with a little affectation, and is withal something of a flirt. Put on
a common soldier's bridle, and she goes very quietly; but change it
for a handsome brass-mounted one, and Gipsy tosses her head as though
the bridle were a new bonnet. If you say, "Come here, Gipsy," Gipsy
walks off the other way; if you call her very loudly, Gipsy pricks up
her ears, and seems completely absorbed in some object half a mile
off; but walk away, and Gipsy puts up a piteous whinny, for you to
come back and make it up. When I am riding alone, Gipsy generally does
pretty much as she pleases--now trotting, now cantering, now dashing
up hill on a gallop, her ears always pricked up, and her bright eyes
examining every object on the road. When we come suddenly out of the
woods upon a fine prospect, Gipsy stops and looks it over, with as much
interest as though she were a landscape painter. If we come to a narrow
stream, Gipsy (who greatly dislikes to wet her feet) stops again,
looks deliberately up and down, selects the narrowest place, and then,
without asking anybody's leave, proceeds there and bounds over. When
thus riding without a companion, I find it very interesting to watch
the beautiful intelligence of my little mare.
On her arrival at Fort Henry, Gipsy was greatly disgusted with
Tennessee. For the clear, prairie fields of Missouri, she found nothing
but thick woods, steep hills and muddy roads--no chance for her to
run races or frolic here. For a week, the rain has fallen steadily on
Gipsy; her water-proof blanket has kept her dry; but she is knee deep
in mud, and has not lain down for three nights. No wonder she puts her
ears back, and tries to look sulky. But an order has come for me to go
with half the squadron and search for forage. The saddle and bridle are
brought from the tent, and Gipsy brightens up at the sight. The men are
soon ready; the clouds break away; the sun comes out; Gipsy takes her
place at the head of the column, and throws her heels joyously in the
air, champing the bit and tossing the white foam over her jetty coat.
The road is but a bridle-path through woods. The path is narrow, and
the men must ride "by file." Perhaps you do not know that "by file,"
means one behind the other; "by twos," two side by side; and "by
fours," four side by side. The next formation is "by platoon," or a
quarter of a company; and the next "by squadron," or an entire company.
We emerge on a small farm, waste and desolate. Straggling soldiers have
broken into the house, and scattered about what few effects the rebel
owner left. It is the first deserted house I have seen, and the sight
is rather sad. Our road leads us again into the woods, and then brings
us into the valley of the Tennessee, and follows the windings of the
river. We pass several farms, small and poorly cultivated, with rude
timber houses, by which I mean houses of squared logs. The chimneys
are always built entirely on the outside, and are generally of sticks
and mud, instead of brinks and mortar. Occasionally we halt to ask
questions. The people are not surly, but they do not smile. This is the
worst part of Tennessee, and it is plain they have sons and brothers
among the prisoners of Fort Donelson. But at one house the man comes
eagerly forward and his face lights; his wife, too, comes out, and says
she almost hopes to see some face she knows. They have lived long here,
but the man is from Eastern Tennessee, and the woman from Northern
Alabama--those two remnants of the South that hung to the Union till
the last. He tells us that the country produces little besides pigs
and corn. "It is pork and corn dodger," he says, "at breakfast, dinner
and tea all the year round." I ask where they grind the corn, and he
mentions a large mill now despoiled by its owner, who took himself
off to Memphis, and a little mill some three miles distant, owned by
the "Widow Williams." It is an object to have some corn meal, so I
determine to visit the Widow Williams' mill. The road to the mill turns
abruptly from the river, and goes up a brook. We pass a few houses,
scattered at intervals in the woods. The road is so much better than
the other, that the men ride "by twos;" and so it should be, for it
is the road from _Dover_ to _Paris_. We pass one or two houses, whose
owners are suspiciously young widows; in other words, we suspect that
their deceased husbands are fighting with the rebels. At last we come
to the Widow Williams, whom we do not suspect; for she is a grey-haired
matron, who has seen sorrow, and she sits on the rude piazza with a
family around her. The girls look nervously at us, for we are the first
troop of soldiers they have had halt. The widow rises as I ride up,
and says, with a good deal of dignity, "Please to alight, gentlemen;"
and I take her at her word, and order, "dismount." I ask her if she
can grind us some meal, and she rises in our good opinion by saying,
"Not to-day, this is Sunday." It is indeed; but very little like one
to us; we had almost forgotten the day. I then buy a bushel of meal
for my own men, and go down with the widow's eldest son, who is a lad
of fifteen, to get the meal and view the mill--a tiny little affair,
and two of the men, who are millers, laugh when they see it. On coming
back to the house, I find a group of the men have made themselves quite
agreeable. They have come from the city, and doubtless are more refined
and polished than any men these country girls have seen before. The
youngest is some ten years old, named Martha, and I ask her if she is
not afraid of us Northern mercenaries. Martha says no! and laughs at
the idea; but when I ask her if we have not been called all sorts of
names, and if she has not been told that we would burn her mother's
house down, and cut her head off, Martha blushes, and the older sisters
look confused. It is evident that we have had a very bad name here,
and that they are now ashamed to own it. But we have a long circuit
to make; the meal is stowed away in the haversacks; Widow Williams
invites us to call again, and assures us we shall be welcome; I pretend
to arrest Martha, and carry her off as prisoner; at which she is a
little frightened and the rest a good deal amused; and then "fall in,"
"mount," "march," and off we go.
