A GENERAL UNDER THE MICROSCOPE.
When I awoke at Colonel Taggert's tent the morning afterward, I had
verified the common experience of camps by "catching several colds at
once," and felt a general sensation of being cut off at the knees. Poor
S., who joined me at the fire, states that he believed himself to be
tied in knots, and that he should return afoot to Washington. Our horses
looked no worse, for that would have been manifestly impossible. We were
made the butts of much jesting at breakfast; and S. said, in a spirit of
atrocity, that camp wit was quite as bad as camp "wittles." I bade him
adieu at five o'clock A. M., when he had secured passage to the city in
a sutler's wagon. Remounting my own fiery courser, I bade the Colonel a
temporary farewell, and proceeded in the direction of Meade's and
Reynold's brigades. The drum and fife were now beating _reveille_, and
volunteers in various stages of undress were limping to roll-call. Some
wore one shoe, and others appeared shivering in their linen. They stood
ludicrously in rank, and a succession of short, dry coughs ran up and
down the line, as if to indicate those who should escape the bullet for
the lingering agonies of the hospital. The ground was damp, and fog was
rising from the hollows and fens. Some signal corps officers were
practising with flags in a ploughed field, and negro stewards were
stirring about the cook fires. A few supply wagons that I passed the
previous day were just creaking into camp, having travelled most of the
night. I saw that the country was rude, but the farms were close, and
the dwellings in many cases inhabited. The vicinity had previously been
unoccupied by either army, and rapine had as yet appropriated only the
fields for camps and the fences for fuel. I was directed to the
headquarters of Major-General M'Call,--a cluster of wall tents in the
far corner of a grain-field, concealed from public view by a projecting
point of woods. A Sibley tent stood close at hand, where a soldier in
blue overcoat was reading signals through a telescope. I mistook the
tent for the General's, and riding up to the soldier was requested to
stand out of the way. I moved to his rear, but he said curtly that I was
obstructing the light. I then dismounted, and led my horse to a clump of
trees a rod distant.
"Don't hitch there," said the soldier; "you block up the view."
A little ruffled at this manifest discourtesy, I asked the man to denote
some point within a radius of a mile where I would _not_ interfere with
his operations. He said in reply, that it was not his business to denote
hitching-stalls for anybody. I thought, in that case, that I should stay
where I was, and he politely informed me that I might stay and
be--jammed. I found afterward that this individual was troubled with a
kind of insanity peculiar to all headquarters, arising out of an
exaggerated idea of his own importance. I had the pleasure, a few
minutes afterward, of hearing him ordered to feed my horse. A thickset,
gray-haired man sat near by, undergoing the process of shaving by a very
nervous negro. The thickset man was also exercising the privileges of
his rank; but the more he berated his attendant's awkwardness, the more
nervous the other became. I addressed myself mutually to master and man,
in an inquiry as to the precise quarters of the General in command. The
latter pointed to a wall tent contiguous, and was cursed by the thickset
man for not minding his business. The thickset man remarked
substantially, that he didn't know anything about it, and was at that
moment cut by the negro, to my infinite delight. Before the wall tent in
question stood a tall, broad-shouldered gentleman in shirt-sleeves and
slippers, warming his back and hands at a fire. He was watching, through
an aperture in the tent, the movements of a private who was cleaning his
boots. I noticed that he wore a seal ring, and that he opened and shut
his eyes very rapidly. He was, otherwise, a very respectable and
dignified gentleman.
"Is this General M'Call?" said I, a little discomposed. The gentleman
looked abstractedly into my eyes, opening and shutting his own several
times, as if doubtful of his personality, and at last decided that he
_was_ General M'Call.
"What is it?" he said gravely, but without the slightest curiosity.
"I have a letter for you, sir, I believe."
He put the letter behind his back, and went on warming his hands. Having
winked several times again, apparently forgetting all about the matter,
I ventured to add that the letter was merely introductory. He looked at
it, mechanically.
"Who opened it?" he said.
"Letters of introduction are not commonly sealed, General."
"Who are you?" he asked, indifferently.
I told him that the contents of the letter would explain my errand; but
he had, meantime, relapsed into abstractedness, and winked, and warmed
his hands, for at least, five minutes. At the end of that time, he read
the letter very deliberately, and said that he was glad to see me in
camp. He intimated, that if I was not already located, I could be
provided with bed and meals at headquarters. He stated, in relation to
my correspondence, that all letters sent from the Reserve Corps, must,
without any reservations, be submitted to him in person. I was obliged
to promise compliance, but had gloomy forebodings that the General
would occupy a fortnight in the examination of each letter. He invited
me to breakfast, proposed to make me acquainted with his staff, and was,
in all respects, a very grave, prudent, and affable soldier. I may say,
incidentally, that I adopted the device of penning a couple of gossipy
epistles, the length and folly of which, so irritated General M'Call,
that he released me from the penalty of submitting my compositions for
the future.
I took up my permanent abode with quartermaster Kingwalt, a very prince
of old soldiers, who had devoted much of a sturdy life to promoting the
militia interests of the populous county of Chester. When the war-fever
swept down his beautiful valley, and the drum called the young men from
villages and farms, this ancient yeoman and miller--for he was
both--took a musket at the sprightly age of sixty-five, and joined a
Volunteer company. Neither ridicule nor entreaty could bend his purpose;
but the Secretary of War, hearing of the case, conferred a brigade
quartermastership upon him. He threw off the infirmities of age, stepped
as proudly as any youngster, and became, emphatically, the best
quartermaster in the Division. He never delayed an advance with tardy
teams, nor kept the General tentless, nor penned irregular requisitions,
nor wasted the property of Government. The ague seized him,
occasionally, and shook his grey hairs fearfully; but he always
recovered to ride his black stallion on long forages, and his great
strength and bulk were the envy of all the young officers.
