But apparently Johnny is in no hurry to load up again, and likes the deep shadow of his tree too well to walk his beat any more, for we wait impatiently for a long while and see nothing of him. By and by we hear him calling over: "I say, Yank!"

"Well, Johnny?"

"If you won't shoot, I won't."

"Rather late in the morning to make such an offer, isn't it? Didn't you shoot just now?"

"You see, my old gun went off by accident."

"That's a likely yarn o' yours, Johnny!"

"But it's an honest fact, any way."

"Well, Johnny, next time your gun's going to go off in that uncomfortable way, you will oblige us chaps over here by holding the muzzle down toward Dixie, or somebody'll turn up his toes to the daisies before morning yet."

"All right, Yank," said Johnny, stepping out from behind his tree into the bright moonlight like a man, "but we can lick you, any way!"

"Andy, do you think that fellow's gun went off by accident, or was the rascal trying to hurt somebody?"

"I think he's honest in what he says, Harry. His gun might have gone off by accident. There's no telling, though; he'll need a little watching, I guess."

But Johnny paces his beat harmlessly enough for the remainder of the hour, singing catches of song, and whistling the airs of Dixie, while we pace ours as leisurely as he, but, with a wholesome regard for guns that go off so easily of themselves, we have a decided preference for the dark shadows, and are cautious lest we linger too long on those parts of our several beats where the bright moonbeams lie.

It must not be supposed that the sentries of the two armies were forever picking one another off whenever opportunity offered; for what good did it do to murder each other in cold blood? It only wasted powder, and did not forward the issue of the great conflict at all. Except at times immediately before or after a battle, or when there was some specially exciting reason for mutual defiance, the pickets were generally on friendly terms, conversed freely about the news of the day, exchanged newspapers, coffee, and tobacco, swapped knives, and occasionally had a friendly game of cards together. Sometimes, however, picket duty was but another name for sharpshooting and bushwhacking of the most dangerous and deadly sort.

When we had been relieved, and got back to our little bivouac under the elms on the lawn, and sat down there to discuss the episode of the night, I asked Andy,—

"What was that piece of poetry you read to me the other day, about a picket being shot? It was something about 'All quiet along the Potomac to-night.' Do you remember the words well enough to repeat it?"

"Yes, I committed it to memory, Harry; and if you wish, I'll recite it for your benefit. We'll just imagine ourselves back in the dear old Academy again, and that it is 'declamation-day,' and my name is called, and I step up and declaim:—

ALL QUIET ALONG THE POTOMAC
TO-NIGHT.

CHAPTER VII.
A MUD-MARCH AND A SHAM BATTLE.

We had been quietly lying in our winter quarters there at Belle Plains some two months and more, without having yet had much to vary the dull monotony of a soldier's everyday life. There was, of course, plenty of work in the way of picket duty and endless drilling, and no lack of fun in the camp of one kind or other; but of all this we gradually wearied, and began to long for something new. Not that we were especially anxious for the fatigues of the march and the stirring scenes of the battle-field (of all which we were so far blissfully ignorant): we simply felt that we were tired of the monotony of camp life, and, knowing that great things were before us, with all the ardor of young men for strange experiences and new adventures, we gradually became more and more anxious for the campaign to open. Alas! we knew not what it was we wished for; for when this celebrated campaign of '63 was ended, the few of us who remained to build our second winter quarters had seen quite enough of marching and fighting to last us the rest of our natural days.

However, it was with feelings of relief that we suddenly received orders for the march early in the afternoon of Monday, April 20. As good luck would have it, Andy and I had just finished a hearty meal consisting in the main of apple-fritters; for by this time we had repaired our chimney, which had been destroyed by the fire, and had several times already prepared our fritters without burning our house down over our heads in the operation. Having finished our meal, we were lying lazily back against our knapsacks, disputing as to whose turn it was to wash the dishes, when Andy, hearing some outcry which I had not noticed, suddenly leaped out of the little door in the side of our cabin into the company street, exclaiming as he did so,—

"What's that, sergeant? What's up?"

"Orders to move, that's all, my boy," said the sergeant. "Orders to move. Pack up immediately."

"Where are we going?" queried a dozen voices in chorus; for the news spread like fire in a clearing, and the boys came tumbling out of their cabins pell-mell and gathered about the sergeant in a group.

"You tell me, and I'll tell you," answered the sergeant, with a shrug of his shoulders, as he shouted,—

"Pack up immediately, men! We go in light marching order. No knapsacks; only a shelter or a gum-blanket, and three days' rations in your haversacks; and be lively now!"

It was not long before we were all ready, with our thirty hard-tack, a piece of pork, and a little coffee and sugar in our haversacks, and our gum-blankets or shelters rolled and twisted into a shape somewhat resembling an immense horse-collar, slung over the shoulder diagonally across the body, as was universally the custom with the troops when knapsacks were to be dispensed with in winter, or had been thrown away in summer. We drummer-boys, tightening our drums and tuning them up with a tap-tap-tap of the drumstick, took station on the parade-ground up on the hill, awaiting the adjutant's signal to beat the assembly. At the first tap of our drums the whole regiment, in full view below us, poured out of quarters, like ants tumbling out of their hill when disturbed by the thrust of a stick. As the men fell into line and marched by companies up the hill to the parade-ground where the regiment was ordinarily formed, cheer upon cheer went up; for the monotony of camp life was now plainly at an end, and we were at last to be up and doing, though where, or how, or what, no one could tell.

