University of Virginia Library

26. CHAPTER XXVI.
CAPTAIN COLBURNE DESCRIBES CAMP AND FIELD LIFE.

A perusal of the letters of Colburne has decided me to
sketch some of the smaller incidents of his experience in
field service. The masculine hardness of the subject will
perhaps be an agreeable relief to the reader after the scenes
of domestic felicity, not very comprehensible or interesting
to bachelors, which are depicted in the preceding chapter.

The many minor hardships of a soldier are, I presume,
hardly suspected by a civilian. As an instance of what an
officer may be called on to endure, even under favorable
circumstances, when for instance he is not in Libby Prison,
nor in the starvation camp at Andersonville, I cite the following
passage from the Captain's correspondence:

“I think that the severest trial I ever had was on a
transport. The soldiers were on half rations; and officers,
you know, must feed themselves. We had not been paid
for four months, and I commenced the voyage, which was
to last three days, with seventy-five cents in my pocket.
The boat charged a quarter of a dollar a meal. Such were
the prospects, and I considered them solemnly. I said to
myself, `Dinner will furnish the greatest amount of nourishment,
and I will eat only dinner.' The first day I went
without breakfast and supper. On the morning of the

second day I awoke fearfully hungry, and could not resist
the folly of breakfast. I had character enough to refuse
dinner, but by night I was starving again. Possibly you
do not know what it is to be ravening after food. I ate
supper. That was my last possible meal on board the
steamer. I had no chance of borrowing, for every one
was about as poor as myself; and to add to my sufferings,
the weather was superb and I had a seafaring appetite.
I was truly miserable with the degrading misery of hunger,
thinking like a dog of nothing but food, when a
brother officer produced a watermelon which he had saved
for this supreme moment of destitution. He was charitable
enough to divide it among four fellow paupers; and on
that quarter of a watermelon I lived twenty-six hours, very
wretchedly. When we landed I was in command of the
regiment, but could hardly give an order loud enough to
be heard by the shrunken battalion. Two hours afterwards
Henry brought me a small plate of stewed onions,
without meat or bread, not enough to feed a Wethersfield
baby. I ate them all, too starved to ask Henry whether
he had anything for himself or not. Shameful, but natural.
Ridiculous as it may seem, I think I can point to this day
as the only thoroughtly unhappy one in two years of service.
It was not severe suffering; but it was so contemptible,
so animal; there was no heroic relief to it. I
felt like a starved cur, and growled at the Government,
and thought I wanted to resign. Hunger, like sickness,
has a depressing effect on the morale, and changes a young
man into his grandmother.”

It appears that these little starvation episodes were of
frequent recurrence. In one letter he speaks of having
marched all day on a single biscuit, and in another, written
during his Virginia campaign, of having lived for
eighteen hours on green apples. He often alluded with
pride to the hardihood of soul which privations and dangers
had given to the soldiers.

“Our men are not heroes in battle alone,” he writes.

“Three months without shelter, drenched by rain or
scorched by the sun, tormented by mosquitoes, tainted
with fever, shaking with the ague, they appear stoically
indifferent to all hardships but their lack of tobacco. Out
of the four hundred men whom we brought to this poisonous
hole [Brashear City], forty are dead and one hundred and
sixty are in hospital. We can hear their screams a mile
away as they go into the other world in their chariots of
delirium. The remainder, half sick themselves, thin and
yellow ghosts in ragged uniforms, crawl out of their diminutive
shanties and go calmly to their duties without
murmuring, without a desertion. What a scattering there
would be in a New England village, in which one tenth
of the inhabitants should die in six weeks of some local
disease! Yet these men are New Englanders, only tempered
to steel by hardships, by discipline, by a profound
sense of duty. How I have seen them march with blistered
and bleeding feet! march all night after having fought all
day! march when every step was a crucifixion! Oh,
these noblemen of nature, our American common soldiers!
In the face of suffering and of death they are my equals;
and while I exact their obedience, I accord them my respect.”

The mud of Louisiana appears to have been as troublesome
a footing, as the famous sacred soil of Virginia.

“It is the most abominable, sticky, doughy stuff that
ever was used in any country for earth,” he says. “It
`balls up' on your feet like damp snow on a horse's hoofs.
I have repeatedly seen a man stop and look behind him,
under the belief that he had lost off his shoe, when it was
merely the dropping of the immense mud-pie which had
formed around his foot. It is like travelling over a land
of suet saturated with pudding sauce.

“Just now the rain is coming down as in the days of
Noah. I am under a tent, for an unusual mercy; but the
drops are driven through the rotten canvass by the wind.
The ditch outside my dwelling is not deep enough to carry

off all the water which runs into it, and a small stream is
stealing under my bedding and forming a puddle in the
centre of my floor. But I don't care for this;—I know
that my rubber-blanket is a good one: the main nuisance
is that my interior will be muddy. By night I expect to
be in a new tent, enlarged and elevated by a siding of
planks, so that I shall have a promenade of eight feet
in length sheltered from the weather. I only fear that the
odor will not be agreeable; for the planks were plundered
from the molasses-vats of a sugar-mill and are saturated
with treacle; not sticky, you understand, but quite too
saccharinely fragrant.”

It appears that the army, even in field service, is not
altogether barren of convivialities. In the letter following
the one, quoted above he says, “My new dwelling has
been warmed. I had scarcely taken possession of it when
a brother officer, half seas over, and with an inscrutable
smile on his lips, stalks in and insists upon treating the
occasion. I cannot prevent it without offending him, and
there is no strong reason why I should prevent it. He
sends to the sutler for two bottles of claret, and then for
two more, and finishes them, or sees that they are finished.
It is soon evident that he is crowded full and can't carry
any more for love or politeness. At dress parade I do not
see him out, and learn that he is in his tent, with a prospect
of remaining there for the next twelve hours. Yet
he is a brave, faithful officer, this now groggiest of sleepers,
and generally a very temperate one, so that everybody is
wondering, and, I am sorry to say, giggling, over his unusual
obfuscation.”

In another letter he describes a “jollification by division”
on the anniversary of the little victory of Georgia
Landing.

“All the officers, not only of the old brigade but of the
entire division, were invited to headquarters. Being
a long way from our base, the eatables were limited to
dried beef, pickles and hard-tack, and the only refreshments

to be had in profusion were commissary whiskey and
martial music. Such a roaring time as there was by midnight
in and around the hollow square formed by the head-quarter
tents. By dint of vociferations the General was
driven to make the first speech of a life-time. He confined
himself chiefly to reminiscences of our battles, and made a
very pleasant, rambling kind of talk, most of it, however,
inaudible to me, who stood on the outside of the circle.
When he closed, Tom Perkins, our brave and bossy band-drummer,
roared out, `General, I couldn't hear much of
what you said, but I believe what you said was right'.”

“This soldierly profession of faith was followed by three-times-three
for our commander, everybody joining in without
regard to grade of commission. Then Captain Jones
of our regiment shouted, `Tenth Barataria! three cheers for
our old comrades at Georgia Landing and everywhere else,
the Seventy-Fifth New York!' and the cheers were given.
Then Captain Brown of the Seventy Fifth replied, `There
are not many of us Seventy-Fifth left; but what there are,
we can meet the occasion; three cheers for the Tenth Barataria!'
Then one excited officer roared for Colonel
Smith, and another howled for Colonel Robinson, and
another screamed for Colonel Jackson, in consequence of
which those gentlemen responded with speeches. Nobody
seemed to care for what they said, but all hands yelled as
if it was a bayonet charge. As the fun got fast and furious
public attention settled on a gigantic, dark-complexioned
officer, stupendously drunk and volcanically uproarious;
and twenty voices united in shouting, `Van
Zandt! Van Zandt!'—The great Van Zandt, smiling like
an intoxicated hyæna, plunged uncertainly at the crowd,
and was assisted to the centre of it. There, as if he were
about to make an oration of an hour or so, he dragged off
his overcoat, after a struggle worthy of Weller Senior in
his pursiest days; then, held up by two friends, in a manner
which reminded me obscurely of Aaron, and Hur sustaining
Moses, he stretched out both hands, and delivered

himself as follows. `G'way from th' front thar! G'way
from the front thar! An' when say g'way from th' front
—thar—'

“He probably intended to disperse some musicians and
contrabands who were grinning at him; but before he
could explain himself another drunken gentleman reeled
against him, vociferating for Colonel Robinson. Van
Zandt gave way with a gigantic lurch, like that of an over-balanced
iceberg, which carried him clean out of the circle.
Somebody brought him his overcoat and held him up while
he surged into it. Then he fell over a tent rope and lay
across it for five minutes, struggling to regain his feet and
smiling in a manner incomprehensible to the beholder.
He made no effort to resume his speech, and evidently
thought that he had finished it to public satisfaction; but
he subsequently addressed the General in his tent, requesting,
so far as could be understood, that the Tenth might
be mounted as cavalry. Tom Perkins also staggered into
the presence of our commander, and made him a pathetic
address, weeping plentifully over his own maudlin, and
shaking hands repeatedly, with the remark, `General, allow
me to take you by the hand.'

“It was an All Fools' evening. For once distinctions of
rank were abolished. This morning we are subordinates
again, and the General is our dignified superior officer.”

One of the few amusements of field service seems to consist
in listening to the facetiæ of the common soldiers, more
particularly the irrepressible Hibernians.

