ON FURLOUGH AWHILE.
Counter winds and tides had so delayed the _Adelaide_, on which I
departed for New York with my despatches, that it became a doubtful
question as to whether we could make connection with the early train for
New York. The captain shook his head distrustfully when he had looked at
his watch, and told me that he frequently failed to land his passengers
in time. The bitterness of the doubt so troubled me, that I paced the
decks, looking at the approaching city, and thinking that all my labor
was to be disappointed in the end. I could not telegraph my narrative
and lists, for Government controlled the wires; and moreover, the
Associated Press regulations forbade any newspaper to telegraph
exclusive news from any point but Washington. I half resolved to hire a
special locomotive, but it was doubtful that the railway authorities
could procure one, at 60 short notice. Unless I overtook the eight
o'clock A. M. train, I could not get to New York before two o'clock next
morning,--too late for the press. Besides, how did I know that some
correspondent had not reached Washington, by way of one of the Potomac
vessels, and so forestalled me? Here was an opportunity to be the first
of all our correspondents to publish the incidents and results of six
days' stupendous warfare,--but escaping at the very moment of
realization. The seconds were hours as we swept past Fort Carroll,
rounded Fort McHenry, and swung toward our moorings, under Fort Federal
Hill.
"If we make a prompt landing," said the Captain, "you may barely get the
train."
I stood with my bundles of notes upon the high deck, and signalled a
cab-driver. He caught the precious manuscript, and bolted for his cab.
In another second he was 'dashing like a runaway up the pier, over the
bridge, through Pratt Street, and--out of sight. Slowly the great hulk
turned awkwardly about; one turn of her paddles brought us close enough
to fling a rope, a second drew her very near the shore; the distance was
fearful, but I braced myself for the leap.
"Stand clear!" I called to the score of hackmen.
A little run, a spring,--and I fell upon my feet, rolled over upon my
face, gathered myself to the arms of all the Jehus, and was carried off
bodily by a man with a great knob on his forehead as big as the end of
his whip-handle.
"G'lang! Who-o-o-oh! Swis-s-s!"
I think that I promised that man everything under the sun to catch the
train. I recollect that the knob on his forehead grew black and bulging
as he lashed his horse. I found myself standing up in the cab, screaming
like the driver. We were both insane, and the horse must have been of
the breed of _Pegasus_, for I could feel the vehicle gyrating in the
air. Now we turned a lamp-post, and the glass splintered somewhere; a
dog howled as we drove over his appendage; a woman with a baby gave a
short scream and disappeared into the earth; a policeman gave chase, but
we laughed him to scorn.
Huzza! Here we are! The train stands puffing at the long platform. "Your
bundle, yer honor! Wasn't I the boy to make the keers?" "Didn't I
projuce yer honor in good time, sur?" I only know that I flung a
greenback to the two,--that I vainly besought the ticket agent to give
me no change, but consign it to the first engineer who failed to make
time,--that I wrote on the back of my hat for four hours,--that I
devoured a chicken and as many eggs as she had laid in a lifetime, at
Havre de Grace,--that I leaped upon the platform at Broad and Prime
streets, Philadelphia, at noon,--that I plunged into a cab, and said,
significantly--
"New York Ferry!"
It chafed me to pass through the promenade street of my home-city,
without a moment to spare for my family or friends. The cab-horse
slipped in Chestnut Street, and I went over the rest of the route on
foot, at a dog-trot pace, passing in various quarters for a sportsman, a
professional runner, and a lunatic. I was greatly aggravated between
Amboy and Camden, by persons making inquiries for brothers, sons, and
acquaintances. At last, when I attained the steamer, the Captain kindly
shut me up in his office, and I went on with my narrative till my eyes
were burning and my hands failed in their function. Kill von Kull and
its picturesque shores went by; we emerged into the beautiful bay, and
winding among its buoys, harbor lights, and shipping, came to, at
length, at the foot of Christopher Street. I repaired to the office at
once, and wrote far into the night, refraining, finally, from sheer
blindness and exhaustion, and dropped asleep in the carriage as I was
taken toward the Metropolitan Hotel.
The next day was Friday, July 4, the anniversary of American
Independence, and my version of the six-days' battles caused universal
gloom and grief. I had furnished five pages or forty columns of closely
printed matter, and thousands of tremulous fingers were tracing out the
names of their dead dear ones, while I sipped my wine and rehearsed for
the hundredth time, the incidents of the retreat to a multitude of men.
