Buch lesen: «A Boy Trooper With Sheridan», Seite 3
“Cordially tendering to the President our respectful assurances of personal and official confidence, we trust and believe that the policy now inaugurated will be crowned with success, will give speedy and triumphant victories over our enemies, and secure to this nation and this people the blessing and favor of Almighty God. We believe that the blood of the heroes who have already fallen and those who may yet give up their lives to their country will not have been shed in vain.
“And now presenting to our chief magistrate this conclusion of our deliberations, we devote ourselves to our country’s service, and we will surround the President in our constant support, trusting that the fidelity and zeal of the loyal States and people will always assure him that he will be constantly maintained in pursuing with vigor this war for the preservation of the national life and hopes of humanity.”
CHAPTER IV
Arrival at Warrenton – Locating a Camp – Dog Tents – Building Winter Quarters – On Picket – A Stand-off with the Rebels – A Fatal Post – Alarm at Midnight – Bugle Calls – The Soldier’s Sabbath – The Articles of War and the Death Penalty.
IT rained the day the third battalion of the First Massachusetts cavalry arrived at Warrenton, Va., and it rained for three days, almost without a let-up, after we, reached our destination.
Recruits always received a hearty welcome at the front – the less the old soldiers had to do in the way of picket duty, the better they liked it. The recruits were – at first – ready to do all the duty, and the veterans were willing to let the new arrivals have their own way along this line. But after a few weeks of wear and tear at the front, the raw recruits could generally give the old soldiers points on dodging duty and feigning sickness, so as to have “excused from picket,” or “light duty” marked opposite their names on the sick book. These peculiarities of soldier-life were characteristic of camp and winter quarters. As a rule, when the troops were brought face to face with the “business of the campaign,” there was a sort of freemasonry among them. Then the veteran was ready to share his last cracker with the recruit, and they drank from the same canteen. An engagement with the enemy was sure to place all who stood shoulder to shoulder on a level. In the jaws of death, with comrades dropping on every hand, all were “boys,” and all were soldiers – comrades.
Our first night’s experience at Warrenton was not calculated to inspire us with love for the place. When we arrived we were drawn up in line in front of headquarters.
“You will camp your men just south of that row of tents,” a brigade staff officer said to the major in command of our battalion. “You can pitch tents till such time as you can build winter quarters. Stretch your picket lines so as to leave proper intervals between your camp and the regiment next to it.”
The staff officer hurried back into his log-house, to get out of the rain. We broke into columns of fours, and were marched to the ground on which we were to build our winter quarters. The outlook was discouraging. The camp was laid out on a side hill, down which good-sized brooks of water were flowing. And the ground! It was like a bed of mortar. Next to prepared glue, Virginia mud is entitled to first prize for its adhesive qualities.
“See here,” exclaimed Taylor, “they’re only just making fools of us. No general could order us to get off our horses and make camp in this mud-hole.”
Taylor’s indiscretion was always getting him into trouble, and his talking in ranks this time secured him another tour of double duty.
Down came the rain, and we were in for it. In due time the horses were picketed and their nosebags put on. As soon as the animals were taken care of and fed, the weary troopers, drenched to the skin, were directed to “pitch tents!” The tents with which we were provided were known as shelter, or dog tents, the latter name being most popular, as they often failed to afford anything but a poor apology for shelter. Each soldier had half a tent – till he lost it. The half-tent was a piece of canvas about five feet by four, or somethinglike it. Along one edge was a row of buttonholes, and a little further back a row of buttons. Two pieces buttoned together were put over a ridge-pole, supported by two crotches, and the bottom edges of the tent were fastened to the ground by little cord loops through which sticks were driven. Both gable ends of the tent were open to the weather, but sometimes a third “bunkey” would be taken in, and one end of the tent closed up with his piece. The shelter tents were always too short at both ends. Think of a man like Corporal Goddard of our company, who was an inch or two over six feet, trying to “shelter” himself under such a contrivance. A man of medium height could find cover only by doubling himself up in the shape of a capital N, and it was necessary to “spoon it” where two or three attempted to sleep under one dog tent.
Waterman and I continued as bunkies. At Camp Stoneman, Taylor and Hom had occupied the upper bunk in our log-house, and the same quartette had decided to go together when we should build winter quarters at our new location. Hom was detailed for stable guard as soon as we dismounted, and Taylor, Waterman and myself concluded to pitch tents together.
