In the month that followed the panic and disaster of Bull Run the nation
seemed to realize at last what was before it. "Little Mac," the idol of
the soldiery, had been summoned to Washington to organize and command
the rapidly arriving regiments of volunteers,--splendid regiments from
all over the Northland, and though the flag of rebellion waved on
Munson's Hill, in full view of the unfinished dome of the Capitol, and
every afternoon the Southern bands played "Dixie," in full hearing of
the guards to the approaches of the Long Bridge, the Southern generals
were wise and refrained from farther advance.
Within that month, too, almost all the officers and many of the men
reported missing after the battle were accounted for. Many turned up
safe and sound, if much "demoralized." Many were heard of as at Libby
and Belle Isle, the Richmond prisons, but not one word of any kind came
from Major Stark, not a thing could be learned of his devoted orderly,
appointed corporal, said the survivors of Stark's battalion, the very
morning of the battle. The New-Englanders had gone home with the thanks
of the President and Secretary of War for their gallant conduct at the
battle, and their faithful service days after their time had expired.
The gray-haired colonel, though still unable to remount and take command
in the field, had been made a brigadier-general. Flint reappeared at the
front as lieutenant-colonel of the reorganized regiment. Everybody said
that Major Stark would have been made its colonel had he survived.
In Gotham there was grief in many a household, but there was trouble in
the Lawrences'. Poor Mrs. Park, as was to be expected, could give them
little peace. "Everybody" now knew that the youthful captor, so lauded
in the papers, of the young Confederate cavalryman was the George Lawton
who had fled from Aunt Lawrence's roof rather than listen to more
upbraidings. Mrs. Park had first gone wild with pride, exultation, and
delight when the Monday morning _Herald_ reached her,--and then to New
York and Aunt Lawrence the very next day. And there she learned the
later news, and stayed a dreadful fortnight, dreadful for herself and
everybody else. One thing, at least, was comfort to the younger sister,
and comfort she certainly needed now,--the mother steadfastly refused to
believe her boy was dead. What she wished to do and what perhaps she
would have done, but that her husband came and forbade, was to go to
Washington and lay siege to the War Department. Mrs. Park could see no
just reason why the government should not send forth a strong column to
scour and scourge Virginia until "the Mother of the Presidents"
surrendered her boy. School was closed for the summer. The First Latin
had passed its examinations, matriculated at Columbia, and was to start
as freshmen in the fall, minus two members at least, Hoover, who had
apparently abandoned his academic career, and had not been seen around
New York, and Briggs, ignominiously "flunked" at the examination. Two
others of its list were spoken of as duly admitted should they return to
the fold in time to enter with the class,--Snipe Lawton and Shorty
Prime. Where the first was no one could conjecture. Where the second was
everybody knew, as Shorty took good care they should, if letters could
accomplish it. There wasn't a happier lad in all the lines around
Washington as August wore on, and the army "got its second wind"--and
reinforcements. Short and small as he was, he rode as big a horse as
anybody, and had reached almost the pinnacle of his boyish ambitions. He
had been made mounted orderly at brigade head-quarters, and could ask no
more, except that Snipe should know, and Snipe should turn up safe and
sound.
The Doctor's wisdom had prevailed. The scare that followed Shorty's
disappearance was short as he. Ellsworth was organizing the Fire Zouaves
at the time, and the lad, in longing and misery and in envy of Snipe's
inches, had stolen away to the old haunt at "40's" house down in Elm
Street to beg the boys to tell their enthusiastic young colonel how well
he could drum and how mad he was to go. He was home again by midnight,
and late to school and lax in conduct and lessons the following day. It
was all settled within a week, and as the Doctor had advised, and almost
crazy with joy the youngster was hurried on to the capital to join his
soldier kindred, was welcomed and set to work to teach other and bigger
boys the army calls and beats for the snare-drum, and then, along in
August, the general, for whom he had run many an errand and delivered
many a message, ordered him to duty at head-quarters and set him in
saddle.
