WHAT A MARCH IS IN FACT.
I found at breakfast, that Miss Bessie had been placed beside me, and I
so far forgot myself as to forget all other persons at the table. Miss
Priscilla asked to be helped to the corn-bread, and I deposited a
quantity of the same upon Miss Bessie's plate. Miss Bell asked if I did
not love _dear_ old Virginia, and I replied to Miss Bessie that it had
lately become very attractive, and that, in fact, I was decidedly
rebellious in my sympathy with the distressed Virginians. I _did_
except, however, the man darkly mooted as "Henry," and hoped that he
would be disfigured--not killed--at the earliest engagement. The deaf
old gentleman bristled up here and asked _who_ had been killed at the
recent engagement. There was a man named Jeems Lee,--a distant
connection of the Lightfoots,--not the Hampshire Lightfoots, but the
Fauquier Lightfoots,--who had distinctly appeared to the old gentleman
for several nights, robed in black, and carrying a coffin under his arm.
Since I had mentioned his name, he recalled the circumstance, and hoped
that Jeems Lightfoot had not disgraced his ancestry. Nevertheless, the
deaf gentleman was not to be understood as expressing any opinion upon
the merits of the war. For _his_ part he thought both sides a little
wrong, and the crops were really in a dreadful state. The negroes were
very ungrateful people and property should be held sacred by all
belligerents.
At this point he caught Miss Priscilla's eye, and was transfixed with
conscious guilt.
I had, meantime, been infringing upon Miss Bessie's feet,--very pretty
feet they were!--which expressive but not very refined method of
correspondence caused her to blush to the eyes. Miss Bell, noticing the
same, was determined to tell '_Henry_' at once, and I hoped in my heart
that she would set out for Manassas to further that purpose.
The door opened here, and the rubicund visage of Mr. Fogg appeared like
the head of the Medusa. He said that 'Captain' had ordered the blue roan
to be saddled and brought over to me, but I knew that this was a cunning
device on his part, to revisit the dwelling. Miss Bell, somehow caught
the idea that Fogg was enamored of her, and the poor fellow was
subjected to a volley of tender innuendos and languishing glances, that
by turn mortified and enraged him.
I bade the good people adieu at eight o'clock, promising to return for
dinner at five; and Miss Bessie accompanied me to the lane, where I took
leave of her with a secret whisper and a warm grasp of the hand. One of
her rings had somehow adhered to my finger, which Fogg remarked with a
bilious expression of countenance. I had no sooner got astride of the
blue roan than he darted off like the wind, and subjected me to great
terror, alternating to chagrin, when I turned back and beheld all the
young ladies waving their handkerchiefs. They evidently thought me an
unrivalled equestrian.
I rode to a picket post two miles from the mill, passing over the spot
where the Confederate soldier had fallen. The picket consisted of two
companies or one hundred and sixty men. Half of them were sitting around
a fire concealed in the woods, and the rest were scattered along the
edges of a piece of close timber. I climbed a lookout-tree by means of
cross-strips nailed to the trunk, and beheld from the summit a long
succession of hazy hills, valleys, and forests, with the Blue Ridge
Mountains bounding the distance, like some mighty monster, enclosing the
world in its coils. This was the country of the enemy, and a Lieutenant
obligingly pointed out to me the curling smoke of their pickets, a few
miles away. The cleft of Manassas was plainly visible, and I traced the
line of the Gap Railway to its junction with the Orange and Alexandria
road, below Bull Run. For aught that I knew, some concealed observer
might now be watching me from the pine-tops on the nearest knoll. Some
rifleman might be running his practised eye down the deadly groove, to
topple me from my perch, and send me crashing through the boughs. The
uncertainty, the hazard, the novelty of my position had at this time an
indescribable charm: but subsequent exposures dissipated the romance and
taught me the folly of such adventures.