Gipsy is the smallest horse in the regiment, but to-day her feelings
have been immense. She has borne herself as much like Gen. Washington's
great charger as possible, and has champed the bit more fiercely and
pranced more proudly than even he did. Her front is white with foam,
and every look shows that she deems the head of the column her proper
place. Whenever any horse has come within a respectful distance,
Gipsy's heels have flown higher than his head, admonishing him, that
whatever happens, she must be first. But the road, which has followed
the bank, now crosses the brook. There is no friendly bridge to lift us
over--the road leads down the bank, straight into the water. That water
is wider than Sixth Avenue, and the recent rain has made it a roaring
torrent--no one knows how deep, and it splashes and dashes fearfully.
Gipsy looks up--looks down; no narrow place appears for her to bound
over. Half of her airs and graces drop off at the sight. She hesitates
a moment--the tramp of the horses behind tells her that she must decide
quickly. She screws her courage up, and marches heroically down the
bank. The first plunge, and the water dashes up on her breast--it is a
foot higher on one side than the other, so swift is the current. It is
cold and very wet--it roars louder than ever, and who can tell how deep
it is ahead. Poor Gipsy! the last of the airs and graces are gone; so
is her resolution. She wheels ingloriously round, and throws herself
submissively behind the leading sergeant's horse. Him she follows
meekly through the stream; on the other side, she continues so for a
few yards; then she steals a glance ahead. There is no more water with
its horrid noise in sight. She gives a slight champ on the bit, and
moves up beside the sergeant's horse. A good, long look assures her
of a dry road ahead. She bounds past, the airs and graces fly back as
swiftly as they flew away; and in five minutes she is as vain a little
Gipsy as ever she was before.
But it is one o'clock--horses and men are hungry, and just beyond us is
a house. We see chickens, cows, sheep and pigs, but no smoke rises from
the chimney. We halt; the sergeant enters the open door; comes back and
reports it just what we want--a deserted house. In a few minutes the
horses are unsaddled and tied to the fence, munching the corn we find
in two large cribs. The poor cows welcome us, for they have not been
fed since their owner ran away, and are almost starved. My order to the
men is to take nothing but food, and to injure nothing needlessly. The
sheep are caught, pronounced too thin, and let loose. But the chickens
and pigs--after them there is a chase. There are shouts of excitement,
intermingled with roars of laughter, as some brave pig charges
between his pursuer's feet, and trips him up, and with the squeals
and cacklings of the victims as they are caught. Within the house, we
find a few things left, which the poor creatures probably overlooked
as they hurried away. There is a jar of molasses on the shelf; a bag
of dried peaches in the closet; a haunch of smoked venison, and a
barrel of black walnuts in the garret. These last are a source of great
entertainment for the men, who not only enjoy the most unusual luxury,
but exult in the thought of a run-away rebel gathering nuts for them,
and crack many jokes as they crack the shells. But the poor children,
who picked them for their winter treat, now wandering homeless, and
countryless, who can guess where! We have been so bred to respect
private rights, that as I sit watching the men gather up the pigs and
poultry, and fill their sacks with corn, I have a slight fear that the
former owner may appear and charge us with stealing the property which
his treason has forfeited to the Government. But no owner appears. The
horses have done their corn and the men their biscuit; the molasses has
been emptied into canteens, and a large bundle of corn leaves tied to
every saddle--we must start.
