 | Life in the open air |  |
NEW YORK SEVENTH REGIMENT.
OUR MARCH TO WASHINGTON.
THROUGH THE CITY.
At three o'clock in the afternoon of Friday, April
19th, we took our peacemaker, a neat twelve-pound
brass howitzer, down from the Seventh Regiment
Armory, and stationed it in the rear of the building.
The twin peacemaker is somewhere near us,
but entirely hidden by this enormous crowd.
An enormous crowd! of both sexes, of every
age and condition. The men offer all kinds of truculent
and patriotic hopes; the women shed tears,
and say, “God bless you, boys!”
This is a part of the town where baddish cigars
prevail. But good or bad, I am ordered to keep
all away from the gun. So the throng stands back,
peers curiously over the heads of its junior members,
and seems to be taking the measure of my
coffin.
After a patient hour of this, the word is given,
we fall in, our two guns find their places at the
right of the line of march, we move on through the
thickening crowd.
At a great house on the left, as we pass the Astor
Library, I see a handkerchief waving for me.
Yes! it is she who made the sandwiches in my
knapsack. They were a trifle too thick, as I afterwards
discovered, but otherwise perfection. Be
these my thanks and the thanks of hungry comrades
who had bites of them!
At the corner of Great Jones Street we halted
for half an hour, — then, everything ready, we
marched down Broadway.
It was worth a life, that march. Only one who
passed, as we did, through that tempest of cheers,
two miles long, can know the terrible enthusiasm
of the occasion. I could hardly hear the rattle of
our own gun-carriages, and only once or twice the
music of our band came to me muffled and quelled
by the uproar. We knew now, if we had not before
divined it, that our great city was with us as
one man, utterly united in the great cause we were
marching to sustain.
This grand fact I learned by two senses. If hundreds
of thousands roared it into my ears, thousands
slapped it into my back. My fellow-citizens
smote me on the knapsack, as I went by at the gun-rope,
and encouraged me each in his own dialect.
“Bully for you!” alternated with benedictions, in
the proportion of two “bullies” to one blessing.
I was not so fortunate as to receive more substantial
tokens of sympathy. But there were parting
gifts showered on the regiment, enough to establish
a variety-shop. Handkerchiefs, of course,
a snow. Pretty little gloves pelted us with love-taps.
The sterner sex forced upon us pocketknives
new and jagged, combs, soap, slippers, boxes
of matches, cigars by the dozen and the hundred,
pipes to smoke shag and pipes to smoke Latakia,
fruit, eggs, and sandwiches. One fellow got a new
purse with ten bright quarter-eagles.
At the corner of Grand Street, or thereabouts,
a “bhoy” in red flannel shirt and black dress pantaloons,
leaning back against the crowd with
Herculean shoulders, called me, — “Saäy, bully!
take my dorg! he 's one of the kind that holds till
he draps.” This gentleman, with his animal, was
instantly shoved back by the police, and the
Seventh lost the “dorg.”
These were the comic incidents of the march,
but underlying all was the tragic sentiment that
we might have tragic work presently to do. The
news of the rascal attack in Baltimore on the Massachusetts
Sixth had just come in. Ours might
be the same chance. If there were any of us not
in earnest before, the story of the day would
steady us. So we said good-by to Broadway,
moved down Cortlandt Street under a bower of
flags, and at half past six shoved off in the ferry-boat.
Everybody has heard how Jersey City turned
out and filled up the Railroad Station, like an
opera-house, to give God-speed to us as a representative
body, a guaranty of the unquestioning
Everybody has heard how the State of New Jersey,
along the railroad line, stood through the
evening and the night to shout their quota of good
wishes. At every station the Jerseymen were
there, uproarious as Jerseymen, to shake our hands
and wish us a happy despatch. I think I did not
see a rod of ground without its man, from dusk
till dawn, from the Hudson to the Delaware.
Upon the train we made a jolly night of it. All
knew that the more a man sings, the better he is
likely to fight. So we sang more than we slept,
and, in fact, that has been our history ever since.
PHILADELPHIA.
At sunrise we were at the station in Philadelphia,
and dismissed for an hour. Some hundreds
of us made up Broad Street for the Lapierre House
to breakfast. When I arrived, I found every
place at table filled and every waiter ten deep
with orders. So, being an old campaigner, I followed
up the stream of provender to the fountainhead,
the kitchen. Half a dozen other old campaigners
were already there, most hospitably entertained
by the cooks. They served us, hot and hot,
with the best of their best, straight from the gridiron
and the pan. I hope, if I live to breakfast
again in the Lapierre House, that I may be allowed
to help myself and choose for myself below-stairs.
When we rendezvoused at the train, we found
three days' rations in the neighborhood, and
be ready for a start at a moment's notice.
A mountain of bread was already piled up in
the station. I stuck my bayonet through a stout
loaf, and, with a dozen comrades armed in the
same way, went foraging about for other vivers.
It is a poor part of Philadelphia; but whatever
they had in the shops or the houses seemed to be
at our disposition.
