Campaigns Of A Non-Combatant, And His Romaunt Abroad During The War Part 11

The most horrible of all these scenes--which I have described perhaps too circ.u.mstantially--was presented in the stable or barn, on the premises, where a bare dingy floor--the planks of which tilted and shook, as one made his way over them--was strewn with suffering people.

Just at the entrance sat a boy, totally blind, both eyes having been torn out by a minnie-ball, and the entire bridge of the nose shot away.

He crouched against the gable, in darkness and agony, tremulously fingering his knees. Near at hand, sat another, who had been shot through the middle of the forehead, but singular to relate, he still lived, though lunatic, and evidently beyond hope. Death had drawn blue and yellow circles beneath his eyes, and he muttered incomprehensibly, wagging his head. Two men, perfectly naked, lay in the middle of the place, wounded in bowels and loins; and at a niche in the weather-boarding, where some pale light peeped in, four mutilated wretches were gaming with cards. I was now led a little way down the railroad, to see the Confederates. The rain began to fall at this time, and the poor fellows shut their eyes to avoid the pelting of the drops.

There was no shelter for them within a mile, and the mud absolutely reached half way up their bodies. Nearly one third had suffered amputation above the knee. There were about thirty at this spot, and I was told that they were being taken to Meadow Station on hand cars. As soon as the locomotive could pa.s.s the Chickahominy, they would be removed to White House, and comfortably quartered in the Sanitary and hospital boats. Some of them were fine, athletic, and youthful, and I was directed to one who had been married only three days before.

"Doctor," said one, feebly, "I feel very cold: do you think that this is death? It seems to be creeping to my heart. I have no feeling, in my feet, and my thighs are numb."

A Federal soldier came along with a bucket of soup, and proceeded to fill the canteens and plates. He appeared to be a relative of Mark Tapley, and possessed much of that estimable person's jollity--

"Come, pardner," he said, "drink yer sup! now, old boy, this'ill warm ye; sock it down and ye'll see yer sweetheart soon. You dead, Ally-bammy? Go way, now. You'll live a hundred years, you will. That's wot you'll do. Won't he, lad? What? Not any? Get out! You'll be slap on your legs next week and hev another shot at me the week a'ter that. You know you will! Oh! you Rebil! You, with the b.u.t.ternut trousers! Say!

Wake up and take some o' this. h.e.l.lo! lad, pardner. Wake up!"

He stirred him gently with his foot; he bent down to touch his face. A grimness came over his merriment. The man was stiff and dumb.

Colonel Baker, commanding the 88th New York, was a tall, martial Irishman, who opened his heart and bottle at the same welcome, and took me into the woods, where some of the slain still remained. He had slept not longer than an hour, continuously, for seventy hours, and during the past night had been called up by eight alarums. His men lay in the dark thickets, without fires or blankets, as they had crossed the Chickahominy in light marching order.

"Many a lad," said he, "will escape the bullet for a lingering consumption."

We had proceeded but a very little way, when we came to a trodden place beneath the pines, where a scalp lay in the leaves, and the imprint of a body was plainly visible. The bayonet scabbard lay at one side, the canteen at the other. We saw no corpses, however, as fatigue parties had been burying the slain, and the whole wood was dotted with heaps of clay, where the dead slept below in the oozy trenches. Quant.i.ties of cartridges were scattered here and there, dropped by the retreating Confederates. Some of the cartridge-pouches that I examined were completely filled, showing that their possessors had not fired a single round; others had but one cartridge missing. There were fragments of clothing, hair, blankets, murderous bowie and dirk knives, spurs, flasks, caps, and plumes, dropped all the way through the thicket, and the trees on every hand were riddled with b.a.l.l.s. I came upon a squirrel, unwittingly shot during the fight. Not those alone who make the war must feel the war! At one of the mounds the burying party had just completed their work, and the men were throwing the last clods upon the remains.

They had dug pits of not more than two feet depth, and dragged the bodies heedlessly to the edges, whence they were toppled down and scantily covered. Much of the interring had been done by night, and the flare of lanterns upon the discolored faces and dead eyes must have been hideously effective. The grave-diggers, however, were practical personages, and had probably little care for dramatic effects. They leaned upon their spades, when the rites were finished, and a large, dry person, who appeared to be privileged upon all occasions, said, grinningly--

"Colonel, your honor, them boys 'ill niver stand forninst the Irish brigade again. If they'd ha' known it was us, sur, begorra! they 'ud ha'

brought coffins wid 'em."

