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

by George Alfred Townsend

A little run, a spring,—and I fell upon my feet, rolled over upon my face, gathered myself to the arms of all the Jehus, and was carried off bodily by a man with a great knob on his forehead as big as the end of his whip-handle.

"G'lang! Who-o-o-oh! Swis-s-s!"

I think that I promised that man everything under the sun to catch the train. I recollect that the knob on his forehead grew black and bulging as he lashed his horse. I found myself standing up in the cab, screaming like the driver. We were both insane, and the horse must have been of the breed of Pegasus, for I could feel the vehicle gyrating in the air. Now we turned a lamp-post, and the glass splintered somewhere; a dog howled as we drove over his appendage; a woman with a baby gave a short scream and disappeared into the earth; a policeman gave chase, but we laughed him to scorn.

Huzza! Here we are! The train stands puffing at the long platform. "Your bundle, yer honor! Wasn't I the boy to make the keers?" "Didn't I projuce yer honor in good time, sur?" I only know that I flung a greenback to the two,—that I vainly besought the ticket agent to give me no change, but consign it to the first engineer who failed to make time,—that I wrote on the back of my hat for four hours,—that I devoured a chicken and as many eggs as she had laid in a lifetime, at Havre de Grace,—that I leaped upon the platform at Broad and Prime streets, Philadelphia, at noon,—that I plunged into a cab, and said, significantly—

"New York Ferry!"

It chafed me to pass through the promenade street of my home-city, without a moment to spare for my family or friends. The cab-horse slipped in Chestnut Street, and I went over the rest of the route on foot, at a dog-trot pace, passing in various quarters for a sportsman, a professional runner, and a lunatic. I was greatly aggravated between Amboy and Camden, by persons making inquiries for brothers, sons, and acquaintances. At last, when I attained the steamer, the Captain kindly shut me up in his office, and I went on with my narrative till my eyes were burning and my hands failed in their function. Kill von Kull and its picturesque shores went by; we emerged into the beautiful bay, and winding among its buoys, harbor lights, and shipping, came to, at length, at the foot of Christopher Street. I repaired to the office at once, and wrote far into the night, refraining, finally, from sheer blindness and exhaustion, and dropped asleep in the carriage as I was taken toward the Metropolitan Hotel.

The next day was Friday, July 4, the anniversary of American Independence, and my version of the six-days' battles caused universal gloom and grief. I had furnished five pages or forty columns of closely printed matter, and thousands of tremulous fingers were tracing out the names of their dead dear ones, while I sipped my wine and rehearsed for the hundredth time, the incidents of the retreat to a multitude of men. Cards and letters came to me by the gross, from bereaved countrymen, and I was obliged, finally, to add a postscript to my account, and a protest that I knew no more, and could answer no interrogatories. A bath, fresh clothing, and rich food so far improved my appearance in a few days, that I presented no other traces of sickness and travel than a sunburnt face, and a rheumatic walk.

With restoration came a revival of old desires, appetites, and attachments. It required one additional campaign to sober me in these respects, and I was not a little relieved, to receive an order on the fourth day, to proceed to Washington, and attach myself to the "Army of Virginia" at the head of which Major-General John Pope had just been placed. After two quieter days' enjoyment, in the Quaker City, I reported myself at the Capital, but was debarred from taking the field at once, owing to the tardiness of the new Commander. For two weeks or more, I loitered around Washington, and although the time passed monotonously, I saw many persons and events which have much to do with the history of the Rebellion. The story of "Washington During the War" has yet to be written in all its vividness of enterprise, devotion, and infamy. It has been, in periods of peace, a dull, dolorous town, of mammoth hotels, paltry dwellings, empty lots, prodigiously wide avenues, a fossil population, and a series of gigantic public buildings, which seemed dropped by accident into a fifth-rate backwoods settlement. During the sessions Washington was overrun with "Smartness": Smart pages, smart messengers, smart cabmen, smart publicans, smart politicians, smart women, smart scoundrels! Greatness became commonplace here, and Mr. Douglas might drink at Willard's Bar, with none so poor to do him reverence, or General Winfield Scott strut like a colossus along "the Avenue," and the sleepy negroes upon their backs would give him the attention of only one eye. It was interesting, to notice how rapidly provincial eminence lost caste here. Slipkins, who was "Honorable" at home, and of whom his county newspaper said that "this distinguished fellow citizen of ours will be heard from, among the greatest of the free,"—Slipkins moved to and fro unnoticed, and voted with his party, and drank much brandy and water, and left no other record at the Capital than some unpaid bills, and perhaps an unacknowledged heir. A gaping rustic and his new bride, or a strolling foreigner, marvelling and making notes at every turn, might be observed in the Patent Office examining General Washington's breeches, but these were at once called "greenies," and people put out their tongues and winked at them. The Secretaries' ladies gave parties now and then, attended by the folks who sold them horses, or carpets, or wines; the President gave a "levee," whereat a wonderfully Democratic horde gathered to pinch his hands and ogle his lady; the Marine band (in red coats), played twice a week in the Capital grounds, and Senators, Cyprians, Ethiops, and children rallied to enjoy; a theatre or two played time-honored dramas with Thespian companies; a couple of scholars lectured in the sombre Smithsonian Institution; an intrigue and a duel filled some most doleful hiatus; and a clerk absconded with half a million, or an Indian agent robbed the red men and fell back to the protection of his "party." A very dismal, a very dirty, and a very Democratic settlement was the American Capital, till the war came.

