Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals Part 10

"'A Volunteer officer, I suppose,' said the young officer, somewhat sneeringly. 'Where have you ever seen service?'

"'Yes, sir, a Volunteer officer,' said the Captain straightening up, facing full the officer, and eyeing him until his face grew paler.

'Where have I seen service? In Mexico, as private in the 4th Regular Artillery, while you were eating pap with a spoon, you puppy! You had better have stayed at that business; it was an honest one, at any rate, and Uncle Sam would have been saved some pay that you draw, while, like a dishonest sneak, you preach treason.'

"'How dare you insult a Regular officer?' said a gold-striped, dandified fellow, as he twisted the ends of his moustache into rat-tails.

"'Who the d----l are you?' said the Captain, turning on him so suddenly that the officer commenced to back; 'with your gold lace on your shoulders that may mean anything or nothing. What are you anyhow?

Captain? Lieutenant? Clerk? or Orderly? Those straps are a good come off, boys.' The crowd laughed. 'I suppose he thinks he's a staff officer.'

"'I am, and a Lieutenant in the Regular army,' said the officer angrily, and giving the word 'Regular' the full benefit of his voice.

"'Regular and be d----d,' retorted the Captain. 'I want you both to understand that I am a Captain in the Volunteer service of the United States; that that service is by Act of Congress on a footing with the Regular service, and that I'll always talk in this style when I hear treason. I am the superior officer of you both, and have a right to talk to you. I've been in service since the Rebellion broke out, and by the mother of Moses, I never heard treason preached by officers in Uncle Sam's uniform till I got into this Corps. It makes my blood boil, and I won't stand it. Pretty doctrine you are trying to teach these soldiers; but I know by their faces they understand the matter better than you, and you can't do them any damage.' 'That's so,' sang out several of the crowd. 'You fellows all talk alike. I have heard dozens of you talk in the same way, and I believe your ideas are stocked from a higher source.

There is something wrong in the head of this Grand Army of the Potomac.

The way it's managed, grand only in reviews.'

"'We shall report you, sir,' said the Rat-tailed Moustache, 'for speaking disrespectfully of your superior officers.'

"'Report as quick as you please. About that time you'll find another report at the War Department, against two Regular Lieutenants, for speaking discouraging and disloyal sentiments.'

"'A Volunteer officer would stand a big chance at the Department making a complaint against Regulars,' said the officer, as they both backed out of the crowd, followed by a couple of non-commissioned officers and privates.

"'You d----d b.u.t.terflies,' roared the Captain after them. 'I'll bet ten dollars to one that you only stayed in service when the war broke out, because you thought you could trust greenbacks better than Confederate scrip.'

"'You shall hear from us,' replied Rat-tail, as they walked on.

"'Am ready to hear from both at once now, you cowardly sneaks,' sang out the Captain. 'Don't believe you ever smelt powder, or ever will, if you can help it.'

"'Boys,' said the Captain, who had the sympathies of the crowd that remained strongly with him. 'These shallow-brained fellows and some older ones that wear stars, that havn't head enough to cut loose from the Red-tape prejudice against us Volunteers, are a curse to the Army of the Potomac. Is it any wonder that this Grand Army, burdened with squirts of that stripe, is a burlesque and a disgrace to the country for its inefficiency. In the West, where Regular officers, unprejudiced, go hand in hand with Volunteers, we make progress. But what's the use of talking, the body won't move right if the heart's rotten.'

"'True as preachin',' said one of the men, and the sentiment seemed approved by the crowd, as we gradually took up the homeward step."

"Has the Sergeant told 'the whole truth,' and nothing but the truth?"

inquired a Lieutenant, a lawyer at home, of the Captain.

"Yes, sir," replied the Captain firmly, "and I'll stick by the whole of it, and a good deal more."

