Chapter I: Break My Musket (15)

Captain Haskell was not there. He would have sent ten men to the left until something was found. He would have filled the interval, even had it required the whole battalion to stretch to twenty steps apart, at least until he could report to Colonel Perrin, or General Pender. Lieutenant Sharpe, in command of the battalion, was far to the right--perhaps four hundred yards from us. We should have sent word to him down the line, but we did not do it. The night was growing. How wide was the gap? Why did not the pickets on the other side of this gap search for us? If the enemy knew our condition, a brigade or more might creep through the gap; still the lieutenant did not propose anything.

At last I said that although the picket-line in front looked like a Yankee line, it was yet possible that it was ours, and that I thought I could get nearer to it than I had been before, and speak to the men without great danger. Truth is, that I had begun to fear sarcasm. What if, to-morrow morning, we should see a line of gray pickets in our front? Should I ever hear the last of it?

Again the lieutenant approved. He would have approved of anything. He was a brave officer. I verily believe that if I had proposed an advance of Company A up the hill, he would have approved, and would have led the advance.

The company stood still, and I started again. I reached the place where I had been before, and crawled on a few yards farther. Again the thought came that there would have been some communicating between that line and ours if that were Confederate. If they were our men, we had been in their rear for three hours. Impossible to suppose that nobody in that time should have come back to the rear. Clearly it was a Federal line, and I was in its front. Then it occurred to me that it was possible they had a man or two in the fence-row between me and their line. There could be no need for that, yet the idea made me shiver. At every yard of my progress I raised my head, and the black spots were larger--and not less black. They were very silent and very motionless--the sombre night-picture of skirmishers on extreme duty; whoever they were, they felt strongly the presence of the enemy.

Ten yards in front, and ten feet to the right, I saw a post--a gate-post, I supposed. There was no gate. This fence-row, along which I was crawling, indicated a fence rotted down or removed. There had once been a gate hanging to that post and closing against another post now concealed by the bushes of the fence-row. I would crawl to that post out there, and speak to the men in front. They would suppose that I was in the fence-row, and, if they fired, would shoot into the bushes, while I should be safe behind the post--such was my thought.

I reached the post. It was a hewn post of large size--post-oak, I thought. I lay down behind it; I raised my head and looked. The black spots were very near--perhaps thirty or forty yards in front. The line stretched on to my right. I could not now see toward the left--through the fence-row.

It was not necessary to speak very loud.

I asked, "Whose picket is that?"

My voice sounded strangely tremulous.

There was no answer.

If they were Confederates, I was in their rear, and there would be no sense in their refusal to reply; some one would have said, "Come up and see!" or something. There was no movement. I could see that the black spots had become large objects; the moon was shining.

I must ask again.

I remember that at that moment I thought of our Captain--dead that day.

I spoke again, "Gentlemen, is that the picket of Ramseur's brigade?"

No answer.

Again I spoke, "Gentlemen, is that Ramseur's North Carolina brigade?"

Not a word.

It now seemed folly for me to remain. Who were these men? Certainly Federals. I was in imminent danger of being captured. Two or three men might rush forward and seize me before I could get to my feet. Yet, would not a line of our men out here be silent? They would be very near the enemy and would be very silent. But they would send a man back to make me stop talking. They were Yankees; but why did they not say something? or do something? Perhaps they were in doubt about me. I was so near their lines they could hardly believe me a Confederate. I half decided to slip away at once.

But I wished some conclusion to the matter. I wanted to satisfy the lieutenant and myself also.

Again I spoke, "Will you please tell me what brigade that is?"

A voice replied, "Our brigade!"

This reply, in my opinion, was distinctly Confederate. I had heard it frequently. It was an old thing. Often, when waiting for troops to pass, you would ask, "What regiment is that?" and some-would-be wag would say, "Our regiment."

I rose to my feet behind the post, but dropped again as quickly. Before I had stood erect the thought came that possibly the Yankees also had this old by-word. Then another thought--had the Yankees selected one man to reply to me? Had all but one been ordered to preserve silence, and was this one an expert chosen to entrap me? A man perhaps who knew something of the sayings in the Southern army?

Now, in an effort to bring things to a pass, I shouted loud, "What army do you belong to?"

Another voice shouted loud, "What army do you belong to?"

