The Iron Game: A Tale of the War. Henry F. Keenan
you can tell from the whiffs that come this way, is the whisky-bottle. Bacchus presides over that spirit. One would think you'd never read an eclogue of Virgil—you're duller than a doctor of divinity's after-dinner speech! A tutor's joke is the utmost wit you ought to bear."
"And so you call that a joke?"
"Well, it isn't a cough, a song, an oath, or—or anything old Oswald would say, so it must be a joke."
"Well, in that sense it may pass, like a tipsy soldier without the countersign."
"Oh, come now, Jack, these stars are really dazzling you!"
"Not but I'll make you see some that will dazzle you, if you don't treat your superior more respectfully."
"Oh, the punch you think of giving me wouldn't solve this star problem; it requires to be made in the old—the milky way."
But Barney's astral jokes were brought to a period by the sharp note of the bugle, as Colonel Oswald, very important under the eye of so many big-wigs, magnificently ordered the march. The regiment passed up the steep hill, out Fourteenth Street—then a red clay thoroughfare of sticky mire with only here and there a negro's shanty where the palaces of the rich rise to-day. The men learned something of their future enemy, Virginia mud, as they climbed the red gorge and debouched on Meridian Hill, where, presently, an aide-de-camp marked the ground assigned the regiment, and the real life of the soldier began. How tame to tell, but how "imperial the hour" when these one thousand lads first went, on guard! Yes, the fact was now before them. They were no longer segregated atoms, inert, ineffective, eccentric. They were part of that mighty bulwark of blood and iron that stood between law and rebellion, between the nation's heart and the assassin dagger of disunion.
How proud and glad and manly they felt, these bright-eyed boys—for boys they mostly were; not a hundred in the regiment had seen their five-and-twentieth year. One razor would have been ample for the beards of the whole battalion. And oh, the nameless, the intoxicating sense of solidarity as they swept the vast reach of hillsides, and saw the white tents in brooding immensity on either hand! Yes, yonder, far across the wondrous belt of water, touching loyalty and rebellion in its mighty rush seaward, they could distinguish the cities of canvas on the distant Virginia shore.
"It makes a fellow feel as Godfrey's hosts felt when they came in sight of the Bosporus, and the hordes of the Saracens on the plains of the Hellespont," Jack said, exultingly, as Barney stood on a pile of camp equipages above him, surveying the quickening spectacle.
"I don't know how Godfrey's fellows felt, Jack, but it do make a man feel kinder able to do something with so many near by to lend a hand. But, stars and garters! what a head it must take to manage all these! Fair and square, now, Jack, you feel the fires of military genius in your big head—do you think that you could disentangle this enormous coil—put each corps, division, and regiment, in its proper place—at a day's notice?"
"Oh, I couldn't perhaps do it just to-day; but give me time!"
"Yes, I'll give you to the age of Methuselah, and then if you can manage it I shall not lose faith in you."
"Come, men, the tents must be up before dark. Sergeant Sprague, your squad has five tents for its detail. You'll find axes and tools at the quartermaster's wagon on the hill yonder!" It was the captain who spoke, and, an instant later, the plot of ground, perhaps an acre and a half in area, was a scene of rollicking labor. Each company had a street, the tents—calculated to hold four each, but the number varied, going up often as high as six—faced each other, leaving room enough for the company to march in column or in line between the white walls. As the regiment would be presumably some time on the ground, the canvas tents rested on the top of a palisade of logs cut in the neighboring woods. These were five feet or more in length, and when driven into the ground a foot, and banked by the sticky clay, served excellently as walls upon which to rest the A tents. Two berths, sometimes four, were fastened laterally on these walls, frames running up to the center of the A held the guns, while lines stretched across from above served as wardrobes for such garments as could be hung up.
All this manoeuvring for space in such close quarters was great fun for lads accustomed to roomy houses, and careless, almost to slovenliness, in the matter of keeping things in place. Absurd as these details may seem, they were all parts, and very important parts, in the life and training of that mighty host that carried the destiny of the country in its discipline during four years. There was rigid inspection of quarters every Sunday morning, and during the week the non-commissioned officers were expected to see that cleanliness was not intermitted. The company "street" was "policed" every morning after breakfast, swept and garnished, that is, with the care of a Dutch housewife. Order is the first law of the soldier as well as of Heaven, and many a careless lad brought from his four years' drill method and painstaking that made him of more value to himself and his neighbors.
Personal traits, too, could be divined in these toy-like interiors. The regulations prescribed the arrangement of the "bunks," blankets folded, knapsacks laid at the head of the bed, accoutrements burnished until, at first sight, the four guns in the rack seemed to be a mirror for the orderly spirit of this thrifty grot. The shining plates, cups, and spoons, would have done no discredit to the most energetic, housewife, as they hung from pegs either above the bunks or along the wall. If running water were not accessible, every tent had a tin basin for the morning ablution, each soldier taking turn good humoredly. The household duties were scrupulously observed, each man assuming his rôle in the complicated ménage.
It was fully a week before the Caribees were installed ready for Sunday inspection, as no exigency was permitted to interfere with morning and afternoon drill, guard-mount, and parade. Battalion and brigade drill, too, were new diversions for the Caribees, as now, camped near other troops, these more complicated movements were part of the regiment's allotted duty. After they were sufficiently trained in this they were to take part in a grand review by the general-in-chief, when the President, the Secretary of War, and all the great folks in Washington rode out to witness the spectacle.
There was no time for dullness. Every hour had its duty, and these soon became second nature to the zealous young warriors. Such rivalry to best master the manual, to hold the most soldierly stature in the ranks, to detect the drill-sergeant when, to test their attention, he gave a false command! And then the coronal joy of a reward of merit for efficiency and alertness on guard! The rapture the bit of paper brought, and the exultation with which the hero thus signalized went off to town for the day, wandered through the waste of streets, stood before Willard's and admired in awe and wonder the indolent groups from whose shoulders gleamed one and sometimes two stars! One day Jack and Barney, walking in Fifteenth Street, saw a stout man, with no insignia to indicate rank or station, coming out of the headquarters hurriedly. He walked to the edge of the pavement, and, looking up and down, seemed disconcerted. Noticing the two lads, he came to where Jack was standing in a preoccupied way, and the two saluted decorously. He returned the salute and asked:
"Sergeant, are you on duty?"
"No, sir; I'm on leave for the day."
"Ah, good; my orderly was here a moment ago, but I don't see him anywhere. Would you mind taking this telegram to the War Department, through the park yonder?"
He gave Jack an envelope and hurried back into the building as the two lads started with alacrity across the street.
"I've seen that chap before, somewhere," Barney said, panting with the rapid pace.
"He's a staff officer, I suppose, not very high rank, for he only had a blouse on. General officers always wear double-button frocks even if they don't carry the insignia."
The War Department was easy of access, an old building not unlike Jack's own home in Acredale. He asked the sentry at the door where his envelope was to be delivered. The man looked at it, pointed to a closed door, and Jack, receiving no response to his knock, entered. Three men were in the room. One was seated at a vast desk with papers, maps, dispatches, and books piled in disheartening confusion, within reach of his hand. Behind him a young captain in uniform sat writing. But the figure that fixed Jack's reverential attention was half sprawling, half lying over the heaped-up impediments