Crittenden: A Kentucky Story of Love and War

by Jr. John Fox

Grafton was not storing up much material for use; but he would have been much surprised if he could have looked straight across to the deck of the ship running parallel to his and have seen the dignified young statesman whom he had heard speak at the recruiting camp in Kentucky; who made him think of Henry Clay; whom he had seen whisking a beautiful girl from the camp in the smartest turn-out he had seen South—had seen him now as Private Crittenden with his fast friend, Abe Long, and passing in his company because of his bearing under a soubriquet donated by his late enemy, Reynolds, as "Old Hamlet of Kentuck." And Crittenden would have been surprised had he known that the active darky whom he saw carrying coffee and shoes to a certain stateroom was none other than Bob waiting on Grafton. And that the Rough Rider whom he saw scribbling on a pad in the rigging of the Yucatan was none other than Basil writing one of his bulletins home.

It was hard for him to believe that he really was going to war, even now, when the long sail was near an end and the ships were running fearlessly along the big, grim coast-mountains of Cuba, with bands playing and colors to the breeze; hard to realize that he was not to land in peace and safety and, in peace and safety, go back as he came; that a little further down those gashed mountains, showing ever clearer through the mist, were men with whom the quiet officers and men around him would soon be in a death-grapple. The thought stirred him, and he looked around at the big, strong fellows—intelligent, orderly, obedient, good-natured, and patient; patient, restless, and sick as they were from the dreadful hencoop life they had led for so many days—patient beyond words. He had risen early that morning. The rose light over the eastern water was whitening, and all over the deck his comrades lay asleep, their faces gray in the coming dawn and their attitudes suggesting ghastly premonitions—premonitions that would come true fast enough for some of the poor fellows—perhaps for him. Stepping between and over the prostrate bodies, he made his way forward and leaned over the prow, with his hat in his hand and his hair blowing back from his forehead.

Already his face had suffered a change. For more than three long weeks he had been merely a plain man among plain men. At once when he became Private Crittenden, No. 63, Company C, —th United States Regular Cavalry, at Tampa, he was shorn of his former estate as completely as though in the process he had been wholly merged into some other man. The officers, at whose table he had once sat, answered his salute precisely as they answered any soldier's. He had seen Rivers but seldom—but once only on the old footing, and that was on the night he went on board, when Rivers came to tell him good-by and to bitterly bemoan the luck that, as was his fear from the beginning, had put him among the ill-starred ones chosen to stay behind at Tampa and take care of the horses; as hostlers, he said, with deep disgust, adding hungrily:

"I wish I were in your place."

With the men, Crittenden was popular, for he did his work thoroughly, asked no favors, shirked no duties. There were several officers' sons among them working for commissions, and, naturally, he drifted to them, and he found them all good fellows. Of Blackford, he was rather wary, after Rivers's short history of him, but as he was friendly, unselfish, had a high sense of personal honour, and a peculiar reverence for women, Crittenden asked no further questions, and was sorry, when he came back to Tampa, to find him gone with the Rough Riders. With Reynolds, he was particularly popular, and he never knew that the story of the Tampa fight had gone to all the line officers of the regiment, and that nearly every one of them knew him by sight and knew his history. Only once from an officer, however, and steadily always from the old Sergeant, could he feel that he was regarded in a different light from the humblest soldier in the ranks—which is just what he would have asked. The Colonel had cast an envious eye on Raincrow at Tampa, and, straightway, he had taken the liberty of getting the Sergeant to take the horse to the Colonel's tent with the request that he use him throughout the campaign. The horse came back with the Colonel's thanks; but, when the order came that the cavalry was to go unmounted, the Colonel sent word that he would take the horse now, as the soldier could not use him. So Raincrow was aboard the ship, and the old Colonel, coming down to look at the horse one day, found Crittenden feeding him, and thanked him and asked him how he was getting along; and, while there was a smile about his humorous mouth, there was a kindly look in his blue eyes that pleased Crittenden mightily. As for the old Sergeant, he could never forget that the soldier was a Crittenden—one of his revered Crittendens. And, while he was particularly stern with him in the presence of his comrades, for fear that he might be betrayed into showing partiality—he was always drifting around to give him a word of advice and to shake his head over the step that Crittenden had taken.

