V. A FLAG OF TRUCE.
Our regiment has left its pleasant camp near Fort Henry, and has crossed the Tennessee and encamped in a small field about three miles above the fort. I happened to be in command when we halted here, and named the camp after our colonel.
It is a rainy day in camp—since morning it has been rain, rain, rain. The camp seems deserted; save here and there you see a man, with blanket drawn close over head and shoulders, plod heavily and slowly through the mud. The horses stand with heads down, and drooping ears, stock still—nothing moves but the rain, and that straight down. There is no light umbrella, nor rattling omnibus in camp; nor dry stockings, nor warm fire to find, at home. The tents are tired of shedding rain, and it oozes through; there were no spades to trench them, and it runs under. There is water above, and mud beneath, and wet everywhere. No fun in soldiering now.
An officer says, "Captain, you will report immediately for orders." So I wrap my blanket round me, and toil over to the colonel's tent. The colonel is a young man, but an old soldier, and has the only fire in camp. It is close to the tent door—no danger on such a day of the canvas catching fire—the smoke occasionally blows in, but so does the heat, and the colonel says he will keep it up all night. He pitched his tent, too, the moment he arrived, not waiting for the clouds, and did it well. His alone is comfortable—so much for being a "regular," and learning your lessons from experience.
The colonel hands me the order, which runs thus—"To-morrow, Captain N. will proceed with a flag of truce to Paris, and remove our wounded, left there at the recent engagement. Should they be held as prisoners of war, he is authorized to make an exchange, and will take with him the surgeon and an ambulance, and four of his own men."
The colonel then advises me to see the officer who commanded the late expedition to Paris, and learn from him the names of the wounded, and the roads. I go to his tent and find that he is sick, and has secured a little hospital stove, which puffs and blows like a locomotive baby. There is also an old gentleman there, whose son was taken prisoner by us at Paris. He has brought in the body of an officer who died of his wounds, and he hopes to procure the release of his son, now on his way to St. Louis. Mr. Clokes lives on the Paris road, and it is arranged that he ride back with the surgeon in our ambulance.
I plod back to our tent; the water has run in, and it is ankle-deep in mud. Though the sun is hardly down, my two lieutenants have gone to bed, for there is no place to sit up, and nothing to see, or hear, or do. I may as well turn in, too; but there rises a serious question. My boots are mud from top to bottom, and wringing wet. If I pull them off, I may not be able to pull them on, and a man cannot carry a flag of truce without boots. If I leave them on, I shall have to go to bed without my feet, for it will never do to put that mass of mud into your blankets, and they feel like lumps of ice now. What shall I do? I will pull them off, and will get up before reveille (an hour, if necessary) and pull them on again. So I pull off the boots, and lie down in my wet clothes, and wrap myself in my wet blanket, and remember that I have not had anything since a scant noonday dinner.
You get hungry in camp, and must be fed. Our camp chest is packed up under a tree, but on the other side of the tent is a pan with some stewed goose and corn bread. I cannot step into the mud unless I struggle into those boots again; but near me is an axe. I slip down to the end of the cot, and, with the axe, fish the pan of goose out of the little lake it stands in. The unhappy bird swims in a gravy of rainwater, and the corn bread is soaking wet; plates and forks are in the camp chest; but I have my pocket-knife, and with it eat a saltless supper.
My little German orderly comes in after awhile, and, giving a soldier's salute with great ceremony notwithstanding the rain, says: