And sure enough, there he was,—a big fat 'possum!
"All right, Elias; you're a brave soldier. I'll speak to the colonel about this, and you shall have two stripes on your sleeve one of these days."
And so, with the 'possum by the tail and me by the shoulder, he marched us off to headquarters, where, the 'possum being thrown down on the ground, and I handed over to the tender mercies of the captain, it was ordered that—
"This young man should be taken down to Andy's tent, and a supper cooked, and a bed made for him there; and that henceforth and hereafter he should beat reveille at daybreak, retreat at sundown, tattoo at nine p.m., and lights out a half-hour later."
Nothing, however, was said about the execution of spies in the morning, although it was duly ordained that the 'possum, poor thing, should be roasted for dinner the next day.
Never was there a more pleasant camp than ours,—there on that green hillside across the ravine from the President's summer residence. We had light guard duty to do, and that of a kind we esteemed a most high honor; for it was no less than that of being special guards for President Lincoln. But the good President, we were told, although he loved his soldiers as his own children, did not like being guarded. Often did I see him enter his carriage before the hour appointed for his morning departure for the White House, and drive away in haste, as if to escape from the irksome escort of a dozen cavalry-men, whose duty it was to guard his carriage between our camp and the city. Then when the escort rode up to the door, some ten or fifteen minutes later, and found that the carriage had already gone, wasn't there a clattering of hoofs and a rattling of scabbards as they dashed out past the gate and down the road to overtake the great and good President, in whose heart was "charity for all, and malice toward none!"
Boy as I was, I could not but notice how pale and haggard the President looked as he entered his carriage in the morning, or stepped down from it in the evening, after a weary day's work in the city; and no wonder, either, for those September days of 1862 were the dark, perhaps the darkest, days of the war. Many a mark of favor and kindness did we receive from the President's family. Delicacies, such as we were strangers to then, and would be for a long time to come, found their way from Mrs. Lincoln's hand to our camp on the green hillside; while little Tad, the President's son, was a great favorite with the boys, fond of the camp, and delighted with the drill.
One night, when all but the guards on their posts were wrapped in great-coats and sound asleep in the tents, I felt some one shake me roughly by the shoulder, and call:
"Harry! Harry! Get up quick and beat the long roll; we're going to be attacked. Quick, now!"
Groping about in the dark for my drum and sticks, I stepped out into the company street, and beat the loud alarm, which, waking the echoes, brought the boys out of their tents in double-quick time, and set the whole camp in an uproar.