The ground was so soft that the sticks would not hold, and the tent was blown down several times. All our blankets were wet. Long after dark, however, we made fast the tent as best we could, and crawled in. Taylor being the oldest and largest, was assigned by a majority vote of Waterman and myself, to the side from which the wind came. I took the middle. It was close quarters.
“I don’t see what’s the use of getting up to fix it again,” said Taylor, as the dog tent was blown down the third time after we had turned in. “I’m just as wet’s I can be, and I’d rather sleep than get up again.”
I had managed to raise myself a few inches above the water. My saddle was under my head, and I had two canteens under my back. The water was running a stream between Waterman and Taylor.
“I’ll sit up and hold the tent while you fellows sleep,” volunteered the genial Taylor the next time the tent went down.
There was nothing selfish about Taylor. After we had gone to sleep he “hadn’t the heart to disturb us,” as he expressed it the next day, and when the wind shifted and there was a slight let-up in the deluge, he took the three pieces of tent, our rubber ponchos, saddle blankets and bed blankets and, selecting the dryest spot he could find on the side-hill, he rolled himself up in them and slept till reveille. Just before daybreak Waterman and I were drowned out, and sought shelter in an old brick building up on the hill.
The erection of log huts for winter quarters at Warrenton was no “joke.” We had to go on Water Mountain to cut the trees for building material. Then we waited our turn for teams and wagons to haul the logs.
It was thirteen days before we got our log-house built and our shelter tents nailed on for a roof. Two bunks, one over the other, were made of poles. Taylor and Hom had the upper bunk, while Waterman and I slept “downstairs.”
“There’s more of Giles than there is of us,” suggested Waterman, “and we’ll put him and Hom in the top bunk so that when it rains and the roof leaks they’ll absorb a good deal of the water before it gets to us.”
Waterman and I chuckled over our success in securing the lower bunk, but one night when the upper bunk broke, and Taylor and Hom came tumbling down upon us, we realized, indeed, that there was a good deal more of Giles than there was of us.
We went on picket in our turn. The line ran along the top of Water Mountain for some distance, and we occasionally exchanged compliments with Mosby’s men. The first night we were on picket, a little down to the south of the mountain, I went on duty at nine o’clock. The post was across a creek and near an old stone mill. It rained, sleeted and snowed during the night, and the creek filled up so that the “relief” could not cross over to my post when the time came to change the pickets. As a result I remained on post till daylight. It was one of the longest nights I ever put in during my army service.
Of course, every noise made by the wind was a bushwhacker. I was so thankful to find myself alive at daybreak that I forgot to growl at the corporal for not relieving me on time. When I unbosomed myself to Taylor, and told him how nervous I felt out there by the old mill, he laughed and said:
“Don’t you never feel nervous again when you’re caught in such a scrape, for, mark my word, no rebel, not even a ‘gorilla’ would be fool enough to go gunning for Yankee recruits such a night as last night was.” I found a good deal of comfort in Taylor’s logical admonition after that when alone on picket in stormy weather.
Just over the divide on Water Mountain, on the side toward the rebel camp, was an old log shanty. We called it the block house. Our pickets occupied it by day, and the rebels had possession of it by night. This happened because the Union picket line was drawn in at night, and the pickets were posted closer together than during the day. Our line was advanced soon after daylight.
One morning when we galloped down to the block house from our reserve, we surprised the Johnnies. They had been a little late in getting breakfast, and their horses had their nosebags on. We were just as much surprised as they were, and we stood six to six. Carbines and revolvers were pointed, but no one fired.
“Give us time to put on our bridles and we’ll vacate,” said the sergeant of the rebel picket.
“All right; go ahead,” our sergeant replied.
The Johnnies bridled their horses, mounted and rode down the mountain.
“We kept a good fire for you all,” the rebel sergeant remarked as they left.
“And you’ll find it burning when you come back tonight,” was the Yankee sergeant’s assuring reply.
After the rebels had got out of sight our boys began to feel that they had missed a golden opportunity to destroy a detachment of the Confederate army. We had longed for a “face-to-face” meeting with the rebels.
“I could have killed two rebels had I been allowed to shoot,” said Taylor.
“Who told you not to shoot?” demanded the sergeant.
“Well, nobody gave the order to fire. I had my gun cocked and if the rest of you had killed your man I’d killed mine.”
“Bu-bu-bu-but they had si-si-six t-t-to ou-ou-our si-si-six, di-di-didn’t they?” interrupted Jack Hazelet, whose stammering always caused him to grow red in the face when he wanted to get a word in in time and couldn’t.
“Yes; we stood six to six, but if each one of us had killed his man they would all be dead.”