“These Irishmen,” he says, “are certainly a droll race
when you get used to their way of looking at things. My
twenty-five Paddies have jabbered and joked more since
they entered the service than my seventy Americans backed
up by my ten Germans. To give you an idea of how they
prattle I will try to set down a conversation which I overheard
while we were bivouacking on the field of our first
battle. The dead are buried; the wounded have been carried
to a temporary hospital; the pickets are out, watchful,

we may be sure, because half-frozen in the keen October
wind; the men who remain with the colors are sitting up
around camp fires, their knapsacks, blankets and overcoats
three miles to the rear. This seems hard measure for
fellows who have made a twenty-mile march, and gained
a victory since morning. But my Irishmen are as jolly as
ever, blathering and chaffing each other after their usual
fashion. The butt of the company is Sweeney, a withered
little animal who walks as if he had not yet thoroughly
learned to go on his hind legs, a most curious mixture of
simplicity and humor, an actual Handy Andy.

`Sweeney,' says one, `you ought to do the biggest part
of the fightin'. You ate more'n your share of the rashins.'

`I don't ate no more rashins than I get,' retorts Sweeney.
indignant at this stale calumny. `I'd like to see the man
as did.'

`Oh, you didn't blather so much whin thim shells was
a-flying about your head.'

Here Sweeney falls back upon his old and sometimes
successful dodge of trying to turn the current of ridicule
upon some one else:

`Wasn't Mickey Emmett perlite a-comin' across the lot?'
he demands. `I see him bowin' like a monkey on horseback.
He was makin' faces as 'ud charrm the head off a
whalebarry. Mickey, you dodged beautiful.'

Mickey. Thim shells 'ud make a wooden man dodge.
Sweeney's the bye for dodgin'. He was a runnin' about
like a dry pea in a hot shovel.

Sweeney. That's what me legs was made for.

Sullivan. Are ye dead, Sweeney? (An old joke which
I do not understand.)

Sweeney. An I wud be if I was yer father, for thinkin'
of the drrunken son I had.

Sullivan. Did ye see that dead rebel with his oye out?

Sweeney. The leftenant ate up all his corn cake while he
wasn't noticin'.

Sullivan. It was lookin' at Sweeney put his oye out.

Sweeney. It's lucky for him he didn't see the pair av us.

Jonathan. Stop your yawping, you Paddies, and let a
fellow sleep if he can. You're worse than an acre of tomcats.

Sullivan. To the divil wid ye! It's a pity this isn't all
an Oirish company, for the credit of the Captin.

Touhey. Byes, it's mighty cowld slapin' with niver a
blanket, nor a wife to one's back.

Sweeney. I wish a man 'ud ask me to lisht for three years
more. Wouldn't I knock his head off?

Sullivan. Ye couldn't raich the head av a man, Sweeney.
Ye hav'n't got the hoight for it.

Sweeney. I'd throw him down. Thin I'd be tall enough.

“And so they go on till one or two in the morning,
when I fall asleep, leaving them still talking.”

Even the characteristics of a brute afford matter of comment
amid the Sahara-like flatness of ordinary camp life.

“I have nothing more of importance to communicate,”
he says in one letter, “except that I have been adopted
by a tailless dog, who, probably for the lack of other following,
persists in laying claim to my fealty. If I leave my
tent door open when I go out, I find him under my bunk
when I come in. As he has nothing to wag, he is put to
it to express his approval of my ways and character.
When I speak to him he lies down on his back with a
meekness of expression which I am sure has not been
rivalled since Moses. He is the most abnormally bobbed
dog that ever excited my amazement. I think I do not
exaggerate when I declare that his tail appears to have
been amputated in the small of his back. How he can
draw his breath is a wonder. In fact, he seems to have
lost his voice by the operation, as though the docking had
injured his bronchial tubes, for he never barks, nor growls,
nor whines. I often lose myself in speculation over his absent
appendage, questioning whether it was shot away in
battle, or left behind in a rapid march, or bitten off, or
pulled out. Perhaps it is on detached service as a wagginmaster,

or has got a promotion and become a brevet lion's
tail. Perhaps it has gone to the dog heaven, and is wagging
somewhere in glory. Venturing again on a pun I
observed that it is very proper that an army dog should
be detailed. I wish I could find his master;—I have just
one observation to make to that gentleman;—I would say
to him, `There is your dog.—I don't want the beast, and I
don't see why he wants me; but I can't get rid of him,
any more than I can of Henry, who is equally useless.' I
sometimes try to estimate the infinitessimal loss which the
world would experience if the two should disappear together,
but always give up the problem in despair, not
having any knowledge of fractions small enough to figure
it.”

