Presently there comes an order for us to march to Billsburg, and there join the army of the Musconetcong, commanded by that dauntless hero, Major-General Robert Balkinsop. Of course we march in a hurry, as much as possible by night, 'without baggage,' as the orders say—meaning with only two wagons to a company. The other battalions of D.C. Vols. stay behind and loaf back to Washington, there to be mislaid by Major-General Blankhed, who is so preoccupied with issuing and affixing his sign manual to passes for milk, eggs, and secessionists, to cross and recross Long Bridge, that the war must wait for him or go ahead without him. We go on to glory, as we suppose (deluded three-months!), and march excitedly, with all our legs, fearing we shall be too late. As we near Billsburg, we can hear the since familiar tick—tack, pip—pop—pop of a rattling skirmish, and the vroom—vroom of volley firing. Anxiously, eagerly—no need for the colonel to cry 'Step out lively!'—we press forward, with all the ardor of recruits. Recruits! Hadn't we been a month in service, and been through one great invasion already? There they are! See the smoke? Where? On top of that hill! Halt! Our battalion deploys as skirmishers with a useless cheer. We close up. We load with ball cartridge, and most of us, on our individual responsibility, fix bayonets; it looks so determined—nothing like the cold steel, we think. Slowly, resolutely, we advance. An aid comes galloping back. We crowd round him. The colonel looks disgustedly handsome. What does he say? Pshaw! It's only the 284th Pennsylvania, part of General Balkinsop's body guard, discharging muskets after rain. Only three soldiers, a negro, a couple of mules, and an old woman, have been hurt so far, and 'the boys' will be through in an hour or so more!
Well, as we were sent for in a hurry, of course we waited a week. How General Balkinsop manœuvred the great army of the Musconetcong; what fatherly, nay, grandmotherly care he took to keep us out of danger; how cautiously he spread, his nets for the enemy, and how rapidly he left them miles behind; how we killed nothing but chickens, wounded nothing but our own silly pride, and captured nothing but green apples and roasting ears; all this, and more, let history tell. The poor old general kept us safe, at all events; and if the enemy, with half our numbers, was left unharmed, and allowed quietly and leisurely to move off and swell his force elsewhere, and so whip us in detail, what of it? Didn't we save our wagon train? And isn't that, as everyone knows, the highest result of strategy?
And then came the battle (the battle!) of Bull Run, with its first glowing, crowing accounts of victory, and its later story of humiliation and shame! Ah! let me shut up the page! My heart grows sick over this mangy, scrofulous period of our national disease; give me air!
Luckily for me, I had a raging fever just after that awful 21st of July, 1861. When I awoke from my delirium, and had got as far as tea, toast, and the door of the hospital, they told me of the great uprising of the people, of General McClellan's appointment to command the Army of the Potomac, of how 'our boys' had reënlisted for the war, and of how I, no longer Sergeant-Major William Jenkins, was to be adjutant of the regiment, and might now take off my chevrons, and put on my SHOULDER STRAPS.
She sent them to me in a letter. Wait a month, and I'll tell you.
THE FIRST FANATIC.
When Noah hewed the timber
Wherewith to build the ark,
Outside the woods one shouted—
'That wild fanatic!—hark!'
And when he drew the beams
And laid them on the plain,
One said,'He has no balance,
He surely is insane.'
And when he raised the frame,
One clear, sunshiny day,
'Poor fool of one idea,'
A smiling man did say.
When he foretold the flood,
And stood repentance teaching,
They sneered, 'You radical,
We'll hear no ultra preaching!'
And when he drove the beasts and birds
Into the ark one morn,
They shouted, 'Odd enthusiast!'
And laughed with ringing scorn.
When he and all his house went in,
They gazed, and said, 'Erratic!'
'A pleasant voyage to you, Noah!
You canting, queer fanatic!'