THE BEGINNING OF SOLDIER LIFE.
A curious scene presented itself at the Junction. But before we attempt
to describe the former, we will give the reader some idea of the latter.
The Junction was the terminus of one railroad and the junction of two
others. One of the railroads led to Washington, one to Pittsburg, and
one to Baltimore. It was not a large town; a village of perhaps twelve
or fifteen hundred inhabitants, blackened by the smoke of engines. The
surrounding country was broken and rough, with hills rising upon hills,
deep ravines, rocky gorges, and winding streams, lined with a luxuriant
growth of pine and maple, while far away in the distance the gray peaks
of mountains could be seen.
The Junction was about twenty miles north-east of Snagtown, there being
no railroad to the latter place, though there was a hard beaten
turnpike, with a daily mail-coach running between the two. Some of the
houses about the Junction were of brick, but the majority of wood. There
were neat little cottages, looking like fairy abodes, amid the green
vines and blooming flowers of Spring-time, and there were cottages
neither neat nor fairy-like in aspect; the log hovel, showing signs of
decay and neglect. But the village, taken as a whole, was a very pretty
place.
It was about the 1st of May. The President had called for eighty-two
thousand more men, finding seventy-five thousand wholly inadequate to
put down the rebellion. Virginia was at this period in a constant state
of alarm. Sumter had fallen, Harper's Ferry and Norfolk Navy-yard were
in the hands of the rebels, while a mob, in the city of Baltimore, had
attacked Massachusetts and Pennsylvania troops on their way to the
defense of Washington.
The Federal Government, on the other hand, was straining every nerve. It
had collected about Washington, as speedily as possible, under General
Scott, the veteran hero of Chippewa, Lundy's Lane, and the Mexican War,
the volunteers who flocked to their country's defense in answer to the
President's call. Volunteer companies were raising all over the country.
In the extreme Northern States, in the defense of the Federal
Government; in the extreme Southern States, in defense of the
Confederate Government, and in some of the Middle and Western States,
companies were raised for both sides. In fact, there were men in some of
the more Northern slave States, who mustered with the rebels and were
actually in the Confederate service before they knew it.
In Virginia, as we have shown, both sides were represented. The
Junction, on account of its railroad facilities, was an important point
to guard, and about three hundred volunteers, under Colonel Holdfast,
were here stationed. Of these raw recruits, there was but one company
that was a complete organization, uniformed and armed at the expense of
the Government. It was a company of mounted infantry, under command of
Captain Wardle, armed with musket, uniformed in the Government blue, and
furnished with horses in order to scout the country.
The Government found it impossible to turn out arms and clothing fast
enough to supply the volunteers at once, and it was late in the Summer
of 1861 before they were all equipped. Many armed themselves, as was the
case with two hundred of those at the Junction. Their arms consisted of
rifles, shot-guns, and such other weapons as they were able to furnish
themselves with.
The Junction, as we have said, presented a curious scene. Five tall,
white army tents had been erected for Captain Wardle's men, and there
were a score or more enclosures, ambitious to be known as tents, made
from Virginia wagon-covers, sail-cloth, oil-cloth, sheeting, and
bed-ticking. They were of various sizes and shapes; some so small that
four men would fill them; others large enough to hold twenty-five. Some
of them were square, some round, like Indian wigwams, and others more
like a circus canvas than anything we can compare them to.
The tents were a motley assemblage, and so, and to a greater extent,
were the men therein sheltered. There was first the company of Captain
Wardle, properly uniformed and armed, and intensely military in
appearance and behavior. They were always drilling when not scouting the
country; the raw recruits standing by, overwhelmed with admiration at
their easy proficiency in the manual of arms, or the intricate and
mysterious movements of the company drill.
It was early morning, and the smoke was ascending from half a hundred
camp-fires. The scene was a constantly varying panorama of straw hats,
linen coats, broadcloth coats, colored, flannel and white shirts. An
orderly sergeant was trying to initiate a squad of raw recruits into
some of the mysteries of drilling.
