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

by George Alfred Townsend

I was now momentarily adding to my notes of the battles, and the wounded men very readily gave me their names; for they were anxious that the account of their misfortunes should reach their families, and I think also, that some martial vanity lingered, even among those who were shortly to crumble away. A longboat came in from the Galena, after a time, and General McClellan, who had ridden down to the pier, was taken aboard. He looked to be very hot and anxious, and while he remained aboard the vessel, his staff dispersed themselves around the banks and talked over the issues of the contest. As the General receded from the strand, every sweep of the long oars was responded to from the hoarse cannon of the battle-field, and when he climbed upon deck, the steamer moved slowly up the narrow channel, and the signal-man in the foretop flourished his crossed flag sturdily. Directly, the Galena opened fire from her immense pieces of ordnance, and the roar was so great that the explosions of field-guns were fairly drowned. She fired altogether by the direction of the signals, as nothing could be seen of the battle-field from her decks. I ascertained afterward that she played havoc with our own columns as well as the enemy's, but she brought hope to the one, and terror to the other. The very name of gunboat affrighted the Confederates, and they were assured, in this case, that the retreating invaders, had at length reached a haven. The Galena kept up a steady fire till nightfall, and the Federals, taking courage, drove their adversaries toward Richmond, at eve. Meanwhile the Commanding General's escort and body-guard had encamped around us, and during the night the teams and much of the field cannon fell back. I obtained shelter and meals from Quartermaster Le Duke of Iowa, whose canvas was pitched a mile or more below, and as I tossed through the watches I heard the splashing of water in the river beneath, where the tired soldiers were washing away the powder of the battle.

In the morning I retraced to head-quarters, and vainly endeavored to learn something as to the means of going down the river. Commanders are always anxious to grant correspondents passes after a victory; but they wish to defer the unwelcome publication of a defeat. I was advised by Quartermaster-General Van Vliet, however, to proceed to Harrison's Bar, and, as I passed thither, the last day's encounters—those of "Malvern Hills"—occurred. The scenes along the way were reiterations of terrors already described,—creaking ambulances, staggering foot soldiers, profane wagoners, skulking officers and privates, officious Provost guards, defiles, pools and steeps packed with teams and cannon, wayside houses beset with begging, gossiping, or malicious soldiers, and wavy fields of wheat and rye thrown open to man and beast. I was amused at one point, to see some soldiers attack a beehive that they might seize the honey. But the insects fastened themselves upon some of the marauders, and after indescribable cursing and struggling, the bright nectar and comb were relinquished by the toilers, and the ravishers gorged upon sweetness.

Harrison's Bar is simply a long wharf, extending into the river, close by the famous mansion, where William Henry Harrison, a President of the United States, was born, and where, for two centuries, the scions of a fine old Virginia family have made their homestead. The house had now become a hospital, and the wounded were being conveyed to the pier, whence they were delivered over to some Sanitary steamers, for passage to Northern cities. I tied my horse to the spokes of a wagon-wheel, and asked a soldier to watch him, while I repaired to the quay. A half drunken officer was guarding the wharf with a squad of men, and he denied me admittance, at first, but when I had said something in adulation of his regiment—a trick common to correspondents—he passed me readily. The ocean steamer Daniel Webster was about being cast adrift when I stepped on board, and Colonel Ingalls, Quartermaster in charge, who freely gave me permission to take passage in her, advised me not to risk returning to shore. So, reluctantly, I resigned my pony, endeared to me by a hundred adventures, and directly I was floating down the James, with the white teams and the tattered groups of men, receding from me, and each moment the guns of Malvern Hills growing fainter. Away! praised be a merciful God! away from the accursed din, and terror, and agony, of my second campaign,—away forever from the Chickahominy.

