It was now about four o'clock in the afternoon. The day was somewhat misty, and at this time the field of battle was fast becoming shrouded by the commingled mist and smoke.

On the left of the road the Brigade formed double line of battle along the base and side of a rather steep slope which led to the plateau above. The ground was muddy and well trodden, and littered with dead bodies in spots that marked the localities of exploded shells. Hungry and fatigued with the toil of the day, yet expectant of a conflict which must prove the death scene of many, the men sank upon their arms. From this same spot, successive lines of battle had charged during the day. Brave souls! With rushing memories of home and kindred and friends, they shrank not because the path of duty was one of danger.

We were there as a forlorn hope for the final effort of the field. With great exertion and consummate skill upon the part of its Commander, a battery had been placed in position on the summit of the slope. Officers and men worked nobly, handling the pieces with coolness and rapidity. What they accomplished, could not be seen. What they suffered, was frightfully apparent. Man after man was shot away, until in some instances they were too weak-handed to keep the pieces from following their own recoil down the slope, confusing our ranks and bruising the men. Volunteers sprang forward to assist in working the guns. The gallant Commander, almost unaided, kept order in what would otherwise have been a mingled herd of confused men and frightened horses. No force could withstand the hurricane of hurtling shot and shell that swept the summit.

"Lieutenant, take command of that gun," was the short, sharp, nervous utterance of a General of Division, as in one of his tours of random riding he suddenly stopped his horse in front of a boy of nineteen, a Lieutenant of infantry, who previously to bringing his squad of men into service, a few brief months before, had never seen a full battery.

"Sir!" he replied, in unfeigned astonishment.

"By G—d! sir, I command you as the Commanding General of this Division, sir, to take command of that piece of artillery."

"General, I am entirely unacquainted with——"

"Take command of that piece, sir. You should be ready to enter any arm of the service," replied the General, flourishing his sword in a threatening manner.

"General, I will do my duty; but I can't sight a cannon, sir. I will hand cartridge, turn the screw, steady the wheel, or I'll ram——"

"Ram—ram!"—echoed the General with an oath, and off he started on another of his mad rides.

"Fall in," was passed rapidly along the line, and a moment after our Brigadier, cool as if exercising his command in the evolutions of a peaceful field, rode along the ranks.

"Boys, you are ordered to take that stone wall, and must do it with the bayonet."

Words full of deadly import to men who for long hours had been in full view of the impregnable works, and the field of blood in their front. Ominous as was the command, it was greeted with cheers; and with bayonets at a charge, up that difficult slope,—preserving their line as best they could while breaking to pass the guns, wounded and struggling horses, and bodies thickly strewn over that most perilous of positions for artillery,—the troops passed at a rapid step. The ground upon the summit had been laid out in small lots, as is customary in the suburbs of towns. Many of the partition fences were still remaining, with here and there gaps, or with upper rails lowered for the passage of troops. For a moment, while crossing these fallow fields, there was a lull in the direct musketry. The enfilading fire from batteries right and left still continued; the fierce fitful flashes of the bursting shells becoming more visible with the approach of night. Onward we went, picking our way among the fallen dead and wounded of Brigades who had preceded us in the fight, with feet fettered with mud, struggling to keep place in the line. Several regiments lying upon their arms were passed over in the charge.

"Captain," said a mounted officer when we had just crossed a fence bounding what appeared to be an avenue of the town, "close up on the right." The Captain partly turned, to repeat the command to his men, when the bullets from a sudden flash of waving fire that for the instant lit up the summit of the stone wall for its entire length, prostrated him with a mortal wound, and dismounted his superior. Pity that his eye should close in what seemed to be the darkest hour of the cause dearest to his soul!

Volley after volley of sheeted lead was poured into our ranks. We were in the proper position on the plain, and a day's full practice gave them exact range and terrible execution. In the increased darkness, the flashes of musketry alone were visible ahead, while to the right and left the gloom was lit up by the lurid flashing of their batteries. This very darkness, in concealing the danger, and the loss, doubtless did its share in permitting the men to cross the lines of dead that marked the halting-place of previous troops. Still onward they advanced,—the thunder of artillery above them,—the groans of the wounded rising from below;—frightful gaps are made in their ranks by exploding shells, and many a brave boy staggers and falls to rise no more, in that storm of spitefully whizzing lead.

Regularity in ranks was simply impossible. Many officers and men gathered about a brick house on the right—a narrow lawn leading directly to the fatal wall was crowded; indeed, caps bearing the regimental numbers were found, as has since been ascertained, close by the wall, and a Lieutenant who was stunned in the fight and fell almost at its base, was taken prisoner. Nearly every officer who had entered the fight mounted, was at this time upon foot. In the tempest of bullets that everywhere prevailed the destruction of the force was but a question of brief time, and to prevent further heroic but vain sacrifices the order to retire was given. With the Brigade, the Regiment fell back, leaving one-third of its number in dead and wounded to hallow the remembrance of that fatal field.

"This way, Pap! This is the way to get out safe," shouted a Captain as he rose, from the rear of a pile of rubbish, amid the laughter of the men now on their backward move. The burly form of the exhorting Colonel was seen to follow the no less burly form of the Captain, and father and son were spared for other fields.

An effort was made to reform after the firing had slackened, but the increased darkness prevented the marshalling of the thinned ranks. Out of range of the still not infrequent bullets and occasional shell, and drowsy from fatigue, the men again lay upon their arms at the foot of the slope; and the battle of Fredericksburg was over.

What happened upon the left, where the main battle should have been fought, and why Franklin was upon the left at all, are problems that perhaps the reader can pass upon to better advantage than the writer of these pages. His "corner of the fight" has been described, truthfully at least, whatever the other failings may be.

We had left the field; but the Rebels had not as yet gained it. Pickets were thrown out to within eighty yards of their line, and details scattered over the field to bear off the wounded. No lights were allowed, and the least noise was sure to bring a shell or a shower of bullets. In consequence, their removal was attended with difficulty. The evil of the practice too prevalent among company commanders, of sending skulkers and worthless men in obedience to a detail for the ambulance corps, was now horribly apparent. Large numbers of the dead, and even the dying, were found with their pockets turned inside out, rifled of their contents by these harpies in uniform.

But little rest was to be had that night. At 8 P. M. the troops were marched back into the town, only to be brought out again at midnight and re-formed in line of battle about a hundred yards distant from the wall. The moon had now risen, and in its misty light the upturned faces of the dead lost nothing of ghastliness. Horrible, too, beyond description—ringing in the ears of listeners for a lifetime—were the shrieks and groans of the wounded,—principally Rebel,—from a strip of neutral ground lying between the pickets of the two armies. Whatever the object of reforming line of battle may have been, it appears to have been abandoned, as after a short stay we were returned to the town and assigned quarters in the street in front of the Planters' House.

Fredericksburg was a town of hospitals. All the churches and public buildings, very many private residences, and even the pavements in their respective fronts, were crowded with wounded. In one of the principal churches on a lower street, throned in a pulpit which served as a dispensary, and surrounded by surgical implements and appliances, flourished our little Dutch Doctor, never more completely in his element. Very nice operations, as he termed them, were abundant.

"How long can I live?" inquired a fine-looking, florid-faced young man of two-and-twenty, with a shattered thigh, who had just been brought in and had learned from the Doctor that amputation could not save his life.

"Shust fifteen minutes," was the reply, as the Doctor opened and closed his watch in a cold, business way.

"Can I see a Chaplain?"

"Shaplain! Shaplain! eh? Shust one tried to cross, and he fell tead on bridge. Not any follow him, I shure you. Too goot a chance to die, for Shaplains. What for you want him? Bray, eh?"

The dying man, folding his hands upon his breast, nodded assent.

"Ver well, I bray," and at the side of the stretcher the Doctor kneeled, and with fervid utterance, and in the solemn gutturals of the German, repeated the Lord's prayer. When he arose to resume his labor, the soldier was beyond the reach of earthly supplication; but a smile was upon his countenance.

The Sabbath, with the main body of our troops, was a day of rest. Chance shots from Rebel sharpshooters, who had crept to within long range of the cross streets, were from time to time heard, and shell occasionally screamed over the town. To ears accustomed to the uproar of the preceding days, however, they were not in the least annoying. Over one-half of the army were comfortably housed, bringing into requisition for their convenience the belongings and surroundings of the abandoned dwellings. Notwithstanding our slow approach, the evidences of hasty exit on the part of the inhabitants were abundant on all sides. Warehouses filled with flour and tobacco were duly appreciated by the men, while parlors floored in Brussels, and elegantly ornamented, were in many instances wantonly destroyed.