"Remember the position of a soldier," said the orderly. "Heels close
together, head up, the eyes striking the ground twenty paces away. Now,
shoulder arms! Great Moses! Tom Koontz, can't you learn how to handle a
gun? Keep the barrel vertical. Do you call that vertical?"
"What d'ye mean by sayin' vartical?" asked Koontz.
The orderly explained for the hundredth time, that vertical meant
straight up and down. He had them then count off by twos, beginning at
the right, then he instructed them that at the order of "right face,"
number one was to take a half step obliquely to the right, and number
two a step and a half to the left, bringing them in double file at right
face. But when he gave the order, half of the men had forgotten their
number. Confusion and dismay resulted, and the long suffering orderly
sat down and swore until he was exhausted.
Camp-life was new to all, and its novelty kept all in a perpetual
excitement. There was but little discipline. Officers ordered men and
men ordered each other. Every one had suggestions to make, and those who
knew the least offered the most of them.
"I tell you," said Sergeant Swords to Corporal Grimm, "that tent is not
strong. The center pole is too weak, and the guy ropes are rotten. It'll
go down."
"I always knowed them boys didn't know how to fix a tent," said
Corporal Grimm, plying his jaws vigorously on a huge piece of pig-tail
tobacco.
"Yes, sir; they've got a good deal to learn yet," said Sergeant Swords,
with a sigh.
"I do hate to see any one, who don't know anything about soldier life,
pretend to know so much," said Corporal Grimm, who had had ten days'
experience before he enlisted in his present company.
"So do I," said Sergeant Swords, who had seen at least six days'
service. "They'll find yet they had better take some one else's advice
what's had experience. Why, when I was with Captain Strong's men, and we
marched forty miles to Goose Creek Bridge to keep the rebels from
burnin' it, we fixed a tent up like that, and the first night after we
encamped, there came up a rain-storm, and blowed the thing a quarter of
a mile into a brush heap."
"Did I ever tell you what a hard time we had when I was under General
Preston;" asked Corporal Grimm, by way of introduction to a story which
should redound to his own greatness.
"No, I believe not," answered Sergeant Swords, with more courtesy than
truthfulness, for he had heard the story at least a dozen times.
"Well, sir, them was tryin' times," said Corporal Grimm, shaking his
head and masticating his quid with the air of a man who has suffered.
"Why, sir, we marched eighty-five miles on foot, and all the rations we
got was dried bacon, hams, and crackers. Oh, I just thought I would give
anything for something substantial to eat, or a drink of coffee! The
boys all run out of tobacco, too, an' we had an awful time." The thought
of these hardships brought to his face an expression of extreme agony.
"Why didn't you press something to eat? You passed through a country
where there was plenty, didn't you?" asked Sergeant Swords.
"Yes, but what could fifteen hundred men do at pressin'? Why, they
couldn't a got enough to feed one brigade, let alone our whole army,"
answered Corporal Grimm, who, as much service as he had seen, did not
exactly know how many men it took to constitute a brigade.
"We soldiers have hard times," said Sergeant Swords, brushing some of
the mud off his blue jean coat. "Wonder how soon we'll draw our clothing
and arms?"
"Don't know, but hope soon. I'm tired of these farmer brown breeches. I
want a blue coat with stripes on the sleeves."
At this moment there came a blast from the bugle.
"Roll call," said Sergeant Swords.
A general gathering of each company about the Captain's tent followed.
Abner Tompkins was First Lieutenant of the company of which Sergeant
Swords and Corporal Grimm were members. He had been with the company now
for over a week.
The morning drill was over, and the volunteers were lounging about the
tents, on the grass; Abner was leaning with his arm across the
saddle-bow of his faithful horse, that he was about to turn out to
graze. The mind of the young lieutenant was full of fancies and
memories. His sudden departure from home, his interview with Irene, the
parting with his brother, all were fresh in his thoughts, and his eyes
naturally wandered back toward the road that led to his home. A familiar
sight met his view. Coming down the hill, attended by a member of his
own company, who had been on picket guard, was his father's carriage
driven by the family coachman.
