implying that he is opposed to going into that speculation in wooden horseflesh, because he fears the Greeks, even when they bring gifts. Just so, I fear the ladies, especially when they present flags. Remember Punch's advice to young persons about to be married? 'Don't!'
The Seventh, after going through the usual evening parade, and a few simple manœuvres, formed square, facing inward, with General Thomas and the oil-skin sausage that contained the new colors, and all the regimental officers, in the centre. General Thomas's feeble pipes sounded faintly enough for about half an hour, during which time no man in the ranks heard more than a dozen words. Then Colonel Lefferts responded in a few inaudible, but no doubt very appropriate remarks. Then 'the boys,' seeing that the time had come, cheered lustily, after the hypothetical manner of the rocket. But there was one thing we did hear, standing on tiptoe, and straining every ear. The Seventh was to go somewhere. The crisis of the war had come. The Seventh was going to shoot at it. Their thirty days were almost out; but they were going to be shot at, just like any of us three-months men.
To leave their canned fruits, and milk, and fresh eggs, and board floors, and a stroll on the avenue in the afternoon, and go where glory waited for them! Happy, happy gray-breasts! We wandered enviously round the excited camp, and talked with our friends. Many were the rumors, appalling to us in those days, when we were yet unused to camp 'chin.' The regiment was to go to Harper's Ferry. Johnston was there. They would hang him if they took him. They were to march straight to Richmond, One man of the 'Engineer Company' was going to resign, he said, because his company had to remain to guard the camp. They were to take two days' rations and forty rounds of cartridges per man—ball cartridges. Forty rounds of ball cartridges and two days' work! Surely, we thought, the days of the rebellion are numbered. And then, chewing the bitter cud of the reflection that the war would almost certainly be ended before we got a chance at the enemy, we wandered sadly back to our quarters, Smallweed growling horribly all the way. Our 'headquarters' we find in a great state of excitement. We find the orderly and Major Heavysterne discussing the prospects of the rebels being able to hold out a month, and Color-Sergeant Hepp and the adjutant both trying to decide the dispute. Hepp thinks they can't do without leather, and the adjutant thinks the want of salt must fetch them in a few weeks. Thinks? Decides! Whatever may be doubtful, this is certain. Everybody seems strangely excited. We tell them our news. 'Tell us some'n do'n know!' rasps Lieutenant Harch; 'our b'ttalion's goin', too; get ready, both of, quick! Smallweed, where in the h— have you been? I've had to do all your work.' We were to go at nine o'clock at night. It was then eight. Whither? No one knew. The chaplain comes in, with symptoms of erysipelas in his nose, and a villanous breath, to tell us, while we—the quartermaster-sergeant and I—are packing our knapsacks and leaving lines of farewell for those at home and at other people's homes, that the major has imparted to him in confidence the awful secret that we are bound for Mount Vernon, to remove the bones of Washington. This gives us something terrible to think of as we march down, in quick time (a suggestion of that adjutant, I know), to the Long Bridge, and during the long delay there, spent by commanding officers in pottering about and gesticulating. By commanding officers? There is one there who does not potter, standing erect—that one with the little point of fire between his fingers that marks the never-quenched cigarette—talking to Major Heavysterne in low and earnest tones, but perfectly cool and clear the while. That is our splendid Colonel Diamond, as brave and good a soldier as ever drew sword, as noble and true a Christian as ever endured persecution and showed patience. They are discussing a plan for crossing the river in boats, landing at a causeway where the Alexandria road crosses Four Mile Run, and so cutting off the impudent picket of the enemy's cavalry that holds post at the Virginia end of the Long Bridge. The battalion commanders are evidently dazzled by the brilliancy of the moonlight and the colonel's scheme, for it soon becomes apparent that they haven't the pluck and dash necessary to render such an operation successful. Even we young soldiers, intent upon the awful idea of resurrecting Washington's bones, and little dreaming then of becoming the pioneers of the great invasion, could see the hitch. Presently the major got a definite order, and beckoning to us of the battalion staff, began to cross the bridge. Dusky bodies of troops, their arms glistening in the moonlight, had been silently gliding past us while the discussion progressed. Most of them seemed to have halted on the bridge, we found as we passed on, and to have squatted down in the shade of the parapet, gassing, smoking, or napping. It was nearly midnight. We had got to the middle of the causeway, and found ourselves alone, bathed in silence and moonlight and wonder, when up dashed a horseman from the direction of the Virginia side. He stopped, and peered at us over his horse's neck. 