I stopped at a corner shop to ask for pork, and
was amicably assailed by an earnest dame, — Irish,
I am pleased to say. She thrust her last loaf upon
me, and sighed that it was not baked that morning
for my “honor's service.”
A little farther on, two kindly Quaker ladies
compelled me to step in. “What could they
do?” they asked eagerly. “They had no meat
in the house; but could we eat eggs? They had
in the house a dozen and a half, new-laid.” So
the pot to the fire, and the eggs boiled, and bagged
by myself and that tall Saxon, my friend E., of the
Sixth Company. While the eggs simmered, the
two ladies thee-ed us prayerfully and tearfully,
hoping that God would save our country from
blood, unless blood must be shed to preserve Law
and Liberty.
Nothing definite from Baltimore when we returned
to the station. We stood by, waiting
orders. About noon the Eighth Massachusetts
Regiment took the train southward. Our regiment
Plug Uglies. If there had been any voting on the
subject, the plan to follow the straight road to
Washington would have been accepted by acclamation.
But the higher powers deemed that “the
longest way round was the shortest way home,”
and no doubt their decision was wise. The event
proved it.
At two o'clock came the word to “fall in.” We
handled our howitzers again, and marched down
Jefferson Avenue to the steamer “Boston” to embark.
To embark for what port? For Washington, of
course, finally; but by what route? That was to
remain in doubt to us privates for a day or two.
The Boston is a steamer of the outside line from
Philadelphia to New York. She just held our legion.
We tramped on board, and were allotted
about the craft from the top to the bottom story.
We took tents, traps, and grub on board, and
steamed away down the Delaware in the sweet afternoon
of April. If ever the heavens smiled fair
weather on any campaign, they have done so on
ours.
THE “BOSTON.”
Soldiers on shipboard are proverbially fish out
of water. We could not be called by the good old
nickname of “lobsters” by the crew. Our gray
jackets saved the sobriquet. But we floundered
about the crowded vessel like boiling victims in a
about the decks to tan or bronze or burn
scarlet, according to complexion. There were
plenty of cheeks of lobster-hue before next evening
on the Boston.
A thousand young fellows turned loose on shipboard
were sure to make themselves merry. Let
the reader imagine that! We were like any other
excursionists, except that the stacks of bright guns
were always present to remind us of our errand,
and regular guard-mounting and drill went on all
the time. The young citizens growled or laughed
at the minor hardships of the hasty outfit, and
toughened rapidly to business.
Sunday, the 21st, was a long and somewhat anxious
day. While we were bowling along in the
sweet sunshine and sweeter moonlight of the halcyon
time, Uncle Sam might be dethroned by somebody
in buckram, or Baltimore burnt by the boys
from Lynn or Marblehead, revenging the massacre
of their fellows. Every one begins to comprehend
the fiery eagerness of men who live in historic
times. “I wish I had control of chain-lightning
for a few minutes,” says O., the droll fellow of our
company. “I 'd make it come thick and heavy
and knock spots out of Secession.”
At early dawn of Monday, the 22d, after feeling
along slowly all night, we see the harbor of Annapolis.
A frigate with sails unbent lies at anchor.
She flies the stars and stripes. Hurrah!
A large steamboat is aground farther in. As
of bayonets on board.
By and by boats come off, and we get news that
the steamer is the “Maryland,” a ferry-boat of the
Philadelphia and Baltimore Railroad. The Massachusetts
Eighth Regiment had been just in time to
seize her on the north side of the Chesapeake.
They learned that she was to be carried off by the
crew and leave them blockaded. So they shot their
Zouaves ahead as skirmishers. The fine fellows
rattled on board, and before the steamboat had time
to take a turn or open a valve, she was held by
Massachusetts in trust for Uncle Sam. Hurrah
for the most important prize thus far in the war!
It probably saved the “Constitution,” “Old Ironsides,”
from capture by the traitors. It probably
saved Annapolis, and kept Maryland open without
bloodshed.
As soon as the Massachusetts Regiment had
made prize of the ferry-boat, a call was made for
engineers to run her. Some twenty men at once
stepped to the front. We of the New York Seventh
afterwards concluded that whatever was needed
in the way of skill or handicraft could be found
among those brother Yankees. They were the men
to make armies of. They could tailor for themselves,
shoe themselves, do their own blacksmithing,
gun-smithing, and all other work that calls for
sturdy arms and nimble fingers. In fact, I have
such profound confidence in the universal accomplishment
of the Massachusetts Eighth, that I have
“Painters present arms!” “Sculptors charge bagonets!”
a baker's dozen out of every company
would respond.
Well, to go on with their story, — when they had
taken their prize, they drove her straight down-stream
to Annapolis, the nearest point to Washington.
There they found the Naval Academy in danger
of attack, and Old Ironsides — serving as a
practice-ship for the future midshipmen — also exposed.
The call was now for seamen to man the
old craft and save her from a worse enemy than
her prototype met in the “Guerrière.” Seamen?