Abner started. Why was he coming to the Junction? The carriage drove up
to Abner's tent, and the guard, making what he meant for a military
salute, said:
"Lieutenant, here is a man as says he wants to see you."
"All right, Barney, you can leave him here."
The guard turned, and hurried back to his post as though the Nation's
safety depended on his speed.
The driver opened the carriage door, Mr. Tompkins alighted, and father
and son met with a cordial hand-grasp. Abner led his father into the
officers' tent which was at present deserted by its usual occupants.
"Have you seen Oleah since?" asked Abner.
"I have," was the reply.
"Where?"
"At his camp."
"Why, father, how dare you go there, when your sentiments are known to
be directly opposed to their cause? It was very dangerous."
"Not very dangerous, since I have a son who is an officer in that army."
"What office does Oleah hold?"
"Second Lieutenant."
"I suppose Seth Williams and Howard Jones are there?"
"Yes, and Harry Smith."
"Harry Smith?"
"Yes."
"Why, he is no Confederate at heart."
"So are not a great many who are in their ranks."
"I have been daily expecting Diggs here," said Abner.
"Diggs, Henry Diggs?" asked Mr. Tompkins curiously.
"Yes; he promised me he would come here and join our company," said
Abner.
"He is on the other side," replied Mr. Tompkins.
"What?"
"He is on the other side. He is a corporal in Oleah's company."
"Why, the contemptible little scamp! He promised me faithful he would
come here and enlist."
"He is a man who cannot resist persuasion, and someone on the other side
got the last persuade of him."
"True, Diggs has no mind of his own," said Abner.
"I have sometimes wished that my sons' minds were not quite so decidedly
their own," said the planter with a sad smile and a doubtful shake of
the head.
"Did you try to persuade Oleah to leave the Southern army?"
"No; he has conscientiously espoused the cause, and I would not have him
do violence to his conscience. I talked to him mostly about you."
"About me?"
"Yes. I told him, as I now tell you, that if he had a principle which he
thought right, he was right to maintain it; but while he fought in one
army to remember always that he had a brother in the other, and, if by
chance he should meet that brother in the struggle, to set brotherly
love above party principle."
"What did he say?"
"He promised that he would, and now I have come for your promise also."
"I make it freely, father. It has always been my intention to meet Oleah
as a brother whenever we meet."
"This is now a sundered Nation," said Mr. Tompkins, "and its division
has divided many families. It may be that brothers' swords shall drink
brothers' blood, but, oh Abner, let it not be your fate to be a
fratricide."
Mr. Tompkins lingered until late in the day, when he entered his
carriage, and was driven towards his home.
That night the Colonel sent for Captain Wardle and told him that he had
been informed of a body of rebels collecting on the headwaters of Wolf
creek, not more than three or four miles from Snagtown, and instructed
him to take sixty of his own company and fifty of the new recruits and
proceed there the next day, starting early in the morning, to break up
the rebel camp, and capture every person found there.
There was another motley and undisciplined body of men encamped on Wolf
creek. Wolf creek was a clear rapid stream, whose fountain-head was in
the Twin Mountains. It came dashing down their craggy sides in many
small rivulets, which, at their base, united to form this beautiful
stream that flowed through a dark, dense forest in the valley, passing
at one place within a half a mile of Snagtown.
The camp, however, was three or four miles further up the stream, in
what the military leaders considered a more advantageous location, on
the main road that led from Snagtown by the Twin Mountains to a village
beyond.
The numbers of the Confederates were increasing daily. As soon as the
volunteers went into camp, those in sympathy with the cause came in from
all the country round, until between three or four thousand men had
assembled, ill armed, undisciplined, confident, and full of enthusiasm.
But one company had yet elected officers. Colonel Scrabble, an old
Mexican soldier, was commander-in-chief of this force. Of the organized
company, Oleah Tompkins was second lieutenant and Patrick Henry Diggs
was corporal.
