While still talking to these officers, the younger one, to whom the Captain had addressed the inquiry as to the name of the Pensacola Spy, incidentally volunteered the information that their company, which was a part of the regiment, had been organized about Galveston in the early days of April and May, and, while waiting for the enlistment of the regiment's full quota, they had been ordered to New Orleans, and from thence were assigned to duty at Pensacola, Florida, and were actually there about the time of my adventure to Fort Pickens.
I did not feel like pursuing the conversation much further in that direction. I quickly changed the subject, so as to make an impression on their minds that I had been in active service in Virginia right along. This was not difficult, and I had the satisfaction of seeing that my gray uniform had been of service again. It saved my bacon that day, sure.
It seemed, in my nervousness, that the boys would never get ready to leave camp for town. When I learned the delay was caused by some disappointment about securing enough horses for all who wanted to go along, I urged with much earnestness that horses would only be an encumbrance—that we could easily walk and have more fun if not encumbered with their care. They abandoned them reluctantly, as a Texan thinks he can not go a square without a horse. We all started off at last, light-footed. There was not one of that crowd of hearty boys who walked out of that camp in the gloaming of that Sunday evening who suspected my true character. My heart was heavy enough as I walked along with them, brooding inwardly over the troubles which I saw must result from this Sunday visit; but my feet were light, and I verily believe that I could have double-quicked it all night in almost any direction that would lead me away from there.
I dared not take any of these boys to our Maryland Battery and introduce them to my friends there, who knew me as a different person. They were, for this time, only expecting to put in a night sky-larking in Richmond, but I knew very well the time would come—very soon, too—when I must expect a return visit from them. I realized, too, that in the meantime my old enemy, Davy Crockett, would keep stirring up the two boys who had been only temporarily put down; and if the Captain could hear of their story, and be made to believe that I was playing double with them, it would surely awaken his Pensacola recollections and direct his attention to me. So I did not want to see anybody from Texas any more.
In attempting two different characters on the one day, in Richmond, I ran a foolish risk, and had probably stirred up an investigation that would be fatal to me. This was about the situation of affairs on this Sunday evening, when I was actually reckless enough to risk again mixing myself up, by acting as a guide or cicerone to a party of Rebel soldiers about their own Capital at night for fun. Notwithstanding the previous encounters, I enjoyed the night off fully as much as any of the boys of the crowd.
I was somewhat heavy-hearted when we first left the Texas camp, but the hearty, joyous, unsuspecting behavior of the crowd had the effect of reassuring me, as it were; and seeing that they, at least, would stand by me in their own camp, I entered with them into the spirit of the fun in such a way that I am surprised at myself when I think of it now.
We walked into town over what is known as Church Hill, above Rockett's, on the road leading out to Seven Pines and Fair Oaks.
It was about dark when we reached the colored settlement in the outskirts, and, as we began the descent of the long hill (the same on which the colored troops first entered Richmond in 1865), we heard the church bells of the city. There is, in many souls like my own, a sympathy with sounds of this character. In our crowd was the doctor, an educated as well as a polished gentleman and scholar. When the tones reached his ear he stopped, lifted his hat reverently as he stood on the sidewalk, and recited in a manner that so impressed me that I shall never forget these words:
"Hist! When the church bell chime,
'Tis Angels music."
Some of the boys, inclined to poke fun at the doctor's seriousness, to which, in his absent-minded, thoughtful way, he responded: "Have you never been where bells have tolled to church?"