Campaigns Of A Non-Combatant, And His Romaunt Abroad During The War Part 2

"Who opened it?" he said.

"Letters of introduction are not commonly sealed, General."

"Who are you?" he asked, indifferently.

I told him that the contents of the letter would explain my errand; but he had, meantime, relapsed into abstractedness, and winked, and warmed his hands, for at least, five minutes. At the end of that time, he read the letter very deliberately, and said that he was glad to see me in camp. He intimated, that if I was not already located, I could be provided with bed and meals at headquarters. He stated, in relation to my correspondence, that all letters sent from the Reserve Corps, must, without any reservations, be submitted to him in person. I was obliged to promise compliance, but had gloomy forebodings that the General would occupy a fortnight in the examination of each letter. He invited me to breakfast, proposed to make me acquainted with his staff, and was, in all respects, a very grave, prudent, and affable soldier. I may say, incidentally, that I adopted the device of penning a couple of gossipy epistles, the length and folly of which, so irritated General M'Call, that he released me from the penalty of submitting my compositions for the future.

I took up my permanent abode with quartermaster Kingwalt, a very prince of old soldiers, who had devoted much of a st.u.r.dy life to promoting the militia interests of the populous county of Chester. When the war-fever swept down his beautiful valley, and the drum called the young men from villages and farms, this ancient yeoman and miller--for he was both--took a musket at the sprightly age of sixty-five, and joined a Volunteer company. Neither ridicule nor entreaty could bend his purpose; but the Secretary of War, hearing of the case, conferred a brigade quartermastership upon him. He threw off the infirmities of age, stepped as proudly as any youngster, and became, emphatically, the best quartermaster in the Division. He never delayed an advance with tardy teams, nor kept the General tentless, nor penned irregular requisitions, nor wasted the property of Government. The ague seized him, occasionally, and shook his grey hairs fearfully; but he always recovered to ride his black stallion on long forages, and his great strength and bulk were the envy of all the young officers.

He grasped my hand so heartily that I positively howled, and commanded a tall sergeant, rejoicing in the name of Clover, to take away my horse and split him up for kindling wood.

"We must give him the blue roan, that Fogg rides," said the quartermaster, to the great dejection of Fogg, a short stout youth, who was posting accounts. I was glad to see, however, that Fogg was not disposed to be angry, and when informed that a certain iron-gray nag was at his disposal, he was in a perfect glow of good humor. The other _attaches_ were a German, whose name, as I caught it, seemed to be Skyhiski; and a pleasant lad called Owen, whose disposition was so mild, that I wondered how he had adopted the b.l.o.o.d.y profession of arms. A black boy belonged to the establishment, remarkable, chiefly, for getting close to the heels of the black stallion, and being frequently kicked; he was employed to feed and brush the said stallion, and the antipathy between them was intense.

The above curious military combination, slept under a great tarpaulin canopy, originally used for covering commissary stores from the rain.

Our meals were taken in the open air, and prepared by Skyhiski; but there was a second tent, provided with desk and secretary, where Mr.

Fogg performed his clerk duties, daily. When I had relieved my Pegasus of his saddle, and penned some paragraphs for a future letter, I strolled down the road with the old gentleman, who insisted upon showing me Hunter's mill, a storm-beaten structure, that looked like a great barn. The mill-race had been drained by some soldiers for the purpose of securing the fish contained in it, and the mill-wheel was quite dry and motionless. Difficult Creek ran impetuously across the road below, as if anxious to be put to some use again; and the miller's house adjoining, was now used as a hospital, for Lieutenant-Colonel Kane, and some inferior officers. It was a favorite design of the Quartermaster's to sc.r.a.pe the mill-stone, repair the race, and put the great breast-wheel to work. One could see that the soldier had not entirely obliterated the miller, and as he related, with a glowing face, the plans that he had proposed to recuperate the tottering structure, and make it serviceable to the army, I felt a regret that such peaceful ambitions should have ever been overruled by the call to arms.

While we stood at the mill window, watching the long stretches of white tents and speculating upon the results of war, we saw several men running across the road toward a hill-top cottage, where General Meade made his quarters. A small group was collected at the cottage, reconnoitring something through their telescopes. As I hastened in that direction, I heard confused voices, thus: "No, it isn't!" "It is!" "Can you make out his shoulder-bar?" "What is the color of his coat?" "Gray!"

"No, it's b.u.t.ternut!" "Has he a musket!" "Yes, he is levelling it!" At this the group scattered in every direction. "Pshaw!" said one, "we are out of range; besides, it is a telescope that he has. By----, it is a Rebel, reconnoitring our camp!" There was a manifest sensation here, and one man wondered how he had pa.s.sed the picket. Another suggested that he might be accompanied by a troop, and a third convulsed the circle by declaring that there were six other Rebels visible in a woods to the left. Mr. Fogg had meantime come up and proffered me a field-gla.s.s, through which I certainly made out a person in gray, standing in the middle of the road just at the ridge of a hill. When I dropped my gla.s.s I saw him distinctly with the naked eye. He was probably a mile distant, and his gray vesture was little relieved by the blue haze of the forest.

