impatient to get there! What a march we had! all day and all night, the
engine helping us a little, and we helping the engine by hunting up and
replacing now and then a stray rail which the traitors had torn from the
track. A good many got used up, and Charley Homans took 'em aboard the
train. It was on that march I fell in with one of the pleasantest fellows
I ever saw; always full of wit and good-humor, with a cheery word for
every body. He belonged to the New York Seventh. He told me his name was
Winthrop. But I did not know till afterwards that he was Theodore
Winthrop, the author; afterwards Major Winthrop, who fell last June--only
two months after--at Big Bethel."
"It was a North Carolina drummer boy that shot him," said Frank.
"Winthrop was heading the attack on the battery; he jumped upon a log,
and was calling to the men, 'Come on!' when the drummer boy took a gun,
aimed deliberately, and shot him dead."
"I wouldn't want to be killed by a miserable drummer boy!" said Jack
Winch, envious because Frank remembered the incident.
"A drummer boy may be as brave as any body," said Frank, keeping his
temper. "But I wouldn't want to be even the bravest drummer boy, in a bad
cause."
"And as for being shot," said Gray, "I think Jack wouldn't willingly
place himself where there was much danger of being killed by any body."
"You'll see! you'll see!" said Jack, testily. "Just wait till the time
comes."
"What water is this the town fronts on?" asked Frank.
"The Chesapeake, of course! Who don't know that?" said Jack,
contemptuously.
"Only it ain't!" said Gray, with a quiet laugh. "This is the River
Severn. The Chesapeake is some two miles below."
"There, Jack," said Ned Ellis, "I'd give up now. You don't know quite so
much as you thought you did."
"What a queer old town it is," said Frank, generously wishing to draw
attention from Jack's mortification. "It isn't a bit like Boston. It
don't begin to be as smart a place."
"Of course not!" said Jack, more eager than ever now to appear knowing.
"And why should it be? Boston is the capital of Massachusetts; and if
Annapolis was only the capital of this state, it would be smart enough."
"What is the capital of this state?" asked Gray, winking slyly at Frank.
"Baltimore! I thought every body knew that," said Jack, with an air of
importance.
This ludicrous blunder raised a great laugh.
"O Jack! O Jack Winch! where did you go to school?" said Joe Harris, "not
to know that Frederick is the capital of Maryland."
"So it is! I had forgotten," said Jack. "Of course I knew Frederick was
the capital, if I had only thought."
At this the boys laughed louder than ever, and Jack flew into a passion.
"Harris was fooling you," whispered Frank. "Annapolis is the capital.
Gray is taking us now to see the State House."
"Ha, ha, ha!" Winch suddenly burst forth. "Did you think I didn't know?
Annapolis is the capital; and there's the State House."
"Is it possible?" said Gray. "The rebels must have changed it then, for
that was St. John's College when I was here before."
The boys shouted with merriment; all except Jack, who was angry. He had
been as fickle at his studies, when at school, as he had always been at
every thing else; never sticking long to any of them, but forever
beginning something new; until, at last, ignorant of all, he gave up,
declaring that he had knowledge enough to get through the world with, and
that he wasn't going to bother his brain with books any longer. It added
now to his chagrin to think that he had not education enough to prevent
him from appearing ridiculous among his mates, and that the golden
opportunity of acquiring useful information in his youth was lost
forever.
Meanwhile Frank's reflections were very different. Gray's reminiscences
of April had strongly impressed upon his mind the fact that he was now on
the verge of his country's battle-fields; that this was the first soil
that had been wrested from the grasp of treason, and saved for the
Union,--that the ground he stood upon was already historic. And now the
sight of some negroes reminded him that he was for the first time in his
life in a _slave state_.
"These are the fellows that are the cause of this war," said Gray,
indicating the blacks.
"Yes," said Winch, anxious to agree with him, "it's the abolitionists
that have brought the trouble on the country. They insisted on
interfering with the rights of the south, and so the south rebelled."
"We never interfered with slavery in the states where it belonged," said
Frank, warmly. "The north opposed the extension of slavery over new
territory, and took the power of the government out of the hands of the
slaveholders, who had used it for their own purposes so long; and that is
what made them rebel."
"Well, the north is partly to blame," insisted Jack, thinking he had Gray
on his side.