“Je-je-jesso; bu-bu-bu-but di-di-didn’t they ha-ha-have gu-gu-guns, t-t-too?”
“Of course they did.”
“Sup-po-po-posen they ha-ha-had ki-ki-killed ‘s mama-many f us a-a-as we di-di-did o-o-o-of th-th-them, wh-wh-where wo-wo-would wc-we-we b-b-be n-n-now? co-co-confound you!”
As we found that only two of our party had their carbines loaded when we surprised the rebels, we concluded that it was just as fortunate for us as it was for the enemy that the meeting had resulted in a stand-off, although Taylor insisted that if any one had given the command “fire” he would have killed his man. When his attention was called to the fact that his carbine was not loaded, he said:
“Well, I could have speared one of them with my sword before they could all get away.”
“Bu-bu-bu-but wh-wh-what wo-wo-would th-th-the re-re-reb be-be-been do-do-doing; yo-yo-you in-in-infernal blockhead!” exclaimed Hazelet, and Taylor subsided.
There was one picket post half-way down Water Mountain, toward the Federal camp, that was dreaded by all the boys. It was within three hundred yards of the picket reserve or rendezvous. There was an old wagon road winding through a narrow ravine, and a stone wall crossed at right angles with the road opposite the reserve. On either side of the ravine was thick underbrush, and just back a little were woods. We were informed that four pickets had been shot off their horses near the old tree. The bushwhackers would ride to within a few hundred yards of the stone wall, dismount and while one would remain with the horses another would crawl like a snake in the grass up behind the wall and pick off the Union cavalrymen. It was cold-blooded murder, committed at night, without cause or provocation. Let it be said to the credit of the Confederate rank and file, that the boys in butternut – the regularly organized troops – discountenanced the cowardly acts of the guerrillas and bushwhackers.
A soldier was shot on picket at the old tree one night, and our company relieved the company to which he belonged the next morning. The murdered trooper was strapped across his saddle and taken to camp for burial. When our boys were counted off for picket Taylor “drew the fatal number,” as it was called.
“If I’m murdered on post, boys,” he said, “don’t bother about taking my carcass to camp. Bury me where I fall.”
Taylor made a poor attempt to appear unconcerned. But he was a droll sort of a boy. He continued:
“I’ve no doubt I was cut out for an avenger; so if any of you fellows want me to avenge your death just swap posts with me to-night. If any infernal gorilla steals up on you and takes your life, I pledge you that I’ll follow him to Texas, but what I’ll spill his gore.”
“I’d rather go unavenged than to take chances on that post from eleven o’clock to one o’clock to-night,” chorused several of Taylor’s friends.
I had the post next to Taylor toward the reserve. The rain was falling, and it was dark down in the ravine. I could hear Taylor’s horse champing his bit, and once my horse broke out with a gentle whinny, the noise of which startled me tremendously at first. And I have no doubt it operated the same on Taylor. Soon after that the rain let up and the clouds broke away so that the moon could be seen now and then. All at once there was a flash and a loud report.
“That’s the last of poor Giles,” I exclaimed, as the sound of the shot reverberated through the ravine.
Then I rode toward Taylor’s post as cautiously as I could. I was pleasantly startled by the challenge in his well-known voice:
“Who comes there?”
The reserve came galloping down the hill. After the usual challenges and answers had been given, the lieutenant inquired:
“Who fired that shot?”
“‘Twas me,” replied Tavlor.
“What did you fire at?”
“A bushwhacker.”
“Where?”
“Over by the wall.”
“Did you see him?”
“Of course I did; you don’t suppose I’d fire at the moon, do you?”
The reserve rode forward to the wall and a few hundred yards beyond. It was decided that it would be useless to follow the guerrillas in the darkness. The pickets were doubled, two men on a post, for the rest of the night. I was put on the same post with Taylor, and after the reserve had returned to the rendezvous I questioned him about the alarm:
“Are you sure you saw a live bushwhacker, Giles?”
“If I hadn’t seen him I’d be dead now.”
“You didn’t challenge him?”
“Well, I should say not. I saw him raise his head over the wall, just as the moon broke through a cloud. I first saw the glisten of his gun. Then I fired, and I believe I singed his hair, for I took good aim. If the moon had staid behind the clouds three seconds longer, the gorilla would ‘a’ had me sure. After I fired I heard him run, and then there were voices, followed by the noise of horses’ hoofs as the bushwhackers galloped away. It was a close call for Taylor, but I tell you I sat with my carbine cocked and pointed at that wall all the time till the gorilla appeared. If my horse hadn’t shied a little, that fellow would never have gone back to tell the story of his failure to murder another picket.”
