HOME-SICKNESS AND ITS OUTPOURING IN MUSIC.
IT WAS Sunday again, and the 200th Ind. still lingered near Nashville.
For some inscrutible reason known only to the commanding officers the
brigade had been for nearly a week in camp on the banks of the swift
running Cumberland. They had been bright, sunshiny days, the last two of
them. Much rain in the hill country had swollen the swift waters of the
Cumberland and they fiercely clamored their devious way to the broad
Ohio. The gentle roar as the rippling wavelets dashed against the rock
bound shores sounded almost surf-life, but to Si, who had never
heard the salt waves play hide-and-go-seek on the pebbly beach, the
Cumberland's angry flood sang only songs of home on the Wabash. He had
seen the Wabash raging in flood time and had helped to yank many a head
of stock from its engulfing fury. He had seen the Ohio, too, when she
ran bank full with her arched center carrying the Spring floods
and hundreds of acres of good soil down to the continent-dividing
Mississippi, and on out to sea. His strong arms and stout muscles had
piloted many a boat-load of boys and girls through the Wabash eddies
and rapids during the Spring rise, and as he stood now, looking over the
vast width of this dreary waste of waters, a great wave of home-sickness
swept over him.
After all, Si was only a kid of a boy, like thousands of his comrades.'
True, he was past his majority a few months, but his environment from
youth to his enlistment had so sheltered him that he was a boy at heart.
"The like precurse of fierce events and prologue to the omen coming
on" had as yet made small impression upon him. Grim visaged war had
not frightened him much up to that time. He was to get his regenerating
baptism of blood at Murfreesboro a few weeks later. Just now Si Klegg was
simply a boy grown big, a little over fat, fond of mother's cooking,
mother's nice clean feather beds, mother's mothering, if the truth must
be told. He had never in his life before been three nights from under
the roof of the comfortable old house in which he was born. He had now
been wearing the blue uniform of the Union a little more than three
months, and had not felt mother's work-hardened hands smoothing his
rebellious hair or seen her face or heard a prayer like she could make
in all that three months.
"Shucks!" he said fretfully to himself as he looked back at the droning,
half asleep brigade camp, and then off to the north, across the boiling
yellow flood of waters that tumbled past the rocks far below him.
"A feller sure does git tired of doin' nothin'."
Lusty, young, and bred to an active life, Si, while he did not really
crave hustle and bustle, was yet wedded to "keeping things moving." He
had already forgotten the fierce suffering of his early marching--it
seemed three years to him instead of three months back; he had forgotten
the graybacks, the wet nights, the foraging expeditions, the extra guard
duty and all that. There had been two days of soft Autumn sunshine in a
camp that was almost ideal. Everything was cleaned up, mended up, and
the men had washed and barbered themselves into almost dude-like
neatness. Their heaviest duties had been lazy camp guard duty, which
Shorty, growing indolent, had declared to be "dumned foolishness," and
the only excitement offered came from returning foraging parties. There
was no lurking enemy to fear, for the country had been cleared of
guerrillas, and in very truth the ease and quietness of the days of
inactivity was almost demoralizing the men.
There had been no Sunday services. The 200th Ind. was sprawled out on
the ground in its several hundred attitudes of ease, and those with whom
they were brigaded were just as carelessly disposed.
As Si sauntered aimlessly back to look for Shorty, the early twilight
began to close in as the sun slid down behind the distant hills.
Campfires began to glow as belated foragers prepared their suppers,
and the gentle hum of voices came pleasantly to the ear, punctuated by
laughter, often boisterous, but quite as often just the babbling, cheery
laugh of carefree boys.
Si felt--well, Si was just plain homesick for mother and the girls, and
one particular girl, whose front name was Annabel, and he almost felt as
though he didn't care who knew it.
The air was redolent with the odor of frying meat. Mingled with this
were vagrant whiffs of cooking potatoes, onions, chickens, and the
fragrance of coffee steaming to blackest strength, all telling tales of
skillful and successful foraging, and it all reminded Si of home and the
odors in his mother's kitchen.
Si couldn't find Shorty, so he hunched down, silent and alone, beside
his tent, a prey to the blue devils. It would soon be Christmas at home.
