When her boys left home for the war it was then that she made her
sacrifice and proved her high-minded maternity that could let the larger
love of country and of mankind rise superior to the love of her own
flesh and blood. She keeps up the traditions of antiquity. Sparta had
not nobler women. Such mothers, who bless their parting sons and bid
them go, can receive them, living or dead, comforted and exalted with
pride that they were stirred by noble impulses and offered their lives
in the cause of humanity. We never know the celestial quantities our
every-day earth-born acquaintances possess until the hour of supreme
need comes to evoke them.
The problem of taking care of an army's sick is indeed no easy one. Our
army is still experimenting, or rather, it might be said, improving its
system with some phases of the matter yet under discussion. The
regimental hospital has been done away with, so that what was the
hospital of the regiment is now only a medical dispensary. Here, in
response to the sick call at 6:15 every morning, you may see a crowd of
soldiers, from 50 to 100 in number, lined up waiting to receive in turn
their capsules and pills. Two long pine trees in front of our dispensary
furnish acceptable seats to the weakened boys. In addition to medicines
there is little else left of all the complete and excellent equipment
the Third started out with, except a half-dozen or so litters, which are
used for taking up the sick out of their tents or carrying them off the
field to the dispensary until the ambulances can carry them to the
division hospital. There never having been any brigade hospitals, there
are in Camp Alger only division hospitals--first, second and third.
The Second Division hospital, where, as we belong to this division, our
sick are cared for, is organized with thorough system. In general
command there is some one of the regimental chief surgeons or brigade
surgeons. Then there is a full corps of officers with various ranks and
duties. There is a property officer with the rank of lieutenant, and so
they run. The chief steward has under him four other stewards and about
220 nurses, there being 24 nurses from each regiment permanently
detailed to this service. They are organized with captain, lieutenants,
and sergeants, very much like a company, and have regular litter drills
daily. There are three general wards, each making a white canvas
hall-like chamber nearly 50 paces in length, and three special wards, of
which one is for measles and another for critical ailments, and another
for surgical cases. In a very serious case, two special nurses are
called in and assigned wholly to its care.
The whole number of inmates from the nine regiments constituting our
division--that is, about 11,700 men--has run on a daily average from 60
to 80. The more critical cases, where it is practicable or advisable,
are removed to the Fort Myer hospital by the side of Arlington. The
hospital, situated centrally with reference to the various regiments to
which it belongs, now constitutes, with its numerous wards, its various
officers' quarters, its kitchen and mess tents, and the large number of
tents necessary for the nurses and stewards, a little camp all by
itself. Around it its own guards keep up their regular tread, and down
toward the general corral, where scores of government wagons and
government mules stand at feeding time, stand the dozen covered
ambulances that go night and day on their faithful missions.
On Monday, of this week, the Third underwent inspection by the general
inspection officer, Major Brown, of the Fourth Cavalry. Every man in the
regiment, and all the quarters and accoutrements, came under the trained
and uncompromising eye. At 8 a.m. the several companies were called in
battalions to the parade ground, where the soldiers, each with his usual
equipment of gun, knapsack, haversack, field-tent, and canteen, stood
under the already hot sun to be examined. Then, after disburdening
themselves, they were called out again to execute the movements which
the inspector might require of them. Some phase of the inspection
continued until late in the afternoon, when, beginning at 6 o'clock, the
entire regiment passed in review before General Davis, division
commander, and his staff. The fine showing we made elicited round after
round of cheering from our New York neighbors, and, at the conclusion,
high commendation from the reviewing general.
