LIVING OFF THE ENEMY--REVELING IN THE FATNESS OF THE COUNTRY--SOLDIERLY
PURVEYING AND CAMP COOKERY--SUSCEPTIBLE TEAMSTERS AND THEIR TENDENCY TO
FLIGHTINESS--MAKING SOLDIER’S BED.
For weeks we rode up and down--hither and thither--along the length
of the narrow, granite-walled Valley; between mountains so lofty that
the sun labored slowly over them in the morning, occupying half the
forenoon in getting to where his rays would reach the stream that ran
through the Valley’s center. Perpetual shadow reigned on the northern
and western faces of these towering Nights--not enough warmth and
sunshine reaching them in the cold months to check the growth of the
ever-lengthening icicles hanging from the jutting cliffs, or melt the
arabesque frost-forms with which the many dashing cascades decorated
the adjacent rocks and shrubbery. Occasionally we would see where some
little stream ran down over the face of the bare, black rocks for many
hundred feet, and then its course would be a long band of sheeny white,
like a great rich, spotless scarf of satin, festooning the war-grimed
walls of some old castle.
Our duty now was to break up any nuclei of concentration that the
Rebels might attempt to form, and to guard our foragers--that is, the
teamsters and employee of the Quartermaster’s Department--who were
loading grain into wagons and hauling it away.
This last was an arduous task. There is no man in the world that needs
as much protection as an Army teamster. He is worse in this respect
than a New England manufacturer, or an old maid on her travels. He is
given to sudden fears and causeless panics. Very innocent cedars have
a fashion of assuming in his eyes the appearance of desperate Rebels
armed with murderous guns, and there is no telling what moment a rock
may take such a form as to freeze his young blood, and make each
particular hair stand on end like quills upon the fretful porcupine.
One has to be particular about snapping caps in his neighborhood,
and give to him careful warning before discharging a carbine to
clean it. His first impulse, when anything occurs to jar upon his
delicate nerves, is to cut his wheel-mule loose and retire with the
precipitation of a man having an appointment to keep and being behind
time. There is no man who can get as much speed out of a mule as a
teamster falling back from the neighborhood of heavy firing.
This nervous tremor was not peculiar to the engineers of our
transportation department. It was noticeable in the gentry who carted
the scanty provisions of the Rebels. One of Wheeler’s cavalrymen told
me that the brigade to which he belonged was one evening ordered to
move at daybreak. The night was rainy, and it was thought best to
discharge the guns and reload before starting. Unfortunately, it was
neglected to inform the teamsters of this, and at the first discharge
they varnished from the scene with such energy that it was over a week
before the brigade succeeded in getting them back again.
Why association with the mule should thus demoralize a man, has
always been a puzzle to me, for while the mule, as Col. Ingersoll has
remarked, is an animal without pride of ancestry or hope of posterity,
he is still not a coward by any means. It is beyond dispute that a
full-grown and active lioness once attacked a mule in the grounds
of the Cincinnati Zoological Garden, and was ignominiously beaten,
receiving injuries from which she died shortly afterward.
The apparition of a badly-scared teamster urging one of his wheel mules
at break-neck speed over the rough ground, yelling for protection
against “them Johnnies,” who had appeared on some hilltop in sight of
where he was gathering corn, was an almost hourly occurrence. Of course
the squad dispatched to his assistance found nobody.
Still, there were plenty of Rebels in the country, and they hung around
our front, exchanging shots with us at long taw, and occasionally
treating us to a volley at close range, from some favorable point.
But we had the decided advantage of them at this game. Our Sharpe’s
carbines were much superior in every way to their Enfields. They
would shoot much farther, and a great deal more rapidly, so that the
Virginians were not long in discovering that they were losing more than
they gained in this useless warfare.
Once they played a sharp practical joke upon us. Copper River is a
deep, exceedingly rapid mountain stream, with a very slippery rocky
bottom. The Rebels blockaded a ford in such a way that it was almost
impossible for a horse to keep his feet. Then they tolled us off in
pursuit of a small party to this ford. When we came to it there was
a light line of skirmishers on the opposite bank, who popped away at
us industriously. Our boys formed in line, gave the customary, cheer,
and dashed in to carry the ford at a charge. As they did so at least
one-half of the horses went down as if they were shot, and rolled over
their riders in the swift running, ice-cold waters. The Rebels yelled
a triumphant laugh, as they galloped away, and the laugh was re-echoed
by our fellows, who were as quick to see the joke as the other side. We
tried to get even with them by a sharp chase, but we gave it up after a
few miles, without having taken any prisoners.
