My meeting with him was accidental. I came across him passing through
“the square”. I had seen him once or twice on the street, each time
lurching along so drunk that he could scarcely stagger, so that I was
surprised to hear what he said about the war. He was talking to someone
who evidently had been in the army himself, but on the other side--a
gentleman with the loyal-legion button in his coat, and with a beautiful
scar, a sabre-cut across his face. He was telling of a charge in some
battle or skirmish in which, he declared, his company, not himself--for
I remember he said he was “No. 4”, and was generally told off to hold
the horses; and that that day he had had the ill luck to lose his horse
and get a little scratch himself, so he was not in the charge--did the
finest work he ever saw, and really (so he claimed) saved the day. It
was this self-abnegation that first arrested my attention, for I had
been accustomed all my life to hear the war talked of; it was one of the
inspiring influences in my humdrum existence. But the speakers,
although they generally boasted of their commands, never of themselves
individually, usually admitted that they themselves had been in the
active force, and thus tacitly shared in the credit. “No. 4”, however,
expressly disclaimed that he was entitled to any of the praise,
declaring that he was safe behind the crest of the hill (which he said
he “hugged mighty close”), and claimed the glory for the rest of the
command.
“It happened just as I have told you here,” he said, in closing. “Old
Joe saw the point as soon as the battery went to work, and sent Binford
Terrell to the colonel to ask him to let him go over there and take
it; and when Joe gave the word the boys went. They didn’t go at a walk
either, I tell you; it wasn’t any promenade: they went clipping. At
first the guns shot over ‘em; didn’t catch ‘em till the third fire; then
they played the devil with ‘em: but the boys were up there right in ‘em
before they could do much. They turned the guns on ‘em as they went
down the hill (oh, our boys could handle the tubes then as well as the
artillery themselves), and in a little while the rest of the line came
up, and we formed a line of battle right there on that crest, and held
it till nearly night. That’s when I got jabbed. I picked up another
horse, and with my foolishness went over there. That evening, you know,
you all charged us--we were dismounted then. We lost more men then than
we had done all day; there were forty-seven out of seventy-two killed or
wounded. They walked all over us; two of ‘em got hold of me (you see,
I went to get our old flag some of you had got hold of), but I was too
worthless to die. There were lots of ‘em did go though, I tell you; old
Joe in the lead. Yes, sir; the old company won that day, and old Joe led
‘em. There ain’t but a few of us left; but when you want us, Colonel,
you can get us. We’ll stand by you.”
He paused in deep reflection; his mind evidently back with his old
company and its gallant commander “old Joe”, whoever he might be, who
was remembered so long after he passed away in the wind and smoke of
that unnamed evening battle. I took a good look at him--at “No. 4”, as
he called himself. He was tall, but stooped a little; his features were
good, at least his nose and brow were; his mouth and chin were weak.
His mouth was too stained with the tobacco which he chewed to tell much
about it--and his chin was like so many American chins, not strong. His
eyes looked weak. His clothes were very much worn, but they had once
been good; they formerly had been black, and well made; the buttons
were all on. His shirt was clean. I took note of this, for he had a
dissipated look, and a rumpled shirt would have been natural. A man’s
linen tells on him before his other clothes. His listener had evidently
been impressed by him also, for he arose, and said, abruptly, “Let’s go
and take a drink.” To my surprise “No. 4” declined. “No, I thank you,”
he said, with promptness. I instinctively looked at him again to see if
I had not misjudged him; but I concluded not, that I was right, and that
he was simply “not drinking”. I was flattered at my discrimination when
I heard him say that he had “sworn off”. His friend said no more, but
remained standing while “No. 4” expatiated on the difference between a
man who is drinking and one who is not. I never heard a more striking
exposition of it. He said he wondered that any man could be such a fool
as to drink liquor; that he had determined never to touch another drop.
He presently relapsed into silence, and the other reached out his hand
to say good-by. Suddenly rising, he said: “Well, suppose we go and have
just one for old times’ sake. Just one now, mind you; for I have not
touched a drop in----” He turned away, and I did not catch the length of
the time mentioned. But I have reason to believe that “No. 4” overstated
it.
