Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, and His Romaunt Abroad During the War

by George Alfred Townsend

"Why, sar, all de gen'elmen an' ladies from Richmond has dere fauchuns told. I tells 'em true. All my fauchuns comes out true. Ain't dat so, chillen?"

A low murmur of assent ran round the group, and I was obviously losing caste in the settlement.

"Here is a dime," said I, "that I will give you, to tell me the result of the war. Shall the North be victorious in the next battle? Will Richmond surrender within a week? Shall I take my cigar at the Spotswood on Sunday fortnight?"

"I'se been a lookin' into dat," she said, cunningly; "I'se had dreams on dat ar'. Le'um see how de armies stand!"

She brought from the house a cup of painted earthenware containing sediments of coffee. I saw her crafty white eyes look up to mine as she muttered some jargon, and pretended to read the arrangement of the grains.

"Honey," she said, "gi' me de money, and let de ole 'oman dream on it once mo'! It ain't quite clar' yit, young massar. Tank you, honey! Tank you! Let de old 'oman dream! Let de ole 'oman dream!"

She disappeared into the house, chuckling and chattering, and the sons of the forest, loitering awhile, dispersed in various directions. As I followed my conductor to the riverside, and he parted the close bushes and boughs to give us exit, the glare of the camp-fires broke all at once upon us. The ship-lights quivered on the water; the figures of men moved to and fro before the fagots; the stars peeped timorously from the vault; the woods and steep banks were blackly shadowed in the river. Here was I, among the aborigines; and as my dusky acquaintance sent his canoe skimming across the ripples, I thought how inexplicable were the decrees of Time and the justice of God. Two races united in these people, and both of them we had wronged. From the one we had taken lands; from the other liberties. Two centuries had now elapsed. But the little remnant of the African and the American were to look from their Island Home upon the clash of our armies and the murder of our braves.

By the 19th of May the skirts of the grand army had been gathered up, and on the 20th the march to Richmond was resumed. The troops moved along two main roads, of which the right led to New Mechanicsville and Meadow Bridges, and the left to the railroad and Bottom Bridges. My division formed the right centre, and although the Chickahominy fords were but eighteen miles distant, we did not reach them for three days. On the first night we encamped at Tunstalls, a railroad-station on Black Creek; on the second at New Cold Harbor, a little country tavern, kept by a cripple; and on the night of the third day at Hogan's farm, on the north hills of the Chickahominy. The railroad was opened to Despatch Station at the same time, but the right and centre were still compelled to "team" their supplies from White House. In the new position, the army extended ten miles along the Chickahominy hills; and while the engineers were driving pile, tressel, pontoon, and corduroy bridges, the cavalry was scouring the country, on both flanks, far and wide.

The advance was full of incident, and I learned to keep as far in front as possible, that I might communicate with scouts, contrabands, and citizens. Many odd personages were revealed to me at the farm-houses on the way, and I studied, with curious interest, the native Virginian character. They appeared to be compounds of the cavalier and the boor. There was no old gentleman who owned a thousand barren acres, spotted with scrub timber; who lived in a weather-beaten barn, with a multiplicity of porch and a quantity of chimney; whose means bore no proportion to his pride, and neither to his indolence,—that did not talk of his ancestry, proffer his hospitality, and defy me to an argument. I was a civilian,—they had no hostility to me,—but the blue-coats of the soldiers seared their eyeballs. In some cases their daughters remained upon the property; but the sons and the negroes always fled,—though in contrary directions. The old men used to peep through the windows at the passing columns; and as their gates were wrenched from the hinges, their rails used to pry wagons out of the mud, their pump-handles shaken till the buckets splintered in the shaft, and their barns invaded by greasy agrarians, they walked to and fro, half-weakly, half-wrathfully, but with a pluck, fortitude, and devotion that wrung my respect. Some aged negro women commonly remained, but these were rather incumbrances than aids, and they used the family meal to cook bread for the troops. An old, toothless, grinning African stood at every lane and gate, selling buttermilk and corn-cakes. Poor mortal, sinful old women! They had worked for nothing through their three-score and ten, but avarice glared from their shrivelled pupils, and their last but greatest delight lay in the coppers and the dimes. One would have thought that they had outlived the greed of gold; but wages deferred make the dying miserly.

The lords of the manors were troubled to know the number of our troops. For several days the columns passed with their interminable teams, batteries, and adjuncts, and the old gentlemen were loth to compute us at less than several millions.