Four Years in Rebel Capitals Part 35

"John Pope came down to our town And thought him wondrous wise; He jumped into a 'skeeter swamp And started writing lies.

But when he found his lies were out-- With all his might and main He changed his base to another place, And began to lie again!"

This verse on McClellan does not go to prove that the South respected any less the humane warfare, or the tactical ability of him his greatest opponents declared "the North's best general."

"Little McClellan sat eating a melon, The Chickahominy by, He stuck in his spade, then a long while delayed, And cried 'What a brave general am I!'"

Or this, embalming the military cant of the day:

"Henceforth, when a fellow is kicked out of doors, He need never resent the disgrace; But exclaim, 'My dear sir, I'm eternally yours, For a.s.sisting in changing my base!'"

Perhaps no pen, or no brush, in all the South limned with bolder stroke the follies, or the foibles, of his own, than did that of Innes Randolph, of Stuart's Engineer staff; later to win national fame by his "Good Old Rebel" song. Squib, picture and poem filled Randolph's letters, as brilliant flashes did his conversation. On Mr. Davis proclaiming Thanksgiving Day, after the unfortunate Tennessee campaign, Randolph versified the proclamation, section by section, as sample:

"For Bragg did well. Ah! who could tell What merely human mind could augur, That they would run from Lookout Mount, Who fought so well at Chickamauga!"

Round many a smoky camp-fire were sung clever songs, whose humor died with their gallant singers, for want of recording memories in those busy days. Latham, Caskie and Page McCarty sent out some of the best of the skits; a few verses of one by the latter's floating to mind, from the s...o...b..und camp on the Potomac, stamped by his vein of rollicking satire-with-a-tear in it:

"Mana.s.sas' field ran red with gore, With blood the Bull Run ran; The freeman struck for hearth and home, Or any other man!

And Longstreet with his fierce brigade Stood in the red redan; He waved his saber o'er his head, Or any other man!

Ah! few shall part where many meet, In battle's b.l.o.o.d.y van; The snow shall be their winding-sheet, Or any other man!"

Naturally enough, with a people whose nerves were kept at abnormal tension, reaction carried the humor of the South largely into travesty.

Where the reality was ever somber, creation of the unreal found popular and acceptable form in satiric verse. Major Caskie--who ever went into battle with a smile on his lips--found time, between fights, for broad pasquinade on folly about him, with pen and pencil. His very clever parody of a touching and well-known poem of the time, found its way to many a camp-fire and became a cla.s.sic about the Richmond "h.e.l.ls." It began:

"You can never win them back, Never, never!

And you'd better leave the track Now forever!

Tho' you 'cut' and 'deal the pack'

And 'copper' every Jack, You'll lose 'stack' after 'stack'-- Forever!"

Everything tending to bathos--whether for the cause, or against it--caught its quick rebuke, at the hands of some glib funmaker. Once an enthusiastic admirer of the hero of Charleston indited a glowing ode, of which the refrain ran:

_Beau sabreur, beau canon_, _Beau soldat_--Beauregard!

Promptly came another, and most distorted version; its peculiar refrain enfolding:

Beau Brummel, Beau Fielding, Beau Hickman--Beauregard!

As it is not of record that the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia ever discovered the junior laureate, the writer will not essay to do so.

Colonel Tom August, of the First Virginia, was the Charles Lamb of Confederate war-wits; genial, quick and ever gay. Early in secession days, a bombastic friend approached Colonel Tom, with the query: "Well, sir, I presume your voice is still for war?"

To which the wit replied promptly: "Oh, yes, devilish still!"

Later, when the skies looked darkest and rumors of abandoning Richmond were wildly flying, Colonel August was limping up the street. A _quidnunc_ hailed him:

"Well! The city is to be given up. They're moving the medical stores."

"Glad of it!" called back Colonel Tom--"We'll get rid of all this blue ma.s.s!"

From the various army camps floated out stories, epigrams and anecdotes unnumbered; most of them wholly forgotten, with only a few remembered from local color, or peculiar point. General Zeb Vance's apostrophe to the buck-rabbit, flying by him from heavy rifle fire: "Go it, cotton-tail! If I hadn't a reputation, I'd be with you!"--was a favorite theme for variations. Similarly modified to fit, was the protest of the western recruit, ordered on picket at Munson's Hill:

"Go yander ter keep 'un off! Wy, we'uns kem hyah ter fight th' Yanks; an' ef you'uns skeer 'un off, how'n thunder ez thar goan ter be a scrimmidge, no how?"

