AWAKENINGS
"'Tis far off;
And rather like a dream than an assurance
That my remembrance warrants."--SHAKESPEARE.
With the passage of the sharp-shooters into Virginia at Falling Waters, the campaign was at an end. The pontoon bridge was cut. We marched a mile from the river and halted; it was five o'clock. At night we received two days' rations; I ate mine at one meal.
On the 15th the division moved to Bunker Hill. I gave out. Starvation and a full meal had been too much for me. I suffered greatly, not from fatigue, but from illness. I stepped out of ranks, went fifty yards into the thicket, and lay down under a tree.
That the enemy was following was likely enough; I hardly cared. I shrank from captivity, but I thought of death without fearing it.
My mind was in a peculiar attitude toward the war. We had heard of the surrender of Vicksburg. Not even the shadow of demoralization had touched Lee's army in consequence of Gettysburg; but now men talked despairingly--with Vicksburg gone the war seemed hopeless.
Under the tree was peace. Company H had gone on. Company A had gone on. What interest had they in me or I in them? I had fever.
The sounds of the troops marching on the road reached me in the thicket. A few moments ago I was marching on the road. I was one of fifty thousand; they have gone on.
Here, under this tree, I am one. But what one? I came I know not whence; I go I know not whither. Let me go. What matter where? My Captain has gone.
Perhaps I wander in mind. I have fever.
At one time I think I am going to die, and I long for death. The life I live is too difficult.
And the South is hopeless. Better death than subjection. The Captain has not died too soon.
What a strong, noble, far-seeing man! I shall never forget him. I shall never see his like, I envy him. He has resolved all doubt; I am still enchained to a fate that drags me on and on into ... into what? What does the Captain think now? Does he see me lying here? Can he put thoughts into my mind? Can he tell me who I am? What does he think now of slavery? of State rights? of war?
He is at peace; he knows that peace is better. Yes, peace is better. He is at peace. Would I also were at peace.
I slept, and when I awoke my strength had returned. I crept to the road, fearing to see Federal troops. Neither Confederate nor Federal was in sight. I tramped steadily southward and caught up at Bunker Hill.
By the 24th of July we had crossed the Blue Ridge and were approaching Culpeper.
During the months of August and September we were in camp near Orange Court-House.
My distaste for the service became excessive, unaccountably, I should have thought, but for the fact that my interest in life had so greatly suffered because of the Captain's death.
My friend was gone. I wished for nothing definite. I had no purpose. To fight for the South was my duty, and I felt it, but I had no relish for fighting. Fighting was absurd.
The Captain had said, on the last night of his life, that he imagined General Lee and perhaps General McClellan felt great reluctance in giving orders that would result in the death of Americans at the hands of Americans. I remembered that at Gettysburg, in the act of pulling the trigger, I had found no hatred in me toward the man I was trying to kill. I wondered if the men generally were without hate. I believed they were; there might be exceptions.
We had lost General Pender at Gettysburg. We were now Wilcox's division. We had camp guard and picket duty.
Since the Captain's death the battalion of sharp-shooters had been dissolved, and I was back in Company H. The life was monotonous. Some conscripts were received into each company. Many of the old men would never return to us. Some were lying with two inches of earth above their breasts; some were in the distant South on crutches they must always use.
The spirit of the regiment was unbroken. The men were serious. Captain Barnwell read prayers at night in the company.
I thought much but disconnectedly, and was given to solitude. I made an object of myself. My condition appealed to my sympathy. Where had there ever been such an experience? I thought of myself as Berwick, and pitied him. I talked to him, mentally, calling him you.
Dr. Frost was beyond my reach. I wanted to talk to him. He had been promoted, and was elsewhere.
At night I had dreams, and they were strange dreams. For many successive nights I could see myself, and always I thought of the "me" that I saw as a different person from the "me" that saw.
My health suffered greatly, but I did not report to the surgeon.
Somehow I began to feel for my unknown friends. They had long ago given me up for dead.
Perhaps, however, some were still hoping against certainty. My mind was filling with fancies concerning them--concerning her. How I ever began to think of such, a possibility I could not know.
