CHAPTER XV.
It was a starlit summer night following a day of moist, debilitating heat. It had rained at dawn, and then, as the clouds of heaven broke away and went sailing off towards the distant heights on the western horizon, the sun had poured hotly down on open fields and sodden red roads and long rows of wet, white tentage, veiling the landscape with miniature clouds from the teeming earth. All day long soldiers innumerable lolled about the camps and thronged the sentry-posts that lined the roadway, chaffing the passers-by or dickering with darky vendors of fruit, cakes, and pies,—amateur soldiers were these, as any veteran could tell at a glance, some in gayly trimmed regimentals, some in antiquated tail-coats, more in fancy jackets, few in serviceable garb, and nearly all with their hands in their pockets. A bored, jaded, time-killing lot they looked. The ground was too wet and muddy for drill. The first flush of patriotic fervor had worn away. They had rushed to the front at the earliest call, expectant of tremendous doings, and, except the street-fight of the Sixth Massachusetts in Baltimore and a few shots heard at the picket-posts, there had been no taste of battle. They were the three-months men, mainly State militia, hurried down to hold Washington against attack, while the volunteers, the "three-years men" of the war, were organizing and drilling behind them. Their three months had nearly expired, and most of them were eager to go home so long as there was nothing going on at the front. Some, indeed, were ready to go anyhow, many with the promise of commissions in the volunteers, many with the resolve to re-enlist for the war, but all anxious to visit home and friends and families and get a more deliberate start than that initial impulse which sent them forward the latter part of April, burdened with knapsacks they knew not how to pack or wear and guns that they had never shot.
And here, along the main pike to Fairfax and Centreville, one on each side of the way, a New York and a New England regiment of militia had been swapping comments and criticisms most of the afternoon, badgering each other when there came no one else to bear the brunt of their shafts, and mischievously turning with one accord on passers-by whose lack of rank or escort suggested improbability of effective resentment.
But as the day wore on and the mud thickened in the middle of the road, and staff-officers, orderlies, and ambulances passing by began to veer out to right and left and encroach on the sentry-posts and the grinning groups that lay just back of them, "the boys" waxed more savage and sarcastic. They had occupied those camps full six weeks, and thought they owned the neighborhood. Back towards Washington, on every rising ground, the red embankments showed where earthworks had been thrown up to defend the front. Along the beautifully wooded slopes to the north and west the fair contours were scarred and defaced with freshly spaded parapets, and through gaping embrasures here and there frowned the black muzzles of the Union guns. Over a rounded knoll half a mile to the northwest of the camp of the New-Yorkers the stars and stripes hung lazily from a white staff, and there were the quarters of a division commander, whose aides and orderlies had been oddly busy all day long, responding, according to rank, with a frown of annoyance or a grin of amusement, to the hail of comment or question from the loungers along the line. But at four in the afternoon a whole squadron of regular cavalry, with high-collared, yellow-trimmed jackets and jaunty forage-caps, came silently squashing by, taking the mud and the middle of the road as a matter of course, and the chaff and comment as of no consequence whatever. Hardly had their flapping silken guidons disappeared around a bend of the pike three hundred yards farther to the west than there came jogging into view from the rear a long column of horses, gun-carriages, and caissons, the cannoneers sitting motionless on the chests, the drivers carefully guiding their powerful teams. A wiry captain, followed by his bugler, came trotting forward, surveyed the mud that interposed along the defile between the two camps, nodded cheerily to the "Going out ahead, Cap?" sung out to him by the nearest New-Yorkers, and signalled with gauntleted hand to the leading chief of section to incline to the right and take the turf at the roadside; and so they, too, went clinking steadily by, twelve long teams of six horses each, hauling six bronze "Napoleon" guns, heavy fellows, and six loaded caissons. Behind them came their forge and battery wagon, a mule-drawn baggage-wagon or two, and one of the famous light batteries of the regular army had passed through the thronging lines of the State militia, who emptied their tents to see the procession and to hurl question after question as to the meaning of it all. And this was only a beginning, for right behind it came the flaunting red silk guidon of another battery, differing from the first only in that the men wore red-trimmed jackets instead