Kitabı oku: «The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864», sayfa 7

FLY LEAVES FROM THE LIFE OF A SOLDIER

PART I.—SCALES

We were in the three-months.

There! I feel as proud of that as one of the Old Guard would have been in saying: 'I was of the Army of Italy.'

There is but one three-months (pronounced with the accent strongly resting on the numeral adverb, after the Hibernian). All others are spurious imitations. I refer to the early days of the war: the dark days that followed the first fall of Sumter, when our Southern friends had just finished the last volume of the lexicon of slavery, that for so long a time had defined away our manhood, our national honor, and our birthright of freedom, with such terrible words as 'coercion,' 'secession,' 'fratricidal war,' 'sovereign States,' and what not; before we had begun to look without fear even at the title page of the new Gospel of Liberty: the days when we were mudsills and greasy mechanics, whose pockets were to be touched: the days, in short, when we were still inclined to crawl upon our bellies, from the preference arising out of long and strong habit. Then, you remember, the rebellion was to be crushed in sixty days. So the President issued his proclamation, of date the 15th of April, A. D. 1861 (and of the independence of the United States the first), calling out SEVENTY-FIVE THOUSAND men for ninety days to do it.

On the same day we were mustered into the service as a part of this gigantic force of seventy-five thousand, at the bare suggestion of whose numbers the refractory South was confidently expected to abandon its rash enterprise, and kindly resume its sway over us. Before the awful ceremony known as 'mustering in,' we were sixty odd excited young gentlemen, hailing from and residing in all parts of the country. After it we were Company N, commanded by Captain John H. Pipes, of the First Regiment of District of Columbia Volunteers, commanded by Colonel Charles Diamond, as the muster rolls called us, or the 'American Sharpshooters,' as we called ourselves.

Major McDuff mustered us in. He did it after this fashion: First he walked out into the yard of the War Department, where the company stood at 'parade rest,' or the nearest militia approach thereto, waiting to be absorbed. Then he had us marched across the yard and halted; then up it; then down it; then back to the first position; then forward in a line a few paces; then, by the right flank, into the back yard, where he left, us, at a 'rest,' for two hours and fifty-three minutes, while he retired into the War Department building, probably to ascertain if the thing was regular. Then, at the fifty-fourth minute, or thereabout, after the second hour, he caused us to be marched into our original position. After gazing at us uneasily for a few minutes, he proceeded to inspect our arms with the utmost care: the importance of which manœuvre will more fully appear from the fact that they intended to take us, and did take many of us, sans lock, stock, or barrel. Then he told us that we were—called into the—service—of the—United States—for—three months—to serve in the District—not to go beyond the District—under any circumstances. Then he called the roll, so accurately (never having seen it before) that nearly all of us recognized our names, and in hardly more than two and three quarters the time it would have taken the orderly sergeant to do it. Then we were told to hold up our right hands, and a stout party, well known to all early volunteers, stepped forward from wherever he had been before, and, introducing himself by exclaiming, in solemn and cavernous tones, 'The following is the oath!' swore us in. Then, after another short adjournment of half an hour, we were marched to our barracks.

That was a queer organization, the 1st D.C. Vols., composed as it was of a cloud of independent companies—thirty-five, or thereabout, in all, I think—all made up of men from everywhere, largely in the tadpole stage of Unionism, and all sworn in for service in the District, not to go beyond the District. Early in May they were organized into eight battalions of four or five companies each, commanded by lieutenant-colonels, majors, or the senior captains. Nearly every company occupied its own separate 'armory' or barracks, and all the officers and men lived at home when not actually on guard or other duty!

It was an awful feeling that sandwiched the gaps of new-born exultation at finding ourselves real soldiers—that feeling of a merged identity; the individual Smith sold for glory at $11 per mensem, and lost, lost in an aggregate: become only a cog in a little machine connected with a larger machine that forms part of the great machine called an army. One thing saved us the full horror of this discovery: we were not bothered with corps, divisions, brigades, or even greatly with regiments, in those days, and if individually we were ciphers or merely recurring decimals, collectively 'our company' was of the first importance; and this reflection stiffened the breasts of our gray frock coats, and caused our scales (we wore scales!) to shine again.

