Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals Part 23

Volley after volley of sheeted lead was poured into our ranks. We were in the proper position on the plain, and a day's full practice gave them exact range and terrible execution. In the increased darkness, the flashes of musketry alone were visible ahead, while to the right and left the gloom was lit up by the lurid flas.h.i.+ng of their batteries. This very darkness, in concealing the danger, and the loss, doubtless did its share in permitting the men to cross the lines of dead that marked the halting-place of previous troops. Still onward they advanced,--the thunder of artillery above them,--the groans of the wounded rising from below;--frightful gaps are made in their ranks by exploding sh.e.l.ls, and many a brave boy staggers and falls to rise no more, in that storm of spitefully whizzing lead.

Regularity in ranks was simply impossible. Many officers and men gathered about a brick house on the right--a narrow lawn leading directly to the fatal wall was crowded; indeed, caps bearing the regimental numbers were found, as has since been ascertained, close by the wall, and a Lieutenant who was stunned in the fight and fell almost at its base, was taken prisoner. Nearly every officer who had entered the fight mounted, was at this time upon foot. In the tempest of bullets that everywhere prevailed the destruction of the force was but a question of brief time, and to prevent further heroic but vain sacrifices the order to retire was given. With the Brigade, the Regiment fell back, leaving one-third of its number in dead and wounded to hallow the remembrance of that fatal field.

"This way, Pap! This is the way to get out safe," shouted a Captain as he rose, from the rear of a pile of rubbish, amid the laughter of the men now on their backward move. The burly form of the exhorting Colonel was seen to follow the no less burly form of the Captain, and father and son were spared for other fields.

An effort was made to reform after the firing had slackened, but the increased darkness prevented the marshalling of the thinned ranks. Out of range of the still not infrequent bullets and occasional sh.e.l.l, and drowsy from fatigue, the men again lay upon their arms at the foot of the slope; and the battle of Fredericksburg was over.

What happened upon the left, where the main battle should have been fought, and why Franklin was upon the left at all, are problems that perhaps the reader can pa.s.s upon to better advantage than the writer of these pages. His "corner of the fight" has been described, truthfully at least, whatever the other failings may be.

We had left the field; but the Rebels had not as yet gained it. Pickets were thrown out to within eighty yards of their line, and details scattered over the field to bear off the wounded. No lights were allowed, and the least noise was sure to bring a sh.e.l.l or a shower of bullets. In consequence, their removal was attended with difficulty. The evil of the practice too prevalent among company commanders, of sending skulkers and worthless men in obedience to a detail for the ambulance corps, was now horribly apparent. Large numbers of the dead, and even the dying, were found with their pockets turned inside out, rifled of their contents by these harpies in uniform.

But little rest was to be had that night. At 8 P. M. the troops were marched back into the town, only to be brought out again at midnight and re-formed in line of battle about a hundred yards distant from the wall.

The moon had now risen, and in its misty light the upturned faces of the dead lost nothing of ghastliness. Horrible, too, beyond description--ringing in the ears of listeners for a lifetime--were the shrieks and groans of the wounded,--princ.i.p.ally Rebel,--from a strip of neutral ground lying between the pickets of the two armies. Whatever the object of reforming line of battle may have been, it appears to have been abandoned, as after a short stay we were returned to the town and a.s.signed quarters in the street in front of the Planters' House.

Fredericksburg was a town of hospitals. All the churches and public buildings, very many private residences, and even the pavements in their respective fronts, were crowded with wounded. In one of the princ.i.p.al churches on a lower street, throned in a pulpit which served as a dispensary, and surrounded by surgical implements and appliances, flourished our little Dutch Doctor, never more completely in his element. Very nice operations, as he termed them, were abundant.

"How long can I live?" inquired a fine-looking, florid-faced young man of two-and-twenty, with a shattered thigh, who had just been brought in and had learned from the Doctor that amputation could not save his life.

"Shust fifteen minutes," was the reply, as the Doctor opened and closed his watch in a cold, business way.

"Can I see a Chaplain?"

"Shaplain! Shaplain! eh? Shust one tried to cross, and he fell tead on bridge. Not any follow him, I shure you. Too goot a chance to die, for Shaplains. What for you want him? Bray, eh?"

The dying man, folding his hands upon his breast, nodded a.s.sent.

"Ver well, I bray," and at the side of the stretcher the Doctor kneeled, and with fervid utterance, and in the solemn gutturals of the German, repeated the Lord's prayer. When he arose to resume his labor, the soldier was beyond the reach of earthly supplication; but a smile was upon his countenance.