'O'Malley, is that you?' says the major, seeing it is an Irish officer belonging to Colonel Diamond's staff. 'Yes,' says the captain, 'and who the devil are you?' 'Major Heavysterne. Won't you please ride back and send my battalion forward? You'll find the boys standing on the draw. Cap'n Bopp, of the Fisler Guards, is the senior officer, I believe.' But the Irishman was off, with an oath at the major's stupidity in forgetting to order his men forward. Presently the battalion came creeping up, silently enough, I thought, but the adjutant made the excuse of a casual 'ouch' from a man on whose heels Hrsthzschnoffski had casually trodden, to shriek out his favorite 'Stop 'at talken'!' 'Do you command this battalion?' asks Captain Pipes, sternly; and straightway there would have been a dire altercation, but for the major's gentle interference. The bridge began to sway and roar under our steps. We were on the draw. Clinging to the theory of Washington's bones, I peered over the draw, in the hope of seeing a steamer; there was nothing there but the sop and swish of the tide. Perhaps we were not going to Mount Vernon at all! 'Halt! Who are these sleeping beauties on the draw? Ah! these are the Bulgers. 'Say, Bulger,' I ask of one of them, 'who's ahead of you?' 'A'n't nobody,' he replied indignantly, as who should say, Who can be ahead of the invincible Bulger Guards. Nobody! Here was great news. ''Orr'd H'RCH!' drones the major, in low tones; and 'Owa'' H'MP,' sharply, ''Orrrr 'RRRCH,' gruffly, repeat the captains. On we go, breaking step to save the bridge, surprise and fluttering in our hearts. A'n't nobody ahead! Now we are on the hard dirt, the sacred soil, of the pewter State, mother of Presidents, the birthplace of Washington, the feeding ground of hams, but otherwise the very nursery and hive of worthlessness, humbug, sham, and superstition. Virginia, that might have been the first, and proudest, and most enlightened State in the Union, that is the last and most besodden State in or half out of it—But while my apostrophe runs on, the bit between its teeth, the head of our little column muffles its tread on the sacred soil itself, dirtying its boots in the sacred mud, the roar of the bridge ceases, the last files and the sergeant-major run after them to close up, in obedience to the sharp mandate of the major, and the invasion is begun. No man spoke a word; no sound was audible save the distant hum and cracking of the city, the cry of a thousand frogs, and the muffled tramp of our advancing footsteps. I thought the enemy, if any were near, must surely hear the cartridges rattle in my cartridge box as we double-quicked to close up, and I put my hand behind me to stop the clatter. If any enemy were near, indeed! There seemed an enemy behind every bush, a rebel in every corner of the worm fence. I am in the rear of the column, I thought, and my heart went thump, bump, and my great central nervous ganglion ached amain. 'Sergeant-major,' whispers Major Heavysterne; 'Sergeant-major,' barks the adjutant. 'Fall out four files and keep off to the right, and about fifty paces in advance of the battalion, and examine the ground thoroughly. Report any signs of the enemy.' The ache grew bigger, and I perspired terribly as I inquired, in tones whose tremor I hoped would be mistaken for ardor, whether any one was ahead of us. 'No one except the enemy,' laughed the major, quietly. No one except the enemy! Fifty paces from any one except the enemy, by my legs, each pace a yard! 'The ground to the right is all water, and about seven feet deep,' I reported joyfully, having ascertained the fact. 'Then go fifty yards ahead, as far to the right as you can get, and keep out of sight,' were our new orders. I thought we would keep out of sight well enough! We were going up hill—up the hill on which Fort Runyon now stands. Here is a shanty. What if it should be full of the enemy, and we but four poor frightened men, with our battalion hidden by the turn in the road. Mechanically I cocked my rifle and opened the door, and strained my eyes into the darkness. Nobody. I let down the hammer again.