When a drum-head is wet, it at once loses all its peculiar charm and power. On the present occasion our drum-heads were soon soaked, for it was raining hard. So, unloosening the ropes, we slung our useless sheepskins over our shoulders, as the order was given, "Forward—route-step—march!" The order "route-step" was always a welcome and merciful command, and the reader must bear in mind that troops on the march always go by the "route-step." They march usually four abreast, indeed, but make no effort to keep step; for marching in that way, though good enough for a mile or two on parade, would soon become intolerable if kept up for any great distance. In "route-step" each man picks his way, selecting his steps at his pleasure, and carrying or shifting his arms at his convenience. Even then, marching is no easy matter, especially when it is raining, and you are marching over a clay soil,—and it did seem to us that the soil about Belle Plains was the toughest and most slippery clay in the world, at least in the roads that wound, serpent-like, around the hills amongst which we were marching, where, as we well knew, many a poor mule during the winter had stuck fast, and had to be literally pulled out or left to die in his tracks after the harness had been ripped off his back.

At first, however, we had tolerable marching, for we took across the fields, and kept well upon the high ground as long as we could. We passed some good farms and comfortable looking houses, where we should have liked to stop and buy bread and butter, or get "hoecake" and milk; but there was no time for that, for we made no halt longer than was necessary to allow the rear to "close up," and then were up and away again at a swift pace.

The afternoon wore on. Night set in, and we began to wonder, in all the simplicity of new troops, whether Uncle Sam expected us to march all night as well as all day? To make matters still worse, as night fell dark and drizzling, we left the high ground and came out on the main road of those regions; and if we never before knew what Virginia mud was like, we knew it then. It was not only knee-deep, but also so sticky, that when you set one foot down, you could scarcely pull the other out. As for myself, I found my side-arms (if indeed they merited the name) a provoking incumbrance. Drummer-boys carried no arms except a straight thin sword fastened to a broad leathern belt about the waist. Of this we had been in the outstart quite proud, and had kept it polished with great care. However, this "toad-sticker," as we were pleased to call it, on this mud-march caused each of us drummer-boys a world of trouble, and well illustrated the saying that "pride goeth before a fall." For as we groped about in the darkness and slid and plunged about in the mud, this miserable sword was forever getting tangled up with the wearer's legs, so that before he was aware of it, down he went on his face in the mud. My own weapon gave me so many falls that night, that I was quite out of conceit with it. When we reached camp after this march was done, I handed it to the quartermaster, agreeing to pay the price of it thrice over rather than carry it any more. The rest of the drummer-boys, I believe, carried theirs as far as Chancellorsville, and there solemnly hung them up on an oak-tree, where they are unto this day, if nobody has found them and carried them off as trophies of war.

We had a little darky along with us on this march who had an experience which was quite as provoking to him as it was amusing to us. The darky's name was Bill. Other name he had none, except "Shorty," which had been given him by the boys because of his remarkably short stature. For although he was as strong as a man, and quite as old-featured, he was nevertheless so dwarfed in size that the name Shorty seemed to become him better than his original name of Bill. Well, Shorty had been employed by one of our captains as cook, or, as seemed more likely on the present occasion, as a sort of sumpter-mule. For the captain, having an eye to comfort on the march, had loaded the poor darky with a pack of blankets, tents, pans, kettles, and general camp equipage, so large and bulky, that it is no exaggeration to say that Shorty's pack was quite as large as himself. All along it had been a wonder to us how he had managed to pull through so far with all that immense bundle on his back; but, with strength far beyond his size, he had trudged doggedly on at the captain's heels, over hill and through field, until we came at nightfall to the main road. There, like many another sumpter-mule, he stuck fast in the mud, so that, puff and pull as he might, he could not pull either foot out, and had to be dragged out by two men, to the great merriment of all who in the growing darkness were aware of Shorty's misfortune.

At length it became so dark that no one was able to see an inch before his face, and we lost the road. Torches were then lighted, in order to find it. Then we forded a creek, and then on and on we went, till at length we were allowed to halt and fall out on either side of the road into a last year's cornfield, to "make fires and cook coffee."

To make a fire was a comparatively easy matter, notwithstanding the rain; for some one or other always had matches, and there were plenty of rails at hand, and these were dry enough when split open with a hatchet or an axe. In a few moments the fence around the cornfield was carried off rail by rail, and everywhere was heard the sound of axes and hatchets, the premonitory symptoms of roaring camp-fires, which were soon everywhere blazing along the road.

"Harry," said Lieutenant Dougal, "I haven't any tin cup, and when you get your coffee cooked, I believe I'll share it with you; may I?"

"Certainly, lieutenant. But where shall I get water to make the coffee with? It's so dark, that nobody can see how the land lies so as to find a spring."

Without telling the lieutenant what I did, I scooped up a tin cup full of water (whether clear or muddy I could not tell; it was too dark to see) out of a corn-furrow. I had the less hesitation in doing so, because I found all the rest were doing the same, and I argued that if they could stand it, why I could too—and so could the lieutenant. Tired and wet and sleepy as I was, I could not help but be sensible of the strange, weird appearance the troops presented, as, coming out of the surrounding darkness, I faced the brilliant fires with groups of busy men about them. There they sat, squatting about the fires, each man with his quart tin cup suspended on one end of his iron ramrod or on some convenient stick, and each eager and impatient to be the first to bring his cup to the boiling-point. Thrusting my cup in amongst the dozen others already smoking amid the crackling flames, I soon had the pleasure of seeing the foam rise to the surface,—a sure indication that my coffee was nearly done. When the lieutenant and I had finished drinking it, I called his attention to the half inch of mud in the bottom of the cup, and asked him how he liked coffee made out of water taken from a last year's corn-furrow? "First rate," he replied, as he took out his tobacco pouch and pipe for a smoke, "first rate; gives it the real old 'Virginny' flavor, you see."

We were not permitted, however, to enjoy the broad glare of our fires very long after our coffee was disposed of, for we soon heard the command to "fall in" coming down the line. It was now half-past eleven o'clock, and away we went again slap-dash in the thick darkness and bottomless mud. At three o'clock in the morning, during a brief halt, I fell asleep while sitting on my drum, and tumbled over into the road from sheer exhaustion. Partly aroused by my fall, I spread out my shelter on the road where the mud seemed the shallowest, and lay down to sleep, chilled to the bone and shivering like an aspen.

