Shoulder-Straps: A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862

by Henry Morford

  CHAPTER XV.

  A PEEP AT CAMP LYON AND THE TWO HUNDREDTH REGIMENT--DISCIPLINE AND THEDICE-BOX--HOW SEVEN HUNDRED MEN CAN BE SQUEEZED INTO THREE.

  "I am going to West Falls again in a few days--that is, if we do not getorders for Washington," Colonel Egbert Crawford said, speaking to hiscousin, a few chapters back, as may be remembered. By which he meant, ofcourse, if he meant anything, that the Two Hundredth Regiment, with theraising of which he had been charged by Major-General Governor Morgan,was in a high state of discipline as well as fully up to the maximum innumbers, and burning to go down to the field of carnage and revenge thedeaths of those foully slaughtered by rebel hands.

  It may be interesting to know exactly what _was_ the condition of theTwo Hundredth Regiment, at that exact time--how many it numbered--whatwas its proficiency in drill--what was the appearance of the camp atwhich it was quartered--and how laboriously Colonel Crawford was engagedin bringing it up to the highest standard of perfection for citizensoldiery. For this purpose, it will be well to look in at theencampment, with the eyes of some persons from the city who visited iton Sunday the 29th of June--the very day on which McClellan, from sheerlack of troops, abandoned the White House, necessarily destroying somuch valuable property, losing for the time the last hope of the captureof Richmond, and falling back on the line of the James River.

  The Two Hundredth Regiment lay at "Camp Lyon," (as it may be designatedfor the purposes of this chronicle)--a locality on Long Island, a fewmiles eastward from the City Hall of Brooklyn, and easily accessible byone of the lines of horse-cars running from Fulton Ferry. It had beensome two months established; recruiting for the regiment was said to begoing on very rapidly; "only a few more men wanted" was the burden ofthe song sung in the advertising columns of the morning papers; rationsfor some seven hundred men were continually furnished for it, by theQuartermaster's Department; the Colonel made flattering reports of itevery day or two, to the higher military authorities in the city, and atleast once a week to the still higher authorities at Albany; and apolitical Brigadier-General was reported to have gone down and reviewedit, once or twice, coming back eminently satisfied with its numbers,discipline and performances.

  The visitors from the city, who, having no other connection whateverwith the progress of this story, may be fobbed off with the veryordinary names of Smith and Brown,--reached the camp at about fouro'clock on that Sunday afternoon, having waited until that late hour inthe day for the purpose of avoiding the noon-tide heat, and beinganxious to be present at the evening drill, which was supposed to takeplace in the neighborhood of six o'clock. An acquaintance of theirs, anofficer in the Two Hundredth, one Lieutenant Woodruff, had several timesinvited them to "run down to camp and see him before he went away,"promising to do the honors of the encampment in the best mannercompatible with the duties of a "fellow busy all the time, you know."

  Alighting from the vehicle, Smith and Brown found the camp stretchingbefore them, scarcely so picturesque as they had anticipated, but withenough of the military air about its green sod and conical tents, tomake it rather varied and pleasing to a couple of "cits" who had notlooked upon the extended army pageant around Washington, or seenanything more of war than could be observed in a turn-out of the FirstDivision on the Fourth of July. On a broad level, stretching back for aquarter of a mile from the railroad-track, and terminating in a strip ofnoble oak woods, the tents of the encampment were pitched, forty orfifty in number, not too white and cleanly-looking, even at a distance,and decidedly dingy and yellow when brought to a nearer view. Someattempt had been made at forming them into lines, with regular alleysbetween; the hospital-tent at some distance in the rear, distinguishedby a yellow flag hanging listlessly from a pole in front; and theColonel's large round tent or marquee prominent in the centre, a smallAmerican flag before it, doing its best to wave in the slight sea airthat came in over the Long Island hills. Groups of soldiers, variouslydisposed, dotted the space between the tents or sat at the doors,chatting with male or female civilians, or their own wives anddaughters, who had run down to see them as an amusement for Sundayafternoon; while sentinels paced backward and forward along certainlines and offered an uncertain amount of inconvenience to those whowished to traverse the camp-grounds in one direction or another.