of dark-blue blouses, and that the cannoneers were skipping along the roadside or squashing through the mud, their captain holding sternly, even on a short march, to one of the rules of the light artillery, that the horses should have to pull as little weight as possible. And no sooner was he fairly by and his men well within the lane of the militia camps than the storm of fun and chaff rose to uproar, silenced only when the tail of the column had passed beyond. By this time, too, the officers were coming out to take a look. Then there rose a burst of martial music and a sound of cheering up the roadway, and, preceded by a band, there rode into sight some mounted officers, behind whom gleamed the sloping barrels of the arms of a battalion of infantry; and now New York and New England dropped cards, checkers, or chat, and the last laggards of both regiments come streaming to line the roadway and scan these bold invaders. Even the colonels mount their horses and ride in among their men, and as the music ceases and the regiment picks its way gingerly through the mud, the cry goes up from the eastward skirts of camp, "The Fire Zouaves!" and that cry is taken up and passed from lip to lip, and order and discipline, even of these primitive war days, all are forgotten, and as the long column comes winding down the gentle slope in the afternoon sunshine, and bright bits of scarlet glow through the sombre tone of gray, and the old familiar fire shirts are recognized, as one man the New-Yorkers set up the welcoming fireman chorus of the streets of Gotham, and the welkin rings with shouts of "Hi, hi, hi!" mingled with rapturous cheers. Prompt comes the answer from a thousand lusty throats. Caps and hats are tossed in air, ay, and, as the column and the colors mingle, canteens, tossed from bystanders to marchers, are pressed to thirsty lips and passed from hand to hand. Officers and men alike, militia and volunteers, the soldiers of Manhattan are shouting greeting and rejoicing, and the next moment, despite all efforts of the senior officers to stop it, the Zouaves are forcibly seized and dragged from the marching ranks, hugged and hauled and slapped on arm and chest and leg and shoulder, wherever knapsack, blanket, and cartridge-box do not interpose below the neck, and men come running with more canteens, and Zouaves are lugged bodily away to the neighboring sutler's tent, and when, finally, the last unmolested files of the Fire Zouaves have gone, cap-waving and cheering, on in the trail of the batteries, the camp of their fellow-townsmen is filled with stragglers who are only recovered an hour later through the medium of strong patrols.
But meantime the batteries have "gone into park," unhitched and unharnessed back of the Virginia farm-house just beyond the bend. The Zouaves have trailed off into an open field between them and the tents of the New-Yorkers. Staff-officers have conducted the commanders to the designated spots for their bivouac. Two other regiments of the new volunteers have followed, marching somewhat wearily past the now thoroughly roused camps of the militia, and as the sun sinks to the west and heavy knapsacks are unslung and arms stacked in the fields and sentry-posts established, everybody begins to realize among the tents of the earlier comers that a move to the front is in contemplation, just when they were counting on a homeward move to the rear.
And now as the tattoo drums are bracing up, a score of officers are gathered about the tents of the New York colonel, chatting over the probabilities. With them are two of the New England officers, one a grave, taciturn captain who has listened for half an hour without a word. By several officers the idea has been advanced that if a forward move is intended in response to the "on to Richmond" cry of the press, many of the men will demur. They were called into service in mid-April; it is now mid-July. Many of them are clerks who will lose their positions, married men who have made no provision for their families, staid citizens who from sense of duty sprang to the front at the first summons, so as to help hold the fort until the nation could organize its army of volunteers. Of regulars at the time there were less than ten thousand, scattered from Maine to Oregon, from Mackinaw to the Gulf of Mexico. Now the first levies of the volunteers were pouring in. Here already in front of Washington were regiments from New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Ohio, even far away Wisconsin. Why should the government require of the State militia, rallied at the capital solely to defend, that it should march away southward to attack an enemy in position? Similar views were being expressed in other militia camps, said the speaker, and the colonel looked worried.
At last he turned to the stalwart, silent captain from the regiment over the way.
"What do your people say, Captain Stark?" he asks.
"Nothing," is the answer, as the tall, bearded man puffs meditatively at the brier-root pipe, his head resting on his hand, his elbow on his knee.