The afternoon went dryly by: for a drizzling rain fell at noon; but at
four o'clock I saddled the blue roan and went to ride with Fogg. We
retraced the road to Colonel T----s, and crossing a boggy brook, turned
up the hills and passed toward the Potomac. Fogg had been a
schoolmaster, and many of his narrations indicated keen perception and
clever comprehension. He so amused me on this particular occasion that I
quite forgot my engagement for dinner, and unwittingly strolled beyond
the farthest brigade.
Suddenly, we heard a bugle-call from the picket-post before us, and, at
the same moment, the drums beat from the camp behind. Our horses pricked
up their ears and Fogg stared inquiringly. As we turned back we heard
approaching hoofs and the blue roan exhibited intentions of running
away. I pulled his rein in vain. He would neither be soothed nor
commanded. A whole company of cavalry closed up with him at length, and
the sabres clattered in their scabbards as they galloped toward camp at
the top of their speed. With a spring that almost shook me from the
saddle and drove the stirrups flying from my feet, the blue roan dashed
the dust into the eyes of Fogg, and led the race.
Not the wild yager on his gait to perdition, rode so fearfully. Trees,
bogs, huts, bushes, went by like lightning. The hot breath of the nag
rose to my nostrils and at every leap I seemed vaulting among the
spheres.
I speak thus flippantly now, of what was then the agony of death. I
grasped the pommel of my saddle, mechanically winding the lines about my
wrist, and clung with the tenacity of sin clutching the world. Some
soldiers looked wonderingly from the wayside, but did not heed my shriek
of "stop him, for God's sake!" A ditch crossed the lane,--deep and
wide,--and I felt that my moment had come: with a spring that seemed to
break thew and sinew, the blue roan cleared it, pitching upon his knees,
but recovered directly and darted onward again. I knew that I should
fall headlong now, to be trampled by the fierce horsemen behind, but
retained my grasp though my heart was choking me. The camps were in
confusion as I swept past them. A sharp clearness of sense and thought
enabled me to note distinctly the minutest occurrences. I marked long
lines of men cloaked, and carrying knapsacks, drummer-boys beating music
that I had whistled in many a ramble,--field-officers shouting orders
from their saddles, and cannon limbered up as if ready to move,--tents
taken down and teams waiting to be loaded; all the evidences of an
advance, that I alas should never witness, lying bruised and mangled by
the roadside. A cheer saluted me as I passed some of Meade's regiments.
"It is the scout that fetched the orders for an advance!" said several,
and one man remarked that "that feller was the most reckless rider he
had ever beheld." The crisis came at length: a wagon had stopped the
way; my horse in turning it, stepped upon a stake, and slipping rolled
heavily upon his side, tossing me like an acrobat, over his head, but
without further injury than a terrible nervous shock and a rent in my
pantaloons.
I employed a small boy to lead the blue roan to Captain Kingwalt's
quarters, and as I limped wearily after, some regiments came toward me
through the fields. General McCall responded to my salute; he rode in
the advance. The Quartermaster's party was loading the tents and
utensils. The rain fell smartly as dusk deepened into night, and the
brush tents now deserted by the soldiers, were set on fire. Being
composed of dry combustible material, they burned rapidly and with an
intense flame. The fields in every direction were revealed, swarming
with men, horses, batteries, and wagons. Some of the regiments began the
march in silence; others sang familiar ballads as they moved in column.
A few, riotously disposed, shrieked, whistled, and cheered. The
standards were folded; the drums did not mark time; the orders were few
and short. The cannoneers sat moodily upon the caissons, and the
cavalry-men walked their horses sedately. Although fifteen thousand men
comprised the whole corps, each of its three brigades would have seemed
as numerous to a novice. The teams of each brigade closed up the rear,
and a quartermaster's guard was detailed from each regiment to march
beside its own wagons. When the troops were fairly under way, and the
brush burning along from continuous miles of road, the effect was grand
beyond all that I had witnessed. The country people gathered in fright
at the cottage doors, and the farm-dogs bayed dismally at the unwonted
scene. I refused to ride the blue roan again, but transferred my saddle
to a team horse that appeared to be given to a sort of equine
somnambulism, and once or twice attempted to lie down by the roadside.
