_A Picket-Station on the Upper Potomac--Fitz John's Rail Order--Rails
for Corps Head-Quarters_ versus _Rails for Hospitals--The Western
Virginia Captain--Old Rosy, and How to Silence Secesh Women--The Old
Woman's Fixin's--The Captain's Orderly._
Picket duty, while in this camp, was light. Even the little tediousness
connected with it was relieved by the beautifully romantic character of
the scenery. Confined entirely to the river front, the companies
detailed were posted upon the three bluffs that extended the length of
that front, and on the tow-path of the canal below.
The duty, we have said, was light. It could hardly be considered
necessary, in fact, were it not to discipline the troops. The bluffs
were almost perpendicular, varying between seventy-five and one hundred
feet in height. Immediately at their base was the Chesapeake and Ohio
canal, averaging six feet in depth. A narrow towing-path separated it
from the Potomac, which, in a broad, placid, but deep stream, broken
occasionally by the sharp points of shelving rocks, mostly sunken, that
ran in ridges parallel with the river course, flowed languidly; the
water being dammed below as before mentioned.
On one of the most inclement nights of the season, the Company
commanded by our Western Virginia captain had been assigned the
towing-path as its station. No enemy was in front, nor likely to be,
from the manner in which that bank of the river was commanded by our
batteries. In consequence, a few fires, screened by the bushes along the
river bank, were allowed. Around these, the reserve and officers not on
duty gathered.
In a group standing around a smoky fire that struggled for existence
with the steadily falling rain, stood our captain. His unusual silence
attracted the attention of the crowd, and its cause was inquired into.
"Boys, I'm disgusted; for the first time in my life since I have been in
service; teetotally disgusted with the way things are carried on. I'm no
greenhorn at this business either," continued the captain, assuming, as
he spoke, the position of a soldier, and although somewhat ungainly when
off duty, no man in the corps could take that position more correctly,
or appear to better advantage. "I served five years as an enlisted man
in an artillery regiment in the United States army, and left home in the
night when I wasn't over sixteen, to do it; part of that time was in the
Mexican war. Yes, sir, I saw nearly the whole of that. Since then, I've
been in service nearly ever since this Rebellion broke out, and the
hardest kind of service, and under nearly all kinds of officers, and by
all that's holy, I never saw anything so mean nor was as much disgusted
as I was to-day. Boys! when shoulder-straps with stars on begin to think
that we are not human beings, of flesh and blood, liable to get sick,
and when sick, needing attention like themselves, it's high time those
straps change shoulders. These damp days we, and especially our sick,
ought to be made comfortable. One great and good soldier that I've often
heard tell of, wounded, of high rank, and who lived a long time ago,
across the ocean, refused, although dying for want of drink, to touch
water, until a wounded private near him first had drunk. That's the
spirit. A man that'll do that, is right, one hundred chances to one in
other respects. We have had such Generals, we have them now, and some
may be in this corps, but it don't look like it."
"Well, Captain, what did you see?"
"Well, I had sent my Sergeant to get a few rails to keep a poor boy
comfortable who had a high fever, and who could not get into the
hospital for want of room. The wood that was cut from the hill was
green, and the poor fellow had been nearly smoked to death. The Sergeant
went with a couple of men, and was coming back, the men having two rails
apiece, when just as they got the other side of the Toll-gate on the
hill, the Provost-Guard stopped them, told them there was an order
against their using rails, and they must drop them. It did no good to
say that they were for a sick man, that was no go. They thought they had
to do it, and did it. They hadn't come fifty yards toward camp, before
one of those big six-mule corps-teams that have been hauling rails for
the last four days, came along, and the rails were pitched into the
wagon. When I heard of it I was wrothy. I cut a bee-line for the
Adjutant and got the Order, and there it was in black and white, that no
more fences--rebel fences--should be destroyed, and no more rails used.
Now, I knew well that these corps-teams had hauled and hauled until the
whole establishment, from General Porter down to his Darkies, were in
rails up to their eyes, and then, when they had their own fill, this
order comes, and we, poor devils, might whistle. Here were our hospitals
like smoke-houses, not fit for human beings, and especially the sick. It
was a little too d----d mean. I couldn't stand it. The more I thought of
it the madder I got, and I got fighting mad, when I thought how often
that same General in his kid gloves, fancy rig, and cloak thrown back
from his shoulders to show all the buttons and stars, had passed me
without noticing my salute. He never got a second chance, and never
will. I started off, took three more men than the Sergeant had; went to
the first fence I could find, and that was about two miles--for the
corps-teams had made clean work--loaded my men and myself, and started
back. The Provost-Guard was at the old place; I was bound to pass them
squarely.
