"'Tis far off;
And rather like a dream than an assurance
That my remembrance warrants."--SHAKESPEARE.
With the passage of the sharp-shooters into Virginia at Falling Waters,
the campaign was at an end. The pontoon bridge was cut. We marched a
mile from the river and halted; it was five o'clock. At night we
received two days' rations; I ate mine at one meal.
On the 15th the division moved to Bunker Hill. I gave out. Starvation
and a full meal had been too much for me. I suffered greatly, not from
fatigue, but from illness. I stepped out of ranks, went fifty yards into
the thicket, and lay down under a tree.
That the enemy was following was likely enough; I hardly cared. I shrank
from captivity, but I thought of death without fearing it.
My mind was in a peculiar attitude toward the war. We had heard of the
surrender of Vicksburg. Not even the shadow of demoralization had
touched Lee's army in consequence of Gettysburg; but now men talked
despairingly--with Vicksburg gone the war seemed hopeless.
Under the tree was peace. Company H had gone on. Company A had gone on.
What interest had they in me or I in them? I had fever.
The sounds of the troops marching on the road reached me in the thicket.
A few moments ago I was marching on the road. I was one of fifty
thousand; they have gone on.
Here, under this tree, I am one. But what one? I came I know not
whence; I go I know not whither. Let me go. What matter where? My
Captain has gone.
Perhaps I wander in mind. I have fever.
At one time I think I am going to die, and I long for death. The life I
live is too difficult.
And the South is hopeless. Better death than subjection. The Captain has
not died too soon.
What a strong, noble, far-seeing man! I shall never forget him. I shall
never see his like, I envy him. He has resolved all doubt; I am still
enchained to a fate that drags me on and on into ... into what? What
does the Captain think now? Does he see me lying here? Can he put
thoughts into my mind? Can he tell me who I am? What does he think now
of slavery? of State rights? of war?
He is at peace; he knows that peace is better. Yes, peace is better. He
is at peace. Would I also were at peace.
I slept, and when I awoke my strength had returned. I crept to the road,
fearing to see Federal troops. Neither Confederate nor Federal was in
sight. I tramped steadily southward and caught up at Bunker Hill.
* * * * *
By the 24th of July we had crossed the Blue Ridge and were approaching
Culpeper.
During the months of August and September we were in camp near Orange
Court-House.
My distaste for the service became excessive, unaccountably, I should
have thought, but for the fact that my interest in life had so greatly
suffered because of the Captain's death.
My friend was gone. I wished for nothing definite. I had no purpose. To
fight for the South was my duty, and I felt it, but I had no relish for
fighting. Fighting was absurd.
The Captain had said, on the last night of his life, that he imagined
General Lee and perhaps General McClellan felt great reluctance in
giving orders that would result in the death of Americans at the hands
of Americans. I remembered that at Gettysburg, in the act of pulling the
trigger, I had found no hatred in me toward the man I was trying to
kill. I wondered if the men generally were without hate. I believed they
were; there might be exceptions.
We had lost General Pender at Gettysburg. We were now Wilcox's division.
We had camp guard and picket duty.
Since the Captain's death the battalion of sharp-shooters had been
dissolved, and I was back in Company H. The life was monotonous. Some
conscripts were received into each company. Many of the old men would
never return to us. Some were lying with two inches of earth above their
breasts; some were in the distant South on crutches they must
always use.
The spirit of the regiment was unbroken. The men were serious. Captain
Barnwell read prayers at night in the company.
I thought much but disconnectedly, and was given to solitude. I made an
object of myself. My condition appealed to my sympathy. Where had there
ever been such an experience? I thought of myself as Berwick, and pitied
him. I talked to him, mentally, calling him _you_.
Dr. Frost was beyond my reach. I wanted to talk to him. He had been
promoted, and was elsewhere.
At night I had dreams, and they were strange dreams. For many successive
nights I could see myself, and always I thought of the "me" that I saw
as a different person from the "me" that saw.
My health suffered greatly, but I did not report to the surgeon.
Somehow I began to feel for my unknown friends. They had long ago given
me up for dead.
Perhaps, however, some were still hoping against certainty. My mind was
filling with fancies concerning them--concerning her. How I ever began
to think of such, a possibility I could not know.
