The Lost Army

by Thomas Wallace Knox

Jack and Harry were with a scouting party that visited the deserted camp of the rebels close to the town of Springfield, and were much interested in studying the buildings which had been erected for the use of the troops. They consisted of log and board structures, and were sufficiently numerous and extensive to accommodate ten thousand men, in the way troops are lodged in barracks, without any overcrowding. The log-houses were well chinked with mud and clay, and the board ones were well built and comfortable; both kinds of buildings had floorings of boards, and at one end of every house there was a chimney and a fireplace.

“In some of the camps,” said Jack afterwards, in describing the place to a friend, “the buildings seemed to have been dropped down hap-hazard, without any effort at regularity, while in other camps they were laid out into streets and lanes. Some of the streets had signs at the corners, and of course the names were sure to be those of the Confederate generals. The bunks were arranged in tiers, sometimes four or five in a tier; some of the roofs of the buildings were covered with rawhide, and we saw several chairs and sofas seated with the same material.

“We thought by the looks of the place that they must have left in a hurry. There was a dead pig lying on the ground with the knife still sticking in his throat, and close by was a sheep hanging on a peg in the side of a house, with its skin about half taken off. Dough was fresh in the pans, and there were cooking utensils in considerable number, many of them containing food wholly or partially cooked. They took away their blankets, hardly one having been left behind. The sick men who remained in camp said that there was a very short supply of blankets, and they were sure the army would suffer greatly for want of proper clothing and covering.

“I'm certain they left in a great hurry,” continued Jack, “or I would n't have this.”

As he spoke he drew from his pocket a gold watch, which he had found in a bunk in one of the houses, evidently a house where the officers of a regiment were lodged. It was a pleasing souvenir of the visit to the camp, and Jack said he hoped to carry it home to show to his friends in Iowa.

“And what did you find, Harry?” said one of the listeners, turning to the other of our young friends.

“There were no gold watches, or even a silver one, in any bunk that I examined; but I found this, which was quite likely a treasured possession of its former owner as much as was the watch to the man who left it behind for Jack to pick up. But it would n't sell for as much; in fact, I don't think it would bring any price at all in the market, as it's only a bundle of love-letters.”

Then he read some of the letters aloud, to the great amusement of the entire party. It is a fact worthy of record that anybody's love-letters are amusing, and generally silly, to all except the one person for whom they are intended and the other person who writes them.

The love element was not stronger than the devotion of the fair writers to the cause of the South. One of them urged her lover to stay with the army and fight till the last slave-stealing Yankee was put out of existence and the triumph of the Confederacy was assured. “And you won't have long to stay,” she added, “as we hear the northern people are starving, and all of them are fast getting sick of the war. They won't be able to hire any more Dutchmen to fight for them, and when they can't hire Dutchmen the war will stop and the South will be independent.

“I know I can trust you when you get among the northern women,” she says in conclusion; “and am sure you won't forget me and fall in love with one of those ill-looking, wheezing, whining, ignorant creatures. That's what Johnny Scott says all the Yankee women are like, and he's been North three or four times, you know.”