Part 4

In the still evening air, from twenty hillsides, the mellow notes of the bugle bade good-night and peaceful sleep to the weary soldiers--and we thought eternal rest to the soul of the one we were so anxiously watching. Slowly the stars, however, went round in their courses and looked down--how calm and distant and seemingly all indifferent, upon the bowed head of the aged father as, toward morning, I could hear his regular, though feeble tread up and down outside. And then, as the bright sun rose, and the smoke from the campfires drifted off down the vales, making such a scene of idyllic beauty; then all the hills and valleys echoed with the sound of revéille calling to action, awakening to new hope and the new day's new opportunities. But not for one soldier was all this--his pulse of life beat too low. Till noon he lingered on wrestling with the last enemy, and, as the sun began to slope toward the west, his light on earth went out. In the prime of his years, one of the strongest among his comrades, after ten days of suffering, he passed away--Corporal John B. McNair, a soldier of his country, whose courage was shown not upon the field of carnage where the trumpet and flag inspire on to the deadly charge and heroic deed, but only in a battle where he fought alone, with nothing to inspire, nothing but now and then the kind look or word of comrades to cheer. But he died his country's defender in the cause of humanity. His will be a soldier's reward in heaven. It was last Saturday that, near the great and renowned, we laid him to rest in the beautiful grounds of Arlington.

Sunday morning, the 24th of July, after the regular preaching service, Company D, with a considerable number from other companies, met in the Y. M. C. A. tent to hold memorial services for Richard Maloy, who died two days before at Fort Myer, from where his remains were sent home for burial. Circumstances made the services nobly impressive. When the president's call for troops was first made, Richard and his brother Charles were at home with their widowed mother in Kansas City. Dick--so was he called by his friends--Dick said to his mother, "Mother, I will go." She replied, "One cannot go, my son, without the other." "Then," said Charles, the younger of the two, "I will go also." So they joined the Third Regiment and went out with their mother's blessing upon them. The rigor of army duty was too severe for their immature bodies. One day Charles, just after the return from the hard practice march, was assigned to outpost duty. Dick said his brother couldn't stand it, and applied to the sergeant to be put on in his place. The substitution was made. It killed Dick.

At the conclusion of the memorial, one of his comrades came to me with an open Testament in his hand, and, with breast choked with emotion, pointed with his finger to the passage: "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." That was enough; it told everything.

As for the mother, some said the sudden news would kill her. It did not. When her boys left home for the war it was then that she made her sacrifice and proved her high-minded maternity that could let the larger love of country and of mankind rise superior to the love of her own flesh and blood. She keeps up the traditions of antiquity. Sparta had not nobler women. Such mothers, who bless their parting sons and bid them go, can receive them, living or dead, comforted and exalted with pride that they were stirred by noble impulses and offered their lives in the cause of humanity. We never know the celestial quantities our every-day earth-born acquaintances possess until the hour of supreme need comes to evoke them.

The problem of taking care of an army's sick is indeed no easy one. Our army is still experimenting, or rather, it might be said, improving its system with some phases of the matter yet under discussion. The regimental hospital has been done away with, so that what was the hospital of the regiment is now only a medical dispensary. Here, in response to the sick call at 6:15 every morning, you may see a crowd of soldiers, from 50 to 100 in number, lined up waiting to receive in turn their capsules and pills. Two long pine trees in front of our dispensary furnish acceptable seats to the weakened boys. In addition to medicines there is little else left of all the complete and excellent equipment the Third started out with, except a half-dozen or so litters, which are used for taking up the sick out of their tents or carrying them off the field to the dispensary until the ambulances can carry them to the division hospital. There never having been any brigade hospitals, there are in Camp Alger only division hospitals--first, second and third.

The Second Division hospital, where, as we belong to this division, our sick are cared for, is organized with thorough system. In general command there is some one of the regimental chief surgeons or brigade surgeons. Then there is a full corps of officers with various ranks and duties. There is a property officer with the rank of lieutenant, and so they run. The chief steward has under him four other stewards and about 220 nurses, there being 24 nurses from each regiment permanently detailed to this service. They are organized with captain, lieutenants, and sergeants, very much like a company, and have regular litter drills daily. There are three general wards, each making a white canvas hall-like chamber nearly 50 paces in length, and three special wards, of which one is for measles and another for critical ailments, and another for surgical cases. In a very serious case, two special nurses are called in and assigned wholly to its care.