"Well, you were mustered in about the same date we were. Don't some of your boys talk of going home, and wanting to?"
"Not—audibly," says Stark.
"Well, they must be thinking a lot. They are fixed pretty much as ours are," hazards a field-officer.
"Possibly," says Stark, tapping out the ashes on the leg of the camp-stool. "But we made no stipulation as to the duty to be required of us. We tendered our services and expect to take our chances."
"Do you mean your boys would all go, no matter how far south they were ordered?" asks a young officer who has already had much to say about his own.
"My men will go wherever they're ordered," answers Stark, briefly. "I haven't any boys, except one, and he's so much of a man I never found him out till we got here."
"That brown-eyed young fellow I've seen round your tent?" queries the colonel, deeming it wise to change the tenor of the talk.
"The very one."
"How'd you come to take him? He's too light built for heavy work. He's outgrown his strength and he don't look eighteen," says the major, glad enough to shift implied criticism to the rival regiment.
"Well, his employers said he was worth three men around the shop, and he was bound to go. The inspectors passed him, and there he was in my company."
"Looks all legs," hazards the colonel.
"And is all head," says Stark. "That's why he's always studying tactics and regulations round my tent instead of fooling away time with the company. There goes tattoo. Good-night, gentlemen," and the New-Englander rises and presently strides away.
Over within the lines of his own regiment Stark passes line after line of company streets where the men are skylarking or chatting, waiting for the "fall in" signal at the close of the sounding of tattoo. The drums and fifes are hammering noisily down along the color line as he reaches his own company and his first sergeant comes forward and, saluting, says, "Did young Lawton find you, sir?"
"No. What did he want?"
"Permission to go out of camp, sir. Said he knew an officer in the Fire Zouaves. The lieutenant signed a pass, and he took it to the colonel, but he wished the captain should know."
"Very well. Form your company," says the captain.
The long wailing notes of the tattoo and the roll of the drums came abruptly to an end. The silent, shadowy double rank stood to attention, and, lantern in hand, the sergeant called his roll. Two names met with no response besides those of men on guard. Two men were reported absent. One of them came on the run as the company broke ranks.
"I was with Lawton, sir," said he, to his soldierly commander. "They let us into the Zouave camp all right, but didn't want to let us out. Lawton couldn't get away at all. As many as twenty of those red-shirted fellows nabbed him, and there he is a prisoner."
"In fun, I suppose?"
"Why, yes. They seem to know him well and be mighty glad to see him. I told my brother, who is in one of their companies, that Lawton must come home with me or he'd get into trouble, but the crowd just laughed."
"Very well. Go to your tent," said Stark, and went to his own. There on the little camp-desk was a note which he tore open and read. Briefly it said that Lawton had recognized some old friends among the Fire Zouaves, and had sought the captain to get permission to go and see them early in the evening. Even though the lieutenant took the responsibility and signed the pass, and the colonel too, he wanted his captain to know whither he had gone and that he would be back at tattoo.
But he wasn't back at tattoo, nor at taps. Not until eleven o'clock did Stark hear the sound of the young soldier's voice. Lawton was scratching at the tent-flap.
"What is it?" shouted the captain.
"It's Lawton, sir,—come to report return. I was held by those men, quite a lot of them, and simply couldn't make them understand about our discipline."
"Never mind," interposed Stark. "Go to bed now and get all the sleep you can. You may need it;" and the captain rolled over on his cot, anxious to try his own prescription.
But the late comer hesitated. For a moment he stood irresolute. Plainly there was something which he wanted to say to his commander. The officer of the day, lantern in hand, came along at the moment, his red sash crossed upon his broad chest. He raised the lantern and peered at the tall young soldier, whose coat and trousers looked as though they had been made for a shorter lad, and the face that was revealed seemed white and full of trouble.
"I was just speaking to my captain, sir," explained the young soldier, and the officer of the day went briskly one way, the soldier, dejectedly, another.
"Homesick, and wants to go and see his mother," said the officer of the day to himself. "Well, he needn't waste time pleading with Stark. Might as well talk to a stone."