Down the Dover road we go a mile or two, then turn up another
bridle-path, which crosses and recrosses a little rill some thirty
times. Two men ride before us, partly to accustom themselves to the
duties of advance guard, partly to point out the intricate road. As we
come round a turn, there are a farmer and his daughter (a young girl)
on horseback before us. They have met the advance guard, and have
stopped, and are looking back at them with fearful interest, completely
absorbed in the sight. They do not even hear our approach, and I get
near enough to hear the girl asking her father about these two Federal
soldiers. The squadron is marching "by twos," and there is not room
enough to pass. Ordinarily, private persons would have to get out of
the way; but I think this a beautiful opportunity to be very polite,
so I command "by file." Man and girl turn their heads as though a gun
had gone off close to their ears. Such a look of fear and surprise I
have never seen as in the poor girl's face. They are so hemmed in that
they have to stand still until the whole column passes one by one, and
the last we see of them they continue to stand there, looking back at
us. It must seem like a vision, and they will have a tremendous tale to
tell when they reach home. This road is so secluded that none of our
soldiers have found it, and we cause a great stir in the few houses we
pass. My men march silently, more like regulars than volunteers, and
the inhabitants confess that they find in us an unexpected contrast
to the noisy, yelling rascals, who a few weeks before were plundering
them, for the good of the Southern Confederacy.
The sun has gone down, and the moon has risen, and we are on the main
road from Fort Donelson, and will reach our camp soon, and have a good
supper, and rest sweetly in our tents after our day's ride. We think
over what we will have for supper, and debate whether the pigs, or
chickens, or corn-meal can be added to the rations we shall find in
camp. We are reckoning like inexperienced soldiers. The uncertainty
of legal, is nothing to the uncertainty of military life. In the law
you can at least calculate on your breakfast, and a part of your bed;
but in camp you can calculate on nothing. We approach Fort Henry,
and plunge into the mud that environs our camp. We struggle through
till we come to the trees where the horses should be tied, and to the
little knoll where the tents should be pitched. We look around in
vague astonishment--horses, and men, and tents have vanished; all is
darkness and silence; our camp has gone. To come home and find your
home absconded, to leave your house in the morning and find it has
walked away at the evening, is something new. Searching in the darkness
for the new camp is folly; there is nothing to be done but wait till
to-morrow. It is very easy to say _wait_, but how are we to _wait_?
If we had some beds to _wait_ in, and some supper to _wait_ for, it
would be tolerable; but we were _only_ going for a little while, so
we left our blankets, and it was such a fine day that we did not take
our overcoats. Who would have dreamt of the colonel playing us such
a trick? At Fort Donelson I learned the first lesson--"do not trust
to your trunk;" now I have to learn the second--"do not trust to your
camp." Hereafter I will not leave for half an hour without having my
blanket rolled behind, and my overcoat strapped before. If I only had
them now! But lamenting will do no good; something must be done. "Who
has got any matches?" "Smith and Jones." "Then Smith and Jones light a
fire." The fire soon blazes up and discloses a small pile, which the
wagons have overlooked. There are a few blankets and overcoats, three
plates, a couple of mess-pans, and one camp-kettle. A new discovery is
made--some coffee and a sack of meat. "What kind?" "Pork." "Hurrah!
we're all right now." "No, salt beef." "Pshaw! What do they send salt
beef to the army for? If it had only been pork, we could have toasted
it on sticks, and fried it on plates, and broiled it on the coals, and
have greased the pans with it; but this beef, we can do nothing with."
But' we have the bushel of meal I fortunately bought, and the chickens.
Pick the chickens, and cut them up; mix some meal and water, and make
_corn dodgers_, as the Tennessians do. There are the plates to bake it
on, and we can try baking it in the ashes. But the coffee--everybody
looks forward to it--no matter if it _is_ poor and weak. Without milk,
without sugar, and full of grounds, it is always the tired soldier's
great restorative, his particular comfort. Our camp-kettle is set apart
for it. The chickens must be stewed in pans and roasted on sticks.