"Tom," said a non-commissioned officer, addressing a private whom we have before met in these pages, "where did you get that box?"

"Get it? Why I confiscated it. Just look at the beauties," and opening a fine mahogany case, Tom disclosed a pair of highly finished duelling pistols.

"What right have you to confiscate it?" retorted the Sergeant.

"It is contraband of war, and Rebel property. Record evidence of that. Just look at this letter found with it," and Tom pulled out of an inside pocket of his blouse a letter written in a most miserable scrawl, assuring some "Dear Capting" of

"Here's my heart and here's my hand, For the man who fit for Dixy land."

Monday passed in much the same manner. About 9 P. M. of that day the Regiment, with others, was employed in throwing up breastworks, and digging rifle-pits on the west of the town. Expecting to hold it on the morrow against what they knew would be a terrible artillery fire, the men worked faithfully, and by midnight, works strong as the ground would admit of, were prepared. It was a perilous work; performed in the very face of the enemy's pickets;—but was only an extensive ruse, as at 1 A. M. we were quietly withdrawn and assigned a position in the left of the town. The sidewalks were muddy, and disengaging shutters from the windows, loose boards from fences,—anything to keep them above the mud,—the men composed themselves for slumber. Before 2 o'clock an excited Staff officer had the Brigade again in line, and after moving and halting until 4 A. M., we crossed the lower bridge in much lighter order than when we entered the place; for notwithstanding urgent solicitations of officers, from Brigadier down, permission was refused the men to obtain their knapsacks. Besides the loss of several thousand dollars to the Government in blankets and overcoats, hundreds of valuable knapsacks, and even money in considerable sums, were lost to the men. The matter is all the more disgraceful when we consider the abundance of time, and the fact, that details had been sent by the Colonels to arrange the knapsacks upon the sidewalk, in order that they could be taken up while the command would pass. It was marched by another route, however, and in the cold, pelting rain, the men, while marching up the opposite slopes of the Rappahannock, had ample reason to reflect upon the cold forethought that could crowd a Head-quarters' train, and deprive them of their proper allowance of clothing. Six hours later, our Division had the credit of furnishing about the only booty left by the army that the Rebels found upon their reoeccupation of the town.

Sadly and quietly, the troops retrod the familiar mud of their old camp grounds. The movement had been a failure—a costly one in private and national sacrifices,—and no one felt it more keenly than the broad-shouldered, independent, and much injured Burnside. Strange that this costly sacrifice should have been offered up on ground hallowed in our early struggle for freedom—that the bodies of our brave volunteers, stripped by traitor hands, should lie naked on the plain that bears a monument to that woman of many virtues, "Mary, the mother of Washington"—that ground familiar to the early boyhood of the Great Patriot, should have been the scene of one of the noblest, although unsuccessful, contests of the war. Fit altar for such a sacrifice! A shrine for all time of devout patriots, who will here renew their vows,—of fidelity to this God-given Government,—of eternal enmity to traitors,—and thus consecrate to posterity the heavy population we have left in the Valley.



CHAPTER XVII.

The Sorrows of the Sutler—The Sutler's Tent—Generals manufactured by the Dailies—Fighting and Writing—A Glandered Horse—Courts-martial—Mania of a Pigeon-hole General on the Subject—Colonel and Lieutenant-Colonel in Strait-Jackets.

If the reader can imagine the contents of his nearest corner grocery thrown confusedly together under a canvas covering, he will have a tolerably correct idea of the interior of a Sutler's tent. Probably, to make the likeness more truthful, sardines, red herring, and cheese, should be more largely represented than is customary in a corner grocery.

Our Sutler, although upon his first campaign, was no novice in the craft. He could be hail-fellow-well-met with the roughest of crowds thronging the outside of his rude counter, and at the same time keep an eye upon the cash drawer. And he was behind no one in "casting his bread upon the waters," in the shape of trifling presents and hospitable welcomes, in order that it might return at the next pay-day. Notwithstanding all his tact, however, Tom Green was in many respects an awkward, haphazard fellow, continually in difficulty, although as continually fortunate in overcoming it. His troubles were known to the Regiment, as the Sutler's interests were individualized to a great extent, and while all might be amused, he was never beyond the pale of sympathy. During the long winter evenings, the barrels and boxes in his tent seated a jovial crowd of officers, who in games and with thrice-told stories, would while away what would otherwise be tedious hours. Not unfrequently was the Chaplain, who quartered close by, disturbed with a "sound of revelry by night," to have his good-humor restored in the morning by a can of pickled lobster or brandied cherries.

On one of the merriest of the merry nights of the holidays, our Western Virginia Captain was the centre of a group of officers engaged in gazing intently upon a double page wood-cut, in one of the prominent illustrated weeklies, that at one time might have represented the storming of Fort Donelson, but then did duty by way of illustrating a "Gallant Charge at Fredericksburg."

"There it is again," said the Captain. "Not one half of our Generals are made by honest efforts. Their fighting is nothing like the writing that is done for them. They don't rely so much upon their own genius as upon that of the reporter who rides with their Staffs. By George, if old Rosey in Western Virginia——"

"Dry up on that, Captain," interrupted a brother officer. "Old Pigey is the hero of the day. He understands himself. Didn't you notice how concertedly all the dailies after the fight talked about the cool, courageous man of science; and just look at this how it backs it all up. Old Rosey, as you call him, never had half as many horses shot under him at one time. Just see them kicking and floundering about him, and the General away ahead on foot, between our fire and the Rebels, as cool as when he took the long pull at his flask in the hollow."

"And half the men will testify that that was the only cool moment he saw during the whole fight."

"No matter," continued the other, "he has the inside track of the reporters, and he is all right with all who 'smell the battle from afar.'"

"Well, there's no denying old Pigey was brave, but he was as crazy as a boy with a bee in his breeches," said the Captain, holding up the caricature to the admiration of the crowded tent. "Our Division gets the credit of it at any rate. Bully for our Division!"

"Not one word," breaks in the Poetical Lieutenant, "of Butterfield, with his cool, Napoleonic look, as he rode along our line preparatory to the charge; or of Fighting Old Joe, unwilling to give up the field; or of our difficulty in clambering up the slope, getting by the artillery, which made ranks confused, and so forth, but

'On we move, though to self-slaughter, Regular as rolling water.'

Never mind criticizing, boys. It will sound well at home. We did our duty, at any rate, if we did not do it exactly as represented in the picture. The reporter was not there to see for himself, and he must take somebody's word, and it is a feather in our cap that he has taken Pigey's."

The conversation was at this stage interrupted by the sudden entry of the Adjutant, with a loud call for the Sutler. That individual, notwithstanding the unusual excitement of the night, had been singularly quiet. Rising from his buffalo in the corner, he approached the Adjutant with a countenance so full of apprehension and alarm as to elicit the inquiry from the crowd of "What's the matter with the Sutler?"

"He hasn't felt well since I told him a few hours ago," said a Lieutenant, a lawyer by profession, "that Sutlers were liable to be court-martialed."

"And he'll feel worse," adds the Adjutant, "when he hears this letter read."

Amid urgent calls for the letter, the Adjutant mounted a box, and by the light of a dip held by the Captain, proceeded to read a letter signed by the Commanding General of the Division, and considerably blurred, which ran somewhat in this wise:

"COLONEL:—

"Is your Sutler sagacious?

"Has he ordinary honesty?

"Has he the foresight common among business men? Is he likely to be imposed upon?"

The letter was greeted with roars of laughter that were not diminished by the dismay of the Sutler. The Adjutant was forthwith requested by one of the crowd to suggest to the Colonel to reply—

"That our Sutler was a sagacious animal. That he had the honesty ordinary among Sutlers. That if the General was disposed to deal with him, he would find out that he had the foresight common among business men, especially in the way of calculating his profits; and that as far as making change was concerned, he was not at all likely to be imposed upon."

Loud calls were now made upon the Sutler for an explanation, and with look and tones that indicated that with him at least it was no laughing matter, he commenced—

"On the forenoon of the day that we crossed into Fredericksburg——"

"We crossed!" roared the Captain. "Well, that's cool for a man who suddenly recollected when that Quarter-Master was killed by a shell near the Lacy House, just before our brigade crossed, that he had business in Washington."

