It was near sundown when I was awakened by the snort of a locomotive, and a freight train hove in sight. The drums rolled, the troops formed in line, each packing his household on his back as he trotted along; and, as the cars backed up, the men broke ranks and jumped aboard, filling every crack and corner, and seeming to pile on top of each other.
A berth there was utterly impracticable to any man with any of his senses in active operation. That squirming, dense mass of humanity was more than the oldest traveler could stand, and I gave up my place in the rush. Luckily, there was an express car along, and I found the agent. He was very busy; and eloquence worthy of Gough, or Cicero, or Charles Sumner got no satisfaction. Desperation suggested a masonic signal, with the neck of a black bottle protruding from my bag. The man of parcels melted and invoked terrible torments on the immortal part of him if he didn't let me "g'long wi' the 'spress," as he styled that means of locomotion.
The accommodation was not princely—six feet by ten, cumbered with packages of all shapes and sizes and strongly flavored with bacon and pipe. Yet, "not for gold or precious stones" would I have exchanged that redolent corner. The agent waxed more and more polite as the bottle emptied, regretted the want of room, regaled himself with frequent "nips," and me with anecdotes of a professional nature.
From him was learned that he was with the train that had carried my old friends, the Zouaves, to their fresh fields of glory in Virginia. They retained a lively recollection of their lesson at Montgomery, and had kept rather quiet till reaching Columbia. There the devil again got unchained among them, and they broke out in a style to make up for their enforced good behavior.
"Sich a shooting of cattle and poultry, sich a yelling and singing of ther darned frenchy stuff—sich a rolling of drums and a damning of officers, I ain't hear yit"—said the agent. "And they does ride more on the outside of the cars than the inside, anyhow."
Beyond Weldon a knot were balancing themselves on the connecting beams of the box-cars. Warned by their officers, they laughed; begged by the conductors, they swore. Suddenly there was a jolt, the headway of the cars jammed them together, and three red-legged gentlemen were mashed between them—flat as Ravel in the pantomime.
"And I'm jest a-thinkin'," was his peroration, "ef this yere reegement don't stop a-fightin' together, being shot by the Georgians and beat by their officers—not to mention a jammin' up on railroads—they're gwine to do darned leetle sarvice a-fightin' of Yanks!"
After this period the agent talked, first to himself and then to the black bottle; while I, seated on a box of cartridges, lit my pipe and went into a reverie as to the treatment the surgeons would use in the pneumonia sure to result from the leaks in the car.
In the midst of an active course of turpentine and stimulants, I was brought to myself by a jolt and dead halt in mid-road. The engine had blown off a nut, and here we were, dead lame, six miles from a station and no chance of getting on.
My Express friend advised very quietly to "quit this and walk onter Florence."