Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals Part 6

Picket duty, while in this camp, was light. Even the little tediousness connected with it was relieved by the beautifully romantic character of the scenery. Confined entirely to the river front, the companies detailed were posted upon the three bluffs that extended the length of that front, and on the tow-path of the ca.n.a.l below.

The duty, we have said, was light. It could hardly be considered necessary, in fact, were it not to discipline the troops. The bluffs were almost perpendicular, varying between seventy-five and one hundred feet in height. Immediately at their base was the Chesapeake and Ohio ca.n.a.l, averaging six feet in depth. A narrow towing-path separated it from the Potomac, which, in a broad, placid, but deep stream, broken occasionally by the sharp points of shelving rocks, mostly sunken, that ran in ridges parallel with the river course, flowed languidly; the water being dammed below as before mentioned.

On one of the most inclement nights of the season, the Company commanded by our Western Virginia captain had been a.s.signed the towing-path as its station. No enemy was in front, nor likely to be, from the manner in which that bank of the river was commanded by our batteries. In consequence, a few fires, screened by the bushes along the river bank, were allowed. Around these, the reserve and officers not on duty gathered.

In a group standing around a smoky fire that struggled for existence with the steadily falling rain, stood our captain. His unusual silence attracted the attention of the crowd, and its cause was inquired into.

"Boys, I'm disgusted; for the first time in my life since I have been in service; teetotally disgusted with the way things are carried on. I'm no greenhorn at this business either," continued the captain, a.s.suming, as he spoke, the position of a soldier, and although somewhat ungainly when off duty, no man in the corps could take that position more correctly, or appear to better advantage. "I served five years as an enlisted man in an artillery regiment in the United States army, and left home in the night when I wasn't over sixteen, to do it; part of that time was in the Mexican war. Yes, sir, I saw nearly the whole of that. Since then, I've been in service nearly ever since this Rebellion broke out, and the hardest kind of service, and under nearly all kinds of officers, and by all that's holy, I never saw anything so mean nor was as much disgusted as I was to-day. Boys! when shoulder-straps with stars on begin to think that we are not human beings, of flesh and blood, liable to get sick, and when sick, needing attention like themselves, it's high time those straps change shoulders. These damp days we, and especially our sick, ought to be made comfortable. One great and good soldier that I've often heard tell of, wounded, of high rank, and who lived a long time ago, across the ocean, refused, although dying for want of drink, to touch water, until a wounded private near him first had drunk. That's the spirit. A man that'll do that, is right, one hundred chances to one in other respects. We have had such Generals, we have them now, and some may be in this corps, but it don't look like it."

"Well, Captain, what did you see?"

"Well, I had sent my Sergeant to get a few rails to keep a poor boy comfortable who had a high fever, and who could not get into the hospital for want of room. The wood that was cut from the hill was green, and the poor fellow had been nearly smoked to death. The Sergeant went with a couple of men, and was coming back, the men having two rails apiece, when just as they got the other side of the Toll-gate on the hill, the Provost-Guard stopped them, told them there was an order against their using rails, and they must drop them. It did no good to say that they were for a sick man, that was no go. They thought they had to do it, and did it. They hadn't come fifty yards toward camp, before one of those big six-mule corps-teams that have been hauling rails for the last four days, came along, and the rails were pitched into the wagon. When I heard of it I was wrothy. I cut a bee-line for the Adjutant and got the Order, and there it was in black and white, that no more fences--rebel fences--should be destroyed, and no more rails used.

Now, I knew well that these corps-teams had hauled and hauled until the whole establishment, from General Porter down to his Darkies, were in rails up to their eyes, and then, when they had their own fill, this order comes, and we, poor devils, might whistle. Here were our hospitals like smoke-houses, not fit for human beings, and especially the sick. It was a little too d----d mean. I couldn't stand it. The more I thought of it the madder I got, and I got fighting mad, when I thought how often that same General in his kid gloves, fancy rig, and cloak thrown back from his shoulders to show all the b.u.t.tons and stars, had pa.s.sed me without noticing my salute. He never got a second chance, and never will. I started off, took three more men than the Sergeant had; went to the first fence I could find, and that was about two miles--for the corps-teams had made clean work--loaded my men and myself, and started back. The Provost-Guard was at the old place; I was bound to pa.s.s them squarely.

"'Captain,' said the Sergeant, 'we have orders to stop all parties carrying rails.'

"'By whose orders?'

"'General Porter's.'

"'I am one of General Porter's men. I have authority for this, sir,'

said I, looking him full in the eye.

"'Boys, move on!' and on we did move. When the Lieut. saw us filing left over the hill towards camp, he sent a squad after us. But it was too late. The Devil himself couldn't have had the rails in sight of my company quarters, and I told him so.

"'I'll report you to the Division General, and have you court-martialed, sir.'

"'Very well,' although I knew the General had a mania for courts-martial. 'I have been court-martialed four times, and cleared every clip.'

"'Now let that court-martial come; somebody's meanness will see the light,' thought I.

"Old Rosy, boys, was the man. I said I was disgusted, but we mustn't get discouraged. We have some earnest men--yes, I believe, plenty of them; but they're not given a fair show. It'll all come right, though, I believe. Men with hearts in them; and Rosy, let me tell you, is no runt in that litter.

"'Captain,' said he to me one day when I had gone to his head-quarters according to orders, 'I have something that must be done without delay, and from what I've seen of you, you are just the man for the work. I pa.s.sed our hospital a few minutes ago, and I thought it was about to blaze; the smoke came out of the windows, chimney, doors, and every little crack so d.a.m.nably. I turned around and went in, and found that the smoke had filled it, and that the poor fellows were suffering terribly. Now, Captain, they have no dry wood, and they must have some forth with, and I'll tell you where to get it.

