Part 17 (1/2)

What earthly difference it could make in discipline (where there was no show or trace of it) whether I looked after the invalids or not was not perceptible. But our commander, though brave, was unfortunately one of those men who are also gifted with a great deal of ”pure cussedness,” and think that the exhibiting it is a sign of bravery. Although we had no tents, only a miserably rotten old gun-cover, and not always that, to sleep under (I generally slept in the open air, frequently in the rain), and often no issue of food for days, we were strictly prohibited from foraging or entering the country houses to buy food. This, which was a great absurdity, was about the only point of military discipline strictly enforced.

At one time during the war, when men were not allowed to sleep in the country houses (to protect their owners), the soldiers would very often burn these houses down, in order that, when the family had fled, they might use the fireplace and chimney for cooking; and so our men, forbidden to enter the country houses to buy or beg food, stole it.

I can recall one very remarkable incident. We had six guns, heavy old bra.s.s Napoleons. One afternoon we had to go uphill--in many cases it was _terribly_ steep--by a road like those in Devons.h.i.+re, resembling a ditch.

It rained in torrents and the water was knee-deep. The poor mules had to be urged and aided in every way, and half the pulling and pus.h.i.+ng was done by us. All of us worked like navvies. So we went onwards and upwards for sixteen miles! When we got to the top of the hill, out of one hundred privates, Henry, I, and four others alone remained. R. W.

Gilder was one of these, besides Landis and Lieutenant Perkins--that is to say, we alone had not given out from fatigue; but the rest soon followed. This exploit was long after cited as one of the most extraordinary of the war--and so it was. We were greatly complimented on it. Old veterans marvelled at it. But what was worse, I had to lie all night on sharp flints--_i.e._, the slag or _debris_ of an iron smeltery or old forge out of doors--in a terrible rain, and, though tired to death, got very little sleep; nor had we any food whatever even then or the next day. Commissariat there was none, and very little at any time.

From all that I learned from many intimate friends who were in the war, I believe that we in the battery suffered to the utmost all that men can suffer in the field, short of wounds and death. Yet it is a strange thing, that had I not received at this time most hara.s.sing and distressing news from home, and been in constant fear as regards my brother, I should have enjoyed all this Emergency like a picnic. We often marched and camped in the valley of the c.u.mberland and in Maryland, in deep valleys, by roaring torrents or ”on the mountains high,” in scenery untrodden by any artist or tourist, of marvellous grandeur and beauty. One day we came upon a scene which may be best described by the fact that my brother and I both stopped, and both cried out at once, ”Switzerland!” The beauty of Nature was to me a constant source of delight. Another was the realisation of the sense of duty and the pleasure of war for a n.o.ble cause. It was once declared by a reviewer that in my Breitmann poems the true _gaudium certaminis_, or enjoyment of battle, is more sincerely expressed than by any modern poet, because there is no deliberate or conscious effort to depict it seriously. And I believe that I deserved this opinion, because the order to march, the tramp and rattle and ring of cavalry and artillery, and the roar of cannon, always exhilarated me; and sometimes the old days of France would recur to me. One day, at some place where we were awaiting an attack and I was on guard, General Smith, pausing, asked me something of which all I could distinguish was ”Fire--before.” Thinking he had said, ”Were you ever under fire before?” and much surprised at this interest in my biography, I replied, ”Yes, General--in Paris--at the barricades in Forty- eight.” He looked utterly amazed, and inquired, ”What the devil did you think I said?” I explained, when he laughed heartily, and told me that his question was, ”Has there been any firing here before?”

Two very picturesque scenes occur to me. One was a night before the battle of Gettysburg. The country was mountain and valley, and the two opposing armies were camped pretty generally in sight of one another.

There was, I suppose, nearly half a cord of wood burning for every twelve men, and these camp-fires studded the vast landscape like countless reflections of the stars above, or rather as if all were stars, high or low. It was one of the most wonderful sights conceivable, and I said at the time that it was as well worth seeing as Vesuvius in eruption.

Henry had studied for eighteen months in the British Art School in Rome, and pa.s.sed weeks in sketching the Alhambra, and, till he received his wound, took great joy in the picturesque scenery and ”points” of military life. But it is incredible how little we ate or got to eat, and how hard we worked. It is awful to be set to digging ditches in a soil nine-tenths _stone_, when starving.

