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

by George Alfred Townsend

I peeped timorously from my place, and recognized the Provost-General of the Grand Army. He had been sleeping upon a camp chest, and did not appear to be refreshed thereby.

"I feel sulky as ——!" he said to an officer adjoining; "I feel —— bad-humored! Orderly!"

"General!"

"Whose horses are these?"

"I don't know, General!"

"Cut every —— —— one of 'em loose. Wake up these —— —— loafers with the point of your sabre! Every —— —— one of 'em! That's what I call —— ——boldness!"

He strutted off like the great Bomba or the Czar, and I thought I never beheld a more exceptional person in any high position.

With a last look at Savage's white house, the abandoned wretches in the lawn, the blood-red hospital flag, the torn track and smouldering cars, I turned my face southward, crossed some bare plains, that had once been fields, and at eight o'clock passed down the Williamsburg road, toward Bottom Bridge. The original roadway was now a bottomless stretch of sand, full of stranded wheels, dead horses, shreds of blankets, discarded haversacks, and mounds of spilled crackers. Other routes for wagons had been opened across fields, over bluffs, around pits and bogs, and through thickets and woods. The whole country was crossed with deeply-rutted roads, as if some immense city had been lifted away, and only its interminably sinuous streets remained. Near Burnt Chimneys, a creek crossing the road made a ravine, and here I overtook the hindmost of the wagons. They had been stalled in the gorge, and a provost guard was hurrying the laggard teamsters. The creek was muddy beyond comparison, and at the next hill-top I passed "Burnt Chimneys," a few dumb witnesses that pointed to heaven. A mile or two further, I came to some of the retreating regiments, and also to five of the siege thirty-twos with which Richmond was to have been bombarded. The main army still lay back at their entrenchments to cover the retreat, and at ten o'clock I heard the roar of field guns; the pursuit had commenced, and the Confederates were pouring over the ramparts at Fairoaks. I did not go back; battles were of no consequence to me. I wanted some breakfast. If I could only obtain a cup of warm coffee and a fragment of meat, I thought that I might recover strength. But nothing could be obtained anywhere, for money or charity. The soldiers that I passed looked worn and hungry, for their predecessors had swept the country like herds of locusts; but one cheerful fellow, whom I addressed, produced a lump of fat pork that I tried to eat, but made a signal failure. All my baggage had been left at Michie's, where it remains to this moment. None cared to be hospitable to correspondents at this despondent hour, and a horrible idea of starvation took possession of my mind. A mile from White Oak Swamp, some distance back of the road, lay the Engineer Brigade. They were now on the eve of breaking camp, and when I reached Colonel McCloud Murphy's, his chests were packed, and all his provisions had gone ahead. He gave me, however, a couple of hard crackers and a draught of whiskey and quinine, whereby I rallied for a moment. At General Woodbury's I observed a middle-aged lady, making her toilet by a looking-glass hung against the tent-pole. She seemed as careful of her personal appearance, in this trying time, as if she had been at some luxurious court. There were several women on the retreat, and though the guns thundered steadily behind, they were never flurried, but could have received company, or accepted offers of marriage, with the utmost complacency. If there was any one that rouged, I am sure that no personal danger would have disturbed her while she heightened her roses; and she would have tied up her back hair in defiance of shell or grape.

At Casey's ancient head-quarters, on the bluff facing White Oak Swamp, I found five correspondents. We fraternized immediately, and they all pooh-poohed the battle, as such an old story that it would be absurd to ride back to the field. We knew, however, that it was occurring at Peach Orchard, on a part of the old ground at Fairoaks. These gentlemen were in rather despondent moods, and there was one who opined that we were all to be made prisoners of war. In his own expressive way of putting it, we were to be "gobbled up." This person was stout and inclined to panting and perspiration. He wore glasses upon a most pugnacious nose, and his large, round head was covered with short, bristly, jetty hair.