A curious scene presented itself at the Junction. But before we attempt to describe the former, we will give the reader some idea of the latter. The Junction was the terminus of one railroad and the junction of two others. One of the railroads led to Washington, one to Pittsburg, and one to Baltimore. It was not a large town; a village of perhaps twelve or fifteen hundred inhabitants, blackened by the smoke of engines. The surrounding country was broken and rough, with hills rising upon hills, deep ravines, rocky gorges, and winding streams, lined with a luxuriant growth of pine and maple, while far away in the distance the gray peaks of mountains could be seen.
The Junction was about twenty miles north-east of Snagtown, there being no railroad to the latter place, though there was a hard beaten turnpike, with a daily mail-coach running between the two. Some of the houses about the Junction were of brick, but the majority of wood. There were neat little cottages, looking like fairy abodes, amid the green vines and blooming flowers of Spring-time, and there were cottages neither neat nor fairy-like in aspect; the log hovel, showing signs of decay and neglect. But the village, taken as a whole, was a very pretty place.
It was about the 1st of May. The President had called for eighty-two thousand more men, finding seventy-five thousand wholly inadequate to put down the rebellion. Virginia was at this period in a constant state of alarm. Sumter had fallen, Harper's Ferry and Norfolk Navy-yard were in the hands of the rebels, while a mob, in the city of Baltimore, had attacked Massachusetts and Pennsylvania troops on their way to the defense of Washington.
The Federal Government, on the other hand, was straining every nerve. It had collected about Washington, as speedily as possible, under General Scott, the veteran hero of Chippewa, Lundy's Lane, and the Mexican War, the volunteers who flocked to their country's defense in answer to the President's call. Volunteer companies were raising all over the country. In the extreme Northern States, in the defense of the Federal Government; in the extreme Southern States, in defense of the Confederate Government, and in some of the Middle and Western States, companies were raised for both sides. In fact, there were men in some of the more Northern slave States, who mustered with the rebels and were actually in the Confederate service before they knew it.
In Virginia, as we have shown, both sides were represented. The Junction, on account of its railroad facilities, was an important point to guard, and about three hundred volunteers, under Colonel Holdfast, were here stationed. Of these raw recruits, there was but one company that was a complete organization, uniformed and armed at the expense of the Government. It was a company of mounted infantry, under command of Captain Wardle, armed with musket, uniformed in the Government blue, and furnished with horses in order to scout the country.
The Government found it impossible to turn out arms and clothing fast enough to supply the volunteers at once, and it was late in the Summer of 1861 before they were all equipped. Many armed themselves, as was the case with two hundred of those at the Junction. Their arms consisted of rifles, shot-guns, and such other weapons as they were able to furnish themselves with.
The Junction, as we have said, presented a curious scene. Five tall, white army tents had been erected for Captain Wardle's men, and there were a score or more enclosures, ambitious to be known as tents, made from Virginia wagon-covers, sail-cloth, oil-cloth, sheeting, and bed-ticking. They were of various sizes and shapes; some so small that four men would fill them; others large enough to hold twenty-five. Some of them were square, some round, like Indian wigwams, and others more like a circus canvas than anything we can compare them to.
The tents were a motley assemblage, and so, and to a greater extent, were the men therein sheltered. There was first the company of Captain Wardle, properly uniformed and armed, and intensely military in appearance and behavior. They were always drilling when not scouting the country; the raw recruits standing by, overwhelmed with admiration at their easy proficiency in the manual of arms, or the intricate and mysterious movements of the company drill.
It was early morning, and the smoke was ascending from half a hundred camp-fires. The scene was a constantly varying panorama of straw hats, linen coats, broadcloth coats, colored, flannel and white shirts. An orderly sergeant was trying to initiate a squad of raw recruits into some of the mysteries of drilling.
"Remember the position of a soldier," said the orderly. "Heels close together, head up, the eyes striking the ground twenty paces away. Now, shoulder arms! Great Moses! Tom Koontz, can't you learn how to handle a gun? Keep the barrel vertical. Do you call that vertical?"