  Smith and Brown, looking for Woodruff and finding it a matter of somedifficulty to discover him, paced up and down among the tents, whereverthe sentinels permitted, looking in at the doors of those canvascottages and observing the humors which denoted that the occupants hadbeen the possessors of plenty of time for other purposes than drill,however proficient they might have become in that military necessity.Scarcely one of the alleys between the rows of tents but had itsstreet-name, stuck up on a piece of chalked or charcoaled board at theentrance--from the ambitious "Broadway" to the aristocratic "FifthAvenue" and the doubtful "Mercer Street." Many of the tents bore equallysignificant inscription, from the "City Hall" (where some scion of analderman probably made his warlike abode), to the "Astor House" and "St.Nicholas" (where perhaps some depreciated son of snobbery was known tohave his quarters), and the "Hotel de Coffee and Cakes," suggestive ofinmates from the less pretentious precincts of the city. Within thetents, as Smith and Brown took the liberty of looking in, a variety ofspectacles were discovered. Straw seemed to be an almost universalcommodity--quite as indispensable there as in pigpens or railroad-cars;and next to straw, perhaps battered trunks and very cheap pine tablespredominated. Greasy kettles and dishes could be discovered just underthe flap of the tent, in many instances; and here and there a tent wouldbe passed, emitting odors of rancid grease, stale tobacco and personalfoulness, not at all appetizing to visitors unfamiliar with the guttersof Mackerelville or the hold of a ship in the horse-latitudes.

  In some of the tents the men were asleep on the tables, in others on thetrunks, in still others on the straw. In a few Smith and Brown sawsoldiers drinking; in others, in positions suggestive of being verydrunk, had they found them elsewhere than in a well-regulated camp; instill others playing cards for pennies, furtively behind the flaps ofthe tent or openly in the vicinity of the door. They caught fragments ofbroad oaths from a few, and snatches of obscene stories from a fewothers; and taken altogether, the impression of the Two Hundredth beingin a high state of discipline or a very excellent sanitary condition,was not strongly forced upon their minds. This impression was notstrengthened, when, being directed by one of the sentries to thehospital-tent as a place where they might be likely at that moment tofind Lieutenant Woodruff,--they failed to discover him there, but didnot fail to discover one corporal keeping guard in that sanitarydomicil, so drunk that he was asleep and so drunkenly abusive when theywoke him that they were glad to permit him to fall back again into hisbeastly slumber.

  At length they found Lieutenant Woodruff, who had just returned fromescorting another party of friends to the cars, on their way back totown. He seemed glad to see them, though not enthusiastic in hisdemonstrations--invited them to the tent in which he messed with somebrother officers--and they took that direction for a rest after theirhot promenade.

  Somewhat to the apparent mortification of Woodruff, when they reachedthe tent none of the brother officers to whom he had promised tointroduce his friends, were to be found; but they had left their tracesbehind them. Two or three empty bottles and as many uncleaned glasseslay about the table, and the remains of spilt liquor wetted and stainedthe boards of the seats, while a very dirty pack of cards, half on thetable and the remainder on the ground, showed that the officers were notonly a little unscrupulous as to the character of their Sundayamusements, but equally indifferent as to the cleanliness of the toolswith which they performed the arduous labors of old-sledge, euchre anddivision-loo. Woodruff cleared away the debris from the table, and flungit into one corner with some petulance which did not escape the noticeof his visitors. Finally part of a box of bad cigars was introduced, andamong the fumes engendered by those indispensable "weeds," a littleconversation followed.<
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  "Well, when do you get off?" asked Smith, who had been very anxious tocome on that Sunday, instead of waiting for the next, under theimpression that the regiment might move at any time and thus deprivethem of the visit. He had been led to suppose so, partially fromconversations with Woodruff in the city, and partially by the statementsin the newspapers, before alluded to, made with reference to this andother "favorite regiments."

  "Get off!" answered Woodruff, with no concealment of the vexation in histone. "Humph! well, I think we shall need to get on a little faster,before we get off at all!"

  "Not full yet, eh?" asked Brown.