At six o'clock we were roused up, and a pretty appearance we presented too, for every man was covered with mud from neck to heel. However, daylight having now come to our assistance, we marched on in merrier mood in the direction of Port Royal, a place or village on the Rappahannock some thirty miles below Fredericksburg, and reached our destination about ten o'clock that forenoon.

As we emerged from the woods and came out into the open fields, with the river in full view about a fourth of a mile in front, we fully believed that now, at last, we were to go at once into battle. And so, indeed, it seemed, as the long column halted in a cornfield a short distance from the river, and the pontoon trains came up, and the pioneers were sent forward to help lay the bridge, and signal-flags began flying, and officers and orderlies began to gallop gayly over the field—of course we were now about to go into our first battle.

"I guess we'll have to cross the river, Harry," said Andy, as we stood together beside a corn shock and watched the men putting down the pontoons, "and then we'll have to go in on 'em and gobble 'em up."

"Yes; gobbling up is all right. But suppose that over in the woods yonder, on the other side the river, there might happen to be a lot of Johnnies watching us, and all ready to sweep down on us and gobble us up, while we are crossing the river—eh? That wouldn't be nearly so nice, would it?"

"Hah!" exclaimed Andy, "I'd just like to see 'em do it once! Look there! There come the boys that'll take the Johnnies through the brush!"

Looking in the direction in which Andy was pointing, that is, away to the skirt of the woods in our rear, I beheld a battery of artillery coming up at full gallop towards us and making straight for the river.

"Just you wait, now," said Andy, with a triumphant snap of his fingers, "till you hear those old bull-dogs begin to bark, and you'll see the Johnnies get up and dust!"

As the battery came near the spot where we were standing, and could be plainly seen, I exclaimed:

"Why, Andy, I don't believe those dogs can bark at all! Don't you see? They are wooden logs covered over with black gum-blankets and mounted on the front-wheels of wagons, and—as sure as you're alive—it's our quartermaster on his gray horse in command of the battery!"

"Well, I declare!" said Andy, with a look of mingled surprise and disappointment.

There was no disputing the fact. Dummies they were, those cannon which Andy had so exultingly declared were to take the Johnnies through the brush; and we began at once to suspect that this whole mud-march was only a miserable ruse, or feint of war, got up expressly for the purpose of deceiving the enemy and making him believe that the whole Union army was there in full force, when such was by no means the case. So there was not going to be any battle after all, then? Such indeed, as we learned a little later in the day, was the true state of things. Nevertheless the pioneers went on with their work of putting down the pontoon-boats for a bridge, and our gallant quartermaster, on his bobtail gray, with drawn sword, and shouting out his commands like a veritable major-general, swept by us with his battery of wooden guns, and then away out into the field like a whirlwind, apparently bent on the most bloody work imaginable. Now the battery would dash up and unlimber and get into position here; then away on a gallop across the field and go into position there; while the quartermaster would meanwhile swing his sword and shout himself hoarse, as if in the very crisis of a battle.

It was, then, all, alas! a ruse, and there wouldn't be any battle after all! I think the general feeling among the men was one of disappointment, when about nine o'clock that night we were all withdrawn from the riverside under cover of darkness, and bivouacked in the woods to our rear, where we were ordered to make as many and as large fires as we could, so as to attract the enemy's attention, and make him believe that the whole Army of the Potomac was concentrating at that point; whereas the truth was that, instead of making any movement thirty miles below Fredericksburg, the Union army, ten days later, crossed the river thirty miles above Fredericksburg, and met the enemy at Chancellorsville.

But I have never forgotten our gallant quartermaster, and what a fine appearance he made as the commanding officer of a battery of artillery. It was an amusing sight; for the reader must remember that a quartermaster, having to do only with army supplies, was a non-combatant, that is to say, he did no fighting, and in most cases "stayed by the stuff" among his army wagons, which were usually far enough to the rear in time of battle. Thinking of this little episode on our first mud-march, there comes to my mind a conversation I recently had with a gentleman, my neighbor, who was also a quartermaster in the Union army.

"I was down in Virginia on business last spring," said the ex-quartermaster, "in the neighborhood of Warrenton. (You remember Warrenton? Fine country down there.) And I found the people very kind and friendly, and inclined to forget the late unpleasantness. Well, one man came up to me, and says he:

"'Major, you were in the war, weren't you?'

"'Yes,' said I, 'I was; but (I might as well admit it) I was on the other side of the fence. I was in the Union army.'

"'You were? Well, Major, did you ever kill anybody?'

"'Oh yes,' said I; 'lots of 'em,—lots of 'em, sir.'

"'You don't tell me!' said the Virginian. 'And if I might be so bold as to ask—how did you generally kill them?'

"'Well,' said I, 'I never like to tell, because bragging is not in my line; but I'll tell you. You see, I never liked this thing of shooting people. It seemed to me a barbarous business, and besides, I was a kind of Quaker, and had conscientious scruples about bearing arms. And so, when the war broke out and I found I'd have to enter the army, maybe, whether I wanted to or not, I enlisted and got in as a quartermaster, thinking that in that position I wouldn't have to kill anybody with a gun, anyhow. But war is a dreadful thing, a dreadful thing, sir. And I found that even a quartermaster had to take a hand at killing people; and the way I took for it was this: I always managed to have a good swift horse, and as soon as things would begin to look a little like fighting, and the big guns would begin to boom, why I'd clap spurs to my horse and make for the rear as fast as ever I could. And then when your people would come after me, they never could catch me; they'd always get out of breath trying to come up to me. And in that way I've killed dozens of your people, sir, dozens of them, and all without powder or ball. They couldn't catch me, and always died for want of breath trying to get hold of me!'"