Cards and letters came to me by the gross, from bereaved countrymen, and
I was obliged, finally, to add a postscript to my account, and a protest
that I knew no more, and could answer no interrogatories. A bath, fresh
clothing, and rich food so far improved my appearance in a few days,
that I presented no other traces of sickness and travel than a sunburnt
face, and a rheumatic walk.
With restoration came a revival of old desires, appetites, and
attachments. It required one additional campaign to sober me in these
respects, and I was not a little relieved, to receive an order on the
fourth day, to proceed to Washington, and attach myself to the "Army of
Virginia" at the head of which Major-General John Pope had just been
placed. After two quieter days' enjoyment, in the Quaker City, I
reported myself at the Capital, but was debarred from taking the field
at once, owing to the tardiness of the new Commander. For two weeks or
more, I loitered around Washington, and although the time passed
monotonously, I saw many persons and events which have much to do with
the history of the Rebellion. The story of "Washington During the War"
has yet to be written in all its vividness of enterprise, devotion, and
infamy. It has been, in periods of peace, a dull, dolorous town, of
mammoth hotels, paltry dwellings, empty lots, prodigiously wide avenues,
a fossil population, and a series of gigantic public buildings, which
seemed dropped by accident into a fifth-rate backwoods settlement.
During the sessions Washington was overrun with "Smartness": Smart
pages, smart messengers, smart cabmen, smart publicans, smart
politicians, smart women, smart scoundrels! Greatness became commonplace
here, and Mr. Douglas might drink at Willard's Bar, with none so poor to
do him reverence, or General Winfield Scott strut like a colossus along
"the Avenue," and the sleepy negroes upon their backs would give him the
attention of only one eye. It was interesting, to notice how rapidly
provincial eminence lost caste here. Slipkins, who was "Honorable" at
home, and of whom his county newspaper said that "this distinguished
fellow citizen of ours will be heard from, among the greatest of the
free,"--Slipkins moved to and fro unnoticed, and voted with his party,
and drank much brandy and water, and left no other record at the Capital
than some unpaid bills, and perhaps an unacknowledged heir. A gaping
rustic and his new bride, or a strolling foreigner, marvelling and
making notes at every turn, might be observed in the Patent Office
examining General Washington's breeches, but these were at once called
"greenies," and people put out their tongues and winked at them. The
Secretaries' ladies gave parties now and then, attended by the folks who
sold them horses, or carpets, or wines; the President gave a "levee,"
whereat a wonderfully Democratic horde gathered to pinch his hands and
ogle his lady; the Marine band (in _red_ coats), played twice a week in
the Capital grounds, and Senators, Cyprians, Ethiops, and children
rallied to enjoy; a theatre or two played time-honored dramas with
Thespian companies; a couple of scholars lectured in the sombre
Smithsonian Institution; an intrigue and a duel filled some most doleful
hiatus; and a clerk absconded with half a million, or an Indian agent
robbed the red men and fell back to the protection of his "party." A
very dismal, a very dirty, and a very Democratic settlement was the
American Capital, till the war came.
Even the war lost half its interest in Washington. A regiment marching
down Broadway was something to see, but the same regiment in
Pennsylvania Avenue looked mean and matter-of-fact. A General in the
field, or riding uncovered through Boston or Baltimore, or even lounging
at the bar of the Continental or the Astor House or the Tremont, was
invested with an atmosphere half heroic, half poetic; but Generals
in Washington may be counted by pairs, and I used to sit at dinner
with eight or a dozen of them in my eye. There was the new
Commander-in-Chief, Halleck, a short, countryfied person, whose blue
coat was either threadbare or dusty, or lacked some buttons, and who
picked his teeth walking up and down the halls at Willard's, and argued
through a white, bilious eye and a huge mouth. There was General
Mitchel, also, who has since passed away,--a little, knotty gentleman,
with stiff, gray, Jacksonian hair. And General Sturgis passed in and out
perpetually, with impressive, individual Banks, or some less prominent
person, all of them wearing the gold star upon their shoulders, and
absolute masters of some thousands of souls. The town, in fact, was
overrun with troops. Slovenly guards were planted on horseback at
crossings, and now and then they dashed, as out of a profound sleep, to
chase some galloping cavalier. Gin and Jews swarmed along the Avenue,
and I have seen gangs of soldiers of rival regiments, but oftener of
rival nationalities, pummelling each other in the highways, until they
were marched off by the Provosts. The number of houses of ill-fame was
very great, and I have been told that Generals and Lieutenants of the
same organization often encountered and recognized each other in them.
