AROUND THE CAMP-FIRE.
What glorious camp-fires we used to have in the fall of the year
1863! It makes one rub his hands together yet, just to think of
them. The nights were getting cold and frosty, so that it was
impossible to sleep under our little shelters with comfort; and so
half the night was spent around the blazing fires at the ends of
the company streets.
I always took care that there should be a blazing good fire for
our little company, anyhow. My duties were light, and left me
time, which I found I could spend with pleasure in swinging an
axe. Hickory and white-oak saplings were my favorites; and with
these cut into lengths of ten feet, and piled up as high as my
head on wooden fire-dogs, what a glorious crackle we would have by
midnight! Go out there what time of night you might please,--and
you were pretty sure to go out to the fire three or four times a
night, for it was too bitterly cold to sleep in the tent more than
an hour at a stretch,--you would always find a half-dozen of the
boys sitting about the fire on logs, smoking their pipes, telling
yarns, or singing odd catches of song. As I recall those weird
night-scenes of army life,--the blazing fire, the groups of swarthy
men gathered about, the thick darkness of the forest, where the
lights and shadows danced and played all night long, and the rows
of little white tents covered with frost--it looks quite poetical
in the retrospect; but I fear it was sometimes prosy enough in the
reality.
* * * * *
"If you fellows would stop your everlasting arguing there, and go
out and bring in some wood, it would be a good deal better; for
if we don't have a big camp-fire to-night we'll freeze in this
snow-storm."
So saying, Pointer threw down the butt-end of a pine-sapling he had
been half-dragging, half-carrying out of the woods in the edge of
which we were to camp, and, axe in hand, fell to work at it with a
will.
There was, indeed, some need of following Pointer's good advice,
for it was snowing fast, and was bitterly cold. It was Christmas
Eve, 1863, and here we were, with no protection but our little
shelters, pitched on the hard, frozen ground.
Why did we not build winter-quarters, do you ask? Well, we had
already built two sets of winter-quarters, and had been ordered
out of them in both instances, to take part in some expedition or
other; and it was a little hard to be houseless and homeless at
this merry season of the year, when folks up North were having such
happy times, wasn't it? But it is wonderful how elastic the spirits
of a soldier are, and how jolly he can be under the most adverse
circumstances.
[Illustration: CHRISTMAS EVE AROUND THE CAMP-FIRE.]
"Well, Pointer, they hadn't any business to put me out of the mess.
That was a mean trick, any way you take it."
"If we hadn't put you out of our mess, you'd have eaten up our
whole box from home in one night. He's an awful glutton, Pointer."
"Say, boys! I move we organize ourselves into a court, and try this
case," said Sergeant Cummings. "They've been arguing and arguing
about this thing the whole day, and it's time to take it up and put
an end to it. The case is--let's see; what'll we call it? I'm not
a very good hand at the legal lingo, but I suppose if we call it a
'motion to quash a writ of ejectment,' or something of that sort,
we'll be within the lines of the law. Let me now state the case:
Shell _versus_ Diehl and Hottenstein. These three, all members
of Company D, after having lived, messed, and sojourned together
peaceably for a year or more, have had of late some disagreement,
quarrel, squabble, fracas, or general tearing out, the result of
which said disagreement, quarrel, squabble, et cetery, et cetery,
has been that the hereinbeforementioned Shell has been thrown out
of the mess and left to the cold charities of the camp; and he,
the said Shell, now lodges a due and formal complaint before this
honorable court, presently sitting on this pile of pine-brush, and
humbly prays and petitions reinstatement in his just rights and
claims, _sine qua non, e pluribus unum, pro bono publico_!"
"Silence in the court!"
To organize ourselves into a court of justice was a matter of a
few moments. Cummings was declared judge, Ruhl and Ransom his
assistants. A jury of twelve men, good and true, was speedily
impanelled. Attorneys and tipstaves, sheriff and clerk were
appointed, and in less time than it takes to narrate it, there we
were, seated on piles of pine-brush around a roaring camp-fire,
with the snow falling fast, and getting deeper every hour, trying
the celebrated case of "Shell _versus_ Diehl and Hottenstein."
And a world of merriment we had out of it, you may well believe.
When the jury, after having retired for a few moments behind a
pine-tree, brought in a verdict for the plaintiff, it was full one
o'clock on Christmas morning, and we began to drop off to sleep,
some rolling themselves up in their blankets and overcoats, and
lying down, Indian fashion, feet to the fire; while others crept
off to their cold shelters under the snow-laden pine-trees for what
poor rest they could find, jocularly wishing one another a "Merry
Christmas!"
Time wore away monotonously in the camp we established there, near
Culpeper Court-house. All the more weary a winter was it for me,
because I was so sick that I could scarcely drag myself about. So
miserable did I look, that one day a Company B boy said, as I was
passing his tent:
"Young mon, an' if ye don't be afther pickin' up a bit, it's my
opinion ye'll be gathered home to your fathers purty soon."
I was sick with the same disease which slew more men than fell in
actual battle. We had had a late fall campaign, and had suffered
much from exposure, of which one instance may suffice:
We had been sent into Thoroughfare Gap to hold that mountain pass.
Breaking camp there at daylight in a drenching rain, we marched all
day long, through mud up to our knees, and soaked to the skin by
the cold rain; at night we forded a creek waist-deep, and marched
on with clothes frozen almost stiff; at one o'clock the next
morning we lay down utterly exhausted, shivering helplessly, in
wet clothes, without fire, and exposed to the north-west wind that
swept the vast plain keen and cold as a razor. Whoever visits the
Soldiers' Cemetery near Culpeper will there find a part of the
sequel of that night-march; the remainder is scattered far and wide
over the hills of Virginia, and in forgotten places among the pines.
Could we have had home care and home diet, many would have
recovered. But what is to be done for a sick man whose only choice
of diet must be made from pork, beans, sugar, and hard-tack? Home?
Ah yes, if we only _could_ get home for a month! Homesick? Well,
no, not exactly. Still we were not entire strangers to the feelings
of that poor recruit who was one day found by his lieutenant
sitting on a fallen pine-tree in the woods, crying as if his heart
would break.
"Why," said the lieutenant, "what are you crying for, you big baby,
you?"
"I wish I was in my daddy's barn, boo, hoo!"
"And what would you do if you were?"
The poor fellow replied, between his sobs: "Why, if I was in my
daddy's barn, _I'd go into the house mighty quick_!"
[Illustration: SICK.]