He could see the great apple bins in the cellar; the pumpkins in the
hay in the barn; the turkeys roosting above the woodshed; the yards
of encased sausages in the attic; he could even smell the mince meat
seasoning in the great stone jar; the honey in the bee cellar; the huge
fruit cake in the milk pan in the pantry; since he could remember he
seen and smelled all these, with 57 varieties of preserves, "jells,"
marmalades, and fruit-butters thrown in for good measure at Christmas
time. He had even contemplated with equanimity all these 21 Christmases,
the dose of "blue pills" that inevitably followed over-feeding at Mother
Klegg's, and now on his 22d Christmas he might be providing a target for
a rebel bullet.
Suddenly Si noticed that the dark had come; the fragrance of tobacco
from hundreds of pipes was filling the air, and from away off in the
distance the almost Indian Summer zephyrs were bringing soft rythmic
sounds like--surely--yes, he caught it now, it was that mighty soother
of tired hearts--
"Jesus, lover of my soul,
Let me to Thy bosom fly.
While the billows near me roll.
While the tempest still is high."
Si shut his eyes lest the tear drops welling suddenly up fall on his
uniform, not stopping to think that in the gloom they could not be seen.
Miles away the singers seemed to be when Si caught the first sounds,
but as the long, swinging notes reached out in the darkness, squad after
squad, company after company, regiment after regiment took up the grand
old hymn until Si himself lifted up his not untuneful voice and with the
thousands of others was pleading--
"Hide me, oh, my Savior hide,
'Till the storm of life is past;
Safe into the haven guide.
Oh, receive my soul at last."
and the song rose and swelled out and up toward heaven, and stole away
off to the horizon till the whole vast universe seemed filled with the
sacred melody. As the last words and their music faded out in space.
Shorty lunged down beside Si.
"Say, Pard," he began banteringly, "you've missed yer callin'. Op'ry
oughter have been yer trade."
"Oh, chop off yer chin music for a minute. Shorty," broke in Si. "In
the dark here it seemed most as though I was at home in the little old
church with Maria and Annabel and Pap and Mother, and us all singing
together, and you've busted it--ah! listen!"
From not far away a bugler had tuned up and through the fragrant night
came piercingly sweet--
"I will sing you a song of that beautiful land--"
Then near at hand a strong, clear, musical tenor voice took up the
second line,
"The far away home of the soul,"
and almost instantly a deep, resonant bass voice boomed in--
"Where no storms ever beat on that glittering strand
While the years of eternity roll,"
and soon a hundred voices were making melody of the spheres as they sang
Philip Phillips's beautiful song.
"That was Wilse Hornbeck singin' tenor," said Si, as the song ended.
"And it was Hen Withers doin' the bass stunt," returned Shorty.
"You just oughter hear him do the ornamental on a mule whacker. Why, Si,
he's an artist at cussing. Hen Withers is. Sodom and Gomorrah would git
jealous of him if he planted himself near 'em, he's that wicked."
"Well, he can sing all right," grunted Si.
Just then Hen Withers, in the squad some 50 feet away broke into song
again--
"Oh, say, can you see by the dawn's early light"
It welled up from his throat like the pipe from a church organ, and as
mellow as the strains from a French horn. When the refrain rolled out
fully 3,000 men were singing, yelling and shouting in frenzied fervor--
"And the Star Spangled banner.
In triumph shall wave,
O'er the land of the free,
And the home of the brave."
While Hen Withers rested on his well-earned laurels, a strong, clear
voice, whose owner was probably thinking of home and the shady gloom
of the walk through the grove to singing school with his sweetheart,
trilled an apostrophe to the queen of light.
"Roll on, silvery moon,
Guide the traveler on his way,"
but he had it pretty much to himself, for not many knew the words, and
he trailed off into
"I loved a little beauty, Bell Brandon,"
then his music died out in the night.
It was now the "tenore robusto" who chimed in bells, on a new battle song
that held a mile square of camp spellbound:
"Oh, wrap the flag around me, boys,
To die were far more sweet
With freedom's starry emblem, boys.
To be my winding sheet.
In life I loved to see it wave
And follow where it led,
And now my eyes grow dim, my hands
Would clasp its last bright shred.
Oh, I had thought to meet you, boys,
On many a well-worn field
When to our starry emblem, boys,
The trait'rous foe should yield.
But now, alas, I am denied
My dearest earthly prayer,
You'll follow and you'll meet the foe,
But I shall not be there."
Wilse Hornback knew by the hush of the camp as the sound of his
wonderful voice died on the far horizon that he had his laurels, too,
and so he sang on while the mile square of camp went music-mad again as
it sang with him--
"We are springing to the call of our brothers gone before,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom.
And we'll fill the vacant ranks with a million freemen more.
Shouting the battle cry of freedom."