First night. Everybody wants to be on guard! Think of that, old soldiers, and grin. The captain details twice as many as are necessary, to prevent clamor. Some of the more enthusiastic of the disappointed ones offer to stay at the armory all night, to be on hand in case of anything happening. We can never be certain about the enemy's crossing the Long Bridge, you know. The company, guard and all, is drilled vigorously, in squads, for two hours. Then the unhappy fellows who are to go home loiter themselves, with many wistful glances, out of the building. Then the guard plays euchre, reads, reads aloud, sings, fences, and drills. A few sleepy heads lie down in corners about one a.m., and are not going to sleep, but nevertheless shortly complain of being kept awake by the noise. 'Never mind,' growls the melancholy man of the company; 'won't hear any of this to-morrow night. D–d glad to go to sleep then.' The melancholy man, now as hereafter, is voted a bore, but, as I presently discover, turns out to be pretty nearly right, and achieves the sad triumph of being able to say, 'Told you so; wouldn't believe me; now see.'—Daylight. No one has been asleep, yet, strange to say, everyone has waked up and found everyone else snoring. No one waits for reveillé, this first morning. You stretch yourself, and endeavor to rise. Which is you, and which the board floor? You rather think this must be you that has just got up, because it aches so down the grain, and its knots or eyes—yes, they are eyes—are so full of sand. This must be how Rip Van Winkle felt after his nap in the Catskills, you think. You wonder how those fellows Boyce and Tripp can skylark so on an empty stomach. Three hours to breakfast. You police the quarters with vigor. 'Heavens, what a dust! Open the windows, somebody; and look here, Sergeant! the floor hasn't been sprinkled.' The sharp, quick tones of the sergeant of the guard (more like the sound of a tenpenny nail scratching mahogany than aught else in nature) soon set matters right. You think you have surely swallowed your peck of dirt that morning, and feel even more gastric than you usually do on an empty stomach. You can go home to breakfast now: but you hear Johnny Todd's cheery voice sing out; 'Fall in, cocktail squad!' and march off with a score of your comrades to the nearest restaurant, which, finding just open, the squad incontinently takes possession of. You take a cocktail, a whiskey cocktail, with the edge of the green glass previously lemoned and dipped in powdered sugar. 'Ah,' says Todd to everybody, and everybody, to everybody else, including Todd, 'that goes to the right place' (slapping it affectionately). Oh, reader, if wearer of p[)a]hnts, did you ever meet with a decoction, infusion, or other mixture whatsoever, vinous, alcoholic, or maltic, with or without sugar, that did not go to the right place? And if there was a fault, wasn't it in the addition of a trifle too much lemon peel? The crowd takes another of the same sort. You take another. Then you wish you hadn't.

You go to the office that day, for, in common with two-thirds of the company, you are a clerk in one of the Departments as well as a soldier; and you can think and talk of nothing but the war. The oldsters quiz your enthusiasm unmercifully, and cause your complexion to assume a red and gobbling appearance, and your conversation to limp into half-incoherent feebleness. Nevertheless everyone is very kind to you, for you are a great pet with the old fogies—their prize 'Jack;' and even old Mr. Gruff rasps down his tones, so that those harsh accents seem to pat you on the back. Your handwriting, usually so firm and easy, quavers a little, and exhibits more of the influence of the biceps muscle than of your accustomed light play of the wrist and fingers. But, you think, it's the rifle that does it, and are rather proud of this.

Second night. You rush down after an early dinner, in rash anxiety to be drilled. Arriving very red and hot at the armory, you find bales of straw and boxes on the sidewalk in front, and hear dreadful rumors that our armory is to be taken away; that we are to have regular barracks, and live there all the time; that we are to draw rations, and cook them. Dismay is on every face. The melancholy man alone seems not to be jostled from his habitual sad composure: he explains to the inquiring, doubting crowd that the ration consists of 'one and a quarter pounds of fresh beef or three quarters of a pound of salt beef, pork, or bacon, fourteen ounces of flour or twelve ounces of hard bread, with eight pounds of coffee, ten of sugar, ten of rice or eight quarts of beans, four quarts of vinegar, four pounds of soap, one and a quarter pounds candles, and two quarts of salt, to the hundred rations. But you won't get fresh meat often, nor yet flour, and I reckon you'll have to take beans instead of rice pretty much all the time, now't South Car'lina's out.' We eat salt pork! or beans either, except very occasionally. There began to be serious symptoms of mutiny. Fippany and one or two others declaimed so violently against the outrage, that the more enthusiastic of us felt bound to use our influence to prevent the spread of a disaffection that seemed to us highly calculated to embarrass the action of the Government in this crisis. The end of it was that we marched up to our new quarters, and, in the excitement of moving in and receiving our clothing and camp and garrison equipage, had forgotten our troubles, when (just as the melancholy man discovered that the overcoats were seven short of the right number, that the mess pans all leaked, and that the quarters were full of fleas) our orders to move were countermanded, and we marched back again in joy. There were fewer volunteers for guard duty that night, and the natural rest of the sergeant of the guard was undisturbed save by the occasional nightmare of having overslept the hour for relieving the meek sentinels (not yet instructed in the art of awakening drowsy non-commissioned officers by stentorian alarms, and indeed not yet knowing accurately the measure of their 'two hours on'), or by some louder howl than usual from poor Todd second, who, having continued his course of eye-opening to the hours when sober citizens and prudent soldiers incline to close theirs, spent the major portion of the night in dramatic recitations of the beauties of Shakspeare, utterly neglecting and refusing to 'dry up,' although frequently admonished thereto by the growls and eke by the curses of his comrades.

