How well I remember my first Christmas in camp. Our company was at Fort Haggerty on the road leading from the Acqueduct bridge to Arlington. Capt. Smith’s home had been one of the handsomest in Carthage before the war and under his command the fort had been transformed into one of the slickest ones in the defences of Washington.
Christmas morning in 1862, after the calling of the roll our company formed in line and marched up in front of the captain’s quarters. Several of the boys had provided themselves with some nice evergreen trees, and when the captain appeared the command was given “present arms” and the movement was executed with the trees. The fifer and drummer of the company then played “Hail to the Chief” and “The Girl I Left Behind Me.”
The captain appeared mightily pleased and made us a nice little speech, and said that he wished that he could send us all home for the holidays but as that was an impossibility he had planned to make us as happy as circumstances would permit, and the quartermaster had been furnished money to get up a dinner in keeping with the occasion. Cheers and a tiger were given for our kind-hearted commander, and then the voice of one who has several times been mentioned by the writer spoke out: “Pardon me axin’ the question, cap’n, but would there be a wee drop for anny so inclined?” The captain smiled and nodded affirmatively.
Our camp was near where there had been a brick yard, and with old bricks that had been dug out of the ground a tasty little house had been built for the captain and a brick oven for the cooks. In this turkeys had been roasted and rice puddings and potatoes baked. There was also oyster stew, oysters and clams on the half shell and mince pies that some soldier’s wife had made for us. None of old Co. H will ever forget that Christmas. After the feast pipes, tobacco and cigars were passed, and then pails of milk punch went round for those “so inclined.”
A Group of Co. H. Boys.
Pat Devereaux and Author in Foreground.
Ah, dear, brave old Co. H, what would I not give to see you line up once more as you did on that Christmas day in the long ago.
For more than twenty-five years I could, from memory, call the roll of the original company, just as I had heard our old orderly, Tom Murphy, call it so many times. Poor Tom earned his shoulder straps but sleeps in a southern grave.
Of the boys who made merry with us in old Virginia on the Christmas day of long ago, many gave up their lives on the battlefields of the south, Potter, Williamson, Zeigler, Clapsaddle and Lieut. Roff at Cold Harbor; Ed. Roland, Smith, Thurston, Slater, Crowner, Symonds at Petersburg; Billy Cook, Frank Farr, Tom Murphy and several others between there and Appomattox.
No, old Co. H will never again fall in for roll call on this side of the “deadline.” The tents are folded, the implements of war are rusting, I find that the cords and snares on my drum are fraying with age, “All is quiet on the Potomac.”