Andy was nowhere to be found.
All along the line of battle-worn men, now gathered in irregular groups behind the breastworks, and safe from the enemy, I searched for him—and searched in vain. Not a soul had tidings of him. At last, however, a soldier with his blouse-sleeve ripped up and a red-stained bandage around his arm, told me that, about daylight, when the enemy came sweeping down on us, he and Andy were behind neighboring trees. He himself received a ball through the arm, and was busy trying to stop the flow of blood, when, looking up, he saw Andy reel, and, he thought, fall. He was not quite sure it was Andy, but he thought so.
Andy killed! What should I do without Andy?—the best and truest friend, the most companionable messmate, that a soldier ever could hope to have! It could not be! I would look farther for him.
Out, therefore, I went, over the breastworks to the picket-line, where the rifles were popping away at intervals. I searched among trees and behind bushes, and called and called, but all in vain. Then the retreat was sounded, and we were drawn off the field, and marched back to the fortifications which we had left the day before.
Toward evening, as we reached camp, I obtained permission to examine the ambulance-trains, in search of my chum. As one train after another came in, I climbed up and looked into each ambulance; but the night had long set in before I found him—or thought I had found him. Raising my lantern high, so as to throw the light full on the face of the wounded man lying in a stupor on the floor of the wagon, I was at first confident it was Andy; for the figure was short, well-built, and had raven black hair.
"Andy! Andy! Where are you hurt?" I cried.
But no answer came. Rolling him on his back and looking full into his face, I found, alas! a stranger—a manly, noble face, too, but no life, no signs of life, in it. There were indeed a very low, almost imperceptible breathing and a faint pulse—but the man was evidently dying.
About a week afterward, having secured a pass from corps headquarters, I started for City Point to search the hospitals there for my chum. The pass allowed me not only to go through all the guards I might meet on my way, but also to ride free to City Point over the railroad—"General Grant's Railroad," we called it.
Properly speaking, this was a branch of the road from City Point to Petersburg, tapping it about midway between the two places, and from that point following our lines closely to the extreme left of our position. Never was road more hastily built. So rapidly did the work advance, that scarcely had we learned such a road was planned, before one evening the whistle of a locomotive was heard down the line only a short distance to our right. No grading was done. The ties were simply laid on the top of the ground, the rails were nailed fast, and the rolling-stock was put on without waiting for ballast; and there the railroad was—up hill and down dale, and "as crooked as a dog's hind leg." At only one point had any cutting been done, and that was where the road, after climbing a hill, came within range of the enemy's batteries. The first trains which passed up and down afforded a fine mark and were shelled vigorously, the enemy's aim becoming with daily practice so exact that nearly every train was hit somewhere. The hill was then cut through, and the fire avoided. It was a rough road, and the riding was full of fearful jolts; but it saved thousands of mules, and enabled General Grant to hold his position during the winter of the Petersburg siege.
I was obliged to make an early start, for the train left General Warren's headquarters about four o'clock in the morning. When I reached the station, I found on the platform a huge pile of boxes and barrels, nearly as high as a house, which I was informed was the Fifth Corps' share of a grand dinner which the people of New York had just sent down to the Army of the Potomac. Before the train arrived I had seen enough to cause me to fear that a very small portion of the contents of those boxes and barrels would ever find its way into the haversack of a drummer-boy. For I had not been contemplating the pile with a wistful eye very long, before a certain sergeant came out of a neighboring tent with a lantern in his hand, followed by two darkies, one of whom carried an axe.