The next day arrangements were made to surprise the guerrillas in the event of another visit. Two dismounted troopers were stationed behind the stone wall, within easy range of the opening down the road toward the rebel lines. But the bushwhackers did not return during our tour of picket.
It was never clearly explained why the post at the old tree had been used, when the picket could be so much more safely stationed up behind the wall. There were a good many things that seemed strange to privates, but whenever an enlisted man made an effort to suggest that the plan of operations of his superiors be revised or corrected, it did not take him long to discover that he had made “one big shackass of mineself,” as a recruit from Faderland expressed it when he was booted out of a sergeant’s tent at Warrenton for simply informing the wearer of chevrons that in “Shermany the sergeants somedimes set up der lager mit de boys.”
The experiences of the First Massachusetts cavalry at Warrenton during the winter were similar to those of other regiments in camp at that station. Some of us would have been fearfully homesick if we had found any spare time between calls. We scarcely had opportunity to answer letters from home, so thick and fast came the bugle blasts. One of our boys received a letter from his sweetheart, and she wondered what the soldiers could find to occupy their time – “no balls, no parties, no corn-huskings,” as she expressed it. Her soldier boy inclosed a copy of the list of calls for our every-day existence in camp, and when we were not on picket duty.
I have no doubt the dear girl was satisfied that her boy in blue would suffer little, if any, for the want of something to keep his mind occupied. As near as I can remember, the list of calls for each day’s programme – except Sunday, when we had general inspection and were kept in line an hour or two extra – was as follows:
The roll was called at reveille, drill, retreat and tattoo. The boys had “words set to music” for nearly all the calls. The breakfast call was rather inelegantly expressed when infantry and cavalry troops were camped close together. The foot soldiers, not having horses to groom and feed, had their breakfast the first thing after reveille. Then they would stand around, and as the cavalry bugler-boys would sound the breakfast call after stables, the heroes of the knapsack would chorus:
“Go and get your breakfast,
Breakfast without meat.”
But a cavalry poet tried his hand, and after that whenever the infantry fellows shouted the above at us to the tune of breakfast call, we all joined in the refrain:
“Dirty, dirty doughboy,
Dirty, dirty feet.”
That settled it. The doughboys soon fell back. If they had not, there might have been a riot, for our poet was at work on another verse that he said would settle their hash. Judging from the result of his first effort, I can readily see that the infantry had a narrow escape.
We had inspection every Sunday morning after stables. Each company was looked over by its first sergeant. Then the captains would appear and take charge. If it were to be a regimental inspection, all the companies would be marched to the parade-ground, and the colonel or regimental commander would be the inspecting officer. Every now and then a brigade review would follow the inspection. It was fun for the brigadier, or inspector, but after the rear rank privates had been in the saddle two hours or more, sitting bolt upright, with eyes fixed square to the front while waiting to have the inspector come round to them, and go through the motions of examining their carbines, revolvers, sabers and equipments, the affair became tedious.
But our regiment was blessed with an excellent band. The members rode white horses, and on all grand reviews and parades they took position on the right of the regiment. Whenever the inspection was particularly protracted and severe, the band would play inspiring selections, and many a poor fellow who was on the point of asking permission to fall out of the ranks, would cheer up as the strains of “The Girl I Left Behind Me,” or some other popular air, would reach his ear. Survivors of the Army of the Potomac – and all other armies – will recall that the playing of a single tune as the comrades rushed forward into the heat of battle, was worth more than the spread-eagle speeches of scores of generals. The soldier that could muster backbone enough to turn tail and run when his comrades were presenting a solid front to the enemy, and the bands were playing national airs, was made of queer material, indeed.
On one of these Sunday morning inspections, Taylor remarked to me in a low tone of voice:
“I’d like to know how they expect us to diligently attend divine worship when they keep us harnessed up all day after this fashion?”
“Keep still, Giles; if the sergeant hears you he’ll tie you up by the thumbs.”
Yet Taylor’s inquiry was to the point. The articles of war had been read to us only the day before that inspection. Here is what we were given along the line referred to by Taylor:
“Article 2. – It is earnestly recommended to all officers and soldiers, diligently to attend divine service; and all officers who shall behave indecently or irreverently at any place of divine worship, shall, if commissioned officers, be brought before a general court-martial, there to be publicly and severely reprimanded by the President; if non-commissioned officers or soldiers, every person so offending shall, for his first offense, forfeit one sixth of a dollar, to be deducted out of his next pay; for the second offense he shall not only forfeit a like sum, but be confined twenty-four hours; and for every like offense, shall suffer and pay in like manner; which money, so forfeited, shall be applied by the captain or senior officer of the troop or company, to the use of the sick soldiers of the company or troop to which the offender belongs.”
