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The Citizen Soldier. Beatty John Wesley
Читать онлайн.Название The Citizen Soldier
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isbn 4064066052638
Автор произведения Beatty John Wesley
Жанр Документальная литература
Издательство Bookwire
At eleven o'clock a courier came in hot haste from the front, to inform us that a flag of truce, borne by a Confederate major, with an escort of six dragoons, was on the way to camp. Colonel Wagner and I rode out to meet the party, and were introduced to Major Lee, the son, as I subsequently ascertained, of General Robert E. Lee, of Virginia. The Major informed us that his communication could only be imparted to our General, and a courier was at once dispatched to Huttonville.
At four o'clock General Reynolds arrived, accompanied by Colonel Sullivan and a company of cavalry. Wagner and I joined the General's party, and all galloped to the outpost, to interview the Confederate major. His letter contained a proposition to exchange prisoners captured by the rebels at Manassas for those taken at Rich mountain. The General appointed a day on which a definite answer should be returned, and Major Lee, accompanied by Lieutenant-Colonel Owen and myself, rode to the outlying picket station, where his escort had been halted and detained.
Major Lee is near my own age, a heavy set, but well-proportioned man, somewhat inclined to boast, not overly profound, and thoroughly impregnated with the idea that he is a Virginian and a Lee withal. As I shook hands at parting with this scion of an illustrious house, he complimented me by saying that he hoped soon to have the honor of meeting me on the battle-field. I assured him that it would afford me pleasure, and I should make all reasonable efforts to gratify him in this regard. I did not desire to fight, of course, but I was bound not to be excelled in the matter of knightly courtesy.
8. Major Wood, Fifteenth Indiana, thought he heard chopping last night, and imagined that the enemy was engaged in cutting a road to our rear.
Lieutenant Driscoll and party returned to-day. They slept on the mountains last night; were inside the enemy's picket lines; heard reveille sounded this morning, but could not obtain a view of the camp.
Have just returned from a sixteen-mile ride, visiting picket posts. The latter half of the ride was after nightfall. Found officers and men vigilant and ready to meet an attack.
Obtained some fine huckleberries and blackberries on the mountain to-day. Had a blackberry pie and pudding for dinner. Rather too much happiness for one day; but then the crust of the pudding was tolerably tough. The grass is a foot high in parts of my tent, where it has not been trodden down, and the gentle grasshopper makes music all the day, and likewise all the night.
Our fortifications are progressing slowly. If the enemy intends to attack at all, he will probably do so before they are complete; and if he does not, the fortifications will be of no use to us. But this is the philosophy of a lazy man, and very similar to that of the Irishman who did not put roof on his cabin: when it rained he could not, and in fair weather he did not need it.
9. Pickets report firing, artillery and musketry, over the mountain, in the direction of Kimball.
The enemy's scouts were within three miles of our camp this afternoon, evidently looking for a path that would enable them to get to our rear. Fifty men have just been sent in pursuit; but owing to a little misunderstanding of instructions, I fear the expedition will be fruitless. Colonel Wagner neither thinks clearly nor talks with any degree of exactness. He has a loose, slip-shod, indefinite way with him, that tends to confusion and leads to misunderstandings and trouble.
I have been over the mountain on our left, hunting up the paths and familiarizing myself with the ground, so as to be ready to defeat any effort that may be made to turn our flank. Colonel Owen has been investigating the mountain on our right. The Colonel is a good thinker, an excellent conversationalist, and a very learned man. Geology is his darling, and he keeps one eye on the enemy, and the other on the rocks.
10. My tent is on the bank of the Valley river. The water, clear as crystal, as it hurries on over the rocks, keeps up a continuous murmur.
There will be a storm to-night. The sky is very dark, the wind rising, and every few minutes a vivid flash of lightning illuminates the valley, and the thunder rolls off among the mountains with a rumbling, echoing noise, like that which the gods might make in putting a hundred trains of celestial artillery in position.
11. Lieutenant Bowen, of topographical engineers, and myself, with ten men, carrying axes and guns, started up the mountain at seven o'clock this morning, followed a path to the crest, or dividing ridge, and felled trees to obstruct the way as much as possible. Returned to camp for dinner.
During the afternoon Lieutenant W. O. Merrill, Lieutenant Bowen, and I, ascended the mountain again by a new route. After reaching the crest, we endeavored to find the path which Lieutenant Bowen and I had traveled over in the morning, but were unable to do so. We continued our search until it became quite dark, when the two engineers, as well as myself, became utterly bewildered. Finally, Lieutenant Merrill took out his pocket compass, and said the camp was in that direction, pointing with his hand. I insisted he was wrong; that he would not reach camp by going that way. He insisted that he would, and must be governed by some general principles, and so started off on his own hook, leaving us to pursue our own course. Finally Bowen lost confidence in me, said I was not going in the right direction at all, and insisted that we should turn squarely around, and go the opposite way. At last I yielded with many misgivings, and allowed him to lead. After going down a thousand feet or more, we found ourselves in a ravine, through which a small stream of water flowed. Following this, we finally reached the valley. We knew now exactly where we were, and by wading the river reached the road, and so got to camp at nine o'clock at night.
Merrill, who was governed by general principles, failed to strike the camp directly, strayed three or four miles to the right of it, came down in Stewart's run valley, and did not reach camp until about midnight.
On our trip to-day, we found a bear trap, made of heavy logs, the lid arranged to fall when the bear entered and touched the bait.
12. This is the fourth day that Captain Cunard's company has been lying in the woods, three miles from camp, guarding an important road, although a very rough and rugged one. Companies upon duty like this, remain at their posts day and night, good weather and bad, without any shelter, except that afforded by the trees, or by little booths constructed of logs and branches. From the main station, where the captain remains, sub-pickets are sent out in charge of sergeants and corporals, and these often make little houses of logs, which they cover with cedar boughs or branches of laurel, and denominate forts. In the wilderness, to-day, I stumbled upon Fort Stiner, the head-quarters of a sub-picket commanded by Corporal William Stiner, of the Third. The Corporal and such of his men as were off duty, were sitting about a fire, heating coffee and roasting slices of fat pork, preparing thus the noonday meal.
13. At noon Colonel Marrow, Major Keifer, and I, took dinner with Esquire Stalnaker, an old-style man, born fifty years ago in the log house where he now lives. Two spinning-wheels were in the best room, and rattled away with a music which carried me back to the pioneer days of Ohio. A little girl of five or six years stole up to the wheel when the mother's back was turned, and tried her skill on a roll. How proud and delighted she was when she had spun the wool into a long, uneven thread, and secured it safely on the spindle. Surely, the child of the palace, reared in the lap of luxury and with her hands in the mother's jewel-box, could not have been happier or more triumphant in her bearing.
These West Virginians are uncultivated, uneducated and rough, and need the common school to civilize and modernize them. Many have never seen a railroad, and the telegraph is to them an incomprehensible mystery.
Governor Dennison has appointed a Mr. John G. Mitchell, of Columbus, adjutant of the Third.
14. Privates Vincent and Watson, sentinels of a sub-picket, under command of Corporal Stiner, discovered a man stealing through the woods, and halted him. He professed to be a farm hand; said his employer had a mountain farm not far away, where he pastured cattle. A two-year-old steer had strayed off, and he was looking for him. His clothes were fearfully torn by brush and briars. His hands and face were scratched by thorns. He had taken off his boots to relieve his swollen feet, and was carrying them in his hands. Imitating the language and manners of an uneducated West Virginian, he asked the sentinel if he "had seed anything of a red steer."