_Snicker's Gap--Private Harry on the "Anaconda"--Not inclined to turn
Boot-Black--"Oh! why did you go for a Soldier?"--The
ex-News-Boy--Pigeon-hole Generalship on the March--The Valley of the
Shenandoah--A Flesh Carnival--The Dutch Doctor on a Horse-dicker--An Old
Rebel, and how he parted with his Apple-Brandy--Toasting the
"Union"--Spruce Retreats._
The movement down the Valley was one of those at that time popular
"bagging" movements, peculiar to the Grand Army of the Potomac, and in
their style of execution, or to speak correctly, intended execution--for
the absence of that quality has rendered them ridiculous--original with
its Commander. Semi-official reports, industriously circulated from the
gold-striped Staff to the blue-striped Field Officer, and by the latter
whispered in confidence in the anxious ears of officers of the line, and
again transferred in increasing volume to the subs, and by them in
knowing confidence to curious privates, had it that the principal rebel
force would be hemmed in, in the Valley of the Shenandoah, by our
obtaining command of the Gaps, and then we would be nearest their
Capital in a direct line--we would compel them to fight us, where, when,
and how we pleased, or else beat them in a race to Richmond, and
then----. The reader must imagine happy results that could not
consistently be expected, while to gain the same destination over
equidistant and equally good roads, Strategy moved by comparatively slow
marches and easy halts, while Desperation strained every nerve, with
rattling batteries and almost running ranks.
"But, Lieutenant, if that's so," alluding to the purpose of their march,
"why are we halting here?"
"Our troops block up the roads, I suppose."
"We could march in the fields," rejoined the anxious private, "by the
road-side; they are open and firm."
"We'll see, Harry, in a day or two, what it all amounts to. May be the
'Anaconda' that is to smash out the rebellion, is making another turn,
or 'taking in a reef,' as the Colonel says."
"Well," rejoined the Private, "I have endeavored to book myself up, as
far as my advantages would allow, in our army movements; and the nearest
approach to anything like an anaconda, that I can see or hear of, is
that infernal Red-tape worm that is strangling the soul out of the army.
What inexcusable nonsense to attempt to apply to an immense army in time
of war, such as we have now in the field, the needless, petty
pigeon-hole details that regulated ten thousand men on a peace
establishment. And to carry them out, look how many valuable officers,
or officers who ought to be valuable, from the expense Uncle
Sam has been at to give them educational advantages, are doing
clerkly duty--that civilians, our business men, our accountants,
could as well, if not better, attend to--in the offices of the
Departments at Washington, in the Commissary and Quarter-Master's
Departments,--handling quills and cheese-knives instead of swords, and
never giving 'the villainous smell of saltpetre' the slightest chance
'to come betwixt the wind and their nobility.'"
Harry, at the time of his volunteering was an associate editor of a well
established and ably conducted country newspaper. He had thrown himself
with successful energy into the formation of the regiment to which he
belonged. A prominent position was proffered him, but he sturdily
refused any place but the ranks, alleging that he had never drilled a
day in his life, and particularly insisting that those who had seen
service and were somewhat skilled in the tactics, although many of them
were far his inferiors in intelligence, should occupy the offices. From
his gentlemanly deportment and ability he was on familiar terms with the
officers, and popular among the men. Withal, he was a finely formed,
soldierly-looking man. In the early part of his service he was reserved
in his comments upon the conduct of the war, and considered, as he was
in fact, conservative,--setting the best possible example of
taciturnity, subordinate to the wisdom of his superiors.
"Harry, you have been detailed as a clerk about Brigade Head Quarters,"
said the Orderly Sergeant of his company, one morning, after he had been
in service about two months.
Harry did not like the separation from his Company in the least, but
notwithstanding, quietly reported for duty. Several days of desk
drudgery, most laborious to one fresh from out-door exercise, had
passed, when one morning about eight o'clock, a conceited coxcomb of an
aid, in slippers, entered the office-tent, and holding a pair of muddy
boots up, with an air of matter-of-course authority--ordered Harry to
blacken them, telling him at the same time, in a milder and lower tone,
that black Jim the cook had the brush and blackening.