"No, niver!" "They got their ticket for soup!" "We kivered them, fait', will inough!" shouted the other grave-diggers.

"Do ye belave, Colonel," said the dry person, again, "that thim ribals'll lave us a chance to catch them. Be me sowl! I'm jist wis.h.i.+n to war-rum me hands wid rifle practice."

The others echoed loudly, that they were anxious to be ordered up, and some said that "Little Mac'll give 'em his big whack now." The presence of death seemed to have added no fear of death to these people. Having tasted blood, they now thirsted for it, and I asked myself, forebodingly, if a return to civil life would find them less ferocious.

I dined with Colonel Owen of the 69th Pennsylvania (Irish) volunteers.

He had been a Philadelphia lawyer, and was, by all odds, the most consistent and intelligent soldier in the brigade. He had been also a schoolmaster for many years, but appeared to be in his element at the head of a regiment, and was generally admitted to be an efficient officer. He shared the prevailing antipathy to West Point graduates; for at this time the arrogance of the regular officers, and the pride of the volunteers, had embittered each against the other. His theory of military education was, the establishment of State inst.i.tutions, and the reorganization of citizens.h.i.+p upon a strict militia basis. After dinner, I rode to "Seven Pines," and examined some of the rifle pits used during the engagement. A portion of this ground only had been retaken, and I was warned to keep under cover; for sharpshooters lay close by, in the underbrush. A visit to the graves of some Federal soldiers completed the inspection. Some of the regiments had interred their dead in trenches; but the New Englanders were all buried separately, and smooth slabs were driven at the heads of the mounds, whereon were inscribed the names and ages of the deceased. Some of the graves were freshly sodded, and enclosed by rails and logs. They evidenced the orderly, religious habits of the sons of the Puritans; for, with all his hardness of manner and selfishness of purpose, I am inclined to think that the Yankee is the best manifestation of Northern character. He loves his home, at least, and he reveres his deceased comrades.

When I returned to Michie's, at six o'clock, the man "Pat," with a glowing face, came out to the gate.

"That's a splendid baste of yours, sur," he said,--"and sich a boi to gallop."

"My horse doesn't generally gallop," I returned, doubtfully.

When I pa.s.sed to the barn in the rear, I found to my astonishment, a sorrel stallion, magnificently accoutred. He thrust his foot at me savagely, as I stood behind him, and neighed till he frightened the spiders.

"Pat," said I, wrathfully, "you have stolen some Colonel's nag, and I shall be hanged for the theft."

"Fait, sur," said Pat, "my ligs was gone intirely, wid long walkin', and I sazed the furst iligant baste I come to."

CHAPTER XIII.

STUART'S RAID.

The old Chickahominy bridges were soon repaired, and the whole of Franklin's corps crossed to the south side. McClellan moved his head-quarters to Dr. Trent's farm, a half-mile from Michie's, and the latter gentleman's fields and lawn were made white with tents. Among others, the Chief of Cavalry, Stoneman, pitched his canopy under the young oaks, and the whole reserve artillery was parked in the woods, close to the house. The engineer brigade encamped in the adjacent peach-orchard and corn-field, and the wheat was trampled by battery and team-horses. Smith's division now occupied the hills on the south side of the Chickahominy, and the Federal line stretched southeastward, through Fairoaks, to White Oak Swamp, seven miles away. Porter's corps still lay between Mechanicsville and New Bridge, on the north bank of the river, and my old acquaintances, the Pennsylvania Reserves, had joined the army, and now formed its extreme right wing. This odd arrangement of forces was a subject of frequent comment: for the right was thus four miles, and the left fourteen miles, from Richmond. The four corps at once commenced to entrench, and from Smith's redoubt on the river bluffs, to Casey's entrenched hill at White Oak, a continuous line of moderately strong earthworks extended. But Porter and the Reserves were not entrenched at all, and only a few hors.e.m.e.n were picketed across the long reach of country from Meadow Bridge to Hanover Court House. Both flanks, in fact, were open, and the left was a day's march from the right. We were, meantime, drawing our supplies from White House, twenty miles in the rear; there were no railroad guards along the entire line, and about five companies protected the grand depot. Two gunboats lay in the river, however, and as the teams still went to and fro, a second depot was established at a place called Putney's or "Garlic," five miles above White House. I went often, and at all hours of the day and night, over this exposed and lonely route. My horse had been, meantime, returned to the Provost Quarters, and the rightful owner had obtained his stallion in exchange. I rode the said stallion but once, when he proceeded to walk sideways, and several times rivalled the renowned Pegasus in his aerial flights. The man named "Pat" essayed to show his paces one day, but the stallion took him straight into Stoneman's wall-tent, and that officer shook the Irishman blind. My little bob-tailed brownie was thrice endeared to me by our separation; but I warned the man "Pat" to keep clear of him thereafter. The man "Pat" was a very eccentric person, who slept on the porch at Michie's, and used to wake up the house in the small hours, with the story that somebody was taking the chickens and the horses. He was the most impulsive person that I ever knew, and when I entrusted despatches to him once, he put them on the hospital boat by mistake, and they got to New York at the close of the campaign.

