Chapter VI

THE THOROUGHFARE CAMPAIGN AND ENCAMPMENT IN THE SLOUGH OF DESPOND.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE WAR.

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

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

I thank God for this war--it means so much for us, and through us for mankind. Look at its vast significance. Our nation has experienced a deep awakening such as this generation never felt before, and such as it needed. Its conscience has been cultivated; all the nobler sentiments of life have been given a wondrous new strength. These rose to dominion in our lives, new impulses moved us, new ideals passed before us--we have entered upon a new career of moral life, upon a higher plane, for we undertook a great work for humanity and counted not the cost. We became free from our habitual indifference, we despised our very lives, offering them a ransom for the oppressed. Such a six-months of self-forgetting morally enthusiastic life and oblation of peace, comfort, treasure, and blood, were worth more to us than any score of slothful years lived only for material gain. A nation may indeed be "beastly prosperous." America, thank God, is not; though prosperous, she is beyond example. Never did there live a people who made such worthy, such philanthropic uses of their prosperity. Never did rich and poor, the monarch of millions, and the possessor of a bare competence, make in any land or time so noble a use of his material means. Witness our colleges and universities, our churches and charitable institutions, our libraries and museums; witness this war for an oppressed people.

Thank God we are not insensible of high demands upon us! Thank God we are not wholly mercenary and materialistic! Thank God we are responsive, disinterestedly, but with wealth and life itself, to other claims than those of self and selfish getting and sending! We, who are called pig-stickers, are capable of generous action--we have given ourselves for the deliverance of the oppressed, thank God!

Who complains now that this generation is degenerate? Who now is pessimistic? Who now taunts the youth of the land with being unworthy sons of worthy sires? Who that knows of San Juan and El Caney, of Santiago Harbor and Manila Bay, sighs for the heroic days of old and the braver men?

The events of the last six months should give us confidence in the better possibilities of ourselves. Europeans taunt us with having everything "big" but nothing "great;" big cities, big rivers, big lakes, big mountains, big crops, but no great works of art, no great achievements in science and literature, no great men. False to begin with. This generation is destined to prove it more glaringly so. There is nothing too great to be achieved by those who felt and responded to the high motive of this war.

What is the national result of the conflict? New impulses, new motives, new interests, new ideals, new duties, broader views, vaster undertakings, a richer national life. Put the oak that has planted his roots deep and far out into the nurturing soil and lifted his storm-defying brow toward heaven; put the lordly oak tree back into the acorn hull; or seize the strong-pinioned eagle after he has soared above the mountain peaks and challenged the tempests of the sea, seize and cage him again in his broken shell, and then you may hope to diminish our country to what it was, confining its expanded members by the old bonds and subjecting its enlarged activities to the old ideals.

When were the great days of Greece? After the stormy period of the Persian wars. It was struggle that made her great. It was Philip of Macedon that crowned Demosthenes prince of orators; it was Xerxes and Darius of Persia that laureled so many poets of the city they sought to destroy. It was the shock of the tumultuous waves of an invading host, it was the tempest of war that roused the life-forces of classic Helena, and after the days of heroic struggle came the period of great achievement in the pursuits of peace. It was then that art, sculpture, music, poetry, and eloquence flourished as never in secure days of slothful ease.

No argument this for wanton insolence, provoking war; far be it ever from us to be aught else than a peace-loving, peace-preserving nation; but, before God, realizing our great strength and high mission, let us ever hold some things inviolable and dearer than our own comfort, wealth and life. Still to be ready to fight and to die for justice and freedom to mankind marks a people as courageous and noble. Let such courage, such nobleness be forever the possession of the American people!

CHRONOLOGY.

April 27.--Enlistment at Kansas City, Mo.

May 7.--Departure for Jefferson Barracks.

May 8.--(Sunday) Day of work, fasting and prayer in Camp Stephens.

May 14.--Muster into the United States service.

May 26.--Departure for Falls Church, Virginia.

May 29.--(Sunday) Arrival, erection of tents.

June 28-30.--Practice--march to Difficult Run.

July 24-August 4.--First Battalion, Major Kelsey, at Colvin Run,
constructing rifle-range.

August 3.--Departure for Thoroughfare Gap.

August 3-4.--Burk Station.

August 5-6.--Bull Run.

August 7-8.--Bristow.

August 9-22.--Thoroughfare Gap.

August 23-September 6.--Camp Meade, Middletown, Pennsylvania.

September 6-9.--Return to Kansas City.

September 9-October 21.--Fairmount Park.

October 16.--Dismissal on 30 days furlough.

October 21.--Camp Graham.

Nov. 7.--Muster out.

LIST OF THE DEAD.

Honor the dead who died for Freedom's sake!
Time will their memory but greener make!

Brown, Philip, private, Company F.--Died of typhoid fever at Fort
Myer Hospital, July 30th; buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Carr, James E., private, Company F.--Killed by railway train,
August 27th, at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and buried there.

Gray, Arthur W., private, Company K.--Died October 26th, at St.
Joseph's Hospital, of typhoid; buried at Forest Hill Cemetery.

Kleinke, Otto R., private, Company D.--Died of typhoid fever,
August 25th, in field hospital at Camp Meade; buried in National
Cemetery at Gettysburg.

Kinnard, Wm. G., sergeant, Company I.--Died at St. Joseph's
Hospital, Kansas City, Missouri, September 22d, of typhoid; buried
at Forest Hill Cemetery.

Lautterbach, Charles, private, Company L.--Died September 23d, in
Pennsylvania Hospital, Philadelphia; buried in that city.

Maloy, Richard D., private, Company D.--Died at Fort Myer Hospital,
July 22d, of typhoid; buried at Elmwood, Kansas City.

McNair, John S., corporal, Company I.--Died in field hospital, Camp
Alger, July 15th, of appendicitis; buried at National Cemetery of
Arlington.

Mericle, Charles, bugler, Company F.--Died of typhoid fever,
September 22d, at Independence, Missouri, and there buried.

Murphree, C. B., private, Company A.--Died of typhoid fever, June
19th, at Fort Myer Hospital; buried at Arlington.

Murray, John P., private, Company M.--Died of typhoid, September
5th, at field hospital, Camp Meade.

Nicholas, Henry G., private, Company F.--Died at Fort Myer
Hospital, August 16th, of typhoid; buried at Lathrop, Missouri.

Parker, Fred, Sixth Company, signal corps (transferred thither from
Company F).--Died September 5th, at field hospital, Camp Meade, of
typhoid; buried at Independence, Missouri.

Rockwell, Samuel, private, Company C.--Died of delirium tremens, at
Fort Myer Hospital, June 18th; buried at Arlington.

Sargent, Wm. A., member of U. S. A. Hospital Corps, transferred
from Company C.--Died September 17th, of typhoid; buried at
Sabetha, Kansas.

Spriggs, Elwood W., private, Company G.--Died September 16th, at
Kansas City, Missouri, of typhoid; buried at Medaryville, Indiana.

Thraen, Sigmund, private, Company A.--Died at Fort Myer Hospital,
July 26th, of typhoid; buried at Arlington.