"What, sir?" said Harry, rising like a rocket, his Saxon blood mounting
to the very roots of his red hair.
"I order you to black those boots, sir," was the repeated and more
insolent command.
"And I'll see you d----d first," retorted Harry, doubling his fist.
The aid not liking the furious flush upon Harry's face, with wise
discretion backed out, muttering after he was fairly outside of the
tent, something about a report to the Brigadier. Report he did, and very
shortly after there was a vacancy in his position upon the Staff of that
Officer. Harry, at his own request, was in the course of a week relieved
from duty, and restored to his Company. Ever after he had a tongue.
The reply of the Lieutenant to Harry's remarks has all this time been in
abeyance, however.
"Harry," said that officer, "we must follow the stars without murmuring
or muttering against the judgment of superiors,--but one can't help
surmising, and," the Lieutenant had half mechanically added when the
Sergeant-Major saluted him.
"Where is the Captain, Lieutenant?"
"Not about, at present."
"Well," continued the Sergeant, "reveille at four, and in line at five
in the morning."
Those beds of thickly littered straw were hard to leave in the chill
mist of the morning. The warning notes of the reveille trilling in
sweetest melody from the fife of the accomplished fife-major,
accompanied by the slumber-ending rattle of the drum, admitted of no
alternative. Many a brave boy as he stood in line that morning, ready
for the march, the first sparkle of sunrise glistening upon his bayonet,
wondered whether father or mother, sister or brother, yet in their
slumbers, doubtless, in the dear old homestead, knew that the army was
on the move, and that the setting sun might gild his breast-plate as in
his last sleep he faced the sky.
"Oh! why did you go for a soldier?" sang our little news-boy,
tauntingly, as he capered behind a big burly Dutchman in the rear rank,
who had encountered all manner of misfortune that morning,--missing his
coffee--and what is a man worth on a day's march without coffee--because
it was too hot to drink, when the bugle sounded the call to fall in, his
meat raw, not even the smell of fire about it, and his crackers half
roasted; his clothes, too, half on, belts twisted, knapsack badly made
up. As he grumbled over his mishaps, in his peculiar vernacular,
laughter commenced with the men, and ended in a roar at the song of the
news-boy.
A crowd gathers food for mirth from the most trivial matters. Incidents
that would not provoke a smile individually, convulse them collectively.
Men under restraint in ranks are particularly infectious from the
influence of the passions. With lightning-like rapidity, to misapply a
familiar line--
"They pass from grave to gay, from lively to severe."
Snicker's Gap, which drew its euphoneous name from a First Virginia
family that flourished in the neighborhood, was one of the coveted
points. In the afternoon our advance occupied it, and the neighboring
village of Snickersville; fortunately first perhaps, in force, or what
is most probable, considering results, amused by a show of resistance to
cover the main Rebel movement then rapidly progressing further down the
valley. From whatever cause, firing--musketry and artillery--was heard
at intervals all the latter part of the afternoon; and as the troops
neared the Gap, they were told that the Rebels had been driven from it
across the river, and that it was now in our possession. Night was
rapidly setting in as the division formed line of battle on the borders
of the village. A halt but for a few moments. Their position was shortly
changed to the mountain slope below the village. Down the valley sudden
flashes of light and puffs of smoke that gracefully volumed upwards,
followed by the sullen roar of artillery, revealed a contest between the
advancing and retreating forces. That fire-lit scene must be a life
picture to the fortunate beholders. Directly in front and on the left,
thousands of camp fires burning in the rear of stacks made from
line-of-battle, blazed in parallel rows, regular as the gas-lights of
the avenues of a great city, and illumining by strange contrasts of
light and shade the animated forms that encircled them. Far down to the
right, the vertical flashes from the cannon vents vivid as lightning
itself, instantly followed by horizontal lurid flames, belched forth
from their dread mouths, lighting for the instant wood and field, formed
the grandest of pyrotechnic displays. Rare spectacle--in one magnificent
panorama, gleaming through the dark mantle of night, were the steady
lights of peaceful camps, and the fitful flashing of the hostile cannon.