"Yes; to blame for letting the slaveholders have their own way so long,"
said Frank. "And just as much to blame for this rebellion, as my father
would be for my conduct, if he should attempt to enforce discipline at
home, and I should get mad at it and set the house on fire."
"A good comparison," said Gray. "Because we were going to restore the
spirit of the constitution, which is for freedom, and always was, though
it has been obliged to tolerate slavery, the slaveholders, as Frank says,
got mad and set Uncle Sam's house afire."
"He had heard somebody else say so, or he wouldn't have thought of it,"
said Jack, sullenly.
"No matter; it's true!" said Gray. "The south is fighting for
slavery,--the corner-stone of the confederacy, as the rebel
vice-president calls it,--while the north----"
"We are fighting for the Constitution and the Union!" said Jack.
"That's true, too; for the constitution, as I said, means freedom; and
now the Union means, union _without_ slavery, since we have seen that
union with slavery is impossible. We are fighting for the same thing our
forefathers fought for--Liberty!"
"They won liberty for the whites only," said Frank. "Now we are going to
have liberty for all men."
"If I had a brother that was a slaveholder and secessionist, I wouldn't
say any thing," sneered Jack.
Frank felt cut by the taunt; but he said, gayly,--
"I won't spoil a story for relation's sake! Come, boys, politics don't
suit Jack, so let's have a song; the one you copied out of the newspaper,
Gray. It's just the thing for the occasion."
Franks voice was a fine treble; Gray's a mellow bass. Others joined them,
and the party returned to the Academy, singing high and clear these
words:--
"The traitor's foot is on thy shore,
Maryland, my Maryland!
His touch is on thy senate door,
Maryland, my Maryland!
Avenge the patriotic gore
That stained the streets of Baltimore,
When vandal mobs our banners tore,
Maryland, my Maryland!
"Drum out thy phalanx brave and strong,
Maryland, my Maryland!
Drum forth to balance right and wrong,
Maryland, my Maryland!
Drum to thy old heroic song,
When forth to fight went Freedom's throng.
And bore the spangled flag along,
Maryland, my Maryland!"
"That's first rate!" said Frank, who delighted in music. "Gray altered
the words a little, and Mr. Sinjin found us the tune."
"Frank likes any thing that has a drum in it," said John Winch,
enviously. "He'll get sick of drums, though, soon enough, I guess."
"Jack judges me by himself," said Frank, gayly, setting out to run a race
with Gray to the parade-ground.
IX.
THANKSGIVING IN CAMP.
St. John's College stands on a beautiful eminence overlooking the city.
The college, like the naval school, had been broken up by the rebellion;
its halls and dormitories were appropriated to government uses, and the
regiment was removed thither the next day.
"You will be surprised," Frank wrote home, "to hear that I have been
through the naval school since I came here, and that I am now in
college."
Few boys get through college as quick as he did. On the following day the
regiment abandoned its new quarters also, and encamped two miles without
the city. In the afternoon the tents were pitched; and where was only a
barren field before, arose in the red sunset light the canvas city, with
its regular streets, its rows of tent doors opening upon them, and its
animated, laughing, lounging, working inhabitants.
The next morning was fine. All around the camp were pleasant growths of
pine, oak, gum, and persimmon trees, and now and then a tree festooned
with wild grape-vines. Near by were a few scattered ancient-looking
farm-houses, with their out-door chimneys, dilapidated out-buildings,
negro huts, and tobacco fields. There were several other regiments in the
vicinity,--two of Massachusetts boys. And there the New York Zouaves, in
their beautiful Oriental costumes, were encamped. Frank climbed a tree,
and looked far around on the picturesque and warlike scene. The pickets,
which had gone out the night before, now returning, discharged their
loaded pieces at targets, the reports blending musically with the near
and distant roll of drums.
"What is the cheering for?" asked Frank, as he came in that day from a
ramble in the woods.
"For General Burnside," said Gray. "All the troops rendezvousing at
Annapolis are to be under his command, to be called the Coast Division.
It is to be another Great Armada; and our colonel thinks we shall see
fighting soon."
This good news had made the regiment almost wild with joy; for it desired
nothing so much as to be led against the enemy by some brave and famous
general.