As we were raw recruits, we were not put under fire at Gettysburg, but kept in Smith's reserve. But on the night after the defeat, when Lee retreated in such mad and needless haste across the Potomac, we were camped perhaps the nearest of any troops to the improvised bridge, I think within a mile. That night I was on guard, and all night long I heard the sound of cavalry, the ring and rattle of arms, and all that indicates an army in headlong flight. I say that they went in needless haste. I may be quite in the wrong, but I have always believed that Meade acted on the prudent policy of making a bridge of gold for a retreating enemy; and I always believed, too, that at heart he did not at all desire to inflict extreme suffering on the foe. Had he been a General Birney, he would have smote them then and there hip and thigh, and so ended the war ”for good and all,” like a Cromwell, with such a slaughter as was never seen. I base all this on one fact. At two o'clock on the afternoon before that night I went to a farmhouse to borrow an axe wherewith to cut some fuel; and I was told that the rebels had carried away every axe in great haste from every house, in order to make a bridge. Now, if I knew that at two o'clock, General Meade, if he had any scouts at all, _must_ have known it. But--_qui vult decipi_, _decipiatur_.

That ended the Emergency. The next day, I think, we received the welcome news that we were no longer needed and would soon be sent home. On the way we encamped for a week at some place, I forget where. There was no drill now--we seldom had any--no special care of us, and no ”policing” or keeping clean. Symptoms of typhoid fever soon appeared; forty of our hundred were more or less ill. My brother and I knew very well that the only way to avert this was to exercise vigorously. On waking in the morning we all experienced languor and la.s.situde. Those who yielded to it fell ill. Henry was always so ready to work, that once our sergeant, Mr. Bullard, interposed and gave the duty to another, saying it was not fair. I always remembered it with grat.i.tude. But this feverish languor pa.s.sed away at once with a little chopping of wood, bringing water, or cooking.

One more reminiscence. Our lieutenant, Perkins, was a pious man, and on Sunday mornings held religious service, which we were obliged to attend.

One day, when we had by good fortune rations of fresh meat, it was cooked for dinner and put by in two large kettles. During the service two hungry pigs came, and in our full sight overturned the kettles, and, after rooting over the food, escaped with large pieces. I did not care to dine, like St. Antonio, on pigs' leavings. My brother finding me, asked why I looked so glum. I replied that I was hungry. ”Is that all?”

he replied. ”Come with me!” We went some distance until we came to a farmhouse in the forest. He entered, and, to my amazement, was greeted as an old friend. He had been there in the campaign of the previous year. I was at once supplied with a meal. My brother was asked to send them newspapers after his return. He never sought for mysteries and despised dramatic effects, but his life was full of them. Once, when in Naples, he was accustomed to meet by chance every day, in some retired walk, a young lady. They spoke, and met and met again, till they became like friends. One day he saw her in a court procession, and learned for the first time that she was a younger daughter of the King. But he never met her again.

There were two or three boys of good family, none above sixteen, who had sworn themselves in as of age--recruiting officers were not particular--and who soon developed brilliant talents for ”foraging,”

looting, guerilla warfare, horse-stealing, pot-hunting rebels, and all those little accomplishments which appear so naturally and pleasingly in youth when in the field. For bringing out the art of taking care of yourself, a camp in time of war is superior even to ”sleeping about in the markets,” as recommended by Mr. Weller. Other talents may be limited, but the amount of ”devil” which can be developed out of a ”smart” boy as a soldier is absolutely infinite. College is a Sunday- school to it. One of these youths had ”obtained” a horse somewhere, which he contrived to carry along. Many of our infantry regiments gradually converted themselves into cavalry by this process of ”obtaining” steeds; and as the officers found that their men could walk better on horses' legs, they permitted it. This promising youngster was one day seated on a caisson or ammunition waggon full of sh.e.l.ls, &c., when it blew up. By a miracle he rose in the air, fell on the ground unhurt, and marching immediately up to the lieutenant and touching his hat, exclaimed, ”Please, sir, caisson No. Two is blown to h.e.l.l; please appoint me to another!” That oath was not recorded. Poor boy! he died in the war.