"He is going," exclaimed a private, excitedly; "where's the man that was to try a lead on him?" Several started impulsively for their pieces, and some officers called for their horses. "There go his knees!" "His body is behind the hill!" "Now his head----"

"Crack! crack! crack!" spluttered musketry from the edge of the mill, and like as many rockets darted a score of hors.e.m.e.n through the creek and up the steep. Directly a faint hurrah pealed from the camp nearest the mill. It pa.s.sed to the next camp and the next; for all were now earnestly watching; and finally a medley of cheers shook the air and the ear. Thousands of brave men were shouting the requiem of one paltry life. The rash fool had bought with his temerity a bullet in the brain.

When I saw him--dusty and still bleeding--he was beset by a full regiment of idlers, to whom death had neither awe nor respect. They talked of the delicate shot, as connoisseurs in the art of murder,--and two men dug him a grave on the green before the mill, wherein he was tossed like a dog or a vulture, to be lulled, let us hope, by the music of the grinding, when grain shall ripen once more.

I had an opportunity, after dinner, to inspect the camp of the "Bucktails," a regiment of Pennsylvania backwoodsmen, whose efficiency as skirmishers has been adverted to by all chroniclers of the civil war.

They wore the common blue blouse and breeches, but were distinguished by squirrel tails fastened to their caps. They were reputed to be the best marksmen in the service, and were generally allowed, in action, to take their own positions and fire at will. Crawling through thick woods, or trailing serpent-like through the tangled gra.s.s, these mountaineers were for a time the terror of the Confederates; but when their mode of fighting had been understood, their adversaries improved upon it to such a degree that at the date of this writing there is scarcely a Corporal's guard of the original Bucktail regiment remaining. Slaughtered on the field, perishing in prison, disabled or paroled, they have lost both their prestige and their strength. I remarked among these worthies a partiality for fisticuffs, and a dislike for the manual of arms. They drilled badly, and were reported to be adepts at thieving and unlicensed foraging.

The second night in camp was pleasantly pa.s.sed. Some sociable officers--favorites with Captain Kingwalt--congregated under the tarpaulin, after supper-hour, and when a long-necked bottle had been emptied and replenished, there were many quaint stories related and curious individualities revealed. I dropped asleep while the hilarity was at its height, and Fogg covered me with a thick blanket as I lay.

The enemy might have come upon us in the darkness; but if death were half so sound as my slumber afield, I should have bid it welcome.

CHAPTER IV.

A FORAGING ADVENTURE.

There was a newsboy named "Charley," who slept at Captain Kingwalt's every second night, and who returned my beast to his owner in Washington. The aphorism that a Yankee can do anything, was exemplified by this lad; for he worked my snail into a gallop. He was born in Chelsea, Ma.s.sachusetts, and appeared to have taken to speculation at the age when most children are learning A B C. He was now in his fourteenth year, owned two horses, and employed another boy to sell papers for him likewise. His profits upon daily sales of four hundred journals were about thirty-two dollars. He had five hundred dollars in bank, and was debating with Captain Kingwalt the propriety of founding an army express and general agency. Such a self-reliant, swaggering, far-sighted, and impertinent boy I never knew. He was a favorite with the Captain's black-boy, and upon thorough terms of equality with the Commanding General. His papers cost him in Washington a cent and a half each, and he sold them in camp for ten cents each. I have not the slightest doubt that I shall hear of him again as the proprietor of an overland mail, or the patron and capitalist of Greenland emigration.

I pa.s.sed the second and third days quietly in camp, writing a couple of letters, studying somewhat of fortification, and making flying visits to various officers. There was but one other Reporter with this division of the army. He represented a New York journal, and I could not but contrast his fine steed and equipments with the scanty accommodations that my provincial establishment had provided for me. His saddle was a cushioned McClellan, with spangled breast-strap and plump saddle-bags, and his bridle was adorned with a bright curb bit and twilled reins. He wore a field-gla.s.s belted about his body, and was plentifully provided with money to purchase items of news, if they were at any time difficult to obtain. I resolved inwardly to seize the first opportunity of changing establishments, so that I might be placed upon as good a footing. My relations with camp, otherwise, were of the happiest character; for the troops were State-people of mine, and, as reporters had not yet abused the privileges accorded them, my profession was held in some repute. I made the round of various "messes," and soon adopted the current dissipations of the field,--late hours, long stories, incessant smoking, and raw spirits. There were some restless minds about me, whose funds of anecdote and jest were apparently inexhaustible. I do not know that so many eccentric, adventurous, and fluent people are to be found among any other nationality of soldiers, not excepting the Irish.