We slept in the woods that night under the dark pines and beside our great camp-fires; and early the next morning took up the line of march for home. We marched all day over the hills, and as the sun was setting, came at last to a certain hilltop whence we could look down upon the odd-looking group of cabins and wigwams which we recognized as our camp, and which we hailed with cheers as our home.

CHAPTER VIII.
HOW WE GOT A SHELLING.

"Pack up!" "Fall in!" All is stir and excitement in the camp. The bugles are blowing "boots and saddles" for the cavalry camped above us on the hill; we drummer-boys are beating the "long roll" and "assembly" for the regiment; mounted orderlies are galloping along the hillside with great yellow envelopes stuck in their belts; and the men fall out of their miserable winter-quarters, with shouts and cheers that make the hills about Falmouth ring again. For the winter is past; the sweet breath of spring comes balmily up from the south, and the whole army is on the move,—whither?

"Say, Captain, tell us where are we going?" But the captain doesn't know, nor even the colonel,—nobody knows. We are raw troops yet, and have not learned that soldiers never ask questions about orders.

So, fall in there, all together, and forward! And we ten little drummer-boys beat gayly enough "The Girl I left behind me," as the line sweeps over the hills, through the woods, and on down to the river's edge.

And soon here we are, on the Rappahannock, three miles below Fredericksburg. We can see, as we emerge from the woods, away over the river, the long line of earthworks thrown up by the enemy, and small dark specks moving about along the field, in the far, dim distance, which we know to be officers, or perhaps cavalry pickets. We can see, too, our own first division laying down the pontoon-bridge, on which, according to a rumor that is spreading among us, we are to cross the river and charge the enemy's works.

Here is an old army letter lying before me, written on my drum-head in lead pencil, in that stretch of meadow by the river, where I heard my first shell scream and shriek:—

"Near Rappahannock River, Apr. 28th.

"Dear Father,—We have moved to the river, and are just going into battle. I am well, and so are the boys.—Your affect. son,
"Harry."

But we do not go into battle this day, nor next day, nor at all at this point; for we are making only a "feint," though we do not know it now, to attract the attention of the enemy from the main movement of the army at Chancellorsville, some twenty-five or thirty miles farther up the river. The men are in good spirits and all ready for the fray; but as the day wears on without further developments, arms are stacked, and we begin to roam about the hills. Some are writing letters home, some sleeping, some even fishing in a little rivulet that runs by us, when, toward three o'clock in the afternoon, and all of a sudden, the enemy opens fire on us with a salute of three shells fired in rapid succession, not quite into our ranks, but a little to the left of us. And see! over there where the 'Forty-third lies, to our left, come three stretchers, and you can see deep crimson stains on the canvas as they go by us on a lively trot to the rear; for "the ball is opening, boys," and we are under fire for the first time.

I wish I could convey to my readers some faint idea of the noise made by a shell as it flies shrieking and screaming through the air, and of that peculiar whirring sound made by the pieces after the shell has burst overhead or by your side. So loud, high-pitched, shrill, and terrible is the sound, that one unaccustomed to it would think at first that the very heavens were being torn down about his ears!

How often I have laughed and laughed at myself when thinking of that first shelling we got there by the river! For up to that time I had had a very poor, old-fashioned idea of what a shell was like, having derived it probably from accounts of sieges in the Mexican war.

I had thought a shell was a hollow ball of iron, filled with powder and furnished with a fuse, and that they threw it over into your ranks, and there it lay, hissing and spitting, till the fire reached the powder, and the shell burst and killed a dozen men or so; that is, if some venturesome fellow didn't run up and stamp the fire off the fuse before the miserable thing went off! Of a conical shell, shaped like a minie-ball, with ridges on the outside to fit the grooves of a rifled cannon, and exploding by a percussion-cap at the pointed end, I had no idea in the world. But that was the sort of thing they were firing at us now,—Hur-r-r—bang! Hur-r-r—bang!

Throwing myself flat on my face while that terrible shriek is in the air, I cling closer to the ground while I hear that low, whirring sound near by, which I foolishly imagine to be the sound of a burning fuse, but which, on raising my head and looking up and around, I find is the sound of pieces of exploded shells flying through the air about our heads! The enemy has excellent range of us, and gives it to us hot and fast, and we fall in line and take it as best we may, and without the pleasure of replying, for the enemy's batteries are a full mile and a half away, and no Enfield rifle can reach half so far.

"Colonel, move your regiment a little to the right, so as to get under cover of yonder bank." It is soon done; and there, seated on a bank about twenty feet high, with our backs to the enemy, we let them blaze away, for it is not likely they can tumble a shell down at an angle of forty-five degrees.

And now, see! Just to the rear of us, and therefore in full view as we are sitting, is a battery of our own coming up into position at full gallop,—a grand sight indeed! The officers with swords flashing in the evening sunlight, the bugles clanging out the orders, the carriages unlimbered, and the guns run up into position; and now, that ever beautiful drill of the artillery in action, steady and regular as the stroke of machinery! How swiftly the man that handles the swab has prepared his piece, while the runners have meanwhile brought up the little red bag of powder and the long conical shell from the caisson in the rear! How swiftly they are rammed home! The lieutenant sights his piece, the man with the lanyard with a sudden jerk fires the cap, the gun leaps five feet to the rear with the recoil, and out of the cannon's throat, in a cloud of smoke, rushes the shell, shrieking out its message of death into the lines a mile and a half away, while our boys rend the air with wild hurrahs, for the enemy's fire is answered!

Now ensues an artillery duel that keeps the air all quivering and quaking about our ears for an hour and a half, and it is all the more exciting that we can see the beautiful drill of the batteries beside us, with that steady swabbing and ramming, running and sighting, and bang! bang! bang! The mystery is how in the world they can load and fire so fast.

