Part 11 (1/2)
Our corps was probably on the march when we left the hospital, and had preceded us all the way back. I found my horse had brought back one of our wounded men, and this was some compensation for my own loss.
We had been gone on this campaign from the 29th of April until the 5th of May, and such a week! How much that was horrible had been crowded into it. For variety of experiences of the many dreadful sides of war, that week far exceeded any other like period of our service. The fighting was boy's play compared with either Antietam or Fredericksburg, yet for ninety-six hours continuously we were under the terrible nervous strain of battle. Our losses in this action were comparatively light, 2 men killed, 2 officers wounded (one of whom died a few days later), and 39 men wounded, and one man missing; total loss, 44, or about fifteen per cent. of the number we took into action. This missing man I met at the recent reunion of our regiment. He was picked up from our skirmish line by that flanking party of rebels on the third day's fight described in my last. The circ.u.mstance will show how close the rebels were upon us before we discovered them. Our skirmishers could not have been more than a dozen yards in advance of our main line, yet the thicket was so dense that the enemy was on him before he fairly realized it. He said he was placed with a lot of other prisoners and marched to the rear some distance, under guard, when a fine-looking Confederate officer rode up to them. He was told it was General Lee. He said he wore long, bushy whiskers and addressed them with a cheery,--
”Good-morning, boys. What did you come down here for? a picnic? You didn't think you could whip us men of the South, did you?”
One of the prisoners spoke up in reply,--
”Yes, d----n you, we did, and we will. You haven't won this fight yet, and Joe Hooker will lick h----l out of you and recapture us before you get us out of these woods.”
The general laughed good-naturedly at the banter his questions had elicited, and solemnly a.s.sured them that there were not men enough in the whole North to take Richmond. Our man was probably misinformed as to who their interlocutor was. General Lee did not wear long, bushy whiskers, and was at that time probably down directing operations against Fredericksburg. This was probably Jeb Stuart, who had succeeded Jackson in command of that wing of the rebel army.
Our prisoner fared much better than most prisoners, for it was his good fortune to be exchanged after twenty-three days' durance, probably owing to the expiration of his term of service. Although the actual dates of enlistment of our men were all in July and their terms therefore expired, the government insisted upon holding us for the full period of nine months from the date of actual muster into the United States service, which would not be completed until the 14th of May. We had, therefore, eight days' service remaining after our return from the battle of Chancellorsville, and we were continued in all duties just as though we had months yet to serve. Our princ.i.p.al work was the old routine of picket duty again. Our friends, the enemy, were now quick to tantalize our pickets with the defeat at Chancellorsville. Such remarks as these were volleyed at us:
”We 'uns give you 'uns a right smart lickin' up in them woods.”
”How d'ye like Virginny woods, Yank?”
And then they sang to us:
”Ain't ye mighty glad to get out the wilderness?”
A song just then much in vogue. Another volunteered the remark, as if to equalize the honors in some measure, ”If we did wallop you 'uns, you 'uns killed our best general.” ”We feel mighty bad about Stonewall's death,” and so their tongues would run on, whether our men replied or not.
CHAPTER XVII
THE MUSTER OUT AND HOME AGAIN
On the 14th of May we received orders to proceed to Harrisburg for muster out. There was, of course, great rejoicing at the early prospect of home scenes once more. We walked on air, and lived for the next few days in fond antic.i.p.ation. We were the recipients of any amount of attention from our mult.i.tude of friends in the division. Many were the forms of leave-taking that took place. It was a great satisfaction to realize that in our comparatively brief period of service we had succeeded in winning our way so thoroughly into the big hearts of those veterans. The night before our departure was one of the gladdest and saddest of all our experience. The Fourteenth Connecticut band, that same band which had so heroically played out between the lines when the Eleventh Corps broke on that fateful Sat.u.r.day night at Chancellorsville, came over and gave us a farewell serenade. They played most of the patriotic airs, with ”Home, Sweet Home,” which I think never sounded quite so sadly sweet, and suggestively wound up with ”When Johnny Comes Marching Home.” Most of the officers and men of the brigade were there to give us a soldier's good-by, and Major-General Couch, commanding our corps (the Second), also paid us the compliment of a visit and made a pleasant little speech to the men who were informally grouped around head-quarters, commending our behavior in three of the greatest battles of the war.
