Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals Part 8

"George, don't stir me up on that subject any more. I get half mad when I think that Uncle Sam's worst enemies are those of his own household.

We had better antic.i.p.ate the Captain's order about this in our preparations, and not be up half the night."

"Even so, Tom."

George was correct; as to a move at least, for early dawn saw the Division and a detachment from another Division, en route to the river.

There was the usual quiet in the camps along which they pa.s.sed, showing that George was mistaken as to the move being general. The troops marching through a winding and wooded defile, pa.s.sed the deservedly well known Brigade of General Meagher. "Here's Ould Ireland Boys," said the little Irish Corporal, pointing, as his face glowed with pride, to the flag adorned with "The Harp of Ould Ireland, and the Shamrock so green,"

the emblems of the Emerald Isle.

"Their General is an Irishman thrue to the sod, none of your rinegade spalpeens like John Mitchel--fighting for slave-holders in Ameriky, and against the Lords and Dukes in Ould Ireland, and the slave-holders as Father Mahan tould me the worst of the two, more aristocratic, big-feeling, and tyrannical than the English n.o.bility. He said, too, that the blackguard could never visit the ould sod again unless he landed in the night-time, and hid himself by day in a bog up to his eyes, and even then the Father said he believed the blissed mimory of St. Patrick,

'Who drove the Frogs into the Bogs, And banished all the Varmint,'

would clean him out after the rist of the varmin."

"Three cheers for the Irish Brigade" greeted the Corporal's remarks.

The troops crossed with difficulty and delay at the only ford--and wondered with reason at the activity of the Rebels in having transported across not only their army and baggage, but hundreds if not thousands of their dead and wounded. The road winding around the high rocks on the Virginia side, must have been in more peaceful times a favorite drive for the gentry of the neighborhood. Shepherdstown itself adorns a most commanding position. On the occasion of this Union visit its inhabitants appeared intensely Secesh. Not so in the early history of the rebellion; when Patterson's column "dragged its slow length along" through the valley of the Shenandoah. Scouting parties then saw Union flags from many a window. True, they streamed from dwellings owned by the merchants, mechanics, and laborers, the real muscle of the country; but this was true of most of the towns of the Border States, and more early energetic action in affording these cla.s.ses protection would have secured us the aid of their strong hands. As it was, these resources were in great measure frittered away--gradually drawn by what appeared an irresistible influence into the vortex of the Rebellion--or scattered wanderingly through the Loyal States, and worn down and exhausted in the support of dependent and outcast families.

Sharpsburg was greatly altered. The yellow Rebel Flag designated almost every other building as a Hospital. Their surgeons in grey pompously paraded the streets. As the troops marched through, they were subjected to almost every description of insult. One interesting group of Rebel petticoated humanity standing in front of premises that would not have pa.s.sed inspection by one of our Pennsylvania Dutch housewives, held their noses by way of showing contempt.

"Guess you have to do that, about them diggins. When did you scrub last?" said a bright-eyed officer's servant, whom a few years' service as a news-boy had taught considerable shrewdness.

To annoy others "My Maryland" and "John Brown" were sung by the men.

Around a toll-house at the west end of town, occupied by an old lady whose husband had been expelled with a large number of other patriotic residents, had congregated some wives of exiled loyal husbands, who were not afraid to avow their attachment for the old Union, by words of encouragement and waving of handkerchiefs. They were backed by a reserve force of negroes of both s.e.xes, whose generous exhibition of polished ivories, to say the least, did not represent any great displeasure at the appearance of the troops.

"There are the Reserves," said one of the boys, pointing to where the negroes stood.

"Yes, and if they were called in the issue of this Rebellion would be speedy and favorable," said a Captain in musical tones, "and I can't think but that this costly child's play will drive the nation into their use much sooner than many expect. Let them understand that they are the real beneficiaries of this war, and they will not stay their hands. And why shouldn't we use them? 'They are one of the means that G.o.d and nature have placed in our hands,' and old Virginia can't object to that doctrine."

"But, Captain," said his First Lieutenant, "would you fight alongside of a darkie?"

"Would you drive a darkie away if he came to a.s.sist you in a struggle for life?"

"Yes, but we have men enough without their aid."

"You forget, Lieutenant, that, as matters now are, we have them fighting against us."

"How so?"

"They raise the crops that feed the Rebel army. They are just as much, perhaps not as directly, but just as really fighting against us as the founders who cast their cannon. And as to fighting alongside of them, they may have quite as many prejudices against fighting alongside of us.