"Boys, what are you trying to do?"

Meanwhile, something is transpiring immediately before our eyes that amuses us greatly. Not more than twenty yards away from us is another high bank, corresponding exactly with the one we are occupying, and running parallel with it, the two hills inclosing a little ravine some twenty or thirty yards in width.

This second high bank, the nearer one, you must remember, faces the enemy's fire. The water has worn out of the soft sand-rock a sort of cave, in which Darkie Bill, our company cook, took refuge at the crack of the first shell. And there, crouching in the narrow recess of the rock, we can see him shivering with affright. Every now and then, when there is a lull in the firing, he comes to the wide-open door of his house, intent upon flight, and, rolling up the great whites of his eyes, is about to step out and run, when Hur-r-r—bang—crack! goes the shell, and poor scared Darkie Bill dives into his cave again head-first, like a frog into a pond.

After repeated attempts to run and repeated frog-leaps backward, the poor fellow takes heart and cuts for the woods, pursued by the laughter and shouts of the regiment, for which he cares far less, however, than for that terrible shriek in the air, which, he afterward told us, "was a-sayin' all de time, 'Where's dat nigger! Where's dat nigger! Where's dat nigger!'"

As nightfall comes on, the firing ceases. Word is passed around that under cover of night we are to cross the pontoons and charge the enemy's works; but we sleep soundly all night on our arms, and are awaked only by the first streaks of light in the morning sky.

We have orders to move. A staff-officer is delivering orders to our colonel, who is surrounded by his staff. They press in toward the messenger, standing immediately below me as I sit on the bank, when the enemy gives us a morning salute, and the shell comes ricochetting over the hill and tumbles into a mud-puddle about which the group is gathered; the mounted officers crouch in their saddles and spur hastily away, the foot officers throw themselves flat on their faces into the mud; the drummer-boy is bespattered with mud and dirt; but fortunately the shell does not explode, or my readers would never have heard how we got our first shelling.

And now, "Fall in, men!" and we are off on a double-quick in a cloud of dust, amid the rattle of canteens and tin cups, and the regular flop, flop of cartridge-boxes and bayonet-scabbards, pursued for two miles by the hot fire of the enemy's batteries, for a long, hot, weary day's march to the extreme right of the army at Chancellorsville.

CHAPTER IX.
IN THE WOODS AT CHANCELLORSVILLE.

It is no easy matter to describe a long day's march to one who knows nothing of the hardships of a soldier's life. That a body of troops marched some twenty-five or thirty miles on a certain day from daylight to midnight, from one point to another, seems, to one who has not tried it, no great undertaking. Thirty miles! It is but an hour's ride in the cars. Nor can the single pedestrian, who easily covers greater distances in less time, have a full idea of the fatigue of a soldier as he throws himself down by the roadside, utterly exhausted, when the day's march is done.

Unnumbered circumstances combine to test the soldier's powers of endurance to the very utmost. He has, in the first place, a heavy load to carry. His knapsack, haversack, canteen, ammunition, musket, and accoutrements are by no means a light matter at the outset, and they grow heavier with every additional mile of the road. So true is this, that, in deciding what of our clothing to take along on a march and what to throw away, we soon learned to be guided by the soldiers' proverb that "what weighs an ounce in the morning weighs a pound at night." Then, too, the soldier is not master of his own movements, as is the solitary pedestrian; for he cannot pick his way, nor husband his strength by resting when and where he may choose. He marches generally "four abreast," sometimes at double-quick, when the rear is closing up, and again at a most provokingly slow pace when there is some impediment on the road ahead. Often his canteen is empty, no water is to be had, and he marches on in a cloud of dust, with parched throat and lips and trembling limbs,—on and on, and still on, until about the midnight hour, at the final "Halt!" he drops to the ground like a shot, feverish, irritable, exhausted in body and soul.

It would seem a shame and a folly to take troops thus utterly worn out, and hurl them at midnight into a battle the issue of which hangs trembling in the balance. Yet this was what they came pretty near doing with us, after our long march from four miles below Fredericksburg to the extreme right of the army at Chancellorsville.

I have a very indistinct and cloudy recollection of that march. I can quite well remember the beginning of it, when at the early dawn the enemy's batteries drove us, under a sharp shell-fire, at a lively double-quick for the first four miles. And I can well recall how, at midnight, we threw ourselves under the great oak-trees near Chancellorsville, and were in a moment sound asleep amid the heaven-rending thunder of the guns, the unbroken roll of the musketry, and the shouts and yells of the lines charging each other a quarter of a mile to our front. But when I attempt to call up the incidents that happened by the way, I am utterly at a loss. My memory has retained nothing but a confused mass of images: here a farmhouse, there a mill; a company of stragglers driven on by the guard; a surgeon writing upon the pommel of his saddle an order for an ambulance to carry a poor exhausted and but half-conscious fellow; an officer's staff or an orderly dashing by at a lively trot; a halt for coffee in the edge of a wood; filling a canteen (oh, blessed memory!) at some meadow stream or roadside spring; and on, and on, and on, amid the rattle of bayonet-scabbards and tin cups, mopping our faces and crunching our hard-tack as we went,—this, and such as this, is all that will now come to mind.

But of events toward nightfall the images are clearer and more sharply defined. The sun is setting, large, red, and fiery-looking, in a dull haze that hangs over the thickly-wooded horizon. We are nearing the ford where we are to cross the Rappahannock. We come to some hilltop, and—hark! A deep, ominous growl comes, from how many miles away we know not; now another; then another!

On, boys, on! There is work doing ahead, and terrible work it is, for two great armies are at each other's throat, and the battle is raging fierce and high, although we know nothing as yet of how it may be going.

On,—on,—on!

