We marched up the hill, and when the dust opened there was our Big Tent
ready pitched.
It was an enormous tent,--the Sibley pattern modified. A simple soul in
our ranks looked up and said,--"Tent! canvas! I don't see it: that's
marble!" Whereupon a simpler soul informed us,--"Boys, that's the
Capitol."
And so it was the Capitol,--as glad to see the New York Seventh Regiment
as they to see it. The Capitol was to be our quarters, and I was pleased
to notice that the top of the dome had been left off for ventilation.
The Seventh had had a wearisome and anxious progress from New York, as I
have chronicled in the June "Atlantic." We had marched from Annapolis,
while "rumors to right of us, rumors to left of us, volleyed and
thundered." We had not expected that the attack upon us would be merely
verbal. The truculent citizens of Maryland notified us that we were to
find every barn a Concord and every hedge a Lexington. Our Southern
brethren at present repudiate their debts; but we fancied they would
keep their warlike promises. At least, everybody thought, "They will
fire over our heads, or bang blank cartridges at us." Every nose was
sniffing for the smell of powder. Vapor instead of valor nobody looked
for. So the march had been on the _qui vive_. We were happy enough that
it was over, and successful.
Successful, because Mumbo Jumbo was not installed in the White House. It
is safe to call Jeff. Davis Mumbo Jumbo now. But there is no doubt that
the luckless man had visions of himself receiving guests, repudiating
debts, and distributing embassies in Washington, May 1, 1861. And as to
La' Davis, there seems to be documentary evidence that she meant to be
"At Home" in the capital, bringing the first strawberries with her from
Montgomery for her May-day _soirée_. Bah! one does not like to sneer at
people who have their necks in the halter; but one happy result of this
disturbance is that the disturbers have sent themselves to Coventry. The
Lincoln party may be wanting in finish. Finish comes with use. A little
roughness of manner, the genuine simplicity of a true soul like Lincoln,
is attractive. But what man of breeding could ever stand the type
Southern Senator? But let him rest in such peace as he can find! He and
his peers will not soon be seen where we of the New York Seventh were
now entering.
They gave us the Representatives Chamber for quarters. Without running
the gauntlet of caucus primary and election, every one of us attained
that sacred shrine.
In we marched, tramp, tramp. Bayonets took the place of buncombe. The
frowzy creatures in ill-made dress-coats, shimmering satin waistcoats,
and hats of the tile model, who lounge, spit, and vociferate there, and
name themselves M.C., were off. Our neat uniforms and bright barrels
showed to great advantage, compared with the usual costumes of the usual
_dramatis personae_ of the scene.
It was dramatic business, our entrance there. The new Chamber is
gorgeous, but ineffective. Its ceiling is flat, and panelled with
transparencies. Each panel is the coat-of-arms of a State, painted on
glass. I could not see that the impartial sunbeams, tempered by this
skylight, had burned away the insignia of the malecontent States. Nor
had any rampant Secessionist thought to punch any of the seven lost
Pleiads out from that firmament with a long pole. Crimson and gold are
the prevailing hues of the decorations. There is no unity and breadth of
coloring. The desks of the members radiate in double files from a white
marble tribune at the centre of the semicircle.
In came the new actors on this scene. Our presence here was the
inevitable sequel of past events. We appeared with bayonets and bullets
because of the bosh uttered on this floor; because of the bills--with
treasonable stump-speeches in their bellies--passed here; because of
the cowardice of the poltroons, the imbecility of the dodgers, and the
arrogance of the bullies, who had here cooperated to blind and corrupt
the minds of the people. Talk had made a miserable mess of it. The
_ultima ratio_ was now appealed to.
Some of our companies were marched up-stairs into the galleries. The
sofas were to be their beds. With their white cross-belts and bright
breastplates, they made a very picturesque body of spectators for
whatever happened in the Hall, and never failed to applaud in the right
or the wrong place at will.
Most of us were bestowed in the amphitheatre. Each desk received its
man. He was to scribble on it by day, and sleep under it by night. When
the desks were all taken, the companies overflowed into the corners and
into the lobbies. The staff took committee-rooms. The Colonel reigned in
the Speaker's parlor.
Once in, firstly, we washed.
Such a wash merits a special paragraph. I compliment the M.C.s, our
hosts, upon their water-privileges. How we welcomed this chief luxury
after our march! And thenceforth how we prized it! For the clean face
is an institution which requires perpetual renovation at Washington.
"Constant vigilance is the price" of neatness. When the sky here is not
travelling earthward in rain, earth is mounting skyward in dust. So much
dirt must have an immoral effect.
After the wash we showed ourselves to the eyes of Washington, marching
by companies, each to a different hotel, to dinner. This became one of
the ceremonies of our barrack-life. We liked it. The Washingtonians were
amused and encouraged by it. Three times a day, with marked punctuality,
our lines formed and tramped down the hill to scuffle with awkward
squads of waiters for fare more or less tolerable. In these little
marches, we encountered by-and-by the other regiments, and, most
soldierly of all, the Rhode Island men, in blue flannel blouses and
_bersaglière_ hats. But of them hereafter.