Michie's soon became a correspondents' rendezvous, and we have had at one time, at dinner, twelve representatives of five journals. The Hon.

Henry J. Raymond, Ex-Lieutenant Governor of New York, and proprietor of the _Times_ newspaper, was one of our family for several weeks. He had been a New Hamps.h.i.+re lad, and, strolling to New York, took to journalism at the age of nineteen years. His industry and probity obtained him both means and credit, and, also, what few young journalists obtain, social position. He was the founder of Harper's Magazine, one of the most successful serials in America, and many English authors are indebted to him for a trans-Atlantic recognition of their works. He edited an American edition of _Jane Eyre_ before it had attracted attention in England, and conducted the _Courier and Enquirer_ with great success for many years. The _Times_ is now the most reputable of the great New York dailies, and Mr. Raymond has made it influential both at home and abroad. He has retained, amidst his social and political successes, a predilection for "Bohemia," and became an indefatigable correspondent. I rode out with him sometimes, and heard, with interest, his accounts of the Italian war, whither he also went in furtherance of journalism.

Among our quill cavalry-men was a fat gentleman from Philadelphia, who had great fear of death, and who used to "tear" to White House, if the man "Pat" shot a duck in the garden. He was a hearty, humorous person, however, and an adept at searching for news.

O'Ganlon rode with me several times to White House, and we have crossed the railroad bridge together, a hundred feet in the air, when the planks were slippery, the sides sloping, and the way so narrow that two horses could not pa.s.s abreast. He was a true Irishman, and leaped barricades and ditches without regard to his neck. He had, also, a partiality for by-roads that led through swamps and close timber. He discovered one day a cow-path between Daker's and an old Mill at Grapevine Bridge. The long arms of oaks and beech trees reached across it, and young Absalom might have been ensnared by the locks at every rod therein. Through this devious and dangerous way, O'Ganlon used to dash, whooping, guiding his horse with marvellous dexterity, and bantering me to follow. I so far forgot myself generally, as to behave quite as irrationally, and once returned to Michie's with a b.u.mp above my right eye, that rivalled my head in size. At other times I rode alone, and my favorite route was an unfrequented lane called the "Quaker Road," that extended from Despatch Station, on the line of rail, to Daker's, on the New Bridge Road. Much of this way was shut in by thick woods and dreary pine barrens; but the road was hard and light, and a few quiet farms lay by the roadside.

There was a mill, also, three miles from Daker's, where a turbulent creek crossed the route, and at an oak-wood, near by, I used to frighten the squirrels, so that they started up by pairs and families; I have chased them in this way a full mile, and they seemed to know me after a time. We used to be on the best of terms, and they would, at length, stand their ground saucily, and chatter, the one with the other, flouris.h.i.+ng their bushy appendages, like so many straggling "Bucktails."