Contractors and "jobbers" used to besiege the offices of the Secretaries
of War and Navy, and the venerable Welles (who reminded me of Abraham in
the lithographs), and the barnacled Stanton, seldom appeared in public.
Simple-minded, straightforward A. Lincoln, and his ambitious, clever
lady, were often seen of afternoons in their barouche; the little
old-fashioned Vice-President walked unconcernedly up and down; and when
some of the Richmond captives came home to the Capital, immense meetings
were held, where patriotism bawled itself hoarse. A dining hour at
Willard's was often wondrously adapted for a historic picture, when
accoutred officers, and their beautiful wives,--or otherwise,--sat at
the _table d'-hote_, and sumptuous dishes flitted here and there, while
corks popped like so many Chinese crackers, and champagne bubbled up
like blood. At night, the Provost Guard enacted the farce of coming by
deputations to each public bar, which was at once closed, but reopened
five minutes afterward. Congress water was in great demand for weak
heads of mornings, and many a young lad, girt up for war, wasted his
strength in dissipation here, so that he was worthless afield, and
perhaps died in the hospital. The curse of civil war was apparent
everywhere. One had but to turn his eye from the bare Heights of
Arlington, where the soldiers of the Republic lay demoralized, to the
fattening vultures who smoked and swore at the National, to see the true
cause of the North's shortcomings,--its inherent and almost universal
corruption. Human nature was here so depraved, that man lost faith in
his kind. Death lurked behind ambuscades and fortifications over the
river, but Sin, its mother, coquetted _here_, and as an American, I
often went to bed, loathing the Capital, as but little better than
Sodom, though its danger had called forth thousands of great hearts to
throb out, in its defence. For every stone in the Capitol building, a
man has laid down his life. For every ripple on the Potomac, some
equivalent of blood has been shed.
I lodged for some time in Tenth Street, and took my meals at Willard's.
The legitimate expenses of living in this manner were fourteen dollars a
week; but one could board at Kirkwood's or Brown's for seven or eight
dollars, very handsomely. A favorite place of excursion, near the city,
was "Crystal Spring," where some afternoon orgies were enacted, which
should have made the sun go into eclipse. I repaired once to Mount
Vernon, and looked dolorously at the tomb of the _Pater Patris_, and
once to Annapolis, on the Chesapeake, which the war has elevated into a
fine naval station.
At length Pope's forces were being massed along the line of the
Rappahannock, below the Occoquan river, and upon the "Piedmont"
highlands. "Piedmont" is the name applied to the fine table-lands of
Northern Virginia, and the ensuing campaign has received the designation
of the "Piedmont Campaign." Pope's army proper was composed of three
corps, commanded respectively by Generals Irvin McDowell, Franz Siegel,
and Nathaniel P. Banks. But a portion of General McClellan's peninsular
army had meantime returned to the Potomac, and the corps of General
Burnside was stationed at Fredericksburg, thirty miles or more below
Pope's head-quarters at Warrenton.
I presented myself to General Pope on the 12th of July, at noon. His
Washington quarters consisted of a quiet brick house, convenient to the
War office, and the only tokens of its importance were some guards at
the threshold, and a number of officers' horses, saddled in the shade of
some trees at the curb. The lower floor of the dwelling was appropriated
to quartermasters' and inspectors' clerks, before whom a number of
people were constantly presenting themselves, with applications for
passes;--sutlers, in great quantities, idlers, relic-hunters, and
adventurers in still greater ratio, and, last of all, citizens of
Virginia, solicitous to return to their farms and families. The mass of
these were rebuffed, as Pope had inaugurated his campaign with a show of
severity, even threatening to drive all the non-combatants out of his
lines, unless they took the Federal oath of allegiance. He gave me a
pass willingly, and chatted pleasantly for a time. In person he was
dark, martial, and handsome,--inclined to obesity, richly garbed in
civil cloth, and possessing a fiery black eye, with luxuriant beard and
hair. He smoked incessantly, and talked imprudently. Had he commenced
his career more modestly, his final discomfiture would not have been so
galling; but his vanity was apparent to the most shallow observer, and
although he was brave, clever, and educated, he inspired distrust by his
much promising and general love of gossip and story-telling. He had all
of Mr. Lincoln's garrulity (which I suspect to be the cause of their
affinity), and none of that good old man's unassuming common sense.