But, after all, there was much to make our sojourn in the Valley
endurable. Though we did not wear fine linen, we fared sumptuously--for
soldiers--every day. The cavalryman is always charged by the infantry
and artillery with having a finer and surer scent for the good things
in the country than any other man in the service. He is believed to
have an instinct that will unfailingly lead him, in the dankest night,
to the roosting place of the most desirable poultry, and after he has
camped in a neighborhood for awhile it would require a close chemical
analysis to find a trace of ham.
We did our best to sustain the reputation of our arm of the service.
We found the most delicious hams packed away in the ash-houses. They
were small, and had that; exquisite nutty flavor, peculiar to mast-fed
bacon. Then there was an abundance of the delightful little apple known
as “romanites.” There were turnips, pumpkins, cabbages, potatoes, and
the usual products of the field in plenty, even profusion. The corn
in the fields furnished an ample supply of breadstuff. We carried it
to and ground it in the quaintest, rudest little mills that can be
imagined outside of the primitive affairs by which the women of Arabia
coarsely powder the grain for the family meal. Sometimes the mill would
consist only of four stout posts thrust into the ground at the edge of
some stream. A line of boulders reaching diagonally across the stream
answered for a dam, by diverting a portion of the volume of water to a
channel at the side, where it moved a clumsily constructed wheel, that
turned two small stones, not larger than good-sized grindstones. Over
this would be a shed made by resting poles in forked posts stuck into
the ground, and covering these with clapboards held in place by large
flat stones. They resembled the mills of the gods--in grinding slowly.
It used to seem that a healthy man could eat the meal faster than they
ground it.
But what savory meals we used to concoct around the campfires, out of
the rich materials collected during the day’s ride! Such stews, such
soups, such broils, such wonderful commixtures of things diverse in
nature and antagonistic in properties such daring culinary experiments
in combining materials never before attempted to be combined. The
French say of untasteful arrangement of hues in dress “that the colors
swear at each other.” I have often thought the same thing of the
heterogeneities that go to make up a soldier’s pot-a feu.
But for all that they never failed to taste deliciously after a long
day’s ride. They were washed down by a tincupful of coffee strong
enough to tan leather, then came a brier-wood pipeful of fragrant
kinnikinnic, and a seat by the ruddy, sparkling fire of aromatic cedar
logs, that diffused at once warmth, and spicy, pleasing incense. A
chat over the events of the day, and the prospect of the morrow, the
wonderful merits of each man’s horse, and the disgusting irregularities
of the mails from home, lasted until the silver-voiced bugle rang out
the sweet, mournful tattoo of the Regulations, to the flowing cadences
of which the boys had arranged the absurdly incongruous words:
“S-a-y--D-e-u-t-c-h-e-r-will-you fight-mit Sigel!
Zwei-glass of lager-bier, ja! ja! JA!”
Words were fitted to all the calls, which generally bore some
relativeness to the signal, but these were as, destitute of congruity
as of sense.
Tattoo always produces an impression of extreme loneliness. As its
weird, half-availing notes ring out and are answered back from
the distant rocks shrouded in night, and perhaps concealing the
lurking foe, the soldier remembers that he is far away from home and
friends--deep in the enemy’s country, encompassed on every hand by
those in deadly hostility to him, who are perhaps even then maturing
the preparations for his destruction.
As the tattoo sounds, the boys arise from around the fire, visit the
horse line, see that their horses are securely tied, rub off from
the fetlocks and legs such specks of mud as may have escaped the
cleaning in the early evening, and if possible, smuggle their faithful
four-footed friends a few ears of corn, or another bunch of hay.
If not too tired, and everything else is favorable, the cavalryman has
prepared himself a comfortable couch for the night. He always sleeps
with a chum. The two have gathered enough small tufts of pine or cedar
to make a comfortable, springy, mattress-like foundation. On this is
laid the poncho or rubber blanket. Next comes one of their overcoats,
and upon this they lie, covering themselves with the two blankets and
the other overcoat, their feet towards the fire, their boots at the
foot, and their belts, with revolver, saber and carbine, at the sides
of the bed. It is surprising what an amount of comfort a man can get
out of such a couch, and how, at an alarm, he springs from it, almost
instantly dressed and armed.
Half an hour after tattoo the bugle rings out another sadly sweet
strain, that hath a dying sound.