When I turned from the beaten road, where the ruts were like a ditch and parapet, and dead horses blackened the fields; where teams went creaking day and night, and squads of sabremen drove pale, barefooted prisoners to and fro like swine or cattle, the silence and solitude of this by-lane were beautiful as sleep. Many of the old people living in this direction had not seen even a soldier or a sutler, save some mounted scouts that vanished in clouds of dust; but they had listened with awe to the music of cannon, though they did not know either the place or the result of the fighting. If fate has ordained me to survive the Rebellion, I shall some day revisit these localities; they are stamped legibly upon my mind, and I know almost every old couple in New Kent or Hanover counties. I have lunched at all the little springs on the road, and eaten corn-bread and bacon at most of the cabins. I have swam the Pamunkey at dozens of places, and when my finances were low, and my nag hungry, have organized myself into a company of foragers, and broken into the good people's granaries. I do not know any position that admitted of as much adventure and variety. There was always enough danger to make my journeys precariously pleasant, and, when wearied of the saddle, my friends at Daker's and Michie's had a savory julep and a comfortable bed always prepared. I had more liberty than General McClellan, and a great deal more comfort.

Mrs. Michie was a warm-hearted, impulsive Virginia lady, with almost New England industry, and from very scanty materials she contrived to spread a bountiful table. Her coffee was bubbling with rich cream, and her "yellow pone" was overrunning with b.u.t.ter. A cleanly black girl shook a fly-brush over our shoulders as we ate, and the curious custom was maintained of sending a julep to our bedrooms before we rose in the mornings. Our hostess was too hospitable to be a bitter partisan, and during five weeks of tenure at her residence, we never held an hour's controversy. She had troubles, but she endured them patiently. She saw, one by one, articles of property sacrificed or stolen; she heard the servants speaking impudently; and her daughters and son were in a remote part of the State. The young man was a Confederate Surgeon at Lynchburg, and the young ladies had taken refuge in Rockbridge County. The latter were, from all accounts, pretty and intelligent, and one day, as I examined some parcels of books in the parlors, I found a volume of amateur poems that some laboring bard had dedicated to the youngest of them. Mr. Michie was a fine old Virginia gentleman, who remembered Thomas Jefferson well, as he had been reared in that great statesman's village, Charlottesville. He told me many anecdotes of Patrick Henry, John Randolph, and other distinguished patriots.

I wrote in one of the absent daughter's alb.u.ms the following lines:--

Alas! for the pleasant peace we knew, In the happy summers of long ago, When the rivers were bright, and the skies were blue, By the homes of Henrico: We dreamed of wars that were far away, And read, as in fable, of blood that ran, Where the James and Chickahominy stray, Through the groves of Powhattan.

'Tis a dream come true; for the afternoons Blow bugles of war, by our fields of grain, And the sabres clink, as the dark dragoons Come galloping up the lane; The pigeons have flown from the eves and tiles, The oat-blades have grown to blades of steel, And the Huns swarm down the leafy aisles Of the grand old Commonweal.

They have torn the Indian fisher's nets, Where flows Pamunkey toward the sea, And blood runs red in the rivulets, That babbled and brawled in glee; The corpses are strewn in Fairoak glades, The hoa.r.s.e guns thunder from Drury's Ridge, The fishes that played in the cove, deep shades, Are frightened from Bottom Bridge.

I would that the year were blotted away, And the strawberry grew in the hedge again; That the scythe might swing in the tangled hay, And the squirrel romp in the glen; The walnut sprinkle the clover slopes, Where graze the sheep and the spotted steer; And the winter restore the golden hopes, That were trampled in a year.

On Friday, June 13, I made one of my customary trips to White House, in the company of O'Ganlon. The latter individual, in the course of a "healthy dash" that he made down the railroad ties,--whereby two shoes s.h.i.+ed from his mare's hoofs,--reined into a quicksand that threatened to swallow his steed. He afterward left his sword at Summit Station, and I, obligingly, rode back three miles to recover it. We dined at Daker's, where Glumley sat beside the baby-face, pursuant to his art-duties, and the plump, red-cheeked miss sat beside me. O'Ganlon was entertained by the talkative daughter, who drove him quite mad; so that, when we resumed our horses, he insisted upon a second "healthy dash," and disappeared through a strip of woods. I followed, rationally, and had come to a blacksmith's shop, at the corner of a diverging road, when I was made aware of some startling occurrence in my rear. A mounted officer dashed past me, shouting some unintelligible tidings, and he was followed in quick succession by a dozen cavalry-men, who rode as if the foul fiend was at their heels. Then came a teamster, bare-backed, whose rent harness trailed in the road, and directly some wagons that were halted before the blacksmith's, wheeled smartly, and rattled off towards White House.

