Chapter 36

_Red Tape and the Soldier's Widow--Pigeon-holing at Head-Quarters and Weeping at the Family Fireside--A Pigeon-hole General Outwitted--Fishing for a Discharge--The Little Irish Corporal on Topographical Engineers--Guard Duty over a Whiskey Barrel._

----, Penna., Nov.--, 1862.

MY DEAR GEORGE:--This is the first spare time that I have been able to get during the last week for a letter to my dear husband. And now that there is quiet in the house, and our dear little boys are sound asleep, and the covers nicely tucked about them in their little trundle, I feel that I can scarcely write. There is such a heaviness upon my heart. When I saw the crowd at the telegraph office this morning while on my way to church, and heard that they were expecting news of a great battle on the Rappahannock, such a feeling of helplessness, sinking of the heart, and dizziness came over me, that I almost fell upon the pavement. The great battle that all expect so eagerly, may mean our dear little children fatherless and myself a widow. Oh, George, I feel so sad and lonely, and then every footstep I hear at the door I am afraid some one is coming with bad news. Your last letter, too, I do not like. I am afraid that more is the matter with you than you are willing to admit. You promised me, too, that you would apply for a furlough. Lieut. H---- has been twice at home since he went out. You know he is in Sickles' Division.

Our precious little boys keep asking continually when papa will come home. Little Georgie says he is a "du-du," you know that is what he calls a soldier, and he gets the old sword you had in the three months' service, and struts up and down at a great rate. They can both say the Lord's prayer now, and every night when they get through with it, they ask God to bless papa and mamma, and all the Union "du-dus." I do wish that you could see them in their little "Gadibaldis," as Harry calls them. When I see Mr. B----and others take their evening walks with their children, just as you used to do with Georgie, it takes all the grace and all the patriotism I can muster to keep from murmuring.

Mr. G---- says that we need not trouble about the rent this quarter, that he will wait until you are paid. The neighbors, too, are very kind to me, and I have been kept so busy with work from the shops, that I have made enough to pay all our little expenses. But for all, George, I cannot help wishing every minute of the day that "this cruel war was over" and you safe back. At a little sewing party that we had the other day, Em D---- sang that old song "When wild war's deadly blast was blown," that you used to read to me so often, and when I heard of "sweet babes being fatherless," and "widows mourning," I burst into tears. I do not know why it is, but I feel as if expecting bad news continually. Our little boys say "don't cry, mamma," in such a way when I put them to bed at night, and tell them that I kiss them for you too, that it makes me feel all the worse. I know it is wrong. I know our Heavenly Father knows what is best for us. I hope by this time you have learned to put your trust in him. That is the best preparation for the battle-field.

Do not fail to come home if you can. God bless you, George, and protect you, is the prayer of

Your loving wife, MARY.

On a low cot in the corner of a hospital tent, near Potomac Creek, propped up by some extra blankets kindly loaned him by his comrades, toward the close of a December afternoon, lay a slightly-built, rather handsome man of about thirty, holding with trembling hand the above letter, and hurriedly gathering its contents with an eager but unsteady eye. The Surgeon noticing the growing flush upon his already fevered cheek, suggested that he had better have the letter read to him. So intent was the reader, that the suggestion was twice repeated before heeded, and then only drew the remark "Mary and the boys." A sudden fit of coughing that appeared to tear the very life strings came upon him, and at its close he fell back exhausted upon his pillow.

"What luck, Adjutant?" inquired the Surgeon in a low tone, as he went forward, cautiously treading among the sick, to admit that officer into the tent.

The Adjutant with a shake of the head remarked that the application had gone up two weeks previously from Brigade Head-quarters, and that nothing had been heard of it since. "As usual," he added, "pigeon-holed at Division Head-quarters."

"Poor Wilson has been inquiring about it all day, and I very much fear that should it come now, it will be too late. He has failed rapidly to-day."

"So bad as that? I will send up to Division Head-quarters immediately."

The Lieutenant, a week previously, had been brought into the hospital suffering from a heavy cold and fever in connexion with it. For some weeks he had been in delicate health; so much so, in fact, that the Surgeon had urged him to apply for a furlough, and had stated in his certificate to the same, that it was absolutely necessary for the preservation of his life. As the Surgeon stated, a furlough, that might then have been beneficial, promised now to be of little avail. The disease had assumed the form of congestion of the lungs, and the Lieutenant seemed rapidly sinking.