"Well, then, that you crossed," continued the Sutler, correcting himself hastily, to allow the crowd to make as little capital as possible out of his blunder, "the General sent for me, and said that he had been informed that I thought of going to Washington, and wanted to know whether I would take a horse with me;—pointing to one that was blanketed, and that one of his orderlies was leading. I looked upon it as an order to take the horse, and thought that I might as well put a good face on the matter. So I told him that I would take it with pleasure. Well, I mounted the horse, thinking that I might as well ride, and took the road for Aquia. But I found out after half an hour's travel, that the horse was very weak,—in fact hardly able to bear me, and so I took the halter strap in hand and trudged along by his side. Presently I noticed a very bad smell. Carrion is so common here along the road that I didn't pay much attention to it at first, but the smell continued, and got worse, and I thought it strange that the carrion should keep with me. By and by I noticed his nostrils, and then found out to my rage that I, a Regimental Sutler, accustomed to drive good nags, was leading a glandered horse in a country where horse flesh was cheap as dirt. Well, at Aquia we had a great time getting the horse on the boat,—indeed, he fell off the gangway, and we had to fish him out of the water. The passengers crowded me, with the horse, into a little corner in the stern of the boat, and looked at me as if I deserved lynching for bringing him on board. But that was nothing to the trouble I had with him in Washington. After the boat landed, I led that horse around from one stable to another in Washington for four mortal hours, but couldn't get him in anywhere; and besides they threatened to prosecute me if I did not have him shot. Finding that I could do nothing else, I gave a man three dollars to have him taken away and shot. The thing bothered me mightily. I did not want to write to old Pigey, for fear that he might take some course to prevent me from collecting the greenbacks due me in the Regiment, and I did not like to tell him in person. Well, I have been putting it off and off for nearly a week past since my return—my mind made up to tell him all about it, but delaying as long as possible, until this afternoon he happened to see me, and in about half an hour afterward sent for me. It was after three o'clock, an unsafe time with the General, and I expected there would be the d——l to pay. From the way in which he asked me to be seated, shook hands with me, and went on inquiring about my stock and business, and so forth, I saw at once that he knew nothing of it. All the while I was fairly trembling in my boots. At last says he:

"'Well, how did you leave the horse?' and without waiting for an answer, went on to say that he was a favorite animal, highly recommended by the Ohio Captain he had purchased him from, and wound up by repeating the inquiry.

"There was no chance to back out now, and gathering my breath for the effort, said I—

"'General, I regret to say, that your horse is dead.'

"'Dead! did you say?' echoed the General, rising.

"'Yes, sir; I was compelled to have him shot.'

"'Shot! did you say, sir?' advancing; 'shot! compelled to have him shot, sir! By G—d, sir, I would like to know, sir, who would compel you to have a horse of mine shot, sir.'

"'He was glandered,' said I timidly.

"'Sir! sir!! sir!!! d——d lie, sir,—mouth as sweet as sugar. D——d lie, sir,' retorted the General.

"The General was furiously mad, his eyes flashing, and all the while he took quick and long steps up and down his marquee.

"I attempted an explanation, but he would listen to none; and kept on repeating 'glandered!' 'shot!' and scowling at times at me;—saying, too, 'By G—d, sir, this matter must be investigated.'

"'General,' said I, at length, 'in justice to myself, I would like'——

"'Justice to yourself!' shouted the General, looking at me as if he believed me mean enough to murder my grandmother. 'Who the h—l ever heard of a sutler being entitled to any justice?——you, sir, I'll teach you justice. Get out of my tent, sir.'

"I thought it best not to wait for another opportunity to get away, and as I sloped I heard the General swearing at me until I had passed the Surgeon's tent. You see what makes the matter worse with the General is, that he has been told several times that the horse was unsound, but would not admit that as much of a horseman as he professed to be, had been taken in by the 'Buckeye Officer.'"

The recital of the story appeared to have lightened the load upon the breast of the sutler, and he wound up somewhat humorously, by telling the crowd that there was another on the list to be court-martialed, and that they must give him all possible aid and comfort.

"Be easy, sutler! there are too many ahead of you on that list," observed an officer. "Your case can't be reached for some time yet. It is admitted on all sides that our material, officers and men, are as good as any in the army; and, for all that, although one of the smallest divisions, we have more courts-martial than any other division. Why, just look at it. A day or two before the battle of Fredericksburg, twenty-three officers were released from arrest. Thirteen of them, Lieutenants under charges for lying, as old Pigey termed it, when, in fact, it was nothing more than a simple misunderstanding of one of his night orders, such as any men might make. Poor fellows! over one-half of them are out of his power now; but I wouldn't wonder if the General would be presumptuous and malignant enough to respectfully refer their cases to the Chancery of Heaven, with endorsements to suit himself!"

"Well, that brave Lieutenant," said the Captain, "who asked permission of the Colonel to charge with our regiment when himself and squad had become separated from his own, has been reinstated. You know that at the time old Pigey gave permission to the Colonels to send Volunteer Officers before the board for examination, the Lieutenant-Colonel of his regiment, instead of sending him a written order, as was customary, sought him out when engaged in conversation with some non-commissioned officers of his command, and in an insulting manner gave him a verbal order to report. They had some hot talk about it, and in the course of it the Lieutenant said that 'he'd be d——d if he came into the army to study tactics; he came to fight,' and on the strength of that, the General had him tried and dismissed. Our Colonel and Lieutenant-Colonel sent up a statement to 'Burney,' giving a glowing account of his gallant conduct in the fight; and the General seeing how dead in earnest he was when he said he came to fight, restored him to his position."

"I am very much afraid," said the Lieutenant, slowly, interrupted by frequent whiffs at a well-colored meerschaum, "that the Colonel and Lieutenant-Colonel will have difficulty to save themselves."

"Save themselves!" echoed several, from different parts of the tent, their faces hardly visible through the increasing smoke. "Why, what's in the wind now?"

"A good deal more than a great many of you think," continued the Adjutant. "I think I see the dawning of considerable difficulty. The Colonel, you recollect, was compelled to correct our Division-General in some of his commands, to prevent confusion; and the General, although clearly in the wrong, submitted with a bad grace; and then at the last review you all remember how a whiffet chanced to yelp at the heels of the Staff horses, and how the General—it was after three, you recollect, G—d d——d the puppy and its ancestry, particularly its mother, until his Staff tittered behind him, and the Regiments of his command, officers and men, particularly ours, fairly roared. And then, too, when General Burnside saluted the colors, and requested Pigey to ride along, how he started off with his Staff, leaving us all at a 'Present Arms;' and how the quick eye of Old Joe saw the blunder; and how he called the General's attention to it, without effect, until 'Burney' sharply yelled out, 'General, you had better bring your men to a shoulder, sir;' and then, how the General, amid increased tittering and laughter, rode back, and with a face like scarlet squeaked out—'Division! Shoulder arms!' Now I have heard that the General blames the Field Officers of our Regiment with a good deal of that laughter; and that and this Sutler matter will make him provide a pretext for another Court-martial at an early day."

"Double, double, toil and trouble,"

said the poetical Lieutenant. "Why, the Adjutant talks as if he could see the witches over the pot; certainly—

'No lateness of life gives him mystical lore.'"

"No, but—

'Coming events cast their shadows before.'"

continued the Adjutant, finishing the couplet. "I do not know that any gift of prophecy is given unto me, but I will venture to predict that the pretext will be that very order,—outrageous and unreasonable as it is,—that our Brigadier not only flatly and positively refused to obey before he left, but told his command that it was unlawful and unreasonable, and should not be obeyed."

"What! that dress-coat order," cried the Western Virginia Captain, springing to his feet; "compel a man who has two new blouses, and who belongs to a regiment that came out with blouses and never had dress-coats, to put a dress-coat in his knapsack besides, when his clothing account is almost exhausted, and the campaign only half through. Is that the order you mean? By George, you must think that old Pigey is only going to live and do business after three o'clock in the afternoon, if you think that he will insist upon that order. Our Brigadier did right to disobey it. Old Rosey would have put any officer in irons, who——"

"But, Captain," resumed the Adjutant, "unfortunately we are not in Western Virginia, and not under old Rosey, as you call him, but in the Army of the Potomac, where Red Tape clogs progress more than Virginia mud ever did, and where position is attained, not so much by the merit of the officer, as by the hold he may be able to get upon the favoritism of the War Department."

