VI.
THE BAND OF THE “FIRST VIRGINIA.”
That band in the Pines again! It is always playing, and
intruding on my reveries as I sit here in my tent, after work,
and muse. Did I say intruding? A word both discourteous
and unjust; for the music brings me pleasant thoughts and
memories. May you live a thousand years, O brave musicians,
and the unborn generations listen to your grand crescendos and
sad cadences!
That music brings back some I heard many years ago, on the
Capitol square, in Richmond. From a platform rising between
the Capitol and City-Hall this music played, and it was listened
to by youth and maiden, under the great moon, with rapture.
O summer nights! O happy hours of years long gone into the
dust! Will you never come back—never? And something
like a ghostly echo answered, “never!” That band is hushed;
the musicians have departed; the instruments are hung up in
the halls of oblivion; but still it plays in memory these good
old tunes of “Far Away in Tennessee,” “The Corn Top's Ripe,”
and “The Dear Virginia Bride.” O flitting figures in the moonlight
of old years, return! Ring, clarionet, though the drooping
foliage of the elms, and drum, roar on! The summer night
comes back, and the fairy face, like an exile's dream of home in
a foreign land.
But that band is not still; the musicians are not dead; they
live to-day, and blow away as before, for they roll the drum
and sound the bugle for the First Virginia Regiment of the
Army of Northern Virginia. I heard them afterwards, on two
occasions, when the music was charming, and the recollection of
the scenes amid which it sounded interests me. The second time
I heard the brave musicians was at Fairfax Court-house, in
1861—or was it in 1761? A century seems to have rolled
away since then.
In 1761 the present writer must have been a youth, and
appears to remember that a fair face was beside him on that
moonlit portico at Fairfax, while the band of the First Virginia
played the “Mocking Bird,” from the camp across the mills.
The scene is clear in memory to-day, as then to the material eye:
the moonlight sleeping on the roofs of the village; the distant
woods, dimly seen on the horizon; the musing figure in the
shadow; and the music making the air magical with melody,
to die away in the balmy breeze of the summer night. To-day
the Federal forces occupy, the village, and their bands play
“Yankee Doodle,” or “The Star-Spangled Banner.” No more
does the good old band of the First Virginia play there, telling
you to listen to the “Mocking Bird,” and Colonel Wyndham's
bugles ring in place of Stuart's!
The third occasion when the performance of this band impressed
me was in August, 1861, when through the camps at
Centreville ran a rumour, blown upon the wind, which rumour
taking to itself a voice, said—
“The Prince is coming!”
All at once there appeared upon the summit of the hill, west of
Centreville, a common back, which stopped not far from where
I was standing, and around this vehicle there gathered in a few
moments quite a crowd of idlers and sightseers. Then the door
was opened; from the carriage descended three or four persons,
and these gentlemen walked out on the hill from which a view
of the battle-field of Manassas in the distance was obtained.
One of these gentlemen was Prince Jerome Bonaparte, all
knew; but which was the Prince? Half-a-dozen officers in
foreign uniform had ridden with the carriage, and one of these
officers was so splendidly clad that he seemed to be the personage
in question.
“I suppose that is the Prince,” I said to a friend beside me.
“No, you are mistaken.”
“Which is, then?”
“Look around in the crowd, and see if you cannot tell him
from the family likeness.”
Following this suggestion, my gaze all at once was arrested
by a plainly clad person in the midst of the cortège—a farmer
apparently, for he wore a brown linen coat and common straw
hat, with nothing whatever to indicate the soldier or dignitary
in his appearance. But his dress disappeared from view and
was speedily forgotten; the face absorbed attention from the
first moment; that face was the most startling reproduction of
Napoleon's—the first Emperor's. There was no possibility of
making a mistake in this—every one who was familiar with
the portraits of Napoleon recognised the prince at a glance.
He was taller and more portly than the “Man of Destiny;” but
the family resemblance in feature and expression was absolutely
perfect. I needed no one to say “This is a Bonaparte.” The
blood of the Corsican was there for all to recognise; this was a
branch of that tree whose boughs had nearly overspread a continent.
Soon afterwards the forces then at Centreville were drawn up
for review—the infantry ranged across the valley east and west;
the artillery and cavalry disposed on the flanks of the brigades.