The next morning, at seven o'clock, I embarked for Alexandria, and
passed the better half of the forenoon in negotiating for a pony. At
eleven o'clock, I took my seat in a bare, filthy car, and was soon
whirled due southward, over the line of the Orange and Alexandria
railroad. The country between Alexandria and Warrenton Junction, or,
indeed, between Washington and Richmond, was not unlike those masterly
descriptions of Gibbon, detailing the regions overrun by Hyder Ali. The
towns stood like ruins in a vast desert, and one might write musing
epitaphs at every wind-beaten dwelling, whence the wretched denizens had
fled in cold and poverty to a doubtful hospitality in the far South.
Fences there were none, nor any living animals save the braying hybrids
which limped across the naked plains to eke out existence upon some
secluded patches of grass. These had been discharged from the army, and
they added rather than detracted from the lonesomeness of the wild.
Their great mournful eyes and shaggy heads glared from copses, and in
places where they had lain down beside the track to expire. If we
sometimes pity these dumb beasts as they drag loaded wains, or heavy
omnibuses, or sub-soil ploughs, we may also bestow a tender sentiment
upon the army mules. Flogged by teamsters, cursed by quartermasters,
ridiculed by roaring regiments of soldiers, strained and spavined by
fearful draughts, stalled in bogs and fainting upon hillsides,--their
bones will evidence the sites of armies, when the skeletons of men have
crumbled and become reabsorbed. I have seen them die like martyrs, when
the inquisitor, with his bloody lash, stood over them in the closing
pangs, and their last tremulous howl has almost moved to tears. Some of
the dwellings seemed to be occupied, but the tidiness of old times was
gone. The women seemed sunburnt and hardened by toil. They looked from
their thresholds upon the flying train, with their hair unbraided and
their garters ungyved,--not a negro left to till the fields, nor a son
or brother who had not travelled to the wars. They must be now hewers of
wood, and drawers of water, and the fingers whereon diamonds used to
sparkle, must clench the axe and the hoe.
At last we came to Bull Run, the dark and bloody ground where the first
grand armies fought and fled, and again to be consecrated by a baptism
of fire. The railway crossed the gorge upon a tall trestle bridge, and
for some distance the track followed the windings of the stream. A
black, deep, turgid current, flowing between gaunt hills, lined with
cedar and beech, crossed here and there by a ford, and vanishing, above
and below, in the windings of wood and rock; while directly beyond, lie
the wide plains of Manassas Junction, stretching in the far horizon, to
the undulating boundary of the Blue Ridge. As the Junction remains
to-day, the reader must imagine this splendid prospect, unbroken by
fences, dwellings, or fields, as if intended primevally to be a place
for the shock of columns, with redoubts to the left and right, and
fragments of stockades, dry rifle pits, unfinished or fallen
breastworks, and, close in the foreground, a medley of log huts for the
winter quartering of troops. The woods to the north mark the course of
Bull Run; a line of telegraph poles going westward points to Manassas
Gap; while the Junction proper is simply a point where two single track
railways unite, and a few frame "shanties" or sheds stand contiguous.
These are, for example, the "New York Head-quarters," kept by a person
with a hooked nose, who trades in cakes, lemonade, and (probably)
whiskey, of the brand called "rotgut;" or the "Union Stores," where a
person in semi-military dress deals in India-rubber overcoats,
underclothing, and boots. As the train halts, lads and negroes propose
to sell sandwiches to passengers, and soldiers ride up to take mail-bags
and bundles for imperceptible camps. In the distance some teams are
seen, and a solitary horseman, visiting vestiges of the battle; sidings
beside the track are packed with freight cars, and a small mountain of
pork barrels towers near by; there are blackened remains of locomotives
a little way off, but these have perhaps hauled regiments of
Confederates to the Junction; and over all--men, idlers, ruins, railway,
huts, entrenchments--floats the star-spangled banner from the roof of a
plank depot.
The people in the train were rollicking and well-disposed, and black
bottles circulated freely. I was invited to drink by many persons, but
the beverage proffered was intolerably bad, and several convivials
became stupidly drunk. A woman in search of her husband was one of the
passengers, and those contiguous to her were as gentlemanly as they knew
how to be. "A pretty woman, in war-time," said a Captain, aside, to me,
"is not to be sneezed at." At "Catlett's," a station near Warrenton
Junction, we narrowly escaped a collision with a train behind, and the
occupants of our train, women included, leaped down an embankment with
marvellous agility. Here we switched off to the right, and at four
o'clock dismounted at the pleasant village of Warrenton.