The blue roan of which friend Fogg had been deprived, exhibited occasional evidences of a desire to break my neck. I was obliged to dispense with the spur in riding him, but he nevertheless dashed off at times, and put me into an agony of fear. On those occasions I managed to retain my seat, and gained thereby the reputation of being a very fine equestrian. As there were few civilians in camp, and as I wore a gray suit, and appeared to be in request at head-quarters, a rumor was developed and gained currency that I was attached to the Division in the capacity of a scout. When my horse became unmanageable, therefore, his speed was generally accelerated by the cheers of soldiers, and I became an object of curiosity in every quarter, to my infinite mortification and dread.

The Captain was to set off on the fourth day, to purchase or seize some hay and grain that were stacked at neighboring farms. We prepared to go at eight o'clock, but were detained somewhat by reason of Skyhiski being inebriated the night before, and thereby delaying the breakfast, and afterward the fact that the black stallion had laid open the black-boy's leg. However, at a quarter past nine, the Captain, Sergeant Clover, Fogg, Owen, and myself, with six four-horse wagons, filed down the railroad track until we came to a bridge that some laborers were repairing, where we turned to the left through some soggy fields, and forded Difficult Creek. As there was no road to follow, we kept straight through a wood of young maples and chestnut-trees. Occasionally a trunk or projecting branch stopped the wagons, when the teamsters opened the way with their axes. After two hours of slow advance, we came to the end of the wood, and climbed a succession of hilly fields. From the summit of the last of these, a splendid sweep of farm country was revealed, dotted with quaint Virginia dwellings, stackyards, and negro-cabins, and divided by miles of tortuous worm-fence. The eyes of the Quartermaster brightened at the prospect, though I am afraid that he thought only of the abundant forage; but my own grew hazy as I spoke of the peaceful people and the neglected fields. The plough had furrowed none of these acres, and some crows, that screamed gutturally from a neighboring ash-tree, seemed lean and pinched for lack of their plunder of corn.

Many of the dwellings were guarded by soldiers; but of the resident citizens only the women and the old men remained. I did not need to ask where the young men were exiled. The residue that prayed with their faces toward Richmond, told me the story with their eyes. There was, nevertheless, no melodramatic exhibition of feeling among the bereaved.

I did not see any defiant postures, nor hear any melting apostrophies.

Marius was not mouthing by the ruins of Carthage, nor even Rachel weeping for her Hebrew children. But there were on every hand manifestations of adherence to the Southern cause, except among a few males who feared unutterable things, and were disposed to cringe and prevaricate. The women were not generally handsome; their face was indolent, their dress slovenly, and their manner embarra.s.sed. They lopped off the beginnings and the ends of their sentences, generally commencing with a verb, as thus: "Told soldiers not to carr' off the rye; declared they would; said they bound do jest what they pleased. Let 'em go!"

The Captain stopped at a spruce residence, approached by a long lane, and on knocking at the porch with his ponderous fist, a woman came timidly to the kitchen window.

"Who's thar?" she said, after a moment.

"Come out young woman," said the Captain, soothingly; "we don't intend to murder or rob you, ma'am!"

There dropped from the doorsill into the yard, not one, but three young women, followed by a very deaf old man, who appeared to think that the Captain's visit bore some reference to the hencoop.

"I wish to buy for the use of the United States Government," said the Captain, "some stacks of hay and corn fodder, that lie in one of your fields."

"The last hen was toted off this morning before breakfast," said the old man; "they took the turkeys yesterday, and I was obliged to kill the ducks or I shouldn't have had anything to eat."

Here Fogg so misdemeaned himself, as to laugh through his nose, and the man Clover appeared to be suddenly interested in something that lay in a mulberry-tree opposite.

"I am provided with money to pay liberally for your produce, and you cannot do better than to let me take the stacks: leaving you, of course, enough for your own horses and cattle."

Here the old man p.r.i.c.ked up his ears, and said that he hadn't heard of any recent battle; for his part, he had never been a politician; but thought that both parties were a little wrong; and wished that peace would return: for he was a very old man, and was sorry that folks couldn't let quiet folks' property alone. How far his garrulity might have betrayed him, could be conjectured only by one of the girls taking his hand and leading him submissively into the house.