At nine o'clock I set out with Fogg, who slipped a flask of spirits into
my haversack. Following the tardy movement of the teams, we turned our
faces toward Washington. I was soon wet to the skin, and my saddle
cushion was soaking with water. The streams crossing the road were
swollen with rain, and the great team wheels clogged on the slimy banks.
We were sometimes delayed a half hour by a single wagon, the storm
beating pitilessly in our faces the while. During the stoppages, the
Quartermaster's guards burned all the fence rails in the vicinity, and
some of the more indurated sat round the fagots and gamed with cards.
Cold, taciturn, miserable, I thought of the quiet farm, house, the ruddy
hearth-place, and the smoking supper. I wondered if the roguish eyes
were not a little sad, and the trim feet a little restless, the chessmen
somewhat stupid, and the good old house a trifle lonesome. Alas! the
intimacy so pleasantly commenced, was never to be renewed. With the
thousand and one airy palaces that youth builds and time annihilates, my
first romance of war towered to the stars in a day, and crumbled to
earth in a night.
At two o'clock in the morning we halted at Metropolitan Mills, on the
Alexandria and Leesburg turnpike. A bridge had been destroyed below, and
the creek was so swollen that neither artillery nor cavalry could ford
it. The meadows were submerged and the rain still descended in torrents.
The chilled troops made bonfires of some new panel fence, and stormed
all the henroosts in the vicinity. Some pigs, that betrayed their
whereabouts by inoportune whines and grunts, were speedily confiscated,
slaughtered, and spitted. We erected our tarpaulin in a ploughed field,
and Fogg laid some sharp rails upon the ground to make us a dry bed.
Skyhiski fried a quantity of fresh beef, and boiled some coffee; but
while we ate heartily, theorizing as to the destination of the corps,
the poor Captain was terribly shaken by his ague.
I woke in the morning with inflamed throat, rheumatic limbs, and every
indication of chills and fever. Fogg whispered to me at breakfast that
two men of Reynold's brigade had died during the night, from fatigue and
exposure. He advised me to push forward to Washington and await the
arrival of the division, as, unused to the hardships of a march, I
might, after another day's experience, become dangerously ill. I set
out at five o'clock, resolving to ford the creek, resume the turnpike,
and reach Long Bridge at noon. Passing over some dozen fields in which
my horse at every step sank to the fetlocks, I travelled along the brink
of the stream till I finally reached a place that seemed to be shallow.
Bracing myself firmly in the saddle, I urged my unwilling horse into the
waters, and emerged half drowned on the other side. It happened,
however, that I had crossed only a branch of the creek and gained an
island. The main channel was yet to be attempted, and I saw that it was
deep, broad, and violent. I followed the margin despairingly for a
half-mile, when I came to a log footbridge, where I dismounted and swam
my horse through the turbulent waters. I had now so far diverged from
the turnpike that I was at a loss to recover it, but straying forlornly
through the woods, struck a wagon track at last, and pursued it
hopefully, until, to my confusion, it resolved itself to two tracks,
that went in contrary directions. My horse preferred taking to the left,
but after riding a full hour, I came to some felled trees, beyond which
the traces did not go. Returning, weak and bewildered, I adopted the
discarded route, which led me to a worm-fence at the edge of the woods.
A house lay some distance off, but a wheat-field intervened, and I might
bring the vengeance of the proprietor upon me by invading his domain.
There was no choice, however; so I removed the rails, and rode directly
across the wheat to some negro quarters, a little removed from the
mansion. They were deserted, all save one, where a black boy was singing
some negro hymns in an uproarious manner. The words, as I made them out,
were these:--
"Stephen came a runnin',
His Marster fur to see;
But Gabriel says he is not yar';
He gone to Calvary!