  "Not _exactly_," was the answer of the Lieutenant, with a satiricalemphasis on the second word which indicated that some other would havebeen quite as well in place.

  "Why, I thought you were!" said Smith. "The papers had you up to sevenhundred some time ago, and with all your big posters and advertisementsand the large bounties offered, you ought to be bringing them in veryrapidly."

  "Yes, I suppose so!" answered Woodruff. "We _ought_ to do a good manythings in this world, that we do not find it convenient to do. We_ought_ to have been full, and off to Washington, a month ago, and wouldhave been, if there had been any management."

  "Why you speak as if you were discouraged and dissatisfied," said Brown,"and not at all as you talked to us when in the city a few days ago."

  "No, probably not," answered the Lieutenant. "Well, the fact is, boys,that I have been lying to you like--(and here he used a very hard wordnot necessary to be recorded.) We have _all_ been lying; but to you, atleast, I mean to make a clean breast of it. I did not suppose you wouldcome down, and while you kept at a distance I thought we might as wellkeep up a good reputation. Now that you are here, you have not half aneye if you do not know that 'Camp Lyon' is a humbug, and that there isno discipline or anything else in it that _should_ be here. I am goingto get out of it, if I can with any honor."

  "What is the matter?" asked Smith, very much disappointed, and very muchdiscouraged at the key which the situation of Camp Lyon seemed to offerto the corresponding situation of many others of the crack recruitingstations depended upon for filling up the reduced ranks of the army.

  "What is the matter? Everything!" said Woodruff, fairly launched out inan exposure of the abuses of the recruiting service, for which he hadnot before had a fair and _safe_ opportunity. "Half the men are good fornothing, and almost all the officers worse. We could get along withworthless _men_, and perhaps make soldiers of them, if we only hadofficers worth their salt. Field or line, there is not one in three thatknows when a 'shoulder-arms' is correctly made; and there is no moreattempt at either study or practice than there would be if we were ahunting party encamped in the Northern woods. Commissions have beenissued to anybody supposed to possess some political influence; andsubordinate commissions have been promised by the higher officers to anyone who offered to bring in a certain number of rapscallions or pay downa certain sum of money. Those who are not drunken, are lazy; and the menknow about as much of wholesome discipline as a hog knows of holy-water.I have tried to do a little better with some of the squads of my owncompany; but I think that complaints have been made that I 'overworked'the men, and I have fallen into decidedly bad odor with the good peopleup at the big house yonder."

  "And who are _they_?" asked Brown, wofully ignorant of the details ofrecruiting in 1862. "And what are they doing up at the 'big house,' asyou call it?"

  "Eh? you haven't been in there, have you?" said Woodruff. "Come alongthen, and see. Of course you know that I must refer to our gallantColonel and the other leading officers at the head of the regiment; andof course you are not so green as not to know that the big house beyondthe railroad track, there, is a tavern. Come along and let us see whatColonel Crawford and the rest of them happen to be doing; and by thetime that is over we shall have our 'evening parade,' which you mustcertainly see before you go home."

  Escorted by the Lieutenant, the two citizens took their way to the "bighouse"--a hotel standing on the north side of the railroad track andvery near it--a wooden building of two stories, with a piazza in frontand at the east end, and flanked by a row of horse-sheds indicating thatthere was some dependence made upon the patronage of fast driversstopping there on race days or when trotting was peculiarly good on thepike or the plank. Before the house paced two sentries, with muskets atthe shoulder, though what they were guarding was not so clear, as everyone passed who wished to do so, whether in uniform or citizen's dress.Behind the corner of the piazza, eastward, an officer was leaning backin his chair against the clap-boards, with his hat over his eyes andapparently asleep; and a few feet from him a sergeant, distinguishableby three dingy stripes on his arm that should have been laid upon hisback, was toying, not too decently, with a woman whose looks and mannersboth proclaimed her one of the "necessary evils" of a modern community.

  "Do they allow such actions as that--right here in public, and in thevery presence of the officers?" asked Smith, whose education hadpossibly been a little neglected in some other particulars, as Brown'shad been in the details of the military profession.