There is no necessity of interfering with either. Organize colored regiments; appoint colored line officers if efficient, and white field and staff officers, until they attain sufficient proficiency for command. As to their fighting qualities, military records attest them abundantly. The shrewd 'nephew of his uncle' has used them for years."

The earnest argument of the Captain made a deep impression upon the men.

The desperation of our case, depressed finances, heavy hospital lists, and many other causes, independently of abstract justice, are fast removing that question beyond the pale of prejudice.

A halt was ordered, and the men rested on the sward that bordered the hard pike, and in the immediate neighborhood of the village cemetery. It was literally crowded with graves, many of them fresh. Large additions had been made from surrounding fields, and they too were closely taken up by ridges covering the dead of Antietam.

The surrounding country had suffered little from the ravages of war.

Visited occasionally by scouting parties--princ.i.p.ally cavalry--of both sides, there had been none of the occupation by large bodies of troops, which levels fences, destroys crops, and speedily gives the most fertile of countries the seeming barrenness of the desert. The valley had a reputation that ran back to an ante-Revolutionary date for magnificence of scenery and fertility of soil. Washington, with all the enthusiasm of ardent youth, paid it glowing encomiums in his field-notes of the Fairfax surveys. In later times, when the destinies of our struggling colonies rested upon his ample shoulders, the leaders of the faction opposed to him--for great and good as he was, he had jealous, bitter, and malignant enemies--settled a few miles beyond Shepherdstown, at what has since been known as Leetown. The farms, with few exceptions, had nothing of the slovenly air, dilapidated, worn-out appearance, that characterized other parts of Virginia. Upon inquiry we found that the large landowners were in the habit of procuring tenants from the lower counties of Pennsylvania, and that the thrift and close cultivation were really imported. In the course of time these tenants, with their customary acquisitiveness, became landowners themselves, and their farms were readily distinguishable by the farm buildings, and particularly by the large substantial red bank barns.

The troops moved on to a wood, skirting either side of the road, and were thrown into line of battle. The country was gently rolling, and the woods in front that crowned the summit of the low ridges were sh.e.l.led before advancing. Occasionally Rebel hors.e.m.e.n could be seen rapidly riding from one wood to another, making observations from some commanding point.

In line of battle by Brigade, flanked by skirmishers, the advance was made. To the troops this, although toilsome, was unusually exciting.

Through woods, fields of corn whose tall tops concealed even the mounted officers, and made the men, like quails in standing grain, be guided by the direction of the sound of the command, rather than by the touch of elbows to the centre,--over the frequent croppings out of ledges of rock, through the little streams of this plentifully watered country, the movement slowly progressed. They had not advanced far when a sh.e.l.l screamed over their heads, uncomfortably close to the Surgeon and Chaplain, some fifty yards in the rear, and mangled awfully a straggler at least half a mile further back. As may be supposed, his fate was a standing warning against straggling for the balance of the campaign.

Notwithstanding further compliments from the rebels, who appeared to have our range, a roar of laughter greeted the dexterity with which the Chaplain and Surgeon ducked and dismounted at the sound of the first sh.e.l.l. Of about a size, and both small men, they fairly rolled from their horses. The boys had it that the little Dutch Doctor grabbed at his horse's ear, or rather where it ought to have been; as the horse was formerly in the Rebel service, and was picked up by the Doctor after the battle of Antietam, minus an ear, lost perhaps through a cut from an awkward sabre, and missing it fell upon his hands and knees in front of the horse's feet.

As the sh.e.l.ls grew more frequent and direct in range, the men were ordered to halt and lie down. The field officers dismounted, and were joined by the Chaplain and Doctor leading their horses.

"Colonel, I no ride that horse," said the Doctor, sputtering and brushing the dust off his clothes.

"Why not, Doctor?"

"Too high--very big--" touching the top of the shoulder of the bony beast, and almost on tip-toe to do it, "had much fall, ground struck me hard," continued he, his eyes snapping all the while.

"Well, Doctor," remarked one of the other field officers, "we have told you all along that if you ever got in range with that horse, your life would hardly be worth talking about."

"They not know him," anxiously said the Doctor.

"Of course they know him. He has the best and plainest ear-mark in the world."

"Pretty close shoot that, anyhow."

The result of this conversation was, that in the further movement the Doctor led his horse during the day.