"Fall in, fall in!" cried the officers, at the bugle call, and in a few
moments the Brigade was in motion. Some in the ranks, with difficulty,
at the same time managing their muskets and pails of coffee that had not
had time to cool; others munching, as they marched, their half-fried
crackers, and cooling with hasty breath smoking pieces of meat, while
friendly comrades did double duty in carrying their pieces. The soldier
never calculates upon time; the present is his own when off duty, and he
is not slow to use it; the next moment may see him started upon a long
march, or detailed for fatigue duty, and with a philosophy apt in his
position, he lives while he can.
The road through Snickersville, and up the romantic gorge or gap between
the mountains, was a good pike, and in the best marching condition. At
the crest the Brigade undoubled its files, and entered in double ranks a
narrow, tortuous, rocky road, ascending the mountain to the left,
leading through woods and over fields so covered with fragments of rock,
that a country boy in the ranks, following up a habit, however, not by
any means confined to the country, of giving the embodiment of evil the
credit of all unpleasant surroundings, remarked that "the Devil's
apron-strings must have broke loose here." That night march was a weary
addition to the toil of the day. A short cut to the summit, which
existed, but a mile in length, and which the Commander of the Force to
which the Brigade formed part, could readily have ascertained upon
inquiry, would have saved a great amount of grumbling, many hard oaths,
for Uncle Toby's army that "swore so terribly in Flanders," could not
outdo in that respect our Grand Army of the Potomac,--and no trifling
amount of shoe-leather for Uncle Sam. The night was terribly cold, and
the wind in gusts swept over the mountain-top with violence sufficient
to put the toil-worn man, unsteady under his knapsack, through the
facings in short order. Amid stunted pines and sturdy undergrowth, the
Regiments in line formed stacks, and the men, debarred fire from the
exposed situation, provided what shelter they could, and endeavored to
compose themselves for the night. Vain endeavor. So closely was that
summit shaved by the pitiless blasts, that a blanket could only be kept
over the body by rolling in it, and lying face downwards, holding the
ends by the hands, with the forehead resting on the knapsack for a
pillow. Some in that way, by occasionally drumming their toes against
the rocks managed to pass the night; many others sought warmth or
amusement in groups, and others gazed silently on the camp-fires of the
enemy, an irregular reflex of those seen on the side they had left--here
glimmering faintly at a picket station, and there at a larger
encampment, glowing first in a circle of blaze, then of illumined smoke,
that in its upward course gradually darkened into the blackness of
night. To men of contemplative habits, and many such there were, though
clad in blouses, the scene was strongly suggestive. Our states emblemed
in the lights of the valleys and the mountain ridge as the much talked
of "impassable barrier." But faith in the success of a cause Heaven
founded, saw gaps that we could control in that mountain ridge which
would ultimately prove avenues of success.
"Captain, where did you make the raise?" inquired a young Lieutenant, on
the following day,--one of a group enjoying a blazing fire, for the ban
had been removed at early dawn--of a ruddy-faced, sturdy-looking
officer, who bore on his shoulder a tempting hind quarter of beef.
"There is a little history connected with this beef," as he lowered his
load. "Lieutenant," replied the Captain, interlarding his further
statement with oaths, to which justice cannot and ought not to be done
in print, and which were excelled in finish only by some choice ones of
the Division General. "I went out at sunrise, thinking that by
strolling among the rocks I might stir up a rabbit. I saw several, but
got a fair shot at one only, and killed it. While going into a fence
corner, in which were some thorn bushes, that I thought I could stir
another cotton tail from, I saw a young bullock making for me, with
lowered horns and short jumps. I couldn't get through the thorn bushes,
and the fact is, being an old butcher I didn't care much about it, so I
faced about, looked the bullock full in the eyes, and the bullock eyed
me, giving at the same time an occasional toss of his short horns. Now I
was awful hungry, never was more hollow in my life--the hardees that I
swallowed dry in the morning fairly rattled inside of me. By-and-by I
smelt the steaks, and a minute more I felt sure that he was a Rebel
beast. Our young cattle up North don't corner people in that way. What's
the use, thought I, and out came my Colt, and I planted a ball square
between his eyes. As I returned the pistol he was on his side kicking
and quivering. While looking at him, and rather coming to the conclusion
that I had bought an elephant after all, as I had not even a penknife to
skin it with, I spied that sucker-mouthed Aid of Old Pigeon-hole coming
from another corner of the field, cantering at full jump. I left,
walking towards Camp.