"Is it possible," continued the Captain, thrusting his hands into the lowest depths of his breeches pockets, and casting upon the Adjutant a half inquiring, half reflecting look, "that this Regiment, which the General himself admits is one of the best disciplined in his Division, and which has been one of the most harmonious and orderly, is to be imposed upon in this way by a whimsical superior officer, who, whatever his reputation for science may be, has shown himself over and over again to have no sense! I tell you, our men can't stand it. Just look at my own Company, for instance, nearly all married men, families dependent upon them for support, and now when they have each two lined blouses, as good as new, and their clothing account about square, they are to take seven dollars and a half of their hard earned pay—more than half a month's wages—and buy a coat that can be of no service, and that must be thrown away the first march. I do not believe that the Government designs that our Volunteer Regiments should be compelled to take both blouses and dress coats. The General had better enter into partnership with some shoddy contractor, if he intends giving orders of this kind. I tell you, the men will not take them."

"Come, Captain, no 'murmuring or muttering' against the powers that be," said the Adjutant. "The men will either take them, in case the order is made, or go to the Rip-raps. I am inclined to think that the Field Officers will not see the men imposed upon. And at the same time they will not bear the brunt of disobeying the order themselves, and not let the men run any risk. It is hard to tell," continued the Adjutant, in a measured tone, refilling his pipe as he spoke, "what it will result in; but Pigey is in power, and like all in authority, has his toadies about him, and you may make up your minds that he will not be sparing in his charges, or in the testimony to support them. Our Colonel and Lieut.-Colonel, I know, feel outraged at the bare idea of being subjected to such an order. They are both earnest men, have both made heavy sacrifices to enter the service, and have never failed in duty, although, like most volunteer officers of spirit, they are somewhat restiff under authority. The Colonel, being an old soldier, and thoroughly acquainted with his work, is especially restiff under the authority of an officer so poorly fitted for his position as our Division General. But our turn must come. Every Regiment in the Division has suffered from his Court-martialling and studied interference, and so far we have been fortunate enough to escape. And with the insight I now have, I believe the glandered horse and the little whiffet that yelped and disturbed the General's ideas of a proper Review, will prove to be at the bottom of the whole matter."

"Tom," interrupted the Captain, "you will have to put your record in better shape."

"How can I do it?" said the Sutler.

"By sending Pigey a bill for the three dollars you paid to have the horse shot."

The crowd boisterously applauded the proposition, and insisted upon its execution. Desultory conversation followed until "Taps" dispersed them to their quarters.

Grumbling is claimed as a soldier's privilege, and the Sutler's tent being a lounging place when off duty, becomes a place of grumbling, much like the place of wailing that the Jews have on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

A fortnight later saw the crowd in their old position, but with countenances in which it was difficult to say whether anxiety or anger predominated.

"Fellows, it is terminating just as the Adjutant prophesied a short time ago in this very place," said a Captain slightly past the prime of life, but of vigorous build. "In trying to keep the men out of dress coats, the Colonel and Lieutenant-Colonel have got themselves into all manner of trouble, and there is no let-up with old Pigey. I saw them this morning both as cheerful as crickets, and determined to have the matter thoroughly investigated."

"Did they intimate any opinion as to what we ought to do?" inquired the Adjutant.

"Not a word. In that respect they say just as they did before they were placed in close confinement, that it is a case in which each man must act for himself. They are willing to shoulder the responsibility of their own acts, and were very indignant when they heard that Pigey had ordered the other Brigade under arms, and two pieces of artillery to be trained upon our camp, as if the whole Regiment was guilty of mutiny, when there was not at the same time a more quiet or orderly Regiment in camp."

"They understand," remarked the Adjutant, "however, why that was done. The General must have something to justify this unusually harsh treatment. A charge of simple disobedience of orders would not do it, so he charges them with mutiny, and trumps up this apprehension and parade to appear consistent. The Lieutenant-Colonel anticipated it, I know. I heard him say, while under simple arrest, that he believed that after three o'clock they would be placed in close confinement, and on the strength of it some letters were sent by a civilian giving full details. Well, I am glad that they are in good spirits."

"In the very best," replied the Captain, "although the General starts as if he intended giving them a tough through. The Sibley that they were turned into late last night, was put up over ground so wet that you couldn't make a track upon it without it would fill with water, and the Lieutenant-Colonel had to sleep upon this ground with a single blanket, as it was late when his servant Charlie came to the guard with his roll of blankets, and the General would not permit him to pass. In consequence he awoke this morning chilled, wet through, and with a fair start for a high fever. And then they are denied writing material, books, even a copy of the Regulations. The General relented sufficiently, to tell an aid to inform them, that they might correspond with their families if they would submit the correspondence first to inspection at Division Head-quarters; to which they replied—that 'the General might insult them, but could not compel them to humiliate their families.' No one is permitted to see them unless by special permission of the General."

"And when I saw those three guards to-day pacing about that Sibley," excitedly spoke the Virginia Captain, "I felt like mounting a cracker-box in camp and asking the men to follow me, and find out on what grounds, this puss-in-boots outraged in this way men more well-meaning and determined than himself in the suppression of this rebellion. But it will all come right. They are not to be crowded clear out of sight in a single day. One of my men told me that he was present on duty when that wharf-rat of an Adjutant, that the exhorting Colonel is trying to make an Adjutant-General of, came into the General's tent with the Lieutenant-Colonel, and he said that the General asked the Colonel whether he was still determined to disobey the lawful order of his superior officer, the Commanding General of the Division?

"'The legality of the order is what I question,' said the Colonel. 'An order to be lawful should at least be reasonable. That order is unreasonable, unjust to the men, and I cannot conscientiously obey it.'

"'This money for the coats does not come out of your pocket,' said the General, blandly. 'Why need you concern yourself about it?'

"'It comes out of the pockets of my men, General,' said the Colonel, 'and I consider it my duty to concern myself sufficiently to prevent imposition upon them.'

"'Tut,' said the General. 'You wouldn't hear a Regular officer say that.'

"'The greater shame for them,' said the Colonel. 'My men are my neighbors and friends. They look to me to protect their interests. As a general thing the Regulars are recruited from the purlieus of great cities, and are men of no character.'

"'Colonel,' said the General, sternly, 'listen to this definition of 'Mutiny,' and then, as you are a lawyer, think of your present position.'

"The Colonel heard it read and replied that 'it had nothing whatever to do with the case, as there was no mutiny, nor even an approach to it.' Considering the time of day, the General, so far, had been unusually cool, but he could keep in no longer.

"'Colonel,' said he, in a loud, angry tone, as he advanced towards him, 'by G—d, sir, you are mutinous, sir!'

"'General,' replied the Colonel, coolly, and looking him full in the eye, 'with all due deference to your superior rank, permit me to say, that if you say I am guilty of mutiny you overstep the bounds of truth.'

"The Colonel's confident manner rather staggered the General, and he turned to the Adjutant, who has been his runner throughout this matter, and called upon him to substantiate his assertion; which he did.

"With the remark that he would not dare to make such false assertions away from the General's head-quarters, the Colonel turned upon him indignantly, and the General called for the Provost Guard to conduct him to the Sibley. Now I tell you, fellows," continued the Captain, "the General will make nothing out of this matter."

"He has his malice gratified by the present punishment he is subjecting them to, as if fearful that they might come unharmed from a Court-martial. But I don't believe that he will be able to get the Regiment into dress coats," remarked the Adjutant.

The Adjutant was right. The Regiment did not get into dress coats; although its Colonel and Lieutenant-Colonel slipped into strait-jackets.



CHAPTER XVIII.

Dress Coats versus Blouses—Military Law—Bill the Cook—Courts-Martial—Important Decision in Military Law—'A Man with Two Blouses on' can be compelled to put a Dress Coat on top—A Colored French Cook and a Beefy-browed Judge-Advocate—The Mud March—No Pigeon-holing on a Whiskey Scent—Old Joe in Command—Dissolution of Partnership between the Dutch Doctor and Chaplain.

Necessity knows no law. Military law springs from the necessity of the case, and may be said, therefore, to be equivalent to no law. However plausible the principles embodied in the compact periods of Benet and De Hart may appear, in actual practice they dwindle to little else than the will of the officer who details the court. General Officers, tried at easy intervals, before pains-taking courts, in large cities, may have opportunity for equal and exact justice; but Heaven help their inferiors who have their cases put through at lightning speed, before a court under marching orders, and expecting momentarily to move.

