great cans of the latter were kept pretty busy
+for a while, I can tell you; and they must have thought:
+
+"Dem sodjers, dar, must be done gone starved, dat's sartin. Nebber
+seed sech hungry men in all my bawn days,--nebber!"
+
+After supper we were lodged in a great upper room of a large
+building, having bunks ranged around the four sides of it, and
+in the middle an open space, which was soon turned to account;
+for one of the boys strung up his fiddle, which he had carried on
+his knapsack for full two years, on every march and through every
+battle we had been in, and with the help of this we proceeded to
+celebrate our late "change of front" with music and dancing until
+the small hours of the morning.
+
+  [Illustration: THE CHARGE ON THE CAKES.]
+
+Down through the streets of Baltimore we march the next day, with
+our blackened and tattered flags a-flying, mustering only one
+hundred and eighty men out of the one thousand who marched through
+those same streets nearly three years before. We find a train
+of cars awaiting us, which we gladly enter, making no complaint
+that we are stowed away in box or cattle cars, instead of
+passenger coaches, for we understand that Uncle Sam cannot afford
+any luxuries for his boys, and we have been used to roughing
+it. Nor do we complain, either, that we have no fire, although
+we have just come out of a warm climate, and the snow is a foot
+deep at Baltimore, and is getting deeper every hour as we steam
+away northward. Toward evening we pass Harrisburg, giving "three
+cheers for Andy Curtin," as the State Capitol comes in sight.
+Night draws on, and the boys one by one begin to bunk down on the
+floor, wrapped in their great-coats and blankets. But I cannot lie
+down or sleep until we have passed a certain way-station, from
+which it is but two miles across the hills to my home. I stand at
+the door of the car, shivering and chilled to the bone, patiently
+waiting and watching as village after village rushes by in the
+bright moonlight, until at long last we reach the well-known little
+station at the hour of midnight. And then, as I look across the
+snow-clad moonlit hills, toward the old red farmhouse where father
+and mother and sisters are all sleeping soundly, with never a
+thought of my being so near, I fall to thinking, and wondering,
+and wishing with a bounding heart, as the train dashes on between
+the mountain and the river, and bears me again farther and farther
+away from home. Then rolling myself up in my blanket, and drawing
+the cape of my overcoat about my head, I lie down on the car floor
+beside Andy, and am soon sound asleep.
+
+The following evening we landed at Elmira, New York, where we were
+at once put on garrison duty. _Why_ we had been taken out of the
+field and sent to a distant Northern city, we never could discover,
+and we had seen too much service to think of asking questions which
+the mysterious pigeon-holes of the War Department alone could
+answer. But we always deemed it a pity that we were not left in the
+field until the great civil war came to an end with the surrender
+of Lee at Appomattox, and that we had no part in the final
+gathering of the troops at Washington, where the grand old Army of
+the Potomac passed in review for the last time.
+
+But so it was, that after some months of monotonous garrison duty
+at Elmira, the great and good news came at last one day that
+peace had been declared, and that the great war was over! My young
+readers can scarcely imagine what joy instantly burst forth all
+over the land. Bells were rung all day long, bonfires burned, and
+people paraded the streets half the night, and everybody was glad
+beyond possibility of expression. And among the joyful thousands
+all over the land, the Boys in Blue were probably the gladdest
+of all; for was not the war over now, and would not "Johnny come
+marching home?"
+
+But before we could go home we must be mustered out, and then
+we must return to our State capital to be paid off and finally
+disbanded, and say a last good-by to our comrades in arms, the
+great majority of whom we should never in all probability see
+again. And a more hearty, rough and ready, affectionate good-by
+there never was in all this wide world. In the rooms of one of
+the hotels at the State capital we were gathered, waiting for
+our respective trains: knapsacks slung, Sharp's rifles at a
+"right-shoulder shift" or a "carry;" songs were sung, hands shaken,
+or rather wrung; loud, hearty "God bless you, old fellows!"
+resounded; and many were the toasts and the healths that were drunk
+before the men parted for good and all.
+
+It was past midnight when the last camp-fire of the One Hundred
+and Fiftieth broke up. "Good by, boys! Good by! God bless you, old
+fellow!" was shouted again and again, as by companies or in little
+squads we were off for our several trains, some of us bound North,
+some East, some West,--and all bound for Home!
+
+Of the thirteen men who had gone out from our little village
+(whither my father's family had meanwhile removed), but three had
+lived to return home together. One had already gone home the day
+before. Some had been discharged because of sickness or wounds,
+and four had been killed. As we rode along over the dusty turnpike
+from L---- to M---- in the rattling old stage-coach that evening in
+June, we could not help thinking how painful it would be for the
+friends of Joe Gutelius and Jimmy Lucas and Joe Ruhl and John Diehl
+to see us return without their brave boys, whom we had left on the
+field.
+
+  [Illustration: THE WELCOME HOME.]
+
+Reaching the village at dusk, we found gathered at the hotel where
+the stage stopped, a great crowd of our school-fellows and friends,
+who had come to meet us. We almost feared to step down among them,
+lest they should quite tear us to pieces with shaking of hands. The
+stage had scarcely stopped when I heard a well-known voice calling:
+
+"Harry! Are _you_ there?"
+
+"Yes, father! Here I am!"
+
+"God bless you, my boy!"
+
+And pushing his way through the crowd, my father plunges into the
+stage, not able to wait until it has driven around to the house;
+and if his voice is husky with emotion, as he often repeats "God
+bless you, my boy!" and gets his arm around my neck, is it any
+wonder?
+
+But my dog Rollo can't get into the stage, and so he runs barking
+after it, and is the first to greet me at the gate, and jumps up at
+me with his great paws on my shoulders. Does he know me? I rather
+think he does!
+
+Then mother and sisters come around, and they must needs call for a
+lamp and hold it close to my face, and look me all over from head
+to foot, while father is saying to himself again and again, "God
+bless you, my boy!"
+
+Although I knew that my name was never forgotten in the evening
+prayer all the while I was away, yet not once, perhaps, in all that
+time was father's voice so choked in utterance as when now, his
+heart overflowing, he came to give thanks for my safe return. And
+when I lay down that night in a clean white bed, for the first time
+in three long years, I thanked God for Peace and Home.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And--Andy? Why--the Lord bless him and his!--he's a soldier still.
+For, having laid aside the blue, he put on the black, being a
+sober, steady-going Presbyterian parson now, somewhere up in York
+State. I haven't seen him for years; but when we do meet, once
+in a great while, there is such a wringing of hands as makes us
+both wince until the tears start, and we sit up talking over old
+times so far into the night that the good folk of the house wonder
+whether we shall ever get to--
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Recollections of A Drummer-Boy, by 
+Harry M. Kieffer
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44970 ***