The fact of the matter is that Shorty was getting "too big for his boots," as Colonel Flint began to say. He was indulged and spoiled to such an extent by guards and sentries around Chain Bridge, greeted so cordially by generals and colonels, and hailed with such confident familiarity by the line, that the youngster's head was probably not a little inflated. He was getting "cheeky," said a spectacled adjutant-general of a neighboring brigade. "He talks too much," said staff-officers about their own head-quarters. "He'll run up against somebody some day that'll take the shine off him if he isn't more careful with that big horse of his," said a certain few, who hated a horseman on general principles; and this proved a true prediction.
The big bay ridden by Shorty had a very hard mouth, and when once he got going it was a most difficult thing to stop him. Galloping about the neighborhood of Chain Bridge, where almost everybody knew the youngster as the general's orderly, it made little difference (although an irate Green Mountain boy of Baldy Smith's brigade did threaten to bayonet him if he ever galloped over his post again); so, too, on the road to Washington, where permanent guards were placed at different points. But, to put an end to straggling and visiting town without authority, the provost-marshal had taken to sending patrols here, there, and everywhere in Georgetown and Washington with orders to halt every soldier and examine his pass. The regular infantry, now recruited to a war footing, were assigned, much to their disgust, to patrol duty. A number of new regiments of regulars were being raised. A number of the New York Seventh and other crack regiments of the militia reappeared at the front with the uniforms and commissions of lieutenants in the regular army. It even happened that not a few young fellows who had never even served in the militia, and who knew nothing whatever of duty or discipline of any kind, had secured through family or political influence, which the administration was glad to cultivate, commissions denied to better men, and these young fellows were now wearing their first swords, sashes, and shoulder-straps in the onerous duty of running down the merry-makers from surrounding camps, who, dodging the guards, had managed to make a way to town.
One night there came a heavy storm, and down went the telegraph line. Morning broke, radiant after the deluge. The Potomac had risen in its might and swept away some bridge and crib work as well as certain pontoons. The general wrote a despatch to army head-quarters, and called up Shorty. "Gallop with that," said he, "and don't stop for anything."
What the general meant was, don't stop for breakfast or nonsense, but the lad took it literally. He and "Badger" were a sight to behold when they came tearing into the main street of Georgetown about eight o'clock. Badger was blowing a bit, after laboring through nearly five miles of thick mud, but, once he struck the cobble-stones and sent the last lumps of clay flying behind him, he took a new grip on the bit and lunged ahead as though on a race for his life, Shorty sitting him close and riding "hands down" and head too, his uniform besmeared, but his grit and wind untouched.
Out came the regulars at the second cross street. "Halt! Halt!" were the shouted orders, but Shorty's instructions were to stop for nothing, and he couldn't stop short of three blocks anyhow, no matter how much he might want to. Past the first soldiers he shot like a dart, but their yells resounded down the avenue, and out came others,—too late at the second crossing but formidably prompt at the third. Two of them levelled their bayonets, a third making ready to leap at the reins. In vain Shorty reached in his saddle-bag and brandished his papers and yelled, "Despatch for General McClellan! Ordered not to stop!" The soldiers could not or would not understand, so he had to lie back and tug at the reins; but "Badger" only pricked up his ears at sight of the human obstacles, and when six great strides brought him close to them, made a magnificent dash to one side, and left them raging behind. But now all the avenue seemed alive with blue coats and bayonets. A dozen men lined up at the next crossing, and with a sob of rage and dismay, Shorty realized that they'd bayonet Badger rather than let him defy orders, and so, with all his might and main he pulled, and at last, plunging, panting, heaving, and sweating, the splendid brute was brought to a halt, two or three big Irish infantrymen at his head, while, scowling and threatening, others came thronging around him.
"Come down aff the top o' dthat harrse!" shouted a Milesian veteran who knew his trade.
"Despatches for General McClellan! Most important!" panted Shorty. "Ordered not to lose a minute——"
"Ah-h-h! none av yer guff! Who'd be sendin' anything 'portant by the likes av you? Tumble off, Tom Thumb!" and the sergeant had seized the official envelope and was trying to lug it away.
"Don't you dare touch that!" almost screamed the lad. "I tell you, I'm a general's orderly!"
But for answer the sergeant thrust a brawny hand under the hooded stirrup, and with sudden hoist sent Shorty tumbling over to the other side. Furious at the indignity, he grasped the mane and let drive a skilful and well-aimed kick at the Irishman's head, which the latter ducked and dodged only in the nick of time. More patrolmen came running to the spot,—corporals and sergeants whose orders had been defied,—and in less than a minute the bumptious youngster was dragged from his horse and led fuming to the sidewalk, just as there appeared at the doorway of the corner building the spruce and dapper figure of the youthful officer of the guard, his uniform spick and span, his sash and sword and gloves of the daintiest make.