ON THE SKIRMISH LINE
In the morning our travelers resumed their journey, more refreshed and in
better condition for service than if they had spent the evening in
chasing the "elephant" from one to another of the gilded dens of
dissipation with which the metropolis abounds. In spite of his errors and
sins, Somers could not help liking his dashing companion. He was a
dangerous person; but his enthusiasm was so captivating, that he could
not close his heart against him. But, while he liked the captain, he
hated his vices.
They stopped in Philadelphia only long enough to dine, and in Baltimore
only long enough for supper; arriving at Washington in the evening.
Captain de Banyan again proposed to "go round;" which, rendered into
unmistakable English, meant to visit the drinking-houses and
gambling-saloons of the city, to say nothing of worse places. Lieutenant
Somers had grown wise by experience; and no amount of persuasion could
induce him to leave the hotel. It was horrible to him to think of
spending even his leisure time in the haunts of dissipation, when his
country was bleeding from a thousand wounds; when his gallant comrades in
the Army of the Potomac were enduring peril and hardship in front of the
enemy. He had no taste for carousing at any time, and every fiber of his
moral nature was firmly set against the vices which lured on his reckless
companion.
Lieutenant Somers stayed at the hotel that evening, listening to the
conversation of the officers who had been at the front within a few days.
The great battle of Fair Oaks had been fought during his absence, and
there was every prospect that the most tremendous operations of the war
would soon commence. He listened with the deepest interest to the
accounts from the army, and needed none of the stimulus of the bar-room
or the gambling-saloon to furnish him with excitement. He was soon to be
an actor in the momentous events of the campaign; and the thought was
full of inspiration, and lifted him up from the gross and vulgar tastes
of his companion.
Before noon the next day, somewhat against the inclination of Captain de
Banyan, the two officers were on board a steamer bound down the river.
After some delays, they arrived at White House, on the Pamunkey River;
and then proceeded by railroad nearly to the camp of the regiment, at
Poplar Hill, in the very depths of White Oak Swamp.
"My blessed boy!" shouted Sergeant Hapgood when Lieutenant Somers
appeared in the camp.
The veteran rushed upon him, and, not content to shake his hand he
proceeded to hug him in the most extraordinary manner.
"I am glad to see you, Hapgood! How have you been since I left?" said
Somers.
"First-rate! Bless my withered old carcass, Tom, but I thought I never
should see you again. Why, Tom, how handsome you've grown! Well, you'll
be a brigadier one of these days, and there won't be a better-looking
officer on the field. Dear me, Tom---- Beg pardon; I forgot that you are
an officer; and I mustn't call you Tom any more."
"Never mind that, uncle," added Somers, laughing. "It would hardly be
good discipline for a sergeant to call an officer by a nickname; but we
will compromise, and you shall call me Tom when we are not on duty, and
there is no one within hearing."
"Compromise! Don't never use that word to me. After we fit the battle of
Bull Run, I gouged that word out of my dictionary. No, sir! You are a
leftenant now; and I shall allus call you Leftenant Somers, even if there
ain't nobody within ten mile of us."
"Just as you please, uncle; but, whatever you call me, we shall be just
as good friends as we ever were."
"That's so, Leftenant Somers."
"Precisely, Sergeant Hapgood."
"Now, what's the news in Pinchbrook?" asked the veteran.
But, before Somers had a chance to tell the news from home, he was
welcomed to the camp, and cheered, by officers and men; and his account
of what had transpired in Pinchbrook during his thirty days' furlough was
eagerly listened to by a large and attentive audience. He received in
return a full history of the regiment during his absence. Though the
narrative of sundry exciting events, such as forays upon pig-sties,
poultry-yards, and kitchen-gardens, was highly amusing, there was a tale
of sadness to tell--of deaths by disease and on the battlefield.
Many cheerful hearts that were beating with life and hope a few weeks
before, were now silent in the grave--the soldier's mausoleum in a
strange land. But soldiers have no time to weep over a dead past; they
must live in the hope of a glorious future; and when they had dropped a
tear to the memory of the noble and the true who had fallen on the field
or died in the hospital, victims of the pestilential airs of the swamp,
they laughed as merrily as ever, careless of Death's poised arrows which
were always aimed at them.
Captain de Banyan took his place in the regiment, where Somers found that
he was prodigiously popular, even after a few hours' acquaintance with
his new command; but who he was, where he came from, and how he had
procured his commission, was a mystery to officers and men. He told
tremendous stories about the Crimea and the Italian war; and now for the
first time intimated that he was the only survivor of the company which
led the advance at the storming of Chapultepec, in the Mexican war.
However much the officers enjoyed his stories, it is not probable that
all of them believed what they heard.
Lieutenant Somers was perfectly familiar with the company and battalion
drill; and, having quick perception and abundant self-possession, he was
competent at once to perform his duties as an officer. He had no vices to
be criticized by the men, who respected him not only for his bravery on
the battlefield, but for his good moral character; for even the vicious
respect the virtues which they practically contemn. Being neither
arbitrary nor tyrannical, he was cheerfully obeyed; and his company never
appeared better than when, by the temporary absence of his superior, it
was under his command.