"'Captain,' said the Sergeant, 'we have orders to stop all parties
carrying rails.'
"'By whose orders?'
"'General Porter's.'
"'I am one of General Porter's men. I have authority for this, sir,'
said I, looking him full in the eye.
"'Boys, move on!' and on we did move. When the Lieut. saw us filing left
over the hill towards camp, he sent a squad after us. But it was too
late. The Devil himself couldn't have had the rails in sight of my
company quarters, and I told him so.
"'I'll report you to the Division General, and have you
court-martialed, sir.'
"'Very well,' although I knew the General had a mania for
courts-martial. 'I have been court-martialed four times, and cleared
every clip.'
"'Now let that court-martial come; somebody's meanness will see the
light,' thought I.
"Old Rosy, boys, was the man. I said I was disgusted, but we mustn't get
discouraged. We have some earnest men--yes, I believe, plenty of them;
but they're not given a fair show. It'll all come right, though, I
believe. Men with hearts in them; and Rosy, let me tell you, is no runt
in that litter.
"'Captain,' said he to me one day when I had gone to his head-quarters
according to orders, 'I have something that must be done without delay,
and from what I've seen of you, you are just the man for the work. I
passed our hospital a few minutes ago, and I thought it was about to
blaze; the smoke came out of the windows, chimney, doors, and every
little crack so damnably. I turned around and went in, and found that
the smoke had filled it, and that the poor fellows were suffering
terribly. Now, Captain, they have no dry wood, and they must have some
forth with, and I'll tell you where to get it.
"'The other day I rode by a nest of she-rebels, and found that they had
cord upon cord of the best hickory piled up in the yard, as if cut by
their husbands, before leaving, for use this winter. They have made
provision enough for our hospital too. Now take three army wagons, as
many men as you need, and go about three miles out the Little Gap Road
till you come to a new weather-boarded house at the Forks. Make quick
work, Captain.'
"I did make quick work in getting there, for that was about ten, and
about half-past eleven the government wagons were in the yard of the
house and my company in front.
"'We have no chickens,' squalled an old woman from a second-story
window, 'nor pigs, nor anything--all gone. We are lone women.'
"'Only in the day-time, I reckon,' said my orderly; the same fellow
that winked at the chaplain. He was one of the roughest fellows that
ever kept his breath over night. Long, lank, ill-favored, a white
scrawny beard, stained from the corners of his mouth with tobacco juice;
but for all, I'd pick him out of a thousand for an orderly. He was
always there, and his rifle--he always carried his own--a small bore,
heavy barrel, rough-looking piece, never missed.
"As the old woman was talking from the window, a troop of women, from
eighteen to forty years old--but I am a better judge of horses' ages
than women's; they slip us up on that pint too often--came rushing out
of the door. They made all kinds of inquiries, but I set my men quietly
to work loading the wood.
"'Now, Captain, you shan't take that wood,' said a well-developed
little, rather pretty, black-haired woman, but with those peculiar black
eyes, full of the devil, that you only see among the Rebels, and that
the Almighty seems to have set in like lanterns in lighthouses to show
that their bearers are not to be trusted. 'You shan't take that wood!'
raising her voice to a scream. The men worked on quietly, and I
overlooked the work.
"'You dirty, greasy-looking Yankee,' said another, 'born in some
northern poor-house.'
"'And both parents died in jail, I'll bet.'
"'If our Jim was only here, he'd handle the cowardly set in less time
than one of them could pick up that limb.'
"'You chicken thief, you come by it honestly. Your father was a thief
before you, and your mother--'
"This last roused me. I could hear nothing bad of her from man or woman.
"'You she-devil,' said I, turning to her, 'not one word more.' She
turned toward the house.
"But they annoyed the men, and I concluded to keep them still.
"'Sergeant,' said I, addressing the orderly, and nearing the house, the
women close at my heels. 'Sergeant, as our regiment will camp near here
to-morrow, we might as well look out for a company hospital. How big is
that house?'
"'Large enough, Captain; thirty by fifty at least.'
"'How many rooms?'
"'About three, I reckon, on first floor, and I guess the upper story is
all in one, from its looks through the window. Plenty of room. Bully
place, and what is more, plenty of ladies to nurse the poor boys.