The Act of Congress, with a wise prescience of the jealousies and bickerings always arising between Regulars and Volunteers, provides that Regulars shall be tried by Regular, and Volunteers by Volunteer Officers. In practice, the spirit of the law is evaded by the subterfuge, that a Regular Officer, temporarily in command of Volunteers, is pro tempore a Volunteer Officer. In the Mexican War, where the number of Volunteer Officers was comparatively small, there may have been a necessity for this. With our present immense Volunteer force there can be none whatever; and the practice is the more inexcusable, when we consider the great amount of legal as well as military ability among the officers of this force. The gross injustice of this violation of the act, must be apparent to any one upon a moment's reflection. Officers, whose only offence may be their belonging to the Volunteer Service, are too frequently subjected to the tender mercy of a Board of Martinets;—men of long service and tried ability, degraded by the fiat of a court composed of officers as tender in intellect as in years, and whose only recommendation to be members of the court, is their recent transfer from lessons in gunnery and drills;—with patent leather knapsacks, to field or higher positions in the Volunteer Service. Thus, the officer whose earnestness in the cause and heavy sacrifice of family ties and business affairs, first raised the command,—who grew with its growth during months, perhaps years, of hard service,—saw through his untiring efforts the awkwardness of his men change gradually for the precision of the veteran,—not unfrequently by the snap judgment of men whose only service has been in Pay, Quarter-Master, Commissary Departments,—anywhere but in a Fighting Department,—finds himself dishonored, his service thrown aside for naught, and his worst enemy the misuse of the laws he had taken arms to vindicate.

Not an officer or soldier but must recollect a case in point. Now, this mainly arises from the undue and unjust deference paid by the War Department to Regular Officers, and the curse that attends them and upholds them—Red Tape. Undue and unjust deference. Does not the history of the Army of the Potomac prove it? Its heroic fighting, but ill-starred generalship!

* * * * *

"Halloo, Bill! what news from the Sibley?" shouted one of a group of officers who sat and lay upon the ground, cheerfully discussing hard tack and coffee in the camp of a grand picket reserve, near the Rappahannock. The man addressed would, in build, have made a good recruit for the armies of New Amsterdam in their warfare against the Swedes, so graphically described by Irving. Short and thickly set, with a face radiant as a brass kettle in a preserving season, trousers thrust in a pair of cast-away top boots, the legs of which fell in ungainly folds about his ankles, a greasy blouse, tucked in at the waist-band, and a cap ripped behind in the vain effort to accommodate it to a head of Websterian dimensions. With all his shortcomings, and they were legion, Bill's education, unfailing humor and kindness of heart made him a favorite at regimental Head-quarters, where he had long been employed as an attendant. When the sickness of the Lieutenant-Colonel grew serious in the Sibley, Bill took his post by the side of his blankets, and in well-meaning attention made up what he lacked in tenderness as a nurse.

"Nothing new since the trial," drawled out Bill, seating himself meanwhile, and mopping with his coat sleeve the perspiration that stood in beads upon his forehead.

"Since the trial!" echoed the officer. "Why, they have not had notice yet, and the General said he would give them ample opportunity for preparation for trial."

"So he did," continued Bill. "They were put into the Sibley on Monday night, and on Thursday night following, about half-past ten, when it was raining in torrents, and storming so that the guards and myself could scarcely keep the old tent up, that sucker-mouthed Aid of old Pigey's popped his head inside the flaps and handed the Colonel and Lieut.-Colonel each a letter. Both letters went on to say, that their trial would take place the next day, at ten o'clock, at Pigey's Head-quarters, and that each letter contained a copy of the charges and specifications, and that, in the meanwhile, they could prepare for trial, provide counsel, and so forth. The best part of two sheets of large-sized letter paper was filled with the charges against each, all in Pigey's hand-writing.

"'Disrespectful language towards the General Commanding Division;' 'Conduct tending to Mutiny;' 'Disobedience of Orders;' and 'Violation of at least half a dozen different articles of war.'

"The ink was green yet, as if it had all been done after three o'clock. The Lieutenant-Colonel, you know, told that wharf rat of an Adjutant before the General, that he would not dare to make such mis-statements away from Division Head-quarters. Well, on the strength of that, he had him charged with sending a challenge to fight a duel, and telling his superior officer that he lied. Lord! when I heard them read, I thought they ought to be thankful that one of the darkies about Division Head-quarters hadn't died in the meanwhile, or there would have been a charge of murder. It might just as well, at any rate, have been murder as mutiny, that we all know. Time for trial!—lots of time! Just the time to hunt a lawyer, consult law books, and drum up testimony."

"Timed purposely, of course," broke in the officer, indignantly, "and the Court, no doubt, packed to suit. But," his face brightening, "there is an appeal to Father Abraham."

"It is all very well to talk about Father Abraham," continued Bill, in the same drawling tone; "but if you have to hunt up Honest Old Abe through the regular military channels, as they say you have to, he'll seem about as far off as the first old Father Abraham did to that rich old Cockey that had a big dry on in a hot place."

"Bill," said the officer, as he saw the crowd inclined to laugh at the remark, "this is by far too serious a matter to jest about. Here are two men of character and position, devoted to the cause body and soul, completely at the mercy of an officer whose conduct is a reproach to his command, and who is malicious alike in deeds and words."

"Especially the latter," interrupted Bill, more hurriedly than before. "The Colonel says he was chief witness, and swore the charges right straight through, without wincing. The Judge Advocate, they said, was a right clever gentlemanly fellow, but ignorant of law, and completely at the disposal of the General. I saw him several times when I was passing backwards and forwards, and he looked to me as if the beef was a little too thick on the outside of his forehead, for the brains to be active inside. Still, the Colonels have no fault to find with him, except that between times he would talk about drinking to Little Mac, and brag about the prospect, as the papers seem to say, of Fitz John Porter's being cleared. But then most of the Court did as much at that as he did. He did his duty in the trial, I guess, as well as his knowledge and old Pigey's will would allow."

"Well, Bill, give us some particulars of the trials, if you know them," suggested an officer of a neighboring regiment—the party during the conversation being increased by additions of officers and privates.

"I only know what I saw passing back and forth, and what I heard from the Colonels themselves. They wouldn't allow any one to go within three yards of the tent in which they held Court; but I'll give you what I have, although to do it I must go back a little:—Before it was light on the day of trial the Major posted off to our Corps Commander with an application for a continuance, on the ground of want of time for preparation. About daylight the General came out, rubbing his eyes, wanting to know who that early bird was?

"'Playing Orderly, sir,' said he, as his eye lit upon the letter in the Major's hand. 'Fine occupation for a man of six feet two, with a Major's straps upon his shoulders.'

"The Major wilted till he felt about two feet six, but mustered presence of mind sufficient to tell the General his errand, and how his personal solicitude had prompted him to perform it himself. The General heard him kindly; stated that he had no doubt but that the Court would act favorably upon the application, and that it should be referred to them. The Court, when it met, acted favorably, so far as to give the Colonel, who was tried first, fifteen minutes to hunt a lawyer. But they wouldn't let the Lieut.-Colonel act, as he was a party, and several others were excluded on the ground of being witnesses, although they took good care not to call them. Both pleaded guilty to the 'simple disobedience of orders,' and the Court was ashamed to try them upon anything besides but the 'disrespectful conduct;' in regard to which old Pigey's assertions were taken, instead of the circumstances being proved. The Colonel was too indignant at the treatment to set up any defence, but the Lieutenant-Colonel cross-examined old Pigey until his testimony looked like a box of fish-bait. The General swore that he had given him 'the lie,' but upon being questioned by the Colonel, stated that 'he did not believe the Colonel intended to call his personal veracity into question.' In the same manner he had to explain away that duelling charge. At last he got so confused that he would ram wood into the stove to gain time, bite the ends of his moustache, play with the rim of his hat, and when cornered as to the Lieutenant-Colonel's character as an officer, to relieve himself, stated;—that he must say that the Colonel had hitherto obeyed every order with cheerfulness, promptitude, great zeal and intelligence, and that his intercourse with the Commanding General had been marked by great courtesy at all times."

"The Colonel also stated further, that he had testimony to contradict that Adjutant, or Wharf-Rat, as you know him best by. He had told me before the trial to tell that young law student, Tom, a private of Co. C, who heard the conversation that the Adjutant had testified to, to be within calling distance during the trial, with his belt on, hair combed, and looking as neat as possible. Well, in Tom came, his face and eyes swelled up from a bad cold, a stocking that had been a stranger to soap and water for one long march at least, tied about his neck to cure a sore throat, his belt on properly, but his blouse pockets stuffed out beyond it with six months' correspondence, and his matted and bleached head of hair, through the vain effort to comb it, resembling the heads of Feejee Islanders, in Sunday-school books. A smile played around the lips of the gentlemanly old Massachusetts Colonel, who presided over the Court, as he surveyed him upon entering, and a titter ran around the Board, especially among some of the young West-Pointers. The Colonel's face colored, and the Judge Advocate's eyes glowed as if he had a soft block. But Tom was a singed cat; he always was a slovenly fellow, you know, and he turned out to be a file for the viper.

