CHAPTER III.
ON TO WASHINGTON.
After two weeks in that miserable camp at the State capital, we were ordered to Washington; and into Washington, accordingly, one sultry September morning, we marched, after a day and a night in the cars on the way thither. Quite proud we felt, you may be sure, as we tramped up Pennsylvania Avenue, with our new silk flags flying, the fifes playing "Dixie," and we ten little drummer-boys pounding away, awkwardly enough, no doubt, under the lead of a white-haired old man, who had beaten his drum, nearly fifty years before, under Wellington, at the battle of Waterloo. We were green, raw troops, as anybody could tell at a glance; for we were fair-faced yet, and carried enormous knapsacks. I remember passing some old troops somewhere near Fourteenth Street, and being painfully conscious of the difference between them and us. They, I observed, had no knapsacks; a gum-blanket, twisted into a roll, and slung carelessly over the shoulder, was all the luggage they carried. Dark, swarthy, sinewy men they were, with torn shoes and faded uniforms, but with an air of self-possession and endurance that came only of experience and hardship. They smiled on us as we passed by,—a grim smile of half pity and half contempt,—just as we in our turn learned to smile on other new troops a year or two later.
By some unpardonable mistake, instead of getting into camp forthwith on the outskirts of the city, whither we had been ordered for duty at the present, we were marched far out into the country, under a merciless sun, that soon scorched all the endurance out of me. It was dusty; it was hot; there was no water; my knapsack weighed a ton. So that when, after marching some seven miles, our orders were countermanded, and we faced about to return to the city again, I thought it impossible I ever should reach it. My feet moved mechanically, everything along the road was in a misty whirl; and when at nightfall Andy helped me into the barracks near the Capitol from which we had started in the morning, I threw myself, or rather perhaps fell, on the hard floor, and was soon so soundly asleep that Andy could not rouse me for my cup of coffee and ration of bread.
I have an indistinct recollection of being taken away next morning in an ambulance to some hospital, and being put into a clean white cot. After which, for days, all consciousness left me, and all was blank before me, save only that, in misty intervals, I saw the kind faces and heard the subdued voices of Sisters of Mercy,—voices that spoke to me from far away, and hands that reached out to me from the other side of an impassable gulf.
Nursed by their tender care back to returning strength, no sooner was I able to stand on my feet once more than, against their solemn protest, I asked for my knapsack and drum, and insisted on setting out forthwith in quest of my regiment, which I found had meanwhile been scattered by companies about the city, my own company and another having been assigned to duty at "Soldiers' Home," the President's summer residence. Although it was but a distance of three miles or thereabouts, and although I started out in search of "Soldiers' Home" at noon, so conflicting were the directions given me by the various persons of whom I asked the road, that it was nightfall before I reached it. Coming then at the hour of dusk to a gateway leading apparently into some park or pleasure-ground, and being informed by the porter at the gate that this was "Soldiers' Home," I walked about among the trees, in the growing darkness, in search of the camp of Company D, when, just as I had crossed a fence, a challenge rang out,—
"Halt! Who goes there?"
"A friend."
"Advance, friend, and give the countersign!"
"Hello, Elias!" said I, peering through the bushes, "is that you?"