There was one man in our corps, a good-natured, agreeable person, a professional politician, who astonished me by the fact that however starved we might be, he had always a flask of whisky wherewith to treat his friends! Where or how he always got it I never could divine. But in America every politician always has whisky or small change wherewith to treat. _Always_. Money was generally of little use, for there was rarely anything to buy anywhere. I soon developed here and there an Indian-like instinct in many things, and this is indeed deep in my nature. I cannot explain it, but it is _there_. I became expert when we approached a house at divining, by the look of waggons or pails or hencoops, whether there was meal or bread or a mill anywhere near. One day I informed our lieutenant that a detachment of rebel cavalry had recently pa.s.sed. He asked me how I knew it. I replied that rebel horses, being from mountainous Virginia, had higher c.o.c.ks and narrower to their shoes, and one or two more nails than ours, which is perfectly true. And where did I learn that? Not from anybody. I had noticed the difference as soon as I saw the tracks, and guessed the cause. One day, in after years in England, I noticed that in coursing, or with beagles, the track of a gypsy was exactly like mine, or that of all Americans--that is, Indian-like and _straight-forward_. I never found a Saxon-Englishman who had this step, nor one who noticed such a thing, which I or an Indian would observe at once. Once, in Rome, Mr. Story showed me a cast of a foot, and asked me what it was. I replied promptly, ”Either an Indian girl's or an American young lady's, whose ancestors have been two hundred years in the country.” It was the latter. Such feet _lift_ or leap, as if raised every time to go over entangled gra.s.s or sticks. Like an Indian, I instinctively observe everybody's _ears_, which are unerring indices of character. I can sustain, and always could endure, incredible fasts, but for this I need coffee in the morning. ”Mark Twain”--whom I saw yesterday at his villa, as I correct this proof--also has this peculiar Indian-like or American faculty of observing innumerable little things which no European would ever think of. There is, I think, a great deal of ”hard old Injun” in him. The most beautiful of his works are the three which are invariably bound in silk or muslin. They are called ”The Three Daughters, or the Misses Clemens.”

It occurred to me, after I had recorded the events of our short but truly vigorous and eventful campaign, to write to R. W. Gilder and ask him--_quid memoriae datum est_--”what memories he had of that great war, wherein we starved and swore, and all but died.” There are men in whose letters we are as sure to find genial _life_ as a _s.p.a.ccio di vino_ or wine-shop in a Florentine street, and this poet-editor is one of them.

And he replied with an epistle not at all intended for type, which I hereby print without his permission, and in defiance of all the custom or courtesy which inspires gentlemen of the press.

”_May_ _8th_, _1893_.

”EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT, THE CENTURY MAGAZINE, ”UNION SQUARE, NEW YORK.

”MY DEAR LELAND: How your letter carries me back! Do you know that one night when I was trudging along in the dark over a road-bed where had been scattered some loose stones to form a foundation, I heard you and another comrade talking me over in the way to which you refer in your letter? Well, it was either you or the other comrade who said you had given me something to eat, and I know that I must have seemed very fragile, and at times woe-begone. I was possibly the youngest in the crowd. I was nineteen, and really enjoyed it immensely notwithstanding.

”I remember you in those days as a splendid expressor of our miseries.

You had a magnificent vocabulary, wherewith you could eloquently and precisely describe our general condition of starvation, mud, ill-equippedness, and over-work. As I think of those days, I hear reverberating over the mountain-roads the call, 'Cannoneers to the wheels!' and in imagination I plunge knee-deep into the mire and grab the spokes of the caisson. {266a}

”Do you remember the night we spent at the forge? I burnt my knees at the fire out-doors, while in my ears was pouring a deluge from the clouds. I finally gave it up, and spent the rest of the night crouching upon the fire-bed of the forge itself, most uncomfortably.

”You will remember that we helped dig the trenches at the fort on the southern side of the river from Harrisburg, {266b} and that one section of the battery got into a fight near that fort; nor can you have forgotten when Stuart Patterson's hand was shot off at Carlisle.

As he pa.s.sed me, I heard him say, 'My G.o.d, I'm shot!' That night, after we were told to retire out of range of the cannon, while we were lying under tree near one of the guns, an officer called for volunteers to take the piece out of range. I stood up with three others, but seeing and hearing a sh.e.l.l approach, I cried out, 'Wait a moment!'--which checked them. Just then the sh.e.l.l exploded within a yard of the cannon. If we had not paused, some of us would surely have been hit. We then rushed out, seized the cannon, and brought it out of range.

”By the way, General William F. Smith (Baldy Smith) has since told me that he asked permission to throw the militia (including ourselves) across one of Lee's lines of retreat. If he had been permitted to do so, I suppose you and I would not have been in correspondence now.

”You remember undoubtedly the flag of truce that came up into the town before the bombardment began. The man was on horseback and had the conventional white flag. The story was that Baldy Smith sent word 'that if they wanted the town they could come and take it.' {267} I suppose you realise that we were really a part of Meade's right, and that we helped somewhat to delay the rebel left wing. Do you not remember hearing from our position at Carlisle the guns of that great battle--the turning-point of the war? {268}

”I could run on in this way, but your own memory must be full of the subject. I wish that we could sometime have a reunion of the old battery in Philadelphia. I have a most distinct and pleasant remembrance of your brother--a charming personality indeed, a handsome refined face and dignified bearing. I remember being so starved as to eat crackers that had fallen on the ground; and I devoured, too, wheat from the fields rubbed in the hands to free it from the ear. . . .