Mr. Diggs had experienced considerable disappointment when the company
failed to elect him captain; when a vote was taken for first lieutenant,
he made a speech which secured him two votes; for second lieutenant,
Oleah Tompkins was chosen. He was about to retire from the field and
from the army, and had even applied for his discharge, when the captain
appointed him corporal.
He did not like to accept a position so insignificant, but, when he
reflected that there were a number of corporals who had risen to be
generals, and that the prospect for his promotion was good, he became
pacified, and very reluctantly assumed the office.
The spot where the Confederates were encamped had formerly been used for
holding camp meetings; it was a grove, surrounded on every side by a
dense forest and the high road, which led past the place, approached it
in so circuitous a manner that it could not be seen fifty rods either
way.
The Confederates had chosen so secluded a spot that it was evident they
wished their camp concealed. Wolf Creek bounded their camping ground on
one side. The tents were fantastic affairs, and could vie even with
those of the Junction in variety of shape and material, and showed quite
as great a lack of skill in arrangement. The men were of almost every
class, dress, and nation; but the dark, sharp-cut Southern feature
predominated.
They were firey, quick-tempered men, whose rashness nearly always
excelled their judgment. Most of them were dressed in the garb of
Virginia farmers, without any appearance or pretense to uniform. Their
arms were shot-guns, rifles, and ancient muskets--a few of them
excellent, but the majority inferior. As a class, they were men who
enjoyed fox chases, wolf hunts, and horse races, and the present phase
of their life they appeared to regard as a frolic.
Camp fires were smoldering, and camp kettles hung suspended over them.
As at the Junction, there was a great deal of talk about camp life, and
suggestions by the score were indulged in. The sergeants walked about
with much dignity, and our corporal had grown to feel the importance of
his office; he had the drill manual constantly in his hands, and conned
its pages with the uttermost diligence.
Corporal Diggs was a general in embryo, and his name was yet to ring
through the trump of fame, until, among all nations it should become a
household word; he felt within his soul the uprising of greatness, as he
looked through his glasses with the air of one born to command. And to
think that he was an officer already--a corporal, men under him, to whom
his word was law! Truly, the dream of his life was now beginning to be
realized, his dearest desire was about to be fulfilled.
Corporal Diggs had, from his earliest boyhood, thirsted for military
glory; he had pored over the pictures of famous generals represented as
leading the dashing cavalry on their charge, amid blind smoke and
flashing swords, or guiding the infantry by a wave of the hand, and had
longed for an opportunity to do likewise. True, he was a mere corporal,
but it took only a few sweeping strides from corporal to general. The
soldiers did not seem at present to regard him with awe and admiration,
but they had not yet seen him under fire; they did not know how cooly he
could undergo so trying an ordeal. He longed for battle as the war horse
that already sniffs the fray. Once in battle, he would so signalize
himself by his coolness and daring as to be mentioned in the colonel's
report, and would undoubtedly be at once promoted.
Corporal Diggs was full of fire and running over with enthusiasm. No man
in all the camp seemed as busy as he; his tireless, short legs stumped
about from place to place continually, his head thrown back, his eyes
shining brilliantly through his glasses, a rusty, naked sword in his
right hand. Occasionally the official duty of Corporal Diggs brought him
to a standstill and then he would thrust the point of his sword in the
ground, and lean upon it. As the sword was a long one when standing upon
end, it came near reaching the chin of the born warrior who carried it.
No one could appreciate the greatness of this great man. "Why did you
leave before I showed you?" and other such frivolous phrases were
constantly sounded in his ears. The gallant soldier sometimes became
highly indignant, but he soothed himself with the reflection that all
this would be changed after they had once witnessed his powers on the
battle-field.
It was the middle of the afternoon. The recruits had exhausted all their
means of amusement, and were lounging about under the shade of the
trees, or cleaning their rusty guns.
"What shall we do to keep awake this evening?" said one fellow, lazily,
reclining flat on his back under the broad branches of an old elm.
