In the days of the Civil War practical joking had not, I think, fallen
into that disrepute which characterizes it now. That, doubtless, was
owing to our extreme youth--men were much younger than now, and evermore
your very young man has a boisterous spirit, running easily to
horse-play. You cannot think how young the men were in the early
sixties! Why, the average age of the entire Federal Army was not more
than twenty-five; I doubt if it was more than twenty-three, but not
having the statistics on that point (if there are any) I want to be
moderate: we will say twenty-five. It is true a man of twenty-five was
in that heroic time a good deal more of a man than one of that age is
now; you could see that by looking at him. His face had nothing of that
unripeness so conspicuous in his successor. I never see a young fellow
now without observing how disagreeably young he really is; but during the
war we did not think of a man's age at all unless he happened to be
pretty well along in life. In that case one could not help it, for the
unloveliness of age assailed the human countenance then much earlier
than now; the result, I suppose, of hard service--perhaps, to some
extent, of hard drink, for, bless my soul! we did shed the blood of the
grape and the grain abundantly during the war. I remember thinking
General Grant, who could not have been more than forty, a pretty well
preserved old chap, considering his habits. As to men of middle age--say
from fifty to sixty--why, they all looked fit to personate the Last of
the Hittites, or the Madagascarene Methuselah, in a museum. Depend upon
it, my friends, men of that time were greatly younger than men are
to-day, but looked much older. The change is quite remarkable.
I said that practical joking had not then gone out of fashion. It had
not, at least, in the army; though possibly in the more serious life of
the civilian it had no place except in the form of tarring and
feathering an occasional "copperhead." You all know, I suppose, what a
"copperhead" was, so I will go directly at my story without introductory
remark, as is my way.
It was a few days before the battle of Nashville. The enemy had driven
us up out of northern Georgia and Alabama. At Nashville we had turned at
bay and fortified, while old Pap Thomas, our commander, hurried down
reinforcements and supplies from Louisville. Meantime Hood, the
Confederate commander, had partly invested us and lay close enough to
have tossed shells into the heart of the town. As a rule he
abstained--he was afraid of killing the families of his own soldiers, I
suppose, a great many of whom had lived there. I sometimes wondered what
were the feelings of those fellows, gazing over our heads at their own
dwellings, where their wives and children or their aged parents were
perhaps suffering for the necessaries of life, and certainly (so their
reasoning would run) cowering under the tyranny and power of the
barbarous Yankees.
To begin, then, at the beginning, I was serving at that time on the
staff of a division commander whose name I shall not disclose, for I am
relating facts, and the person upon whom they bear hardest may have
surviving relatives who would not care to have him traced. Our
headquarters were in a large dwelling which stood just behind our line
of works. This had been hastily abandoned by the civilian occupants, who
had left everything pretty much as it was--had no place to store it,
probably, and trusted that Heaven would preserve it from Federal
cupidity and Confederate artillery. With regard to the latter we were as
solicitous as they.
Rummaging about in some of the chambers and closets one evening, some of
us found an abundant supply of lady-gear--gowns, shawls, bonnets, hats,
petticoats and the Lord knows what; I could not at that time have named
the half of it. The sight of all this pretty plunder inspired one of us
with what he was pleased to call an "idea," which, when submitted to the
other scamps and scapegraces of the staff, met with instant and
enthusiastic approval. We proceeded at once to act upon it for the
undoing of one of our comrades.