Chorus:
"The Union forever! Hurrah, boys. Hurrah;
Down with the traitor and up with the Star,
While we rally 'round the Flag, boys,
We'll rally once again,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom.
We will welcome to our numbers the loyal, true and brave.
Shouting the battle cry of freedom,
And although they may be poor, not a man shall
be a slave.
Shouting the battle cry of freedom.
So we're springing to the call from the East and from the West,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom,
And we'll hurl the rebel crew from the land we love the best,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom."
In the almighty hush that followed the billows of sound, some
sweet-voiced fellow started Annie Laurie, and then sang--
"In the prison cell I sit"
with grand chorus accompaniment. Then Wilse Hornback started and Hen
Withers joined in singing the Battle Hymn--
"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord,"
and oh, God of Battles! how that army of voices took up the refrain--
"Glory, glory, hallelujah,"
and tossed and flung it back and forth from hill to hill and shore to
shore till it seemed as though Lee and his cohorts must have heard and
quailed before the fearful prophecy and arraignment.
Then the "tenore robusto" and the "basso profundo" opened a regular
concert program, more or less sprinkled with magnificent chorus:
singing, as it was easy or difficult for the men to recall the words.
You must rummage in the closets of memory for most of them! The Old
Oaken Bucket; Nellie Gray; Anna Lisle; No, Ne'er Can Thy Home be Mine;
Tramp, Tramp, Tramp; We are Coming, Father Abraham; Just as I Am; By
Cold Siloam's Shady Rill--how those home-loving Sunday school young
boys did sing that! It seemed incongruous, but every now and then they
dropped into these old hymn tunes, which many a mother had sung her baby
to sleep with in those elder and better days.
The war songs are all frazzled and torn fragments of memory now, covered
with dust and oblivion, but they were great songs in and for their day.
No other country ever had so many.
Laughter and badinage had long since ceased. Flat on their backs,
gazing up at the stars through the pine and hemlock boughs, the boys
lay quietly smoking while the "tenore robusto" assisted by the "basso
profundo" and hundreds of others sang "Willie, We Have Missed You,"
"Just Before the Battle, Mother," "Brave Boys Are They," and the "Vacant
Chair."
In a little break in the singing. Hen Withers sang a wonderful song, now
almost forgotten. It was new to the boys then, but the bugler had heard
it, and as Hen's magnificent voice rolled forth its fervid words the
bugle caught up the high note theme, and never did the stars sing
together more entrancingly than did the "wicked mule whacker" and that
bugle--
"Lift up your eyes, desponding freemen.
Fling to the winds your needless fears.
He who unfurled our beauteous banner
Says it shall wave a thousand years."
On the glorious chorus a thousand voices took up the refrain in droning
fashion that made one think of "The Sound of the Great Amen."
"A thousand years, my own Columbia!
Tis the glad day so long foretold!
'Tis the glad mom whose early twilight
Washington saw in times of old."
By the time Hen had sung all of the seven verses the whole brigade
knew the refrain and roared it forth as a defiance to the Southern
Confederacy, which took on physical vigor in the days that came after,
when the 200th Ind. went into battle to come off victorious on many a
fiercely contested field.
Then the tenor sang that doleful, woe begone, hope effacing,
heart-string-cracking "Lorena." Some writer has said that it sung the
heart right out of the Southern Confederacy.
"The sun's low down the sky, Lorena,
The snow is on the grass again."
As Wilse Hornbeck let his splendid voice out on the mournful cadences,
Si felt his very heart strings snap, and even Shorty drew his breath
hard, while some of the men simply rolled over, and burying their faces
in their arms, sobbed audibly.
Wilse had not counted on losing his own nerve, but found his voice
breaking on the melancholy last lines, and bounding to his feet with a
petulant,
"Oh, hang it!"
"Say, darkies, hab you seen de Massa"
came dancing up from the jubilating chords of that wonderful human music
box, and soon the camp was reeling giddily with the jolly, rollicking,
"Or Massa ran, ha! ha!!
The darkies stay, ho! ho!!"
Then, far in the distance a bugle sounded "lights out," and the songfest
was at an end; as bugler after bugler took it up, one by one the
campfires blinked out, and squad after squad sank into quiet.
"I feel a heap better somehow," remarked Si, as he crawled under his
blanket.
"Dogged if I hain't had a sort of uplift, too," muttered Shorty, as he
wrapped his blanket round his head. In the distance a tenor voice was
singing as he kicked out his fire and got ready for bed--
"Glory, glory, hallelujah."