Turning sharp to the left, we enter the approach to the ford, the road leading, in places, through a deep cut,—great high pine-trees on either side of the road shutting out the little remaining light of day. Here we find the first actual evidences of the great battle that is raging ahead: long lines of ambulances filled with wounded; yonder a poor fellow with a bandaged head sitting by a spring; and a few steps away another, his agonies now over; here, two men, one with his arm in a sling supporting the other, who has turned his musket into a crutch; then more ambulances, and more wounded in increasing numbers; orderlies dashing by at full gallop, while the thunder of the guns grows louder and closer as we step on the pontoons and so cross the gleaming river.

"Colonel, your men have had a hard day's march; you will now let them rest for the night."

It is a staff-officer whom I hear delivering this order to our colonel, and a sweeter message I think I never heard. We cast wistful eyes at the half-extinguished camp-fires of some regiment that has been making coffee by the roadside, and has just moved off, and we think them a godsend, as the order is given to "Stack arms!" But before we have time even to unsling knapsacks, the order comes, "Fall in!" and away we go again, steadily plodding on through that seemingly endless forest of scrub-pine and oak, straight in the direction of the booming guns ahead.

Why whippoorwills were made I do not know; doubtless for some wise purpose; but never before that night did I know they had been made in such countless numbers. Every tree and bush was full of them, it seemed. There were thousands of them, there were tens of thousands of them, there were millions of them! And every one whistling, as fast as it could, "Who-hoo-hoo! Who-hoo-hoo! Who-hoo-hoo!" Had they been vultures or turkey-buzzards,—vast flocks of which followed the army wherever we went, almost darkening the sky at times, and always suggesting unpleasant reflections,—they could not have appeared more execrable to me. Many were the imprecations hurled at them as we plodded on under the light of the great red moon, now above the tree-tops, while still from every bush came that monotonous half-screech, half-groan, "Who-hoo-hoo! Who-hoo-hoo!"

But, O miserable birds of ill-omen, there is something more ominous in the air than your lugubrious night-song! There is borne to our ears at every additional step the deepening growl of the cannon ahead. As the moon mounts higher, and we advance farther along the level forest-land, we hear still more distinctly another sound—the long, unbroken roll of musketry.

Forward now, at double-quick, until we are on the outskirts of the battle-field.

Shells are crashing through the tall tree-tops overhead.

"Halt! Load at will! Load!"

In the moonlight that falls shimmering across the road, as I look back over the column, I see the bright steel flashing, while the jingle of the ramrods makes music that stirs the blood to a quicker pulse. A well-known voice calls me down the line, and Andy whispers a few hurried words into my ear, while he grasps my hand hard. But we are off at a quick step. A sharp turn to the left, and—hark! The firing has ceased, and they are "charging" down there! That peculiar, and afterward well-known, "Yi! Yi! Yi!" indicates a struggle for which we are making straight and fast.

At this moment comes the order: "Colonel, you will countermarch your men, and take position down this road on the right. Follow me!" The staff-officer leads us half a mile to the right, where, sinking down utterly exhausted, we are soon sound asleep.

Of the next day or two I have but an indistinct recollection. What with the fatigue and excitement, the hunger and thirst, of the last few days, a high fever set in for me. I became half-delirious, and lay under a great oak-tree, too weak to walk, my head nearly splitting with the noise of a battery of steel cannon in position fifty yards to the left of me. That battery's beautiful but terrible drill I could plainly see. My own corps was put on reserve: the men built strong breastworks, but took no part in the battle, excepting some little skirmishing. Our day was yet to come.

One evening,—it was the last evening we spent in the woods at Chancellorsville,—a sergeant of my company came back to where we were, with orders for me to hunt up and bring an ambulance for one of the lieutenants who was sick.

"You see, Harry, there are rumors that we are going to retreat to-night, for the heavy rains have so swollen the Rappahannock that our pontoons are in danger of being carried away, and it appears that, for some reason or other, we've got to get out of this at once under cover of night, and lieutenant can't stand the march. So you will go for an ambulance. You'll find the ambulance-park about two miles from here. You'll take through the woods in that direction,"—pointing with his finger,—"until you come to a path; follow the path till you come to a road; follow the road, taking to the right and straight ahead, till you come to the ambulances."

Although it was raining hard at the time, and had been raining for several days, and though I myself was probably as sick as the lieutenant, and felt positive that the troops would have started in retreat before I could get back, yet it was my duty to obey, and off I went.

I had no difficulty in finding the path; and I reached the road all right. Fording a stream, the corduroy bridge of which was all afloat, and walking rapidly for a half-hour, I found the ambulances all drawn up ready to retreat.

"We have orders to pull out from here at once, and can send an ambulance for no man. Your lieutenant must take his chance."

It was getting dark fast, as I started back with this message. I was soaked to the skin, and the rain was pouring down in torrents. To make bad worse, in the darkness I turned off from the road at the wrong point, missed the path, and quite lost my way! What was to be done? If I should spend much time where I was, I was certain to be left behind, for I felt sure that the troops were moving off; and yet I feared to make for any of the fires I saw through the woods, for I knew the lines of the two armies were near each other, and I might, as like as not, walk over into the lines of the enemy.

Collecting my poor fevered faculties, I determined to follow the course of a little stream I heard plashing down among the bushes to the left. By and by I fixed my eye on a certain bright camp-fire, and determined to make for it at all hazards, be it of friend or of foe. Judge of my joyful surprise when I found it was burning in front of my own tent!

Standing about our fire trying to get warm and dry, our fellows were discussing the question of the retreat about to be made. But I was tired and sick, and wet and sleepy, and did not at all relish the prospect of a night-march through the woods in a drenching rain. So, putting on the only remaining dry shirt I had left (I had two on already, and they were soaked through), I lay down under my shelter, shivering and with chattering teeth, but soon fell sound asleep.