It was a most attractive post of ours at the Capitol. Spring was at its
freshest and fairest. Every day was more exquisite than its forerunner.
We drilled morning, noon, and evening, almost hourly, in the pretty
square east of the building. Old soldiers found that they rattled
through the manual twice as alert as ever before. Recruits became old
soldiers in a trice. And as to awkward squads, men that would have been
the veriest louts and lubbers in the piping times of peace now learned
to toe the mark, to whisk their eyes right and their eyes left, to drop
the butts of their muskets without crushing their corns, and all the
mysteries of flank and file,--and so became full-fledged heroes before
they knew it.
In the rests between our drills we lay under the young shade on the
sweet young grass, with the odors of snowballs and horse-chestnut blooms
drifting to us with every whiff of breeze, and amused ourselves with
watching the evolutions of our friends of the Massachusetts Eighth, and
other less experienced soldiers, as they appeared upon the field. They,
too, like ourselves, were going through the transformations. These
sturdy fellows were then in a rough enough chrysalis of uniform. That
shed, they would look worthy of themselves.
But the best of the entertainment was within the Capitol. Some three
thousand or more of us were now quartered there. The Massachusetts
Eighth were under the dome. No fear of want of air for them. The
Massachusetts Sixth were eloquent for their State in the Senate Chamber.
It was singularly fitting, among the many coincidences in the history of
this regiment, that they should be there, tacitly avenging the assault
upon Sumner and the attempts to bully the impregnable Wilson.
In the recesses, caves, and crypts of the Capitol what other legions
were bestowed I do not know. I daily lost myself, and sometimes when
out of my reckoning was put on the way by sentries of strange corps, a
Reading Light Infantry man, or some other. We all fraternized. There was
a fine enthusiasm among us: not the soldierly rivalry in discipline that
may grow up in future between men of different States acting together,
but the brotherhood of ardent fellows first in the field and earnest in
the cause.
All our life in the Capitol was most dramatic and sensational.
Before it was fairly light in the dim interior of the Representatives
Chamber, the _réveilles_ of the different regiments came rattling
through the corridors. Every snorer's trumpet suddenly paused. The
impressive sound of the hushed breathing of a thousand sleepers, marking
off the fleet moments of the night, gave way to a most vociferous
uproar. The boy element is large in the Seventh Regiment. Its slang
dictionary is peculiar and unabridged. As soon as we woke, the pit began
to chaff the galleries, and the galleries the pit. We were allowed noise
nearly _ad libitum_. Our riotous tendencies, if they existed, escaped
by the safety-valve of the larynx. We joked, we shouted, we sang, we
mounted the Speaker's desk and made speeches,--always to the point; for
if any but a wit ventured to give tongue, he was coughed down without
ceremony. Let the M.C.s adopt this plan and silence their dunces.
With all our jollity we preserved very tolerable decorum. The regiment
is _assez bien composé_. Many of its privates are distinctly gentlemen
of breeding and character. The tone is mainly good, and the _esprit de
corps_ high. If the Colonel should say, "Up, boys, and at 'em!" I know
that the Seventh would do brilliantly in the field. I speak now of its
behavior in-doors. This certainly did it credit. Our thousand did the
Capitol little harm that a corporal's guard of Biddies with mops and
tubs could not repair in a forenoon's campaign.
Perhaps we should have served our country better by a little Vandalism.
The decorations of the Capitol have a slight flavor of the Southwestern
steamboat saloon. The pictures (now, by the way, carefully covered)
would most of them be the better, if the figures were bayoneted and the
backgrounds sabred out. Both--pictures and decorations--belong to that
bygone epoch of our country when men shaved the moustache, dressed like
parsons, said "Sir," and chewed tobacco,--a transition epoch, now become
an historic blank.
The home-correspondence of our legion of young heroes was illimitable.
Every one had his little tale of active service to relate. A decimation
of the regiment, more or less, had profited by the tender moment of
departure to pop the question and to receive the dulcet "Yes." These
lucky fellows were of course writing to Dulcinea regularly, three meals
of love a day. Mr. Van Wyck, M.C., and a brace of colleagues were kept
hard at work all day giving franks and saving threepennies to the ardent
scribes. Uncle Sam lost certainly three thousand cents a day in this
manner.
What crypts and dens, caves and cellars there are under that great
structure! And barrels of flour in every one of them this month of May,
1861. Do civilians eat in this proportion? Or does long standing in the
"Position of a Soldier" (_vide_ "Tactics" for a view of that graceful
_pose_) increase a man's capacity for bread and beef so enormously?
It was infinitely picturesque in these dim vaults by night. Sentries
were posted at every turn. Their guns gleamed in the gaslight. Sleepers
were lying in their blankets wherever the stones were softest. Then in
the guard-room the guard were waiting their turn. We have not had much
of this scenery in America, and the physiognomy of volunteer military
life is quite distinct from anything one sees in European service. The
People have never had occasion until now to occupy their Palace with
armed men.