Of course! They were Marblehead men, Gloucester
men, Beverly men, seamen all, par excellence!
They clapped on the frigate to aid the middies, and
by and by started her out into the stream. In doing
this their own pilot took the chance to run them
purposely on a shoal in the intricate channel. A
great error of judgment on his part! as he perceived,
when he found himself in irons and in confinement.
“The days of trifling with traitors are
over!” think the Eighth Regiment of Massachusetts.
But there they were, hard and fast on the shoal,
when we came up. Nothing to nibble on but knobs
of anthracite. Nothing to sleep on softer or cleaner
than coal-dust. Nothing to drink but the brackish
water under their keel. “Rather rough!” so
they afterward patiently told us.
Meantime the Constitution had got hold of a tug,
her guns commanded everything and everybody.
Good and true men chuckled greatly over this. The
stars and stripes also were still up at the fort at
the Naval Academy.
Our dread, that, while we were off at sea, some
great and perhaps fatal harm had been suffered,
was greatly lightened by these good omens. If
Annapolis was safe, why not Washington safe also?
If treachery had got head at the capital, would not
treachery have reached out its hand and snatched
this doorway? These were our speculations as we
began to discern objects, before we heard news.
But news came presently. Boats pulled off to
us. Our officers were put into communication
with the shore. The scanty facts of our position
became known from man to man. We privates
have greatly the advantage in battling with the
doubt of such a time. We know that we have
nothing to do with rumors. Orders are what we
go by. And orders are Facts.
We lay a long, lingering day, off Annapolis.
The air was full of doubt, and we were eager to be
let loose. All this while the Maryland stuck fast
on the bar. We could see them, half a mile off,
making every effort to lighten her. The soldiers
tramped forward and aft, danced on her decks, shot
overboard a heavy baggage-truck. We saw them
start the truck for the stern with a cheer. It
crashed down. One end stuck in the mud. The
other fell back and rested on the boat. They went
at it with axes, and presently it was clear.
As the tide rose, we gave our grounded friends
a lift with a hawser. No go! The Boston tugged
in vain. We got near enough to see the whites of
the Massachusetts eyes, and their unlucky faces
and uniforms all grimy with their lodgings in the
coal-dust. They could not have been blacker, if
they had been breathing battle-smoke and dust all
day. That experience was clear gain to them.
By and by, greatly to the delight of the impatient
Seventh, the Boston was headed for shore.
Never speak ill of the beast you bestraddle! Therefore
requiescat Boston! may her ribs lie light on
soft sand when she goes to pieces! may her engines
be cut up into bracelets for the arms of the
patriotic fair! good by to her, dear old, close, dirty,
slow coach! She served her country well in a
moment of trial. Who knows but she saved it?
It was a race to see who should first get to Washington,
— and we and the Virginia mob, in alliance
with the District mob, were perhaps nip and tuck
for the goal.
ANNAPOLIS.
So the Seventh Regiment landed and took Annapolis.
We were the first troops ashore.
The middies of the Naval Academy no doubt believe
that they had their quarters secure. The
Massachusetts boys are satisfied that they first
took the town in charge. And so they did.
But the Seventh took it a little more. Not, of
for loyal Maryland, and for the Union.
Has anybody seen Annapolis? It is a picturesque
old place, sleepy enough, and astonished to
find itself wide-awaked by a war, and obliged to
take responsibility and share for good and ill in the
movement of its time. The buildings of the Naval
Academy stand parallel with the river Severn,
with a green plateau toward the water and a lovely
green lawn toward the town. All the scene was
fresh and fair with April, and I fancied, as the Boston
touched the wharf, that I discerned the sweet
fragrance of apple-blossoms coming with the springtime
airs.
I hope that the companies of the Seventh, should
the day arrive, will charge upon horrid batteries or
serried ranks with as much alacrity as they marched
ashore on the greensward of the Naval Academy.
We disembarked, and were halted in line between
the buildings and the river.
Presently, while we stood at ease, people began
to arrive, — some with smallish fruit to sell, some
with smaller news to give. Nobody knew whether
Washington was taken. Nobody knew whether
Jeff Davis was now spitting in the Presidential
spittoon, and scribbling his distiches with the nib
of the Presidential goose-quill. We were absolutely
in doubt whether a seemingly inoffensive knot of
rustics, on a mound without the enclosure, might
not, at tap of drum, unmask a battery of giant columbiads,
and belch blazes at us, raking our line.
Nothing so entertaining happened. It was a
parade, not a battle. At sunset our band played
strains sweet enough to pacify all Secession, if
Secession had music in its soul. Coffee, hot from
the coppers of the Naval School, and biscuit were
served out to us; and while we supped, we talked
with our visitors, such as were allowed to approach.
First the boys of the School — fine little blue-jackets
— had their story to tell.
“Do you see that white farm-house, across the
river?” says a brave pigmy of a chap in navy
uniform. “That is head-quarters for Secession.