The next time I saw him was in the police court. I happened to be there
when he walked out of the pen among as miscellaneous a lot of chronic
drunkards, thieves, and miscreants of both sexes and several colors
as were ever gathered together. He still had on his old black suit,
buttoned up; but his linen was rumpled and soiled like himself, and he
was manifestly just getting over a debauch, the effects of which were
still visible on him in every line of his perspiring face and thin
figure. He walked with that exaggerated erectness which told his
self-deluded state as plainly as if he had pronounced it in words. He
had evidently been there before, and more than once. The justice nodded
to him familiarly:
“Here again?” he asked, in a tone part pleasantry, part regret.
“Yes, your honor. Met an old soldier last night, and took a drop for
good fellowship, and before I knew it----” A shrug of the shoulders
completed the sentence, and the shoulders did not straighten any more.
The tall officer who had picked him up said something to the justice in
a tone too low for me to catch; but “No. 4” heard it--it was evidently a
statement against him--for he started to speak in a deprecating way. The
judge interrupted him:
“I thought you told me last time that if I let you go you would not take
another drink for a year.”
“I forgot,” said “No. 4”, in a low voice.
“This officer says you resisted him?”
The officer looked stolidly at the prisoner as if it were a matter of
not the slightest interest to him personally. “Cursed me and abused
me,” he said, dropping the words slowly as if he were checking off a
schedule.
“I did not, your honor; indeed, I did not,” said “No. 4”, quickly. “I
swear I did not; he is mistaken. Your honor does not believe I would
tell you a lie! Surely I have not got so low as that.”
The justice turned his pencil in his hand doubtfully, and looked away.
“No. 4” took in his position. He began again.
“I fell in with an old soldier, and we got to talking about the
war--about old times.” His voice was very soft. “I will promise your
honor that I won’t take another drink for a year. Here, I’ll take an
oath to it. Swear me.” He seized the greasy little Bible on the desk
before him, and handed it to the justice. The magistrate took it
doubtfully. He looked down at the prisoner half kindly, half humorously.
“You’ll just break it.” He started to lay the book down.
“No; I want to take the pledge,” said “No. 4”, eagerly. “Did I ever
break a pledge I made to your honor?”
“Didn’t you promise me not to come back here?”
“I have not been here for nine months. Besides, I did not come of my
own free will,” said “No. 4”, with a faint flicker of humor on his
perspiring face.
“You were here two months ago, and you promised not to take another
drink.”
“I forgot that. I did not mean to break it; indeed, I did not. I fell in
with----”
The justice looked away, considered a moment, and ordered him back into
the pen with, “Ten days, to cool off.”
“No. 4” stood quite still till the officer motioned him to the gate,
behind which the prisoners sat in stolid rows. Then he walked dejectedly
back into the pen, and sat down by another drunkard. His look touched
me, and I went around and talked to the magistrate privately. But he was
inexorable; he said he knew more of him than I did, and that ten days
in jail would “dry him out and be good for him.” I told him the story
of the battle. He knew it already, and said he knew more than that about
him; that he had been one of the bravest soldiers in the whole army;
did not know what fear was; had once ridden into the enemy and torn
a captured standard from its captors’ hands, receiving two desperate
bayonet-wounds in doing it; and had done other acts of conspicuous
gallantry on many occasions. I pleaded this, but he was obdurate; hard,
I thought at the time, and told him so; told him he had been a soldier
himself, and ought to be easier. He looked troubled, not offended; for
we were friends, and I think he liked to see me, who had been a boy
during the war, take up for an old soldier on that ground. But he stood
firm. I must do him the justice to say that I now think it would not
have made any difference if he had done otherwise. He had tried the
other course many times.