My fancies embraced everything. My family might be rich and powerful
and intelligent; it, might be humble, even being the strong likelihood
was that it was neither, but was of medium worth.
My fancy--it began in a dream--pictured the face of a woman, young and
sweet weeping for me. I wept for her and for myself. Who was she? Was
she all fancy?
Since I had been in Company H, I had never spoken to a woman except the
nurses in the hospitals. I had seen many women in Richmond and
elsewhere. No face of my recollection fitted with the face of my dream.
None seemed it's equal in sweetness and dignity.
I had written love letters at the dictation of one or two of the men. I
had read love stories. I felt as the men had seemed to feel, and as the
lovers in the stories had seemed to feel.
No one knew, since the Captain's death, even the short history of myself
that I knew. I grew morose. The men avoided me, all but one--Jerry
Butler. Somehow I found myself messing with him. He was a great forager,
and kept us both in food. The rations were almost regular, but the fat
bacon and mouldy meal turned my stomach. The other men were in good
health, and ate heartily of the coarse food given them. Butler had bacon
and meal to sell.
The men wondered what was the matter with me. Their wonder did not
exceed my own. Butler invited my confidence, but I could not decide to
say a word; one word would have made it necessary to tell him all I
knew. He would have thought me insane.
I did my duty mechanically, serving on camp guard and on picket
regularly, but feeling interest in nothing beyond my own inner self.
At times the battle of Manassas and the spot in the forest would recur
to me with great vividness and power. Where and what was my original
regiment? I pondered over the puzzle, and I had much time in which to
ponder. I remembered that Dr. Frost had told me that if ever I got the
smallest clew to my past, I must determine then and there to never
let it go.
Sometimes instants of seeming recollection would flash by and be gone
before I could define them. They left no result but doubt--sometimes
fear. Doubts of the righteousness of war beset me--not of this war, but
war. I had a vague notion that in some hazy past I had listened to
strong reasons against war. Were they from the Captain? No; he had been
against war, but he had fought for the South with relish--they did not
come from him. None the less--perhaps I ought to say therefore--did they
more strongly impress me, for I indistinctly knew that they came from
some one who not only gave precept but also lived example.
Who was he? I might not hope to know.
Added to these doubts concerning war, there were in my mind at times
strong desires for a better life--a life more mental. The men were good
men--serious, religious men. Nothing could be said against them; but I
felt that I was not entirely of them, that they had little thought
beyond their personal duties, which they were willing always to do
provided their officers clearly prescribed them, and their personal
attachments, in which I could have no part. Of course there were
exceptions.
I felt in some way that though the men avoided me, they yet had a
certain respect for me--for my evident suffering, I supposed. Yet an
incident occurred which showed me that their respect was not mere pity.
The death of our Captain had left a vacancy in Company H. A lieutenant
was to be elected by the men. The natural candidate was our highest
non-commissioned officer, who was favoured by the company's commander.
The officer in command did not, however, use influence upon the men to
secure votes. My preference for the position was Louis Bellot, who had
been dangerously wounded at Manassas, and who, we heard, would soon
return to the company. I took up his cause, and, without his knowledge,
secured enough votes to elect him.
* * * * *
On the 8th of October we advanced to the river. For me it was a
miserable march. My mind was in torture, and my strength was failing.
Doubts of the righteousness of war had changed to doubts of this war. It
was not reason that caused these doubts. Reason told me that the
invaders should be driven back. The South had not been guilty of
plunging the two countries into war; the South had tried to avert war.
The only serious question which my mind could raise upon the conduct of
the South was: Had we sufficiently tried to avert war? Had we done all
that we could? I did not know, and I doubted.
As we advanced, I looked upon long lines of infantry and cannon marching
on to battle, and I thought of all this immense preparation for
wholesale slaughter of our own countrymen with horror in my heart. Why
could not this war have been avoided? I did not know, but I felt that an
overwhelming responsibility attached somewhere, for it was not likely
that all possibilities of peace had been exhausted by our people.
As to the Yankees, I did not then think of them. Their crimes and their
responsibilities were their own. I had nothing to do with them; but I
was part of the South, and the Southern cause was mine, and upon me also
weighed the crime of unjust war if it were unjust upon our side.