"The noses of the women not naturally cocked, became upturned at this
last remark of the sergeant's. But they had become silent, and looked
anxious.
"'Sergeant, here's paper and pencil, just note down the names of the
sick, and the rooms we'll put them in, so as to avoid confusion.'
"The sergeant ran the sharp end of the pencil half an inch in his mouth,
and on the palm of his horny hand commenced the list, talking all the
while aloud--slowly, just as if writing--'Let me see. My mem'y isn't
more than an inch long, and there's a blasted lot of 'em.
"'Jim Smith, Bob Riley, Larry Clark, got small-pox; Larry all broke out
big as old quarters, put 'em in back room down stairs.' The women got
pale, but small-pox had been common in those parts. 'George Johnson,
Bill Davis, got the mumps.' 'The mumps, Sally, the mumps, them's what
killed George, and they're so catchin'--whispered one of the women--and
continued the sergeant, 'Bill Thatcher, George Clifton the
chicken-pox.' 'O Lord, the chicken-pox,' said another woman, 'it killed
my two cousins before they were in the army a week.'--'Put them four,'
said the sergeant, 'in the middle room down stairs. Save the kitchen for
cookin', and up stairs put Jim Williams, Spooky Johnson, Tom Hardy, Dick
Cramer, and the little cook boy; all got the measles.' 'The measles!'
screamed out half-a-dozen together. 'Good-Lord, we'll be killed in a
week.' 'They say,' said another black eye, 'that that crack Mississippi
Brigade took the measles at Harper's Ferry, and died like flies. They
had to gather them from the bushes, and all over. Brother Tom told me.
He said our boys were worked nearly to death digging graves.'
"'That was a good thing,' observed the sergeant.
"'You beast!' said the little old woman advancing towards him, and
shaking her fist in his face.
"'And what will become of us women?' screamed she.
"'A pretty question for an old lady; we calculate that you ladies will
wait on the sick,' drily remarked the sergeant.
"At this the women, thinking their case hopeless, with downcast looks
quietly filed into the house.
"The boys by this time had about done loading the teams. All the while I
had watched the manners of the women closely and the house, and I came
to the conclusion that it would pay to make a visit inside.
"A guard was placed on the outside, and telling the sergeant and two men
to follow, I entered. It was all quiet below, but we found when we had
reached the top of the steps, and stood in the middle of the big room up
stairs, the women in great confusion, some in a corner of the room, and
a few sitting on the beds. Among the latter, sitting as we boys used to
say on her hunkers, with hands clasped about her knees, was the old
woman. Besides the beds the only furniture in the room was a large,
roughly made, double-doored wardrobe that stood in one corner.
"We hadn't time to look around before the old woman screeched out--
"'You won't disturb my private fixin's, will you?'
"'I rather think not,' slowly said the sergeant, giving her at the same
time a comical look.
"Notwithstanding repeated and tearful assurances that there was nothing
there, that the men had taken off all the arms, hadn't left lead enough
to mend a hole in the bottom of the coffee-pot, etc., etc., we began to
search the beds, commencing at one corner. There were two beds between
us and the old woman's, and although we shook ticks and bolsters, and
made otherwise close examination, we discovered nothing beyond the
population usually found in such localities in Western Virginia.
"The old woman was fidgety. Her face, that at two reflections would have
changed muscatel into crab apple vinegar, was more than usually
wrinkled. 'O Lord, nothing here,' groaned she, as she sat with her back
to the head-board. She did not budge an inch as we commenced at her bed.
"The sergeant had gone to the head-board, I to the foot. I saw a twinkle
in his eye as he turned over the rough comfort, his hand reached
down--he drew it up gradually, and the old woman slid as gradually from
the lock to the muzzle of a long Kentucky rifle. 'O Lord,' groaned she,
as she keeled over on her right side at the foot of the bed.
"A glow of admiration overspread the Sergeant's face as he looked at
that rifle.
"'Well, I swow, old woman, is this what you call a private fixin'?'
said the Sergeant. 'A queer bed-fellow you've got; and just look,
Captain,' said he, trying the ramrod, 'loaded, capped, and half cocked.'
"The heavy manner in which the old lady fell over satisfied me that we
hadn't all the armory, and I directed her to leave the bed and stand on
the floor.
"'Can't, can I, Ann?' addressing one of the women.
"'No, marm can't, she is helpless.'
"'Got the rheumatics, had 'em a year and better,' groaned the old woman.
