Chapter 5

When he went upon deck the next morning, the steamer was cutting her way gayly through the waters of New York harbor,--a wonderful scene to the untravelled drummer boy, who had never before witnessed such an animated picture of dancing waters, ships under full sail, and steamboats trailing long dragon-tails of smoke in the morning air.

Then there was the city, with its forests of masts, its spires rising dimly in the soft, smoky atmosphere that shrouded it, and the far, faint sound of its bells musically ringing.

Then came the excitement of landing; the troops forming, and, after a patriotic reception by the "Sons of Massachusetts," marching through the city to the barracks; then dinner; and a whole afternoon of sight-seeing afterwards.

The next day the regiment was off again, crossing the ferry, and taking the cars for Philadelphia. From Philadelphia it kept on into the night again, until it reached a steamer, in waiting to receive it, on Chesapeake Bay.

The next morning was rainy; and the rain continued all day, pouring dismally; and it was raining still when, at midnight, the boat arrived at Annapolis. In the darkness and storm the troops landed, and took up their temporary quarters in the Naval Academy. In one of the recitation halls, Frank and his comrades spread their blankets on the floor, put their knapsacks under their heads, and slept as soundly after their wearisome journey as they ever did in their beds at home. Indeed, they seemed to fall asleep as promptly as if by word of command, and to snore by platoons.

The next morning the rain was over. At seven o'clock, breakfast; after which the regiment was reviewed on the Academy parade. Then Frank and a squad of jovial companions set out to see the town,--taking care to have with them an intelligent young corporal, named Gray, who had been there before, and knew the sights.

"Boys," said young Gray, as they sallied forth, "we are now in Queen Anne's city,--for that, I suppose you know, is what the word Annapolis means. It was the busiest city in Maryland once; but, by degrees, all its trade and fashion went over to Baltimore, and left the old town to go to sleep,--though it has woke up and rubbed its eyes a little since the rebellion broke out."

"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 Massachusetts, last April, when they saved Washington and the Union?"

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

"But we saved Washington; that's every where admitted," said Gray, proudly. "On the 19th of April the mob attacked the Sixth Massachusetts in Baltimore, took possession of the city, and destroyed the communication with Washington. 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 Washington in danger, the Eighth Massachusetts 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 'Constitution,' and, with the New York Seventh, went to work to open a new route to Washington.

"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 Massachusetts 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 Washington?" 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 wishing 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 Massachusetts; 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 passion.

"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 constitution, 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 Constitution and the Union!" said Jack.

"That's true, too; for the constitution, 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 bass. Others joined them, and the party returned to the Academy, singing high and clear these words:--

"The traitor's foot is on thy shore, Maryland, my Maryland! His touch is on thy senate door, Maryland, my Maryland! Avenge the patriotic gore That stained the streets of Baltimore, When vandal mobs our banners tore, Maryland, my Maryland!

"Drum out thy phalanx brave and strong, Maryland, my Maryland! Drum forth to balance right and wrong, Maryland, my Maryland! Drum to thy old heroic song, When forth to fight went Freedom's throng. And bore the spangled flag along, Maryland, my Maryland!"

"That's first rate!" said Frank, who delighted in music. "Gray altered the words a little, and Mr. Sinjin found us the tune."

"Frank likes any thing that has a drum in it," said John Winch, enviously. "He'll get sick of drums, though, soon enough, I guess."

"Jack judges me by himself," said Frank, gayly, setting out to run a race with Gray to the parade-ground.

IX.

THANKSGIVING IN CAMP.

St. John's College stands on a beautiful eminence overlooking the city. The college, like the naval school, had been broken up by the rebellion; its halls and dormitories were appropriated to government uses, and the regiment was removed thither the next day.

"You will be surprised," Frank wrote home, "to hear that I have been through the naval school since I came here, and that I am now in college."

Few boys get through college as quick as he did. On the following day the regiment abandoned its new quarters also, and encamped two miles without the city. In the afternoon the tents were pitched; and where was only a barren field before, arose in the red sunset light the canvas city, with its regular streets, its rows of tent doors opening upon them, and its animated, laughing, lounging, working inhabitants.

The next morning was fine. All around the camp were pleasant growths of pine, oak, gum, and persimmon trees, and now and then a tree festooned with wild grape-vines. Near by were a few scattered ancient-looking farm-houses, with their out-door chimneys, dilapidated out-buildings, negro huts, and tobacco fields. There were several other regiments in the vicinity,--two of Massachusetts boys. And there the New York Zouaves, in their beautiful Oriental costumes, were encamped. Frank climbed a tree, and looked far around on the picturesque and warlike scene. The pickets, which had gone out the night before, now returning, discharged their loaded pieces at targets, the reports blending musically with the near and distant roll of drums.