The camp-kettle is sacred for the coffee. "Captain," says somebody,
"this coffee is not ground, and we have no mill. What shall we do?"
"What indeed shall we do?" We must have coffee, and some one hits on
the remedy; we take the tough linen bag of a haversack, put the coffee
in it, and pound it on a log. Somewhat to our surprise, we find that
it is soon well ground, and in the course of half an hour we have as
good coffee as usual. Chicken and corn dodgers come along more slowly,
but after awhile we sit around the fire to eat them; and everybody
declares that he has had enough, and that it is very good. From supper
to bed. The corn forage that we brought for the horses must be used
for blankets. Spread on the ground, it makes a comfortable mattress.
I have said that we had left our blankets; but, nevertheless, every
man has one. Some years ago, a young cavalry captain, named McClellan,
who (in my opinion) does all things quietly but well, observed that
the padding of a saddle frequently got out of order, causing the poor
horse a sore back, and requiring a saddler to put it in order again.
He also remarked that the pad was of no other use than to play the
part of cushion between the saddle and the horse's back. He thereupon
introduced into the army what is now known as the McClellan saddle.
It is made of wood, hollowed out so that on the one side it makes a
comfortable seat for the man, and on the other conforms to the shape of
the horse. A narrow slit is cut out over the backbone, which not only
saves the horse's spine, but makes it much more cool and comfortable
for him. And, finally, the padding consists of a horse blanket folded
up. Thus, to the wise, judicious foresight of General McClellan, each
of us is indebted for a blanket.
Lying on my cornleaf couch, and looking up at the clear sky, within
the glow of our fire, is as pleasant a situation after a long ride as
one could desire. I think it delightful, and while thinking so, drop
asleep. But there is one more lesson in store for us before daylight.
After some hours, I am awoke by a tremendous noise. There are no stars
now. The sky is black as ink--the darkness is such that we can see
nothing but the half-burnt brands of the fires. The wind howls through
the trees like a pack of wolves, and scatters our fires so that the
coals fly over our heads, and fall on our blankets and beds. The rain
is not come yet, but is coming--we shall be drenched, and then have
to sit up in the darkness and shiver till daylight. It is a dismal
prospect. Pitter, patter on the leaves. Now we are in for it: the drops
thicken; in a minute we shall be as wet as water. But Nature only means
to give us a fright. The rain does not increase--the drops stop--the
wind howls less loudly. Soon, through a rent in the clouds is seen a
star, and then another. The rent grows larger, and every one takes a
long breath, and says, "The storm has passed round." We lie down again,
and wake up to find it a bright, frosty morning.
After an hour's ride, we have found the new camp. It is on a beautiful
wooded slope, overlooking the river and the fort, and on either side
a clear, little rill trickles through the trees. Our tents are pitched
on one, and the horses picketed on the other. None of us have ever seen
so beautiful a camp before; and, as we dismount, the bugles blow the
breakfast call.
V.
A FLAG OF TRUCE.
Our regiment has left its pleasant camp near Fort Henry, and has
crossed the Tennessee and encamped in a small field about three miles
above the fort. I happened to be in command when we halted here, and
named the camp after our colonel.
It is a rainy day in camp--since morning it has been rain, rain, rain.
The camp seems deserted; save here and there you see a man, with
blanket drawn close over head and shoulders, plod heavily and slowly
through the mud. The horses stand with heads down, and drooping ears,
stock still--nothing moves but the rain, and that straight down. There
is no light umbrella, nor rattling omnibus in camp; nor dry stockings,
nor warm fire to find, at home. The tents are tired of shedding rain,
and it oozes through; there were no spades to trench them, and it runs
under. There is water above, and mud beneath, and wet everywhere. No
fun in soldiering now.
An officer says, "Captain, you will report immediately for orders." So
I wrap my blanket round me, and toil over to the colonel's tent. The
colonel is a young man, but an old soldier, and has the only fire in
camp. It is close to the tent door--no danger on such a day of the
canvas catching fire--the smoke occasionally blows in, but so does the
heat, and the colonel says he will keep it up all night. He pitched his
tent, too, the moment he arrived, not waiting for the clouds, and did
it well. His alone is comfortable--so much for being a "regular," and
learning your lessons from experience.
