Campaigns Of A Non-Combatant, And His Romaunt Abroad During The War Part 4

Skyhiski fried a quant.i.ty of fresh beef, and boiled some coffee; but while we ate heartily, theorizing as to the destination of the corps, the poor Captain was terribly shaken by his ague.

I woke in the morning with inflamed throat, rheumatic limbs, and every indication of chills and fever. Fogg whispered to me at breakfast that two men of Reynold's brigade had died during the night, from fatigue and exposure. He advised me to push forward to Was.h.i.+ngton and await the arrival of the division, as, unused to the hards.h.i.+ps of a march, I might, after another day's experience, become dangerously ill. I set out at five o'clock, resolving to ford the creek, resume the turnpike, and reach Long Bridge at noon. Pa.s.sing over some dozen fields in which my horse at every step sank to the fetlocks, I travelled along the brink of the stream till I finally reached a place that seemed to be shallow.

Bracing myself firmly in the saddle, I urged my unwilling horse into the waters, and emerged half drowned on the other side. It happened, however, that I had crossed only a branch of the creek and gained an island. The main channel was yet to be attempted, and I saw that it was deep, broad, and violent. I followed the margin despairingly for a half-mile, when I came to a log footbridge, where I dismounted and swam my horse through the turbulent waters. I had now so far diverged from the turnpike that I was at a loss to recover it, but straying forlornly through the woods, struck a wagon track at last, and pursued it hopefully, until, to my confusion, it resolved itself to two tracks, that went in contrary directions. My horse preferred taking to the left, but after riding a full hour, I came to some felled trees, beyond which the traces did not go. Returning, weak and bewildered, I adopted the discarded route, which led me to a worm-fence at the edge of the woods.

A house lay some distance off, but a wheat-field intervened, and I might bring the vengeance of the proprietor upon me by invading his domain.

There was no choice, however; so I removed the rails, and rode directly across the wheat to some negro quarters, a little removed from the mansion. They were deserted, all save one, where a black boy was singing some negro hymns in an uproarious manner. The words, as I made them out, were these:--

"Stephen came a runnin', His Marster fur to see; But Gabriel says he is not yar'; He gone to Calvary!

O,--O,--Stephen, Stephen, Fur to see; Stephen, Stephen, get along up Calvary!"

I learned from this person two mortifying facts,--that I was farther from Was.h.i.+ngton than at the beginning of my journey, and that the morrow was Sunday. War, alas! knows no Sabbaths, and the negro said, apologetically--

"I was a seyin' some ole hymns, young Mars'r. Sence dis yer war we don't have no more meetin's, and a body mos' forgits his pra'rs. Dere hain't been no church in all Fairfax, sah, fur nigh six months."

Was.h.i.+ngton was nineteen miles distant, and another creek was to be forded before gaining the turnpike. The negro sauntered down the lane, and opened the gate for me. "You jes keep from de creek, take de mill road, and enqua' as ye get furder up," said he; "it's mighty easy, sah, an' you can't miss de way."

I missed the way at once, however, by confounding the mill road with the mill lane, and a s.h.a.ggy dog that lay in a wagon shed pursued me about a mile. The road was full of mire; no dwellings adjoined it, and nothing human was to be seen in any direction. I came to a crumbling negro cabin after two plodding hours, and, seeing a figure flit by the window, called aloud for information. n.o.body replied, and when, dismounting, I looked into the den, it was, to my confusion, vacant.

The soil, hereabout, was of a sterile red clay, spotted with scrub cedars. Country more bleak and desolate I have never known, and when, at noon, the rain ceased, a keen wind blew dismally across the barriers. I reached a turnpike at length, and, turning, as I thought, toward Alexandria, goaded my horse into a canter. An hour's ride brought me to a wretched hamlet, whose designation I inquired of a cadaverous old woman--

"Drainesville," said she.

"Then I am not upon the Alexandria turnpike?"

"No. You're sot for Leesburg. This is the Georgetown and Chain Bridge road."

With a heavy heart, I retraced my steps, crossed Chain Bridge at five o'clock, and halted at Kirkwood's at seven. After dinner, falling in with the manager of the Was.h.i.+ngton Sunday morning _Chronicle_, I penned, at his request, a few lines relative to the movements of the Reserves; and, learning in the morning that they had arrived at Alexandria, set out on horseback for that city.

Many hamlets and towns have been destroyed during the war. But, of all that in some form survive, Alexandria has most suffered. It has been in the uninterrupted possession of the Federals for twenty-two months, and has become essentially a military city. Its streets, its docks, its warehouses, its dwellings, and its suburbs, have been absorbed to the thousand uses of war.