I had emphasized the word "army." He had emphasized the word "you."

Perhaps they thought I might be one of their own men, sent out in front and trying to return; but if that were the case, why did they not bid me come in? If they thought me a Confederate, very likely they thought I was trying to desert, and feeling my way through fear of falling into the hands of the wrong people.

I replied at once, "I am a rebel."

What it was that influenced me to use the word I do not know, unless it was that I thought that if they were our men I was safe, being in their rear, and that if they were Yankees they would at once accept the challenge. I wanted to end the matter.

They accepted.

A dozen voices shouted, "We are for the Union!" and half a dozen rifles cracked.

They must have fired into the fence-row. I heard no bullet--but then, no bullet can be heard at such a nearness.

I kept my post--flat on my face. It would not be best for me to rise and run. Perhaps I could get off by doing so, but I could manage better. I would remain quiet until they should think I had gone. Then I would crawl away.

Two or three minutes passed. I was making up my mind to start. Suddenly a gruff voice spoke. It was near me. It was in the fence-row. A Yankee had crept toward me. He said, at an ordinary pitch, but very gruffly, "Who _are_ you, anyhow?"

If he is yet alive, these lines may inform him that I was Jones. It was my time to be silent. I feared that he would continue to come, but the next instant I knew that he was in doubt as to how many I was, and I stuck fast.

I heard nothing more. No doubt he had given it up--had gone back and reported that the enemy had disappeared from the immediate front.

Five minutes more, and I had picked up my gun and was walking back to our line. I struck it in front of Company C, whose men had been warned that I was out, but who now had to be restrained from firing on me. They had heard the voices up the hill, and bullets had whistled over them, and they had thought me a prisoner, so when they saw a man coming toward them they were itching to shoot.

We remained all night as we were, with a gap in the skirmish-line at the left of Pender's division.

XXXIII

HELL

"Each volley tells that thousands cease to breathe;
Death rides upon the sulphury Siroc,
Red Battle stamps his foot, and nations feel the shock."
--BYRON.

The morning came--the morning of Friday, the 3d of July. Just as the sun was rising in our faces the Federal skirmishers advanced. Down the hill they came at the run. Lieutenant Sharpe ordered a countercharge, and the battalion rushed to meet the enemy. We were almost intermixed with them before they ran. And now our lieutenant of Company A showed his mettle. He sprang before his company, sword in his left hand and revolver in the other, and led the fight, rushing right up the hill, and, when near enough, firing every barrel of his pistol. We took a few prisoners. Both lines settled back to their first positions.

We had lost some men. A detail of infirmary people came from the rear to carry off the wounded. Hutto had been shot badly. As four men lifted the stretcher, one of them was killed, and Hutto rolled heavily to the ground. Another of the litter bearers was shot, leaving but two; they raised their stretcher in the air and moved it about violently. The Yankees ceased firing.

The day had begun well, but we knew there was long and deadly work ahead. We began to make protection. Low piles of rails, covered with wheat-straw and earth dug up by bare hands, soon appeared along the line. The protection was slight, yet by lying flat our bodies could not be seen. On their side the Yankee skirmishers also had worked, and were now behind low heaps of rails and earth. Practice-shooting began, and was kept up without intermission for hour after hour.

We lay in the broiling sun. Orders came down the line for the men to be sparing with water.

From my pit I could look back and see the cupola of the Seminary--could see through the cupola from one window to the other. The Seminary was General Lee's headquarters.

To our right and front was a large brick barn--the Bliss barn. Captain Haskell had been killed by a bullet fired from this barn. It was five hundred yards from the pits of Company A.

The Bliss barn was held by the Yankees. The skirmishers beyond the right of the battalion charged and took it. A regiment advanced from the Federal side, drove our men off, and occupied the barn. They began to enfilade the pits of Company A. All the while, we were engaged in front.

A shot from the barn killed Sergeant Rhodes. Orders came down the line for me to take his place at the right of the company.

Since the day before, I had thought that I had one friend in Company A--Rhodes. Now Rhodes was dead.

We fired at the men who showed themselves at the barn--right oblique five hundred yards.

We fired at the skirmishers behind the rail piles in front--two hundred yards.