Then presently McClellan found himself strong enough to risk a slight
forward movement, and two brigades crossed the Potomac one night in face
of the pickets at Chain Bridge, and, hardly waiting for dawn, began
tossing up earthworks on the heights beyond, and here the saucy rebels
came and "felt" the pickets and, riding through the wood lanes, made
some effort to dislodge them, but there was evidently heavy force behind
those strong picket-posts, and though rifles and revolvers were popping
day and night all along the guarded lines from the Potomac below
Alexandria to the Potomac above Chain Bridge, no real attempt was made
by the "Johnnies" to push through at any point. Night after night, at
first, gay young gallants from the Southern lines would mount their
horses and ride out ahead just to "stir up the Yanks," and then there
would be no end of a bobbery along the front, picket firing in every
direction and the long roll in every camp, and everybody would turn out
under arms and form line on the designated parade-ground, and stand and
shiver and say unpublishable and improper things for an hour or more,
and then go back to bed disgusted. After a week or so at this the
colonels would no longer form line, but let the companies muster in
their respective streets in camp, and the long waits were reduced to an
hour, and then to a half, and in course of a fortnight it became
difficult even to rouse a drummer when the long roll was actually
ordered. And when the sputter and crackle of musketry began far out at
the picket-posts in the dead hours of the night, men in camp would roll
over and grunt something to the effect that those fellows were making
dashed fools of themselves again. And so by the end of August it became
a sign of "scare" or "nerves" when pickets began firing at night, and
when Shorty's brigade took post along those densely wooded heights and
had got fairly shaken down to business, matters at the front, out toward
the hamlet of Lewinsville and the lanes to Vienna and Ball's
Cross-Roads, became almost professionally placid and disciplined, and
the lad was in a sort of military seventh heaven, trotting about with
orders and despatches, recognized and passed without check at almost
all the posts of the main guards, where even officers below certain
grades had to show their permits, welcomed at every regimental camp for
the news and gossip he could bring,--ay, and it must be owned, for items
much more stimulating than even the latest rumors from the War
Department, for Shorty was many a time the bearer of despatches to
McClellan's head-quarters or the office of some high dignitary in the
city, and his saddle-bags were never inspected by provost-marshals and
patrols, and, now that the sutlers were forbidden to sell the fiery
liquids of the first weeks of the war, many a flask of forbidden
"commissary" found its way to some favored tent among the brigade lines,
and in return, when Sergeant This or Corporal That was out on picket,
the lad was sure of friends at court when he strove for a peep outside
the lines, and one of his absorbing crazes was to ascertain what might
be going on around that mysterious hamlet, nearly two miles out there in
the lovely Virginia slopes beyond the pickets.
The fact is that Shorty was consumed with ambition to "do something"
like Snipe. He envied his former chum the distinction of that capture of
Lieutenant Grayson infinitely more than he envied "Little Mac" the
command of the army. Just to think that the first Confederate officer
caught in front of Washington should turn out to be a first cousin of
the very Graysons who were with them at school! Just to think that it
should be Snipe of all others--Snipe, a First Latin boy--to make the
capture! Just to think that Snipe should have been all through Bull Run,
while he, Shorty, was far to the rear where he could only hear the
thunder of the guns and the tales of the stragglers! Just to think that
the old men in the reorganized New-Englanders declared that Snipe was
the best soldier in the ranks of Company "C" if he was the
youngest!--Snipe who couldn't shoot a gun six months ago without
shutting his eyes, and who would rather fish all day or figure out
equations than follow the band of the Seventh itself! Just to think that
the old colonel's written report of Bull Run should include among the
few names of those deserving especial credit and commendation that of
Corporal George Lawton, Company "C," "who sacrificed himself in the
heroic effort to save Major Stark from death or capture, and was last
seen fighting hard over his prostrate body,"--Snipe who used to turn
sick at sight of a fist fight, even though he was the "bulliest" first
baseman the Uncas ever had.