In the gray light of the morning we were suddenly awakened by a loud "Halloo there, you chaps! Better be digging out of this! We're the last line of cavalry pickets, and the Johnnies are on our heels!"

It was an easy matter for us to sling on our knapsacks and rush after the cavalry-man, until a double-quick of two miles brought us within the rear line of defences thrown up to cover the retreat.

CHAPTER X.
THE FIRST DAY AT GETTYSBURG.

"Harry, I'm getting tired of this thing. It's becoming monotonous, this thing of being roused every morning at four, with orders to pack up and be ready to march at a moment's notice, and then lying around here all day in the sun. I don't believe we are going anywhere, anyhow."

We had been encamped for six weeks, of which I need give no special account, only saying that in those "summer quarters," as they might be called, we went on with our endless drilling, and were baked and browned, and thoroughly hardened to the life of a soldier in the field.

The monotony of which Andy complained did not end that day, nor the next. For six successive days we were regularly roused at four o'clock in the morning, with orders to "pack up and be ready to move immediately!" only to unpack as regularly about the middle of the afternoon. We could hear our batteries pounding away in the direction of Fredericksburg, but we did not then know that we were being held well in hand till the enemy's plan had developed itself into the great march into Pennsylvania, and we were let off in hot pursuit.

So, at last, on the 12th of June, 1863, we started, at five o'clock in the morning, in a north-westerly direction. My journal says: "Very warm, dust plenty, water scarce, marching very hard. Halted at dusk at an excellent spring, and lay down for the night with aching limbs and blistered feet."

I pass over the six days' continuous marching that followed, steadily on toward the north, pausing only to relate several incidents that happened by the way.

On the 14th we were racing with the enemy—we being pushed on to the utmost of human endurance—for the possession of the defences of Washington. From five o'clock of that morning till three the following morning,—that is to say, from daylight to daylight,—we were hurried along under a burning June sun, with no halt longer than sufficient to recruit our strength with a hasty cup of coffee at noon and nightfall. Nine, ten, eleven, twelve o'clock at night, and still on! It was almost more than flesh could endure. Men fell out of line in the darkness by the score, and tumbled over by the roadside, asleep almost before they touched the ground.

I remember how a great tall fellow in our company made us laugh along somewhere about one o'clock that morning,—"Pointer," we called him,—an excellent soldier, who afterward fell at his post at Spottsylvania. He had been trudging on in sullen silence for hours, when all of a sudden, coming to a halt, he brought his piece to "order arms" on the hard road with a ring, took off his cap, and, in language far more forcible than elegant, began forthwith to denounce both parties to the war, "from A to Izzard," in all branches of the service, civil and military, army and navy, artillery, infantry, and cavalry, and demanded that the enemy should come on in full force here and now, "and I'll fight them all, single-handed and alone, the whole pack of 'em! I'm tired of this everlasting marching, and I want to fight!"

"Three cheers for Pointer!" cried some one, and we laughed heartily as we toiled doggedly on to Manassas, which we reached at three o'clock A. M., June 15th. I can assure you we lost no time in stretching ourselves at full length in the tall summer grass.

"James McFadden, report to the adjutant for camp guard! James McFadden! Anybody know where Jim McFadden is?"

Now that was rather hard, wasn't it? To march from daylight to daylight, and lie down for a rest of probably two hours before starting again, and then to be called up to stand throughout those precious two hours on guard duty!

I knew very well where McFadden was, for wasn't he lying right beside me in the grass? But just then I was in no humor to tell. The camp might well go without a guard that night, or the orderly might find McFadden in the dark if he could.

But the rules were strict, and the punishment was severe, and poor McFadden, bursting into tears of vexation, answered like a man: "Here I am, Orderly; I'll go." It was hard.

Two weeks later, both McFadden and the orderly went where there is neither marching nor standing guard any more.

Now comes a long rest of a week in the woods near the Potomac; for we have been marching parallel with the enemy, and dare not go too fast, lest by some sudden and dexterous move in the game he should sweep past our rear in upon the defences of Washington. And after this sweet refreshment, we cross the Potomac on pontoons, and march, perhaps with a lighter step, since we are nearing home, through the smiling fields and pleasant villages of "Maryland, my Maryland." At Poolesville, a little town on the north bank of the Potomac, we smile as we see a lot of children come trooping out of the village school,—a merry sight to men who have seen neither woman nor child these six months and more, and a touching sight to many a man in the ranks as he thinks of his little flaxen-heads in the far-away home. Ay, think of them now, and think of them full tenderly too, for many a man of you shall never have child climb on his knee any more!

As we enter one of these pleasant little Maryland villages,—Jefferson by name,—we find on the outskirts of the place two young ladies and two young gentlemen waving the good old flag as we pass, and singing "Rally round the Flag, Boys!" The excitement along the line is intense. Cheer on cheer is given by regiment after regiment as we pass along, we drummer-boys beating, at the colonel's express orders, the old tune, "The Girl I left behind me," as a sort of response. Soon we are in among the hills again, and still the cheering goes on in the far distance to the rear.

Only ten days later we passed through the same village again, and were met by the same young ladies and gentlemen, waving the same flag and singing the same song. But though we tried twice, and tried hard, we could not cheer at all; for there's a difference between five hundred men and one hundred,—is there not? So, that second time, we drooped our tattered flags, and raised our caps in silent and sorrowful salute. Through Middletown next, where a rumor reaches us that the enemy's forces have occupied Harrisburg, and where certain ladies, standing on a balcony and waving their handkerchiefs as we pass by, in reply to our colonel's greeting, that "we are glad to see so many Union people here," answer, "Yes; and we are glad to see the Yankee soldiers too."