They were going to take the School from us, Sir,
and the frigate; but we 've got ahead of 'em, now
you and the Massachusetts boys have come down,”
— and he twinkled all over with delight. “We
can't study any more. We are on guard all the
time. We 've got howitzers, too, and we 'd like
you to see, to-morrow, on drill, how we can handle
'em. One of their boats came by our sentry last
night,” (a sentry probably five feet high,) “and
he blazed away, Sir. So they thought they
would n't try us that time.”
It was plain that these young souls had been
well tried by the treachery about them. They,
too, had felt the pang of the disloyalty of comrades.
Nearly a hundred of the boys had been
spoilt by the base example of their elders in the
repudiating States, and had resigned.
After the middies, came anxious citizens from
were come and assured them that persons and
property were to be protected, they ventured to
speak of the disgusting tyranny to which they,
American citizens, had been subjected. We came
into contact here with utter social anarchy. No
man, unless he was ready to risk assault, loss of
property, exile, dared to act or talk like a freeman.
“This great wrong must be righted,” think the
Seventh Regiment, as one man. So we tried to
reassure the Annapolitans that we meant to do our
duty as the nation's armed police, and mob-law
was to be put down, so far as we could do it.
Here, too, voices of war met us. The country
was stirred up. If the rural population did not give
us a bastard imitation of Lexington and Concord,
as we tried to gain Washington, all Pluguglydom
would treat us à la Plugugly somewhere near the
junction of the Annapolis and Baltimore and Washington
Railroad. The Seventh must be ready to
shoot.
At dusk we were marched up to the Academy
and quartered about in the buildings, — some in the
fort, some in the recitation-halls. We lay down on
our blankets and knapsacks. Up to this time our
sleep and diet had been severely scanty.
We stayed all next day at Annapolis. The Boston
brought the Massachusetts Eighth ashore that
night. Poor fellows! what a figure they cut, when
we found them bivouacked on the Academy grounds
next morning! To begin: They had come off in
Finding that Baltimore had been taken by its own
loafers and traitors, and that the Chesapeake ferry
was impracticable, had obliged them to change line
of march. They were out of grub. They were
parched dry for want of water on the ferry-boat.
Nobody could decipher Caucasian, much less Bunker-Hill
Yankee, in their grimy visages.
But, hungry, thirsty, grimy, these fellows were
GRIT.
Massachusetts ought to be proud of such hardy,
cheerful, faithful sons.
We of the Seventh are proud, for our part, that
it was our privilege to share our rations with them,
and to begin a fraternization which grows closer
every day and will be historical.
But I must make a shorter story. We drilled
and were reviewed that morning on the Academy
parade. In the afternoon the Naval School paraded
their last before they gave up their barracks to the
coming soldiery. So ended the 23d of April.
Midnight, 24th. We were rattled up by an
alarm, — perhaps a sham one, to keep us awake
and lively. In a moment, the whole regiment was
in order of battle in the moonlight on the parade.
It was a most brilliant spectacle, as company after
company rushed forward, with rifles glittering, to
take their places in the array.
After this pretty spirt, we were rationed with
pork, beef, and bread for three days, and ordered to
be ready to march on the instant.
WHAT THE MASSACHUSETTS EIGHTH HAD BEEN DOING.
Meantime General Butler's command, the Massachusetts
Eighth, had been busy knocking disorder
in the head.
Presently after their landing, and before they
were refreshed, they pushed companies out to occupy
the railroad-track beyond the town.
They found it torn up. No doubt the scamps
who did the shabby job fancied that there would
be no more travel that way until strawberry-time.
They fancied the Yankees would sit down on the
fences and begin to whittle white-oak toothpicks,
darning the rebels, through their noses, meanwhile.
I know these men of the Eighth can whittle, and
I presume they can say “Darn it,” if occasion requires;
but just now track-laying was the business
on hand.
“Wanted, experienced track-layers!” was the
word along the files.
All at once the line of the road became densely
populated with experienced track-layers, fresh from
Massachusetts.
Presto change! the rails were relaid, spiked, and
the roadway levelled and better ballasted than any
road I ever saw south of Mason and Dixon's line.
“We must leave a good job for these folks to model
after,” say the Massachusetts Eighth.
A track without a train is as useless as a gun
without a man. Train and engine must be had.
“Uncle Sam's mails and troops cannot be stopped
So, — the railroad company's people being either
frightened or false, — in marches Massachusetts to
the station. “We, the People of the United States,
want rolling-stock for the use of the Union,” they
said, or words to that effect.
The engine — a frowzy machine at the best —
had been purposely disabled.
Here appeared the deus ex machina, Charles
Homans, Beverly Light Guard, Company E, Eighth
Massachusetts Regiment.
That is the man, name and titles in full, and he
deserves well of his country.
He took a quiet squint at the engine, — it was
as helpless as a boned turkey, — and he found
“Charles Homans, his mark,” written all over it.
The old rattletrap was an old friend. Charles
Homans had had a share in building it. The
machine and the man said, “How d'y' do?” at
once. Homans called for a gang of engine-builders.
Of course they swarmed out of the
ranks. They passed their hands over the locomotive
a few times, and presently it was ready to
whistle and wheeze and rumble and gallop, as if
no traitor had ever tried to steal the go and the
music out of it.
This had all been done during the afternoon of
the 23d. During the night, the renovated engine
was kept cruising up and down the track to see
all clear. Guards of the Eighth were also posted
to protect passage.
Our commander had, I presume, been co-operating
with General Butler in this business. The
Naval Academy authorities had given us every
despatch and assistance, and the middies, frank,
personal hospitality. The day was halcyon, the
grass was green and soft, the apple-trees were just
in blossom: it was a day to be remembered.
Many of us will remember it, and show the
marks of it for months, as the day we had our
heads cropped. By evening there was hardly one
poll in the Seventh tenable by anybody's grip.
Most sat in the shade and were shorn by a barber.
A few were honored with a clip by the artist hand
of the petit caporal of our Engineer Company.
While I rattle off these trifling details, let me
not fail to call attention to the grave service done
by our regiment, by its arrival, at the nick of time,
at Annapolis. No clearer special Providence
could have happened. The country-people of the
traitor sort were aroused. Baltimore and its mob
were but two hours away. The Constitution had
been hauled out of reach of a rush by the Massachusetts
men, — first on the ground, — but was
half manned and not fully secure. And there lay
the Maryland, helpless on the shoal, with six or
seven hundred souls on board, so near the shore
that the late Captain Rynders's gun could have
sunk her from some ambush.
Yes! the Seventh Regiment at Annapolis was
the Right Man in the Right Place!
OUR MORNING MARCH.
Reveille. As nobody pronounces this word
à la française, as everybody calls it “Revelee,”
why not drop it, as an affectation, and translate it
the “Stir your Stumps,” the “Peel your Eyes,”
the “Tumble Up,” or literally the “Wake”?
Our snorers had kept up this call so lustily
since midnight, that, when the drums sounded it,
we were all ready.
The Sixth and Second Companies, under Captain
Nevers, are detached to lead the van. I see my
brother Billy march off with the Sixth, into the
dusk, half moonlight, half dawn, and hope that no
beggar of a Secessionist will get a pat shot at him,
by the roadside, without his getting a chance to
let fly in return. Such little possibilities intensify
the earnest detestation we feel for the treasons we
come to resist and to punish. There will be some
bitter work done, if we ever get to blows in this
war, — this needless, reckless, brutal assault upon
the mildest of all governments.
Before the main body of the regiment marches,
we learn that the “Baltic” and other transports
came in last night with troops from New York and
New England, enough to hold Annapolis against a
square league of Plug Uglies. We do not go on
without having our rear protected and our communications
open. It is strange to be compelled to
think of these things in peaceful America. But
we really knew little more of the country before us
from a high official, that thirteen different messengers
were despatched from Washington in the interval
of anxiety while the Seventh was not forthcoming,
and only one got through.
At half past seven we take up our line of march,
pass out of the charming grounds of the Academy,
and move through the quiet, rusty, picturesque old
town. It has a romantic dulness, — Annapolis, —
which deserves a parting compliment.
Although we deem ourselves a fine-looking set,
although our belts are blanched with pipe-clay and
our rifles shine sharp in the sun, yet the townspeople
stare at us in a dismal silence. They have already
the air of men quelled by a despotism. None
can trust his neighbor. If he dares to be loyal, he
must take his life into his hands. Most would be
loyal, if they dared. But the system of society
which has ended in this present chaos has gradually
eliminated the bravest and best men. They
have gone in search of Freedom and Prosperity;
and now the bullies cow the weaker brothers.
“There must be an end of this mean tyranny,”
think the Seventh, as they march through old Annapolis
and see how sick the town is with doubt
and alarm.
Outside the town, we strike the railroad and
move along, the howitzers in front, bouncing over
the sleepers. When our line is fully disengaged
from the town, we halt.
Here the scene is beautiful. The van rests upon
pine-trees on the right, green fields on the left.
Cattle are feeding quietly about. The air sings
with birds. The chestnut-leaves sparkle. Frogs
whistle in the warm spring morning. The regiment
groups itself along the bank and the cutting.
Several Marylanders of the half-price age — under
twelve — come gaping up to see us harmless invaders.
Each of these young gentry is armed with a
dead spring frog, perhaps by way of tribute. And
here — hollo! here comes Horace Greeley in propria
persona! He marches through our groups
with the Greeley walk, the Greeley hat on the back
of his head, the Greeley white coat on his shoulders,
his trousers much too short, and an absorbed,
abstracted demeanor. Can it be Horace, reporting
for himself? No; this is a Maryland production,
and a little disposed to be sulky.
After a few minutes' halt, we hear the whistle of
the engine. This machine is also an historic character
in the war.
Remember it! “J. H. Nicholson” is its name.