The next afternoon and evening, including in the latter elastic term many hours more properly claimed by the night, were spent in confused and bungling attempts to issue the clothing and camp and garrison equipage considerately provided for us by the Government. First everybody opened all the boxes at once, and grabbed for everything. Then everybody put his things back and petitioned for somebody else's. 'My overcoat is too big.' 'Mine is too short.' 'Golly! what sleeves!' 'What are these bags for?' 'Those things knapsacks! how you goin' to fassen 'em? no straps!' 'My canteen has no cork.' … 'Silence!' roars the captain, and 'Silence!' rasps the orderly sergeant, three times as loudly and six as disagreeably. And then everybody being ordered to replace everything, that a proper system of distribution may be adopted, half of us hide our plunder away, and the other half dump their prizes promiscuously and in sullenness. 'Here, here!' barks Sergeant Files; 'this kind of thing's played out. There were sixty-five canteens; where's the other sixty?' Presently the confusion unravels a little, but, after a breathing spell, begins again worse than ever, when our melancholy friend, Smallweed, having signed the clothing receipt doubtfully, presently announces, with the air of an injured martyr, that he supposes it's all right, but he can't find all the things he signed for. Then everybody frantically examines into this new difficulty, and discovers that they signed for everything, and got nothing. Poor Captain Pipes scratches his head perplexedly, and smokes in anxious puffs. Sergeant Files hustles everybody about, exposes several shamefaced impostors, who have more than everything, and by the timely announcement that Smallweed's deficiency consists of two overcoat straps, which are no longer used in the service, restores comparative quiet. Smallweed, however, retires up and shakes his head dubiously, remarking in an undertone, to a weak-eyed young man, who stands in mortal awe of him, that it may be all right, but he don't see it.

Drills, drills, drills! For the next week we have nothing but drills—except guard duty. Squad drills, company drills, drills in the facings, drills under arms, drills in the morning, noonday drills, drills at night. Besides these, the office all day, and guard duty every third night. Talk about the patriotic days of '76! you think—was there ever anything like this? In less than a week everybody is played out; everybody, that is, except a lymphatic, dull-visaged backwoodsman, named Tetter, who drags through everything so slowly and heavily, that he can't get tired, and an old Polish cavalryman, named Hrsthzschnoffski, or something of the kind, but naturally called Snuffsky, who knows neither enthusiasm nor fatigue, who never volunteers for a duty nor ever begs off from it. Growls arise. Men pale about the cheeks, beady in the forehead, and dark under the eyes, begin to collect in knotlets, and talk over the situation. 'We enlisted to fight,' the bolder spirits hint; 'we came to fight, not to drill and guard armories. Why don't they take us out and let us whip the enemy, and go back to our business?' But presently comes

The 19th of April. No drill to-night. What is that? A fight in Baltimore? Nonsense! True though, for all that, as history will vouch. Six regiments of Massachusetts troops have been attacked in Baltimore by the 'Plugs,' and cut to pieces. Where was the 'Seventh!' we wonder, educated in the creed of its invincibility and omnipresence. The Seventh was there too, and has been massacred. Colonel Lefferts is killed. There is a stir around the armory door, the knot of idlers gives way respectfully, and admits a little man, the pride of the regiment, always cool, collected, handsome, and soldierly—Colonel Diamond. He says half a dozen words in a whisper to the captain, writes three lines with a pencil on the fly leaf of an old letter, gives a comprehensive glance around, in which we feel he sees everything, salutes the captain, and marches briskly, almost noiselessly, into the street. Smallweed, the melancholy man, rolls up his blanket, packs his knapsack, combs his hair sadly, and moans out: 'Detail for the guard: Private Smallweed. I'm d–d if I stand this any longer! I'll write to–'