From Middletown, at six o'clock in the evening, across the mountain to Frederick, on the outskirts of which city we camp for the night. At half-past five next morning (June 29th) we are up and away, in a drizzling rain, through Lewistown and Mechanicstown, near which latter place we pass a company of Confederate prisoners, twenty-four in number, dressed in well-worn gray and butternut, which makes us think that the enemy cannot be far ahead. After a hard march of twenty-five miles, the greater part of the way over a turnpike, we reach Emmittsburg at nightfall, some of us quite barefoot, and all of us footsore and weary. Next morning (June 30th) at nine o'clock we are up and away again, "on the road leading towards Gettysburg," they say. After crossing the line between Maryland and Pennsylvania, where the colonel halts the column for a moment, in order that we may give three rousing cheers for the Old Keystone State, we march perceptibly slower, as if there were some impediment in the way. There is a feeling among the men that the enemy is somewhere near. Towards noon we leave the public road, and taking across the fields, form in line of battle along the rear of a wood, and pickets are thrown out. There is an air of uncertainty and suspicion in the ranks as we look to the woods, and consider what our pickets may possibly unmask there. But no developments have yet been made when darkness comes, and we bivouac for the night behind a strong stone wall.

Passing down along the line of glowing fires in the gathering gloom, I come on one of my company messes squatting about a fire, cooking supper. Joe Gutelius, corporal and color-guard from our company, is superintending the boiling of a piece of meat in a tin can, while Sam Ruhl and his brother Joe are smoking their pipes near by.

"Boys, it begins to look a little dubious, don't it? Where is Jimmy Lucas?"

"He's out on picket in the woods yonder. Yes, Harry, it begins to look a little as if we were about to stir the Johnnies out of the brush," says Joe Gutelius, throwing another rail on the fire.

"If we do," says Joe Ruhl, "remember that you have the post of honor, Joe, and 'if any man pulls down that flag, shoot him on the spot!'"

"Never you fear for that," answers Joe Gutelius. "We of the color-guard will look out for the flag. For my part, I'll stay a dead man on the field before the colors of the 150th are disgraced."

"You'll have some tough tussling for your colors, then," says Sam. "If the Louisiana Tigers get after you once, look out!"

"Who's afraid of the Louisiana Tigers? I'll back the Buck-tails against the Tigers any day. Stay and take supper with us, Harry! We are going to have a feast to-night. I have the heart of a beef boiling in the can yonder; and it is done now. Sit up, boys, get out your knives and fall to."

"We were going to have boiled lion heart for supper, Harry," says Joe Ruhl with mock apology for the fare, "but we couldn't catch any lions. They seem to be scarce in these parts. Maybe we can catch a tiger to-morrow, though."

Little do we think, as we sit thus cheerily talking about the blazing fire behind the stone-wall, that it is our last supper together, and that ere another nightfall two of us will be sleeping in the silent bivouac of the dead.

"Colonel, close up your men, and move on as rapidly as possible."

It is the morning of July 1st, and we are crossing a bridge over a stream, as the staff-officer, having delivered this order for us, dashes down the line to hurry up the regiments in the rear. We get up on a high range of hills, from which we have a magnificent view. The day is bright, the air is fresh and sweet with the scent of the new-mown hay, and the sun shines out of an almost cloudless sky, and as we gaze away off yonder down the valley to the left—look! Do you see that? A puff of smoke in mid-air! Very small, and miles away, as the faint and long-coming "boom" of the exploding shell indicates; but it means that something is going on yonder, away down in the valley, in which, perhaps, we may have a hand before the day is done. See! another—and another! Faint and far away comes the long-delayed "boom!" "boom!" echoing over the hills, as the staff-officer dashes along the lines with orders to "double-quick! double-quick!"

Four miles of almost constant double-quicking is no light work at any time, least of all on such a day as this memorable first day of July, for it is hot and dusty. But we are in our own State now, boys, and the battle is opening ahead, and it is no time to save breath. On we go, now up a hill, now over a stream, now checking our headlong rush for a moment, for we must breathe a little. But the word comes along the line again, "double-quick," and we settle down to it with right good-will, while the cannon ahead seem to be getting nearer and louder. There's little said in the ranks, for there is little breath for talking, though every man is busy enough thinking. We all feel, somehow, that our day has come at last—as indeed it has!

We get in through the outskirts of Gettysburg, tearing down the fences of the town-lots and outlying gardens as we go; we pass a battery of brass guns drawn up beside the Seminary, some hundred yards in front of which building, in a strip of meadow-land, we halt, and rapidly form the line of battle.

"General, shall we unsling knapsacks?" shouts some one down the line to our division-general, as he is dashing by.

"Never mind the knapsacks, boys; it's the State now!"

And he plunges his spurs into the flanks of his horse, as he takes the stake-and-rider fence at a leap, and is away.

"Unfurl the flags, Color-guard!"

"Now, forward, double——"

"Colonel, we're not loaded yet!"

A laugh runs along the line as, at the command "Load at will—load!" the ramrods make their merry music, and at once the word is given, "Forward, double-quick!" and the line sweeps up that rising ground with banners gayly flying, and cheers that rend the air,—a sight, once seen, never to be forgotten.

I suppose my readers wonder what a drummer-boy does in time of battle. Perhaps they have the same idea I used to have, namely, that it is the duty of a drummer-boy to beat his drum all the time the battle rages, to encourage the men or drown the groans of the wounded! But if they will reflect a moment, they will see that amid the confusion and noise of battle, there is little chance of martial music being either heard or heeded. Our colonel had long ago given us our orders:

"You drummer-boys, in time of an engagement, are to lay aside your drums and take stretchers and help off the wounded. I expect you to do this, and you are to remember that, in doing it, you are just as much helping the battle on as if you were fighting with guns in your hands."

And so we sit down there on our drums and watch the line going in with cheers. Forthwith we get a smart shelling, for there is evidently somebody else watching that advancing line besides ourselves; but they have elevated their guns a little too much, so that every shell passes quite over the line and ploughs up the meadow-sod about us in all directions.