When the Adjutant left the hospital tent he sought out a Captain, an intimate acquaintance of the Lieutenant's, and charged him with a special inquiry at Head-quarters, as to the success of the application for a furlough. Thither the Captain repaired, through the well trodden mud and slush of the camp ground. The party of young officers within the tent of the Adjutant-General appeared to be in a high state of enjoyment, and that functionary himself retained just presence of mind sufficient to assure the Captain, after hearing his statement and urgent inquiry--"that there was no time now to look--that there were so d--n many papers he could not keep the run of them. These things must take their regular course, Captain,--regular course, you know. That's the difficulty with the volunteer officers," continued he, turning half to the crowd, "to understand regular military channels,--channels." As he continued stammering and stuttering, the crowd inside suspended the pipe to ejaculate assent, while the Captain, understanding red-tape to his sorrow, and too much disgusted to make further effort to understand the Captain, retraced his steps. Finding the Adjutant he told him of his lack of success, and together they repaired to the hospital tent to break the unwelcome news.

At the time of his entry into the Hospital the Lieutenant was impressed with the belief that the illness would be his last, and he daily grew more solicitous as to the success of his application for a furlough. Another coughing fit had, during their absence, intervened, and as the two cautiously untied the flaps and entered the stifling atmosphere of the crowded tent, the Surgeon and a friend or two were bending anxiously about the cot. Their entry attracted the attention of the dying Lieutenant; for that condition his faint hurried breathing, interrupted by occasional gasps, and the rolling, fast glazing eye, too plainly denoted. A look of anxious inquiry,--a faint shake of the head from the Captain--for strong-voiced as he was, his tongue refused the duty of informing the dying man of what had become daily, unwelcome news.

"Oh, my God! must I,--must I die without again seeing Mary and the babies!" with clasped hands he gasped, half rising, and casting at the same time an imploring look at the Surgeon.

But the effort was too much. His head fell back upon the blankets. A gurgling sound was heard in his throat. With bowed heads to catch the latest whisper, his friends raised him up; and muttering indistinctly amid his efforts to hold the rapidly failing breath, "Mary and the babies. The babies,--Ma----" the Lieutenant left the Grand Army of the Potomac on an everlasting furlough.

Mary was busily engaged with the duties of her little household a week later, enjoying, as best she might, the lively prattle of the boys, when there was the noise of a wagon at the door, and closely following it a knock. "Papa! papa!" exclaimed the children, as with eager haste they preceded the mother. With scarcely less eagerness, Mary opened the door. Merciful God! "Temper the wind to the shorn lambs." Earthly consolation is of little avail at a time like this. It was "Papa;"--but Mary was a widow, and the babies fatherless.

By some unfortunate accident the telegram had been delayed, and the sight of the black pine coffin was Mary's first intimation of her loss. Her worst anticipations thus roughly realized, she sank at the door, a worthy subject for the kind offices of her neighbors.

A fortnight passed, and the Adjutant was disturbed in his slumbers, almost at the solemn hour of midnight, to receive from an Orderly some papers from Division Head-Quarters. Among them, was the application of the Lieutenant, returned "approved."

Measured by poor Mary's loss, how insignificant the sigh of the monied man over increased taxes! how beggarly the boast of patriotic investments! how contemptibly cruel, in her by no means unusual case, the workings of Red Tape!

* * * * *

Occurrences such as these, may sadden for the moment the soldier, but they produce no lasting depression.

"Don't you think I had oughter Be a going down to Washington To fight for Abraham's Daughter?"

sang our ex-news-boy Birdy, on one of those cold damp evenings in early December, when the smoke of the fires hung like a pall over the camp ground, and the eyes suffered terribly if their owner made any attempt at standing erect.

"And who is Abraham's Daughter?" queried one of a prostrate group around a camp fire.

"Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean," continued Birdy, to another popular air, until he was joined by a manly swell of voices in the closing line--

"Three cheers for the Red, White, and Blue!"

"Not much life here," continued Birdy, seating himself. "I have just left the 2--th. There is a high old time over there. They have got the dead wood on old Pigey nice."

"In what way?" inquired the crowd.

"You know that long, slim fellow of Co. E, in that Regiment, who is always lounging about the Hospital, and never on duty."

"What! The fellow that has been going along nearly double, with both hands over the pit of his stomach, for a week past?"

"The same," resumed Birdy. "He has been going it on diarrhoea lately; before that he was running on rheumatism. Well, you know he has been figuring for a discharge ever since he heard the cannonading at the second Bull Run, but couldn't make it before yesterday."

"How did he make it?" inquired several, earnestly.

"Fished for it," quietly remarked Birdy.

"Come, Birdy, this is too old a crowd for any jokes of yours. Whose canteen have you been sucking Commissary out of?" broke in one of his hearers.

"Nary time; I'm honest, fellows. He fished for it, and I'll tell you how," resumed Birdy, adjusting the rubber blanket upon which he had seated himself.

"You see old Pigey was riding along the path that winds around the hill to Corps Head-Quarters, when he spied this fellow, Long Tom, as they call him, sitting on a stump, and alongside of the big sink, that some of our mess helped to dig when on police duty last. Tom held in both hands a long pole, over the sink, with a twine string hanging from it--for all the world as if he was fishing. On came old Pigey; but Tom never budged.