"'The other day I rode by a nest of she-rebels, and found that they had cord upon cord of the best hickory piled up in the yard, as if cut by their husbands, before leaving, for use this winter. They have made provision enough for our hospital too. Now take three army wagons, as many men as you need, and go about three miles out the Little Gap Road till you come to a new weather-boarded house at the Forks. Make quick work, Captain.'

"I did make quick work in getting there, for that was about ten, and about half-past eleven the government wagons were in the yard of the house and my company in front.

"'We have no chickens,' squalled an old woman from a second-story window, 'nor pigs, nor anything--all gone. We are lone women.'

"'Only in the day-time, I reckon,' said my orderly; the same fellow that winked at the chaplain. He was one of the roughest fellows that ever kept his breath over night. Long, lank, ill-favored, a white scrawny beard, stained from the corners of his mouth with tobacco juice; but for all, I'd pick him out of a thousand for an orderly. He was always there, and his rifle--he always carried his own--a small bore, heavy barrel, rough-looking piece, never missed.

"As the old woman was talking from the window, a troop of women, from eighteen to forty years old--but I am a better judge of horses' ages than women's; they slip us up on that pint too often--came rushing out of the door. They made all kinds of inquiries, but I set my men quietly to work loading the wood.

"'Now, Captain, you shan't take that wood,' said a well-developed little, rather pretty, black-haired woman, but with those peculiar black eyes, full of the devil, that you only see among the Rebels, and that the Almighty seems to have set in like lanterns in lighthouses to show that their bearers are not to be trusted. 'You shan't take that wood!'

raising her voice to a scream. The men worked on quietly, and I overlooked the work.

"'You dirty, greasy-looking Yankee,' said another, 'born in some northern poor-house.'

"'And both parents died in jail, I'll bet.'

"'If our Jim was only here, he'd handle the cowardly set in less time than one of them could pick up that limb.'

"'You chicken thief, you come by it honestly. Your father was a thief before you, and your mother--'

"This last roused me. I could hear nothing bad of her from man or woman.

"'You she-devil,' said I, turning to her, 'not one word more.' She turned toward the house.

"But they annoyed the men, and I concluded to keep them still.

"'Sergeant,' said I, addressing the orderly, and nearing the house, the women close at my heels. 'Sergeant, as our regiment will camp near here to-morrow, we might as well look out for a company hospital. How big is that house?'

"'Large enough, Captain; thirty by fifty at least.'

"'How many rooms?'

"'About three, I reckon, on first floor, and I guess the upper story is all in one, from its looks through the window. Plenty of room. Bully place, and what is more, plenty of ladies to nurse the poor boys.

"The noses of the women not naturally c.o.c.ked, became upturned at this last remark of the sergeant's. But they had become silent, and looked anxious.

"'Sergeant, here's paper and pencil, just note down the names of the sick, and the rooms we'll put them in, so as to avoid confusion.'

"The sergeant ran the sharp end of the pencil half an inch in his mouth, and on the palm of his h.o.r.n.y hand commenced the list, talking all the while aloud--slowly, just as if writing--'Let me see. My mem'y isn't more than an inch long, and there's a blasted lot of 'em.

"'Jim Smith, Bob Riley, Larry Clark, got small-pox; Larry all broke out big as old quarters, put 'em in back room down stairs.' The women got pale, but small-pox had been common in those parts. 'George Johnson, Bill Davis, got the mumps.' 'The mumps, Sally, the mumps, them's what killed George, and they're so catchin'--whispered one of the women--and continued the sergeant, 'Bill Thatcher, George Clifton the chicken-pox.' 'O Lord, the chicken-pox,' said another woman, 'it killed my two cousins before they were in the army a week.'--'Put them four,'

said the sergeant, 'in the middle room down stairs. Save the kitchen for cookin', and up stairs put Jim Williams, Spooky Johnson, Tom Hardy, d.i.c.k Cramer, and the little cook boy; all got the measles.' 'The measles!'

screamed out half-a-dozen together. 'Good-Lord, we'll be killed in a week.' 'They say,' said another black eye, 'that that crack Mississippi Brigade took the measles at Harper's Ferry, and died like flies. They had to gather them from the bushes, and all over. Brother Tom told me.

He said our boys were worked nearly to death digging graves.'

"'That was a good thing,' observed the sergeant.

"'You beast!' said the little old woman advancing towards him, and shaking her fist in his face.

"'And what will become of us women?' screamed she.

"'A pretty question for an old lady; we calculate that you ladies will wait on the sick,' drily remarked the sergeant.

"At this the women, thinking their case hopeless, with downcast looks quietly filed into the house.

"The boys by this time had about done loading the teams. All the while I had watched the manners of the women closely and the house, and I came to the conclusion that it would pay to make a visit inside.

"A guard was placed on the outside, and telling the sergeant and two men to follow, I entered. It was all quiet below, but we found when we had reached the top of the steps, and stood in the middle of the big room up stairs, the women in great confusion, some in a corner of the room, and a few sitting on the beds. Among the latter, sitting as we boys used to say on her hunkers, with hands clasped about her knees, was the old woman. Besides the beds the only furniture in the room was a large, roughly made, double-doored wardrobe that stood in one corner.

"We hadn't time to look around before the old woman screeched out--

"'You won't disturb my private fixin's, will you?'