“No. 4” must have heard me trying to help him, for one day, about a
month after that, he walked in on me quite sober, and looking somewhat
as he did the first day I saw him, thanked me for what I had done for
him; delivered one of the most impressive discourses on intemperance
that I ever heard; and asked me to try to help him get work. He was
willing to do anything, he said; that is, anything he could do. I got
him a place with a friend of mine which he kept a week, then got drunk.
We got hold of him, however, and sobered him up, and he escaped the
police and the justice’s court. Being out of work, and very firm in
his resolution never to drink again, we lent him some money--a very
little--with which to keep along a few days, on which he got drunk
immediately, and did fall into the hands of the police, and was sent to
jail as before. This, in fact, was his regular round: into jail, out of
jail; a little spell of sobriety, “an accidental fall”, which occurred
as soon as he could get a drop of liquor, and into jail again for
thirty or sixty days, according to the degree of resistance he gave the
police--who always, by their own account, simply tried to get him to go
home, and, by his, insulted him--and to the violence of the language he
applied to them. In this he excelled; for although as quiet as possible
when he was sober, when he was drunk he was a terror, so the police
said, and his resources of vituperation were cyclopedic. He possessed
in this particular department an eloquence which was incredible. His
blasphemy was vast, illimitable, infinite. He told me once that he could
not explain it; that when he was sober he abhorred profanity, and never
uttered an oath; when he was in liquor his brain took this turn, and
distilled blasphemy in volumes. He said that all of its energies were
quickened and concentrated in this direction, and then he took not only
pleasure, but pride in it.
He told me a good deal of his life. He had got very low at this time,
much lower than he had been when I first knew him. He recognized this
himself, and used to analyze and discuss himself in quite an impersonal
way. This was when he had come out of jail, and after having the liquor
“dried out” of him. In such a state he always referred to his condition
in the past as being something that never would or could recur; while
on the other hand, if he were just over a drunk, he frankly admitted his
absolute slavery to his habit. When he was getting drunk he shamelessly
maintained, and was ready to swear on all the Bibles in creation, that
he had not touched a drop, and never expected to do so again--indeed,
could not be induced to do it--when in fact he would at the very time
be reeking with the fumes of liquor, and perhaps had his pocket then
bulging with a bottle which he had just emptied, and would willingly
have bartered his soul to refill.
I never saw such absolute dominion as the love of liquor had over him.
He was like a man in chains. He confessed it frankly and calmly. He said
he had a disease, and gave me a history of it. It came on him, he said,
in spells; that when he was over one he abhorred it, but when the fit
seized him it came suddenly, and he was in absolute slavery to it. He
said his father was a gentleman of convivial habits (I have heard that
he was very dissipated, though not openly so, and “No. 4” never admitted
it). He was killed at the battle of Bull Run. His mother--he always
spoke of her with unvarying tenderness and reverence--had suffered
enough, he said, to canonize her if she were not a saint already; she
had brought him up to have a great horror of liquor, and he had never
touched it till he went into the army. In the army he was in a convivial
crowd, and they had hard marching and poor rations, often none. Liquor
was scarce, and was regarded as a luxury; so although he was very
much afraid of it, yet for good fellowship’s sake, and because it was
considered mannish, he used to drink it. Then he got to like it; and
then got to feel the need of it, and took it to stimulate him when he
was run down. This want brought with it a great depression when he did
not have the means to satisfy it. He never liked the actual taste of it;
he said few drunkards did. It was the effect that he was always after.
This increased on him, he said, until finally it was no longer a desire,
but a passion, a necessity; he was obliged to have it. He felt then that
he would commit murder for it. “Why, I dream about it,” he said. “I will
tell you what I have done. I have made the most solemn vows, and have
gone to bed and gone to sleep, and waked up and dressed and walked miles
through the rain and snow to get it. I believe I would have done it if
I had known I was going next moment to hell.” He said it had ruined him;
said so quite calmly; did not appear to have any special remorse about
it; at least, never professed any; said it used to trouble him, but he
had got over it now. He had had a plantation--that is, his mother had
had--and he had been quite successful for a while; but he said, “A man
can’t drink liquor and run a farm,” and the farm had gone.