A man in a pit opposite mine hit my cartridge-box. I could see him loading. His hand was in the air. I saw him as low as his shoulder. I took good aim. A question arose in my mind--and again I thought of the Captain: Am I angry with that man? Do I feel any hatred of him? And the answer came: No; I am fighting for life and liberty; I hate nobody. I fired, and saw the man no more.

Our men far to the right retook the barn. Again the enemy recovered it.

Cartridges were running low. Some brave men ran back to the line of battle for more cartridges. The skirmishing was incessant. Our losses were serious. We had fought constantly from sunrise until past midday, and there was no sign of an ending.

At one o'clock a shell from our rear flew far above us, and then the devil broke loose. More than a hundred guns joined in, and the air was full of sounds. The Bliss barn was in flames. The Federal batteries answering doubled the din and made the valley and its slopes a hell of hideous noises. All of the enemy's missiles went far over our heads; we were much nearer to the Federal artillery than to our own. Some of our shells, perhaps from defective powder, fell amongst us; some would burst in mid air, and the fragments would hurtle down. The skirmishing ceased--in an ocean one drop more is naught.

I walked down the line of Company A. Peacock was lying dead with his hat over his face. The wounded--those disabled--were unrelieved. The men were prostrate in their pits, powder-stained, haggard, battle-worn, and stern. Still shrieked the shells overhead, and yet roared the guns to front and rear--a pandemonium of sight and sound reserved from the foundation of the world for the valley of Gettysburg. The bleeding sun went out in smoke. The smell of burning powder filled the land. Before us and behind us bursting caissons added to the hellish magnificence of this awful picture,--in its background a school of theology, and in its foreground the peaceful city of the dead.

For more than an hour the hundreds of hostile guns shook earth and sky; then there was silence and stillness. But the stillness was but brief. Out from our rear and right now marched the Confederate infantry on to destruction.

We of the skirmishers felt that our line was doomed. I saw men stand, regardless of exposure, and curse the day. For more than eighteen hours we had been near the Federal lines. We had no hope. We knew that our line, marching out for attack, could not even reach the enemy. Before it could come within charging distance it would be beaten to pieces by artillery. The men looked at the advancing line and said one to another, "Lee has made a mistake."

The line came on. It was descending the slope of Seminary Ridge.

The Federal batteries began to work upon the line. Into the valley and up the hill it came, with all the cannon in our front and right,--and far to the right,--pumping death into its ranks.

I gave it up. I thought of Captain Haskell, and of his words concerning General Lee's inclination to attack. I was no military man; I knew nothing of scientific war, but I was sure that time had knelled the doom of our poor line--condemned to attack behind stone fences the flower of the Army of the Potomac protected by two hundred guns. It was simply insane. It was not war, neither was it magnificent; it was too absurd to be grand.

Great gaps were made in the line. It came on and passed over the skirmishers. The left of the line passed over us just beyond the spot where Rhodes lay dead. I could see down our line. It was already in tatters. Writers of the South and of the North have all described Pickett's charge as gallant, and have said that his line came on like troops on dress-parade. It was gallant enough--too gallant; but there was no dress-parade. Our officers and men on Seminary Ridge were looking at Pickett's division from its rear; the blue men were looking upon it from its front; from neither position could the alignment be seen; to them it looked straight and fine; but that line passed by me so that I looked along it, and I know that it was swayed and bent long before it fired a shot. As it passed over us, it was scattered--many men thirty, forty, even fifty yards in front of other men. No shame to Pickett's men for this. The charge should not be distinguished for mere gallantry, but for something far superior--endurance. From right and front and left, a semicircle of fire converged upon their ranks and strewed the ground with their dead. For half a mile they advanced under an iron tempest such as Confederate troops never saw elsewhere than at Gettysburg--- a tempest in which no army on earth could live.

I was hoping that the line would break and run before it came under the fire of infantry; but it did not break. It was ragged, because the gaps could not be filled as fast as they were made; but the fragments kept on up the hill, uniting as they went.

And the line disappears in smoke, which tells us, as well as the sound, that the Federal infantry and ours have at last joined their battle. Here and there we see a real battle-flag violently shaking; the thunder of the cannon no more is heard; the smoke recedes, and our men--those that are left, but not the line--still go forward.

Pickett has reached the hostile infantry. On his left and right swarm out against his flanks the army of the enemy, while in his front still stand the stone bulwarks over which but few of his men live to pass.