"'Colonel,' said the Judge Advocate haughtily, 'have you any officers who are prepared to vouch for the character and credibility of this witness, as I see he is but a private?'

"'Yes, sir, if the Court please,' retorted the Colonel indignantly,—then remembering how this same Judge Advocate had upon former occasions affected to despise privates, he added: 'His character and credibility are quite as good as those of half the shoulder-strapped gentry of the Corps.'

"'Colonel,' said the President, blandly, 'there is an old rule requiring privates to be vouched for, rarely insisted upon, at this day, however,' casting, as he said this, a half reproachful look upon the Judge Advocate; 'but we desire you to understand that your word is as good as that of any officer before this Court.'

"The Colonel vouched for him, and Tom was examined, and contradicted still further than his own cross-examination had done, the statement of the Adjutant, besides snubbing the Judge Advocate handsomely. A string of witnesses, from our Brigadier down to all the line officers of the command, was then offered to prove character, but the Court very formally told the Colonel that a superior officer, the Commanding General of the Division, had already testified to this, and that this rendered the testimony of officers inferior in rank quite superfluous. So you see from this and Tom's case, Justice don't go it blind in Courts-Martial, but keeps one eye open to see whether the witness has shoulder-straps on or not."

"But, Bill," inquired a lawyer in the crowd, "did not the Colonel offer to prove that the Regiment was amply supplied with clothing, and that the order was unreasonable, and that it was not therefore a lawful order, as the law is supposed to be founded upon reason?"

"Oh, yes, both did; but the Lieutenant-Colonel was told by the President, that if General Burnside were to order the President to make a requisition in dog-days for old Spartan metal helmets for his Regiment, he would make the requisition.

"Said the Colonel, 'the President of the United States is by the Regulations empowered to prescribe the uniform.'

"'That,' said the President, 'General Burnside must judge of. I must execute the order, however unreasonable it may seem, first, and question it afterwards.'

"'Suppose the General would order you to black his boots; or,' said the Colonel, thinking that a little too strongly put; 'suppose that you were second in command of a battery lying near a peaceful and loyal town, and your superior, drunk or otherwise, would order you to shell it, would you obey the order, and question it after having murdered half the women and children of the place?' To which questions, however, the Court gave the go-by, remarking simply, that they did not suppose that the Colonel had any criminal intentions in disobeying the order. So, really, it is narrowed down to the disobedience of, to say the least, a most uncalled for order."

"And faithful, well intentioned officers are, for what is at most but an honest blunder, treated like felons," said one.

"From their lively and confident manner," said Bill, "I believe that they have assurances from Washington that all will be right. There is no telling how long the Lieutenant-Colonel will last under this confinement, however. He has failed greatly, and although so weak as to be unable to walk alone, the General insists upon the guards being upon either side whenever he has occasion to leave the tent. Even the sinks were dug at over one hundred yards distance from the Sibley. And the tent itself is located in such a manner that old Pigey can at all times have his vengeance gratified by a full view of it, the three guards about it, and my assisting the Lieutenant-Colonel from time to time. But the guards esteem, and we all esteem the officers inside the Sibley more than the General, who abuses his power in his marquee. Letters and newspapers come crawling under the canvas. Roast partridges, squirrels, apples, and delicacies that officers and men deny themselves of, find their way inside, and while my name is Bill Gladdon they shan't suffer through any lack upon my part, and I know that this is the opinion of all of us."

"You all recollect the Sibley," said a Lieutenant, "that stands in the rear of old Pigey's marquee, in which he gave the collation after the last corps review, and welcomed our officers as he steadied himself at the table, with 'Here comes my gallant 210th.' The Court met in that."

"Yes," resumed Bill, "the same. It stands near his cook tent, and while his darkies were serving up French cookery, the Judge Advocate did the work allotted him in endeavoring to justify by the trial, in some slight manner, the General's outrageous conduct. I heard that Tom said, that after the Judge Advocate had asked that he be vouched for, and the Colonel became indignant, the Judge Advocate said somewhat blandly,

"'You must remember, Colonel, that this is not one of your ordinary Courts of Justice.'

"'That it is not a Court of Justice,' retorted the Colonel, 'is very apparent.'

"Both were put through in a hurry, at any rate. The different members of the Court said that they all had marching orders, and they had no sooner left the Sibley than they were upon horseback and on the gallop towards their different commands. Our Doctor had detailed an ambulance to take the Colonels in the rear of the Division. Old Pigey, in his usual morning survey of the premises, saw it in front of the Sibley, and sent an Orderly to take the rather lively, good-looking bays that were in it and exchange them for the old rips that haul the ambulance his cooks ride in. But we did not move then, although they say we will certainly to-morrow."

* * * * *

That inevitable "they say," the common prefix to rumors in camp as well as civil life, had given Bill correct information. For next morning, in spite of the lowering sky, the camps were all astir with busy life, and during the course of the forenoon column after column trudged along over the already soft roads in a south-westerly direction. The movement was the mad desperation of a Commander of undaunted energy. A vain effort to appease that most capricious of masters, popular clamor. The rains descended, and that grand army of the Potomac literally floundered in the mud.

In an old field, thickly grown with young pines, very near the farthest point reached in the march, our Regiment rested towards the close of the last day of the advance, or to speak more truly, attempted advance. Fatigued with the double duty of struggling with the mud and corduroying the roads, the repose was heartily welcome.

"It does a fellow good to feel a little frisky,"

sang, or rather shouted, a little Corporal, whom we have met before in these pages, as he made ridiculous efforts to infuse life into heels clodded with mud.

"Talk as you please about old Pigey, boys, he's a regular trump on the whiskey question. He'll cut red-tape any day on that. Don't you see the boys?" continued the Corporal, addressing a crowd reposing at full length upon the freshly cut pine boughs, conspicuous among whom was the Adjutant;—pointing as he spoke to several men in uniform, but boys in years, who were being forced and dragged along by successive groups of their comrades.

"Couldn't stand the Commissary—stomachs too tender. Ha! ha! Pigey and myself are in on that."

"What is up now, Corporal?" queried the Adjutant.

"Nothing is up; it's all down," retorted the Corporal, in a half serious air, as he saluted the Colonel respectfully. "You see, Adjutant, they are bits of boys at any rate, just from school, and the Commissary was too much for their empty stomachs. I was sent back to hurry up the stragglers, and while we were catching up as rapidly as possible, old Pigey came ploughing up the mud alongside of us, followed by that sucker-mouthed Aid. I saw at once that Division Head-quarters had a good load on. With a patronizing grin, said the General stopping short alongside of a wagon belonging to another corps, and that was fast almost up to the wagon-bed, while the mules were fairly floating, 'What's in that wagon?' and without waiting for answer, 'whiskey, by G—d,' he broke out, snuffing at the same time towards the wagon. 'Boys, unload a couple of barrels,' he continued, good-humoredly, as if trying to make up for the outrage he has just committed upon the Regiment. The driver protested, and the wagon guards said that it could not be taken without an order; but it was after three, and old Pigey ripped and swore that his order was as good as anybody's, and the guards were frightened enough to let our boys roll out two barrels. No pigeon-holing on a whiskey scent! One barrel he ordered up to his head-quarters, and the head of the other was knocked in, and he told us to drink our fill, and at it the boys went. Tin cups, canteens, cap-covers, anything that would hold the article, were made use of, and they are a blue old crowd, from the General down. The boys had had nothing but a few hard tack during the day, and it was about the first drink to some, and from the way it tastes it must have been made out of rotten corn and not two months old, and altogether straggling increased considerably."

"Straggling! why they are wallowing like hogs in the mud, Adjutant! It is a shame, and if some one of my superiors will not prefer charges against the General and his Adjutant, I will. Men of mine are drunk that I never knew to taste a drop before," indignantly exclaimed the Western Virginia Captain, as, with hat off, face aglow with perspiration, eyes flashing, and boots that indicated service in taking the soundings of the mud on the march, he came panting up with rapid strides. "Now, sir, fourteen of my best men are drunk—the first drunken man I have had during the campaign—and I'll be shot to death with musketry, sooner than punish a single man of them."

"But discipline must be kept up," said the Adjutant.