"'Captain, where was that picket-firing?'
"I pointed towards the wood, and told him that I thought it was along
the picket-line."
"'It must have been, I suppose,' said the Aid, in a drawling manner.
'The General was sure it was a rifle. The rest of us thought it a pistol
shot,' he said, as he rode off.
"When he got into the wood I returned to the bullock, cursing Old
Pigey's ears for want of experience in shots. They made me come mighty
close to being arrested for marauding.
"'Oh! whar did you git the jump-high?' said a darkie, who came up
suddenly, pointing to the rabbit which I had put on the fence, with
mouth open and a big show of the whites of his eyes. When he saw the
carcass he fairly jumped.
"'Massa has had me shinning it round de rocks all morning. When I'm on
de one side de jump-high is on de oder; and if I go back widout one
he'll cuss me for a d----d stumbling woolly-head. Dat's his name for me
any way.'
"I struck a bargain with the boy; he loaned me his jack-knife, and held
the legs, and I had the skin off as soon as a two-inch blade (hacked at
that) would allow, and I gave him the jump-high, and told him if he'd
watch the beef till I carried this quarter home, I'd give him a fore
quarter. I knew his Master was as bad off as myself, and would ask no
questions, and then I sneaked up in rear of the General's quarters."
"That's what I'd call Profane History," said the Lieutenant, as the
Captain resumed his load.
"Well, boys! Go into the Third Cavalry four months, as I did; and if any
of you swear less than I do, I'll treat."
"One fault with the story, Captain," said another Lieutenant, detaining
him; "you make no application."
"I didn't intend it as a sermon; what application would you make?"
"A very practical one, Captain. I would apply half a quarter to one man,
half a quarter to another. Make a distribution among your friends."
The Captain, somewhat sold, told them to send down a detail, and he
would distribute.
The detail returned, well loaded, having performed their duty
faithfully, with the exception of trimming Sambo's fore-quarter "mighty
close," as he phrased it.
That bullock turned out to be merely the first course of a grand flesh
carnival, which lasted the remaining two days of the stay on Snicker's
summit. The wood and fields almost swarmed with rabbits and quails; but
although furnishing amusement to all, they were but titbits for the
delicate. By some remissness of vigilance under the stringent orders,
cattle, sheep, and hogs were slaughtered on all sides. There was an
abundance of them; the farmers in the valley having driven them up, as
was their custom, for the pasture and mast to be found in the fields and
woods. Half wild, the flavor of their flesh was a close approach to that
of game. As may be supposed, where licence was untrammelled, there was
much needless slaughter. Fine carcasses were left as they fell, with the
loss only of a few choice cuts. As the beasts, especially the pigs,
which looked like our ordinary porkers well stretched, could run with
great speed, the chase was amusing as well as exciting. Red breeches and
blue fraternized and vied with each other in the sport, to quarrel,
perhaps, over the spoils.
Few will fail to carry to their homes recollections of that pleasing
episode in the history of the Regiment: the feasts of fat things, the
space-built inclosures around the camp-fires that sheltered them from
the blast, and were amphitheatres of amusement--recollections that will
interest many a future fireside, destined, with the lapse of time, to
become sacred as family traditions of the Revolution. And have they not
equal claims? The Revolution founded the country; this struggle must
save it from the infamous and despotic demands of a most foul and
unnatural Rebellion.
"Halloo! Doctor! where did that 'animile' come from," inquired the
Major, who formed one of a crowd, on the afternoon of the last day of
their stay in the Head Quarters Spruce Retreat, as the little Dutch
Doctor strutted alongside of a Corporal of an adjoining regiment, who
led by a halter, extemporized from a musket-strap and a cross-belt, a
small light dun horse.