Yet the fight still rages. The Federal skirmishers everywhere have long ago withdrawn, so that we can stand and move and watch the struggle for the graves. In a narrow circle on the hill, where a few trees stand, smoke builds up and eddies. Up there death and fate are working as they never worked. Lines of infantry from either flank move toward the whirlpool. They close upon the smoke.

Now we see a few men dropping back out of the smoke and running half-bent down the hill. Their numbers increase. All who have the hardihood to run try to escape, but many remain and become prisoners.

A brigade or two of the enemy advance from their works on their right and endeavour to intercept the fugitives. A brigade of Confederates advances on our left, but stops in the wheat. The battle of Gettysburg is over.

XXXIV

FALLING-WATERS

"Prepare you, generals:
The enemy comes on in gallant show;
Their bloody sign of battle is hung out,
And something to be done immediately."
--SHAKESPEARE.

On the night of the 4th the retreat began, Pender's division leading. Rain fell in torrents. Rations were not to be had. The slow retreat continued on the next day and the next. At Hagerstown we formed line of battle.

The sharp-shooters were in front. The Federal skirmishers advanced against us. We held our own, but lost some men.

The rain kept on. We were in a field of wheat, behind rifle-pits made of fence-rails. We rubbed the ears of wheat in our hands, and ate the grain uncooked. The regiment sent out foraging parties, but with little success. There was great suffering from hunger.

For three days and nights we were on the line at Hagerstown, skirmishing every day. Captain Shooter of the First now commanded the battalion. We were told that the Potomac was at a high stage, and that we must wait until a pontoon bridge could be laid.

At ten o'clock on the night of the 13th the sharp-shooters received orders to hold their line at all hazards until dawn; then to retire. The division was withdrawing and depended upon us to prevent the advance of the enemy. Rain fell all night. We were wet to the skin and almost exhausted through hunger, fatigue, and watching.

At daylight we were back at the breastworks. Everybody had gone. We followed after the troops. The rain ceased, but the mud was deep; the army had passed over it before us. We marched some ten miles. After sunrise we could hear a few shots, now and then, behind us. We supposed that the enemy's advance was firing on our stragglers as they would try to get away. The march was very difficult, because of the mud and mainly because of our exhaustion.

We reached the top of a high hill overlooking the Potomac a mile away. It must have been after ten o'clock. On the Virginia hills we could see a great host of men, and long lines of artillery and wagons--some filing slowly away to the south, others standing in well-ordered ranks. On some prominent hills batteries had been planted. It was a great sight. The sun was shining on this display. Lee's army had effected a crossing.

On the Maryland side the road descending was full of troops. At the river was a dense mass of wagons, and brigade upon brigade with stacked arms, the division resting and waiting for its turn to cross; for there was but one bridge, over which a stream of men was yet passing, and it would take hours for all to cross.

We were halted on the hill. A moment was sufficient for the men to decide that the halt would be a long one. Down everybody dropped on the ground, to rest and sleep.

The next thing I knew I was wide awake, with rifles cracking all around me. I sprang to my feet. Somebody, just in my rear, fired, with his gun at my left ear; for weeks I was deaf in that ear. Men on horses were amongst us--blue men with drawn sabres and with pistols which they were firing. Our men were scattering, not in flight, but to deploy.

A horseman was coming at me straight--twenty yards from me. He was standing in his stirrups and had his sword uplifted. I aimed and fired. He still came on, but for a moment only. He doubled up and went headforemost to the ground.

The battalion had deployed. But few, if any, of the horsemen who had ridden into us had got away; but they were only the advance squadron. More were coming. Our line was some two hundred and fifty yards long, covering the road. We advanced. It would not do to allow the enemy to see, over the crest of the hill, our compacted troops at the head of the bridge. The numbers of the Federals constantly increased. They outflanked us on our right. They dismounted and deployed as skirmishers. They advanced, and the fighting began.

Company A was in an open ground covered with, dewberry vines, and the berries were ripe. We ate dewberries and loaded and fired. I never saw so many dewberries or any so good. Bullets whizzed over us and amongst us, but the men ate berries. I had on a white straw hat that I had swapped for with one of the men; where he had got it, I don't know. My hat was a target. I took it off.

The enemy continued to extend his line beyond our right. From the division below, the first regiment was sent back to help us. The regiment deployed on our right and began firing. The enemy still increased, and other regiments were sent back to us, until we had a skirmish-line more than a mile long, and had a reserve force ready to strengthen any weak part of the line.

The Federals broke through our line at the left, but the line was reëstablished. They got around our right and a few of them got into our rear. One of them rode up to Peagler of Company H, an unarmed infirmary man; he brandished his sword and ordered Peagler to surrender. Peagler picked up a fence-rail and struck the rider from his horse.

Company H of the First, only about fifteen men, were in a house, firing from the windows. Suddenly they saw the enemy on both their flanks and rapidly gaining their rear. A rush was made from the house, and the company barely escaped, losing a few men wounded, who, however, got away.

General Pettigrew was killed. The fight kept growing. It had already lasted three hours and threatened to continue.

At length, we were forced back by the constantly increasing numbers of the Federals. As we readied the top of the hill again, we could see that the bridge was clear. All the wagons and troops were on the south side of the river. On the bridge were only a few straggling men running across.

And now came our turn. We retreated down the hill. At once its crest was occupied by the Federal skirmishers, and at once they began busily to pop away at us. I ran along, holding my white hat in my hand.

We reached lower ground, and our batteries in Virginia began to throw shells over our heads to keep back the enemy. The battalion flanked to the right, struck the bridge, and rushed headlong across, with Yankee bullets splashing the water to the right and left; meanwhile our batteries continued to throw shells over our heads, and Federal guns, now unlimbered on the Maryland side, were answering with spirit.

XXXV

AWAKENINGS

"'Tis far off;
And rather like a dream than an assurance
That my remembrance warrants."--SHAKESPEARE.

With the passage of the sharp-shooters into Virginia at Falling Waters, the campaign was at an end. The pontoon bridge was cut. We marched a mile from the river and halted; it was five o'clock. At night we received two days' rations; I ate mine at one meal.

On the 15th the division moved to Bunker Hill. I gave out. Starvation and a full meal had been too much for me. I suffered greatly, not from fatigue, but from illness. I stepped out of ranks, went fifty yards into the thicket, and lay down under a tree.

That the enemy was following was likely enough; I hardly cared. I shrank from captivity, but I thought of death without fearing it.

My mind was in a peculiar attitude toward the war. We had heard of the surrender of Vicksburg. Not even the shadow of demoralization had touched Lee's army in consequence of Gettysburg; but now men talked despairingly--with Vicksburg gone the war seemed hopeless.

Under the tree was peace. Company H had gone on. Company A had gone on. What interest had they in me or I in them? I had fever.

The sounds of the troops marching on the road reached me in the thicket. A few moments ago I was marching on the road. I was one of fifty thousand; they have gone on.

Here, under this tree, I am one. But what one? I came I know not whence; I go I know not whither. Let me go. What matter where? My Captain has gone.

Perhaps I wander in mind. I have fever.

At one time I think I am going to die, and I long for death. The life I live is too difficult.

And the South is hopeless. Better death than subjection. The Captain has not died too soon.

What a strong, noble, far-seeing man! I shall never forget him. I shall never see his like, I envy him. He has resolved all doubt; I am still enchained to a fate that drags me on and on into ... into what? What does the Captain think now? Does he see me lying here? Can he put thoughts into my mind? Can he tell me who I am? What does he think now of slavery? of State rights? of war?

He is at peace; he knows that peace is better. Yes, peace is better. He is at peace. Would I also were at peace.

I slept, and when I awoke my strength had returned. I crept to the road, fearing to see Federal troops. Neither Confederate nor Federal was in sight. I tramped steadily southward and caught up at Bunker Hill.

* * * * *

By the 24th of July we had crossed the Blue Ridge and were approaching Culpeper.

During the months of August and September we were in camp near Orange Court-House.

My distaste for the service became excessive, unaccountably, I should have thought, but for the fact that my interest in life had so greatly suffered because of the Captain's death.

My friend was gone. I wished for nothing definite. I had no purpose. To fight for the South was my duty, and I felt it, but I had no relish for fighting. Fighting was absurd.

The Captain had said, on the last night of his life, that he imagined General Lee and perhaps General McClellan felt great reluctance in giving orders that would result in the death of Americans at the hands of Americans. I remembered that at Gettysburg, in the act of pulling the trigger, I had found no hatred in me toward the man I was trying to kill. I wondered if the men generally were without hate. I believed they were; there might be exceptions.