"Dunno," said another, who was almost asleep.
"Let's get up a scout," proposed a third.
"I'll tell you how we can have some fun," said Seth Williams, his eyes
twinkling.
"How?" asked half a dozen at once.
"Get Corporal Diggs to make a speech."
"Good, good!" cried a number springing to their feet. "The very thing."
It was finally decided to present to Corporal Diggs a written petition
to address the members of his company on the question of the day, and
enthuse them with his magnificent and stirring eloquence. The Sergeant
himself circulated the petition, and had half a hundred names to it in
less than fifteen minutes.
Corporal Diggs had just returned from inspecting the guard when the
petition was presented to him.
"Well, yes--hem, hem!" began the soldier, orator, and general in embryo,
"I have been thinking for some time that I ought to make the boys a
speech. They--hem, hem!--should have something of the kind occasionally
to keep--to keep their spirits up."
"Well, come right along now," said the Sergeant pointing to where nearly
a hundred had gathered around a large elm stump. "They're waiting for
you."
Corporal Diggs felt that his star had risen, and with a face full of
becoming gravity, which the occasion and his official position demanded,
he went toward the place indicated, dragging his long sword after him,
much in the same way a small boy does the stick he calls his horse.
The crowd received him with enthusiastic cheers, and Corporal Diggs
mounted the stump.
"Hem, _hem_, HEM!" he began, clearing his throat by way of commencement.
"Ladies and gentlemen"--a slight titter in the audience--"I mean fellow
citizens, or, perhaps, fellow soldiers or comrades would be more
suitable terms for addressing those who are to share my toils and
dangers." [Cheers.] "'I come not here to talk,' as one of old said, 'for
you know too well the story of our thralldom.' What would the gentlemen
have? Is life so dear or peace so sweet that they must be bought with
slavery and chains? There are those who cry 'Peace, peace!' but there is
no peace! The next gale that sweeps down from the North will bring to
our ears the clash of resounding arms. [Cheers.] But, my comrades,
I--hem, hem!--feel it my imperative duty to tell you that the foe is
near at hand, and battle, glorious battle, where 'flame and smoke, and
shout and groan, and sabre stroke' fill the air." [Vehement cheering,
and Seth Williams trying to kick the bottom out of a camp kettle.]
"Gentlemen of the jury--hem, hem!--No, fellow comrades, I mean, gird on
the armor of determination, the helmet of courage, the shield of unity,
the breast-plate of honesty, and with the sword of the right never fear
to hew your way through the ranks of injustice." The orator paused for a
moment for the cheering to subside that not a word of that sublime
speech should be lost. All the soldiers in the camp, not on duty, had by
this time gathered about the speaker.
"Gentlemen of the jury, or fellow soldiers, I should say, hem!" he
resumed, "it may be that some day I shall have the honor of leading you
to battle. Then, fellow citizens, I hope, nay, I verily believe, that
not one in this camp will be found skulking or hiding. [Cheering, and
cries of, "No, no!"] May that day come that we may all prove to the
world that we have a principle, and that we can defend it. [Cheers and
cries of, "Let her come!"] Gentlemen, hem!--comrades, liberty is in the
very air, and the citizens of the South breathe it, and now that the
tyrants of the North have seen fit to loose the war dogs, not one of the
swords of Columbia's true sons shall be returned untarnished to its
sheath. [Long continued cheering.] While this voice has power to speak,
and this tongue power of proclaiming the truth, the wrongs of the South
shall be told. [Cheers and cries of "You bet."] And while this eye has
the power of sight to aim the gun, and this arm strength to wield the
sword, they shall be used wholly for the South." [Cheers and cries of
"Hurrah for Diggs."] Some scamp propounded the long unanswered question,
"Why didn't you wait till I had shown you?" but the orator is unmoved by
this attempt at ridicule. "Gentlemen of the jury, or, rather, fellow
comrades, when I think of all our wrongs, I long for the day to come,
when we may meet the foe face to face. Yes, face to face, with bristling
steel between, and canopies of smoke rolling above and mixing with the
clouds of the heavens. Then shall they feel the arm of vengeance. Oh, ye
boasters of the North," growing very loud and eloquent, while his right
hand, with fingers all apart, cleft the air, "if you would know with
whom you have to deal, come on! [Cheers and cheers of "Come on!"]
