“Where is the regiment?”
“Lying at Upton’s Hill. Come—you’ll go with me!”
“I might get into trouble,” I said, wavering. “I only have a pass till half-past seven, and if I should go away and stay whole days——”
“O, pshaw! They wouldn’t care. You have no duty to perform there.”
“No, but——”
“O, come,” he urged—all I wanted was a little urging—“the boys would be so glad to see you! You don’t know how they felt about your losing a leg at Antietam!”
This argument completely disarmed me. I had not been with the regiment since I was carried away from it in the smoke of battle, and, O, I knew that the boys would be glad to see me! No one who has not been a soldier knows how dear one’s comrades are to him! And especially his messmates—those with whom he has slept many a time on the cold ground, and under the same narrow tent; those with whom he has drank from the same canteen, or eaten from the same scanty dish! The attachment that grows up among companions in arms is like no other. It is not like paternal or fraternal love; it is not like the love of lovers; but it is as fond, as deep, and as lasting!
I accompanied my comrade to Washington, thence to Upton’s Hill, and saw the “boys;” and I think I never enjoyed so much true happiness, in the same length of time, as I did during that pleasant visit. I never thought of my being absent without leave, till I neared Philadelphia again. Then I began to wonder if “any thing would be done with me” on my return to the hospital. I tried to persuade myself that there was no danger of any thing of the sort, but something would keep whispering to me that I was going to “get into trouble.”
I arrived at the hospital again just one week from the day I had left. The roll was regularly called, both in the morning and in the evening, and I could not suppress an involuntary shudder, as I thought of the fourteen roll-calls I had evidently missed, and of the fourteen black marks that were surely placed, by this time, opposite the honest, unassuming name of Smith, John.
However, I put on a bold face, walked up the hospital steps, paid no attention to the guard, who said, “Where the deuce have you been all this time?” walked in, and calmly reported myself to the surgeon.