Charles Homans drives, and on either side stands a
sentry with fixed bayonet. New spectacles for
America! But it is grand to know that the bayonets
are to protect, not to assail, Liberty and Law.
The train leads off. We follow, by the track.
Presently the train returns. We pass it and trudge
on in light marching order, carrying arms, blankets,
haversacks, and canteens. Our knapsacks are upon
the train.
Fortunate for our backs that they do not have to
bear any more burden! For the day grows sultry.
It is one of those breezeless baking days which
brew thunder-gusts. We march on for some four
miles, when, coming upon the guards of the Massachusetts
Eighth, our howitzer is ordered to fall
out and wait for the train. With a comrade of the
Artillery, I am placed on guard over it.
ON GUARD WITH HOWITZER NO. TWO.
Henry Bonnell is my fellow-sentry. He, like
myself, is an old campaigner in such campaigns as
our generation has known. So we talk California,
Oregon, Indian life, the Plains, keeping our eyes
peeled meanwhile, and ranging the country. Men
that will tear up track are quite capable of picking
off a sentry. A giant chestnut gives us little dots
of shade from its pigmy leaves. The country
about us is open and newly ploughed. Some of
the worm-fences are new, and ten rails high; but
the farming is careless, and the soil thin.
Two of the Massachusetts men come back to
the gun while we are standing there. One is my
friend Stephen Morris, of Marblehead, Sutton Light
Infantry. I had shared my breakfast yesterday
with Stephe. So we refraternize.
His business is, — “I make shoes in winter and
fishin' in summer.” He gives me a few facts, —
suspicious persons seen about the track, men on
horseback in the distance. One of the Massachusetts
Captain replied, “Officer of the night.” Whereupon,
says Stephe, “The recruit let squizzle and
jest missed his ear.” He then related to me the
incident of the railroad station. “The first thing
they know'd,” says he, “we bit right into the
depot and took charge.” “I don't mind,” Stephe
remarked, — “I don't mind life, nor yit death; but
whenever I see a Massachusetts boy, I stick by
him, and if them Secessionists attackt us to-night,
or any other time, they 'll get in debt.”
Whistle, again! and the train appears. We are
ordered to ship our howitzer on a platform car.
The engine pushes us on. This train brings our light
baggage and the rear guard.
A hundred yards farther on is a delicious fresh
spring below the bank. While the train halts,
Stephe Morris rushes down to fill my canteen.
“This a'n't like Marblehead,” says Stephe, panting
up; “but a man that can shin up them rocks can
git right over this sand.”
The train goes slowly on, as a rickety train
should. At intervals we see the fresh spots of
track just laid by our Yankee friends. Near the
sixth mile, we began to overtake hot and uncomfortable
squads of our fellows. The unseasonable
heat of this most breathless day was too much for
many of the younger men, unaccustomed to rough
work, and weakened by want of sleep and irregular
food in our hurried movements thus far.
Charles Homans's private carriage was, however,
men, men with corns, or men with blisters. They
tumbled into the train in considerable numbers.
An enemy that dared could have made a
moderate bag of stragglers at this time. But they
would not have been allowed to straggle, if any
enemy had been about. By this time we were
convinced that no attack was to be expected in
this part of the way.
The main body of the regiment, under Major
Shaler, a tall, soldierly fellow, with a moustache of
the fighting color, tramped on their own pins to the
watering-place, eight miles or so from Annapolis.
There troops and train came to a halt, with the
news that a bridge over a country road was broken
a mile farther on.
It had been distinctly insisted upon, in the usual
Southern style, that we were not to be allowed to
pass through Maryland, and that we were to be
“welcomed to hospitable graves.” The broken
bridge was a capital spot for a skirmish. Why
not look for it here?
We looked; but got nothing. The rascals could
skulk about by night, tear up rails, and hide them
where they might be found by a man with half an
eye, or half destroy a bridge; but there was no
shoot in them. They have not faith enough in
their cause to risk their lives for it, even behind a
tree or from one of these thickets, choice spots for
ambush.
So we had no battle there, but a battle of the
followed by a furious storm of wind and a smart
shower. The regiment wrapped themselves in
their blankets and took their wetting with more or
less satisfaction. They were receiving samples of
all the different little miseries of a campaign.
And here let me say a word to my fellow-volunteers,
actual and prospective, in all the armies of
all the States: —
A soldier needs, besides his soldierly drill,
I. Good Feet.
II. A good Stomach.
III. And after these, come the good Head and
the good Heart.
But Good Feet are distinctly the first thing.
Without them you cannot get to your duty. If a
comrade, or a horse, or a locomotive, takes you on
its back to the field, you are useless there. And
when the field is lost, you cannot retire, run away,
and save your bacon.
Good shoes and plenty of walking make good
feet. A man who pretends to belong to an infantry
company ought always to keep himself in training,
so that any moment he can march twenty or
thirty miles without feeling a pang or raising a
blister. Was this the case with even a decimation
of the army who rushed to defend Washington?
Were you so trained, my comrades of the Seventh?