"Mine, Major! Pay forty-five tollar--have pay five, only forty yet to
get. How you like him? What you tink?"
The "only forty yet to get" amused the crowd, but the Major, with the
gravity of a connoisseur, walked around the beast, nipped his legs, and
opened his mouth.
"Doctor, it's a pity to use this beast--only two years old, and never
shod. Is he broke?"
"No. No broke anywhere. Have look at whole of him."
The crowd laughed, and the Major with them.
"You don't understand me. Can you ride him?"
"Me no ride him, no saddle. Corporal, him ride all round."
The Corporal stated that he was broken in so far as to allow riding, and
was very gentle, as indeed was apparent from the looks of the animal.
"When did you get him, Corporal?" was the query of one of the crowd.
"I bought four yesterday for four hundred and seventy-five dollars
Confederate scrip."
"Why, where did you get that?"
"Bought it in Washington, when we first went through, of a boy on the
Avenue for fifteen cents. I thought there might be a show for it some
day or other."
The Corporal was a slender, lantern-jawed, weasel-faced Monongahela
raftsman, sharp as a steel-trap.
"The old fellow," continued he, "hung on to five hundred dollars for
about an hour. He took me into his house, gave me a nip of old apple
brandy, and then he'd talk about his horses and then another nip, till
we felt it a little, but no go. I had to jew, for it was all I had. I'd
just as leave have given him another hundred, but I didn't tell him so.
I told him I got it at Antietam."
"You d----d rascal," said he, "I had a son killed and robbed there,
maybe it's his money. It looks as if it had been carried a good while."
"I had played smart with it, rubbed it, wet it, and in my breast pocket
on those long marches it was well sweated."
"Suppose it was your son's," said I, "all is fair in war."
"That's so," said the old Rebel. "I have two other sons there; I would
go myself, it I wasn't seventy-eight and upwards."
"Well, looky here," said I, "this isn't talking horse; we'll manage your
sons, and you, too, if you don't dry up on your treason slang. Now, old
covey, four hundred and seventy-five or I'm back to camp without them."
"I turned and got about ten steps, when he called me back and told me to
take them. I got a bully pair of matches, fine blacks, that a Colonel in
the Regiment paid me one hundred and twenty-five for at first sight, and
a fine pacing bay that our Major gave me seventy-five for, and this
one's left."
"Doctor, I'm about tired of trotting around after them other forty.
They're givin' out cracker rations, and I don't want to be cheated out
of mine, and I must go," said the Corporal, turning quickly to the
Doctor.
The latter personage snapped his eyes, and kept his cap bobbing up and
down, by wrinkling his forehead, as he somewhat plaintively asked the
crowd for the funds.
"Good Lord! Doctor, you might as well try to milk a he-goat with a
bramble bush as to get money in camp now," said the Major.
"Corporal," said the Adjutant, a fast friend of the Doctor's, and being
of a musical turn, his partner in many a Dutch duet, as a bright idea
struck him, "you don't want the money now--there are no sutlers about,
suppose the Doctor gives you an order on the Pay-Master."
"Well," said the Corporal, after some little study, and keeping a sharp
look-out on the Adjutant, whose features were fixed, "that's a fact, I
have no use for the money now. If one of you Head-Quarter officers
endorses it, I will. 'Spose it's all straight."
The Adjutant drew the order, and one of the Field-Officers endorsed it,
after the manner of documents forwarded through regular military
channels:
"Approved and respectfully forwarded."
It was handed to the Corporal, and he turned to go, leaving the horse
with the Doctor, and giving the crowd an opportunity for their laugh, so
far suppressed with difficulty. He had gone but a few paces when an
exclamation from the quondam Third cavalryman called him back, and ended
for the moment the laughter.
"Where does the old fellow live, Corporal?"
"Keep out that lane to the left, then across lots by a narrow path.
Can't miss it. He has no more horses."