The colonel hands me the order, which runs thus--"To-morrow, Captain
N. will proceed with a flag of truce to Paris, and remove our wounded,
left there at the recent engagement. Should they be held as prisoners
of war, he is authorized to make an exchange, and will take with him
the surgeon and an ambulance, and four of his own men."
The colonel then advises me to see the officer who commanded the late
expedition to Paris, and learn from him the names of the wounded, and
the roads. I go to his tent and find that he is sick, and has secured
a little hospital stove, which puffs and blows like a locomotive baby.
There is also an old gentleman there, whose son was taken prisoner by
us at Paris. He has brought in the body of an officer who died of his
wounds, and he hopes to procure the release of his son, now on his way
to St. Louis. Mr. Clokes lives on the Paris road, and it is arranged
that he ride back with the surgeon in our ambulance.
I plod back to our tent; the water has run in, and it is ankle-deep in
mud. Though the sun is hardly down, my two lieutenants have gone to
bed, for there is no place to sit up, and nothing to see, or hear, or
do. I may as well turn in, too; but there rises a serious question.
My boots are mud from top to bottom, and wringing wet. If I pull them
off, I may not be able to pull them on, and a man cannot carry a flag
of truce without boots. If I leave them on, I shall have to go to bed
without my feet, for it will never do to put that mass of mud into
your blankets, and they feel like lumps of ice now. What _shall_ I do?
I _will_ pull them off, and will get up before reveille (an hour, if
necessary) and pull them on again. So I pull off the boots, and lie
down in my wet clothes, and wrap myself in my wet blanket, and remember
that I have not had anything since a scant noonday dinner.
You get hungry in camp, and must be fed. Our camp chest is packed up
under a tree, but on the other side of the tent is a pan with some
stewed goose and corn bread. I cannot step into the mud unless I
struggle into those boots again; but near me is an axe. I slip down
to the end of the cot, and, with the axe, fish the pan of goose out
of the little lake it stands in. The unhappy bird swims in a gravy of
rainwater, and the corn bread is soaking wet; plates and forks are in
the camp chest; but I have my pocket-knife, and with it eat a saltless
supper.
My little German orderly comes in after awhile, and, giving a soldier's
salute with great ceremony notwithstanding the rain, says:
"Captain, fot orders."
"Bischoff, we must have some coffee. Tell Anderson (our contraband) to
bring it."
"But, captain," says Bischoff, "the tent, he blow down--the cook, he go
away to a barn--the fire, he go out--the wood, he is wet and will no
burn."
"But, Bischoff, we _must_ have some coffee, we shall die if we don't.
There is the coffeepot, with a package of ground coffee inside--get
some water, and go up to Captain K.'s tent, and ask him to let you make
it on the stove."
"Yes, captain," and Bischoff departs.
By and by he comes back with the coffee; we sit up and drink it
scalding hot, and, quite revived, say, "now for a smoke." My pipe and
tobacco bag are always in my pocket--those North Moore street bags are
much more useful than their makers ever dreamt they would be--a dry
match is at last induced to go, the wet blankets grow warmer, and we
express the opinion that "this is really comfortable."
"Well, captain, any more order?" says Bischoff, who is also revived by
his share of the coffee.
"Yes, Bischoff, tell Sergeant Starleigh to be ready, with two men, to
go with me in the morning--you will be the fourth; and mind and have
the horses ready by seven."
"Yes, captain."
Bischoff goes out, draws the tent opening closely together, holds his
hand over his pipe to keep it dry; and then we hear his steps slowly
receding--sqush--sqush--sqush through the mud.
My dreams are entirely of boots, and they wake me early. Then commences
a struggle for (outside) existence. Twice I take out my knife and
meditate the last resort, and twice my hand is stayed by the thought
that there may be no shoemaker in all Tennessee. It grows later and
lighter, and I shall miss the morning roll-call for the first time
since I have been in service. But the colonel saves me from breaking
my rule. He thinks it too bad to make the men stand out in the wet,
and has ordered the buglers not to sound the reveille. While resting,
I betake myself to the goose--now truly a waterfowl and wetter than he
ever was in his life--and manage to breakfast between the struggles. At
last I am victorious, and have the boots beneath my feet, and go out to
look around.
The poetry most appropriate to the occasion would be a verse of that
little infant school hymn,
"The Lord, he makes the rain come down,
The rain come down, the rain come down,
Afternoon and morning."