The eldest daughter said that the Captain might take the stacks at his own valuation, but trusted to his honor as a soldier, and as he seemed, a gentleman, to deal justly by them. There could be no crop harvested for a twelvemonth, and beggary looked them in the face. I have never beheld anything more chivalrously gallant, than the st.u.r.dy old quartermaster's att.i.tude. He blended in tone and face the politeness of a diplomat and the gentleness of a father. They asked him to return to the house, with his _officers_, when he had loaded the wagons; for dinner was being prepared, and they hoped that Virginians could be hospitable, even to their enemies. As to the hay and fodder, none need be left; for the Confederates had seized their horses some months before, and driven off their cows when they retired from the neighborhood.

I so admired the queer gables and great brick ovens of the house, that I resolved to tie my horse, and rest under the crooked porch. The eldest young lady had taken me to be a prisoner, and was greatly astonished that the Quartermaster permitted me to go at large. She asked me to have a chair in the parlor, but when I made my appearance there, the two younger sisters fled precipitately. The old man was shaking his head sadly by the fireplace. Some logs burned on the andirons with a red flame. The furniture consisted of a mahogany sideboard, table, and chairs,--ponderous in pattern; and a series of family portraits, in a sprawling style of art, smirked and postured on the wall. The floor was bare, but shone by reason of repeated scrubbing, and the black mantel-piece was a fine specimen of colonial carving in the staunchest of walnut-wood.

Directly the two younger girls--though the youngest must have been twenty years of age--came back with averted eyes and the silliest of giggles. They sat a little distance apart, and occasionally nodded or signalled like school children.

"Wish you _would_ stop, Bell!" said one of these misses,--whose flaxen hair was plastered across her eyebrows, and who was very tall and slender.

"See if I don't tell on you," said the other,--a dark miss with roguish eyes and fat, plump figure, and curls that shook ever so merrily about her shoulders.

"Declar' I never said so, if he asks me; declar' I will."

"Tell on you,--you see! Won't he be jealous? How he will car' on!"

I made out that these young ladies were intent upon publishing their obligations to certain sweethearts of theirs, who, as it afterward seemed, were in the army at Mana.s.sas Junction. I said to the curly-haired miss, that she was endangering the life of her enamored; for it would become an object with all the anxious troops in the vicinity to shorten his days. The old man roused up here, and remarked that his health certainly was declining; but he hoped to survive a while longer for the sake of his children; that he was no politician, and always said that the negroes were very ungrateful people. He caught his daughter's eye finally, and cowered stupidly, nodding at the fire.

I remarked to the eldest young woman,--called Prissy (Priscilla) by her sister,--that the country hereabout was pleasantly wooded. She said, in substance, that every part of Virginia was beautiful, and that she did not wish to survive the disgrace of the old commonwealth.

"Become right down hateful since Yankees invaded it!" exclaimed Miss Bell. "_Some_ Yankee's handsome sister," said Miss Bessie, the proprietor of the curls, "think some Yankees puffick gentlemen!"

"Oh, you traitor!" said the other,--"wish _Henry_ heard you say that!"

Miss Bell intimated that she should take the first opportunity of telling him the same, and I eulogized her good judgment. Priscilla now begged to be excused for a moment, as, since the flight of the negro property, the care of the table had devolved mainly upon her. A single aged servant, too feeble or too faithful to decamp, still attended to the menial functions, and two mulatto children remained to relieve them of light labor. She was a dignified, matronly young lady, and, as one of the sisters informed me, plighted to a Major in the Confederate service.

The others chattered flippantly for an hour, and said that the old place was dreadfully lonesome of late. Miss Bell was _sure_ she should die if another winter, similar to the last, occurred. She loved company, and had always found it _so_ lively in Loudon before; whereas she had positively been but twice to a neighbor's for a twelvemonth, and had quite forgotten the road to the mill. She said, finally, that, rather than undergo another such isolation, she would become a _Vivandiere_ in the Yankee army. The slender sister was altogether wedded to the idea of her lover's. "_Wouldn't_ she tell Henry? and _shouldn't_ she write to Jeems? and oh, Bessie, you would not _dare_ to repeat that before _him_." In short, I was at first amused, and afterwards annoyed, by this young lady, whereas the roguish-eyed miss improved greatly upon acquaintance.

After a while, Captain Kingwalt came in, trailing his spurs over the floor, and leaving sunshine in his wake. There was something galvanic in his gentleness, and infectious in his merriment. He told them at dinner of his own daughters on the Brandywine, and invented stories of Fogg's courtships, till that young gentleman first blushed, and afterward dropped his plate. Our meal was a frugal one, consisting mainly of the ducks referred to, some vegetables, corn-bread, and coffee made of wasted rye. There were neither sugar, spices, nor tea, on the premises, and the salt before us was the last in the dwelling. The Captain promised to send them both coffee and salt, and Fogg volunteered to bring the same to the house, whereat the Captain teased him till he left the table.

At this time, a little boy, who was ostensibly a waiter, cried: "Miss Prissy, soldiers is climbin' in de hog-pen."