"Discipline! do you say, Adjutant?" retorted the Captain. "If you want to see discipline go to Division Head-quarters. Why old Pigey is prancing around like a steed at a muster,—crazy! absolutely crazy! His cocked hat is more crooked than ever, and the knot of his muffler is at the back of his neck, and the ends flying like wings. Just a few minutes ago he stopped suddenly while on a canter, right by one of my men, lying along the road-side, that he had made drunk, and chuckled and laughed, and lolled from side to side in his saddle, and then at a canter again rode to another one and went through the same performance. And his Adjutant-General—why one of my men not ten minutes ago led his horse to Head-quarters. He was so drunk, actually, that his eyes looked like those of a shad out of water a day,—his feet out of the stirrups, the reins loose about his horse's neck, his hands hanging listlessly down, and the liquor oozing out of the corners of his sucker mouth. And there he was, his horse carrying him about at random among the stumps, and officers and men laughing at him, expecting to see him go over on the one side or the other every moment. Now, it is a burning shame. And I, for one, will expose them, if it takes the hide off. Here are our Colonels confined just for no offence at all,—for doing their duty, in fact,—and this man, after having Court-martialed all that he could of his command, trying to demoralize the rest by whiskey. Now, sir, the higher the rank the more severe the punishment should be. Just before we started Burney had an order read that we were about to meet the enemy, and that every man must do his duty. And here is a General of Division, in command of nine thousand men, as drunk as a fool."

"Let Pigey alone on the whiskey question, Captain," interrupted the Corporal, who had in the meantime been refreshing his inner man by a pull at his canteen. "He's a regular trump—yes," slapping his canteen as he spoke, "a full hand of trumps any time on that topic. Like other men, he drinks to drown his grief at our poor prospect of a fight."

"A fine condition he is in to lead men into a fight;—but not much worse than at Fredericksburg," slowly observed the Preacher Lieutenant, who, as one of the crowd, had been a listener to the story of the Captain. "Drunkenness has cursed our army too much. But we cannot consistently be silent in sight of conduct like this on the part of Commanders. The interests of our men"——

"Have a care, Lieutenant," quietly observed the Adjutant, "how you talk. 'The interests of the men' have placed our Colonels under guard in the Sibley."

"Not bolts, nor bars a prison make," resumed the Preacher more spiritedly, "and I would sooner have a quiet conscience in confinement, than the reproach of disgraceful conduct and command a Division."

* * * * *

Corduroying the entire route had not been proposed, when the army commenced its movement; but it became apparent to all that progress was only tolerable with it, and without it, impossible. On the day after the above conversation, the army commenced to retrace its steps. Some days, however, intervened before the smoke ascended from their old huts, and the men in lazy circles about the camp fires rehashed their recollections of the "mud march."

Like our repulse at Fredericksburg, it was, as far as our Commander-in-Chief was concerned, a misfortune and not a fault. A change in command was evident, however, and the substitution of the whole-hearted, dashing Hooker for the equally earnest but more steady Burnside, that took place in the latter part of January, occasioned no surprise in the army. The new Commander went much farther, than old attachments had probably permitted his predecessor in going, in removing McClellanism. Grand Divisions were abolished; rigid inquiries into the comforts and conveniences of the men were frequent, and senseless reviews less frequent. Bakeries were established in every Brigade, and fresh bread and hot rolls furnished in wholesome abundance, to the great benefit of the Government, for hospital rolls were thereby depleted, and reports for duty increased. Rigid discipline and daily drills too were kept up, as "Old Joe" was a frequent visitor, when least expected. His constant solicitude for the welfare of the men, manifested by close personal attention, which the men themselves were witness to, rather than by concocted newspaper reports, by which the friends of the soldier in their loyal homes might be imposed upon, and the soldier himself not benefited, endeared him to his entire command.

* * * * *

One clear, cold morning, during these palmy days of the army, the men of the regiment nearest the Surgeon's Quarters were greatly surprised by the sudden exit of a small-sized sheet iron stove from the tent occupied by the Surgeon and Chaplain, closely followed up by the little Dutch Doctor in his shirt sleeves, sputtering hurriedly—

"Tam schmoke pox!" and at every ejaculation bestowing a vigorous kick. At a reasonably safe distance in his rear was the Chaplain, in half undress also, remonstrating as coolly as possible,—considering that the stove was his property. The Doctor did not refrain, however, until its badly battered fragments lay at intervals upon the ground.

"Efry morn, and efry morn, schmoke shust as the Tuyfel. I no need prepare for next world py that tam shmoke pox. Eh?" continued the Doctor, facing the Chaplain.

"Come, Doctor," said the Chaplain, soothingly, "we ought to get along better than this in our department."

"Shaplain's department! Eh! By G—t! One Horse-Doctor and one Shaplain enough for a whole Division!"

The sudden appearance of Bill, the attendant upon the Colonels in the Sibley, at the Adjutant's quarters, had the effect of transferring hither the crowd, who were enjoying what proved to be a final dissolution of partnership between the Chaplain and the Doctor.

"I know your errand, Bill," remarked the Adjutant, looking him full in the face. "An orderly has just handed me the General Order. But what is to become of the Lieutenant-Colonel?"

"You only have the order dismissing the Colonel, then. There was a message sent about ten o'clock last night, a little after the General Order was received at the Sibley, stating that at day-break this morning the Colonel should be escorted to Aquia under guard, and that before leaving he should have no intercourse whatever with any of his command. Old Pigey also tried further to add insult to injury, by stating that the Lieutenant-Colonel, who cannot, from weakness, walk twenty steps, even though it would save his life, would be released from close confinement, and might have the benefit of Brigade limits in our new camp ground for exercise. You know that is so full of stumps and undergrowth that a well man can hardly get along in it."

"So an officer of the Colonel's merit and services," remarked the Adjutant, "was dragged off before daylight, and disgraced for what was in its very worst light but a simple blunder, made under the most extenuating of circumstances. Boys, if there be faith in Stanton's pledged word, matters will be set right as soon as the record of the case reaches the War Department. I am informed that he denounced the whole proceeding as an outrage, and telegraphed the General; and we all know that the General has been spending a good portion of the time since the trial in Washington."

"And he came back," observed Bill, "yesterday morning, in a mood unusual with him before three o'clock in the afternoon. He had his whole staff, all his orderlies and the Provost Guard out to stop a Maine Regiment from walking by the side of the road, when the mud was over shoe top in the road itself,—and he flourished that thin sword of his, and raved and swore and danced about until one of the Maine boys wanted to know who 'that little old Cockey was with a ramrod in his hand,—' and that set the laugh so much against him that his Aids returned their pistols and he his sword, and he sneaked back to his marquee, and issued an order requiring his whole command to stand at arms along the road side upon the approach of troops from either direction."

"Which," remarked the Adjutant, "if obeyed, would keep them under arms well nigh all the time, and would provoke a collision, as it would be an insult to the troops of other commands, to whom the road should be equally free. But it is a fair sample of the judgment of Pigey."



CHAPTER XIX.

The Presentation Mania—The Western Virginia Captain in the War Department—Politeness and Mr. Secretary Stanton—Capture of the Dutch Doctor—A Genuine Newspaper Sell.

Presentations by men to officers should be prevented by positive orders; not that the recipients are not usually meritorious, but the practice by its prevalency is an unjust tax upon a class little able to bear it. A costly sword must be presented to our Captain,—intimates a man perhaps warmly in the Captain's confidence. Forthwith the list is started, and with extra guard and fatigue duty before the eyes of the men, it makes a unanimous circuit of the command. Active newspaper reporters, from the sheer merit of the officer, may be, and may be from the additional inducement of a little compensation, give an account of the presentation in one of the dailies that fills the breasts of the officer's friends with pride, while the decreased remittance of the private may keep back some creature comfort from his wife and little ones. Statistics showing how far these presentations are spontaneous offerings, and to what extent results of wire-working at Head-quarters, would prove more curious than creditable.

Our Brigade did not escape the Presentation Mania. Never did it develop itself in a command, however, more spontaneously. The plain, practical sense of our Brigadier was the more noticeable to the men, on account of its marked contrast to the quibbles and conceit of the General of Division. The officers and men of the Brigade had with great care and cost selected a noble horse of celebrated stock upon which to mount their Brigadier, and, on a pleasant evening in March, a crowd informally assembled was busied in arranging for the morrow the programme of presentation. The General of Division, so far in the cold in the matter, was just then making himself sensibly felt.

"Colonel," said an officer, who from the direction of Brigade Head-quarters neared the crowd, addressing a central figure, "you might as well take the General's horse out to grass awhile."

"Explain yourself," say several.