  "Guess so!" was the significant reply of Woodruff. "Come up stairs!" andthe party passed on. As they did so, they looked through a door to theleft, and saw a bar of unplaned boards extending the whole length of aspacious room, with half a dozen attendants behind it and as many beerkegs and whiskey decanters pouring out their contents. Mingled with hereand there a civilian, the whole front of the bar was full of soldiers,all apparently drinking, and drinking again, and drinking yet again,nibbling cheese, crackers and smoked-beef meanwhile, apparently to keepup the necessary thirst. "Fire and fall back!" seemed to be a militaryaxiom not always observed by the rank and file of the Two Hundredth, asmany of them kept their places and went on with their guzzling, with adetermination worthy of a much better cause. But it was occasionallyobserved, after all, for there were a few who had been overcome by theheat of the bibulatory conflict, and who had relapsed into partialhelplessness in chairs around the walls; and there were others who beganto stagger and talk thickly at the counter, growing obscure and maudlinin their oaths, and shaking hands altogether too often, indicating thesleepy stage as very soon to follow.

  As the two friends and their conductor passed up-stairs, they noticedtwo officers in somewhat loud conversation, not far from the landing andnear the door of a side-room, on the handle of the door of which one ofthem held his hand a portion of the time. Without any effort, some ofthe words of their conversation could easily be heard; and Smith andBrown, who had no more than the average of that creditable delicacywhich hears nothing intended only for other ears, caught some wordswhich will bear setting down here as affording an additional clue to thestate of discipline.

  "That," said Woodruff, giving Smith a nudge as they came to the head ofthe stairs, speaking in a low tone, and pointing to the taller of thetwo men, who stood with his side-face presented at the moment,--"that isColonel Crawford; and the other, the shorter man, is Captain Lowndes,who has been recruiting for the regiment at the Park. If I was in betterodor with the Colonel, I would introduce you; but come on."

  Smith and Jones did _not_ "come on" at the instant, and what they caughtfrom the two officers was the following:

  "Not _one_ in a week?" asked the Colonel, in a tone mingling surpriseand anger. "Not one? D--n it!"

  "I am sorry to say, not one," was the reply of Captain Lowndes. "Theynearly all sing the same tune, however."

  "Well, it won't do for _us_, you know!" said the Colonel. "Anotherreview, and by some officer who was not a d--d lawyer blockhead, mightbe awkward!" Colonel Crawford either forgot, at that moment, that he hadany connection with the legal profession, or he chose to ignore thefact; and it is not to be supposed that his subordinate reminded him ofit. "We must have a paragraph in the to-morrow morning," he went on,naming an influential daily, "giving the regiment another 'blow.' If itdoes not get us any recruits, it will at least make the thing lookbetter at Albany. H
um--where's Dalton?"

  "The Adjutant went to Boston yesterday," was the response of Lowndes."Said he had business, though as he had a girl with him when he steppedon board the boat, I suspect his business was rather personal."

  "D--n him!" muttered the Colonel, between his teeth. Then louder, toLowndes: "I thought I told you to request him, if you saw him, not toleave the city again without permission from _me_! It seems you _have_seen him; and why were my orders not obeyed?" The Colonel spoke now withgreat dignity, and drew himself up so that the eagles on hisshoulder-straps were at least half an inch higher than when he wassquatted down into easy position.

  "Your orders _were_ obeyed," answered the Captain. "I _did_ tell him."

  "And what did he say?" asked the Colonel, lifting his eyebrows with someappearance of interest.

  "He said," replied the Captain, enunciating his words very clearly, asif he had no objection to their producing their full weight on hissuperior--"That Colonel Egbert Crawford might go to h-ll, and he wouldgo to Boston."

  "Did he?--d--n him!" said the Colonel, who seemed to have a small bottleof profanity lately uncorked, or one that he certainly was not in thehabit of uncorking in the presence of those on whom he wished to producea different impression.

  "Yes he did," answered the Captain. "He said a little more. Perhaps youwould like to have _that_, while I am at it?"

  "That?--yes, out with the whole of it!" spoke the Colonel, with anotheroath which need not be recorded here as any additional seasoning.