"What is the matter, my man?" I said to one of these lunatics, hurriedly.

"The Rebels are behind!" he screamed, with white lips, and vanished.

I thought that it might be as well to take some other road, and so struck off, at a dapper pace, in the direction of the new landing at Putney's or "Garlic." At the same instant I heard the crack of carbines behind, and they had a magical influence upon my speed. I rode along a stretch of chestnut and oak wood, attached to the famous Webb estate, and when I came to a rill that pa.s.sed by a little bridge, under the way, turned up its sandy bed and buried myself in the under-brush. A few breathless moments only had intervened, when the roadway seemed shaken by a hundred hoofs. The imperceptible hors.e.m.e.n yelled like a war-party of Camanches, and when they had pa.s.sed, the carbines rang ahead, as if some b.l.o.o.d.y work was being done at every rod.

I remained a full hour under cover; but as no fresh approaches added to my mystery and fear, I sallied forth, and kept the route to Putney's, with ears erect and expectant pulses. I had gone but a quarter of a mile, when I discerned, through the gathering gloom, a black, misshapen object, standing in the middle of the road. As it seemed motionless, I ventured closer, when the thing resolved to a sutler's wagon, charred and broken, and still smoking from the incendiaries' torch. Further on, more of these burned wagons littered the way, and in one place two slain horses marked the roadside. When I emerged upon the Hanover road, sounds of shrieks and shot issued from the landing at "Garlic," and, in a moment, flames rose from the woody sh.o.r.es and reddened the evening. I knew by the gliding blaze that vessels had been fired and set adrift, and from my place could see the devouring element climbing rope and shroud. In a twinkling, a second light appeared behind the woods to my right, and the intelligence dawned upon me that the cars and houses at Tunstall's Station had been burned. By the fitful illumination, I rode tremulously to the old head-quarters at Black Creek, and as I conjectured, the depot and train were luridly consuming. The vicinity was marked by wrecked sutler's stores, the embers of wagons, and toppled steeds. Below Black Creek the ruin did not extend: but when I came to White House the greatest confusion existed. Sutlers were taking down their booths, transports were slipping their cables, steamers moving down the stream. Stuart had made the circuit of the Grand Army to show Lee where the infantry could follow.

CHAPTER XIV.

FEVER DREAMS IN WAR.

A subtle enemy had of late joined the Confederate cause against the invaders. He was known as Pestilence, and his footsteps were so soft that neither scout nor picket could bar his entrance. His paths were subterranean,--through the tepid swamp water, the shallow graves of the dead; and aerial,--through the stench of rotting animals, the nightly miasms of bog and fen. His victims were not pierced, or crushed, or mangled, but their deaths were not less terrible, because more lingering. They seemed to wither and shrivel away; their eyes became at first very bright, and afterward l.u.s.treless; their skins grew hard and sallow; their lips faded to a dry whiteness; all the fluids of the body were consumed; and they crumbled to corruption before life had fairly gone from them.

This visitation has been, by common consent, dubbed "the Chickahominy fever," and some have called it the typhus fever. The troops called it the "camp fever," and it was frequently aggravated by affections of the bowels and throat. The number of persons that died with it was fabulous.

Some have gone so far as to say that the army could have better afforded the slaughter of twenty thousand men, than the delay on the Chickahominy. The embalmers were now enjoying their millennium, and a steam coffin manufactory was erected at White House, where twenty men worked day and night, turning out hundreds of pine boxes. I had, occasion, in one of my visits to the depot, to repair to the tent of one of the embalmers. He was a sedate, grave person, and when I saw him, standing over the nude, hard corpse, he reminded me of the implacable vulture, looking into the eyes of Prometheus. His battery and tube were pulsing, like one's heart and lungs, and the subject was being drained at the neck. I compared the discolored body with the figure of _Ianthe_, as revealed in Queen Mab, but failed to see the beautifulness of death.

"If you could only make him breathe, Professor," said an officer standing by.