I was challenged thrice on the Long Bridge, and five times on the road, before reaching the city. I rode under the shadows of five earthworks, and saw lines of white tents sweeping to the horizon. Gayly caparisoned officers pa.s.sed me, to spend their Sabbath in Was.h.i.+ngton, and trains laden with troops, ambulances, and batteries, sped along the line of railway, toward the rendezvous at Alexandria. A wagoner, looking forlornly at his splintered wheels; a slovenly guard, watching some bales of hay; a sombre negro, dozing upon his mule; a slatternly Irish woman gossiping with a sergeant at her cottage door; a sutler in his "dear-born," running his keen eye down the limbs of my beast; a spruce civilian riding for curiosity; a gray-haired gentleman, in a threadbare suit, going to camp on foot, to say good by to his boy,--these were some of the personages that I remarked, and each was a study, a sermon, and a story. The Potomac, below me, was dotted with steamers and s.h.i.+pping. The bluffs above were trodden bare, and a line of dismal marsh bordered some stagnant pools that blistered at their bases. At points along the river-sh.o.r.e, troops were embarking on board steamers; transports were taking in tons of baggage and subsistence. There was a schooner, laden to the water-line with locomotive engines and burden carriages; there, a brig, s.h.i.+pping artillery horses by a steam derrick, that lifted them bodily from the sh.o.r.e and deposited them in the hold of the vessel.

Steamers, from whose s.p.a.cious saloons the tourist and the bride have watched the picturesque margin of the Hudson, were now black with cl.u.s.ters of rollicking volunteers, who climbed into the yards, and pitched headlong from the wheel-houses. The "grand movement," for which the people had waited so long, and which McClellan had promised so often, was at length to be made. The Army of the Potomac was to be transferred to Fortress Monroe, at the foot of the Chesapeake, and to advance by the peninsula of the James and the York, upon the city of Richmond.

I rode through Was.h.i.+ngton Street, the seat of some ancient residences, and found it lined with freshly arrived troops. The grave-slabs in a fine old churchyard were strewn with weary cavalry-men, and they lay in some side yards, soundly sleeping. Some artillery-men chatted at doorsteps, with idle house-girls; some courtesans flaunted in furs and ostrich feathers, through a group of coa.r.s.e engineers; some sergeants of artillery, in red tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, and caps gilded with cannon, were reining their horses to leer at some ladies, who were taking the air in their gardens; and at a wide place in the street, a Provost-Major was manoeuvring some companies, to the sound of the drum and fife. There was much drunkenness, among both soldiers and civilians; and the people of Alexandria were, in many cases, crushed and demoralized by reason of their troubles. One man of this sort led me to a sawmill, now run by Government, and pointed to the implements.

"I bought 'em and earned 'em," he said. "My labor and enterprise set 'em there; and while my mill and machinery are ruined to fill the pockets o'

Federal sharpers, I go drunk, ragged, and poor about the streets o' my native town. My daughter starves in Richmond; G.o.d knows I can't get to her. I wish to h----l I was dead."

Further inquiry developed the facts that my acquaintance had been a thriving builder, who had dotted all Northeastern Virginia with evidences of his handicraft. At the commencement of the war, he took certain contracts from the Confederate government, for the construction of barracks at Richmond and Mana.s.sas Junction; returning inopportunely to Alexandria, he was arrested, and kept some time in Capitol-Hill prison; he had not taken the oath of allegiance, consequently, he could obtain no recompense for the loss of his mill property. Domestic misfortunes, happening at the same time, so embittered his days that he resorted to dissipation. Alexandria is filled with like ruined people; they walk as strangers through their ancient streets, and their property is no longer theirs to possess, but has pa.s.sed into the hands of the dominant nationalists. My informant pointed out the residences of many leading citizens: some were now hospitals, others armories and a.r.s.enals; others offices for inspectors, superintendents, and civil officials. The few people that remained upon their properties, obtained partial immunity, by courting the acquaintance of Federal officers, and, in many cases, extending the hospitalities of their homes to the invaders. I do not know that any Federal functionary was accused of tyranny, or wantonness, but these things ensued, as the natural results of civil war; and one's sympathies were everywhere enlisted for the poor, the exiled, and the bereaved.

My dinner at the City Hotel was scant and badly prepared. I gave a negro lad who waited upon me a few cents, but a burly negro carver, who seemed to be his father, boxed the boy's ears and put the coppers into his pocket. The proprietor of the place had voluntarily taken the oath of allegiance, and had made more money since the date of Federal occupation than during his whole life previously. He said to me, curtly, that if by any chance the Confederates should reoccupy Alexandria, he could very well afford to relinquish his property. He employed a smart barkeeper, who led guests by a retired way to the drinking-rooms. Here, with the gas burning at a taper point, cobblers, c.o.c.ktails, and juleps were mixed stealthily and swallowed in the darkness. The bar was like a mint to the proprietor; he only feared discovery and prohibition. It would not accord with the chaste pages of this narrative to tell how some of the n.o.blest residences in Alexandria had been desecrated to licentious purposes; nor how, by night, the parlors of cosey homes flamed with riot and orgie. I stayed but a little time, having written an indiscreet paragraph in the Was.h.i.+ngton Chronicle, for which I was pursued by the War Department, and the management of my paper, lacking heart, I went home in a pet.