The whole number of inmates from the nine regiments constituting our division--that is, about 11,700 men--has run on a daily average from 60 to 80. The more critical cases, where it is practicable or advisable, are removed to the Fort Myer hospital by the side of Arlington. The hospital, situated centrally with reference to the various regiments to which it belongs, now constitutes, with its numerous wards, its various officers' quarters, its kitchen and mess tents, and the large number of tents necessary for the nurses and stewards, a little camp all by itself. Around it its own guards keep up their regular tread, and down toward the general corral, where scores of government wagons and government mules stand at feeding time, stand the dozen covered ambulances that go night and day on their faithful missions.

On Monday, of this week, the Third underwent inspection by the general inspection officer, Major Brown, of the Fourth Cavalry. Every man in the regiment, and all the quarters and accoutrements, came under the trained and uncompromising eye. At 8 a.m. the several companies were called in battalions to the parade ground, where the soldiers, each with his usual equipment of gun, knapsack, haversack, field-tent, and canteen, stood under the already hot sun to be examined. Then, after disburdening themselves, they were called out again to execute the movements which the inspector might require of them. Some phase of the inspection continued until late in the afternoon, when, beginning at 6 o'clock, the entire regiment passed in review before General Davis, division commander, and his staff. The fine showing we made elicited round after round of cheering from our New York neighbors, and, at the conclusion, high commendation from the reviewing general.

I will conclude with the presentation of another character. I had frequently heard of J----, of Company K, and desired to make his acquaintance. I was sitting on the band seats by our tall flagless flagpole, watching the effects of the sunrise and of the first bugle calls. I noticed some one advancing toward me from the direction of Company K, at the extreme north side of the camp. It might have been seen that, as he came on with grave and measured tread, the eyes of all his comrades were upon him. But it was equally apparent that he for his part disregarded everything. He came up, but spoke not a word and seemed to be aware of no presence or beholding eye. Then he gravely unrolled a cambric flag of the enormous and graceful proportions of 8 inches long by 12 inches broad, and, attaching it to the rope, hoisted it to the top of the pole, while his comrades loudly cheered and laughed at the joke--to all of which he was utterly oblivious--returning with as much gravity as he came. And the toy flag there floated where he raised it aloft, "frenetic," as Browning says, "to be free." This fellow's large-featured, benignant, Scottish face, with its fringe of hair entirely encircling it, spoke full plainly of a big, jolly, generous heart. The boys all call him "Honest Bill." The day we were going out on our practice march J---- thought he didn't want to go. In fact, he preferred to stay in the guard house. This was his scheme: He goes down to the line of guards, is challenged, makes a dash through, but returns and gives himself up. Quite successful! His large kindly face beams happiness. What does his captain do? Nothing but send him along on the march with the penalty of some days in the guard house hanging over his devoted head. This was enough to try any flesh and blood, and almost enough to provoke even a soldier to swear at his ill luck. I think J---- triumphantly resisted the evil one. When he returned to camp on the third day, a wiser and seemingly no less happy man, he threw down from his strong back not only his own burden of soldierly equipment, but the packs of two of his comrades also who had grown faint in the long march.

So I know J----. Who, from this, doesn't know J----? His heart, sure, is as big as his back is broad, and his nature as open as his face, which shines like a harvest moon. God bless all such comrades.

VI.

THE THOROUGHFARE CAMPAIGN AND ENCAMPMENT IN THE SLOUGH OF DESPOND.

[There has been considerable said about the mistreatment of volunteer soldiers now in the service of the government, and much of the talk of suffering and want in the camps has been discredited because of its seeming ridiculousness. Americans are not ready to believe that the heads of the departments would permit the brave men to undergo the trials and sufferings that have been so graphically pictured by the newspapers, and the more conservative here put these idle rumors aside as the work of sensation-mongers.

Now a minister of the gospel, a man who is at the front with the soldiers, administering to them spiritual assistance and pointing them, in their dark hours of distress, to a brighter future, has raised his voice, and in words that sink deep into the heart and make the breast of men shudder, he tells us that our boys are being murdered; that the brave sons of Missouri are being cut down like grass before the scythe, through the neglect and tyranny of officers in the army who are supposed to look after their comfort.

Rev. R. T. Kerlin, chaplain of the Third Missouri Regiment, writes from Thoroughfare Gap, Va., to a brother minister at St. Louis, telling him of these things. Dr. Kerlin comes from Clay County, and the people of this city and this State know him.

Dr. Kerlin's letter is published herewith, but he admits that, as horrible as he has pictured the condition of the second division of the Second Army Corps, it is even worse than he has made it appear, and that the officers and men insisted that he make the truth more explicit that aid might be gotten to them by the patriotic people of this State, in whom they have confidence. The chaplain does not place the blame.]--_The Kansas City Times._

The last week's itinerary of the second division of the Second Army Corps, General Davis commanding, has been written in curses. The results will be borne forever in the minds, hearts and bodies of 10,000 patriotic citizen-soldiers. Half-fed, wet and muddy, with no change of clothes, a score, on an average, in each company bare-footed, the volunteer soldiers of this division, as they go to their beds of wet straw under their low dog-tents that let the rain through like sieves or as they trudge through the mire of the stubble-field in which we are encamped to-night, can find no language but oaths to express their sense of ill-treatment.