It had been our high honor, he said, to have had a part in those great battles, and though new and untried we had acquitted ourselves with great credit and had held our ground like veterans. He expressed the fervent hope that our patriotism would still further respond to the country's needs, and that we would all soon again be in the field. Our honors were not yet complete. General French, commanding our division, issued a farewell order, a copy of which I would have been glad to publish, but I have not been able to get it. It was, however, gratifying in the extreme. He recounted our bravery under his eye in those battles and our efficient service on all duty, and wound up by saying he felt sure that men with such a record could not long remain at home, but would soon again rally around their country's flag. Of General Couch, our corps commander, we had seen but little, and were therefore very pleasantly surprised at his visit. Of General French, bronzed and grizzly bearded, we had seen much; all our work had been under his immediate supervision. He was a typical old regular, and many were the cuffs and knocks we received for our inexperience and shortcomings, all, however, along the lines of discipline and for our good, and which had really helped to make soldiers of us. These incidents showed that each commanding general keeps a keen eye on all his regiments, and no one is quicker to detect and appreciate good behavior than they. We felt especially pleased with the praises of General French, because it revealed the other side of this old hero's character. Rough in exterior and manner of speech, he was a strong character and a true hero.
His position at the breaking out of the war will ill.u.s.trate this. He was a Southerner of the type of Anderson and Farragut. When so many of his fellows of the regular army, under pretext of following their States, went over into rebellion and treason, he stood firm and under circ.u.mstances which reflect great credit upon him. He had been in Mexico and had spent a life on the frontier, and had grown old and gray in the service, reaching only the rank of captain. When the war finally came he was in command of a battery of artillery stationed some three hundred and fifty miles up the Rio Grande, on the border of Mexico. He was cut off from all communication with Was.h.i.+ngton, and the commander of his department, the notorious General David E. Twiggs, had gone over to the Confederacy. He was, therefore, thoroughly isolated. Twiggs sent him a written order to surrender his battery to the rebel commander of that district. His characteristic reply was, that he would ”see him and the Confederacy in h.e.l.l first;” that he was going to march his battery into G.o.d's country, and if anybody interfered with his progress they might expect a dose of shot and sh.e.l.l they would long remember. None of them felt disposed to test his threat, and so he marched his battery alone down through that rebel country those three hundred and fifty miles and more into our lines at the mouth of the Rio Grande, bringing off every gun and every dollar's worth of government property that he could carry, and what he could not carry he destroyed. He was immediately ordered north with his battery and justly rewarded with a brigadier-general's commission.
Early on the morning of the 15th we broke camp and bade farewell to that first of the world's great armies, the grand old Army of the Potomac.
Need I say that, joyous as was our home-going, there was more than a pang at the bottom of our hearts as we severed those heroic a.s.sociations? A last look at the old familiar camp, a wave of the hand to the friendly adieus of our comrades, whose good-by glances indicated that they would gladly have exchanged places with us; that if our hearts were wrung at going, theirs were, too, at remaining; a last march down those Falmouth hills, another and last glance at those terrible works behind Fredericksburg, and we pa.s.sed out of the army and out of the soldier into the citizen, for our work was now done and we were soldiers only in name.
As our train reached Belle-plain, where we were to take boat for Was.h.i.+ngton, we noticed a long train of ambulances moving down towards the landing, and were told they were filled with wounded men, just now brought off the field at Chancellorsville. There were upward of a thousand of them. It seems incredible that the wounded should have been left in those woods during these ten to twelve days since the battle.