'Fall in men; fall in under arms; fall in lively now!' barks the orderly sergeant. 'Get up here, Snuffsky. Tetter, don't you mean to fall in at all?' and so on. Volunteers are wanted for special and perhaps dangerous service. Perhaps dangerous! (Quick movement of admiration.) 'Every man willing to go will step two paces to the front.' The company moves forward in line, much to the disgust of Sergeant Files, who finds he must make a detail after all. Lieutenant Frank, Sergeant Mullins, Corporal Bledsoe, and twenty privates are presently detailed, and, after tremendous preparation and excitement, during which Smallweed discovers that some one has stolen his percussion caps, and is incontinently cursed by Sergeant Files for his pains, march off amid the cheers of the disappointed remainder. We mourn our sad lot at being left out of the detail, when presently comes a second detail: Second Lieutenant Treadwell, Sergeant Ogle, Corporal Funk, and twenty privates, of whom you, Jenkins, are one. As you get ready, you adopt stern resolves, stiffen that upper lip, and confide a short message for some one to one of the survivors, in case, as you proudly hint, you should not return. The survivor rewards you with a pressure of the hand, and a look of wonder at your coolness.

'Support—ARMS! Quick—MARCH!' the lieutenant says, almost in a whisper, as we leave the building, and are fairly in the street. Where are we going? Why do we go down Pennsylvania Avenue? This is not the way to Long Bridge. Are the enemy attacking the navy yard? all wonder; no one speaks. 'Halt!' Why, this is the telegraph office! and we take possession of it in the name of the United States. Despatches between Baltimore and Richmond have passed over the wires that very evening, and we even interrupt one with our sword bayonets. Then we hear the truth about that Baltimore business. The Southern operators and clerks crow over and denounce us. We feel gulpy about the throat, and those of us who yet tremble at the thought of 'fratricide,' wish they were out of this, until Smallweed effects a diversion by dexterously, though quite accidentally, upsetting the longest-haired, loudest-mouthed operator into the biggest and dirtiest spittoon. But worse than this is in store for the unlucky sympathizers, for, after thinking sadly over his feat, the same melancholy Smallweed suddenly asks them what tune the Southern Confederacy will adopt as its national air. One incautious Georgian suggests 'Dixie,' he reckons. ''Spittoon,' I should think,' says Smallweed mournfully. For which he is pronounced by the same gentleman from Georgia to be a divinely condemned fool. How hungry we grew, and how pale and seedy, before the relief came at 8 a.m., with the great news that the other detail had seized the Alexandria boat!

This is the age of seizures. We seize all the steamers. We seize the railroad, A train comes in, and we seize the cars. Then there is a let up: the Confederate lexicon still at work, flashing out the last feeble jerks of its poison. We release the telegraph; we release the railway; we release the steamers. One of the latter, the George Page, goes down to Alexandria, straightway to become a ram, terrible to the weak-minded, though harmless enough in reality. Then we seize them all again, and, this time, with the railway—praised be Allah!—a train of cars! Presently a detachment, envied by the disappointed, goes out from our company on this train to reconnoitre. Communication with the great North is cut off. Every stalk of corn in all Maryland rises up, in the nightmare that seems to possess the capital, a man, nay, a 'Southron,' terrible, invincible, Yankee-hating. Will relief never come? Where are those seventy-five thousand? Where is the Seventh? Officers in mufti are known to have been sent out to Annapolis and Baltimore with orders and for news. Others arrive in Washington filled with strange and vague tidings of impending disaster. But as yet these doves have no news save of the deluge. Presently an early reveillé startles us from our beds of soft plank, and, as we fall in sleepily, fagged and exhausted in mind and body by this work, so new and so trying, we are electrified by the hoarse croak of Sergeant Files—he too is used up. 'Volunteers to go beyond the District,' step two paces t'the front—H'rch!' Four men remain in the ranks. All eyes turn to this shabby remnant, but they remain immovable, with the leaden expression belonging to the victims of the Confederate lexicon, that seems to say, unaccused, 'I am not ashamed.' These men are instantly detailed for guard duty at the armory for the next twenty-four hours.