Our selected victim was an aide, Lieutenant Haberton, so to call him. He
was a good soldier--as gallant a chap as ever wore spurs; but he had an
intolerable weakness: he was a lady-killer, and like most of his class,
even in those days, eager that all should know it. He never tired of
relating his amatory exploits, and I need not say how dismal that kind
of narrative is to all but the narrator. It would be dismal even if
sprightly and vivacious, for all men are rivals in woman's favor, and to
relate your successes to another man is to rouse in him a dumb
resentment, tempered by disbelief. You will not convince him that you
tell the tale for his entertainment; he will hear nothing in it but an
expression of your own vanity. Moreover, as most men, whether rakes or
not, are willing to be thought rakes, he is very likely to resent a
stupid and unjust inference which he suspects you to have drawn from his
reticence in the matter of his own adventures--namely, that he has had
none. If, on the other hand, he has had no scruple in the matter and his
reticence is due to lack of opportunity to talk, or of nimbleness in
taking advantage of it, why, then he will be surly because you "have the
floor" when he wants it himself. There are, in short, no circumstances
under which a man, even from the best of motives, or no motive at all,
can relate his feats of love without distinctly lowering himself in the
esteem of his male auditor; and herein lies a just punishment for such
as kiss and tell. In my younger days I was myself not entirely out of
favor with the ladies, and have a memory stored with much concerning
them which doubtless I might put into acceptable narrative had I not
undertaken another tale, and if it were not my practice to relate one
thing at a time, going straight away to the end, without digression.
Lieutenant Haberton was, it must be confessed, a singularly handsome man
with engaging manners. He was, I suppose, judging from the imperfect
view-point of my sex, what women call "fascinating." Now, the qualities
which make a man attractive to ladies entail a double disadvantage.
First, they are of a sort readily discerned by other men, and by none
more readily than by those who lack them. Their possessor, being feared
by all these, is habitually slandered by them in self-defense. To all
the ladies in whose welfare they deem themselves entitled to a voice and
interest they hint at the vices and general unworth of the "ladies' man"
in no uncertain terms, and to their wives relate without shame the most
monstrous falsehoods about him. Nor are they restrained by the
consideration that he is their friend; the qualities which have engaged
their own admiration make it necessary to warn away those to whom the
allurement would be a peril. So the man of charming personality, while
loved by all the ladies who know him well, yet not too well, must endure
with such fortitude as he may the consciousness that those others who
know him only "by reputation" consider him a shameless reprobate, a
vicious and unworthy man--a type and example of moral depravity. To name
the second disadvantage entailed by his charms: he commonly is.
In order to get forward with our busy story (and in my judgment a story
once begun should not suffer impedition) it is necessary to explain that
a young fellow attached to our headquarters as an orderly was notably
effeminate in face and figure. He was not more than seventeen and had a
perfectly smooth face and large lustrous eyes, which must have been the
envy of many a beautiful woman in those days. And how beautiful the
women of those days were! and how gracious! Those of the South showed in
their demeanor toward us Yankees something of _hauteur_, but, for my
part, I found it less insupportable than the studious indifference with
which one's attentions are received by the ladies of this new
generation, whom I certainly think destitute of sentiment and
sensibility.
This young orderly, whose name was Arman, we persuaded--by what
arguments I am not bound to say--to clothe himself in female attire and
personate a lady. When we had him arrayed to our satisfaction--and a
charming girl he looked--he was conducted to a sofa in the office of the
adjutant-general. That officer was in the secret, as indeed were all
excepting Haberton and the general; within the awful dignity hedging the
latter lay possibilities of disapproval which we were unwilling to
confront.
When all was ready I went to Haberton and said: "Lieutenant, there is a
young woman in the adjutant-general's office. She is the daughter of the
insurgent gentleman who owns this house, and has, I think, called to see
about its present occupancy. We none of us know just how to talk to her,
but we think perhaps you would say about the right thing--at least you
will say things in the right way. Would you mind coming down?"
The lieutenant would not mind; he made a hasty toilet and joined me. As
we were going along a passage toward the Presence we encountered a
formidable obstacle--the general.
"I say, Broadwood," he said, addressing me in the familiar manner which
meant that he was in excellent humor, "there's a lady in Lawson's
office. Looks like a devilish fine girl--came on some errand of mercy or
justice, no doubt. Have the goodness to conduct her to my quarters. I
won't saddle you youngsters with _all_ the business of this division,"
he added facetiously.
This was awkward; something had to be done.
"General," I said, "I did not think the lady's business of sufficient
importance to bother you with it. She is one of the Sanitary
Commission's nurses, and merely wants to see about some supplies for the
smallpox hospital where she is on duty. I'll send her in at once."
"You need not mind," said the general, moving on; "I dare say Lawson
will attend to the matter."
