The Song of the Rappahannock: Sketches of the Civil War

by Ira Seymour Dodd

The division was drawn up in a great hollow square, and the officer in full uniform was marched under guard into the centre where all could see him. There in loud tones the finding of the court-martial and its sentence were read, after which the adjutant approached the condemned officer, tore off his shoulder-straps, took his sword from him, ran it half way into the ground and broke it before his face. The guard then closed about the disgraced and degraded man and marched him away.

I had never seen him before—he was from another brigade—but as he passed near and I could look into the deathly pale face of that young man with the heart-break of despair written on every feature, I said to myself, "This is a hundred times worse than death"; and I found myself wildly wishing that he had been shot dead in battle! When the parade was dismissed we went back to our quarters in awe-struck silence, broken only by expressions of deep compassion.

In strong contrast with this, the grandest and most impressive scene we witnessed was the review of the army by President Lincoln.

It was on a dull wintry day. We marched several miles from our camp before we came, early in the morning to the reviewing ground, which was a vast, desolate, open space, mostly level but with little hillocks here and there. Upon one of these we halted waiting for the mustering of the gathering host. For hours the dark lines of men in blue poured in from every direction until all the plain and every little hilltop was alive with them.

For six or seven months we had been members of the great army; we had shared its toils and perils, we had lived its life, we had felt the throbbing of its mighty pulse in our own blood, we had been part of its long line of battle; yet we had never as yet seen the assembly of our brethren in arms. Now the plain was growing black with them; a hundred thousand men were forming in apparently solid masses, the battle-flags of the regiments waving close together.

The scene was the more impressive because there were no idle spectators. This was no gala day for curious, gazing, merry-making crowds, and brilliant costumes, and feasting and huzzas; but solemnly, silently save for the measured tramp of battalions and the rolling of the drums a nation's strength was massing as if to weigh itself, to feel itself and ask its own soul if it were fit for the mighty work and the awful sacrifices awaiting it.

We could not know then that Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor, Petersburg, written across the scroll of a short two years to come were holding in their fateful though glorious names the doom of death or wounds for more in number than all the thousands of us who beheld each other that day. But we felt that a heavy-laden future was swiftly coming toward us; we could almost hear the rustling of her wings in the air of the leaden sky under which, apart from the world, alone with ourselves and God, we stood a great brotherhood of consecrated service.

But now our moment has come. We take our place in the moving ranks. We marched in close column with double company front, so that each regiment took up small space. As we neared the reviewing stand the tall figure of Lincoln loomed up. He was on horseback and his severely plain, black citizen's dress set him in bold relief against the crowd of generals in full uniform grouped behind him. Distinguished men were among them; but we had no eyes save for our revered President, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, the brother of every soldier, the great leader of a nation in its hour of trial. There was no time save for a marching salute; the occasion called for no cheers. Self-examination, not glorification had brought the army and its chief together; but we passed close to him so that he could look into our faces and we into his.

None of us to our dying day can forget that countenance! From its presence we marched directly onward toward our camp and as soon as "route step" was ordered and the men were free to talk they spoke thus to each other: "Did you ever see such a look on any man's face?" "He is bearing the burdens of the nation." "It is an awful load; it is killing him." "Yes, that is so; he is not long for this world!"

Concentrated in that one great, strong yet tender face, the agony of the life or death struggle of the hour was revealed as we had never seen it before. With new understanding we knew why we were soldiers.