That step had made him good in body and soul. It made him lean and tanned; it sharpened and strengthened his profile; it cleared his eye and settled his lips even more firmly. Tobacco and liquor were scarce, and from disuse he got a new sensation of mental clearness and physical cleanliness that was comforting and invigorating, and helped bring back the freshness of his boyhood.

For the first time in many years, his days were full of work and, asleep, awake, or at work, his hours were clock-like and steadied him into machine-like regularity. It was work of his hands, to be sure, and not even high work of that kind, but still it was work. And the measure of the self-respect that this fact alone brought him was worth it all. Already, his mind was taking character from his body. He was distinctly less morbid and he found himself thinking during those long days of the sail of what he should do after the war was over. His desire to get killed was gone, and it was slowly being forced on him that he had been priggish, pompous, self-absorbed, hair-splitting, lazy, good-for-nothing, when there was no need for him to be other than what he meant to be when he got back. And as for Judith, he felt the bitterness of gall for himself when he thought of her, and he never allowed himself to think of her except to absolve her, as he knew she would not absolve herself, and to curse himself heartily and bitterly. He understood now. It was just her thought of his faithfulness, her feeling of responsibility for him—the thought that she had not been as kind to him as she might have been (and she had always been kinder than he deserved)—all this had loosed her tears and her self-control, and had thrown her into a mood of reckless self-sacrifice. And when she looked up into his face that night of the parting, he felt her looking into his soul and seeing his shame that he had lost his love because he had lost himself, and she was quite right to turn from him, as she did, without another word. Already, however, he was healthy enough to believe that he was not quite so hopeless as she must think him—not as hopeless as he had thought himself. Life, now, with even a soldier's work, was far from being as worthless as life with a gentleman's idleness had been. He was honest enough to take no credit for the clean change in his life—no other life was possible; but he was learning the practical value and mental comfort of straight living as he had never learned them before. And he was not so prone to metaphysics and morbid self-examination as he once was, and he shook off a mood of that kind when it came—impatiently—as he shook it off now. He was a soldier now, and his province was action and no more thought than his superiors allowed him. And, standing thus, at sunrise, on the plunging bow of the ship, with his eager, sensitive face splitting the swift wind—he might have stood to any thoughtful American who knew his character and his history as a national hope and a national danger. The nation, measured by its swift leap into maturity, its striking power to keep going at the same swift pace, was about his age. South, North, and West it had lived, or was living, his life. It had his faults and his virtues; like him, it was high-spirited, high-minded, alert, active, manly, generous, and with it, as with him, the bad was circumstantial, trivial, incipient; the good was bred in the Saxon bone and lasting as rock—if the surface evil were only checked in time and held down. Like him, it needed, like a Titan, to get back, now and then, to the earth to renew its strength. And the war would send the nation to the earth as it would send him, if he but lived it through.

There was little perceptible change in the American officer and soldier, now that the work was about actually to begin. A little more soberness was apparent. Everyone was still simple, natural, matter-of-fact. But that night, doubtless, each man dreamed his dream. The West Point stripling saw in his empty shoulder-straps a single bar, as the man above him saw two tiny bars where he had been so proud of one. The Captain led a battalion, the Major charged at the head of a thousand strong; the Colonel plucked a star, and the Brigadier heard the tramp of hosts behind him. And who knows how many bold spirits leaped at once that night from acorns to stars; and if there was not more than one who saw himself the war-god of the anxious nation behind—saw, maybe, even the doors of the White House swing open at the conquering sound of his coming feet. And, through the dreams of all, waved aimlessly the mighty wand of the blind master—Fate—giving death to a passion for glory here; disappointment bitter as death to a noble ambition there; and there giving unsought fame where was indifference to death; and then, to lend substance to the phantom of just deserts, giving a mortal here and there the exact fulfilment of his dream.

Two toasts were drunk that night—one by the men who were to lead the Rough Riders of the West.

"May the war last till each man meets death, wears a wound, or wins himself better spurs."