I will conclude with the presentation of another character. I had
frequently heard of J----, of Company K, and desired to make his
acquaintance. I was sitting on the band seats by our tall flagless
flagpole, watching the effects of the sunrise and of the first bugle
calls. I noticed some one advancing toward me from the direction of
Company K, at the extreme north side of the camp. It might have been
seen that, as he came on with grave and measured tread, the eyes of all
his comrades were upon him. But it was equally apparent that he for his
part disregarded everything. He came up, but spoke not a word and seemed
to be aware of no presence or beholding eye. Then he gravely unrolled a
cambric flag of the enormous and graceful proportions of 8 inches long
by 12 inches broad, and, attaching it to the rope, hoisted it to the top
of the pole, while his comrades loudly cheered and laughed at the
joke--to all of which he was utterly oblivious--returning with as much
gravity as he came. And the toy flag there floated where he raised it
aloft, "frenetic," as Browning says, "to be free." This fellow's
large-featured, benignant, Scottish face, with its fringe of hair
entirely encircling it, spoke full plainly of a big, jolly, generous
heart. The boys all call him "Honest Bill." The day we were going out
on our practice march J---- thought he didn't want to go. In fact, he
preferred to stay in the guard house. This was his scheme: He goes down
to the line of guards, is challenged, makes a dash through, but returns
and gives himself up. Quite successful! His large kindly face beams
happiness. What does his captain do? Nothing but send him along on the
march with the penalty of some days in the guard house hanging over his
devoted head. This was enough to try any flesh and blood, and almost
enough to provoke even a soldier to swear at his ill luck. I think J----
triumphantly resisted the evil one. When he returned to camp on the
third day, a wiser and seemingly no less happy man, he threw down from
his strong back not only his own burden of soldierly equipment, but the
packs of two of his comrades also who had grown faint in the long march.
So I know J----. Who, from this, doesn't know J----? His heart, sure, is
as big as his back is broad, and his nature as open as his face, which
shines like a harvest moon. God bless all such comrades.
VI.
THE THOROUGHFARE CAMPAIGN AND ENCAMPMENT IN THE SLOUGH OF DESPOND.
[There has been considerable said about the mistreatment of volunteer
soldiers now in the service of the government, and much of the talk of
suffering and want in the camps has been discredited because of its
seeming ridiculousness. Americans are not ready to believe that the
heads of the departments would permit the brave men to undergo the
trials and sufferings that have been so graphically pictured by the
newspapers, and the more conservative here put these idle rumors aside
as the work of sensation-mongers.
Now a minister of the gospel, a man who is at the front with the
soldiers, administering to them spiritual assistance and pointing them,
in their dark hours of distress, to a brighter future, has raised his
voice, and in words that sink deep into the heart and make the breast of
men shudder, he tells us that our boys are being murdered; that the
brave sons of Missouri are being cut down like grass before the scythe,
through the neglect and tyranny of officers in the army who are supposed
to look after their comfort.
Rev. R. T. Kerlin, chaplain of the Third Missouri Regiment, writes from
Thoroughfare Gap, Va., to a brother minister at St. Louis, telling him
of these things. Dr. Kerlin comes from Clay County, and the people of
this city and this State know him.
Dr. Kerlin's letter is published herewith, but he admits that, as
horrible as he has pictured the condition of the second division of the
Second Army Corps, it is even worse than he has made it appear, and that
the officers and men insisted that he make the truth more explicit that
aid might be gotten to them by the patriotic people of this State, in
whom they have confidence. The chaplain does not place the blame.]--_The
Kansas City Times._
The last week's itinerary of the second division of the Second Army
Corps, General Davis commanding, has been written in curses. The results
will be borne forever in the minds, hearts and bodies of 10,000
patriotic citizen-soldiers. Half-fed, wet and muddy, with no change of
clothes, a score, on an average, in each company bare-footed, the
volunteer soldiers of this division, as they go to their beds of wet
straw under their low dog-tents that let the rain through like sieves or
as they trudge through the mire of the stubble-field in which we are
encamped to-night, can find no language but oaths to express their sense
of ill-treatment.
Here is the story: It should be told in justice to these men, who have
offered their lives for their country, who represent the best elements
of our American citizenship, who are disposed to be manly, honest and
long-suffering, it should be told. As their pastor, knowing what
hardships they suffer, as well as what commandments they break, I will
attempt the narration.
One week ago to-night--Tuesday, August 2d--the order was issued about 9
p.m. for the regiments constituting this division to break camp at 8
a.m. the next day. Morning came, and a hotter day has not dawned this
hot season. An hour's delay, under heavy marching orders, was not rest.