"'Hadn't 'em when you shook your fist under my nose in the yard,' said
the Sergeant. 'Get off the bed;' catching the old woman by the arm, he
helped her off. She straightened up with difficulty, holding her clothes
at the hips with both hands. 'Hold up your hands,' said the Sergeant. He
was about to assist her, when not relishing that, she lifted them up; as
she did so, there was a heavy rattling sound on the floor. The old woman
jumped about a foot from the floor clear out of a well filled pillow
cushion, dancing and yelling like an Indian. Some hardware must have
struck her toe and made her forget her rheumatism.
"That bag had two Colt's navy size, two pistols English make, with all
the trappings for both kinds, and two dozen boxes of best make English
water proof caps.
"'Old woman,' said the Sergeant with a chuckle, 'your private fixin's as
you call 'em, are worth hunting for.'
"But the old woman had reached the side of a bed, and was too much
engaged in holding her toe, to notice the remark.
"The other beds were searched, but with no success. I had noticed while
the old woman was hopping about a short fat woman getting behind some
taller ones in the corner and arranging her clothing. The old woman's
contrivance made me think the corner worth looking at.
"The women sulkily and slowly gave way, and another pillow-case was
found on the floor, from which a brace of pistols, one pair of long
cowhide riding boots, three heavy-bladed bowie knives, and some smaller
matters, were obtained.
"The wardrobe was the only remaining thing, and on it as a centre the
women had doubled their columns.
"'Oh, Captain, don't,' said several at once beseechingly, 'we're all
single women, and that has our frocks and fixin's in it,' as I touched
the wardrobe.
"'As far as I've seed there is not much difference between married
women's fixin's and single ones,' coolly said the Sergeant.
"'There is not one of us married, Captain.'
"'Sorry for that,' said the Sergeant, leisurely eyeing the women. 'If
you'd take advice from a Yankee, some of you had better hurry up.'
"The women were indignant, but smothered it, having ascertained that a
passionate policy would not avail.
"By this time one of the men had succeeded with his bayonet in forcing a
door. The Sergeant had laid his hand on the door, when a pretty face,
lit up with those same devilish black eyes, was looking into his half
winningly, and a pair of small hands were clasping his arm. The
Sergeant's head gradually fell as if to hear what she had to say, when
magnetism, a desire to try experiments, or call it what you will, as
'love,' although said to 'rule the camp,' has little really to do with
the monotony of actual camp scenes, or the horrors of the field
itself,--at any rate the Sergeant's head dropped suddenly,--a loud
smack, followed instantly by the dull sound of a blow,--and the
Sergeant gently rubbed an already blackening eye, while the woman was
engaged in drawing her sleeve across her mouth. Like enough some tobacco
juice went with the sleeve, for the corners of the Sergeant's mouth were
regular sluices for that article.
"The Sergeant's eye did not prevent him from opening the door, however.
"'Well, I declare, brother Jim's forgot his clothes and sword,' said one
of the women, manifesting much surprise.
"'Do you call that brother Jim's clothes?' said the Sergeant, grasping a
petticoat, above which appeared the guard of a cavalry sabre, and
holding both up to view. 'I tell you it's no use goin' on,' said the
Sergeant, somewhat more earnestly, his eye may be smarting a little,
'we're bound to go through it if it takes the hair off.' The women
squatted about on the beds, down-hearted enough.
"And through it we went, getting five more sabres and belts, and two
Sharp's rifles complete in that side, and a cavalry saddle, holsters
with army pistols, bridles, and a rifled musket, in the other side; all
bran new. There was nothing in the lower story or cellar.
"When I showed Rosy our plunder--and it hadn't to be taken to his tent
either--when he heard of it, he came out as anxious and pleased as any
of the boys,--he was a General interested in our luck more than his own
pay,--he clapped me on the shoulder right before my men, and all the
officers and men looking on, and said: 'Captain, you're a regular trump.
Three cheers, boys, for the Captain and company.' And as he started them
himself, the boys did give 'em, too. 'Captain, you'll not be
forgotten--be easy on that point.' And I was easy, until a fit of
sickness that I got put my fortune for the time out of Rosy's hands. The
men never forgot that trip. The Sergeant often said though, it was the
only trip he wasn't altogether pleased with, because, I suppose, his
black eye was a standing joke."
Just then, a sentinel's hail and the reply, "Grand Rounds," "Field
Officer of the day," hurried the Captain off, and the crowd to their
posts.