CHAPTER VI.

DOWN THE CHESAPEAKE.

Disappointed in the unlucky termination of my adventures afield, I now looked ambitiously toward New York. As London stands to the provinces, so stands the empire city to America. Its journals circulate by hundreds of thousands; its means are only rivalled by its enterprise; it is the end of every young American's aspiration, and the New Bohemia for the restless, the brilliant, and the industrious. It seemed a great way off when I first beheld it, but I did not therefore despair. Small matters of news that I gathered in my modest city, obtained s.p.a.ce in the columns of the great metropolitan journal, the----. After a time I was delegated to travel in search of special incidents, and finally, when the noted Tennessee Unionist, "Parson" Brownlow, journeyed eastward, I joined his _suite_, and accompanied him to New York. The dream of many months now came to be realized. A correspondent on the ----'s staff had been derelict, and I was appointed to his division. His horse, saddle, field-gla.s.ses, blankets, and pistols were to be transferred, and I was to proceed without delay to Fortress Monroe, to keep with the advancing columns of McClellan.

At six in the morning I embarked; at eleven I was whirled through my own city, without a glimpse of my friends; at three o'clock I dismounted at Baltimore, and at five was gliding down the Patapsco, under the shadows of Fort Federal Hill, and the white walls of Fort McHenry. The latter defence is renowned for its gallant resistance to a British fleet in 1813, and the American national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner," was written to commemorate that bombardment. Fort Carroll, a ma.s.sive structure of hewn stone, with arched bomb-proof and three tiers of mounted ordnance, its smooth walls washed by the waves, and its unfinished floors still ringing with the trowel and the adze,--lies some miles below, at a narrow pa.s.sage in the stream. Below, the sh.o.r.es diverge, and at dusk we were fairly in the Chesapeake, under steam and sail, speeding due southward.

The _Adelaide_ was one of a series of boats making daily trips between Baltimore and Old Point. Fourteen hours were required to accomplish the pa.s.sage, and we were not to arrive till seven o'clock next morning. I was so fortunate as to obtain a state-room, but many pa.s.sengers were obliged to sleep upon sofas or the cabin floor. These boats monopolized the civil traffic between the North and the army, although they were reputed to be owned and managed by Secessionists. None were allowed to embark unless provided with Federal pa.s.ses; but there were, nevertheless, three or four hundred people on board. About one fourth of these were officers and soldiers; one half sutlers, traders, contractors, newsmen, and idle civilians, anxious to witness a battle, or stroll over the fields of Big Bethel, Lee's Mills, Yorktown, Gloucester, Williamsburg, or West Point; the rest were females on missions of mercy, on visits to sons, brothers, and husbands, and on the way to their homes at Norfolk, Suffolk, or Hampton. Some of these were citizens of Richmond, who believed that the Federals would occupy the city in a few days, and enable them to resume their professions and homes. The lower decks were occupied by negroes. The boat was heavily freighted, and among the parcels that littered the hold and steerage, I noticed scores of box coffins for the removal of corpses from the field to the North. There were quant.i.ties of spirits, consigned mainly to Quartermasters, but evidently the property of certain Shylocks, who watched the barrels greedily. An embalmer was also on board, with his ghostly implements. He was a sallow man, shabbily attired, and appeared to look at all the pa.s.sengers as so many subjects for the development of his art. He was called "Doctor" by his admirers, and conversed in the blandest manner of the triumphs of his system.

"There are certain pretenders," he said, "who are at this moment imposing upon the Government. I regret that it is necessary to repeat it, but the fact exists that the Government is the prey of harpies. And in the art of which I am an humble disciple,--that of injecting, commonly called embalming,--the frauds are most deplorable. There was Major Montague,--a splendid subject, I a.s.sure you,--a subject that any _Professor_ would have beautifully preserved,--a subject that one esteems it a favor to obtain,--a subject that I in particular would have been proud to receive! But what were the circ.u.mstances? I do a.s.sure you that a person named Wigwart,--who I have since ascertained to be a veterinary butcher; in plain language, a doctor of horses and a.s.ses,--imposed upon the relatives of the deceased, obtained the body, and absolutely ruined it!--absolutely _mangled_ it! I may say, shamefully disfigured it! He was a man, sir, six feet two,--about your height, I think! (to a bystander.) About your weight, also! Indeed quite like you! And allow me to say that, if you should fall into my hands, I would leave your friends no cause for offence! (Here the bystander trembled perceptibly, and I thought that the doctor was about to take his life.) Well! _I_ should have operated thus:--"

Then followed a description of the process, narrated with horrible circ.u.mstantiality. A fluid holding in solution pounded gla.s.s and certain chemicals, was, by the doctor's "system," injected into the bloodvessels, and the subject at the same time bled at the neck. The body thus became hard and stony, and would retain its form for years. He had, by his account, experimented for a lifetime, and said that little "Willie," the son of President Lincoln, had been so preserved that his fond parents must have enjoyed his decease.