The rest of us reach the railway station shortly after daylight, are told off into platoons, and embarked on the train which the hissing engine announces to be waiting for us. Our comrades in this adventure are Captain Hoblitzel's company, the 'Swartz-Jägers,' brawny mechanics, sturdy Teutons, and all of a size. These are Germans, remember, not what we call Hessians; not the kind that are destined to make Pennsylvania a byword; not the kind that advance in clogs but retreat in seven-league boots. We part from our German friends with a rousing cheer, as heartily returned, at a bridge which they are to guard. Then we have the cars to ourselves. Surely this is the ne plus ultra of railway travelling; free tickets and a whole seat to yourself. We are to keep our rifles out of sight, unless an emergency arises. The funny men play conductor, announcing familiar stations in unintelligible roars, and singing out 'Tickets!' importunately. This is our first real danger. There is real excitement in this. We all hope there will be a fight; all except Smallweed, who remains melancholy, according to his wont, save when a sad pun breaks the surface into a temporary ripple of quiet smiles. And so, with wild jokes, mad capers, and loudly shouted songs, we whirl along, twenty miles an hour, over bridges, through cuts, above embankments, always through danger and into danger. Hoot, toot! shrieks the engine; the breaks are rasped down; the train slowly consumes its momentum in vainly trying to stop suddenly. Silence reigns. Every man nervously, as by instinct, grasps his rifle, half cocks it, looks to the cap, and thrusts his head out of the window. A shout: 'There they are!' 'Where?' Several of the more nervous rifle barrels protrude uncertainly from the windows. 'Steady men, steady!' from the clear voice of Captain Pipes. 'I see them.' 'There they are.' 'Three of them.' 'One of them has on gray clothes, and—'

'The Seventh, by–!' rings in every ear. No matter who said it. 'The Seventh,' every throat shouts. Then such a cheer, and such another, and such another after that, and such a tiger after that, and such other cheers and such other tigers!—until the train stops, and, regardless of orders, unheeding the vain protests of the captain or the curses of the lieutenants, or the objurgations of Sergeant Files, we rush madly, pellmell, from the cars. Everybody shakes hands with the Seventh man, and with everybody else. He is thirsty: sixty odd flasks are uncorked and jammed at him. Hungry, too? The men hustle him into the cars, and almost into the barrels of pork and bread, with which we came provided in quantities sufficient, as we thought in our simplicity, for a siege, though really, as I have since found reason to believe, amounting to less than a thousand rations.

'Where is the Seventh?' 'At the Junction.' We are only a mile from the Junction. All aboard again, and we steam up to the Junction, just in time to see the leading companies file into the station, from their historical march—famous from being the first of the war, twice famous because Winthrop told its story; in time to see the Eighth Massachusetts follow our favorite heroes; in time to bring the Seventh to Washington; in time thus to terminate the dark hours of anxious suspense and doubt that followed the 19th of April and the drawing of the first blood in the streets of Baltimore.

Dulness succeeds this spurt of glory, and there is nothing more interesting than guarding the Long Bridge or a steamboat, alternating with drills, drills, drills! We are initiated into the mystery of the double quick, under knapsacks and overcoats. Men begin to be detailed on extra duty. More men are detailed on extra duty. Doctor Peacack makes his appearance. The sick list becomes an institution. It is curious to notice how the same men, detailed for guard, police, or fatigue, appear on the sick list, and, being excused by the mild Peacack, straightway reappear in the 'cocktail squad.' But a wink, as good as a nod, from the captain, and the fragrant oil of the castor bean, prescribed to be taken on the spot, soon corrects these little discrepancies. The guardhouse becomes an institution. Todd second is a frequent inmate; he will drink. Swilliams is another, who takes a drink, and becomes insane; takes another, and becomes sick; takes another, and then a quiet snooze, with his head resting on the nearest curb. We call these unfortunates 'Company Q;' a splendid joke. The captain drills us as far as 'On the right, by file, into line,' and apparently can get no farther. So we think, and that the first lieutenant kn=ows twice much as the captain. And, oh! how we come to hate Sergeant Files, and his hard, carking voice, always rasping somebody about something! We have been in service a month. The city is full of troops; the heights back are covered with camps; the 'Fire Zouaves' have introduced the Five Points to our acquaintance; General Blankhed is still giving passes to go to Richmond; the enemy's pickets stare at ours from other end of Long Bridge; nobody is hurt as yet. Presently comes an order constituting the 'American Sharpshooters,' the 'Fisler Guards,' the Union Carbineers,' the 'Seward Cadets,' and the 'Bulger Guards,' a battalion, to be known as the Ninth Battalion (did I say there were only eight? no matter) of the First Regiment of District of Columbia Volunteers, and to be commanded by Major Johnson Heavysterne, the beau ideal of a militia major—fat, pompous, not much acquainted with military, but, to use his own vocabulary, knowing right smart in the fish and cheese line. But let me deal kindly with the honest old soul; he meant well, but he had bad luck; and he made me, Private William Jenkins, the writer of these disjointed phrases, sergeant-major of the battalion. Whereof, kind reader, more anon: for here I left off my scales and sewed on my chevrons. (That is, she did. Please see Part II.)