"Don't want horses."
"That apple brandy it's no use trying for."
"Boys," said the Captain, "I'm good for half a dozen canteens of the
stuff, I'll bet my boots on it. Who'll go along?"
"I," replied a sturdy brother Captain.
"Recollect now. All here at nine to-night to receive our report. No use
to tell you that, though, when whiskey is about," said the first
Captain, as the crowd dispersed.
And that report was given by his comrade to the punctual crowd as
follows:
"When I came out to the charred pine stumps on the lane, where I was to
meet the Captain, it was a little before dusk. I was just about clear of
the wood, when the Colonel's big black mare, ridden by the Captain, came
bouncing over a scrub pine and lit right in front of me. The d----l
himself couldn't have made me feel a colder shudder.
"'What's the matter? Where's your horse?'
"'I thought we had better walk,' said I, recovered from the fright;
'it's only a short distance.'
"'That ain't the thing. There must be some style about this matter.'
"I had noticed that the Captain had on the Colonel's fancy Regulation
overcoat, a gilt edged fatigue cap, his over-long jingling Mexican
spurs, and the Major's sabre dangling from his side. I came back, got
the Adjutant's horse, and rejoined him.
"'Now, I want you to understand,' said the Captain, putting on his
prettiest, as we jogged along the lane, 'that I'm General Burnside. How
does that strike you?'
"'That you don't look a d--n bit like Burney. He is no fancy man. Your
style is nearer the Prince's,--Fitz John. All you want are the yellow
kids,' rejoined I.
"'Too near home, that. How will Gen. Franklin do?'
"As I knew nothing about Franklin's appearance, I said I supposed that
would do. Before respectable people I'd have hated to see any of our
Generals wronged by the Captain's looks, but as it was only a Rebel, it
didn't make any difference. And then the object overcame all scruples.
"'Well,' continued the Captain, 'you are to be one of my aids. When we
get near the house, just fall back a pace or two.'
"And off he rode, the big mare trotting like an elephant, and keeping my
nag up to a gallop. Keeping back a pace or two was a matter of
necessity. The Captain was full a hundred yards ahead when he halted
near the house to give me time to get in position, his black mare
prancing and snorting under the Mexican ticklers in a manner that would
have done credit to Bucephalus. He pranced on up towards the house,
which was a long weather-boarded structure, a story and a half high,
with a porch running its entire length. The building was put up, I
should judge, before the war of 1812, and not repaired since. A crabbed
old man in a grey coat, with horn buttons, and tan-colored pantaloons,
looking as if he didn't know what to make exactly of the character of
his visitors, was on the porch. Near him, and somewhat in his rear, was
a darkie about as old as himself.
"'Won't you get off your critters?' at length said the old man, his
servant advancing to hold the horses.
"The Captain dismounted, and as his long spurs jingled, and the Major's
sabre clattered on the rotten porch floor, the old fellow changed
countenance considerably, impressed with the presence of greatness.
"'I am Major-General Franklin, sir, commander of a Grand Division of the
Grand Army of the Potomac,' pompously said the Captain, at the same time
introducing me as his Aid, Major Kennedy.
"'Well, gentlemen officers,' stammers the old man, confusedly, and
bowing repeatedly, 'I always liked the old Union. I fit for it in the
milish in the last war with the Britishers. Walk in, walk in,' continued
he, pointing to the door which the darkie had opened.
"We went into a long room with a low ceiling, dirty floor with no carpet
on, a few old chairs, with and without backs, and a walnut table that
looked as if it once had leaves. In one corner was a clock, that stopped
some time before the war commenced, as the old man afterwards told us,
and in the opposite corner stood a dirty pine cupboard. While taking
seats, I couldn't help thinking how badly the room would compare with a
dining room of one of the neat little farm houses that you can see in
any of our mountain gaps, where the land produces nothing but
grasshoppers and rocks, and the farmers have to get along by raising
chickens to keep down the swarms of grasshoppers, and by peddling
huckleberries, and they say, but I never saw them at it, by holding the
hind legs of the sheep up to let them get their noses between the rocks
for pasture."