"Well, I've been slow about believing many statements that I have heard," continued the Lieutenant; "but to-day I heard some facts from a Colonel in the Second Brigade that fairly staggered me. His Regiment, through some Red-tape informality, has been without tents. In consequence, considerable sickness, princ.i.p.ally fever, has prevailed.

Some time ago he made a request to Division Head-quarters, for permission to clean out and use the white house that stands near his Regiment, and that, until lately, was full of wounded rebels, as a hospital. Corps Head-quarters must be heard from. After considerable delay, the men in the meanwhile sickening and dying, the request was denied. The sickness, through the rains, increased, and the application was renewed with like success. The owner, who was a Rebel sympathizer, was opposed, and other like excuses, that in the urgency of the case should not have been considered at all, were given. The sickness became alarming in extent. The Regiment was entirely without shelter, save that made from the few pine boughs to be had in the neighborhood. The Colonel took some boards that the rebels had spared from the fence surrounding the house, and with them endeavored to increase the comfort of the men.

In the course of a day or two, a bill was sent to him from Head-quarters, with every board charged at its highest value, with the request to pay, and with notice that in failure of immediate payment the amount would be charged upon his pay-roll. This treatment disgusted the Colonel, who is a gentleman of high tone and the kindliest feelings, and angered by the heartlessness that denied him proper shelter for his sick, now increased to a number frightfully large, with a heavy share of mortality, he cut red-tape, sent over a detail to the house, had it cleansed of Rebel filth, and filled it with the sick. The poor fellows were hardly comfortable in their new quarters, before an order came from Division Head-quarters for their immediate removal.

"'I have no place to take them to; they are sick, and must be under shelter,' was the Colonel's reply.

"'The Commanding General of the Division orders their instant removal,'

was the order that followed.

"'The Commanding General of Division must take the responsibility of their removal on his own head,' was the spirited reply of the Colonel.

"That evening towards sunset, the second edition of Old Pigeon, 'Squab,'

as the boys called him, rode up with the air of 'one having authority,'

and in a conceited manner informed the Colonel that the General commanding the Division had directed him to place him under arrest. Now these things I know to be facts. I took pains to inform myself."

The Lieutenant's story elicited many e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of contempt for the heartlessness of some in high places; but they were cut short by the Captain's stating that he knew the circ.u.mstances to be true, and that Old Pigeon stated the Colonel should wait for his hospital tents, the requisition for which had been sent up months before. It was shelved in some pigeon-hole, and the Colonel was to stand by and see his men sicken and die, while a rebel farmer's house near by would have saved many of them.

"But we're in for it, boys. No use of talking. Obedience is lesson No. 1 of the soldier, and you know that we must not 'mutter or murmur' against our Commanding General, which position Old Pigey so often reminds us he holds. The old fellow half suspects that if he didn't, we'd forget it from day to day; for Lord knows there is nothing about the man but his position to make any one remember it. Now I am determined to have some sleep."

"Sleep! such a night as this?" said one of the crowd.

"Of course; we'll need it to-morrow, and an old soldier ought to be able to sleep anywhere, in any kind of weather."

The Captain left. There was a partial dispersing of the crowd, but many a poor fellow s.h.i.+vered in that pelting rain the night long.

The morning found the enemy at a respectful distance, and the homeward route was quietly resumed. Late in the afternoon the advance entered Shepherdstown. At this time the rear was sh.e.l.led vigorously, and as the troops continued their pa.s.sage through the town cavalry charges were made upon both sides. That only ford was again crossed, and the evening was well advanced ere the troops regained their camps.

A day later, and the Dailies, through their respective reporters, told an astonished public how the brilliant and daring reconnoissance had discovered qualities of great generals.h.i.+p in a man who but a short time before had figured as a quiet literary man in the seclusion of an office.

"And, be jabers," said our little Irish Corporal, on hearing it read, "Uncle Sam would have gained by paying him to stay in that office."

CHAPTER X.