Fear had oozed out of my fingers' ends, in lifting the latch, just as valor did from those of Bob Acres, and Jenkins was himself again. We jobbed our bayonets under the lager-beer counter, to provide for the case of any lurking foe in that quarter. Just here the road forked. Sending two of us to the right, the rest kept on the Alexandria. 'Look there,' chatters Todd second between his teeth, wafting in my face a mingled odor of fear and gin cocktails. 'Where?' 'Why there! on top of the hill—a horse.' 'Is that a horse?' 'Yes.' 'A man on him, too!' 'Two of 'em!' Click, click, click, from our locks. We creep on and up stealthily. We are scarcely thirty yards distant from the two horsemen, when a man darts out from the left-hand side of the road behind us—two men—three! We are surrounded. Todd second would have fired, but I held him back. 'Who's that?' I whispered; 'speak quick, or I fire!' 'Can't you see, you d—d fool,' barks out our surly adjutant, who, unknown to us, had been leading a similar scout on the opposite side of the road. Click, click, from up the hill. The enemy are going to shoot. An awful moment. We steady our rifles and our nerves; all trace of fear is gone; nothing remains but eagerness for the conflict that seems so near, and with a bound, without waiting for orders, we move quickly up the hill. Lieutenant Harch moves his men out into the road, where the bright moonlight betrays, perhaps multiplies, their number; the horsemen spring to their saddles, and are off at a clattering gallop, to alarm Alexandria. 'Don't shoot!' shrieks the adjutant; our rifles waver; the hill hides the flying picket; the chance is lost; presently all Alexandria will be awake, and a beautiful surprise frustrated. As we peer into the moonlit distance from the top of the hill now almost spaded away and trimmed up into Fort Runyon, feeling the solemnity of the occasion impressed upon us with dramatic force by all the surroundings—by our loneliness, by our character as the harbingers of the advance of the armies of American freedom and American nationality, and by the recent flight of the first squad of the enemy whom we had met with hostile purpose: as we dreamily drink in all these and many other vague ideas, up comes our battalion, and occupies the hill, the major sending off a company to hold the bridge where the road crosses the canal and forks to Arlington and Fairfax Court House. Presently there pass by us regiments from Michigan, New York, New Jersey, and it may be from other States which I forget. Some turn off to the right, to settle on the hill which is now scooped into Fort Albany; others press forward to Alexandria, the bells of which town very soon begin to ring a frightened peal of alarm and confusion. We move out a half mile farther and halt, our night's work being over, and other things in store; the moonlight wanes, and grows insensibly into a chilly daylight, presently reddened by the sun of to-morrow. All this seems to us to have occupied scarcely half an hour, but it is broad day again for certain, and surely we are a mortally tired and aching battalion as we march back listless, hot, sleepy, and gastric, over the Long Bridge, to our armory, there to fall asleep over breakfast in sheer exhaustion, and to spend the remainder of the day in a dry, hard series of naps, not the least refreshing—such as leave you the impression of having slept in hot sand. As we—the quartermaster-sergeant and I—stroll down the avenue that afternoon according to our wont, we hear the news of Ellsworth's death, of the occupation of Alexandria by our forces, and of the flight of the enemy's handful of silly, braggadocio Virginia militia, hastily collected to brag and drink the town safe from the pollution of the vile Yankee's invading foot. Ah! V'ginia; as thou art easily pleased to sing of thy sister-in-law, Ma'yland,
'The taäirahnt's foot is awn thaï sho','
and will be likely to remain thar a right tollable peert length of time, I expect.