Frank loved the woods; and the next day he induced his companions to go
with him and hunt for nuts and fruits. Although it was late in autumn,
there were still persimmons and wild grapes to be had, and walnuts, and
butternuts. But Frank had another object in view than that of simply
pleasing his appetite. Thanksgiving day, which is bred in the bones of
the New Englander, and which he carries with him every where, was at
hand, and the drummer boy had thought of something which he fancied would
suit well the festal occasion.
"What are you there after?" said John Winch, from a persimmon tree;
"filling your hands with all that green stuff. Come here; O, these little
plums are delicious, I tell you."
"These grapes are the thing," said Harris, from another tree. "I'm going
to eat all I can; then I'm going to get my pockets full of nuts and carry
back to camp."
Frank busied himself in his own way, however, and returned to camp with
his arms loaded with evergreens.
"What in time are you about?" said Winch, as Frank set himself
industriously to work with twigs and strings. "Oh, I know; wreaths! Boys,
le's make some wreaths. Give me some of your holly, won't you, Frank?"
"Yes," said Frank, "take all you want to use. I shall be very glad to
have you help me."
"Will you show me how?"
"Yes," said Frank; "sit down here. Bend your twigs and tie them together,
in the first place, for a frame. Then bind the holly on it, this way."
"O, ain't it fun?" said Winch, with his usual enthusiasm over a new
thing. "When we get these evergreens used up, we'll get some more, and
make wreaths for all the tents." He worked for about ten minutes; then
began to yawn. "Where's my pipe? I'm going to have a smoke. How can you
have patience with that nonsense, Frank? What's the use of a wreath,
anyhow, after it's made? Girl's play, I call it."
And off went Winch, having used up a ball of Frank's strings to no
purpose, and leaving his wreath half finished.
But Frank, never easily discouraged, kept cheerfully at work, leaving his
task only when duty called him.
Thursday came,--THANKSGIVING. A holiday in camp. The regiment had made
ample preparations to celebrate it. Instead of pork and salt junk, the
men were allowed turkeys; and in place of boiled hominy and molasses,
they had plum pudding. And they feasted, and told gay stories, and sang
brave songs, and thought of home, where parents, wives, sisters, and
friends were, they fondly believed, eating turkey and plum pudding at
the same time, and thinking of them. There was no drill that day; and no
practise with any drumsticks but those of the devoted turkeys.
One of the most pleasing incidents of the day occurred in the morning.
This was the presentation of wreaths. Frank had made one for each of the
company tents, and a fine one for Captain Edney, and one equally fine for
Mr. Sinjin, the drum-major, and a noble one for the colonel of the
regiment. He presented them all in person, except the last, which he
requested Captain Edney to present for him. The captain consented, and at
the head of a strong delegation of officers and men, proceeded to Colonel
----'s tent, called him out, and made a neat little speech, and presented
the wreath on the end of his sword.
The colonel seemed greatly pleased.
"I accept this wreath," he said, "as the emblemof a noble thought, which
I am sure must have inspired our favorite young drummer boy in making
it."
Frank blushed like a girl with surprise and pleasure at this unexpected
compliment.
"The wreath," continued the colonel, "is the crown of victory; and we
will hang up ours, my fellow-soldiers, on this memorable Thanksgiving
day, as beautiful and certain symbols of the success of BURNSIDE'S
EXPEDITION."
This short speech was greeted with enthusiastic applause. Frank was
delighted with the result of his little undertaking, feeling himself a
thousand times repaid for all his pains; while John Winch, seeing him in
such high favor with every body, could not help regretting, with many a
jealous pang, that he had not assisted in making the wreaths, and so
become one of the heroes of the occasion.
That evening another incident occurred, not less pleasing to the drummer
boy. With a block of wood for a seat, and the head of his drum for a
desk, he was writing a letter to his mother, by a solitary candle, around
which his comrades were playing cards on a table constructed of a rough
board and four sticks. Amid the confusion of laughter and disputes, with
heads or arms continually intervening between him and the uncertain
light, he was pursuing his task through difficulties which would have
made many a boy give up in vexation and despair, when a voice suddenly
exclaimed, with startling emphasis,--
"Frank Manly, drummer!" And at the same instant something was thrown into
the tent, like a bombshell, passing the table, knocking over the candle,
and extinguishing the light.