At 9 o'clock the Third Missouri, or rather two battalions of it, less
the men who were bare-footed and sick, marched out of Camp Alger with
the first Rhode Island, Second Tennessee, One Hundred and Fifty-ninth
Indiana, Third New York, Twenty-second Kansas, Sixth Pennsylvania,
Seventh Illinois, Ninth Massachusetts and the recruits of Duffield's
separate brigade. Such forced marching was perhaps never required of
soldiers not beating a retreat or hurrying to a strategic point or an
imperative attack.
Within one hour after leaving camp the men were "killed." This is the
way they express it. The sweltering heat, the dust, the humid
atmosphere, the narrow, deep-cut, dusty roads, closed in by thick woods,
combined to make the marching difficult. Besides each man carried a
burden of not less than seventy pounds--gun, knapsack, haversack,
blanket, poncho, field-tent, canteen, mess outfit and day's
rations--what wonder that they fell out by dozens and scores?
Experienced army men said they never knew of such a day's march. It was
not the distance, for that was not so great. It was the conditions that
have been only barely indicated, and the absence of any apparent reason
for it all.
When Burk Station was reached three-fourths of all the men had fallen
out. This is a conservative estimate.
When the Third Missouri marched to Difficult Run a few weeks before--a
distance nearly as great--not 3 per cent of its men fell out. Company K,
for example, lost not a single man on that march. This company arrived
at Burk Station with fifteen men, all told, out of eighty-five that
started. Other companies fared much worse.
Rest the next day was simply imperative. Most of the men who had no
shoes had been left behind in the old camp. Now many others were in
their bare feet on stony ground. Besides this, rations were inadequate.
I saw men look at their petty dole of two onions, two potatoes, six
hardtacks and a chunk of fat salt pork--the issue for a day--and in
disgust toss it to the ground. Of course, the country was foraged. Those
who fell out on the march were not going to starve in a land of plenty,
even if a commandment, which they had respected hitherto, did say, "Thou
shalt not steal." Nor was it likely that those who came into camp would
be content with such scanty fare when corn in the fields about was in
roasting-ear and potatoes were abundant, and chickens and turkeys at the
farm-houses around threatened to make a night attack upon the camp
unless they themselves were first surprised and captured.
The boys did not always stop with the confiscation of this small game.
As they marched along the next day they amused the country people, who
flocked to the roadside to see them pass, by asking, "Who killed the
cow?" "Who killed the sheep?" and so on, and answering, "Such-and-such a
regiment."
From Camp Alger to Thoroughfare Gap, where we are now sunk in yellow
mud, not many farms within a mile of the road escaped a visit from
soldiers, who took or were given something to satisfy their hunger. I
rode on horseback behind the troops and made frequent side-excursions.
My statements are based on what I saw with my own eyes and learned from
the citizens and from the soldiers--the soldiers making no secret of the
fact as they deemed themselves justified by the circumstances.
The march from Burk Station to Bull Run was through mud. The night
before a heavy rain fell and every man in camp, possibly, got drenched.
Still the marching was improved, but rations were shorter and shoes were
more worn. But the boys kept up their spirits surprisingly, only saying
they would never forget the Maine, not adding "to ---- with Spain." It
was Sunday. I don't know that this made them swear less--who could have
told it was the Lord's day? If it had been in '62 and Stonewall Jackson
had been just beyond the Berkshire Hills, advancing on one of his
alarming maneuvers toward Washington, it would have been justifiable to
order tents struck at 5 o'clock Sunday morning that we might advance and
hold Thoroughfare Gap against the enemy. As it was--others besides the
chaplain simply submitted.