The Sabbath, with the main body of our troops, was a day of rest. Chance shots from Rebel sharpshooters, who had crept to within long range of the cross streets, were from time to time heard, and sh.e.l.l occasionally screamed over the town. To ears accustomed to the uproar of the preceding days, however, they were not in the least annoying. Over one-half of the army were comfortably housed, bringing into requisition for their convenience the belongings and surroundings of the abandoned dwellings. Notwithstanding our slow approach, the evidences of hasty exit on the part of the inhabitants were abundant on all sides.

Warehouses filled with flour and tobacco were duly appreciated by the men, while parlors floored in Brussels, and elegantly ornamented, were in many instances wantonly destroyed.

"Tom," said a non-commissioned officer, addressing a private whom we have before met in these pages, "where did you get that box?"

"Get it? Why I confiscated it. Just look at the beauties," and opening a fine mahogany case, Tom disclosed a pair of highly finished duelling pistols.

"What right have you to confiscate it?" retorted the Sergeant.

"It is contraband of war, and Rebel property. Record evidence of that.

Just look at this letter found with it," and Tom pulled out of an inside pocket of his blouse a letter written in a most miserable scrawl, a.s.suring some "Dear Capting" of

"Here's my heart and here's my hand, For the man who fit for Dixy land."

Monday pa.s.sed in much the same manner. About 9 P. M. of that day the Regiment, with others, was employed in throwing up breastworks, and digging rifle-pits on the west of the town. Expecting to hold it on the morrow against what they knew would be a terrible artillery fire, the men worked faithfully, and by midnight, works strong as the ground would admit of, were prepared. It was a perilous work; performed in the very face of the enemy's pickets;--but was only an extensive ruse, as at 1 A.

M. we were quietly withdrawn and a.s.signed a position in the left of the town. The sidewalks were muddy, and disengaging shutters from the windows, loose boards from fences,--anything to keep them above the mud,--the men composed themselves for slumber. Before 2 o'clock an excited Staff officer had the Brigade again in line, and after moving and halting until 4 A. M., we crossed the lower bridge in much lighter order than when we entered the place; for notwithstanding urgent solicitations of officers, from Brigadier down, permission was refused the men to obtain their knapsacks. Besides the loss of several thousand dollars to the Government in blankets and overcoats, hundreds of valuable knapsacks, and even money in considerable sums, were lost to the men. The matter is all the more disgraceful when we consider the abundance of time, and the fact, that details had been sent by the Colonels to arrange the knapsacks upon the sidewalk, in order that they could be taken up while the command would pa.s.s. It was marched by another route, however, and in the cold, pelting rain, the men, while marching up the opposite slopes of the Rappahannock, had ample reason to reflect upon the cold forethought that could crowd a Head-quarters'

train, and deprive them of their proper allowance of clothing. Six hours later, our Division had the credit of furnis.h.i.+ng about the only booty left by the army that the Rebels found upon their reoccupation of the town.

Sadly and quietly, the troops retrod the familiar mud of their old camp grounds. The movement had been a failure--a costly one in private and national sacrifices,--and no one felt it more keenly than the broad-shouldered, independent, and much injured Burnside. Strange that this costly sacrifice should have been offered up on ground hallowed in our early struggle for freedom--that the bodies of our brave volunteers, stripped by traitor hands, should lie naked on the plain that bears a monument to that woman of many virtues, "Mary, the mother of Was.h.i.+ngton"--that ground familiar to the early boyhood of the Great Patriot, should have been the scene of one of the n.o.blest, although unsuccessful, contests of the war. Fit altar for such a sacrifice! A shrine for all time of devout patriots, who will here renew their vows,--of fidelity to this G.o.d-given Government,--of eternal enmity to traitors,--and thus consecrate to posterity the heavy population we have left in the Valley.

CHAPTER XVII.

_The Sorrows of the Sutler--The Sutler's Tent--Generals manufactured by the Dailies--Fighting and Writing--A Glandered Horse--Courts-martial--Mania of a Pigeon-hole General on the Subject--Colonel and Lieutenant-Colonel in Strait-Jackets._

If the reader can imagine the contents of his nearest corner grocery thrown confusedly together under a canvas covering, he will have a tolerably correct idea of the interior of a Sutler's tent. Probably, to make the likeness more truthful, sardines, red herring, and cheese, should be more largely represented than is customary in a corner grocery.