We had lost General Pender at Gettysburg. We were now Wilcox's division. We had camp guard and picket duty.

Since the Captain's death the battalion of sharp-shooters had been dissolved, and I was back in Company H. The life was monotonous. Some conscripts were received into each company. Many of the old men would never return to us. Some were lying with two inches of earth above their breasts; some were in the distant South on crutches they must always use.

The spirit of the regiment was unbroken. The men were serious. Captain Barnwell read prayers at night in the company.

I thought much but disconnectedly, and was given to solitude. I made an object of myself. My condition appealed to my sympathy. Where had there ever been such an experience? I thought of myself as Berwick, and pitied him. I talked to him, mentally, calling him _you_.

Dr. Frost was beyond my reach. I wanted to talk to him. He had been promoted, and was elsewhere.

At night I had dreams, and they were strange dreams. For many successive nights I could see myself, and always I thought of the "me" that I saw as a different person from the "me" that saw.

My health suffered greatly, but I did not report to the surgeon.

Somehow I began to feel for my unknown friends. They had long ago given me up for dead.

Perhaps, however, some were still hoping against certainty. My mind was filling with fancies concerning them--concerning her. How I ever began to think of such, a possibility I could not know.

My fancies embraced everything. My family might be rich and powerful and intelligent; it, might be humble, even being the strong likelihood was that it was neither, but was of medium worth.

My fancy--it began in a dream--pictured the face of a woman, young and sweet weeping for me. I wept for her and for myself. Who was she? Was she all fancy?

Since I had been in Company H, I had never spoken to a woman except the nurses in the hospitals. I had seen many women in Richmond and elsewhere. No face of my recollection fitted with the face of my dream. None seemed it's equal in sweetness and dignity.

I had written love letters at the dictation of one or two of the men. I had read love stories. I felt as the men had seemed to feel, and as the lovers in the stories had seemed to feel.

No one knew, since the Captain's death, even the short history of myself that I knew. I grew morose. The men avoided me, all but one--Jerry Butler. Somehow I found myself messing with him. He was a great forager, and kept us both in food. The rations were almost regular, but the fat bacon and mouldy meal turned my stomach. The other men were in good health, and ate heartily of the coarse food given them. Butler had bacon and meal to sell.

The men wondered what was the matter with me. Their wonder did not exceed my own. Butler invited my confidence, but I could not decide to say a word; one word would have made it necessary to tell him all I knew. He would have thought me insane.

I did my duty mechanically, serving on camp guard and on picket regularly, but feeling interest in nothing beyond my own inner self.

At times the battle of Manassas and the spot in the forest would recur to me with great vividness and power. Where and what was my original regiment? I pondered over the puzzle, and I had much time in which to ponder. I remembered that Dr. Frost had told me that if ever I got the smallest clew to my past, I must determine then and there to never let it go.

Sometimes instants of seeming recollection would flash by and be gone before I could define them. They left no result but doubt--sometimes fear. Doubts of the righteousness of war beset me--not of this war, but war. I had a vague notion that in some hazy past I had listened to strong reasons against war. Were they from the Captain? No; he had been against war, but he had fought for the South with relish--they did not come from him. None the less--perhaps I ought to say therefore--did they more strongly impress me, for I indistinctly knew that they came from some one who not only gave precept but also lived example.

Who was he? I might not hope to know.

Added to these doubts concerning war, there were in my mind at times strong desires for a better life--a life more mental. The men were good men--serious, religious men. Nothing could be said against them; but I felt that I was not entirely of them, that they had little thought beyond their personal duties, which they were willing always to do provided their officers clearly prescribed them, and their personal attachments, in which I could have no part. Of course there were exceptions.

I felt in some way that though the men avoided me, they yet had a certain respect for me--for my evident suffering, I supposed. Yet an incident occurred which showed me that their respect was not mere pity. The death of our Captain had left a vacancy in Company H. A lieutenant was to be elected by the men. The natural candidate was our highest non-commissioned officer, who was favoured by the company's commander. The officer in command did not, however, use influence upon the men to secure votes. My preference for the position was Louis Bellot, who had been dangerously wounded at Manassas, and who, we heard, would soon return to the company. I took up his cause, and, without his knowledge, secured enough votes to elect him.