"What is the cheering for?" asked Frank, as he came in that day from a ramble in the woods.

"For General Burnside," said Gray. "All the troops rendezvousing at Annapolis are to be under his command, to be called the Coast Division. It is to be another Great Armada; and our colonel thinks we shall see fighting soon."

This good news had made the regiment almost wild with joy; for it desired nothing so much as to be led against the enemy by some brave and famous general.

Frank loved the woods; and the next day he induced his companions to go with him and hunt for nuts and fruits. Although it was late in autumn, there were still persimmons and wild grapes to be had, and walnuts, and butternuts. But Frank had another object in view than that of simply pleasing his appetite. Thanksgiving day, which is bred in the bones of the New Englander, and which he carries with him every where, was at hand, and the drummer boy had thought of something which he fancied would suit well the festal occasion.

"What are you there after?" said John Winch, from a persimmon tree; "filling your hands with all that green stuff. Come here; O, these little plums are delicious, I tell you."

"These grapes are the thing," said Harris, from another tree. "I'm going to eat all I can; then I'm going to get my pockets full of nuts and carry back to camp."

Frank busied himself in his own way, however, and returned to camp with his arms loaded with evergreens.

"What in time are you about?" said Winch, as Frank set himself industriously to work with twigs and strings. "Oh, I know; wreaths! Boys, le's make some wreaths. Give me some of your holly, won't you, Frank?"

"Yes," said Frank, "take all you want to use. I shall be very glad to have you help me."

"Will you show me how?"

"Yes," said Frank; "sit down here. Bend your twigs and tie them together, in the first place, for a frame. Then bind the holly on it, this way."

"O, ain't it fun?" said Winch, with his usual enthusiasm over a new thing. "When we get these evergreens used up, we'll get some more, and make wreaths for all the tents." He worked for about ten minutes; then began to yawn. "Where's my pipe? I'm going to have a smoke. How can you have patience with that nonsense, Frank? What's the use of a wreath, anyhow, after it's made? Girl's play, I call it."

And off went Winch, having used up a ball of Frank's strings to no purpose, and leaving his wreath half finished.

But Frank, never easily discouraged, kept cheerfully at work, leaving his task only when duty called him.

Thursday came,--THANKSGIVING. A holiday in camp. The regiment had made ample preparations to celebrate it. Instead of pork and salt junk, the men were allowed turkeys; and in place of boiled hominy and molasses, they had plum pudding. And they feasted, and told gay stories, and sang brave songs, and thought of home, where parents, wives, sisters, and friends were, they fondly believed, eating turkey and plum pudding at the same time, and thinking of them. There was no drill that day; and no practise with any drumsticks but those of the devoted turkeys.

One of the most pleasing incidents of the day occurred in the morning. This was the presentation of wreaths. Frank had made one for each of the company tents, and a fine one for Captain Edney, and one equally fine for Mr. Sinjin, the drum-major, and a noble one for the colonel of the regiment. He presented them all in person, except the last, which he requested Captain Edney to present for him. The captain consented, and at the head of a strong delegation of officers and men, proceeded to Colonel ----'s tent, called him out, and made a neat little speech, and presented the wreath on the end of his sword.

The colonel seemed greatly pleased.

"I accept this wreath," he said, "as the emblemof a noble thought, which I am sure must have inspired our favorite young drummer boy in making it."

Frank blushed like a girl with surprise and pleasure at this unexpected compliment.

"The wreath," continued the colonel, "is the crown of victory; and we will hang up ours, my fellow-soldiers, on this memorable Thanksgiving day, as beautiful and certain symbols of the success of BURNSIDE'S EXPEDITION."

This short speech was greeted with enthusiastic applause. Frank was delighted with the result of his little undertaking, feeling himself a thousand times repaid for all his pains; while John Winch, seeing him in such high favor with every body, could not help regretting, with many a jealous pang, that he had not assisted in making the wreaths, and so become one of the heroes of the occasion.

That evening another incident occurred, not less pleasing to the drummer boy. With a block of wood for a seat, and the head of his drum for a desk, he was writing a letter to his mother, by a solitary candle, around which his comrades were playing cards on a table constructed of a rough board and four sticks. Amid the confusion of laughter and disputes, with heads or arms continually intervening between him and the uncertain light, he was pursuing his task through difficulties which would have made many a boy give up in vexation and despair, when a voice suddenly exclaimed, with startling emphasis,--

"Frank Manly, drummer!" And at the same instant something was thrown into the tent, like a bombshell, passing the table, knocking over the candle, and extinguishing the light.