Here is the story: It should be told in justice to these men, who have offered their lives for their country, who represent the best elements of our American citizenship, who are disposed to be manly, honest and long-suffering, it should be told. As their pastor, knowing what hardships they suffer, as well as what commandments they break, I will attempt the narration.

One week ago to-night--Tuesday, August 2d--the order was issued about 9 p.m. for the regiments constituting this division to break camp at 8 a.m. the next day. Morning came, and a hotter day has not dawned this hot season. An hour's delay, under heavy marching orders, was not rest. At 9 o'clock the Third Missouri, or rather two battalions of it, less the men who were bare-footed and sick, marched out of Camp Alger with the first Rhode Island, Second Tennessee, One Hundred and Fifty-ninth Indiana, Third New York, Twenty-second Kansas, Sixth Pennsylvania, Seventh Illinois, Ninth Massachusetts and the recruits of Duffield's separate brigade. Such forced marching was perhaps never required of soldiers not beating a retreat or hurrying to a strategic point or an imperative attack.

Within one hour after leaving camp the men were "killed." This is the way they express it. The sweltering heat, the dust, the humid atmosphere, the narrow, deep-cut, dusty roads, closed in by thick woods, combined to make the marching difficult. Besides each man carried a burden of not less than seventy pounds--gun, knapsack, haversack, blanket, poncho, field-tent, canteen, mess outfit and day's rations--what wonder that they fell out by dozens and scores? Experienced army men said they never knew of such a day's march. It was not the distance, for that was not so great. It was the conditions that have been only barely indicated, and the absence of any apparent reason for it all.

When Burk Station was reached three-fourths of all the men had fallen out. This is a conservative estimate.

When the Third Missouri marched to Difficult Run a few weeks before--a distance nearly as great--not 3 per cent of its men fell out. Company K, for example, lost not a single man on that march. This company arrived at Burk Station with fifteen men, all told, out of eighty-five that started. Other companies fared much worse.

Rest the next day was simply imperative. Most of the men who had no shoes had been left behind in the old camp. Now many others were in their bare feet on stony ground. Besides this, rations were inadequate. I saw men look at their petty dole of two onions, two potatoes, six hardtacks and a chunk of fat salt pork--the issue for a day--and in disgust toss it to the ground. Of course, the country was foraged. Those who fell out on the march were not going to starve in a land of plenty, even if a commandment, which they had respected hitherto, did say, "Thou shalt not steal." Nor was it likely that those who came into camp would be content with such scanty fare when corn in the fields about was in roasting-ear and potatoes were abundant, and chickens and turkeys at the farm-houses around threatened to make a night attack upon the camp unless they themselves were first surprised and captured.

The boys did not always stop with the confiscation of this small game. As they marched along the next day they amused the country people, who flocked to the roadside to see them pass, by asking, "Who killed the cow?" "Who killed the sheep?" and so on, and answering, "Such-and-such a regiment."

From Camp Alger to Thoroughfare Gap, where we are now sunk in yellow mud, not many farms within a mile of the road escaped a visit from soldiers, who took or were given something to satisfy their hunger. I rode on horseback behind the troops and made frequent side-excursions. My statements are based on what I saw with my own eyes and learned from the citizens and from the soldiers--the soldiers making no secret of the fact as they deemed themselves justified by the circumstances.

The march from Burk Station to Bull Run was through mud. The night before a heavy rain fell and every man in camp, possibly, got drenched. Still the marching was improved, but rations were shorter and shoes were more worn. But the boys kept up their spirits surprisingly, only saying they would never forget the Maine, not adding "to ---- with Spain." It was Sunday. I don't know that this made them swear less--who could have told it was the Lord's day? If it had been in '62 and Stonewall Jackson had been just beyond the Berkshire Hills, advancing on one of his alarming maneuvers toward Washington, it would have been justifiable to order tents struck at 5 o'clock Sunday morning that we might advance and hold Thoroughfare Gap against the enemy. As it was--others besides the chaplain simply submitted.

