Before taking our place in the line we were ordered to remove our knapsacks and all needless baggage that might interfere with our movements when the charge was ordered. That was the time that tried our nerves. The field was before us. The obstacles to be met and overcome we could see, and with our past experience it was evident to all that the contemplated movement if executed must involve a fearful sacrifice of life on our side. For hours we watched, and waited in suspense the signal that was to open the conflict, and the relief we experienced when the order to charge was countermanded, can better be imagined than described.
At dark we retired a little way from our position in the line of battle, built our camp fires, cooked our supper, and laid down to rest. About midnight we were aroused, and falling into line moved to the right about a mile, where our corps joined the 6th corps which occupied a position in the woods, and there we formed in line of battle. The following day will long be remembered by us on account of our bitter conflict with Jack Frost instead of Johnnie Reb. The day was extremely cold, freezing the water in our canteens, and although in danger of freezing ourselves, we were ordered not to build fires, or in any way make ourselves conspicuous, for we were within range of the enemy’s guns. Our situation was one of exposure and peril, for if we obeyed orders we were sure to perish with the cold, and if we disobeyed, as sure to draw the enemy’s fire, with the risk of losing life or limb. We took the latter risk—built fires by which to warm ourselves, or chased each other in a circle around a tree or stump to keep our blood in circulation and our limbs from freezing. And when a solid shot or a fragment of a shell came whizzing through the woods where we lay, we hugged the ground more closely, or sought the shelter of some rock or stump or tree, until the firing ceased, then resumed our exercise, or gathered around the fire again to cook our coffee, warm ourselves, and make another target for the enemy.
Thus for three days and nights the two great armies of Virginia menaced each other across the valley of Mine Run. At last the movement was abandoned and the campaign ended by the withdrawal of our army to the north of the Rappahannock, and two days afterward we found ourselves in what proved to be our winter quarters at Liberty.
While in winter quarters we had the pleasure of seeing several ladies about the cantonments, among them Mrs. Faxon, the young wife of our surgeon, whose experience and memories of the time it may be better to render in the first person.
XIII.
A LADY AT WINTER QUARTERS.
EARLY in the winter of 1864, the 32d was in winter cantonments at Liberty, near Bealton Station, on the Orange & Alexandria railroad. Of course somebody must have commanded the army, but whoever he was, he never called upon me, and is of no consequence to my story. My orders to join came from an officer much more important in my eyes—the surgeon of the 32d, who, queerly enough, was also my husband.
After all manner of experiences I arrived at Bealton Station, a locality which by daylight appeared to be a quarter-section of Virginia land and a small, rough, and inconvenient platform of planks; but it was evening when I arrived—yes, a dark, rainy, December evening. A shadowy form having the voice of our garrulous quartermaster waited to welcome me, and by it I was ushered into the damp darkness, out of which loomed, by and by, the hazy form of an ambulance and two hazy mules—and then, but beyond and more misty, the upper half of what seemed to be my husband, and the ears of his horse. Whether I was sufficiently hearty in my greeting I do not know—I am afraid not, for all this was not what I had imagined would be my first impressions on coming within army lines.
My idea of an army was made up of brilliant sights and stirring sounds. Nice clean flags—bright-buttoned uniforms—flying horses and full bands of music, were essential parts of the picture which my fancy had painted, and here was nothing but wet and darkness and mud. Through mud a foot deep, the creaking of the vehicle and “soh” of the feet of the wading mules, only breaking the moist silence—I was driven to the mansion in which my husband was quartered, and which was to be my home for the winter. Out of all this dreariness, however, I stepped into the cheerful light of glowing windows, and was welcomed to a most hospitable wood fire, in front of which was a table set out with a smoking supper of tempting odor—and my surgeon appeared no longer misty and uncorporeal, but solid humanity, and looking really quite bright in the eyes, and happy in my coming.
The hearty welcome, the bright light, and the cheering warmth soon obliterated all memory of the weary journey and the dismal night. The fatted chicken had been killed for me, and was served with hot potatoes, corn-bread, tea, and cold meat. A bright little negro girl waited upon me, and it added to the pleasant novelty of my position to be served by a piece even so small of the “peculiar institution.”