“I didn’t speak to you, Tom Somers,” said Ben, sharply.
“You said a mean thing in my presence.”
“By and by we shall be having a prayer meeting in our tent every night.”
“If you are invited I hope you will come,” added Tom, “for if prayers will do any body any good, they won’t hurt you.”
“If you will take care of yourself, and let me alone, it’s all I ask of you.”
“I’m agreed.”
This was about the last of the skirmishing between Tom and Ben. The latter was a little disposed to be bully; and from the time the company left Pinchbrook, he had been in the habit of calling Tom a baby, and other opprobrious terms, till the subject of his sneers could endure them no longer. Tom had come to the conclusion that he could obtain respectful treatment only by the course he had adopted. Perhaps, if he had possessed the requisite patience, he might have attained the same result by a less repulsive and more noble policy.
The regiment remained in Washington about a fortnight. The capital was no longer considered to be in danger. A large body of troops had been massed in and around the city, and the rebels’ boast that they would soon capture Washington was no longer heeded. Fear and anxiety had given place to hope and expectation. “On to Richmond!” was the cry sounded by the newspapers, and repeated by the people. The army of newly-fledged soldiers was burning with eagerness to be led against the rebels. “On to Richmond!” shouted citizens and soldiers, statesmen and politicians. Some cursed and some deprecated the cautious slowness of the old general who had never been defeated.
“On to Richmond!” cried the boys in Tom’s regiment, and none more earnestly than he.
“Don’t hurry old Scott. He knows what he is about. I know something about this business, for I’ve seen old Scott where the bullets flew thicker’n snow flakes at Christmas,” was the oft-repeated reply of Hapgood, the veteran of Company K.