The whistle blew "Off brakes!" the car-door closed on father, and I did not see him again for three long, long years!
Often and often as I have thought over these things since, I have never been able to come to any other conclusion than this: that it was the "war-fever" that carried me off, and that made poor father let me go. For that "war-fever" was a terrible malady in those days. Once you were taken with it, you had a very fire in the bones until your name was down on the enlistment-roll. There was Andy, for example, my schoolfellow, and afterward my messmate for three ever-memorable years. I have had no time to tell you how Andy came to be with us; but with us he surely was, notwithstanding he had so stoutly asserted his determination to quit thinking about the war and stick to his books.
He was on his way to school the very morning the company was leaving the village, with no idea of going along; but seeing this, that, and the other acquaintance in line, what did he do but run across the street to an undertaker's shop, cram his school-books through the broken window, take his place in line, and march off with the boys without so much as saying good by to the folks at home! And he did not see his Cæsar and Greek grammar again for three years.
CHAPTER II.
FIRST DAYS IN CAMP.
Our first camp was located on the outskirts of Harrisburg, Pa., and was called "Camp Curtin." It was so named in honor of Governor Andrew G. Curtin, the "War Governor" of the State of Pennsylvania, who was regarded by the soldiers of his State with a patriotic enthusiasm second only to that with which they, in common with all the troops of the Northern States, greeted the name of Abraham Lincoln.
Camp Curtin was not properly a camp of instruction. It was rather a mere rendezvous for the different companies which had been recruited in various parts of the State. Hither the volunteers came by hundreds and thousands for the purpose of being mustered into the service, uniformed and equipped, assigned to regiments, and shipped to the front as rapidly as possible. Only they who witnessed it can form any idea of the patriotic ardor, amounting often to a wild enthusiasm, with which volunteering went on in those days. Companies were often formed, and their muster-rolls filled, in a week, sometimes in a few days. The contagion of enlisting and "going to the war" was in the very atmosphere. You could scarcely accompany a friend to a way station on any of the main lines of travel, without seeing the future wearers of blue coats at the car-windows and on the platforms. Very frequently whole trains were filled with them, speeding away to the State capital as swift as steam could carry them. They poured into Harrisburg, company by company, usually in citizens' clothes, and marched out of the town a week or so later, regiment by regiment, all glorious in bright new uniforms and glistening bayonets, transformed in a few days from citizens into soldiers, and destined for deeds of high endeavor on many a bloody field.
Shortly after our arrival in camp, Andy and I went to town to purchase such articles as we supposed a soldier would be likely to need,—a gum-blanket, a journal, a combination knife, fork, and spoon, and so on to the end of the list. To our credit I have it to record that we turned a deaf ear to the solicitations of a certain dealer in cutlery who insisted on selling us each a revolver, and an ugly looking bowie-knife in a bright red morocco sheath.
"Shentlemens, shust de ting you vill need ven you goes into de battle. Ah, see dis knife, how it shines! Look at dis very fine revolfer!"
But Moses entreated in vain, while his wife stood at the shop-door looking at some regiment marching down the street to the depot, weeping as if her heart would break, and wiping her eyes with the corner of her apron from time to time.