Ah, the gallant general! how little I thought, as I looked after his
retreating figure and laughed at the success of my ruse, that within the
week he would be "dead on the field of honor!" Nor was he the only one
of our little military household above whom gloomed the shadow of the
death angel, and who might almost have heard "the beating of his wings."
On that bleak December morning a few days later, when from an hour
before dawn until ten o'clock we sat on horseback on those icy hills,
waiting for General Smith to open the battle miles away to the right,
there were eight of us. At the close of the fighting there were three.
There is now one. Bear with him yet a little while, oh, thrifty
generation; he is but one of the horrors of war strayed from his era
into yours. He is only the harmless skeleton at your feast and
peace-dance, responding to your laughter and your footing it featly,
with rattling fingers and bobbing skull--albeit upon suitable occasion,
with a partner of his choosing, he might do his little dance with the
best of you.
As we entered the adjutant-general's office we observed that the entire
staff was there. The adjutant-general himself was exceedingly busy at
his desk. The commissary of subsistence played cards with the surgeon in
a bay window. The rest were in several parts of the room, reading or
conversing in low tones. On a sofa in a half lighted nook of the room,
at some distance from any of the groups, sat the "lady," closely veiled,
her eyes modestly fixed upon her toes.
"Madam," I said, advancing with Haberton, "this officer will be pleased
to serve you if it is in his power. I trust that it is."
With a bow I retired to the farther corner of the room and took part in
a conversation going on there, though I had not the faintest notion what
it was about, and my remarks had no relevancy to anything under the
heavens. A close observer would have noticed that we were all intently
watching Haberton and only "making believe" to do anything else.
He was worth watching, too; the fellow was simply an _édition de luxe_
of "Turveydrop on Deportment." As the "lady" slowly unfolded her tale of
grievances against our lawless soldiery and mentioned certain instances
of wanton disregard of property rights--among them, as to the imminent
peril of bursting our sides we partly overheard, the looting of her own
wardrobe--the look of sympathetic agony in Haberton's handsome face was
the very flower and fruit of histrionic art. His deferential and
assenting nods at her several statements were so exquisitely performed
that one could not help regretting their unsubstantial nature and the
impossibility of preserving them under glass for instruction and delight
of posterity. And all the time the wretch was drawing his chair nearer
and nearer. Once or twice he looked about to see if we were observing,
but we were in appearance blankly oblivious to all but one another and
our several diversions. The low hum of our conversation, the gentle
tap-tap of the cards as they fell in play and the furious scratching of
the adjutant-general's pen as he turned off countless pages of words
without sense were the only sounds heard. No--there was another: at long
intervals the distant boom of a heavy gun, followed by the approaching
rush of the shot. The enemy was amusing himself.
On these occasions the lady was perhaps not the only member of that
company who was startled, but she was startled more than the others,
sometimes rising from the sofa and standing with clasped hands, the
authentic portrait of terror and irresolution. It was no more than
natural that Haberton should at these times reseat her with infinite
tenderness, assuring her of her safety and regretting her peril in the
same breath. It was perhaps right that he should finally possess himself
of her gloved hand and a seat beside her on the sofa; but it certainly
was highly improper for him to be in the very act of possessing himself
of _both_ hands when--boom, _whiz_, BANG!
We all sprang to our feet. A shell had crashed into the house and
exploded in the room above us. Bushels of plaster fell among us. That
modest and murmurous young lady sprang erect.
"Jumping Jee-rusalem!" she cried.
Haberton, who had also risen, stood as one petrified--as a statue of
himself erected on the site of his assassination. He neither spoke, nor
moved, nor once took his eyes off the face of Orderly Arman, who was now
flinging his girl-gear right and left, exposing his charms in the most
shameless way; while out upon the night and away over the lighted camps
into the black spaces between the hostile lines rolled the billows of
our inexhaustible laughter! Ah, what a merry life it was in the old
heroic days when men had not forgotten how to laugh!
Haberton slowly came to himself. He looked about the room less blankly;
then by degrees fashioned his visage into the sickliest grin that ever
libeled all smiling. He shook his head and looked knowing.
"You can't fool _me_!" he said.