Back Aa

Goose-Quill Papers

<h2 class="nobreak">A CHILD IN CAMP.</h2> <div><ANTIMG class="decocap" src="images/deco-l.jpg" width-obs="60" height-obs="59" alt="L" title="L" /></div> LIKE the royal personages in the drama, I was ushered on the stage of life, literally, with flourish of trumpets. The Civil War was at its bursting-point, the President calling for recruits: it was impertinent of me, but in that solemn hour I came a-crowing into the world. And since I was born under allegiance, a lady whom I learned to love with incredible quickness, "O bella Libertà! O bella!"— rocked my fortunate cradle. She gave me a little flag for toy, instead of coral-and-bells; and filled my virginal ear with the classic strains of "John Brown's Body," ere yet I had heard a secular lullaby. She it was who dyed my infant mind-118- in her own tri-color, and whose exciting companionship roused me surprisingly early into wide-awake consciousness and speculation. In laughing recognition of her old, old favor, these confused twilight memories (Impressions of America, as it were, ab ovo) may be recorded. A young person some twenty-four years my senior, for whom I had a violent liking, had preceded me "to the warres." I saw his ship sail away, at that exceedingly tender age when a human being is involved in mummy-like cerements, and cannot properly be said to exist at all. In the winter of 1864—he had been away during that long interval—I enlisted and went South to visit him. I had thrived at home through the distended agony of those days. I had a general idea that my cue in life was to fight; and I would smile endearingly over a colored plate of the Battle of Trafalgar, whose smoky glare, and indications of turmoil and slaughter, were supremely to my mind. Red, however, by some process of mistaken zeal, I came to regard as inimical to the party to-119- which, as catechumen, I belonged. I had not then a very copious vocabulary at my command; but I soon indicated my convictions by screeching like a young eagle at the most innocent auction-flag that ever floated out of a Boston door of a sunny morning, or flushing with unmistakable wrath at a casual visitor who bore a trace of that outrageous color in anything worn or carried. It was long, indeed, before I was persuaded to transfer my misguided sentiment to A.D. 1775, and to believe that the neighboring rebel had no especial affinity with the hue in question. Prior to my memorable journey to Virginia, I had spent a few months in camp the year before. A slight epidemic ran the rounds of the tents, and took in ours. The only recollection which survives is a vivid one of neighboring trees, and a distant hill, visible as I lay facing the narrow door; a view which included the ever-flitting figure of the sentinel, his steady, silent tread, musket on shoulder, and the kind rustic face in profile, which turned, ever and anon, smilingly-120- about, like the moon at her merriest. That welcome shadow which fell before him in the broad light was cut down in the ranks at Malvern Hill. But my earliest real experiences began in '64. Hostilities had been some weeks suspended; yet the headquarters of a Southern regiment lay within gun-shot, and thither my delighted terrors reverted. Was Jeff Davis lurking on the other bank of the stream? Might they creep over by night and fall upon us? If I should be allowed to venture alone into the thicket, would the fiery eyes of the "reb" glare upon me? Please could I settle difficulties with any little boy in the opposing camp? in the admirable Roman fashion, of whose precedent I was yet ignorant. How they would laugh, those bearded and epauletted guests of our exceptionally elegant log-house! And how uproariously they often planted me, regardless of ink and paper, on the table, and toasted me in some cordial beverage until I pranced in glee! -121- Be it humbly admitted that the freedom I enjoyed among officers and men of several organizations, and the indulgence which they showed, tended not to improve my scarce seraphic disposition. More than once was I called to order for some breach of discipline, the most venial of which were cutting the tent-strings, hanging about the sentry and impeding his progress with efforts to relieve him of his musket, or concealing the drum-sticks to postpone an anticipated signal. The dark-eyed young man to whom I owed allegiance— "Ay me! while life did last that league was tender," —would exclaim, with the awful sense of a newly acquired dignity: "Disobey a colonel if you dare!" and threaten me, not with vulgar deprivations of supper, or trivial captivity in closets, but with a veritable court-martial for my predestined doom, when I should be so bad again. Our family retinue consisted of a cook of jolly and rubicund exterior, and a pleasant lad, who,-122- among his other duties, cared for my glossy-coated Arabian, and led him about like a circus-master, while I "snatched a fearful joy" upon his back. The memory of the former personage is embalmed in the fragrance of roast beef and mashed potatoes, edibles which he announced frequently with a melodramatic flourish and intonation never to be forgotten. Burly old Bush! He had a quaint way of delivering his best things, stans pede in uno, with a sidelong light of the eye to let you into the secret of his rich hyperboles. Another favorite of mine was an adjutant, owner of two sociable King Charles spaniels, which I was permitted to endow with portions of my supper, and which I visited as regularly as a country lover his sweetheart, when the general evening relaxation set in. Captain J., too, stern, reticent, and little popular with his men, was strangely gentle to one that rode on his arm, and fell asleep, many a time, at his knee. He was a fascinating story-teller, and held my fancy longer than any soldier-playmate of his-123- day. He had the absolute confidence of my infallible young man. The old figure, "true as steel," was made for him. They forbore to tell me till long afterwards, that he fell, shot through and through, at the Wilderness, with his face to the foe. He had a brother, a mere boy, whose sunny hair I can remember under the military cap. But him I may come across any hour, prosperous and sunny-haired still. The only other figures plain to my mind's eye are F., the sweet-mannered gentleman who took care of me in a long railway journey; S., the surgeon, maker of jokes and of whistles; W., who used to sing "Malbrook s'en va-t en guerre," with immense satisfaction to himself, at least; and C., an inveterate patriot, who gave his good right arm for the