Time and again the general's diminutive orderly would ride to Colonel
Flint to inquire if any news had been heard, and to talk with the old
men of Company "C" about his chum. There were two drawbacks to this. It
began to bore Flint, who felt a trifle jealous of the praises sung of
Stark, and it gave the New-Englanders abundant opportunity to chaff the
lad about his old friends, the Fire Zouaves, whose conduct or
misconduct at Bull Run was the subject of the derision of the "steady"
regiments of the army. It wasn't that the "b'hoys" lacked nerve,
stamina, courage. They had lost their soldierly little colonel, shot
dead by a fanatic the very day they entered Alexandria. There was no one
to discipline them, with Ellsworth gone, and the bravest men in the
world are of no account in battle except when acting in disciplined
unison. Other regiments ran down that hill as hard as did the Fire
Zouaves, and without half the provocation; but everybody pitched on the
red shirts and made them the scapegoats because they had come with such
a tremendous swagger and had boasted so much. Shorty believed in his old
friends and stood up for them, and lost his temper and said things to
the New-Englanders in turn that they didn't like. "How came it that you
could stand and see your major down with a dozen rebs around him and
make no effort at rescue?" he demanded, and this was a home thrust that
made many men wince, and at last it leaked out somehow, as such things
will, that none of the left wing saw or heard of it until too late. The
smoke was thick. They were falling back as ordered, but the senior
captain had been wounded and sent to the rear. Flint was acting as wing
commander, and when two companies on the right begged their officers,
after the confusion, to let them rush back and bring off the major,
Flint himself refused. "We have lost far more now than our share," he
said, "and the general orders us back."
And still there lived among the New-Englanders that abiding faith that
the honored major was not dead and would yet be heard from. "And when he
is," said Shorty, "you can bet your buttons Snipe and Sergeant Keating
will prove to be the ones that pulled him out, and they were firemen."
The fact of the matter is that Shorty was getting "too big for his
boots," as Colonel Flint began to say. He was indulged and spoiled to
such an extent by guards and sentries around Chain Bridge, greeted so
cordially by generals and colonels, and hailed with such confident
familiarity by the line, that the youngster's head was probably not a
little inflated. He was getting "cheeky," said a spectacled
adjutant-general of a neighboring brigade. "He talks too much," said
staff-officers about their own head-quarters. "He'll run up against
somebody some day that'll take the shine off him if he isn't more
careful with that big horse of his," said a certain few, who hated a
horseman on general principles; and this proved a true prediction.
The big bay ridden by Shorty had a very hard mouth, and when once he got
going it was a most difficult thing to stop him. Galloping about the
neighborhood of Chain Bridge, where almost everybody knew the youngster
as the general's orderly, it made little difference (although an irate
Green Mountain boy of Baldy Smith's brigade did threaten to bayonet him
if he ever galloped over his post again); so, too, on the road to
Washington, where permanent guards were placed at different points.
But, to put an end to straggling and visiting town without authority,
the provost-marshal had taken to sending patrols here, there, and
everywhere in Georgetown and Washington with orders to halt every
soldier and examine his pass. The regular infantry, now recruited to a
war footing, were assigned, much to their disgust, to patrol duty. A
number of new regiments of regulars were being raised. A number of the
New York Seventh and other crack regiments of the militia reappeared at
the front with the uniforms and commissions of lieutenants in the
regular army. It even happened that not a few young fellows who had
never even served in the militia, and who knew nothing whatever of duty
or discipline of any kind, had secured through family or political
influence, which the administration was glad to cultivate, commissions
denied to better men, and these young fellows were now wearing their
first swords, sashes, and shoulder-straps in the onerous duty of running
down the merry-makers from surrounding camps, who, dodging the guards,
had managed to make a way to town.