He grasped my hand so heartily that I positively howled, and commanded a
tall sergeant, rejoicing in the name of Clover, to take away my horse
and split him up for kindling wood.
"We must give him the blue roan, that Fogg rides," said the
quartermaster, to the great dejection of Fogg, a short stout youth, who
was posting accounts. I was glad to see, however, that Fogg was not
disposed to be angry, and when informed that a certain iron-gray nag was
at his disposal, he was in a perfect glow of good humor. The other
_attaches_ were a German, whose name, as I caught it, seemed to be
Skyhiski; and a pleasant lad called Owen, whose disposition was so mild,
that I wondered how he had adopted the bloody profession of arms. A
black boy belonged to the establishment, remarkable, chiefly, for
getting close to the heels of the black stallion, and being frequently
kicked; he was employed to feed and brush the said stallion, and the
antipathy between them was intense.
The above curious military combination, slept under a great tarpaulin
canopy, originally used for covering commissary stores from the rain.
Our meals were taken in the open air, and prepared by Skyhiski; but
there was a second tent, provided with desk and secretary, where Mr.
Fogg performed his clerk duties, daily. When I had relieved my Pegasus
of his saddle, and penned some paragraphs for a future letter, I
strolled down the road with the old gentleman, who insisted upon showing
me Hunter's mill, a storm-beaten structure, that looked like a great
barn. The mill-race had been drained by some soldiers for the purpose of
securing the fish contained in it, and the mill-wheel was quite dry and
motionless. Difficult Creek ran impetuously across the road below, as if
anxious to be put to some use again; and the miller's house adjoining,
was now used as a hospital, for Lieutenant-Colonel Kane, and some
inferior officers. It was a favorite design of the Quartermaster's to
scrape the mill-stone, repair the race, and put the great breast-wheel
to work. One could see that the soldier had not entirely obliterated the
miller, and as he related, with a glowing face, the plans that he had
proposed to recuperate the tottering structure, and make it serviceable
to the army, I felt a regret that such peaceful ambitions should have
ever been overruled by the call to arms.
While we stood at the mill window, watching the long stretches of white
tents and speculating upon the results of war, we saw several men
running across the road toward a hill-top cottage, where General Meade
made his quarters. A small group was collected at the cottage,
reconnoitring something through their telescopes. As I hastened in that
direction, I heard confused voices, thus: "No, it isn't!" "It is!" "Can
you make out his shoulder-bar?" "What is the color of his coat?" "Gray!"
"No, it's butternut!" "Has he a musket!" "Yes, he is levelling it!" At
this the group scattered in every direction. "Pshaw!" said one, "we are
out of range; besides, it is a telescope that he has. By----, it is a
Rebel, reconnoitring our camp!" There was a manifest sensation here, and
one man wondered how he had passed the picket. Another suggested that he
might be accompanied by a troop, and a third convulsed the circle by
declaring that there were six other Rebels visible in a woods to the
left. Mr. Fogg had meantime come up and proffered me a field-glass,
through which I certainly made out a person in gray, standing in the
middle of the road just at the ridge of a hill. When I dropped my glass
I saw him distinctly with the naked eye. He was probably a mile distant,
and his gray vesture was little relieved by the blue haze of the forest.
"He is going," exclaimed a private, excitedly; "where's the man that was
to try a lead on him?" Several started impulsively for their pieces, and
some officers called for their horses. "There go his knees!" "His body
is behind the hill!" "Now his head----"
"Crack! crack! crack!" spluttered musketry from the edge of the mill,
and like as many rockets darted a score of horsemen through the creek
and up the steep. Directly a faint hurrah pealed from the camp nearest
the mill. It passed to the next camp and the next; for all were now
earnestly watching; and finally a medley of cheers shook the air and the
ear. Thousands of brave men were shouting the requiem of one paltry
life. The rash fool had bought with his temerity a bullet in the brain.
When I saw him--dusty and still bleeding--he was beset by a full
regiment of idlers, to whom death had neither awe nor respect. They
talked of the delicate shot, as connoisseurs in the art of murder,--and
two men dug him a grave on the green before the mill, wherein he was
tossed like a dog or a vulture, to be lulled, let us hope, by the music
of the grinding, when grain shall ripen once more.
I had an opportunity, after dinner, to inspect the camp of the
"Bucktails," a regiment of Pennsylvania backwoodsmen, whose efficiency
as skirmishers has been adverted to by all chroniclers of the civil war.
They wore the common blue blouse and breeches, but were distinguished by
squirrel tails fastened to their caps. They were reputed to be the best
marksmen in the service, and were generally allowed, in action, to take
their own positions and fire at will. Crawling through thick woods, or
trailing serpent-like through the tangled grass, these mountaineers were
for a time the terror of the Confederates; but when their mode of
fighting had been understood, their adversaries improved upon it to such
a degree that at the date of this writing there is scarcely a Corporal's
guard of the original Bucktail regiment remaining. Slaughtered on the
field, perishing in prison, disabled or paroled, they have lost both
their prestige and their strength. I remarked among these worthies a
partiality for fisticuffs, and a dislike for the manual of arms. They
drilled badly, and were reported to be adepts at thieving and unlicensed
foraging.
The second night in camp was pleasantly passed. Some sociable
officers--favorites with Captain Kingwalt--congregated under the
tarpaulin, after supper-hour, and when a long-necked bottle had been
emptied and replenished, there were many quaint stories related and
curious individualities revealed. I dropped asleep while the hilarity
was at its height, and Fogg covered me with a thick blanket as I lay.
The enemy might have come upon us in the darkness; but if death were
half so sound as my slumber afield, I should have bid it welcome.