Nothing but bridge guarding in the festering swamp on the Virginia side of the Potomac, varied by multiplying details for extra duty as clerks in all imaginable offices, falls to our lot until the 10th of June, when, after a number of rumors, and many dark forebodings as to what the District men would do, we are finally ordered into the field as a part of the Chickfield expedition, originally designed for the capture of Dregsville, I believe; an object which may have been slightly interfered with by its detailed announcement about a week beforehand in one of the Philadelphia papers. The expedition consisted of the First, Third, Fifth, and Ninth Battalions of District of Columbia Volunteers, the First New Hampshire, the Ninth New York, and the Seventeenth Pennsylvania, which would call itself the First. I think four other regiments from the same State did the same thing, it being a cardinal principle with them, perhaps, that each regiment was to claim two different names and three different numbers, and that at least four other regiments were fiercely to dispute with it each name and each number: for example, there was the
| First Pennsylvania Artillery, calling itself the... | First Pennsylvania Regiment |
| First Pennsylvania Militia, Infantry, itself the... | |
| First Pennsylvania Volunteers, Infantry, calling itself the... | |
| First Pennsylvania Volunteers, Infantry, calling itself, and called by the Governor, the... |
And for another example there was a regiment which called itself the 'Swishtail Carbines,' after a beastly ornament in the hats of its men; the 'Shine Musketoons,' after their lieutenant-colonel; the '289th Pennsylvania Volunteers,' after the State series of numbers, which began with 280 or thereabout; and the 'First Regiment of the Pennsylvania Volunteer Reserve Corps, Breech-Loading Carbineers,' and doubtless by other names, though I don't remember them.
Besides this tremendous host—we had never seen so large a force together, and thought it the most invincible of armadas—we had a battery of artillery, composed of three or four different kinds of guns, as the fashion was in the good old days of our company posts, wherefrom we were just emerging in a chrysalis state, and also two companies of cavalry; one a real live company of regulars, commanded by Captain Cautle, of the Third Dragoons, the other led by Captain (he called himself major, and his company a battalion) Cutts, formerly and since an enterprising member of the firm of Cutts & Dunn, who made my uniform, and who will make your clothes, if you wish, my dear reader, and charge you rather less than three times their value, after the manner of Washington tailors; which charge will appear especially moderate when you remember that the clothes will almost fit, and won't wear out so very soon after all, as is the way with Washington clothes. Indeed, as the tactics say, 'this remark is general for all the deployments;' and the same may as well be said of all bills and things made in the great city of sheds, contractors, politicians, dust, and unfinished buildings. But is this a description of Washington? We are at Chickfield, where the loyal Maryland farmers come to us to protect their loyalty, to charge a dollar a panel for old worm fences thrown down by 'the boys,' to sell forage at double prices, to reclaim runaway negroes, and to assure us of the impossibility of subjugating the South. And here, in the peaceful village of Chickfield, the object of our expedition having been happily frustrated by the newspapers, we enjoy our ease for a week or ten days, and our first camp experiences. Oh! that first experience of unboxing tents smelling loudly as of candle grease, of finding the right poles, of vainly endeavoring to pitch them straight, of hot and excited officers rushing hither and thither in a flurry, trying to instruct the different squads in their work, and straightway frustrated by the thick heads, or worse, by the inevitable suggestions of those remarkably intelligent corporals, who seem to consider themselves as having a special mission direct from heaven to know everything except how to do what they are bid. And oh! the first camp cookery, when everything is overdone except what is underdone; when the soup is water, and the coffee grounds, and the tea (we had tea in the three-months!) senna! And after a day of worry, hurry, confusion, and awful cooking, the first rough sleep, with a root running across your ribs, and a sizable gravel indenting the small of your back! How the teamsters talk all night, and the sentinels call wildly, incessantly, for the corporal of the guard! How you dream of being hung on a wire, as if to dry, with your head on a jagged rock; of an army of sentinels pacing your breast, ceaselessly engaged in coming to an 'order arms;' of millions of ants crawling over and through you; of having your legs suddenly thrust into an icehouse, and a brush fire built under your head; of black darkness, in which you fall down, down, down, down—faster, faster, faster!—till crash! you bump against something, and split wide open with a thundering roar, which gradually expands into the sound of a bugle as you awake to renewed misery, and are, as Mr. Sawin says, 'once more routed out of bed by that derned reveille.'