"Well, that's manners, I should say," cried the voice of Seth Tucket, a
fellow, as Frank described him, "who makes lots of fun for us, partly
because he is full of it himself, and partly because he is green, and
don't know any better." Tucket muttered and spat, then broke forth again,
"I be darned ef that pesky football didn't take me right in the face, and
spatter my mouth full of taller."
"Well, save the _taller_, Seth, for we're getting short of candles," said
Frank. "Here, who is walking on my feet?"
"It's me," said Atwater. "I'm going out to see who threw that thing in."
"You're too late," said Frank. "Strike a light, somebody, and let's see
what it is. It tumbled down here by my drum, I believe."
There was a general scratching of matches, and after a while the broken
candle was set up and relighted.
"I swan to man," then said Tucket, "jest look at that jack-of-spades. He
got it in the physiognomy wus'n I did. 'Alas, the mother that him bare,
if she had been in presence there, in his _greased cheeks_ and _greasier
hair_, she had not known her child.'"
These words from Marmion, aptly altered to suit the occasion, Seth, who
was not so green but that he knew pages of poetry by heart, repeated in a
high-keyed, nasal sing-song, which set all the boys laughing.
"A pretty way, too, to _turn up_ Jack, I should say," he added, in
allusion to the candlestick,--a _turnip_, with a hole in it,--which had
rolled over his cards.
In the mean time, Frank and Jack Winch were scrambling for the missile.
"Let me have it," snarled Jack.
"It's mine; my name was called when it was flung in," said Frank,
maintaining his hold.
"Well, keep it, then!" said John. "It's nothing but a great wad of
paper."
"It's a torpedo! an infernal machine!" cried Tucket. "Look out, Manly!
it'll blow us all into the next Fourth of July."
Frank laughed, as he began to undo the package. The first wrapper was of
brown paper with these words written upon it, in large characters:--
"FRANK MANLY, _Drummer_.
_Inquire Within._"
Beneath that wrapper was another, and beneath that another, and so on,
apparently an endless series. The boys all gathered around Frank, looking
on as he removed the papers one by one, until the package, originally as
big as his head, had dwindled to the dimensions of his fist.
"It's got as many peels as an onion," said Tucket.
"Nothing but papers. I told ye so!" said Jack Winch.
But Frank perceived that the core of the package was becoming
comparatively solid and weighty. There was certainly something besides
paper there. What could it be? a stone? But what an odd-shaped stone it
was! Stones are not often of such regular shape, so uniformly round and
flattened. He had almost reached the last wrapper; his heart was beating
anxiously; but, before he removed it, he thought he heard a peculiar
sound, and held down his ear. A flush of delight overspread his
countenance, and he clasped the ball in both hands, as if it had been
something precious.
"O, boys!" he exclaimed, looking up eagerly for their sympathy, "where
_did_ it come from? Atwater, did you see any body?"
Nobody. It was all a mystery.
"Boys, it's for me, isn't it?" said Frank, still hugging his treasure, as
if afraid even of looking at it, lest it should fly away.
"Come, let's see!" and Winch impatiently made a snatch to get at it.
Atwater coolly took him by the arm, and pulled him back. Then Frank,
carefully as a young mother uncovered the face of her sleeping baby,
removed the tinsel paper, which now alone intervened between the object
and his hand, and revealed to the astonished eyes of his comrades a tiny,
beautiful, smiling-faced silver watch.
"O, isn't it a beauty?" said Frank, almost beside himself with delight;
for a watch was a thing of which he had greatly felt the need in beating
his calls, and wished for in vain. "Who could have sent it? Don't you
know, boys, any of you?" he asked, the mystery that came with the gift
filling him with strange, perplexed gladness.
"All I know is," said Tucket, "I'd be willing to have six candles, all
lit, knocked down my throat, and eat taller for a fortnight, ef such a
kind of a football, infernal machine,--_watch you call it_,--would only
come to me."
"Frank'll feel bigger 'n ever now, with a watch in his pocket," said the
envious Jack Winch, with a bitter grin.
All had some remark to make except Atwater, who stood with his arms drawn
up under his cape, and smiled down upon Frank well pleased.
Frank in the mean time was busily engaged in trying to discover, among
all the papers, some scrap of writing by which the unknown donor might be
traced. But writing there was none. And the mystery remained unsolved.
X.
FRANK'S PROGRESS.
So passed Thanksgiving in camp.