Cowards, boasters, how I long to meet you where the canon roars--the
glad thunders of war. [Cheering, and one young recruit trying to stand
on his head.] I tell you that we can now say with the poet:
"'Hark, hark, the trump of war awakes
And vengeance from the vigil breaks,
The dreadful cry of carnage sounds,
It seems that hell's let loose her hounds.'
"My brave comrades, remember Marion and Washington of old, and be like
them, ready to lay down your life for your country. [Wild cheering.] I
am ready to die in defense of the land that gave me--"
Bang, bang, bang! went three muskets about two hundred yards up the
creek.
"Oh, Lordy!" yelled Corporal Diggs, and he performed a leap which a frog
might have envied, alighting from the stump on his hands and knees on
the ground.
_Bang_, _bang_, CRASH! went half a hundred guns in the same direction,
and the air seemed alive with whistling balls.
"What is that?" cried Seth Williams.
"To arms! We are attacked!" shouted Colonel Scrabble.
"Run for your lives," cried the four pickets who now came in sight,
setting the example.
As the pickets had seen the enemy, and the Colonel had not, the men
considered that the former knew more of their number. As for the gallant
Corporal Diggs, after one ineffectual attempt to spring on a tall horse,
he ran rapidly away to the woods as fast as his short legs would carry
him, which Seth Williams afterward declared was faster than any horse
could. It was in vain that the officers attempted to rally their men.
The blue-coated soldiers of Captain Wardle, after the first fire, came
galloping into view out of the woods, and, dismounting, fell into line
of battle just in the edge of the cleared space where Corporal Diggs,
not two minutes before, had been entertaining the entire camp with his
eloquence. They poured another volley into the camp, which awoke the
echoes of the forest and seemed to the terrified recruits to shake the
Twin Mountains to their very center. They then charged down on the
enemy.
"Oh, Lordy, Lordy, have mercy on my soul!" gasped Corporal Diggs as,
impelled by the roar of fire-arms in his rear, the whistling of bullets
among the trees, and the thunder of plunging horses on every side, he
went over the ground at a rate of speed which almost took away his
breath. He ran as he never did before. He crushed through underbrush,
tore through thorns, dodged under limbs, and leaped logs, in a manner
that would have astonished any one who took into consideration the
shortness of his legs. He was leading the entire force, as, in his
speech a few minutes before, he had said he would. He was the first to
start, and as yet was ahead of any footman.
Many of the horses, about four hundred in number, which had been
picketed about the camp, had broken loose during the firing and were
running, plunging, and snorting through the thick woods, much to the
terror of poor Diggs, who imagined a Union soldier on every horse, and
supposed that there could not be less than fifty thousand of them.
On, on, and on he ran, for about three miles, when, coming up to a steep
bank of the creek, he found it impossible to check his headlong speed,
and tumbled head first into it. Down into the mud and water he went,
sticking his head so deep into the latter, that it was with some
difficulty he extricated himself. When he washed the mud out of his
eyes, he espied a drift a few feet away, and going to it managed to
conceal himself amid the brush and logs.
"Oh! Lordy! Lordy! have mercy on me! Oh, I know I shall be killed!"
"Thump, thump! crash, crash! splash!" It was simply one of the
frightened horses that had broken away from the camp, but it put
Corporal Diggs in extreme terror as he supposed it to be a regiment of
Union cavalry.
"Oh, I ought never to have engaged in this unholy cause! I thought I was
in error. I'll leave the Southern army sure, if ever I get out of this."
For hours Corporal Diggs was kept in a state of perpetual terror by
fleeing men and horses.