hood, however mistaken the cause, drew forth such herculean deeds of valor." Washington, Lincoln, Grant! What a superb triumvirate they make! What a crowning glory they are to America and to human nature! If the American Republic, with all its faults, can produce three such men in the first century of its existence, while we are yet crude and awkward-the "raw recruit " of the nations-what shall we not do, under Christ, in the fullness of time and the maturity of our powers, when we become thoroughly drilled and disciplined? Clearly great men, and great things, yet await us. We are just getting our eyes open, and beginning to look around us, and to see who and where and what we are. God bless and speed the United States of America!2 1 Grant's Memoirs, vol. ii, p. 632; War Records, vol. xlvi, part i, p. 60. 158 CHAPTER XII CAMPAIGNING AND SOLDIERING HERETOFORE I have discoursed about our great commanders chiefly. Now let me say something about our rank and file. I fancy few civilians have much idea of what army life really is or consists of. They see only the rainbows on the outside. They hear only the rolling drums and sounding bugles. They see only "the pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war "-the marching regiments, the shining muskets, the gleaming bayonets, the flashing sabers, the streaming colors-and they think that magnificent. It is superb. It stirs one's blood. And the first exclamation that leaps to one's lips is, "Who wouldn't be a soldier!" But a little practical campaigning and soldiering changes this considerably, and many a patriot who enlisted enthusiastically early in 1861 soon wished himself home again—and wished it eagerly. Let us see if we can realize just a little what army life really is. To begin with, a soldier must first bid good-bye to home and family or friends, perhaps never to return; and that is a little dampening to one's ardor. Next he must be mustered in and sworn to "obey orders "-good or bad, wise or otherwise—no matter who the officer over him and that is not always agreeable to an American citizen. Next he must don heavy woolen clothing, that usually fits (or misfits) him wretchedly; because made according to average size, without reference to the individual wearer. It is good in cold and stormy weather, but suffocating and intolerable in hot days and nights, especially in the latitude of Virginia and Tennessee, or farther south. Then he must learn the "manual of arms," to march and drill, and drill and march. And he is marched and drilled, and drilled and marched by the hour daily, until every muscle aches and every bone seems ready to break. Or he is put to policing the camp, which is not “police duty in common parlance at all, but is the menial and degrading duty of sweeping and cleaning up the dirt and refuse, that gather naturally about a regiment or home of a thousand men. All soldiers detest this, especially raw recruits, because they say they enlisted to march and fight, not to "police!" Then he must draw his rations and cook them-such as he can get and when he can get them. Sometimes good, often bad. Sometimes "full" rations, when he has enough and to spare; sometimes "light," when he has to eke them out the best he can. No cook stoves, of course; only rude fires on the ground, with green logs usually (except when he can find "top" fence rails-vide one of McClellan's orders on the Peninsula, which allowed us to take the "top rail;" but soon, of course, there wasn't any "top" rail), and in rainy weather more smoke than fire. If ordered suddenly on a march or into battle, he moves with three or five days' cooked rations (or none at all, it may be) in his soiled and greasy haversack, to last twice said time, if need be. If a veteran, he knows how to make these last until he gets more, whether the days be more or less. He has learned how to" forage," and to find a stray pig or chicken, or a hidden ham or potatoes. But if a raw recruit, he eats his rations up speedily, as a rule, and takes a lesson in how to starve. In due time he learns the best part of the ration to be coffee, sugar, hard-tack, and "beef on the hoof," and husbands these while he throws all the rest away, as impedimenta, as Cæsar would say. To drill or march all day, heavily loaded down with arms and accouterments, ammunition and rations, in heat and cold, in sunshine and shower, in dust or mud, is bad enough; but then comes night, with no beds or shelter, as a rule, in active campaigning. The best one can expect is an armful of grass or broken twigs or bushes under the open sky-al fresco. More often only the soft side of a rail or the damp ground; sometimes only mud or slush. If he has marched or fought all day, any rest is welcome; and he is only too eager for the order, "Halt! Stack arms!" to drop down by the roadside wherever he may be. Of course, at post or in winter quarters he can make himself comfortable. Tents can be drawn, huts can be built, bunks constructed, etc. But in campaigning and soldiering generally, all these have to be left behind (except our little "shelter tents," so called, which amounted to but little real shelter), and the actual hardships, exposures, privations, and miseries of the average private soldier and company officer are simply inconceivable to our stay-at-home civilians. I remember a march that my division (Second Division, Third Corps-“ Hooker's Old Division ") made late in November, 1862, from Manassas Junction to Fairfax Court House, en route to Falmouth or Fredericksburg, in the midst of a wild, wintry storm of wind and rain, that took us all day to make twelve or fifteen miles; and at nightfall we bivouacked or camped down by the roadside in mud and rain and hail and sleet, to sleep the best we could. Nothing but green and wet wood for camp fires, and everybody ready to perish with fatigue, exhaustion, and cold. It was an awful, horrible experience for over ten thousand of us, and I shudder at its recollection even yet. Or in the midst of some such horrible march he may be ordered to "corduroy" the road, by chopping trees and carrying them through the mud and water to the worst places; or to help lift the stalled wagons out of the swamp holes; or to take spades and "double quick" to the front or flanks to throw up hasty intrenchments; or to help build redoubts and forts-pure digging—a kind of “ fatigue" work all soldiers hate, and I do not wonder. The Confederates made their Negroes do this, as a rule. But our soldiers had to "dig" for themselves. But, worse yet, when the day's march or battle is ended, he may be ordered on guard as sentry, or on post as picket, and while his companions sleep off their fatigues and anxieties, he must tramp his weary round or stand his "two hours on and four off" all night, and the next morning must "fall in" with his company, and again march or fight all day, it may be. If, overcome by fatigue or exhaustion, he falls out and drops to sleep by the wayside, he is liable to arrest and court-martial, with prospect of "ball and chain" or to be "shot to death by musketry," or he is likely to be "gobbled up" by the enemy, and to find his way to Libby or Andersonville at last. Or, worse yet, he may be ordered into the trenches, and must there dig or fight under fire of the artillery or musketry of the enemy; and must crawl or lie there all day, in all kinds of weather; or take the chances of having his head knocked off by a shell or his body "plugged" by Minie balls, if he dares to show himself above the earthworks. At nightfall he may be relieved and allowed to retire to better and safer quarters; or he may have to stay there, and "see it out" for a week or longer. Or, still worse yet, the enemy may make a sortie, or we may be ordered to attack, and a partial or general engagement result; with fierce struggles and desperate onsets and bloody combats, which may leave him minus an arm or a leg, or with a hole or two through his body. If not killed outright, then comes the hospital, with its dreaded life and maybe awful death; and then the "Dead March in Saul" and farewell volley of musketry end all things. |