"'What are you doing there, sir?' said the General.

"'Fishing,' said Tom, without turning his head.

"'Fishing! h--l and d--n! Must be crazy; no fish there.'

"'I've caught them in smaller streams than this,' drawled out Tom, turning at the same time his eyes upon the General, with a vacant stare. 'But then I had better bait. The ground about here is too mean for good red worms. Just look,' and Tom lifted up an old sardine box, half full of grubs, for the General to look at.

"'Crazy, by G--d, sir,' said the General, turning to his Aid, 'Demented! Demented! Might be a dangerous man in camp; must be attended to,' continued the General; striking, as he spoke, vigorous blows across his saddle-bow, with his gauntlet; Tom all the while waiting for a bite, with the patience of an old fisherman.

"It was after three in the afternoon, and the General took the bait.

"'Must be attended to. Dangerous man! dangerous man!' said he, adjusting his spectacles.

"'Your name and Regiment, sir?'

"Tom drawled them out, and the General directed his Aid to take them down.

"'Go to your Quarters, sir,' said the General.

"'Havn't caught anything yet, and hard tack is played out,' replied Tom.

"At this the General put spurs to his horse, and left. Half an hour afterward, a Corporal's Guard came after Tom. They took him up to the marquee of the Surgeon of the Division. Tom played it just as well there, and yesterday his discharge came down, all O.K., and they've got the Commissary on the strength of it, and are having a high old time generally."

"Bully boy with a glass eye! How are _you_, discharge!" and like slang exclamations broke rapidly and rapturously from the crowd.

"But," said one of the more thoughtful of the crowd, as the condition of a brother then lying hopelessly ill, with no prospect of a discharge,--although it had been promised repeatedly for months past,--pressed itself upon his attention, "how shameful that this able-bodied coward and idler should get off in this way, when so many better men are dying by inches in the hospitals. A General who understood his command and had more knowledge of human nature, could not be deceived in that way."

"Tom had lounged about Divisions Head-Quarters so much, that he knew old Pigey thoroughly, and just when to take him," said a comrade.

"All the greater shame that our Generals can be taken off their guard at any time," retorted the other.

"Oh, well," continued he, "about what might be expected of one educated exclusively as a Topographical Engineer, and having no acquaintance with active field service, and with no talent for command; for it is a talent that West Point may educate, but cannot create."

"And what is a Tippo, Typo, or Toppographical Engineer, Sergeant?" broke in the little Irish Corporal, who chanced to be one of the group, rather seriously. "Isn't it something like a land surveyor; and be Jabers, wasn't the great Washington himself a land surveyor? Eh? Maybe that's the rayson these Tippos, Typos, or Toppographical Engineers ride such high horses."

"Not badly thought of, Corporal," replied the Sergeant, amid laughter at Terence's discovery, and his attempt at pronunciation; "but Washington was a man of earnestness and ability, and not a guzzler of whiskey, and a mouther of indecent profanity. There are good officers in that Corps. There is Meade, the fighter of the noble Pennsylvania Reserves; Warren, a gentleman as well as a soldier. Others might be named. Meritorious men, but kept in the background while the place-men, cumberers of the service, refused by Jeff. Davis when making his selections from among our regular officers, as too cheap an article, are kept in position at such enormous sacrifices of men, money, and time. I have heard it said, upon good authority, that there is a nest of these old place-men in Washington, who keep their heads above water in the service, through the studied intimacy of their families with families of Members of the Cabinet--a toadyism that often elevates them to the depression of more meritorious men, and always at the expense of the country,--but--

'Dark shall be light.'

Keep up your spirits, boys."

"Keep up your spirits," echoed Birdy; "that is what they are doing all the time at Division Head-Quarters,--by pouring spirits down, Jim," continued he, turning suddenly to a comrade, who lounged lazily alongside of him, holding, at the same time at the end of a stick, a tin cup with a wire handle, over the fire, "tell the crowd about that whisky barrel."

Some of the crowd had heard the story, from the manner in which they welcomed the suggestion, and insisted upon its reproduction.

"Can't, till I cook my coffee," retorted Jim, pointing to the black, greasy liquid in the cup, simmering slowly over the half-smothered fire. Jim's cup had evidently been upon duty but a short time previously as a soup-kettle. "But it is about done," said he, lifting it carefully off, "and I might as well tell it while it cools."