O,--O,--Stephen, Stephen,
Fur to see;
Stephen, Stephen, get along up Calvary!"
I learned from this person two mortifying facts,--that I was farther
from Washington than at the beginning of my journey, and that the morrow
was Sunday. War, alas! knows no Sabbaths, and the negro said,
apologetically--
"I was a seyin' some ole hymns, young Mars'r. Sence dis yer war we don't
have no more meetin's, and a body mos' forgits his pra'rs. Dere hain't
been no church in all Fairfax, sah, fur nigh six months."
Washington was nineteen miles distant, and another creek was to be
forded before gaining the turnpike. The negro sauntered down the lane,
and opened the gate for me. "You jes keep from de creek, take de mill
road, and enqua' as ye get furder up," said he; "it's mighty easy, sah,
an' you can't miss de way."
I missed the way at once, however, by confounding the mill road with the
mill lane, and a shaggy dog that lay in a wagon shed pursued me about a
mile. The road was full of mire; no dwellings adjoined it, and nothing
human was to be seen in any direction. I came to a crumbling negro cabin
after two plodding hours, and, seeing a figure flit by the window,
called aloud for information. Nobody replied, and when, dismounting, I
looked into the den, it was, to my confusion, vacant.
The soil, hereabout, was of a sterile red clay, spotted with scrub
cedars. Country more bleak and desolate I have never known, and when, at
noon, the rain ceased, a keen wind blew dismally across the barriers. I
reached a turnpike at length, and, turning, as I thought, toward
Alexandria, goaded my horse into a canter. An hour's ride brought me to
a wretched hamlet, whose designation I inquired of a cadaverous old
woman--
"Drainesville," said she.
"Then I am not upon the Alexandria turnpike?"
"No. You're sot for Leesburg. This is the Georgetown and Chain Bridge
road."
With a heavy heart, I retraced my steps, crossed Chain Bridge at five
o'clock, and halted at Kirkwood's at seven. After dinner, falling in
with the manager of the Washington Sunday morning _Chronicle_, I penned,
at his request, a few lines relative to the movements of the Reserves;
and, learning in the morning that they had arrived at Alexandria, set
out on horseback for that city.
Many hamlets and towns have been destroyed during the war. But, of all
that in some form survive, Alexandria has most suffered. It has been in
the uninterrupted possession of the Federals for twenty-two months, and
has become essentially a military city. Its streets, its docks, its
warehouses, its dwellings, and its suburbs, have been absorbed to the
thousand uses of war.
I was challenged thrice on the Long Bridge, and five times on the road,
before reaching the city. I rode under the shadows of five earthworks,
and saw lines of white tents sweeping to the horizon. Gayly caparisoned
officers passed me, to spend their Sabbath in Washington, and trains
laden with troops, ambulances, and batteries, sped along the line of
railway, toward the rendezvous at Alexandria. A wagoner, looking
forlornly at his splintered wheels; a slovenly guard, watching some
bales of hay; a sombre negro, dozing upon his mule; a slatternly Irish
woman gossiping with a sergeant at her cottage door; a sutler in his
"dear-born," running his keen eye down the limbs of my beast; a spruce
civilian riding for curiosity; a gray-haired gentleman, in a threadbare
suit, going to camp on foot, to say good by to his boy,--these were some
of the personages that I remarked, and each was a study, a sermon, and a
story. The Potomac, below me, was dotted with steamers and shipping. The
bluffs above were trodden bare, and a line of dismal marsh bordered some
stagnant pools that blistered at their bases. At points along the
river-shore, troops were embarking on board steamers; transports were
taking in tons of baggage and subsistence. There was a schooner, laden
to the water-line with locomotive engines and burden carriages; there,
a brig, shipping artillery horses by a steam derrick, that lifted them
bodily from the shore and deposited them in the hold of the vessel.