It seemed to me that the late lamented pract.i.tioners, Messrs. Burke and Hare, were likely to fade into insignificance, beside this new light of science.

I went upon deck for some moments, and marked the beating of the waves; the glitter of sea-lights pulsing on the ripples; the sweep of belated gulls through the creaking rigging; the dark hull of a pa.s.sing vessel with a grinning topmast lantern; the vigilant pilot, whose eyes glared like a fiend's upon the waste of blackness; the foam that the panting screw threw against the cabin windows; the flap of fishes caught in the threads of moonlight; the depths over which one bent, peering half wistfully, half abstractedly, almost crazily, till he longed to drop into their coolness, and let the volumes of billow roll musically above him.

A woman approached me, as I stood against the great anchor, thus absorbed. She had a pale, thin face, and was scantily clothed, and spoke with a distrustful, timorous voice:--

"You don't know the name of the surgeon-general, do you sir!"

"At Was.h.i.+ngton, ma'am?"

"No, sir; at Old Point."

I offered to inquire of the Captain: but she stopped me, agitatedly.

"It's of no consequence," she said,--"that is, it is of great consequence to me; but perhaps it would be best to wait." I answered, as obligingly as I could, that any service on my part would be cheerfully rendered.

"The fact is, sir," she said, after a pause, "I am going to Williamsburg, to--find--the--the body--of my--boy."

Here her speech was broken, and she put a thin, white hand tremulously to her eyes. I thought that any person in the Federal service would willingly a.s.sist her, and said so.

"He was not a Federal soldier, sir. He was a Confederate!"

This considerably altered the chances of success, and I was obliged to undeceive her somewhat. "I am sure it was not my fault," she continued, "that he joined the Rebellion. You don't think they'll refuse to let me take his bones to Baltimore, do you, sir? He was my oldest boy, and his brother, my second son, was killed at Ball's Bluff: _He_ was in the Federal service. I hardly think they will refuse me the poor favor of laying them in the same grave."

I spoke of the difficulty of recognition, of the remoteness of the field, and of the expense attending the recovery of any remains, particularly those of the enemy, that, left hastily behind in retreat, were commonly buried in trenches without headboard or record. She said, sadly, that she had very little money, and that she could barely afford the journey to the Fortress and return. But she esteemed her means well invested if her object could be attained.

"They were both brave boys, sir; but I could never get them to agree politically. William was a Northerner by education, and took up with the New England views, and James was in business at Richmond when the war commenced. So he joined the Southern army. It's a sad thing to know that one's children died enemies, isn't it? And what troubles me more than all, sir, is that James was at Ball's Bluff where his brother fell. It makes me shudder to think, sometimes, that his might have been the ball that killed him."

The tremor of the poor creature here was painful to behold. I spoke soothingly and encouragingly, but with a presentiment that she must be disappointed. While I was speaking the supper-bell rang, and I proposed to get her a seat at the table.

"No, thank you," she replied, "I shall take no meals on the vessel; I must travel economically, and have prepared some lunch that will serve me. Good by, sir!"

Poor mothers looking for dead sons! G.o.d help them! I have met them often since; but the figure of that pale, frail creature flitting about the open deck,--alone, hungry, very poor,--troubles me still, as I write. I found, afterward, that she had denied herself a state-room, and intended to sleep in a saloon chair. I persuaded her to accept my berth, but a German, who occupied the same apartment, was unwilling to relinquish his bed, and I had the power only to give her my pillow.

Supper was spread in the forecabin, and at the signal to a.s.semble the men rushed to the tables like as many beasts of prey. A captain opposite me bolted a whole mackerel in a twinkling, and spread the half-pound of b.u.t.ter that was to serve the entire vicinity upon a single slice of bread. A sutler beside me reached his fork across my neck, and plucked a young chicken bodily, which he ate, to the great disgust of some others who were eyeing it. The waiter advanced with some steak, but before he reached the table, a couple of Zouaves dragged it from the tray, and laughed brutally at their success. The motion of the vessel caused a general unsteadiness, and it was absolutely dangerous to move one's coffee to his lips. The inveterate hate with which corporations are regarded in America was here evidenced by a general desire to empty the s.h.i.+p's larder.

"Eat all you can," said a soldier, ferociously,--"fare's amazin' high.

Must make it out in grub."

"I always gorges," said another, "on a railroad or a steamboat. Cause why? You must eat out your pa.s.sage, you know!"