The Drummer Boy Part 11

"When was you here, Gray?" asked Jack Winch.

Gray smiled at his ignorance, while Frank said,--

"What! didn't you know, Jack, he was here with the Eighth Ma.s.sachusetts, last April, when they saved Was.h.i.+ngton and the Union?"

"The Union ain't saved yet!" said Jack.

"But we saved Was.h.i.+ngton; that's every where admitted," said Gray, proudly. "On the 19th of April the mob attacked the Sixth Ma.s.sachusetts in Baltimore, took possession of the city, and destroyed the communication with Was.h.i.+ngton. You remember that, for it was the first blood shed in this war; and April 19, 1861, takes its place with April 19, 1775, when the first blood was shed at Lexington, in the Revolution."

"Of course I know all that!" said Jack, who never liked to be thought ignorant of any thing.

"Well, there was the government at Was.h.i.+ngton in danger, the Eighth Ma.s.sachusetts on its way to save it, and Baltimore in the hands of the rebels. I tell you, every man of us was furious to cut our way through, and avenge the murders of the 19th. But General Butler hit upon a wiser plan, and instead of keeping on to Baltimore, we switched off, seized a ferry-boat on the Chesapeake, just as she was about to be taken by the secessionists, ran down here to Annapolis, saved the city, saved the old frigate 'Const.i.tution,' and, with the New York Seventh, went to work to open a new route to Was.h.i.+ngton.

"Our boys repaired the railroad track, which the traitors had torn up, and put in shape again the engine they had disabled. We had men that could do anything; and that very engine was one they had made,--for the South never did its own engine-building, but sent to Ma.s.sachusetts to have it done. Charley Homans knew every joint and pin in that old machine, and soon had her running over the road again."

"How far is it to Was.h.i.+ngton?" asked Frank.

"About forty miles; but then we thought it a hundred, we were so impatient to get there! What a march we had! all day and all night, the engine helping us a little, and we helping the engine by hunting up and replacing now and then a stray rail which the traitors had torn from the track. A good many got used up, and Charley Homans took 'em aboard the train. It was on that march I fell in with one of the pleasantest fellows I ever saw; always full of wit and good-humor, with a cheery word for every body. He belonged to the New York Seventh. He told me his name was Winthrop. But I did not know till afterwards that he was Theodore Winthrop, the author; afterwards Major Winthrop, who fell last June--only two months after--at Big Bethel."

"It was a North Carolina drummer boy that shot him," said Frank.

"Winthrop was heading the attack on the battery; he jumped upon a log, and was calling to the men, 'Come on!' when the drummer boy took a gun, aimed deliberately, and shot him dead."

"I wouldn't want to be killed by a miserable drummer boy!" said Jack Winch, envious because Frank remembered the incident.

"A drummer boy may be as brave as any body," said Frank, keeping his temper. "But I wouldn't want to be even the bravest drummer boy, in a bad cause."

"And as for being shot," said Gray, "I think Jack wouldn't willingly place himself where there was much danger of being killed by any body."

"You'll see! you'll see!" said Jack, testily. "Just wait till the time comes."

"What water is this the town fronts on?" asked Frank.

"The Chesapeake, of course! Who don't know that?" said Jack, contemptuously.

"Only it ain't!" said Gray, with a quiet laugh. "This is the River Severn. The Chesapeake is some two miles below."

"There, Jack," said Ned Ellis, "I'd give up now. You don't know quite so much as you thought you did."

"What a queer old town it is," said Frank, generously wis.h.i.+ng to draw attention from Jack's mortification. "It isn't a bit like Boston. It don't begin to be as smart a place."

"Of course not!" said Jack, more eager than ever now to appear knowing.

"And why should it be? Boston is the capital of Ma.s.sachusetts; and if Annapolis was only the capital of this state, it would be smart enough."

"What is the capital of this state?" asked Gray, winking slyly at Frank.

"Baltimore! I thought every body knew that," said Jack, with an air of importance.

This ludicrous blunder raised a great laugh.

"O Jack! O Jack Winch! where did you go to school?" said Joe Harris, "not to know that Frederick is the capital of Maryland."

"So it is! I had forgotten," said Jack. "Of course I knew Frederick was the capital, if I had only thought."

At this the boys laughed louder than ever, and Jack flew into a pa.s.sion.

"Harris was fooling you," whispered Frank. "Annapolis is the capital.

Gray is taking us now to see the State House."

"Ha, ha, ha!" Winch suddenly burst forth. "Did you think I didn't know?

Annapolis is the capital; and there's the State House."

"Is it possible?" said Gray. "The rebels must have changed it then, for that was St. John's College when I was here before."

The boys shouted with merriment; all except Jack, who was angry. He had been as fickle at his studies, when at school, as he had always been at every thing else; never sticking long to any of them, but forever beginning something new; until, at last, ignorant of all, he gave up, declaring that he had knowledge enough to get through the world with, and that he wasn't going to bother his brain with books any longer. It added now to his chagrin to think that he had not education enough to prevent him from appearing ridiculous among his mates, and that the golden opportunity of acquiring useful information in his youth was lost forever.

Meanwhile Frank's reflections were very different. Gray's reminiscences of April had strongly impressed upon his mind the fact that he was now on the verge of his country's battle-fields; that this was the first soil that had been wrested from the grasp of treason, and saved for the Union,--that the ground he stood upon was already historic. And now the sight of some negroes reminded him that he was for the first time in his life in a _slave state_.

"These are the fellows that are the cause of this war," said Gray, indicating the blacks.

"Yes," said Winch, anxious to agree with him, "it's the abolitionists that have brought the trouble on the country. They insisted on interfering with the rights of the south, and so the south rebelled."

"We never interfered with slavery in the states where it belonged," said Frank, warmly. "The north opposed the extension of slavery over new territory, and took the power of the government out of the hands of the slaveholders, who had used it for their own purposes so long; and that is what made them rebel."

"Well, the north is partly to blame," insisted Jack, thinking he had Gray on his side.

"Yes; to blame for letting the slaveholders have their own way so long,"

said Frank. "And just as much to blame for this rebellion, as my father would be for my conduct, if he should attempt to enforce discipline at home, and I should get mad at it and set the house on fire."

"A good comparison," said Gray. "Because we were going to restore the spirit of the const.i.tution, which is for freedom, and always was, though it has been obliged to tolerate slavery, the slaveholders, as Frank says, got mad and set Uncle Sam's house afire."

"He had heard somebody else say so, or he wouldn't have thought of it,"

said Jack, sullenly.

"No matter; it's true!" said Gray. "The south is fighting for slavery,--the corner-stone of the confederacy, as the rebel vice-president calls it,--while the north----"

"We are fighting for the Const.i.tution and the Union!" said Jack.

"That's true, too; for the const.i.tution, as I said, means freedom; and now the Union means, union _without_ slavery, since we have seen that union with slavery is impossible. We are fighting for the same thing our forefathers fought for--Liberty!"

"They won liberty for the whites only," said Frank. "Now we are going to have liberty for all men."

"If I had a brother that was a slaveholder and secessionist, I wouldn't say any thing," sneered Jack.

Frank felt cut by the taunt; but he said, gayly,--

"I won't spoil a story for relation's sake! Come, boys, politics don't suit Jack, so let's have a song; the one you copied out of the newspaper, Gray. It's just the thing for the occasion."

Franks voice was a fine treble; Gray's a mellow ba.s.s. Others joined them, and the party returned to the Academy, singing high and clear these words:--