asking, at touch of a cannon-ball. During that stay there was much gayety and little mishap. My elders rode off to many a hunt, or held tournaments with all the tilting and fair ladies' smiles incidental, nay, essential, to their success. Twice, in the midst of less-124- serious things, the men were called to sleep under arms. I can very well remember, another time, ominous talk of Mosby and his guerillas, and a cloud of dust on the horizon which seemed to betoken his restless squadron. But these were variations on a winter full of pastime, and uncommonly clement and merry. The campaign that followed was so arduous, and involved such heavy losses, that it is cheering to remember the hearty voices of old play-fellows during that genial holiday, to take down the books they used to read from their anchorage on a shelf, and to treasure up the gay incidents that brightened their tragic story. I recall a waiter of exceeding blackness who impressed me in a Washington hotel, and a sandwich, uncommonly sharp with mustard, obtained on the homeward journey at the Baltimore station, where the city seemed to turn out to feed the very hungry in my person; and nothing at all further, beyond these unspiritual details, till the war drew to a close. For then my best-beloved soldier came home. He was terribly-125- shattered with suffering and fatigue,—how irrevocably hurt I knew not. If "the stars had fallen from heaven to light upon his shoulders," the thunderbolt had fallen too; and the general's insignia was sealed with a minie-ball. After a series of escapes thrilling enough for a dime novel, after a plunge, horse and man, into a ravine, a solitary stampede in a swamp, the loss of a scabbard and a patch of clothing by the familiar brushing of a bomb, and a hole through a cap neatly made by an attentive sharp-shooter, the charmed bullets had hit at last. It was my earliest glimpse of the painful side of the war, when he stood worn, pale, drooping, waiting recognition with a weary smile, at the door of the sunny little house we all loved. Instantly, heedless of any persuasive arms or voices, I slipped headlong, like a startled seal from the rocks, and disappeared under the table. Such was my common mode of receiving strangers; and here, indeed, was a most bewildering and appalling stranger. In vain my soldier called me by the most endearing names; even the-126- whimsical nomenclature of camp-life failed to convince me that this was no imposition. I shut my disbelieving eyes, and crouched on the carpet. For two long hours I did not capitulate, and then but warily. What was this spectre with whom I must not frolic, on whose shoulders I must not perch, whose head, bound in bandages, I must not handle? What was he, in place of my old-time comrade, blithe and boyish, and how could he expect to inherit the confidence I had given to quite another sort of person? Unhallowed Dixie! How it had cozened me out of what I prized most! The wound that jarred upon me, I quickly came to consider as an admirable distinction, and altogether proper and desirable. I longed to be shot, in the interests of my native land; and presently, "by the foot of Pharaoh!" so I was, thanks to a pistol in the hands of a maladroit little neighbor. I underwent the ether-sponge and the knife, and my chubby cheek displayed with pride the reduced fac-simile of the parental scar. It was my day of jubilee, ere-127- the cicatrice had vanished, when I might lean against that elder veteran's knee, and recount Munchausen-like tales of "our" prowess in the war. I remember the shock of national loss when the President was assassinated; and, after that, the coming and going of army-faces,—some strange, some familiar. It was like Virginia once more, to hear the band march, serenading, up the quiet street; to recognize hearty voices at the garden gate; to command my most dutiful to "shoulder arms!" and "right wheel!" and, waking from slumber, to creep to the head of the stairs, and surreptitiously greet dear M. and B. and broad-shouldered A., as they passed below. Not only these my childish fancy saw, but there seemed to gather with them many, many others, bearing names that sometime had been cited in my presence from the bright annals of Massachusetts; and out of their syllables I framed a ghostly pageant, following ever, like a breath of wind, close on the footsteps of their-128- living peers. The dream-cohorts, too, smiled up at me, and swept by. "Trenmor came, the tall form of vanished years, his blue hosts behind him." I went to camp several times thereafter, though never with my own brigade; but having outlived its enchantment, inasmuch as I were now conscious of "playing soldier" merely, I took a stand on my war record, and decided to withdraw from the militia. That was long ago. But the old prepossessions are immortal. The smell of powder is sweeter to me than Oriental lilies. I resent the doctrine of absorption into the restful bosom of Brahma. An it please you, I aspire to Mars. I used to love the sight of those shabby warriors, dolefully bewailing their forlorn condition, and mildly suggesting their eligibility to a bounteous dinner, who prowled, in long succession, about our side door. I thrilled with indignation at their counterfeited wrongs. I brought them my sweetmeats, to throw a halo about their sober meal. Do I not take kindly-129- yet to the battered coat bedizened with bright buttons, on the back of M., grimy vender of coal? Do I not encourage the handsome charges of our grocer, solely because I know his antecedents, and can trace his limp to Ball's Bluff? It was an article of belief, in my Utopian childhood, that a soldier could do no wrong. It went hard with me, in my eleventh year, to catch a glimpse of the silver Maltese cross, the badge of the impeccable Fifth Corps, on the breast of a scowling state prisoner, the hero "shorn of his beams." His arm no longer rested on a howitzer; he wielded a crowbar. He might have hallowed Libby or Andersonville with his passing, and now,—O Absalom! The warden, the benignant warden, himself of the "trade of war," did he know what he was doing, when he assured me that the cells were peopled with ex-Federal knights? Men have tried vainly to restore the lost completeness of the glorious statue of Melos. Even so with a broken faith. What it might have been is out of the province of diviners. <hr /> -130- <ANTIMG src="images/header13.jpg" width-obs="600" height-obs="144" alt="header" title="header" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2

Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.