Steamers, from whose spacious saloons the tourist and the bride have
watched the picturesque margin of the Hudson, were now black with
clusters of rollicking volunteers, who climbed into the yards, and
pitched headlong from the wheel-houses. The "grand movement," for which
the people had waited so long, and which McClellan had promised so
often, was at length to be made. The Army of the Potomac was to be
transferred to Fortress Monroe, at the foot of the Chesapeake, and to
advance by the peninsula of the James and the York, upon the city of
Richmond.
I rode through Washington Street, the seat of some ancient residences,
and found it lined with freshly arrived troops. The grave-slabs in a
fine old churchyard were strewn with weary cavalry-men, and they lay in
some side yards, soundly sleeping. Some artillery-men chatted at
doorsteps, with idle house-girls; some courtesans flaunted in furs and
ostrich feathers, through a group of coarse engineers; some sergeants of
artillery, in red trimmings, and caps gilded with cannon, were reining
their horses to leer at some ladies, who were taking the air in their
gardens; and at a wide place in the street, a Provost-Major was
manoeuvring some companies, to the sound of the drum and fife. There
was much drunkenness, among both soldiers and civilians; and the people
of Alexandria were, in many cases, crushed and demoralized by reason of
their troubles. One man of this sort led me to a sawmill, now run by
Government, and pointed to the implements.
"I bought 'em and earned 'em," he said. "My labor and enterprise set 'em
there; and while my mill and machinery are ruined to fill the pockets o'
Federal sharpers, I go drunk, ragged, and poor about the streets o' my
native town. My daughter starves in Richmond; God knows I can't get to
her. I wish to h----l I was dead."
Further inquiry developed the facts that my acquaintance had been a
thriving builder, who had dotted all Northeastern Virginia with
evidences of his handicraft. At the commencement of the war, he took
certain contracts from the Confederate government, for the construction
of barracks at Richmond and Manassas Junction; returning inopportunely
to Alexandria, he was arrested, and kept some time in Capitol-Hill
prison; he had not taken the oath of allegiance, consequently, he could
obtain no recompense for the loss of his mill property. Domestic
misfortunes, happening at the same time, so embittered his days that he
resorted to dissipation. Alexandria is filled with like ruined people;
they walk as strangers through their ancient streets, and their property
is no longer theirs to possess, but has passed into the hands of the
dominant nationalists. My informant pointed out the residences of many
leading citizens: some were now hospitals, others armories and arsenals;
others offices for inspectors, superintendents, and civil officials. The
few people that remained upon their properties, obtained partial
immunity, by courting the acquaintance of Federal officers, and, in many
cases, extending the hospitalities of their homes to the invaders. I do
not know that any Federal functionary was accused of tyranny, or
wantonness, but these things ensued, as the natural results of civil
war; and one's sympathies were everywhere enlisted for the poor, the
exiled, and the bereaved.
My dinner at the City Hotel was scant and badly prepared. I gave a negro
lad who waited upon me a few cents, but a burly negro carver, who seemed
to be his father, boxed the boy's ears and put the coppers into his
pocket. The proprietor of the place had voluntarily taken the oath of
allegiance, and had made more money since the date of Federal occupation
than during his whole life previously. He said to me, curtly, that if by
any chance the Confederates should reoccupy Alexandria, he could very
well afford to relinquish his property. He employed a smart barkeeper,
who led guests by a retired way to the drinking-rooms. Here, with the
gas burning at a taper point, cobblers, cocktails, and juleps were mixed
stealthily and swallowed in the darkness. The bar was like a mint to the
proprietor; he only feared discovery and prohibition. It would not
accord with the chaste pages of this narrative to tell how some of the
noblest residences in Alexandria had been desecrated to licentious
purposes; nor how, by night, the parlors of cosey homes flamed with riot
and orgie. I stayed but a little time, having written an indiscreet
paragraph in the Washington Chronicle, for which I was pursued by the
War Department, and the management of my paper, lacking heart, I went
home in a pet.