  "He took occasion to remark, where the lady who was with him could hearit," Lowndes went on--"that he didn't care a d--n for you, and that youdare not make a complaint against him at Albany, a bit more than youdare jump into a place that is even hotter than the weather is hereto-day."

  "Did he--the infernal hound!" broke out the Colonel, his dark browsliterally corrugated with rage. "I'll teach him whether I _dare_ or not,before I am forty-eight hours older!" But either there _was_ somethingbehind the curtain, or Colonel Egbert Crawford was a man of most angelictemper, for the moment after he broke out into a laugh that was not ofthe most musical order and said: "Oh, well--Dalton is a pretty goodfellow, after all, and perhaps the next Adjutant would be a worse onefor the regiment."

  With these words Colonel Egbert Crawford passed into the side room bythe door of which he had been standing, while Captain Lowndes touchedhis hat to him very slightly and went on to the larger room towardswhich the others were proceeding. As the Colonel swung back the door,Smith caught a very quick glance within, and saw a table, with bottles,a pack of cards, a couple of dice-boxes, and four or five personsseated, lounging and smoking. The party appeared to him as if theymight have been interrupted in a little harmless Sunday afternoonamusement, and as if they were only waiting for the return of theColonel to the room, to renew that amusement in a very pleasant andeffective manner. That impression was not removed by his hearing, afterhe had passed through the open door into the other room, a suspicioussound like the rattling of dice and another sound very like the chinkingof coin, proceeding from the smaller apartment.

  Smith and Brown found very little in the officers' room, dignified bythe name of "regimental headquarters," demanding particular record.There were two red pine tables set together and forming a counter,behind which the regimental officers were supposed to be located; and onthe end of the tables nearest the front of the house was a small desk,with pigeon-holes, at which, by the same fiction, the Adjutant wassupposed to be always sitting, performing the arduous duties of hisoffice. Supported by nails in the ceiling were two flag-staffs, theirbutts shaped to fit the muzzles of short rifles, and from the upper endof each depending one of the "guidons" of the regiment, gorgeously bluein color and lettered in shaded gold--understood to be the gift ofcertain ladies who properly appreciated the talents and devotion of theofficers and the hopeful prospects of the regiment under formation.Behind the tables was a mantel; and on it stood two decanters partiallyfilled with liquor, a plate of crackers and another of cheese. ALieutenant was seated at the Adjutant's desk, engaged in filling upblank leaves-of-absence for each in turn, of a disorderly crowd oftwenty or thirty soldiers who pressed forward from the door to receivethem. Two or three of this crowd presented former leaves, to have themextended. One of these was refused, the Lieutenant laboring under somesort of impression that a private who had been three weeks underenlistment, and absent all that time on leave, would not become veryproficient in drill unless he spent at least one week at the encampmentbefore marching. The wronged man did not appear to take the refusal verymuch to heart, however: he merely remarked to one of the others, loudenough for the Lieutenant to have heard if he had been very observant,that "he didn't care two cusses for the leave: he would go off when heliked and stay as long as he liked, and he should like to see anybodysmart enough to stop him."

  At the mantel, taking a quiet drink with half a dozen civilian friendswho had been admitted behind the tables, stood a tall, soldierly-lookingman, pointed out by Woodruff as Lieut. Colonel Burns. Unaccountably, hewore no straps on the shoulder, his blue blouse looking as if it wasthrown on for use instead of show, and his whole demeanor that of a manwho, if opportunity should only be given him, would be a soldier. He hadhis sword-belts at the waist, however, and also wore his sword, as if hehad some indefinite idea that something would thereby be gained in an_appearance_ of efficiency for the regiment.

  "Have you seen almost enough?" asked Lieutenant Woodruff, of the twocitizens.

  "Quite enough!" said both in a breath.

  "Well, time is just up," said the Lieutenant. "And in good time comesthe drum-beat for evening parade. Come along, and see what it is like. Imust leave you, but you can see the display without me."

