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

by George Alfred Townsend

"Boy," he said to one, "put down that fruit! Drop it, or I'll blow your head off! Directly you'll double up, pucker, and say that you have the "di-o-ree," and require an ambulance. Orderly!"

A sergeant came up and touched his cap.

"Take your musket," said the Colonel; "go out to that orchard, and order those men away. If they hesitate or object, shoot them!"

A few such colonels would marvellously improve the volunteer organization.

The Hazel or North Anne river, a branch of the Hedgemain, interposed a few miles further on, and passing through a covered bridge, I turned down the north bank, crossed some spongy fields, and at length came to a dry place in the edge of a woods, where I tied my nag, spread out my bed, and prepared to dine. A box of sardines, a lemon, and some fresh sandwiches constituted the repast, and being dusty and parched I stripped afterward and swam across the river. Seeing that my horse plunged and neighed, with swollen eyeballs, and every evidence of terror, I hastened toward him and discovered a black snake, six feet or more in length, which seemed about to coil itself around the nag's leg. The size and contiguity of the reptile at first appalled me, and my mind was not more composed when the serpent, at my approach, manifested an inclination to assume the offensive. Its folds were thicker than my arm, and it commenced to revolve rapidly, at length running up a sapling, suspending itself by the tail, and hissing vehemently. It belonged to the family of "racers," and was hideous and powerful beyond any specimen that I had seen. I blew it into halves at the second discharge of my pistol, and at once resumed my saddle, indisposed to remain longer amidst such acquaintances.

At four o'clock I saw Culpepper, a trim little village, lying in the hollow of several hills. A couple of steeples added to its picturesqueness, and a swift creek, crossed by a small bridge, interposed between myself and the main part of the place. It looked like Sunday when I rode through the principal street. The shutters were closed in the shop windows, the dwellings seemed tenantless, no citizens were abroad, no sutlers had invaded the country; only a few cavalry-men clustered about an ancient pump to water their nags, and some military idlers were sitting upon the long porch of a public house, called the Virginia Hotel. I tied my horse to a tree, the bole of which had been gnawed bare, and found the landlord to be an old gentleman named Paine, who appeared to be somewhat out of his head. Two days before the Confederate cavalry had vacated the village, and the army had been encamped about the town for many months. A sabre conflict had taken place in the streets; and these events, happening in rapid succession, combined with the insolence of some Federal outriders, had so agitated the host that his memory was quite gone, and he could not perform even the slightest function. There is a panacea for all these things, which the faculty and philanthropy alike forbid, but which my experience in war-matters has invariably found unfailing. I produced my flask, and gently insinuated it to the old gentleman's lips. He possessed instinct sufficient to uncork and apply it, and the results were directly apparent, in a partial recovery of memory. He said that meals were one dollar each, board four dollars a day, or by the week twenty-five dollars. These terms are unknown in America; but when Mr. Paine added that horse provender was one dollar per "feed," I looked aghast, and required some stimulant myself to appreciate the enormity of the reckoning. I discovered, however, that the people of the village were almost starving; that beef had been fifty cents a pound during the whole winter, flour twenty-five dollars per barrel, coffee one dollar and a quarter a pound, and corn one dollar per bushel. The army had swept the country like famine, and the citizens had pinched, pining faces, with little to eat to-day and nothing for to-morrow.

I acquiesced in the charge, as no choice remained, and asked to be shown to my room. A burly negro, apparently suffering delirium tremens, seized my baggage with quaking hands, and lifting a pair of red eyes upon me, shuffled through a bare hall, up a stairway, and into a bedroom. I never saw a more hideous being in my life, and when he had flung my luggage upon the floor, he sank into a chair, and glared wofully into my face, breathing like one about to expire.

"Young Moss," said he, "cant you give a po' soul a drop o' sperits? Do for de good Lord's sake! Do, Moss, fo' de po' nigga's life. Do! do! Moss."

I poured him out a little in a tumbler, less from charity than from fear; for he knew that I was provided with a bottle, and I seemed to read murder in his eyes.

He drank like one athirst and scant of breath, making a dry, chuckling noise with his throat. When he had finished, he leaned his powerful neck and head upon the bed and groaned terribly.