Our camp on Bull Run was well situated. It could not have been
healthier, the water supply for bathing purposes was the best we have
ever had, and for drinking purposes was adequate and fairly good. But we
were ordered to advance, and that night the soldiers who volunteered to
serve their country in a Christian cause slept tired, hungry and wet,
for another rain-storm beat through their little canvas kennels. Our
camp this time was on Broad Run, near Bristow. Remaining here over
Monday, we broke camp again this (Tuesday) morning, notwithstanding the
fact that the rain had poured in torrents during the night that the sky
was still overcast and lowering. As the men were marched out I asked a
surgeon what he thought of it. His answer was one word, "Murder."
Did you ever hear your country cursed by foreigners? That is nothing;
you know their curses harm her not, and despite all foreign prejudice
she will march on in her great career. But do you know how it would make
you feel to hear your own countrymen cursing the land that gave them
birth? Cursing, not as tramps might, not as unthinking and harmless
fools might, not as envious foreigners, but as patriotic, intelligent,
but ill-treated and outraged soldier-citizens. I have to-day heard
enough of this to grieve and sicken the heart. The men all day have
trudged under their burdens, through miry roads, and waded running
streams, that were sometimes waist-deep, and were drenched by two heavy
rains. It is raining now after "taps," and has been pouring down as it
can only in Virginia, ever since evening mess at 5:30.
The men know that heavy blame rests upon somebody. They will doubtless
be able to locate the responsibility before the march ends. I hope they
will, for their indignation is too burning to be misdirected. The
responsible party should bear it.
What sort of preaching will these men listen to? Who will dare to preach
the commandments to them--except those they are in no danger of
breaking? I think the wise and sympathetic Christ, who thought better of
publicans and sinners than of the tyrannous and unmerciful rulers of His
time would be able to speak words of comfort to these men and influence
them to righteousness. But He would first feed them, so the unexampled
story of His compassion relates--and there would be fragments to gather
up. There are no fragments to gather up in our camp where a dog would
starve to death if he depended on the castaway scraps--no fragments of
fishes where wagon-grease and machine-oil are used by the soldiers for
frying their potatoes in. As the disciples of the same divinely
compassionate Friend were not forbidden by Him to pluck and eat the corn
of the fields through which they passed, so shall my disciples, these
soldier men, not be forbidden by me.
Whatever other preachers might do, I cannot preach to them so long as
they are hungry, foot-sore, and suffering most of all under a sense of
ignoble treatment, while our country knows not the measure of its ready
wealth. Not long, I hope, will the citizen-soldiers, soon now again to
be free citizens, lay the charge of blame to their country, but only to
the incompetent or self-seeking parties who are responsible.
It is but the soberest judgment to say that, if all the volunteers have
been dealt with as these have been, there could be no volunteer army
raised in this country for years to come, should the need arise. It is
well for the government to think of this. Again, the present treatment
of the soldiers, by which they are driven to foraging and begging, is
making the army a school for tramps. If these soldiers are soon mustered
out in large numbers, this country will be overrun, harassed and
terrorized by tramps.
Meanwhile, their endurance, their self-control, their discipline and
good behavior can but be wondered at--not that all they do can be
approved of by any means--but the conduct of men is largely determined
by circumstances, and the circumstances in the present case are averse
to all morality.
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE WAR.
For our Country, in these days, to go to war is a very significant
event. In former times, for other nations, it meant not so much; the
provocation needed not to involve such high and general interests. To be
on the warpath, to plunder and be plundered, to kill and be killed is
with the barbarian the usual thing. Of our own Teutonic ancestors this
was true less, much less, than ten centuries ago; and it is very slow
indeed that we have outgrown their barbaric, warlike propensity. Still,
warfare, with the advance of civilization and the increasing power of
peaceful arts, with the spread and the strengthening of the sentiments
of humanity, and with the deepening of the sense of universal human
brotherhood, has gradually grown more and more to be deprecated,
condemned and avoided.
Therefore, in the Nineteenth Century of Christ, the Prince of Peace, to
take up arms and go to war against a sister nation and slay our brother
man is a remarkable event, well worth the while of American citizens to
reflect upon the causes--they must needs be unique, extraordinary,
characteristic of the enlightened time and country in which we live.
Could the provocation be other than of a moral and humanitarian nature?