Our camp on Bull Run was well situated. It could not have been healthier, the water supply for bathing purposes was the best we have ever had, and for drinking purposes was adequate and fairly good. But we were ordered to advance, and that night the soldiers who volunteered to serve their country in a Christian cause slept tired, hungry and wet, for another rain-storm beat through their little canvas kennels. Our camp this time was on Broad Run, near Bristow. Remaining here over Monday, we broke camp again this (Tuesday) morning, notwithstanding the fact that the rain had poured in torrents during the night that the sky was still overcast and lowering. As the men were marched out I asked a surgeon what he thought of it. His answer was one word, "Murder."

Did you ever hear your country cursed by foreigners? That is nothing; you know their curses harm her not, and despite all foreign prejudice she will march on in her great career. But do you know how it would make you feel to hear your own countrymen cursing the land that gave them birth? Cursing, not as tramps might, not as unthinking and harmless fools might, not as envious foreigners, but as patriotic, intelligent, but ill-treated and outraged soldier-citizens. I have to-day heard enough of this to grieve and sicken the heart. The men all day have trudged under their burdens, through miry roads, and waded running streams, that were sometimes waist-deep, and were drenched by two heavy rains. It is raining now after "taps," and has been pouring down as it can only in Virginia, ever since evening mess at 5:30.

The men know that heavy blame rests upon somebody. They will doubtless be able to locate the responsibility before the march ends. I hope they will, for their indignation is too burning to be misdirected. The responsible party should bear it.

What sort of preaching will these men listen to? Who will dare to preach the commandments to them--except those they are in no danger of breaking? I think the wise and sympathetic Christ, who thought better of publicans and sinners than of the tyrannous and unmerciful rulers of His time would be able to speak words of comfort to these men and influence them to righteousness. But He would first feed them, so the unexampled story of His compassion relates--and there would be fragments to gather up. There are no fragments to gather up in our camp where a dog would starve to death if he depended on the castaway scraps--no fragments of fishes where wagon-grease and machine-oil are used by the soldiers for frying their potatoes in. As the disciples of the same divinely compassionate Friend were not forbidden by Him to pluck and eat the corn of the fields through which they passed, so shall my disciples, these soldier men, not be forbidden by me.

Whatever other preachers might do, I cannot preach to them so long as they are hungry, foot-sore, and suffering most of all under a sense of ignoble treatment, while our country knows not the measure of its ready wealth. Not long, I hope, will the citizen-soldiers, soon now again to be free citizens, lay the charge of blame to their country, but only to the incompetent or self-seeking parties who are responsible.

It is but the soberest judgment to say that, if all the volunteers have been dealt with as these have been, there could be no volunteer army raised in this country for years to come, should the need arise. It is well for the government to think of this. Again, the present treatment of the soldiers, by which they are driven to foraging and begging, is making the army a school for tramps. If these soldiers are soon mustered out in large numbers, this country will be overrun, harassed and terrorized by tramps.

Meanwhile, their endurance, their self-control, their discipline and good behavior can but be wondered at--not that all they do can be approved of by any means--but the conduct of men is largely determined by circumstances, and the circumstances in the present case are averse to all morality.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE WAR.

For our Country, in these days, to go to war is a very significant event. In former times, for other nations, it meant not so much; the provocation needed not to involve such high and general interests. To be on the warpath, to plunder and be plundered, to kill and be killed is with the barbarian the usual thing. Of our own Teutonic ancestors this was true less, much less, than ten centuries ago; and it is very slow indeed that we have outgrown their barbaric, warlike propensity. Still, warfare, with the advance of civilization and the increasing power of peaceful arts, with the spread and the strengthening of the sentiments of humanity, and with the deepening of the sense of universal human brotherhood, has gradually grown more and more to be deprecated, condemned and avoided.

Therefore, in the Nineteenth Century of Christ, the Prince of Peace, to take up arms and go to war against a sister nation and slay our brother man is a remarkable event, well worth the while of American citizens to reflect upon the causes--they must needs be unique, extraordinary, characteristic of the enlightened time and country in which we live. Could the provocation be other than of a moral and humanitarian nature? Must it not needs be addressed to Conscience and to the sense of all those high and Christian principles for which America stands? Surely, else, in this day, such sacrifice of life and treasure would never be made. And so it was in our recent war. The very sentiments which the Prince of Peace, the preacher of brotherhood, kindled in our hearts, were quickened into a flame of noble hostility against the barbarous oppressor of another people. Our very enlightenment of Conscience, our moral culture, our Christian spirit itself impelled us to war. Could we prate of fellow-sympathy, of brotherhood, of humanitarianism, and yet not make even the last effort, by a resort to arms, to deliver a people down-trodden, plundered, enslaved? Never may our hearts be so hardened, never may our souls be so dead to generous impulse, never may our thoughts be so abjectly selfish, that we will not sacrifice all for human rights, for freedom, for justice, for the happiness and ultimate peace of the world.