* * * * *

On the 8th of October we advanced to the river. For me it was a miserable march. My mind was in torture, and my strength was failing. Doubts of the righteousness of war had changed to doubts of this war. It was not reason that caused these doubts. Reason told me that the invaders should be driven back. The South had not been guilty of plunging the two countries into war; the South had tried to avert war. The only serious question which my mind could raise upon the conduct of the South was: Had we sufficiently tried to avert war? Had we done all that we could? I did not know, and I doubted.

As we advanced, I looked upon long lines of infantry and cannon marching on to battle, and I thought of all this immense preparation for wholesale slaughter of our own countrymen with horror in my heart. Why could not this war have been avoided? I did not know, but I felt that an overwhelming responsibility attached somewhere, for it was not likely that all possibilities of peace had been exhausted by our people.

As to the Yankees, I did not then think of them. Their crimes and their responsibilities were their own. I had nothing to do with them; but I was part of the South, and the Southern cause was mine, and upon me also weighed the crime of unjust war if it were unjust upon our side.

The thought of the Captain gave me great relief. He had shown me the cause of the South; he had died for it; it could not be wrong. I looked in the faces of the officers and men around me and read patient endurance for the right. I was comforted. I laughed at myself and said, Berwick, you are getting morbid; you are bilious; go to the doctor and get well of your fancies.

Then the thought of the Northern cause came to me. Do not the Federal soldiers also think their cause just? If not, what sort of men are they? They must believe they are right. And one side or the other must be wrong. Which is it? They are millions, and we are millions. Millions of men are joined together to perpetrate wrong while believing that they are right? Can such a condition be?

Even supposing that most men are led in their beliefs by other men in whose judgment they have confidence, are the leaders of either side impure?

No; if they are wrong, they are not wrong intentionally. Men may differ conscientiously upon state policy, even upon ethics.

Then must I conclude that the North, believing itself right, is wrong in warring upon the South? What is the North fighting for? For union and for abolition of slavery; but primarily for union.

And is union wrong? Not necessarily wrong.

What is the South, fighting for? For State rights and for slavery; but principally for State rights.

And is the doctrine of State rights wrong? Not necessarily wrong.

Then, may both North, and South be right?

The question startled me. I had heard that idea before. Where? Not in the army, I was certain. I tried hard to remember, but had to confess failure. The result of my thought was only the suggestion that both of two seemingly opposite thoughts might possibly be true.

On that night I dreamed of my childhood. My dream took me to a city, where I was at school under a teacher who was my friend, and at whose house I now saw him. The man's face was so impressed upon my mind that when I awoke I retained his features. All day of the 9th, while we were crossing the Rapidan and continuing our march through Madison Court-House and on through Culpeper, I thought of the face of my dream. I thought of little else. Food was repugnant. I had fever, and was full of fancies. I was surprised by the thought that I had twice already been ill in the army. Once was at the time of the battle of Fredericksburg; but when and where was the other? I did not know, yet I was sure that I had been sick in the army before I joined Captain Haskell's company, and before I ever saw Dr. Frost.

Long did I wonder over this, and not entirely without result. Suddenly I connected the face of my dream with my forgotten illness. But that was all. My old tutor was a doctor and had attended me. I felt sure of so much.

Then I wondered if I could by any means find the Doctor's name. Some name must be connected with the title. That he was Dr. Some-one I had no doubt. I tried to make Dr. Frost's face fit the face of my dream, but it would not fit. Besides, I knew that Dr. Frost had never been my teacher.

We had gone into bivouac about one o'clock, some two miles north of Madison Court-House. This advance was over ground that was not unfamiliar to me. The mountains in the distance and the hills near by, the rivers and the roads, the villages and the general aspect of this farming country, had been impressed upon my mind first when alone I hurried forward to join Jackson's command on its famous march around Pope; and, later, when we had returned from the Shenandoah Valley after Sharpsburg, and more recently still, on our retreat from Pennsylvania.

What General Lee's purposes were now, caused much speculation in the camp. It was evident that, if the bulk of the army had not as yet uncovered Richmond, our part of it was very far to the left. We might be advancing to the Valley, or we might be trying to get to Meade's rear, just as Jackson had moved around Pope in sixty-two; another day might show. The most of the men believed that we were on a flank march similar to Jackson's, and some of them went so far as to say that both Ewell's and Hills corps were now near Madison Court-House.