"Well, that's manners, I should say," cried the voice of Seth Tucket, a fellow, as Frank described him, "who makes lots of fun for us, partly because he is full of it himself, and partly because he is green, and don't know any better." Tucket muttered and spat, then broke forth again, "I be darned ef that pesky football didn't take me right in the face, and spatter my mouth full of taller."

"Well, save the _taller_, Seth, for we're getting short of candles," said Frank. "Here, who is walking on my feet?"

"It's me," said Atwater. "I'm going out to see who threw that thing in."

"You're too late," said Frank. "Strike a light, somebody, and let's see what it is. It tumbled down here by my drum, I believe."

There was a general scratching of matches, and after a while the broken candle was set up and relighted.

"I swan to man," then said Tucket, "jest look at that jack-of-spades. He got it in the physiognomy wus'n I did. 'Alas, the mother that him bare, if she had been in presence there, in his _greased cheeks_ and _greasier hair_, she had not known her child.'"

These words from Marmion, aptly altered to suit the occasion, Seth, who was not so green but that he knew pages of poetry by heart, repeated in a high-keyed, nasal sing-song, which set all the boys laughing.

"A pretty way, too, to _turn up_ Jack, I should say," he added, in allusion to the candlestick,--a _turnip_, with a hole in it,--which had rolled over his cards.

In the mean time, Frank and Jack Winch were scrambling for the missile.

"Let me have it," snarled Jack.

"It's mine; my name was called when it was flung in," said Frank, maintaining his hold.

"Well, keep it, then!" said John. "It's nothing but a great wad of paper."

"It's a torpedo! an infernal machine!" cried Tucket. "Look out, Manly! it'll blow us all into the next Fourth of July."

Frank laughed, as he began to undo the package. The first wrapper was of brown paper with these words written upon it, in large characters:--

"FRANK MANLY, _Drummer_. _Inquire Within._"

Beneath that wrapper was another, and beneath that another, and so on, apparently an endless series. The boys all gathered around Frank, looking on as he removed the papers one by one, until the package, originally as big as his head, had dwindled to the dimensions of his fist.

"It's got as many peels as an onion," said Tucket.

"Nothing but papers. I told ye so!" said Jack Winch.

But Frank perceived that the core of the package was becoming comparatively solid and weighty. There was certainly something besides paper there. What could it be? a stone? But what an odd-shaped stone it was! Stones are not often of such regular shape, so uniformly round and flattened. He had almost reached the last wrapper; his heart was beating anxiously; but, before he removed it, he thought he heard a peculiar sound, and held down his ear. A flush of delight overspread his countenance, and he clasped the ball in both hands, as if it had been something precious.

"O, boys!" he exclaimed, looking up eagerly for their sympathy, "where _did_ it come from? Atwater, did you see any body?"

Nobody. It was all a mystery.

"Boys, it's for me, isn't it?" said Frank, still hugging his treasure, as if afraid even of looking at it, lest it should fly away.

"Come, let's see!" and Winch impatiently made a snatch to get at it.

Atwater coolly took him by the arm, and pulled him back. Then Frank, carefully as a young mother uncovered the face of her sleeping baby, removed the tinsel paper, which now alone intervened between the object and his hand, and revealed to the astonished eyes of his comrades a tiny, beautiful, smiling-faced silver watch.

"O, isn't it a beauty?" said Frank, almost beside himself with delight; for a watch was a thing of which he had greatly felt the need in beating his calls, and wished for in vain. "Who could have sent it? Don't you know, boys, any of you?" he asked, the mystery that came with the gift filling him with strange, perplexed gladness.

"All I know is," said Tucket, "I'd be willing to have six candles, all lit, knocked down my throat, and eat taller for a fortnight, ef such a kind of a football, infernal machine,--_watch you call it_,--would only come to me."

"Frank'll feel bigger 'n ever now, with a watch in his pocket," said the envious Jack Winch, with a bitter grin.

All had some remark to make except Atwater, who stood with his arms drawn up under his cape, and smiled down upon Frank well pleased.

Frank in the mean time was busily engaged in trying to discover, among all the papers, some scrap of writing by which the unknown donor might be traced. But writing there was none. And the mystery remained unsolved.

X.

FRANK'S PROGRESS.

So passed Thanksgiving in camp.

The next day the boys, with somewhat lugubrious faces, returned to their hard diet of pork and hominy, heaving now and then a sigh of fond remembrance, as they thought of yesterday's puddings and turkeys.