The next day the boys, with somewhat lugubrious faces, returned to their
hard diet of pork and hominy, heaving now and then a sigh of fond
remembrance, as they thought of yesterday's puddings and turkeys.
And now came other hardships. The days were generally warm, sometimes hot
even, like those of July in New England. But the nights were cold, and
growing colder and colder as the winter came on. And the tents were but a
thin shelter, and clothing was scanty, and the men suffered. Many a time
Frank, shivering under his blanket, thought, with a swelling and homesick
heart, of Willie in his soft, warm bed, of his mother's inexhaustible
store of comforters, and of the kitchen stove and the family breakfast,
those raw wintry mornings.
From the day the regiment encamped, the men had expected that they were
soon to move again. But now they determined that, even though they should
have orders to march in three days, they would make themselves
comfortable in the mean while. They accordingly set to work constructing
underground stoves, covered with flat stones, with a channel on one side
to convey away the smoke, and a deeper channel on the other for the
draft. These warmed the earth, and kept up an even temperature in the
tents all night.
I said Frank sometimes had homesick feelings. It was not alone the
hardships of camp life that caused them. But as yet he had not received a
single letter from his friends, and his longing to get news from them was
such as only those boys can understand who have never been away from home
until they have suddenly gone upon a long and comfortless journey, and
who then begin to realize, as never before, all the loving care of their
parents, the kindness of brothers and sisters, and the blessedness of the
dear old nest from which they have untimely flown.
Owing to the uncertainty of the regiment's destination, Captain Edney had
told his men to have all their friends' letters to them directed to
Washington. There they had been sent, and there, through some
misunderstanding or neglect, they remained. And though a small mail-bag
full had been written to Frank, this was the reason he had never yet
received one.
Alas for those missing letters! The lack of them injured Frank more
deeply and lastingly than simply by wounding his heart. For soon that
hurt began to heal. He was fast getting used to living without news from
his family. He consoled himself by entering more fully than he had done
at first into the excitements of the camp. And the sacred influence of
HOME, so potent to solace and to save, even at a distance, was wanting.
And here begins a portion of Frank's history which I would be glad to
pass over in silence. But, as many boys will probably read this story who
are not altogether superior to temptation, and who do not yet know how
easy it is for even a good-hearted, honest, and generous lad sometimes to
forget his mother's lessons and his own promises, and commence that slow,
gradual, downward course, which nearly always begins before we are aware,
and from which it is then so hard to turn back; and as many may learn
from his experience, and so save themselves much shame and their friends
much anguish, it is better that Frank's history should be related without
reserve.
In the first place, he learned to smoke. He began by taking a whiff, now
and then, out of the pipe of a comrade, just to be in fashion, and to
keep himself warm those chill evenings and mornings. Then a tobacco
planter gave him, in return for some polite act on his part, a bunch of
tobacco leaves, which Frank, with his usual ingenuity, made up into
cigars for himself and friends. The cigars consumed, he obtained more
tobacco of some negroes, addicted himself to a pipe, and became a regular
smoker.
Now, I don't mean to say that this, of itself, was a very great sin. It
was, however, a foolish thing in Frank to form at his age a habit which
might tyrannize over him for life, and make him in the end, as he himself
once said to John Winch, "a filthy, tobacco-spitting old man."
But the worst of it was, he had promised his mother he would not smoke.
He thought he had a good excuse for breaking his word to her. "I am
sure," he said, "if she knew how cold I am sometimes, she wouldn't blame
me." Unfortunately, however, when one promise has been broken, and nobody
hurt, another is broken so easily!
Ardent, sympathetic, fond of good-fellowship, Frank caught quickly the
spirit of those around him. He loved approbation, and dreaded any thing
that savored of ridicule. He disliked particularly the appellation of
"the parson," which John Winch, finding that it annoyed him, used now
whenever he wished to speak of him injuriously. Others soon fell into the
habit of applying to him the offensive title, without malice indeed, and
for no other reason, I suppose, than that nicknames are the fashion in
the army. To call a man simply by his honest name seems commonplace; but
to christen him the "Owl" if his eyes are big, or "Old Tongs" if his legs
are long, or "Step-and-fetch-it" if he suffers himself to be made the
underling and cats-paw of his comrades,--that is considered picturesque
and amusing.