The thought of the Captain gave me great relief. He had shown me the
cause of the South; he had died for it; it could not be wrong. I looked
in the faces of the officers and men around me and read patient
endurance for the right. I was comforted. I laughed at myself and said,
Berwick, you are getting morbid; you are bilious; go to the doctor and
get well of your fancies.
Then the thought of the Northern cause came to me. Do not the Federal
soldiers also think their cause just? If not, what sort of men are they?
They must believe they are right. And one side or the other must be
wrong. Which is it? They are millions, and we are millions. Millions of
men are joined together to perpetrate wrong while believing that they
are right? Can such a condition be?
Even supposing that most men are led in their beliefs by other men in
whose judgment they have confidence, are the leaders of either
side impure?
No; if they are wrong, they are not wrong intentionally. Men may differ
conscientiously upon state policy, even upon ethics.
Then must I conclude that the North, believing itself right, is wrong in
warring upon the South? What is the North fighting for? For union and
for abolition of slavery; but primarily for union.
And is union wrong? Not necessarily wrong.
What is the South, fighting for? For State rights and for slavery; but
principally for State rights.
And is the doctrine of State rights wrong? Not necessarily wrong.
Then, may both North, and South be right?
The question startled me. I had heard that idea before. Where? Not in
the army, I was certain. I tried hard to remember, but had to confess
failure. The result of my thought was only the suggestion that both of
two seemingly opposite thoughts might possibly be true.
On that night I dreamed of my childhood. My dream took me to a city,
where I was at school under a teacher who was my friend, and at whose
house I now saw him. The man's face was so impressed upon my mind that
when I awoke I retained his features. All day of the 9th, while we were
crossing the Rapidan and continuing our march through Madison
Court-House and on through Culpeper, I thought of the face of my dream.
I thought of little else. Food was repugnant. I had fever, and was full
of fancies. I was surprised by the thought that I had twice already been
ill in the army. Once was at the time of the battle of Fredericksburg;
but when and where was the other? I did not know, yet I was sure that I
had been sick in the army before I joined Captain Haskell's company, and
before I ever saw Dr. Frost.
Long did I wonder over this, and not entirely without result. Suddenly I
connected the face of my dream with my forgotten illness. But that was
all. My old tutor was a doctor and had attended me. I felt sure of
so much.
Then I wondered if I could by any means find the Doctor's name. Some
name must be connected with the title. That he was Dr. Some-one I had no
doubt. I tried to make Dr. Frost's face fit the face of my dream, but it
would not fit. Besides, I knew that Dr. Frost had never been my teacher.
We had gone into bivouac about one o'clock, some two miles north of
Madison Court-House. This advance was over ground that was not
unfamiliar to me. The mountains in the distance and the hills near by,
the rivers and the roads, the villages and the general aspect of this
farming country, had been impressed upon my mind first when alone I
hurried forward to join Jackson's command on its famous march around
Pope; and, later, when we had returned from the Shenandoah Valley after
Sharpsburg, and more recently still, on our retreat from Pennsylvania.
What General Lee's purposes were now, caused much speculation in the
camp. It was evident that, if the bulk of the army had not as yet
uncovered Richmond, our part of it was very far to the left. We might be
advancing to the Valley, or we might be trying to get to Meade's rear,
just as Jackson had moved around Pope in sixty-two; another day might
show. The most of the men believed that we were on a flank march similar
to Jackson's, and some of them went so far as to say that both Ewell's
and Hills corps were now near Madison Court-House.
I felt but little interest in the talk of the men. My mind was upon
myself. I gave my comrades no encouragement to speak with me, but lay
apart, moody and feverish. Occasionally my thought, it is true, reverted
to the situation of the army, but only for a moment. Something was about
to be done; but if I could have controlled events, I would not have
known what to choose. One thing, however, began to loom clear through
the dim future: if we were working to get to Meade's rear, that general
was in far greater danger than he had been at Gettysburg. With Lee at
Manassas Junction, between Meade and Washington, the Army of the Potomac
would yield from starvation, or fight at utter disadvantage; and there
was no army to help near by, as McClellan's at Alexandria in sixty-two.
The night brought no movement.