One night there came a heavy storm, and down went the telegraph line.
Morning broke, radiant after the deluge. The Potomac had risen in its
might and swept away some bridge and crib work as well as certain
pontoons. The general wrote a despatch to army head-quarters, and called
up Shorty. "Gallop with that," said he, "and don't stop for anything."
What the general meant was, don't stop for breakfast or nonsense, but
the lad took it literally. He and "Badger" were a sight to behold when
they came tearing into the main street of Georgetown about eight
o'clock. Badger was blowing a bit, after laboring through nearly five
miles of thick mud, but, once he struck the cobble-stones and sent the
last lumps of clay flying behind him, he took a new grip on the bit and
lunged ahead as though on a race for his life, Shorty sitting him close
and riding "hands down" and head too, his uniform besmeared, but his
grit and wind untouched.
Out came the regulars at the second cross street. "Halt! Halt!" were the
shouted orders, but Shorty's instructions were to stop for nothing, and
he couldn't stop short of three blocks anyhow, no matter how much he
might want to. Past the first soldiers he shot like a dart, but their
yells resounded down the avenue, and out came others,--too late at the
second crossing but formidably prompt at the third. Two of them levelled
their bayonets, a third making ready to leap at the reins. In vain
Shorty reached in his saddle-bag and brandished his papers and yelled,
"Despatch for General McClellan! Ordered not to stop!" The soldiers
could not or would not understand, so he had to lie back and tug at the
reins; but "Badger" only pricked up his ears at sight of the human
obstacles, and when six great strides brought him close to them, made a
magnificent dash to one side, and left them raging behind. But now all
the avenue seemed alive with blue coats and bayonets. A dozen men lined
up at the next crossing, and with a sob of rage and dismay, Shorty
realized that they'd bayonet Badger rather than let him defy orders, and
so, with all his might and main he pulled, and at last, plunging,
panting, heaving, and sweating, the splendid brute was brought to a
halt, two or three big Irish infantrymen at his head, while, scowling
and threatening, others came thronging around him.
"Come down aff the top o' dthat harrse!" shouted a Milesian veteran who
knew his trade.
"Despatches for General McClellan! Most important!" panted Shorty.
"Ordered not to lose a minute----"
"Ah-h-h! none av yer guff! Who'd be sendin' anything 'portant by the
likes av you? Tumble off, Tom Thumb!" and the sergeant had seized the
official envelope and was trying to lug it away.
"Don't you dare touch that!" almost screamed the lad. "I tell you, I'm a
general's orderly!"
But for answer the sergeant thrust a brawny hand under the hooded
stirrup, and with sudden hoist sent Shorty tumbling over to the other
side. Furious at the indignity, he grasped the mane and let drive a
skilful and well-aimed kick at the Irishman's head, which the latter
ducked and dodged only in the nick of time. More patrolmen came running
to the spot,--corporals and sergeants whose orders had been
defied,--and in less than a minute the bumptious youngster was dragged
from his horse and led fuming to the sidewalk, just as there appeared at
the doorway of the corner building the spruce and dapper figure of the
youthful officer of the guard, his uniform spick and span, his sash and
sword and gloves of the daintiest make.
"Now, then, you young tarrier, make yer manners an' tell yer lies to yer
betthers!" said the big sergeant, half grinning as he spoke, his hand on
Shorty's collar all the time. The throng of soldiers gave way right and
left, their white-gloved left hands striking the promptly shouldered
muskets in salute to their young superior, and then, covered with mud,
flushed with wrath and the sense of his wrongs, writhing in the grasp of
his captor, Shorty Prime stood staring into the pallid features, the
shifting, beady eyes, the twitching, bluish lips of the butt of the
First Latin and the whole school,--Polyblasphemous in the garb of a
second lieutenant of the regular infantry.
Dead silence for a moment, then,--
"Put him in the cell," said Hoover, and turned loftily away.