The suffering of the soldiers was great that night, as it was bitter cold and the clothing of those who forded the stream would have frozen on them only that the men built fires and stood around them.
Gen. Miles commended the conduct of the men in general orders and the two officers were breveted for their gallantry.
In this connection I cannot refrain from relating a little episode in the army experience of Capt. Bliss in which a certain drummer boy was mixed up.
It was earlier in the war and our regiment was doing duty at Arlington.
Bliss was a corporal and had charge of our drum corps. One day the acting drum major and a certain lad of my acquaintance thought they would go over to Washington. When they applied to the adjutant for a pass he told them they would have to defer their visit until some other day, as he could not issue any more passes that day, but who ever knew a boy that would put off a pleasure until to-morrow that he could have today. The two boys had friends in the quartermaster’s department who had standing passes to go after supplies, and it occurred to them that they could borrow a couple, which they did, and went to the city, visited the theatre, and had a fine time.
Not having the countersign they had to return before dark, and as they walked up to the sentry box at the end of the bridge on the Georgetown side, who should step out with the sentry but our adjutant.
It is needless to say that the boys were surprised and the officer admitted he was also. He inquired if they had passes and when they were produced he took them and sent the young volunteers over to the fort under arrest.
Shortly after noon the next day the sergeant major took the youngest lad over to the colonel’s tent where he listened to a severe lecturing, after which he was made to do penance by standing on the head of a barrel four hours in the sun. Say, but the end of a barrel is a pretty small space to stand on for that length of time with the sun up in the nineties! Among the orders read on dress parade that night was one reducing Corp. Bliss to the ranks.
But a more fearless man never shouldered a musket and shortly after we went to the front Bliss had won his stripes again. At Cold Harbor he was made a sergeant, at Petersburg a lieutenant, at Reams Station a captain, at Hatcher’s Run brevet major and if the war had lasted long enough and some rebel bullet had not caught him he would have been wearing a star.
BRAVE PETE BOYLE A DRUMMER BOY FROM THE BOWERY.