A captain of a company, who will let his men
march with such shoes as I have seen on the feet
of some poor fellows in this war, ought to be garroted
play Pope and wash the feet of the whole army of
the Apostles of Liberty.
If you find a foot-soldier lying beat out by the
roadside, desperate as a sea-sick man, five to one
his heels are too high, or his soles too narrow or
too thin, or his shoe is not made straight on the inside,
so that the great toe can spread into its place
as he treads.
I am an old walker over Alps across the water,
and over Cordilleras, Sierras, Deserts, and Prairies
at home; I have done my near sixty miles a day
without discomfort, — and speaking from large experience,
and with painful recollections of the suffering
and death I have known for want of good
feet on the march, I say to every volunteer: —
Trust in God; BUT KEEP YOUR SHOES EASY!
THE BRIDGE.
When the frenzy of the brief tempest was over,
it began to be a question, “What to do about the
broken bridge?” The gap was narrow; but even
Charles Homans could not promise to leap the “J.
H. Nicholson” over it. Who was to be our Julius
Cæsar in bridge-building? Who but Sergeant
Scott, Armorer of the Regiment, with my fellow-sentry
of the morning, Bonnell, as First Assistant?
Scott called for a working party. There were
plenty of handy fellows among our Engineers and
in the Line. Tools were plenty in the Engineers'
howitzer No. 1 was mounted down to the gap, and
began operations.
“I wish,” says the petit caporal of the Engineer
Company, patting his howitzer gently on the back,
“that I could get this Putty Blower pointed at the
enemy, while you fellows are bridge-building.”
The inefficient destructives of Maryland had only
half spoilt the bridge. Some of the old timbers
could be used, — and for new ones, there was the
forest.
Scott and his party made a good and a quick job
of it. Our friends of the Massachusetts Eighth
had now come up. They lent a ready hand, as
usual. The sun set brilliantly. By twilight there
was a practicable bridge. The engine was despatched
back to keep the road open. The two
platform cars, freighted with our howitzers, were
rigged with the gun-ropes for dragging along the
rail. We passed through the files of the Massachusetts
men, resting by the way, and eating by
the fires of the evening the suppers we had in
great part provided them; and so begins our
night-march.
THE NIGHT-MARCH.
O Gottschalk! what a poetic Marche de Nuit we
then began to play, with our heels and toes, on the
railroad track!
It was full-moonlight and the night inexpressibly
sweet and serene. The air was cool and vivified
spring was in every breath. Our fellows had forgotten
that this morning they were hot and disgusted.
Every one hugged his rifle as if it were
the arm of the Girl of his Heart, and stepped out
gayly for the promenade. Tired or foot-sore men,
or even lazy ones, could mount upon the two
freight-cars we were using for artillery-wagons.
There were stout arms enough to tow the whole.
The scouts went ahead under First Lieutenant
Farnham of the Second Company. We were at
school together, — I am afraid to say how many
years ago. He is just the same cool, dry, shrewd
fellow he was as a boy, and a most efficient officer.
It was an original kind of march. I suppose a
battery of howitzers never before found itself
mounted upon cars, ready to open fire at once and
bang away into the offing with shrapnel or into
the bushes with canister. Our line extended a
half-mile along the track. It was beautiful to
stand on the bank above a cutting, and watch the
files strike from the shadow of a wood into a broad
flame of moonlight, every rifle sparkling up alert
as it came forward. A beautiful sight to see the
barrels writing themselves upon the dimness, each
a silver flash.
By and by, “Halt!” came, repeated along from
the front, company after company. “Halt! a
rail gone.”
It was found without difficulty. The imbeciles
who took it up probably supposed we would not
grass of the next field. With incredible doltishness
they had also left the chairs and spikes beside
the track. Bonnell took hold, and in a few minutes
had the rail in place and firm enough to pass the
engine. Remember, we were not only hurrying
on to succor Washington, but opening the only
convenient and practicable route between it and
the loyal States.
A little farther on, we came to a village, — a rare
sight in this scantily peopled region. Here Sergeant
Keeler, of our company, the tallest man in
the regiment, and one of the handiest, suggested
that we should tear up the rails at a turnout by the
station, and so be prepared for chances. So “Out
crowbars!” was the word. We tore up and
bagged half a dozen rails, with chairs and spikes
complete. Here, too, some of the engineers found
a keg of spikes. This was also bagged and loaded
on our cars. We fought the chaps with their own
weapons, since they would not meet us with ours.
These things made delay, and by and by there
was a long halt, while the Colonel communicated,
by orders sounded along the line, with the engine.
Homans's drag was hard after us, bringing our
knapsacks and traps.
After I had admired for some time the beauty of
our moonlit line, and listened to the orders as they
grew or died along the distance, I began to want
excitement. Bonnell suggested that he and I
should scout up the road and see if any rails were
night.
A mile ahead of the line we suddenly caught the
gleam of a rifle-barrel. “Who goes there?” one
of our own scouts challenged smartly.
We had arrived at the nick of time. Three rails
were up. Two of them were easily found. The
third was discovered by beating the bush thoroughly.
Bonnell and I ran back for tools, and returned
at full trot with crowbar and sledge on our
shoulders. There were plenty of willing hands to
help, — too many, indeed, — and with the aid of a
huge Massachusetts man we soon had the rail in
place.
From this time on we were constantly interrupted.
Not a half-mile passed without a rail up.
Bonnell was always at the front laying track, and
I am proud to say that he accepted me as aide-decamp.
Other fellows, unknown to me in the dark,
gave hearty help. The Seventh showed that it
could do something else than drill.
At one spot, on a high embankment over standing
water, the rail was gone, sunk probably. Here
we tried our rails brought from the turn-out. They
were too short. We supplemented with a length
of plank from our stores. We rolled our cars carefully
over. They passed safe. But Homans shook
his head. He could not venture a locomotive on
that frail stuff. So we lost the society of the “J.
H. Nicholson.” Next day the Massachusetts commander
called for some one to dive in the pool for
wiry chap and grappled the rail. “When I come
up,” says the brave fellow afterwards to me,
“our officer out with a twenty-dollar gold-piece
and wanted me to take it. `That a'n't what I
come for,' says I. `Take it,' says he, `and share
with the others.' `That a'n't what they come for,'
says I. But I took a big cold,” the diver continued,
“and I 'm condemned hoarse yit,” — which
was the fact.
Farther on we found a whole length of track torn
up, on both sides, sleepers and all, and the same
thing repeated with alternations of breaks of single
rails. Our howitzer-ropes came into play to
hoist and haul. We were not going to be stopped.
But it was becoming a Noche Triste to some of
our comrades. We had now marched some sixteen
miles. The distance was trifling. But the men
had been on their legs pretty much all day and
night. Hardly any one had had any full or substantial
sleep or meal since we started from New
York. They napped off, standing, leaning on their
guns, dropping down in their tracks on the wet
ground, at every halt. They were sleepy, but
plucky. As we passed through deep cuttings,
places, as it were, built for defence, there was a
general desire that the tedium of the night should
be relieved by a shindy.
During the whole night I saw our officers moving
about the line, doing their duty vigorously,
despite exhaustion, hunger, and sleeplessness.
About midnight our friends of the Eighth had
joined us, and our whole little army struggled on
together. I find that I have been rather understating
the troubles of the march. It seems impossible
that such difficulty could be encountered within
twenty miles of the capital of our nation. But
we were making a rush to put ourselves in that
capital, and we could not proceed in the slow, systematic
way of an advancing army. We must take
the risk and stand the suffering, whatever it was.
So the Seventh Regiment went through its bloodless
Noche Triste.
MORNING.
At last we issued from the damp woods, two
miles below the railroad junction. Here was an
extensive farm. Our vanguard had halted and borrowed
a few rails to make fires. These were, of
course, carefully paid for at their proprietor's own
price. The fires were bright in the gray dawn.
About them the whole regiment was now halted.
The men tumbled down to catch forty winks.
Some, who were hungrier for food than sleep, went
off foraging among the farm-houses. They returned
with appetizing legends of hot breakfasts in hospitable
abodes, or scanty fare given grudgingly in
hostile ones. All meals, however, were paid for.
Here, as at other halts below, the country-people
came up to talk to us. The traitors could easily
be distinguished by their insolence disguised as
but more hopeful at last. All were very lavish
with the monosyllable, Sir. It was an odd coincidence,
that the vanguard, halting off at a farm in
the morning, found it deserted for the moment by
its tenants, and protected only by an engraved
portrait of our (former) Colonel Duryea, serenely
smiling over the mantel-piece.
From this point, the railroad was pretty much all
gone. But we were warmed and refreshed by a
nap and a bite, and besides had daylight and open
country.
We put our guns on their own wheels, all
dropped into ranks as if on parade, and marched
the last two miles to the station. We still had no
certain information. Until we actually saw the
train awaiting us, and the Washington companies,
who had come down to escort us, drawn up, we
did not know whether our Uncle Sam was still a
resident of the capital.
We packed into the train, and rolled away to
Washington.
WASHINGTON.
We marched up to the White House, showed
ourselves to the President, made our bow to him as
our host, and then marched up to the Capitol, our
grand lodgings.
There we are now, quartered in the Representatives
Chamber.
And here I must hastily end this first sketch of
the Great Defence. May it continue to be as firm
and faithful as it is this day!
I have scribbled my story with a thousand men
stirring about me. If any of my sentences miss
their aim, accuse my comrades and the bewilderment
of this martial crowd. For here are four or
five thousand others on the same business as ourselves,
and drums are beating, guns are clanking,
companies are tramping, all the while. Our friends
of the Eighth Massachusetts are quartered under
the dome, and cheer us whenever we pass.
Desks marked John Covode, John Cochran, and
Anson Burlingame have allowed me to use them
as I wrote.
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