The boys called the regulations the army Bible. Of course, many of the articles were intended for troops in garrison.
When in active service, on the march and on the battle field, divine services were impracticable until there was at least a temporary cessation of hostilities. Regimental chaplains exhibited remarkable fortitude, courage and self-sacrifice in administering spiritual consolation to the wounded and dying at the front, even under heavy fire from the enemy. There were services in camp in such organizations as had ministers of the gospel with them, but many regiments were without chaplains, and had to forage for religious food, if they had any.
I do not remember attending divine service in the army, except once in the Wilderness campaign. It was at night, and the congregation stood around a blazing camp-fire. The good old chaplain exhorted the boys to prepare the way, and buckle on the whole armor. It was a striking scene. Some of the boys wept as the minister alluded to the loved ones at home, who were looking to the Army of the Potomac for a victory that would crush out the rebellion. There were few dry eyes when the benediction was pronounced, after the chaplain had urged his hearers to “be prepared to stand an inspection before the King of kings.”
It was the last religious service that many who were present that night ever attended. The next day rebel bullets mowed them down by scores. They died in defense of the right – that the Union might be preserved. Of those who fell as they fell a poet has written:
“No more the bugle calls the weary one,
Rest, noble spirit, in your grave unknown;
We will find you and know you,
Among the good and true,
When the robe of white is given
For the faded coat of blue.”
I may have had many opportunities to hear the Gospel preached during the war, but I do not recall the circumstances now. Yet I am sure that if I had diligently reconnoitered the camps, I could have found faithful disciples preaching the Word of Life to such as had ears to hear. And I believe that when the general roll shall be called on the shores of eternity, the noble Christian soldiers who held aloft the banner of their Master on the battle fields of the great Civil War, will not only hear the welcome, “Well done,” but they will be crowned with diadems bedecked with many stars.
The third commandment laid down in the regulations was probably violated more frequently than any of the one hundred and one articles of war. It read:
“Article 3. – Any non-commissioned officer or soldier who shall use any profane oath or execration, shall incur the penalties expressed in the foregoing article; and a commissioned officer shall forfeit and pay, for each and every such offense, one dollar, to be applied as in the preceding article.”
Had this article been lived up to, the “sick soldiers” referred to would have been provided for for life, as would their children and children’s children. There would have been no call for the sanitary and Christian commissions to raise money to alleviate the sufferings of the sick. All that money could have supplied would have been provided. I do not mean to convey the idea that the Union soldiers were particularly profane, but something like a half-million of men were under arms at one time, about the close of the war. Some of them swore. Even generals blasphemed before their men. The general-in-chief, however, was an exception. No soldier in the Army of the Potomac ever heard Gen. Grant utter an oath. There were officers and soldiers in all regiments who did not swear. But they were in the minority. Had the penalty for using profane oaths been enforced, seventy-five per cent, of the soldiers would have been in the guard house all the time, and at the end of a week they would have been indebted to the Government more than their three years’ salary would have footed up, and the guard house would have had a mortgage on them for years to come.
The third article of war was read to one company in our regiment by a first sergeant, who gave such an emphasis to the reading of the penalty for swearing that the boys began to feel that they must “swear off” on profanity. Said the sergeant:
“I want you men to understand that in this company the articles of war will be strictly lived up to. If I hear any man use profane language, be he non-commissioned officer or soldier, I’ll bring him up for punishment as prescribed.”
Then the sergeant swore a “blue streak” for a minute or two before he gave the order to “break ranks.” Yet he did it unconsciously, as he said when his attention was called to it by a corporal, and only intended to emphasize the interdiction.
Quite a number of the articles of war enumerated offenses for which the penalty provided that the offender “shall suffer death, or such other punishment as by a court-martial shall be inflicted.” In the reading the officers always emphasized the penalty “shall suffer death,” and then dropped their voices till the “or such other punishment” could scarcely be heard by the soldiers standing the nearest to the reader. The death penalty was sandwiched all through the articles of war, and at the close of the reading the average recruit felt condemned, and could remember nothing but “shall suffer death,” and expected to hear the captain order out a detail to execute the sentence. But the death penalty was inflicted, except in rare instances, only upon spies or men who had deserted to the enemy and been recaptured.