Even the war lost half its interest in Washington. A regiment marching down Broadway was something to see, but the same regiment in Pennsylvania Avenue looked mean and matter-of-fact. A General in the field, or riding uncovered through Boston or Baltimore, or even lounging at the bar of the Continental or the Astor House or the Tremont, was invested with an atmosphere half heroic, half poetic; but Generals in Washington may be counted by pairs, and I used to sit at dinner with eight or a dozen of them in my eye. There was the new Commander-in-Chief, Halleck, a short, countryfied person, whose blue coat was either threadbare or dusty, or lacked some buttons, and who picked his teeth walking up and down the halls at Willard's, and argued through a white, bilious eye and a huge mouth. There was General Mitchel, also, who has since passed away,—a little, knotty gentleman, with stiff, gray, Jacksonian hair. And General Sturgis passed in and out perpetually, with impressive, individual Banks, or some less prominent person, all of them wearing the gold star upon their shoulders, and absolute masters of some thousands of souls. The town, in fact, was overrun with troops. Slovenly guards were planted on horseback at crossings, and now and then they dashed, as out of a profound sleep, to chase some galloping cavalier. Gin and Jews swarmed along the Avenue, and I have seen gangs of soldiers of rival regiments, but oftener of rival nationalities, pummelling each other in the highways, until they were marched off by the Provosts. The number of houses of ill-fame was very great, and I have been told that Generals and Lieutenants of the same organization often encountered and recognized each other in them. Contractors and "jobbers" used to besiege the offices of the Secretaries of War and Navy, and the venerable Welles (who reminded me of Abraham in the lithographs), and the barnacled Stanton, seldom appeared in public. Simple-minded, straightforward A. Lincoln, and his ambitious, clever lady, were often seen of afternoons in their barouche; the little old-fashioned Vice-President walked unconcernedly up and down; and when some of the Richmond captives came home to the Capital, immense meetings were held, where patriotism bawled itself hoarse. A dining hour at Willard's was often wondrously adapted for a historic picture, when accoutred officers, and their beautiful wives,—or otherwise,—sat at the table d'-hôte, and sumptuous dishes flitted here and there, while corks popped like so many Chinese crackers, and champagne bubbled up like blood. At night, the Provost Guard enacted the farce of coming by deputations to each public bar, which was at once closed, but reopened five minutes afterward. Congress water was in great demand for weak heads of mornings, and many a young lad, girt up for war, wasted his strength in dissipation here, so that he was worthless afield, and perhaps died in the hospital. The curse of civil war was apparent everywhere. One had but to turn his eye from the bare Heights of Arlington, where the soldiers of the Republic lay demoralized, to the fattening vultures who smoked and swore at the National, to see the true cause of the North's shortcomings,—its inherent and almost universal corruption. Human nature was here so depraved, that man lost faith in his kind. Death lurked behind ambuscades and fortifications over the river, but Sin, its mother, coquetted here, and as an American, I often went to bed, loathing the Capital, as but little better than Sodom, though its danger had called forth thousands of great hearts to throb out, in its defence. For every stone in the Capitol building, a man has laid down his life. For every ripple on the Potomac, some equivalent of blood has been shed.

I lodged for some time in Tenth Street, and took my meals at Willard's. The legitimate expenses of living in this manner were fourteen dollars a week; but one could board at Kirkwood's or Brown's for seven or eight dollars, very handsomely. A favorite place of excursion, near the city, was "Crystal Spring," where some afternoon orgies were enacted, which should have made the sun go into eclipse. I repaired once to Mount Vernon, and looked dolorously at the tomb of the Pater Patris, and once to Annapolis, on the Chesapeake, which the war has elevated into a fine naval station.