My fancies embraced everything. My family might be rich and powerful and intelligent; it, might be humble, even being the strong likelihood was that it was neither, but was of medium worth.
My fancy--it began in a dream--pictured the face of a woman, young and sweet weeping for me. I wept for her and for myself. Who was she? Was she all fancy?
Since I had been in Company H, I had never spoken to a woman except the nurses in the hospitals. I had seen many women in Richmond and elsewhere. No face of my recollection fitted with the face of my dream. None seemed it's equal in sweetness and dignity.
I had written love letters at the dictation of one or two of the men. I had read love stories. I felt as the men had seemed to feel, and as the lovers in the stories had seemed to feel.
No one knew, since the Captain's death, even the short history of myself that I knew. I grew morose. The men avoided me, all but one--Jerry Butler. Somehow I found myself messing with him. He was a great forager, and kept us both in food. The rations were almost regular, but the fat bacon and mouldy meal turned my stomach. The other men were in good health, and ate heartily of the coarse food given them. Butler had bacon and meal to sell.
The men wondered what was the matter with me. Their wonder did not exceed my own. Butler invited my confidence, but I could not decide to say a word; one word would have made it necessary to tell him all I knew. He would have thought me insane.
I did my duty mechanically, serving on camp guard and on picket regularly, but feeling interest in nothing beyond my own inner self.
At times the battle of Manassas and the spot in the forest would recur to me with great vividness and power. Where and what was my original regiment? I pondered over the puzzle, and I had much time in which to ponder. I remembered that Dr. Frost had told me that if ever I got the smallest clew to my past, I must determine then and there to never let it go.
Sometimes instants of seeming recollection would flash by and be gone before I could define them. They left no result but doubt--sometimes fear. Doubts of the righteousness of war beset me--not of this war, but war. I had a vague notion that in some hazy past I had listened to strong reasons against war. Were they from the Captain? No; he had been against war, but he had fought for the South with relish--they did not come from him. None the less--perhaps I ought to say therefore--did they more strongly impress me, for I indistinctly knew that they came from some one who not only gave precept but also lived example.
Who was he? I might not hope to know.
Added to these doubts concerning war, there were in my mind at times strong desires for a better life--a life more mental. The men were good men--serious, religious men. Nothing could be said against them; but I felt that I was not entirely of them, that they had little thought beyond their personal duties, which they were willing always to do provided their officers clearly prescribed them, and their personal attachments, in which I could have no part. Of course there were exceptions.
I felt in some way that though the men avoided me, they yet had a certain respect for me--for my evident suffering, I supposed. Yet an incident occurred which showed me that their respect was not mere pity. The death of our Captain had left a vacancy in Company H. A lieutenant was to be elected by the men. The natural candidate was our highest non-commissioned officer, who was favoured by the company's commander. The officer in command did not, however, use influence upon the men to secure votes. My preference for the position was Louis Bellot, who had been dangerously wounded at Manassas, and who, we heard, would soon return to the company. I took up his cause, and, without his knowledge, secured enough votes to elect him.
On the 8th of October we advanced to the river. For me it was a miserable march. My mind was in torture, and my strength was failing. Doubts of the righteousness of war had changed to doubts of this war. It was not reason that caused these doubts. Reason told me that the invaders should be driven back. The South had not been guilty of plunging the two countries into war; the South had tried to avert war. The only serious question which my mind could raise upon the conduct of the South was: Had we sufficiently tried to avert war? Had we done all that we could? I did not know, and I doubted.
As we advanced, I looked upon long lines of infantry and cannon marching on to battle, and I thought of all this immense preparation for wholesale slaughter of our own countrymen with horror in my heart. Why could not this war have been avoided? I did not know, but I felt that an overwhelming responsibility attached somewhere, for it was not likely that all possibilities of peace had been exhausted by our people.
As to the Yankees, I did not then think of them. Their crimes and their responsibilities were their own. I had nothing to do with them; but I was part of the South, and the Southern cause was mine, and upon me also weighed the crime of unjust war if it were unjust upon our side.