This latter assertion was indignantly denied by an officer who had his
home in one of the gaps.
"'Well,' continued the Captain, 'I only give it as I heard it. The old
man talked Union awhile, said he tried to be all right, but that his
sons had run off with the Rebels; and he hemmed and hawed about his
being all right until the Captain, who had been spitting fips a long
time, got tired, especially after what the Corporal had said.
"'Well, my old brother patriot,' said the Captain, bending forward in
his chair, and putting on a stern look, 'it don't look exactly right.'
"'How! What! gentlemen officers,' said the old Rebel, pretending, as he
raised his hand to his ear, not to hear the Captain.
"The Captain repeated it louder in his gruff voice, and with a few more
airs.
"'Why, gentlemen officers?' said the old man, rising, half bowing, and
looking about, ready to do anything.
"'You know as well as we do,' said the Captain; 'that you wouldn't let
two of your neighbors be this long in the house without offering them
something to drink. Now, my old friend, as you say you're all right,
we're neighbors in a good cause, and one neighborly act deserves
another; you might be wanting to have your property protected, or to go
to the Ferry, or to send something, and you could hardly get a pass
without a Major-General having something to do with it.'
"At this last the old fellow's face brightened up somewhat.
"'I'll lose a right smart lot of crops,' said the old man, drawing his
chair close to the Captain in a half begging, confidential sort of a
way, 'if I don't get to the Ferry this fall. They're stored up there,
and I want to go up and show them I am a Union man all right. George,'
turning to the darkie, who, cap in hand, stood at the door, 'strike a
light and get the waiter, and three glasses, and bring up some of the
old apple in a pitcher. Be careful not to spill any. Liquor is mighty
scarce,' continued he, turning to us, 'in these parts since the war.
This 'ere I've saved over by hard squeezin'. It was stilled seven years
ago this fall--the fall apples were so plenty.'
"George had the tallow-dip, a rusty waiter, three small old-fashioned
blue glass tumblers, and a pitcher with the handle knocked off, on the
table in good time. We closed around it with our chairs, and the Captain
filled the glasses, and rising, gave for the first round 'The old
Union.' Our glasses were emptied; the old man had but sipped of his.
"'My old friend, you fought in 1812, you say, and hardly touch your
tumbler to the old Union. Come, it must have a full glass.' The
authority in the tone of the Captain made the old man swallow it, but as
he did so he muttered something about its being very scarce.
"'Now,' said the Captain, refilling the glasses, 'Here is The Union as
it is.'
"The old Rebel feeling his first glass a little, and they say anyway
when wine goes in the truth comes out, said in rather a low, trembling
tone,
"'Now, the fact is, gentlemen officers, some Yankees--not you! not you!
but some Yankees way up North, acted kind of bad.'
"'That's not the question,' said the Captain, 'there are bad men all
over, and lots of them in Virginia. The toast is before the house,'--the
Captain had already swallowed his--'and it must be drunk;' and the
Major's sabre struck the floor till the table shook.
"With a shudder at the sound the old man gulped it down. The glasses
were refilled and the pitcher emptied.
"'Here's to The blessed Union as it will be, after all the d----d Rebels
are either under the sod or swinging in hemp neck-ties about ten feet
above it,' the Captain shouted, waving at the same time his uplifted
glass in a way that brought a grin on George's face, and made the old
man look pale.
"'Now! now! now! gentlemen officers,' gasped the old traitor, as
if his breath was coming back by jerks, 'that is pretty hard,
considerin'--considerin' my two sons ran off 'gainst my will--'gainst
my will, gentlemen officers, understand, and jined the Rebels;' and
then, as the liquor worked up his pluck and pride, he went on, 'and old
Stonewall when he was here last, told me himself at this very table that
such soldiers the South could be proud of; and Turner Ashby told me the
same thing, and it would be agin all natur for an old man not to feel
proud of such boys, after hearing all that from such men, and now you
want me to drink such a toast. That----'
"'Yes, sir,' broke in the Captain, who had emptied his glass, 'and it
must be done.'