Our Sutler, although upon his first campaign, was no novice in the craft. He could be hail-fellow-well-met with the roughest of crowds thronging the outside of his rude counter, and at the same time keep an eye upon the cash drawer. And he was behind no one in "casting his bread upon the waters," in the shape of trifling presents and hospitable welcomes, in order that it might return at the next pay-day.

Notwithstanding all his tact, however, Tom Green was in many respects an awkward, haphazard fellow, continually in difficulty, although as continually fortunate in overcoming it. His troubles were known to the Regiment, as the Sutler's interests were individualized to a great extent, and while all might be amused, he was never beyond the pale of sympathy. During the long winter evenings, the barrels and boxes in his tent seated a jovial crowd of officers, who in games and with thrice-told stories, would while away what would otherwise be tedious hours. Not unfrequently was the Chaplain, who quartered close by, disturbed with a "sound of revelry by night," to have his good-humor restored in the morning by a can of pickled lobster or brandied cherries.

On one of the merriest of the merry nights of the holidays, our Western Virginia Captain was the centre of a group of officers engaged in gazing intently upon a double page wood-cut, in one of the prominent ill.u.s.trated weeklies, that at one time might have represented the storming of Fort Donelson, but then did duty by way of ill.u.s.trating a "Gallant Charge at Fredericksburg."

"There it is again," said the Captain. "Not one half of our Generals are made by honest efforts. Their fighting is nothing like the writing that is done for them. They don't rely so much upon their own genius as upon that of the reporter who rides with their Staffs. By George, if old Rosey in Western Virginia----"

"Dry up on that, Captain," interrupted a brother officer. "Old Pigey is the hero of the day. He understands himself. Didn't you notice how concertedly all the dailies after the fight talked about the cool, courageous man of science; and just look at this how it backs it all up.

Old Rosey, as you call him, never had half as many horses shot under him at one time. Just see them kicking and floundering about him, and the General away ahead on foot, between our fire and the Rebels, as cool as when he took the long pull at his flask in the hollow."

"And half the men will testify that that was the only cool moment he saw during the whole fight."

"No matter," continued the other, "he has the inside track of the reporters, and he is all right with all who 'smell the battle from afar.'"

"Well, there's no denying old Pigey was brave, but he was as crazy as a boy with a bee in his breeches," said the Captain, holding up the caricature to the admiration of the crowded tent. "Our Division gets the credit of it at any rate. Bully for our Division!"

"Not one word," breaks in the Poetical Lieutenant, "of b.u.t.terfield, with his cool, Napoleonic look, as he rode along our line preparatory to the charge; or of Fighting Old Joe, unwilling to give up the field; or of our difficulty in clambering up the slope, getting by the artillery, which made ranks confused, and so forth, but

'On we move, though to self-slaughter, Regular as rolling water.'

Never mind criticizing, boys. It will sound well at home. We did our duty, at any rate, if we did not do it exactly as represented in the picture. The reporter was not there to see for himself, and he must take somebody's word, and it is a feather in our cap that he has taken Pigey's."

The conversation was at this stage interrupted by the sudden entry of the Adjutant, with a loud call for the Sutler. That individual, notwithstanding the unusual excitement of the night, had been singularly quiet. Rising from his buffalo in the corner, he approached the Adjutant with a countenance so full of apprehension and alarm as to elicit the inquiry from the crowd of "What's the matter with the Sutler?"

"He hasn't felt well since I told him a few hours ago," said a Lieutenant, a lawyer by profession, "that Sutlers were liable to be court-martialed."

"And he'll feel worse," adds the Adjutant, "when he hears this letter read."

Amid urgent calls for the letter, the Adjutant mounted a box, and by the light of a dip held by the Captain, proceeded to read a letter signed by the Commanding General of the Division, and considerably blurred, which ran somewhat in this wise:

"COLONEL:--

"Is your Sutler sagacious?

"Has he ordinary honesty?

"Has he the foresight common among business men? Is he likely to be imposed upon?"

The letter was greeted with roars of laughter that were not diminished by the dismay of the Sutler. The Adjutant was forthwith requested by one of the crowd to suggest to the Colonel to reply--

"That our Sutler was a sagacious animal. That he had the honesty ordinary among Sutlers. That if the General was disposed to deal with him, he would find out that he had the foresight common among business men, especially in the way of calculating his profits; and that as far as making change was concerned, he was not at all likely to be imposed upon."