He was, however, allowed but a short time to become acquainted with the
routine of the new duty before he was summoned to participate in those
tremendous events which have passed into history as at once the most
brilliant and disastrous operations of the war; brilliant in that our
gallant army was almost invariably victorious, disastrous in that they
were the forerunners of the ultimate failure of a hopeful campaign. The
victory at Fair Oaks had raised the hopes of that brave, thinking army.
The picket-lines were within a few miles of Richmond, and the soldiers
were burning with enthusiasm to be led against the enemy in front of
them. They were ready to lay down their lives on the altar of their
bleeding country, if the survivors could grasp the boon of peace within
the buttressed walls of the rebel capital--peace that would hurl to the
ground the defiant traitors, and insure the safety and perpetuity of free
institutions. The notes of victory, those thinking soldiers believed,
would reverberate through the coming ages, and point an epoch from which
America would date her grandest and most sublime triumphs.
But not then was the great rebellion to be overthrown; for not yet had
the leaven of Liberty leavened the whole lump; not yet had the purposes
of a mysterious Providence been accomplished; and the brave men who
sighed for victory and peace in the swamps of the Chickahominy were
doomed to years of blood and toil, of victory and defeat, as they marched
on, alike through both, to the consummation of a nation's glorious
triumph, not over paltry armies of arrogant traitors, but over the
incarnation of Evil, over Heaven-defying institutions, whose downfall
established forever principles as eternal as God Himself.
Lieutenant Somers was filled with the spirit of the army. He felt that
the salvation of his country depended upon the valor of that army; and,
impressed with the magnitude of the interests at stake, he was resolved
to do his whole duty. With cheerful alacrity he obeyed the summons which
brought Grover's brigade into line of battle on the morning of the
eventful 25th of June. What was to be accomplished was not for him to
know; but forward moved the line through the swamp, through the woods,
through the pools of stagnant waters up to the hips of the soldiers.
Impressed by the responsibility of his position, Lieutenant Somers
encouraged the weak as they struggled through the mire on their trying
march, and with fit words stimulated the enthusiasm of all. After a march
of about a mile, a heavy skirmish line was thrown out, which soon
confronted that of the rebels.
"Now, Somers, my dear fellow, the concert is about to open," said Captain
de Banyan. "By the way, my boy, this reminds me of Magenta, where----"
"Oh, confound Magenta!" exclaimed Somers.
"Why, my dear fellow, you are as petulant as a belle that has lost her
beau."
"You don't propose to tell us a story about Magenta at such a time as
this, do you?"
"Well, I confess I have a weakness in that direction. Magenta was a great
battle. But I'm afraid you are a little nervous," laughed the captain.
"Nervous? Do you think I'm a coward?" demanded Somers.
"I know you are not; but you might be a little nervous for all that."
At that instant, the sharp crack of a single rifle was heard, and Somers
observed a slight jerk in the brim of the captain's felt hat.
"Bravo!" exclaimed Captain de Banyan as he took off his hat, and pointed
to a hole through which the rifle-ball had sped its way. "I'll bet a
month's pay that fellow couldn't do that again without making a hole
through my head. But that's a singular coincidence. That's precisely the
place where the first bullet went through my hat at Solferino. At
Magenta--ah! I see him," added the captain, as he took a musket from the
hands of one of his men. "I'll bet another month's pay that reb has fired
his last shot."
As he spoke, he raised the gun to his shoulder, and fired up into one of
the trees. A crashing of boughs, a rattling of leaves followed; and a
heavy body was heard to strike the ground.
"You owe me a month's pay, Somers," continued Captain de Banyan, as he
handed the musket back to the soldier.
"I think not," replied the lieutenant, trying to be as cool as his
companion. "I never bet."
"Just so. I forgot that you were an exceedingly proper young man."
The skirmish-line, which had paused a moment for an observation to be
taken, now moved forward again. The rebel skirmishers were discovered,
and the order was given to fire at will. The enemy's sharpshooters were
posted in the trees, and they began to pour in a galling fire upon a
portion of the line.
"Steady, my men!" said Somers, when the firing commenced. "Gunpowder's
expensive; don't waste it."
"Not a single grain of it, Leftenant Somers," added Sergeant Hapgood.
"There, uncle!--up in that tree!" said Somers, pointing to a grayback,
who was loading his rifle, about twenty feet from the ground.
"I see him!" replied the sergeant as he leveled his piece, and fired.
The rebel was wounded, but he did not come down; and the captain of the
company ordered his men to move forward. From the thunder of the
artillery and the rattle of musketry, it was evident that heavy work was
in progress on the right and left.
"Forward, men!" said Somers, repeating the order of Captain Benson.
The men were scattered along an irregular line, and firing into the
bushes, which partially concealed the rebel skirmishers. Somers's platoon
advanced a little more rapidly than the rest of the line, being favored
with a few rods of dry ground. He had urged them forward for the purpose
of dislodging three sharpshooters perched in a large tree.
"Come down, rebs!" shouted Somers, as he reached the foot of the tree,
and told half a dozen of his men to point their guns towards them.
"What d'ye say, Yank?" demanded one of them.
"Will you come down head first, or feet first? Take your choice quick!"
replied the lieutenant.
"As you seem to be in arnest, we'll come down the nateral way."
They did come down without a more pressing invitation, and were disarmed,
ready to be sent to the rear.