  A couple of snare-drums were rattling somewhere among the tents, and theshrill notes of a light infantry bugle sounded. Lieut. Colonel Burnsbuckled his sword belts a little tighter and straightened himself to asoldierly bearing, as he left the room with his friends. A sergeant tookdown the guidons, and all, except the one Lieutenant at the desk and twoor three soldiers who did not consider the call as of sufficientconsequence, followed them down to the parade-ground in front of thecamp. Col. Egbert Crawford seemed to be like the two or three soldiersnamed, and not to consider the call of consequence enough to demand anyattention on his part; for he did not, at least during the stay of Smithand Brown, emerge from the privacy of the inner room or make anymovement to superintend the "dress parade."

  That "dress parade" completed the experience of Smith and Brown; and itcompleted, at the same time, their knowledge of the numbers andefficiency of the Two Hundredth Regiment that was "almost ready tomarch." In squads of from ten to twenty-five, the soldiers gathered fromtheir slovenly tents, until the observers could count something morethan two hundred. Then by squads and afterwards in what was intended asa "regimental formation," they went through a series of marchings,countermarchings and facings, with about the proficiency which would beshown by the same number of entirely raw recruits, and with the sameproportion of the most obvious blunderings that used to be exhibited bythe "slab-companies" at the "general trainings" or "general musters" inthe country sections, when a lamentable caricature upon military spiritwas kept up, in the years following the War of 1812.

  Not a musket was to be seen in the hands of one of these men, except thefew sentries. They "had not been furnished," as the explanation was sureto be given afterwards when the regiment was discovered to be anundisciplined mob! They would probably not be "furnished" until just atthe moment when the regiment should be forced to move, and then theywould be put into hands liable to be called on to use them in battlewithin a week--those hands knowing no more of the management of thedeadly instrument of modern warfare, than so many Sioux or South SeaIslanders might have known of watch-making or extracting the cube-root.

  And yet with these men, and in this manner, the armies of the republicwere being recruited; and on the deeds in arms wrought by these men,possibly in the very first c
onflict into which they were rushed likehuddled sheep, the eyes of the military nations of Europe were to beturned with anxious interest. They were to fight, too, against a race ofmen to whom deadly weapons had been familiar from childhood, and whowould consequently make soldiers, to the full extent of theircapability, with one-half the training which was to these Northern menan absolute necessity! Is it any wonder that we have occasionally metwith a Bull Run or a Second Field of Manassas, with this shameful wasteof our opportunities and our war-material?

  Smith and Brown left "Camp Lyon," before the completion of the "dressparade," with a him consciousness of being painfully disenchanted in avery important particular.

  "Do you know, Smith" said Brown, as they were rolling along in the car,homeward--"that I doubt whether there are three hundred men in thatregiment, absentees and all--instead of seven hundred as the papersreport?"

  "Humph," said Smith, "it seems to be all a humbug together! But I wonderwhat becomes of the extra pay issued to seven hundred men, when thereare only three hundred entitled to receive it? And I wonder what becomesof all the extra rations that are drawn for them every day? Somebodymust be making something out of it--eh? I wonder if there are any moreregiments in the same condition?"

  "Probably!" said Brown. Whereupon the two citizens fell into a very deepand silent train of thought, leaving us no additional speech to record.

  Other people than Smith, at about that time, felt like propounding thesame queries as to the disposition of extra pay and rations. Some ofthose queries, which _have_ been propounded, have not yet been answered.When they are, if that happy period ever arrives, we may know somethingmore of the channels and sluices through which the wealth of the richestnation on the globe has ebbed away, leaving such inconsiderable resultsto show for the expenditure.

  And yet Colonel Egbert Crawford, visiting the city two hours afterwards,and dropping in at two or three favorite resorts of men who talkedhorse, war and politics, on his way to the house of his cousin,--borehimself bravely under his weight of uniform, and more than once threw ina pardonable boast over the services he was rendering the country, thesacrifices he was making, and the rapid growth and efficiency of the TwoHundredth Regiment.

  "All brass is not fashioned and moulded in foundries, where men doswelter like to those standing in the flames of the fiery furnace," saysan old writer, Arnold of Thorndean, "but much of it doth become shapedin the human countenance."