The firing ceased with no damage, save the bruises of the Doctor, and those received by our tonguey little Corporal, who a.s.serted that the windage of a sh.e.l.l knocked him off a fence. As he fell into a stone heap, it is more than probable that he had some good reason for the movement--besides, why cannot Corporals suffer from wounds of that kind, frequently so fashionable among officers of higher grade?

The onward movement was resumed. In the course of half an hour the cannonading again opened, interspersed with occasional volleys of musketry. The rattling of musketry became incessant. Advancing under cover of rocky bluffs, the sh.e.l.ls pa.s.sed harmlessly over the Brigade. We soon ascertained that the Rebels had made a stand at a point where our advance, from the character of the country, necessarily narrowed into the compa.s.s of a strip of meadow-land. Here a brigade of Rebel infantry were drawn up in line of battle. Their batteries posted on a neighboring height, were guided by signals, the country not admitting of extended observation. The contest was brief. The gleam of the bayonets as they fell for the charge, broke the Rebel line, and they retired in considerable confusion to the wood in their rear. Our batteries soon sh.e.l.led them from those quarters, and the advance continued--the skirmishers of both sides keeping up a rattling fire. Some Rebel earthworks were pa.s.sed, and late in the afternoon the track of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad was crossed. The Rebels, before leaving, had done their utmost to complete the destruction of that much abused road.

At intervals of every one hundred yards, piles of ties surmounted by rails were upon fire. These were thrown down by our men. About half a mile beyond the road, in a finely sodded valley, the troops were halted for the night, pickets posted, and the men prepared their meals closely in the rear of their stacks. The night was a pleasant one. An open air encampment upon such a night is one of the finest phases of a soldier's life. Meals over, the events of the day were discussed, or such matters as proved of interest to the different groups.

One group we must not pa.s.s unnoticed. The majority lounged lazily upon the gra.s.s, some squatted upon their knapsacks, while a large stone was given by common consent to a tall, fine-looking Lieutenant, the princ.i.p.al officer present.

"Corporal," said he, addressing the little Irish Corporal, "do you know how near we are to Martinsburg?"

"Faith I don't, Lieutenant."

"I do not know the exact distance myself, but we are not over three or four miles from the road that we took when we guarded the ammunition train from Martinsburg to Charlestown."

"Oh, it's the ould First ye are spaking about, is it? Ov coorse I ricollect Martinsburg, and the markit-house where I guarded the fifty nagurs that Gineral Patterson had ordered to be arrested for having stripes on their pantaloons, Uncle Sam's b.u.t.tons on their caps, and belts with these big bra.s.s U. S. plates on. Oh, but it was a swate crowd. The poor divils were crowded like cattle on cars, and it was one of the hot smothering nights. I couldn't help thinkin', that by and by, if our armies didn't move faster, the nagurs would have little trouble gettin' into uniforms. They have a nat'ral concate about such things.

One poor fellow rolled the whites of his eyes awfully, and almost cried when I ordered him out of his red breeches."

"The day has not come yet, and need not," rejoined the Lieutenant, "if our generals do their duty. Don't you recollect how we were hurried from Frederick, and after marching seven miles out of the way, made good time for all to Williamsport--how bayonets appeared to glisten upon every road leading into the town; and then our crossing the river, the band all the while playing 'The Star-spangled Banner,' and the march we made to Martinsburg, pa.s.sing over the ground where the battle of Falling Waters had but a few days before been fought? If that battle had been followed up as it should have been, Johnson would never have reached Bull Run."

"Be jabers! do you know, Lieutenant, that that fight was all a mistake upon our part? Shure, our ginerals niver intended it."

A laugh, with the inquiry "how he knew that?" followed.

"Didn't I hear a Big Gineral, that I was acting as orderly for while in Martinsburg--for they made orderlies of corporals thim days--tell a richly-dressed old lady, 'That it was our policy to teach our misguided Southern brethren, by an imposing show of strength, how hopeless it would be to fight against the Government.' The lady said, 'That would save much bloodshed, would become a Christian nation, and would return them as friends to their old way of thinking. 'Yes, madam!' said the Gineral, 'there is no bitter feeling in our b.r.e.a.s.t.s,' clasping his breast. 'The ma.s.ses south will soon see their country surrounded by volunteers in great numbers, and that the war, if protracted, must involve them all in ruin. When the war is over, madam, fanatics on both sides can be hung.'