A sense of humor, for which I must be grateful, considering the sombre dejection of my marching mates, filled my breast as I thanked him for putting one under guard for attempting (drunk) what he himself so soberly accomplished,—the capture of my buckskins. He kept the gauntlets very willingly, and ordered a sergeant to accompany me. But there was generosity and magnificence in his action; the acquisition, per duress, of others' property was a daily habit with him,—and to have a sergeant for a guard was a considerable favor.
It was my desire to cultivate the Sergeant thus cast within my reach, who otherwise might be a marplot, and who had good of some sort in him, I judged from his appearance; although, as with his kind, it was evidently very barren winter in his purse, and his summer clothes were apparently too open. His butternut jacket, a poor tweed with a cotton filling, was clasped about his throat with a shred of twine, flying away thence loosely, showing a dirty cotton shirt beneath, and the rough edge of the waistband of his pantaloons. The material of which these last were made was a very impressible jean, and marked the number of his journeys, could one but decipher them, in stains and intricate creases. He had the same face of lifeless suet, and the yellow hair, that I have noticed as very prevalent in the Rebel armies,—but withal an elasticity of carriage that seemed too honest for the cause, an almost openness of countenance, a cast of features tending towards amiability, which imbued me with a trembling hope. I had designs upon the Sergeant, and intended opening upon him with rhetoric, after, perhaps, some amicable skirmishing. His detail to guard my person was a compliment to me which only the initiated—those who have made the same journey—can appreciate. The young provost-officer with the sleeve-knots desired to offer me a delicate attention in return for my hand-furniture, and, perhaps, to impress me in some sort with his sense of right, even though he was of so wrong-headed a company. What a dainty, dew-sipping bunch of violets would be to conscious beauty,—what a quaint volume of old matter, dust-breeding and crumbling, would be to the blinking scholar,—what refined gold, or gold ore, or gold stamped in the mint, would be to a Wall-Street broker,—was this sergeant to myself. He was the gift of a royal potentate who stood not upon little matters. There was no calculation in the largess. I was to have the entire sergeant as all my own. We fell a rod behind the officer, and trudged evenly along.
Although big with an evil design, I did not intend to address my companion at once. The monotony of my walk, as I had at present nought else to think of, I allowed to engage a number of my thoughts. I hazarded conjectures upon many idle points, as my narrative will show. I fell to watching my feet, and to placing them, as far as practicable, in the footmarks of him who marched before me, instituting a sort of comparison between our soles, finding his smaller than mine, as, behind his back, I ventured upon his measure, watched the ruts in the road, made the wagons in advance of us, and wondered if those behind us had axle-trees as wide to an inch,—as they would have, if made by the same contractor;—in which case, I mused, it is just possible the coming train may move in this same rut. It seemed, then, a comfortable sort of place. I saw the clouds of dust that had been provoked rising in anger and rolling away sullenly many a day that weary summer, and that almost buried the wretched company in which we journeyed, hover heavily above the road-side, and choke the pretty weeds blooming there, by way of a mean revenge upon its human tormentors. Thereupon I envied the blue things, not their incubus, but their insignificance: for neither artillery, nor camp wagon, nor passing prisoner was aught to them. I wondered what each man here would say, if each man could tell his thoughts. Primarily, I was convinced, each captive would declare himself sick at heart: that is the only expression which will convey the sinking feeling. Once I heard a bird sing gayly a clear-throated song from a clump of trees; at which my heart grew sick also, to render me as miserable as the rest.
My mind reverted to the Adjutant T——, of the manner of whose capture I knew nothing, and whom I had left that morning in camp, as the regiment set out for the fight. I doubted not but that he would be with me in a moment, to throw another mild projectile, a half-sentence, at me. I had myself a catechism of one question with which to greet him. As some little parley might be necessary between us, which could not go on without the consent of our guardian, I concluded that then was the time to throw a sop to my sergeant, I turned coolly upon him.
"We are marching rather briskly, are we not, Sergeant?" I said, endeavoring to insinuate the independence of unconcern in my bearing.
"Wal,—right smart," he replied.
"I cannot tell by your uniform," I continued, with a half-smile, for the fellow was all beggar's rags and patches, "whether you are in the cavalry or not; but a pair of spurs, at any rate, may not come amiss to you,—and I can have no use for mine for some time yet. They don't allow us, I believe, to kick one another in Libby?"
I took my long spurs from my boots, like fringe from my heart-strings, (of which the officer had directed my sergeant to allow no one to deprive me,—the boots, not the heart-strings, they being inaccessible: I would, possibly, not lose those till I arrived in Richmond,) and handed them over to him.
"I'm of the Thirteenth Virginia Infantry," he said, "but do right smart duty on horseback" (he liked the steel). "I'm detailed to the provost marshal. They do treat a fellow rather hard down there."
I augured ever so much good from the Sergeant's "do," upon which there was an emphasis.