_Departure from Sharpsburg Camp--The Old Woman of Sandy Hook--Harper's Ferry--South sewing Dragon's Teeth by shedding Old John's Blood--The Dutch Doctor and the Boar--Beauties of Tobacco--Camp Life on the Character--Patrick, Brother to the Little Corporal--General Patterson no Irishman--Guarding a Potatoe Patch in Dixie--The Preacher Lieutenant on Emanc.i.p.ation--Inspection and the Exhorting Colonel--The Scotch Tailor on Military Matters._

October was drawing to a close rapidly, when, at last, after repeated false alarms, the actual movement of the army commenced. No one, unless himself an old campaigner, can appreciate the feelings of the soldier at the breaking up of camp. Anxious for a change of scenery as he may be, the eye will linger upon each familiar spot, the quarters, the parade ground, and rocky bluff and wooded knoll, until memory's impress bears the lasting distinctness of a lifetime. Those leaving could not banish from their minds, even if disposed, the thought that, although but a temporary sojourn for them, it had proved to be the last resting-place of many of their comrades. The hospital, more dreaded than the field, had contributed its share to the mounds that dotted the hills from the strife of Antietam.

"There is not an atom of this earth But once was living man--"

was a day dream, doubtless, of the poetic boy of eighteen; but how suggestive it becomes, when we consider how many thousands and hundreds of thousands of mounds rising upon every hill in the border States, attest devotion to the cause of the Union, or treason, in this foulest of Rebellions.

The route lay, after pa.s.sing the village of Sharpsburg, through a narrow valley, lying cosily between the spurs of two ridges that appeared to terminate at the Ferry. On either hand the evidences of the occupation of the country by a large army were abundant. Fences torn down, ground trampled, and fields dest.i.tute of herbage. The road bordering the ca.n.a.l, along which is built the straggling village of Sandy Hook, was crowded with the long wagon trains of the different Corps. A soldier could as readily distinguish the Staff from the Regimental wagons, as the Staff themselves from Regimental officers. The slick, well fed appearance of the horses or mules of Staff teams, usually six in number, owing to abundance of forage and half _loaded_ wagons, were in striking contrast with the four half fed, hide-bound beasts usually attached to the overloaded Regimental wagons. Order after order for the reduction of baggage, that would reduce field officers to a small valise apiece, while many line officers would be compelled to march without a change of clothing, did not appear to lessen the length of Staff trains. That the transportation was unnecessarily extensive, cannot be doubted. That the heaviest reduction could have been made with Head-quarter trains, is equally true.

"Grey coats one day and blue coats the next," said an old woman clad in homespun grey, who came out of a low frame house as the troops slowly made their way past the teams through the village of Sandy Hook.

"Right on this rock is where General Jackson rested hisself," continued the old woman.

"Were there many Rebs about?" inquired one of the men.

"Right smart of them, I reckon;" replied the old woman; "but Lord! what a lookin' set of critters. Elbows and knees out; many of them hadn't shoes, and half of them that had had their toes out. You boys are dandies to them. And tired too, and hungry. Gracious! the poor fellows, when their officers weren't about, would beg for anything almost to eat.

Why, my daughter Sal saw them at the soap-fat barrel! They said they were nearly marched and starved to death. And their officers didn't look much better. Lord! it looks like a pic-nic party to see you blue coats, with your long strings of wagons, and all your other fixins. You take good care of your bellies, the way you haul the crackers and bacon. Old Jackson never waits for wagons. That's the way he gets around you so often."

"Look here, old woman," roared out one of the men, "you had better dry up."

"Yes, and he'll get around you again," continued the old woman in a louder key. "You think you're going to bag him, do you. You're some on baggin'; but he'll give you three days' start and beat you down the valley. They acted like gentlemen, too, didn't touch a thing without leave, and you fellows have robbed me of all I have."

"They were in 'My Maryland,' and wanted to get the people all straight,"

suggested one of the boys.