Must it not needs be addressed to Conscience and to the sense of all
those high and Christian principles for which America stands? Surely,
else, in this day, such sacrifice of life and treasure would never be
made. And so it was in our recent war. The very sentiments which the
Prince of Peace, the preacher of brotherhood, kindled in our hearts,
were quickened into a flame of noble hostility against the barbarous
oppressor of another people. Our very enlightenment of Conscience, our
moral culture, our Christian spirit itself impelled us to war. Could we
prate of fellow-sympathy, of brotherhood, of humanitarianism, and yet
not make even the last effort, by a resort to arms, to deliver a people
down-trodden, plundered, enslaved? Never may our hearts be so hardened,
never may our souls be so dead to generous impulse, never may our
thoughts be so abjectly selfish, that we will not sacrifice all for
human rights, for freedom, for justice, for the happiness and ultimate
peace of the world.
I thank God for this war--it means so much for us, and through us for
mankind. Look at its vast significance. Our nation has experienced a
deep awakening such as this generation never felt before, and such as it
needed. Its conscience has been cultivated; all the nobler sentiments of
life have been given a wondrous new strength. These rose to dominion in
our lives, new impulses moved us, new ideals passed before us--we have
entered upon a new career of moral life, upon a higher plane, for we
undertook a great work for humanity and counted not the cost. We became
free from our habitual indifference, we despised our very lives,
offering them a ransom for the oppressed. Such a six-months of
self-forgetting morally enthusiastic life and oblation of peace,
comfort, treasure, and blood, were worth more to us than any score of
slothful years lived only for material gain. A nation may indeed be
"beastly prosperous." America, thank God, is not; though prosperous, she
is beyond example. Never did there live a people who made such worthy,
such philanthropic uses of their prosperity. Never did rich and poor,
the monarch of millions, and the possessor of a bare competence, make in
any land or time so noble a use of his material means. Witness our
colleges and universities, our churches and charitable institutions, our
libraries and museums; witness this war for an oppressed people.
Thank God we are not insensible of high demands upon us! Thank God we
are not wholly mercenary and materialistic! Thank God we are responsive,
disinterestedly, but with wealth and life itself, to other claims than
those of self and selfish getting and sending! We, who are called
pig-stickers, are capable of generous action--we have given ourselves
for the deliverance of the oppressed, thank God!
Who complains now that this generation is degenerate? Who now is
pessimistic? Who now taunts the youth of the land with being unworthy
sons of worthy sires? Who that knows of San Juan and El Caney, of
Santiago Harbor and Manila Bay, sighs for the heroic days of old and the
braver men?
The events of the last six months should give us confidence in the
better possibilities of ourselves. Europeans taunt us with having
everything "big" but nothing "great;" big cities, big rivers, big lakes,
big mountains, big crops, but no great works of art, no great
achievements in science and literature, no great men. False to begin
with. This generation is destined to prove it more glaringly so. There
is nothing too great to be achieved by those who felt and responded to
the high motive of this war.
What is the national result of the conflict? New impulses, new motives,
new interests, new ideals, new duties, broader views, vaster
undertakings, a richer national life. Put the oak that has planted his
roots deep and far out into the nurturing soil and lifted his
storm-defying brow toward heaven; put the lordly oak tree back into the
acorn hull; or seize the strong-pinioned eagle after he has soared above
the mountain peaks and challenged the tempests of the sea, seize and
cage him again in his broken shell, and then you may hope to diminish
our country to what it was, confining its expanded members by the old
bonds and subjecting its enlarged activities to the old ideals.
When were the great days of Greece? After the stormy period of the
Persian wars. It was struggle that made her great. It was Philip of
Macedon that crowned Demosthenes prince of orators; it was Xerxes and
Darius of Persia that laureled so many poets of the city they sought to
destroy. It was the shock of the tumultuous waves of an invading host,
it was the tempest of war that roused the life-forces of classic Helena,
and after the days of heroic struggle came the period of great
achievement in the pursuits of peace. It was then that art, sculpture,
music, poetry, and eloquence flourished as never in secure days of
slothful ease.