THROUGH "MARYLAND, MY MARYLAND."
Our course now lay through Maryland, and we performed endless
marches and countermarches over turnpikes and through field and
forest.
After crossing South Mountain,--but stop, I just _must_ tell you
about that, it will take but a paragraph or two. South Mountain
Pass we entered one July evening, after a drenching rain, on the
Middletown side, and marched along through that deep mountain
gorge, with a high cliff on either side, and a delightful stream
of fresh water flowing along the road; emerging on the other side
at the close of day. Breaking off the line of march by the right
flank, we suddenly crossed the stream, and were ordered up the
mountain-side in the gathering darkness. We climbed very slowly at
first, and more slowly still as the darkness deepened and the path
grew steeper and more difficult. At about nine o'clock, orders were
given to "sleep on arms," and then, from sheer fatigue, we all fell
sound asleep, some lying on the rocks, some sitting bolt upright
against the trees, some stretched out at full length on beds of
moss or clumps of bushes.
What a magnificent sight awaited us the next morning! Opening
our eyes at peep o' day, we found ourselves high up on top of a
mountain-bluff overlooking the lovely valley about Boonesboro. The
rains were past; the sun was just beginning to break through the
clouds; great billows of mist were rolling up from the hollows
below, where we could catch occasional glimpses of the movements of
troops,--cavalry dashing about in squads, and infantry marching in
solid columns. What may have been the object of sending us up that
mountain, or what the intention in ordering us to fell the trees
from the mountain-top and build breastworks hundreds of feet above
the valley, I have never learned. That one morning amid the mists
of the mountain, and that one grand view of the lovely valley
beneath, were to my mind sufficient reason for being there.
Refreshed by a day's rest on the mountain-top, we march down into
the valley on the 10th, exhilarated by the sweet, fresh mountain
air, as well as by the prospect, as we suppose, of a speedy
end being put to this cruel war. For we know that the enemy is
somewhere crossing the swollen Potomac back into Virginia, in a
crippled condition, and we are sure he will be finally crushed in
the next great battle, which cannot now be many hours distant.
And so we march leisurely along, over turnpikes and through
grain-fields, on the edge of one of which, by and by, we halt in
line of battle, stack arms, and, with three cheers, rush in a
line for a stake-and-rider fence, with the rails of which we are
to build breastworks. It is wonderful how rapidly that Maryland
farmer's fence disappears! Each man seizing a rail, the fence
literally walks off, and in less than fifteen minutes it reappears
in the shape of a compact and well-built line of breastworks.
But scarcely is the work completed when we are ordered into the
road again, and up this we advance a half-mile or so, and form
in line on the left of the road and on the skirt of another
wheat-field. We are about to stack arms and build a second line of
works, when--
Z-i-p! z-i-p! z-i-p!
Ah! It is music we know right well by this time! Three light puffs
of smoke rise yonder in the wheat-field, a hundred yards or so
away, where the enemy's pickets are lying concealed in the tall
grain. Three balls go singing merrily over my head--intended, no
doubt, for the lieutenant, who is acting-adjutant, and who rides
immediately in front of me, with a bandage over his forehead, but
who is too busy forming the line to give much heed to his danger.
"We'll take you out o' that grass a-hopping, you long-legged
rascals!" shouts Pointer, as the command is given:
"Deploy to right and left as skirmishers,"--while a battery of
artillery is brought up at a gallop, and the guns are trained on
a certain red barn away across the field, from which the enemy's
sharpshooters are picking off our men.
Bang! Hur-r-r! Boom! One, two, three, four shells go crashing
through the red barn, while the shingles and boards fly like
feathers, and the sharpshooters pour out from it in wild haste.
The pickets are popping away at one another out there along the
field and in the edge of the wood beyond; the enemy is driven
in and retreats, but we do not advance, and the expected battle
does not come off after all, as we had hoped it would. For in the
great war-council held about that time, as we afterwards learned,
our generals, by a close vote, have decided not to risk a general
engagement, but to let the enemy get back into Virginia again,
crippled, indeed, but not crushed, as every man in the ranks
believes he well might be.
As we step on the swaying pontoons to recross the Potomac into old
Virginia, there are murmurs of disappointment all along the line.
"Why didn't they let us fight? We could have thrashed them now,
if ever we could. We are tired of this everlasting marching and
countermarching up and down, and we want to fight it out and be
done with it."
But for all our feelings and wishes, we are back again on the south
side of the river, and the column of blue soon is marching along
gayly enough among the hills and pleasant fields about Waterford.
We did not go very fast nor very far those hot July days, because
we had very little to eat. Somehow or other our provision trains
had lost their reckoning, and in consequence we were left to
subsist as best we could. We were a worn, haggard-looking, hungry,
ragged set of men. As for me--out at knee and elbow, my hair
sticking out in tufts through holes in the top of my hat, my shoes
in shreds, and my haversack empty--I must have presented a forlorn
appearance indeed. Fortunately, however, blackberries were ripe
and plentiful. All along the road and all through the fields,
as we approached Warrenton, these delicious berries hung on the
vines in great luscious clusters. Yet blackberries for supper and
blackberries for breakfast give a man but little strength for
marching under a July sun all day long. So Corporal Harter and I
thought, as we sat one morning in a clover-field where we were
resting for the day, busy boiling a chicken at our camp-fire.