"About one week ago I happened to be detailed as a Head-Quarter guard, and about four o'clock in the afternoon was pacing up and down the beat in front of the General's Head-Quarters. It was a pleasant sun-shiny spring day,--when gadflies like to try their wings, and the ground seems to smoke in all directions,--and the General sat back composedly in the corner of his tent on a camp stool, with his elbow on his knee and his head hanging rather heavily upon his hand. The flaps were tied aside to the fly-ropes. I had a fair view of him as I walked up and down, and I came to the conclusion from his looks that Pigey had either a good load on, or was in a brown study. While I was thinking about it up comes a fellow of the 2--th, that I used to meet often while we were upon picket. He is usually trim, tidy-looking, and is an intelligent fellow, but on that day everything about him appeared out of gear. His old grey slouch hat had only half a rim, and that hung over his eyes--hair uncombed, face unwashed, hands looking as if he had been scratching gravel with them, his blouse dirty and stuffed out above the belt, making him as full-breasted as a Hottentot woman, pantaloons greasy, torn, and unevenly suspended; and to foot up his appearance shoes innocent of blacking, and out at the toes. When I saw him, I laughed outright. He winked, and asked in an undertone if the General was in, stating at the same time that he was there in obedience to an order detailing one man for special duty at the General's Head Quarters, 'and you know,' said he, 'that the order always is for intelligent soldierly-looking men. Well, all our men that have been sent up of that stripe have been detained as orderlies, to keep his darkies in wood and water, and hold his horses, and we are getting tired of it. _I_ don't intend running any risk.'

"'Don't think you will,' said I, laughing at his make-up.

"Just then I noticed a movement of the General's head, and resumed the step. A moment after, the General's eye caught sight of the Detail. He eyed him a moment in a doubtful way, and then rubbing his eyes, as if to confirm the sight, and straightening up, shouted--

"'Sergeant of the guard! Sergeant of the guard!'

"The sergeant was forthcoming at something more than a double-quick; and with a salute, and 'Here, sir,' stood before the General.

"Old Pigey's right hand extended slowly, pointing towards the Detail, who stood with his piece at a rest, wondering what was to come next.

"'Take away that musket, sergeant! and that G--d d--n looking thing alongside of it. What is it, anyhow?' said the General, with a significant emphasis on the word 'thing.'

"And off the sergeant went, followed by the man, who gave a sly look as he left."

"Pretty well played," said one of the crowd; "but what has that to do with a whisky barrel?"

"Hold on, and you will see; I am not through yet.

"About half an hour afterward another man from the same regiment presented himself, and asked permission to cross my beat, saying that he had been detailed on special duty, and was to report to the General in person. This one looked trim enough to pass muster. He presented himself at the door of the tent and saluted; but the General had taken two or three plugs in the interim, and was slightly oblivious. Anxious to see some sport, I suggested that he should call the General.

"'General,' said he, lowly, then louder, all the while saluting, until the General awoke with a start.

"'Who the h--l are you, sir?'

"'I was ordered to report to you in person, sir, for special duty.'

"'Special duty, sir! Has it come to this? Must I assign the duty to be performed by each individual man, sir, in the Division, sir!'

"The disheveled hair, flashing eyes, and fierce look of the General, startled this new Detail, and he commenced explaining. The General broke in abruptly, however, as if suddenly recollecting; and rubbing his hands, while his countenance assumed a bland smile:

"'Oh, yes; you are right, sir, right; special duty, sir; yes, sir; follow me, sir.'

"And the General arose and with somewhat uncertain strides left his marquee, and, followed by the man, entered a Sibley partly in its rear.

"'There, sir,' said the General, pointing, with rather a pleased countenance; 'do you see that barrel, sir?'

"'Yes, sir,' replied the Detail, saluting.

"'That barrel holds whisky, sir--whisky;'--rising upon his toes and emphasizing the word; 'and I want you to guard it G--d d----d well. Don't let a d--n man have a drop, sir. Do you understand, sir?'

"'Yes, sir,' rejoined the Detail, saluting, and commencing his beat around the barrel.

"The General was about leaving the Sibley, when he turned suddenly;

"'Do you drink, sir?'

"'Once and a while, sir,' replied the Detail, saluting.

"'Have you had any lately?'

"'No, sir.'

"'By G--d, sir, I'll give you some, sir;' and he strides into his marquee and returns with a tin cup full of liquor, which he placed upon the barrel, and told the man to help himself. After the General had gone, the Detail did help himself, until his musket lay on one side of the Sibley and himself on the other."

"The General knows how to sympathize with a big dry," said one, as the crowd laughed over the story.

Pen cannot do justice to the stories abounding in wit and humor wherewith soldiers relieve the tedium of the camp. To an old campaigner, their appearance in print must seem like a faded photograph, in the sight of one who has seen the living original. Characters sparkling with humor, such as was never attributed to any storied Joe Miller, abound in every camp. The brave Wolfe, previously to the victory which cost him his life, is reported to have sung, while floating down the St. Lawrence:

"Why, soldiers, why, Should we be melancholy, Whose business 'tis to die?"

Whether induced in his case by an effort to bolster up the courage of his comrades or not, the sentiment has at all times been largely practised upon in the army of the Potomac.