How many hundreds perished during that time for want of care n.o.body knows, and, more horrible still, n.o.body knows how many poor fellows were burned up in the portions of those woods that caught fire from the artillery. But such is war. Dare any one doubt the correctness of Uncle Billy Sherman's statement that ”War is h.e.l.l!”
Reaching Was.h.i.+ngton, the regiment bivouacked a single night, awaiting transportation to Harrisburg. During this time discipline was relaxed and the men were permitted to see the capital city. The lieutenant-colonel and I enjoyed the extraordinary luxury of a good bath, a square meal, and a civilized bed at the Metropolitan Hotel, the first in five long months. Singular as it may seem, I caught a terrific cold as the price I paid for it. The next day we were again back in Camp Curtin, at Harrisburg, with nothing to do but to make out the necessary muster rolls, turn in our government property,--guns, accoutrements, blankets, etc., and receive our discharges. This took over a week, so that it was the 24th of May before we were finally discharged and paid off. Then the several companies finally separated.
If it had been hard to leave our comrades of the Army of the Potomac, it was harder to sever the close comrades.h.i.+p of our own regiment, a relations.h.i.+p formed and cemented amidst the scenes that try men's souls, a comrades.h.i.+p born of fellows.h.i.+p in privation, danger, and suffering. I could hardly restrain my tears as we finally parted with our torn and tattered colors, the staff of one of which had been shot away in my hands. We had fought under their silken folds on three battle-fields, upon which we had left one-third of our number killed and wounded, including a colonel and three line officers and upward of seventy-five men killed and two hundred and fifteen wounded. Out of our regiment of one thousand and twenty-four men mustered into the service August 14, 1862, we had present at our muster out six hundred and eighteen. We had lost in battle two hundred and ninety-five in killed and wounded and one hundred and eleven from physical disability, sickness, etc., and all in the short s.p.a.ce of nine months. Of the sixteen nine-months regiments formed in August, 1862, the One Hundred and Thirtieth and ours were the only regiments to actively partic.i.p.ate in the three great battles of Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville, and we lost more men than either of the others.
I should mention a minor incident that occurred during our stay in Harrisburg preparing for muster out. A large number of our men had asked me to see if I could not get authority to re-enlist a battalion from the regiment. I was a.s.sured that three-fourths of the men would go back with me, provided they could have a two weeks' furlough. I laid the matter before Governor Curtin. He said the government should take them by all means; that here was a splendid body of seasoned men that would be worth more than double their number of new recruits; but he was without authority to take them, and suggested that I go over to Was.h.i.+ngton and lay the matter before the Secretary of War. He gave me a letter to the latter and I hurried off. I had no doubt of my ability to raise an entire regiment from the great number of nine-months men now being discharged. I repaired to the War Department, and here my troubles began. Had the lines of sentries that guarded the approach to the armies in the field been half as efficient as the cordon of flunkies that barred the way to the War Office, the former would have been beyond the reach of any enemy. At the entrance my pedigree was taken, with my credentials and a statement of my business. I was finally permitted to sit down in a waiting-room with a waiting crowd. Occasionally a senator or a congressman would break the monotony by pus.h.i.+ng himself in whilst we cultivated our patience by waiting. Lunch time came and went. I waited. Several times I ventured some remarks to the attendant as to when I might expect my turn to come, but he looked at me with a sort of far-off look, as though I could not have realized to whom I was speaking. Finally, driven to desperation, after waiting more than four hours, I tried a little bl.u.s.ter and insisted that I would go in and see somebody. Then I was a.s.sured that the only official about the office was a Colonel----, acting a.s.sistant adjutant-general. I might see him.
”Yes,” I said, ”let me see him, anybody!”
I was ushered into the great official's presence. He was a lieutenant-colonel, just one step above my own rank. He was dressed in a faultless new uniform. His hair was almost as red as a fresh red rose and parted in the middle, and his pose and dignity were quite worthy of the national sn.o.b hatchery at West Point, of which he was a recent product.