Washington City in the last days of the war--Look, the
President!--_The last man of the regiment._
Leaving General Grant's headquarters at City Point was for me a final
good-by to the army. The little steamer _Martin_ carried me down the
James River, up the Chesapeake Bay, and the Potomac, toward the North. I
recall now the strange sensations I had in passing Washington's tomb at
Mount Vernon. The green slopes and the oak wood in front of the old
mansion were in full view. I could even see the front columns of the
house, and someone on the steamer's deck pointed out to me the spot
where stood the simple brick mausoleum where with folded arms slept the
Father of his Country. I could not help reflecting that at that moment
not a hundred miles away stood nearly all George Washington's State's
descendants, with arms in their hands, striving to destroy the
government that he had founded.
How I enjoyed that ship ride! Here there was no sandy prison pen with
poor, starving, dying comrades lying around; no futile efforts at
escape; no taunts and jeers that the American flag had gone down in
disgrace; now all was free and beautiful, and _mine_. The hated rag of
the Confederacy that had floated over my head and threatened me every
day with death for fifteen long months was gone forever. At the mast of
our little vessel waved the Stars and Stripes, conscious, it seemed to
me, of the free air I was breathing. That was a happy day for me.
Some time in the following night the wheels of the boat stopped
revolving--there was silence; and when I woke at daylight there was the
land. The ship was fast in the slip at the wharf, and there, too, was
the capital of the republic. I went ashore by myself and wandered into
the city, my mind crowded every moment with the thoughts of what had
taken place here in the last four years. Soldiers I saw everywhere, with
arms and without arms. Negroes, now freedmen, by the ten thousand fairly
darkened the population. With some friends I found a boarding place on
the avenue above the National Hotel. If I wanted to see great men,
notorious men, men making history, all kinds of men, I had only to step
into the corridors of the National.
I had little or no ready money, nor could I get any until the
government settled my accounts. I waited in Washington for a week.
General Sherman had given me papers that would insure my promotion in
the regular army. I presented them; they were all-sufficient; I needed
only to say the word. But I was sick and tired of war, and would not
have exchanged a glimpse of my Western home for the commission of a
brigadier.
But while I stayed in Washington what sights I saw! Our capital is now
possibly the finest in the world. Then it was the most hateful; the most
hateful in every way. Militarism, treason, political scoundrelism, and
every other bad ism reigned in every hotel, on every street corner, in
Congress, out of Congress--everywhere; reigned right at the elbows of
loyalty and patriotism such as the world never saw. Society was one
grand conglomeration of everything good and bad.
Washington City itself was a spectacle. It had no streets, save one or
two--simply dirty unpaved roads. The dirty street cars, pulled by
worn-out horses, were crowded inside and outside by a mass of struggling
politicians, soldiers, gamblers, adventurers, and women. The city was
also full of hospitals; everywhere there were lazarettos and graveyards.
It looked as if half the Union army had dragged itself into the capital
to die. The great Capital building was uncompleted; its dome stood
there covered with scaffoldings and windlasses. The plaza at the east
end of the structure looked like a vast stone quarry. The Washington
Monument had only gotten itself safe above high-water mark; and what
there was of it was in danger of falling down. It stood in the middle of
the flats, the mud and the malaria--the graveyard, in short, that formed
the unsavory prospect from the White House windows.
Aside from the unfinished government buildings there was not a pretense
of architecture in all Washington. There was nothing beautiful there.
The very atmosphere seemed sickly; fever, malaria, were everywhere. It
was the one city in all creation to get out of as soon as possible.
Once I tried to get a glimpse of the President. I failed. The White
House gates were held by sentries. "Why do you want to see that old
Ape?" said a man to me one day. I was shocked, and would like to have
killed him. But he was not alone in his vileness. Thousands in
Washington affected to despise Lincoln. I wondered then that it was
regarded safe for him to appear in public. One day a carriage rolled
rapidly up the avenue in front of the National. I heard some men cry,
"Look, the President!" I glanced quickly. A tall, dark man, wearing a
silk hat sat in the carriage; at his side a lady.
In a moment they were out of sight. There was not a cheer, not a hat
touched, not a hand waved, and yet _that was Abraham Lincoln passing_,
soon to be the greatest man in history. A little wrangle and almost a
fist-fight between some bystanders on the pavement followed; one party
denouncing the President for freeing the "damned niggers"; another
thanking God for the President's noble deed. Such scenes were going on
everywhere all over the capital, pro and con. Approval and hatred. The
best praised, the worst abused mortal in America was just entering on
his second term at the White House. I never even had a glimpse of the
kindly face again.
At last my accounts were ready. "But your regiment," said the Assistant
War Secretary, "does not exist. What was left of them were all put into
a cavalry troop long ago. _You are the last man of the regiment._"
Across the face of my paper he wrote, "_Discharged as a supernumerary
officer._" That paper lies before me while I write. I was paid off in
shining greenbacks for all the time I had been in prison.
As to the eighty comrades who had been captured with me that 25th of
November in the assault on Missionary Ridge, all but sixteen were dead.
Nine of my old Company B of the Fifth Regiment were taken prisoners, and
only one of them had survived the horrors of Andersonville. Poor
Cartwright died not long after, and I alone of the little band was left
to tell the story.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
Obvious typos and printer errors have been corrected without comment.
Other than obvious errors, the author's spelling, grammar, and use of
punctuation are retained as in the original publication. In addition to
obvious errors, the following changes have been made:
Page 50: "dozen" changed to "dozens" in the phrase, "Shortly, dozens
of these small boats...."
Page 89: "connonballs" changed to "cannonballs" in the phrase, "...
storm of cannonballs...."
Page 100: opening quote mark added: "My regiment is put...."
Page 132: "thousand" changed to "thousands" in the phrase, "Hundreds,
thousands possibly, of...."
Page 187: "gaunlet" changed to "gauntlet" in the phrase, "... had run
the Rebel gauntlet...."
Page 192: "cammander" changed to "commander"
Page 198: "straving" changed to "starving" in the phrase, "... poor,
starving...."
End of Project Gutenberg's With Fire and Sword, by Samuel H. M. Byers