A different story--showing quick resource, where resources were lacking--is told of gallant Theodore O'Hara, who left the n.o.blest poem of almost any war, "The Bivouac of the Dead." While he was adjutant-general, a country couple sidled shyly up to headquarters of his division, one day; the lady blus.h.i.+ngly stating their business. It was the most important one of life: they wanted to marry. So, a council of war was held, no chaplain being available; and the general insisted on O'Hara tying the knot. Finally, he consented to try; the couple stood before him; the responses as to obedience and endowment were made; and there O'Hara stuck fast!

"Go on!" prompted the general--"The benediction."

The A.A.G. paused, stammered; then, raising his hand grandly, shouted in stentorian tones:

"In the name and by the authority of the Confederate States of North America, I proclaim you man and wife!"

A grim joke is handed down from the winter camps before Atlanta, when rations were not only worst but least. A knot round a mess-fire examined ruefully the tiny bits of moldy bacon, stuck on their bayonet-grills, when one hard old veteran remarked:

"Say, boys! Didn't them fellers wot died las' spring jest _git_ th'

commissary, though!"

Another, not very nice, still points equally the dire straits of the men, from unchanged clothing, and their grim humor under even that trial. Generals Lee and Ewell--riding through a quiet road in deep consultation, followed by members of their staff--came suddenly upon a North Carolinian at the roadside. Nude to the waist, and careless of the august presences near, the soldier paid attention only to the dingy s.h.i.+rt he held over the smoke of some smoldering brush. The generals past, an aide spurred up to the toilet-making vet, and queried sharply:

"Didn't you see the generals, sir? What in thunder are you doing?"

"Skirmis.h.i.+n'!" drawled the unmoved warrior--"An' I ent takin' no pris'ners, nuther!"

After this lapse of time--when retrospect shows but the gloom and sorrow which shadowed the dark "days of storm and stress," while none of the excitement and tension in them remains--it may seem incomprehensible that the South could laugh in song, while she suffered and fought and starved. Stranger still must it be to know that many a merry peal rang through the barred windows of the fortress-prisons of the North. Yet, many a one of the exchanged captives brought back a rollicking "prison glee;" and some sing, even to-day, the legend of "Fort Delaware, Del."

The "Prison Wails" of Thomas F. Roche, a Marylander long captive, is a close and clever parody on General Lytell's "I am dying, Egypt," which came through the lines and won warm admirers South. It describes prison discipline, diet and dirt, with keen point and broad grin. From its opening lines:

"I am busted, mother--busted!

Gone th' last unhappy check; And th' infernal sutlers' prices Make my pocket-book a wreck!--"

to the human, piteous plaint that ends it:

"Ah! Once more, among the lucky, Let thy hopeful buy and swell; Bankers and rich brokers aid thee!

Sh.e.l.l! sweet mother mine, Oh! sh.e.l.l!--"

the original is closely followed and equally distorted.

But strangest, amid all strange humors of the war, was that which echoed laughter over the leaguered walls of scarred, starving, desperate Vicksburg! No siege in all history tells of greater peril and suffering, borne with wondrous endurance and heroism, by men and women.

It is a story of privation unparalleled, met by fort.i.tude and calm acceptance which recall the early martyrdoms for faith! And, indeed, love of country grew to be a religion, especially with the women of the South, though happily none proved it by stress so dire as those of her heroic city; and they cherished it in the darkest midnight of their cause, with constancy and hope that nerved the strong and shamed the laggard.

That history is one long series of perils and privations--of absolute isolation--sufficient to have worn down the strongest and to have quenched even

The smile of the South, on the lips and the eyes-- Of her barefooted boys!

Yet, even in Vicksburg--torn by shot and sh.e.l.l, hopeless of relief from without, reduced to direst straits of hunger within--the supreme rebel humor rose above nature; and men toiled and starved, fought their hopeless fight and died--not with the stoicism of the fatalist, but with the cheerfulness of duty well performed! And when Vicksburg fell, a curious proof of this was found; a ma.n.u.script bill-of-fare, surmounted by rough sketch of a mule's head crossed by a human hand holding a Bowie-knife. That memorable _menu_ reads:

HOTEL DE VICKSBURG, BILL OF FARE, FOR JULY, 1863.

SOUP: Mule tail.