“In a general way,” says Colburne, “we are sadly off for
amusements. Fowling is not allowed because the noise of
the guns alarms the pickets. Even alligators I have only
shot at once, when I garrisoned a little post four miles
from camp, and, being left without rations, was obliged to
subsist my company for a day on boiled Saurian. The
meat was catable, but not recommendable to persons of
delicate appetite, being of an ancient and musky flavor,
as though it had been put up in its horny case a thousand
years ago. By the way, a minie ball knocks a hole in these
fellows' celebrated jackets without the slightest difficulty.
As for riding after hounds or on steeple chases, or boxing,
or making up running or rowing matches, after the gymnastic
fashion of English officers, we never think of it.
Now and then there is a horse-race, but for the most part
we play euchre. Drill is no longer an amusement as at
first, but an inexpressibly wearisome monotony. Conversation
is profitless and dull, except when it is professional
or larkish. With the citizens we have no dealings at all,
and I have not spoken to a lady since I left New Orleans.
Books are few because we cannot carry them about, being
limited in our baggage to a carpet-sack; and moreover
I have lost my taste for reading, and even for all kinds of

thinking except on military matters. My brother officers,
you know, are brave, sensible and useful men, but would
not answer to fill the professorial chairs of Winslow University.
They represent the plain people whose cause is
being fought out in this war against an aristocracy. When
I first went into camp with the regiment they humorously
recognized my very slight fashionable elevation by styling
my company, which then numbered eighteen men, `The
Upper Ten Thousand.' Now all such distinctions are
rubbed out; it is, who can fight best, march best, command
best; each one stands on the base of his individual
manhood. In the army a man cannot remain long on a
social pedestal which will enable him to overlook the top
of his own head. He can obtain no respect which is not
accorded to rank or merit; and very little merit is acknowledged
except what is of a professional character.”

With true esprit du corps he frequently expatiates on
the excellencies of his regiment.

“The discipline in the Tenth is good,” he declares, “and
consequently there are no mutinies, no desertions and not
much growling. Ask the soldiers if they are satisfied
with the service, and they might answer, `No;' but you
cannot always judge of a man by what he says, even in his
impulsive moments; you must also consider what he does.
Look at an old man-of-war's man: he growls on the forecastle,
but is as meek as Moses on the quarter-deck; and,
notwithstanding all his mutterings, he is always at his
post and does his duty with a will. Just so our soldiers
frequently say that they only want to get out of the service,
but never run away and rarely manœuvre for a discharge.”

This, it will be observed, was before the days of substitutes
and bounty-jumpers, and while the regiments were
still composed of the noble fellows who enlisted during the
first and second years of the war.

From all that I can learn of Captain Colburne I judge
that he was a model officer, at least so far as a volunteer

knew how to be one. While his men feared him on account
of his reserve and his severe discipline, they loved
him for the gallantry and cheerful fortitude with which he
shared their dangers and hardships. The same respect
which he exacted of them he accorded, at least outwardly,
to all superior officers, even including the contemptible
Gazaway. He did this from principle, for the good of the
service, believing that authority ought not to be questioned
lightly in an army. By the way, the Major did not like
him: he would have preferred to have the Captain jolly
and familiar and vulgar; then he would have felt at ease
in his presence. This gentlemanly bearing, this dignified
respect, kept him, the superior, at a distance. The truth
is that, although Gazaway was, in the emphatic language
of Lieutenant Van Zandt, “an inferior cuss,” he nevertheless
had intelligence enough to suspect the profound
contempt which lay behind Colburne's salute. Only in
the Captain's letters to his intimate friend, Ravenel, does
he speak unbecomingly of the Major.

“He is,” says one of these epistles, “a low-bred, conceited,
unreasonable, domineering ass, who by instinct detests
a gentleman and a man of education. He will issue
an order contrary to the Regulations, and fly into a rage
if a captain represents its illegality. I have got his ill-will
in this way, I presume, as well perhaps as by knowing
how to spell correctly. His orders, circulars, etc., are perfect
curiosities of literature until they are corrected by his
clerk, who is a private soldier. Sometimes I am almost
tired of obeying and respecting my inferiors; and I certainly
shall not continue to serve a day after the war is
over.”

However, those matters are now by-gones, Gazaway being
out of the regiment. I mention them chiefly to show
the manliness of character which this intelligent and educated
young officer exhibited in remaining in the service
notwithstanding moral annoyances more painful to bear
than marches and battles. He is still enthusiastic; has

not by any means had fighting enough; wants to go to
Virginia in order to be in the thickest of it. He is disappointed
at not receiving promotion; but bears it bravely
and uncomplainingly, for the sake of the nation; bears it
as he does sickness, starvation, blistered feet and wounds.