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!"