The thought of the Captain gave me great relief. He had shown me the cause of the South; he had died for it; it could not be wrong. I looked in the faces of the officers and men around me and read patient endurance for the right. I was comforted. I laughed at myself and said, Berwick, you are getting morbid; you are bilious; go to the doctor and get well of your fancies.
Then the thought of the Northern cause came to me. Do not the Federal soldiers also think their cause just? If not, what sort of men are they? They must believe they are right. And one side or the other must be wrong. Which is it? They are millions, and we are millions. Millions of men are joined together to perpetrate wrong while believing that they are right? Can such a condition be?
Even supposing that most men are led in their beliefs by other men in whose judgment they have confidence, are the leaders of either side impure?
No; if they are wrong, they are not wrong intentionally. Men may differ conscientiously upon state policy, even upon ethics.
Then must I conclude that the North, believing itself right, is wrong in warring upon the South? What is the North fighting for? For union and for abolition of slavery; but primarily for union.
And is union wrong? Not necessarily wrong.
What is the South, fighting for? For State rights and for slavery; but principally for State rights.
And is the doctrine of State rights wrong? Not necessarily wrong.
Then, may both North, and South be right?
The question startled me. I had heard that idea before. Where? Not in the army, I was certain. I tried hard to remember, but had to confess failure. The result of my thought was only the suggestion that both of two seemingly opposite thoughts might possibly be true.
On that night I dreamed of my childhood. My dream took me to a city, where I was at school under a teacher who was my friend, and at whose house I now saw him. The man's face was so impressed upon my mind that when I awoke I retained his features. All day of the 9th, while we were crossing the Rapidan and continuing our march through Madison Court-House and on through Culpeper, I thought of the face of my dream. I thought of little else. Food was repugnant. I had fever, and was full of fancies. I was surprised by the thought that I had twice already been ill in the army. Once was at the time of the battle of Fredericksburg; but when and where was the other? I did not know, yet I was sure that I had been sick in the army before I joined Captain Haskell's company, and before I ever saw Dr. Frost.
Long did I wonder over this, and not entirely without result. Suddenly I connected the face of my dream with my forgotten illness. But that was all. My old tutor was a doctor and had attended me. I felt sure of so much.
Then I wondered if I could by any means find the Doctor's name. Some name must be connected with the title. That he was Dr. Some-one I had no doubt. I tried to make Dr. Frost's face fit the face of my dream, but it would not fit. Besides, I knew that Dr. Frost had never been my teacher.
We had gone into bivouac about one o'clock, some two miles north of Madison Court-House. This advance was over ground that was not unfamiliar to me. The mountains in the distance and the hills near by, the rivers and the roads, the villages and the general aspect of this farming country, had been impressed upon my mind first when alone I hurried forward to join Jackson's command on its famous march around Pope; and, later, when we had returned from the Shenandoah Valley after Sharpsburg, and more recently still, on our retreat from Pennsylvania.
What General Lee's purposes were now, caused much speculation in the camp. It was evident that, if the bulk of the army had not as yet uncovered Richmond, our part of it was very far to the left. We might be advancing to the Valley, or we might be trying to get to Meade's rear, just as Jackson had moved around Pope in sixty-two; another day might show. The most of the men believed that we were on a flank march similar to Jackson's, and some of them went so far as to say that both Ewell's and Hills corps were now near Madison Court-House.
I felt but little interest in the talk of the men. My mind was upon myself. I gave my comrades no encouragement to speak with me, but lay apart, moody and feverish. Occasionally my thought, it is true, reverted to the situation of the army, but only for a moment. Something was about to be done; but if I could have controlled events, I would not have known what to choose. One thing, however, began to loom clear through the dim future: if we were working to get to Meade's rear, that general was in far greater danger than he had been at Gettysburg. With Lee at Manassas Junction, between Meade and Washington, the Army of the Potomac would yield from starvation, or fight at utter disadvantage; and there was no army to help near by, as McClellan's at Alexandria in sixty-two.
The night brought no movement.