"Where did you get that chicken, Corporal?" said I.
"Well, you see, Harry, I didn't steal her, and I didn't buy her,
neither. Late last night, while we were crossing that creek, I
heard some fellow say he had carried that old chicken all day since
morning, and she was getting too heavy for him, and he was going to
throw her into the creek; and so I said I'd take her, and I did,
and carried her all night, and here she is now in the pan, sizzling
away, Harry."
"I'm afraid, Corporal, this is a fowl trick."
"Fair or fowl, we'll have a good dinner, any way."
With an appetite ever growing keener as we caught savory whiffs
from the steaming mess-pan, we piled up the rails on the fire and
boiled the biddy, and boiled, and boiled, and boiled her from morn
till noon, and from noon to night, and couldn't eat her then, she
was so tough!
"May the dogs take the old grizzle-gizzard! I'm not going to break
my teeth on this old buzzard any more," shouted the corporal, as
he flung the whole cartilaginous mass into a pile of brush near by.
"It _was_ a fowl trick, after all, Harry, wasn't it?"
Thus it chanced that, when we marched out of Warrenton early
one sultry summer morning, we started with empty stomachs and
haversacks, and marched on till noon with nothing to eat. Halting
then in a wood, we threw ourselves under the trees, utterly
exhausted. About three o'clock, as we lay there, a whole staff of
officers came riding down the line--the quartermaster-general of
the Army of the Potomac and staff, they said it was. Just the very
man we wanted to see! Then broke forth such a yell from hundreds of
famished men as the quartermaster-general had probably never heard
before nor ever wished to hear again:
"Hard-tack!"
"Coffee!"
"Pork!"
"Beef!"
"Sugar!"
"Salt!"
"Pepper!"
"Hard-tack! Hard-tack!"
The quartermaster and staff put their spurs to their horses and
dashed away in a cloud of dust, and at last, about nightfall, we
got something to eat.
By the way, this reminds me of an incident that occurred on one of
our long marches; and I tell it just to show what sometimes is the
effect of short rations.
It was while we were lying up at Chancellorsville in an immense
forest that our supply of pork and hard-tack began to give out.
We had, indeed, carried with us into the woods eight full days'
rations in our knapsacks and haversacks; but it rained in torrents
for several days, so that our hard-tack became mouldy, the roads
were impassable, transportation was out of the question, and we
were forced to put ourselves on short allowance.
"I wish I had some meat, Harry," said Pete Grove, anxiously
inspecting the contents of his haversack; "I'm awful hungry for
meat."
"Well, Pete," said I, "I saw some jumping around here pretty lively
a while ago. Maybe you could catch it."
"_Meat_ jumping around here? Why what do you mean?"
"Why frogs, to be sure--frogs, Pete. Did you never eat frogs?"
"Bah! I think I'd be a great deal hungrier than I am now, ever to
eat a frog! Ugh! No, indeed! But where is he? I'd like the fun of
hunting him, anyhow."
So saying, he loaded his revolver, and we sallied forth along the
stream, and Pete, who was a good marksman, in a short time had laid
out Mr. Froggy at the first shot.
"Now, Pete, we'll skin him, and you shall have a feast fit for a
king."
So, putting the meat into a tin cup with a little water, salt, and
pepper, boiling it for a few minutes, and breaking some hard-tack
into it when done, I set it before him. I need hardly say that when
he had once tasted the dish he speedily devoured it, and when he
had devoured it, he took his revolver in hand again, and hunted
frogs for the rest of that afternoon.
* * * * *
Drum and fife have more to do with the discipline of an army than
an inexperienced person would imagine. The drum is the tongue
of the camp. It wakes the men in the morning, mounts the guard,
announces the dinner-hour, gives a peculiar charm to dress-parade
in the evening, and calls the men to quarters with its pleasant
tattoo at night. For months, however, we had had no drums. Ours
had been lost, with our knapsacks, at Gettysburg. [And I will here
pause to say that if any good friend across the border has in his
possession a snare-drum with the name and regiment of the writer
clearly marked on the inside of the body, and will return the same
to the owner thereof, he will confer no small favor, and will be
overwhelmed with an ocean of thanks!]
[Illustration: "I'VE GOT HIM, BOYS!"]
We did not know how really important a thing a drum is until,
one late September day, we were ordered to prepare for a
dress-parade--a species of regimental luxury in which we had not
indulged since the early days of June.
"Major, you don't expect us drummer-boys to turn out, do you?"
"Certainly. And why not, my boy?"
"Why, we have no drums, Major!"
"Well, your fifers have fifes, haven't they? We'll do without the
drums; but you must all turn out, and the fifers can play."
So when we stood drawn up in line on the parade-ground among the
woods, and the order was given:
"Parade rest! Troop, beat off!"
Out we drummers and fifers wheeled from the head of the line, with
three shrill fifes screaming out the rolls, and started at a slow
march down the line, while every man in the ranks grinned, and we
drummer-boys laughed, and the officers joined us, until at last the
whole line, officers and men alike, broke out into loud haw-haws at
the sight. The fifers couldn't whistle for laughing, and the major
ordered us all back to our places when only half down the line,
and never even attempted another parade until a full supply of
brand-new drums arrived for us from Washington.
Then the major picked out mine for me, I remember, and it proved to
be the best in the lot.