For awhile I sat meditatively in the bow of the boat, full of strange perplexities and thankfulness. I had escaped the bullet, and fever, and captivity, and a great success in my profession was about to be accorded to me, but there was much work yet to be done. The rough material I had for a grand account of the closing of the campaign; but these fragmentary figures and notes must be wrought into narrative, and to avail myself of their full significance, I must lose no moment of application. I found that I was one of four correspondents on board, and we resolved to district the boat, each correspondent taking one fourth of the names of the sick and wounded. The spacious saloons, the clean deck, the stairways, the gangways, the hold, the halls,—all were filled with victims. They lay in rows upon straw beds, they limped feverishly here and there; some were crazed from sunstroke, or gashes; and one man that I remember counted the rivets in the boilers over the whole hundred miles of the journey, while another,—a teamster,—whipped and cursed his horses as if he had mistaken the motion of the boat for that of his vehicle.

The Daniel Webster was one of a series of transports supplied for the uses of the wounded by a national committee of private citizens. Her wood work was shining and glossy, her steel shone like mirrors, and she was cool as Paradise. Out of the smoke, and turmoil, and suffocation of battle these wretched men had emerged, to enjoy the blessedness, unappreciated before, of shelter, and free air and cleanliness. There was ice in abundance on board, and savory lemonade lay glassily around in great buckets. Women flitted from group to group with jellies, bonbons, cigars, and oranges, and the grateful eyes of the prostrate people might have melted one to tears. These women were enthusiasts of all ages and degrees, who proffered themselves, at the beginning of the war, as stewardesses and nurses. From the fact that some of them were of masculine natures, or, in the vocabulary of the times, "strong-minded," they were the recipients of many coarse jests, and imputations were made upon both their modesty and their virtue. But I would that any satirist had watched with me the good offices of these Florence Nightingales of the West, as they tripped upon merciful errands, like good angels, and left paths of sunshine behind them. The soldiers had seen none of their countrywomen for months, and they followed these ambassadors with looks half-idolatrous, half-downcast, as if consciously unworthy of so tender regard.

"If I could jest die, now," said one of the poor fellows to me, "with one prayer for my country, and one for that dear young lady!"

There was one of these daughters of the good Samaritan whose face was so full of coolness, and her robes so airy, flowing, and graceful, that it would have been no miracle had she transmuted herself to something divine. She was very handsome, and her features bore the imprint of that high enthusiasm which may have animated the maid of Arc. One of the more forward of the correspondents said to her, as she bore soothing delicacies to the invalids, that he missed the satisfaction of being wounded, at which she presented an orange and a cigar to each of us in turn. Among the females on board, I remarked one, very large, angular, and sanguine, who sat at a small table, dispensing luxuries with the manners of a despot and the charity of a child. She had a large vessel of boiling coffee, from which she drew spicy quantities at intervals; and when the troops thronged around eagerly, she rebuked the more forward, and called up some emaciated, bashful fellows, giving them the preference. Every soldier who accepted coffee was obliged to take a religious tract, and she gave them away with a grim satisfaction that was infinitely amusing and interesting. I ventured to ask this imperative person for a bottle of ink, and after some difficulty,—arising out of a mistaken notion on her part that I was dangerously wounded,—she vaulted over a chair, and disappeared into a state-room. When she returned, her arms were filled with a perfect wilderness of stationery, and having supplied each of us in turn, she addressed herself to me in the following sententious manner:—

"See here! You reporter! (There's ink!) I want to be put in the newspapers! Look at me! Now! Right straight! (Pens?) Here I am; thirteen months at work; been everywhere; done good; country; church; never noticed. Never!—Now! I want to be put in newspapers."

At this point the Imperatress was called off by some soldiers, who presumed to draw coffee without her consent. She slapped one of them soundly, and at once overpowered him with kindnesses, and tracts; then she returned and gave me a photograph, representing herself with a basket of fruit, and a quantity of good books. I took note of her name, but unfortunately lost the memorandum, and unless she has been honored by some more careful scribe, I fear that her labors are still unrecognized.

During much of the trip, I wrote material parts of my report, copied portions of my lists, and managed before dusk, to get fairly underway with my narrative. From the deck of the steamer I beheld at five o'clock, what I had long wished to see,—the famous island of Jamestown, celebrated in the early annals of the New World, as the home of John Smith, and of Nathaniel Bacon, and as the resort of the Indian Princess, Pocahontas. A single fragment of a tower, the remnant of the Colonial church, was the only ruin that I could see.