"'The fact is, gentlemen officers,' the liquor still working up his
pluck, 'we Southerners _had_ to fit you. You sent old Brown down to run
off our niggers, and then when we hung him, you come yourselves. Every
cussed nigger--and I had forty-three in all--has left me and ran away
but old George and two old wenches that can't run, and are good for
nothin' but to chaw corndodgers.' The whiskey now worked fast on the old
man, and making half a fist, he said, 'I reckon when hangin' day comes
some Blue Bellies will have an airin'.'
"'You d----d grey-headed old traitor!' roared out the Captain, 'the
liquor has let the treason out. Now, by all that's holy, drink that
toast standing, head up, as if there was patriotic blood in your
veins--as if you lived in the State Washington was born in--or you'll
find out what it is to talk treason before a Major-General of the army
of the United States.' Another stroke of the sabre on the floor that
rattled the broken glass in the windows followed. The old man gave
another shudder, straightened up, steadied himself at the table with his
left hand, and with a swallow that nearly strangled him, drank off his
glass.
"'Ha! old fellow,' said the Captain, grinning, 'you came near cheating
hemp that clip.'
"'George, show us where the apple brandy is,' he continued, addressing
the darkie.
"The darkie bowed, grinned, and pointed to the door leading to the
cellar way.
"'Oh, Lord! my spirits! Don't take it, gentlemen officers, I must have a
morning dram, and it's all I've got. Let me keep the spirits.'
"'You old d----l!' exclaimed the Captain, as he eyed him savagely,
'spirits have made all the trouble in the country. Yes, sir. Bad whiskey
and worse preaching of false spiritual doctrines, such as slavery being
a Divine institution, and what not, started the Rebellion, and keep it
up. Spirits are contraband of war, just as Ben Butler says niggers are,
and we'll confiscate it'--here the Captain gave me a sly look--'in the
name and by the authority of the President of the United States. Major,
where's your canteens?'
"I produced three that had been slung under my cape, and the Captain as
many more.
"As the old Rebel saw the preparations he groaned out, 'My God! and only
four inches in the barrel George! mind, the barrel in the corner.'
"Knowing the darkie would be all right, we followed under pretty stiff
loads, the old man bringing up the rear, staggering to the door and
getting down the steps on his hands and knees.
"The Captain tasted both barrels. One in a corner was commissary that
the darkie said 'Massa had dickered for just the day afore.' The other
was well nigh empty. George, old as he was, had the steadiest hands, and
he filled the canteens one by one, closing their mouths on the cedar
spigot. As he did it, he whispered, 'Dis'll make de ole nigger feel
good. Massa gets flustered on dis and 'buses de ole wimin. De commissary
fotches him--can't hurt nuffin wid dat.'
"'There's devilish little to fluster him now,' said the Captain, as he
tipped the barrel to fill the last canteen.
"The old man had stuck at the bottom of the steps. George fairly carried
him up, and he lay almost helpless on the floor.
"'That last toast,' said the Captain, as we left the room, 'will knock
any Rebel.'
"George held the horses, and I rather guess steadied our legs as we got
on, well loaded with apple juice inside and out. The Captain's spurs
sent the black mare off at a gallop, over rocks and bushes, and he left
me far behind in a jiffy. But I did in earnest act as an aid before we
got to camp. I found him near the place where we turn in, fast between
two scrub oaks, swearing like a trooper at the pickets, as he called the
bushes, for arresting him, and unable to get backward or forward. His
swearing saved him that clip, as it was dark, and I would have gone past
if I hadn't heard it."
"I move the adoption of the report, with the thanks of the meeting to
Major-General Franklin and his genuine Aid," said the Adjutant, after a
stiff drink all around.
"I move that it be referred back for report on the Commissary," said a
Lieutenant, after another equally stiff round.
The Adjutant would not withdraw his motion,--no chairman to preserve
order,--brandy good,--drinks frequent, and in the confusion that ensued
we close the chapter, remarking only that the Commissary was spared to
the old Rebel, through an order to march at four next morning, that came
to hand near midnight.