Thus formed in line of battle, the forces were reviewed by the
French Prince, by whose side rode Beauregard. Then the cortège
stopped; an aide left it at full gallop—soon the order which he
carried was understood by all. The First Virginia regiment was
seen in motion, and advancing; reaching the centre of the field,
it went through all the evolutions of infantry for the Prince's
inspection; and while the movements were going on, the band
of the regiment—that same old band!—played the “Mocking
Bird,” and all the well known tunes, impressing itself upon the
memory of everybody present, as an inseparable “feature” of
the occasion!
It was not Napoleon I. who reviewed the forces of Beauregard
at Centreville; but it was a human being astonishingly
like him. And if Prince Jerome ever sees this page, and is led
to recall what he looked upon that day, I think he will remember
the band of the First Virginia, playing the “Mocking Bird”
and the “Happy Land of Dixie.”
Fairfax, Centreville, Leesburg! Seldom does the present
writer recall the first two names without remembering the third;
and here it was—at Leesburg—that a band of the enemy's made
a profound impression upon his nerves. The band in question
performed across the Potomac, and belonged to the forces under
General Banks, who had not yet encountered the terrible Stonewall
Jackson, or even met with that disastrous repulse at Ball's
Bluff. He was camped opposite Leesburg, and from the hill
which we occupied could be heard the orders of the Federal
officers at drill, together with the roar of their brass band playing
“Yankee Doodle” or “Hail Columbia.” To the patriotic heart
those airs may be inspiring, but it cannot be said with truth that
they posses a high degree of sweetness or melody. So it happened
that after listening for some weeks from the grassy slope
above “Big Spring” to this band, the present writer grew desperate,
and was filled with an unchristian desire to slay the
musicians, and so end their performances. Columbia was hailed
at morning, noon, and night; Yankee Doodle became a real personage
and walked through one's dreams—those horrible brass
instruments became a thorn in the flesh, a torture to the soul,
an inexpressible jar and discord.
So, something like joy filled the heart of this writer when the
order came to march to a point lower down the river. The column
moved; the point was reached; the tents were pitched—then
suddenly came “the unkindest cut of all.” The very same band
struck up across the river, playing “Hail Columbia” with
energy, in apparent honour of our presence opposite. When we
had moved, it had moved; when we halted, it halted—there was
the wretched invention of Satan playing away as before with
enormous ardour, and evidently rejoicing in its power over us.
The musicians played at every guard-mounting and drill; the
drums rolled at tattoo and reveillé; the bugles rang clearly
through the air of evening; and the friends of General Banks
seemed to be having the jolliest time imaginable. That miserable
band continued to play its “patriotic airs” until everybody
grew completely accustomed to it. It was even made useful by
the sergeant of a company, I heard. He had no watch, and
economically used the tattoo and reveillé of the enemy's drums
to regulate his roll-call, and “lights out.”
I thought to speak only of the good old band of the First Virginia;
but have spoken too of its rival over the Potomac. A
word still of the band in the pine wood yonder, which plays,
and plays, with splendid and rejoiceful ardour. It is loud,
inspiring, moving, but it is not gay; and I ask myself the
question, Why? Alas! it is the ear that listens, not the music,
which makes mirthful or the reverse these animated strains.
The years bring many changes, and we—alas! we change cum
illis! Once on a time the sound of music was like laughter;
now it seems to sigh. Does it sigh for the good companions
gone, or only for lost youth, with the flower of the pea, and the
roses that will never bloom more? O martial music, in your
cadences are many memories—and memory is not always gay
and mirthful! So, cease your long-drawn, splendid battle
anthem!—play, instead, some “passionate ballad, gallant and
gay”—or better still, and old Virginia reel, such as the soldiers of
the army used to hear before they lived in tents. Unlike the
great Luria, we long to see some “women in the camp”—or if
not in person, at least in imagination!
Has some spirit of the air flashed to the brave musicians what
I wish? Do they feel as I do? The gayest reel of all the reels
since time was born, comes dancing on the wind, and every
thought but mirth is banished. Gay reel, play on! Bright
carnival of the years that have flown, come back—come back,
with the smiling lips and the rose-red cheeks, with the braided
hair and the glimmer of mischievous eyes!