I felt but little interest in the talk of the men. My mind was upon myself. I gave my comrades no encouragement to speak with me, but lay apart, moody and feverish. Occasionally my thought, it is true, reverted to the situation of the army, but only for a moment. Something was about to be done; but if I could have controlled events, I would not have known what to choose. One thing, however, began to loom clear through the dim future: if we were working to get to Meade's rear, that general was in far greater danger than he had been at Gettysburg. With Lee at Manassas Junction, between Meade and Washington, the Army of the Potomac would yield from starvation, or fight at utter disadvantage; and there was no army to help near by, as McClellan's at Alexandria in sixty-two.

The night brought no movement.

XXXVI

THE ALPHABET

"I stoop not to despair;
For I have battled with mine agony,
And made me wings wherewith to overfly
The narrow circus of my dungeon wall."--BYRON.

On the next day, the 10th, we marched through Culpeper. I recognized the place; I had straggled through it on the road to Gettysburg. Again we went into bivouac early.

That afternoon I again thought of Dr. Frost's advice to hold to any clew I should ever get and work it out; I had a clew: I wondered how I could make a step toward an end.

To recover a lost name seemed difficult. The doctor had said will was required. My will was good. I began with the purpose of thinking all names that I could recall. My list was limited. Naturally my mind went over the roll of Company H, which, from having heard so often, I knew by heart. Adams, Bell, Bellot, and so on; the work brought an idea. I remembered hearing some one say that a forgotten name might be recovered with the systematic use of the alphabet. I wondered why I had not thought at once of this. I felt a great sense of relief. I now had a purpose and a plan.

At once I began to go through the A-b's. The first name I could get was Abbey; the next, Abbott, and so on, through all names built upon the letter A. I knew nobody by such names. My lost name might be one of these, but it did not seem to be, and I had nothing to rely upon except the hope that the real name, when found, would kindle at its touch a spark in my memory. Finally all the A's were exhausted--nothing.

Then I took up regularly and patiently the B's. They resulted in nothing. I tried C, both hard and soft, thinking intently whether the sound awoke any response in my brain.

I abandoned the soft C, but hard C did not sound impossible; I stored it up for future examination.

Then I went through D and E, and so on down to G, which I separated into two sounds, as I had already done with C, soft and hard. This examination resulted in my putting hard G alongside of hard C.

H, I, and J were examined with like result--nothing.

The K was at once given a place with the preferred letters.

L, M, N, O were speedily rejected.

At P I halted long, and at last decided to hold it in reserve, but not to give it equal rank with the others.

Q gave me little trouble. I ran down all possible names in Q-u, and rejected all.

The remainder of the letters were examined and discarded.

In order of seniority I now had the following initial letters: C hard, G hard, and K, with P a possibility.

It was now very late, but I could not sleep. My mind was active, though I found to my surprise that it was more nearly calm than it had been for days. I knew that I ought to sleep, but I seemed on track of discovery. It had taken me hours of unremitting labour to get where I was,--monotonous but interesting labour--and it would likely take me hours more to advance a single step farther.

A sudden idea presented itself. What if the name was a very unusual name, one, in fact, that I had never heard, or seen written, except as the name of this Doctor? This thought included other thoughts--one was the idea of a written name. I had been following but one line of approach, while there were two,--sound and form. I had not considered the written approach, but now I saw the importance of that process. Another thought was, whether it would help me for the name to be not merely unusual, but entirely unknown. I could not decide this question. I saw reasons for and against. If it was an utterly unknown name, except as applied to the Doctor, I might never recover it; I might continue to roll names and names through my brain for years without result, if my brain could bear such thought for so long. I pictured in fancy an old man who had forgotten in time his own name, and had accepted another, wasting, and having wasted, the years of his life in hunting a word impossible and valueless. But I fought this fear and put it to sleep. The uncommon name would cause me to reject all common names, perhaps at first presentation; my attention would be concentrated on peculiar sounds and forms. If my mind were now in condition to respond to the name, I might get it very soon.

In debating this point, I suppose that I lost sight of my objective, for I sank to sleep.

At daylight I was awake. My mind held fast the results of the night's work. I wrote as follows:--