"Pigey has his foot in the whole matter nicely. The General, you know, just returned this evening from sick leave. Well, he and his friends, who came with him to see the presentation ceremonies, had not been at Head-quarters an hour before that sucker-mouthed Aid made his appearance, and said that he was directed by the General Commanding the Division to place him under arrest. The fellow was drunk, and the General hardly deigned to notice him. As he staggered away, he muttered that there were fifteen charges against him, and that he would find the General's grip a tight one."

Amid exclamations, indicating that the perplexity of the matter could not prevent a sly smile at the ludicrous position in which the Brigadier and his friends from abroad were placed, the officer continued—

"But the General brings good news from Washington. The Colonel and Lieutenant-Colonel of the 210th return at an early day."

"Yes, sir, that is so," broke in our Western Virginia Captain, who had just returned from enjoying one of the furloughs at that time so freely distributed. "At last the War Department, or rather Mr. Secretary Stanton, for all the balance of the department, as far as I could learn, thought the delay outrageous, fulfils its promise. After the Lieutenant-Colonel had been at home on a sick leave for some time, and we all thought the matter about dropped; what should I see one day but his name, with thirty-two others, in a daily, under the head of 'Dismissals from the Army.' There it was, dismissed for doing his duty, and published right among the names of scoundrels who had skulked five times from the battle-field; men charged with drunkenness, and every offence known to the Military Decalogue. My furlough had just come, and I started for Washington by the next boat, bound to see how the matter stood. The morning after I got there, I posted up bright and early to the War Department, but a sergeant near the door, with more polish on his boots than in his manners, told me that I had better keep shady until ten o'clock, as business hours commenced then. I sat down on a pile of old lumber near by, and passed very nearly three hours in wondering why so many broad-shouldered fellows, who could make a sabre fall as heavy as the blow of a broad-axe, were lounging about or going backward and forward upon errands that sickly boys might do as well. As it grew nearer ten, able-bodied, bright-looking officers, Regulars, as I was told, educated at Uncle Sam's expense to fight, elegantly shoulder-strapped, passed in to drive quills in a quiet department, 'remote from death's alarms,' and I wondered if some spirited clerks and schoolmasters that I knew, who would have been willing to have gone bent double under knapsacks, if the Surgeon would have accepted them, would not have performed the duty better, and have permitted the country to have the benefit of the military education of these gentlemen."

"I see, Captain, that you don't understand it," interrupted an officer. "Our Regular Officers are not all alike patriotic up to the fighting point; and it is a charitable provision that permits one, say,—who is married to a plantation of niggers, or who has other Southern sympathies or affinities, or who may have conscientious scruples about fighting against our 'Southern brethren,'—to take a snug salary in some peaceful department, or to go on recruiting service in quiet towns, where grasshoppers can be heard singing for squares, and where he is under the necessity of killing nothing but time, and wounding nothing but his country's honor and his own, if a man of that description can be said to possess any. In their offices, these half-hearted Lieutenants, Captains, and Colonels, are like satraps in their halls, unapproachable, except by passing bayonets that should be turned towards Richmond."

"Well, if I don't understand it," resumed the Captain, "it is high time that Uncle Sam understood it. If these men are half-hearted, they will write no better than they fight, and I guess if the truth could be got at, they are responsible for most of the clogging in the Commissary and Quarter-Master Departments. But you've got me off my story. At ten o'clock I staved in, just as I was, my uniform shabby, and my boots with a tolerably fair representation of Aquia mud upon them. Passing from one orderly to another, I brought up at the Adjutant-General's office, and there I was referred to the head clerk's office, and there a pleasant-looking, gentlemanly Major told me that the matter would be certainly set straight as soon as the court-martial records were forwarded; that they had telegraphed for them again and again; and that at one time they were reported lost, and at another carried off by one of General Burnside's Staff Officers. As I had heard of records of the kind being delayed before, I intimated rather plainly what I thought of the matter, and told him that I wanted to see the Secretary himself. He smiled, and told me to take my place in the rear of an odd-looking mixed assemblage of persons in the hall, who were crowding towards an open door. It was after two o'clock and after I had stood until I felt devotional about the knees, when my turn brought me before the door, and showed me Mr. Secretary himself, standing behind a desk, tossing his head, now on this side and now on that, with quick jerks, like a short-horned bull in fly time, despatching business and the hopes of the parties who had it from their looks, about the same time. Right manfully did he stand up to his work; better than to his word perhaps, if reports that I have heard be true."

"A pretty-faced, middle-aged lady approached his desk, and I thought that I could see a rather awkward effort at a smile hang around the upper corners of his huge, black beard, as his eye caught her features through his spectacles, and he received her papers. But the gruff manner in which he told her the next moment that he would not grant it, showed I was mistaken.

"'But I was told, Mr. Secretary,' said the woman, in tremulous tones, 'that my papers were all right, and that your assent was a mere formality. I have three other sons in the service, and this boy is not'——

"'I don't care what you have been told,' retorted the Secretary, in a manner that made me so far forget my reverence that my toes suddenly felt as if disposed to propel something that, strange to say, had the semblance of humanity, and was not distant at the time. 'You had better leave the room, madam!' continued the same voice, somewhat gruffer and sterner, as the poor woman burst into tears at the sudden disappointment. 'You only interrupt and annoy. We are accustomed to this sort of thing here.'

"I looked at him as he took the papers of another for examination, and wondered whether we were really American citizens—sovereigns as our politicians tell us when on the stump, and whether he was really a public servant. But I couldn't see it.

"Now, civility is a cheap commodity, and, in my humble opinion, the least that can be expected of men filling public positions is that they should possess it in an ordinary degree.

"Three o'clock came, but it was not my turn yet. In fact, the treatment of the lady had so disgusted me, that I was quite ready to leave when a servant announced that business hours were over. That evening, I found out to my great satisfaction that men considerably more influential than myself had held the Secretary to the promises he had made them, and that notwithstanding all his backing and filling the order for their return would be issued."

The disappointment of the morrow was a standing topic in camp and on the picket line for the ensuing three weeks. The only doubt that existed with the Court convened for the trial of the Brigadier appeared to be whether the numerous charges excelled most in frivolity or malice, as a slight reprimand for writing an unofficial account of an engagement,—an offence of which several members of the Court had, by their own confession, repeatedly been guilty,—was the sole result of its labor. His restoration to command, the presentation, and the return of the Colonels followed in rapid succession amid the rejoicings of officers and men.

—Amid the waste of meadow and woodland that characterized the face of that country, the houses of the farmers, or rather, to use the grandiloquent language of the inhabitants, "the mansions of the planters," were objects of peculiar interest. In their quaint appearance and general air of dilapidation, they stood as relics of the civilization of another age. Centuries, seemingly, of important events in the law of progress are crowded into years of our campaigning. The social status of a large country semi-civilized—whether you regard the intelligence of its people or the condition of its society—is being suddenly altered. The war accomplishes what well-designing men lacked nerve and ability to execute—emancipation. The blessings of a purer civilization will follow as naturally as sunshine follows storm.

And yet here and there these old buildings would be varied by one evidently framed upon a Yankee model. Such was what was widely known in the army as "the Moncure House." On a commanding site at the edge of a meadow several miles in length, and that seemed from the abrupt bluffs that bordered it to have been once the bottom of a lake, this two-story weather-board frame was readily discernible. Its location made it a prominent point, too, upon the picket line, and it was favored above its fellows by daily and nightly occupancy by officers of the command. At this period the Regiment almost lived upon the picket line. An old wench, with several chalky complexioned children, whose paternal ancestor was understood to be under a musket of English manufacture perhaps, somewhere on the south side of the Rappahannock, occupied the kitchen of the premises. She was unceasing in reminding her military co-lodgers that the room used by them as head-quarters,—from the window of which you could take in at a glance the fine expanse of valley, threaded by a sparkling tributary of the Potomac,—was massa's study, and that massa was a preacher and had written a "right smart" lot of sermons in that very place. In the eyes of Dinah the room was invested with a peculiar sanctity. Not so with its present occupants, who could not learn that the minister, who was a large slaveholder, had remembered "those in bonds as bound with them," and who were quite content that artillery proclaiming "liberty throughout the land" in tones of thunder had driven away this vender of the divinity of the institution of slavery.

In this room, on seats rudely improvised, for its proper furniture had long since disappeared, some officers not on duty were passing a pleasant April afternoon, when their reveries of other days and rehashes of old camp yarns were interrupted by the sudden advent of an officer who a week previously had been detailed in charge of a number of men to form part of an outer picket station some distance up the river. His face indicated news, and he was at once the centre of attraction.