CHAPTER XIX.

WHEN JOHNNIE COMES MARCHING HOME.

After the grand review, our regiment was ordered back into the forts again around Arlington.

It was not until October, 1865, that we marched down Pennsylvania avenue for the last time to take the cars for home. Our regiment had gone to the front 18 months before, 1500 strong and notwithstanding the fact that the 9th New York had been consolidated with us we were going home with but 500 men.

At the Baltimore & Ohio railroad depot, in Washington, a pathetic incident occurred. A dozen or more of the regiment who were yet in the hospitals came down to see us off. Among them were three or four one-legged men and as many minus an arm. What must have been the feelings of these men who had to be left behind, maimed and crippled for life?

Our regiment being principally from New York City we were sent there for disbandment and were quartered in some barracks at the battery for a couple of days.

One afternoon we marched up Broadway as far as the City Hall, where we were reviewed by the governor of the state and the mayor of New York.

The city had sent us a new stand of colors the year before and we were returning them, battle-scarred and tattered. My blood runs quicker as I recall the enthusiastic reception we received that afternoon from the crowds that lined Broadway.

Here and there was a group of veterans who had preceded us home. The old 63d, 69th and 88th New York regiments--Thomas Francis Meagher’s Irish brigade, with whom we had served in Hancock’s corps--and when any of these boys recognized us they went wild. There are two characteristics about an Irishman that I like. He is never lacking in enthusiasm or bravery.

After the review the regiment was ordered to proceed to Hart’s Island, where it was to be paid off and disbanded. We went by boat, and an amusing episode occurred as the regiment was marching aboard.

Big Ed. ------ of the band, who played one of those old-fashioned big brass horns reaching back over his shoulder about three feet, and which could be heard to the foot of the line of a brigade, had been out with the boys seeing the sights, and it is possible may have been a little unsteady of foot. At any rate, he took two or three steps backward when he marched on the boat, and in doing so missed the gang plank and dropped into the cool waters of the bay. He came up clinging to his horn and called lustily for help. The colonel and a couple of deck hands succeeded in landing him, horn and all.

The last man was finally aboard. The gang plank had been hauled in. The boatmen were casting off the big heavy ropes that held us to the dock, when a voice from shore shouted “Hold there!” The voice was that of a big, burly policeman. Behind him was a woman holding by one hand a boy of about 5 years of age, his curly golden locks floating out from under a little blue soldier cap. On the other side was a sweet-faced little girl.

“What’s wanted?” yelled the captain from the upper deck.

“Is Sergt. Thomas Burke on board?” replied the big policeman.

“Blast my eyes if I know,” retorted the captain “And I’ve no time to find out, either. You can settle your little business with him some other day,” probably thinking the sergeant had been out on a lark.

Burke’s comrades had found him in the meantime and he came to the side of the boat, and as he caught sight of the party, he said with a voice choked with emotion.

“Kate!”

“Oh, Tom!” responded Kate.

“Let me off the boat!” shouted Tom.

“Too late,” replied the captain.

The big wheels of the steamer were churning the water when our colonel, who had been attracted by the loud talking, appeared and asked what was the matter.

Burke, tall, straight and every inch a soldier, but pale and thin from the effects of a wound received in the last fighting, saluted his superior and said:

“’Tis my wife and children, colonel, that I have not seen in almost three years.”

“Tie up your boat again, captain,” said the colonel.

The captain ripped and tore and mentioned between oaths that he wasn’t taking orders from any army officers “not even Gen. Grant himself.”

Col. Hulser was furious and pulling his revolver he commanded the captain to reverse the engines and run out a gang plank.

The captain muttered between his teeth, touched the engineer’s bell and the gang plank again bridged the space between boat and dock. Sergt. Burke walked off, clasped his wife to his breast in a passionate embrace, then took a child on each arm, turned and faced his comrades, who had, sympathetically, been looking on, and they sent shoreward a mighty cheer.

“Bring your wife and little ones aboard!” shouted the colonel.

They came and went with us to Hart’s Island.

Mrs. Burke explained to the colonel that they had come from Tarrytown, or some other town up the Hudson, because “Little Mac” (named after Gen. George B. McClellan) had begged so hard to come and see his papa with the soldiers he had fought and marched with.

Mrs. Burke, Little Mac, and the sweet little blue-eyed sister saw the last dress parade of the 2d Heavy, and Sergt. Thomas Burke stood in line with his comrades.

It was certainly a grand privilege to go all through a great war and be permitted to come home with one’s own comrades. To be present at the last roll call. To hear the clatter of the bayonets as the battle-scarred muskets are stacked for the last time. To see the furling of the tattered colors that one has followed for four years. To hear the last command of the officers, the last tattoo and the final “taps.”

There never was such another bugler in the whole army of the Potomac as our little Gracey. Small of stature, gentle by nature, but a marvel with his trumpet. I have told in a former chapter how at Cold Harbor, after sounding the charge for Gen. Hancock’s troops, he sat down by a tree and wept like a child when he saw the lines of mangled, bleeding men returning.

Gracey was at our last dress parade at Hart’s Island, New York, and after the parade the guns were stacked for the last time, and then Gracey sounded “taps” or “lights out” as it was always called in the army. The call is one of the sweetest, yet saddest of all the army calls and on this occasion our old bugler seemed to breathe his very soul into his trumpet, for the tears were trickling down his cheeks while strong, bronzed men who had walked up to the cannon’s mouth on many a famous battlefield were not without emotion as they broke the ranks for the last time and bade farewell to their old comrades.

My father and I got out of the old stage coach at Carthage two days later, and as we alighted he remarked that it was just four years to a day since he had left for the war, and I found that my services figured up over three years and a half.