by Charles King
CHAPTER XX.
In the month that followed the panic and disaster of Bull Run the nationseemed to realize at last what was before it. "Little Mac," the idol ofthe soldiery, had been summoned to Washington to organize and commandthe rapidly arriving regiments of volunteers,--splendid regiments fromall over the Northland, and though the flag of rebellion waved onMunson's Hill, in full view of the unfinished dome of the Capitol, andevery afternoon the Southern bands played "Dixie," in full hearing ofthe guards to the approaches of the Long Bridge, the Southern generalswere wise and refrained from farther advance.
Within that month, too, almost all the officers and many of the menreported missing after the battle were accounted for. Many turned upsafe and sound, if much "demoralized." Many were heard of as at Libbyand Belle Isle, the Richmond prisons, but not one word of any kind camefrom Major Stark, not a thing could be learned of his devoted orderly,appointed corporal, said the survivors of Stark's battalion, the verymorning of the battle. The New-Englanders had gone home with the thanksof the President and Secretary of War for their gallant conduct at thebattle, and their faithful service days after their time had expired.The gray-haired colonel, though still unable to remount and take commandin the field, had been made a brigadier-general. Flint reappeared at thefront as lieutenant-colonel of the reorganized regiment. Everybody saidthat Major Stark would have been made its colonel had he survived.
In Gotham there was grief in many a household, but there was trouble inthe Lawrences'. Poor Mrs. Park, as was to be expected, could give themlittle peace. "Everybody" now knew that the youthful captor, so laudedin the papers, of the young Confederate cavalryman was the George Lawtonwho had fled from Aunt Lawrence's roof rather than listen to moreupbraidings. Mrs. Park had first gone wild with pride, exultation, anddelight when the Monday morning _Herald_ reached her,--and then to NewYork and Aunt Lawrence the very next day. And there she learned thelater news, and stayed a dreadful fortnight, dreadful for herself andeverybody else. One thing, at least, was comfort to the younger sister,and comfort she certainly needed now,--the mother steadfastly refused tobelieve her boy was dead. What she wished to do and what perhaps shewould have done, but that her husband came and forbade, was to go toWashington and lay siege to the War Department. Mrs. Park could see nojust reason why the government should not send forth a strong column toscour and scourge Virginia until "the Mother of the Presidents"surrendered her boy. School was closed for the summer. The First Latinhad passed its examinations, matriculated at Columbia, and was to startas freshmen in the fall, minus two members at least, Hoover, who hadapparently abandoned his academic career, and had not been seen aroundNew York, and Briggs, ignominiously "flunked" at the examination. Twoothers of its list were spoken of as duly admitted should they return tothe fold in time to enter with the class,--Snipe Lawton and ShortyPrime. Where the first was no one could conjecture. Where the second waseverybody knew, as Shorty took good care they should, if letters couldaccomplish it. There wasn't a happier lad in all the lines aroundWashington as August wore on, and the army "got its second wind"--andreinforcements. Short and small as he was, he rode as big a horse asanybody, and had reached almost the pinnacle of his boyish ambitions. Hehad been made mounted orderly at brigade head-quarters, and could ask nomore, except that Snipe should know, and Snipe should turn up safe andsound.
The Doctor's wisdom had prevailed. The scare that followed Shorty'sdisappearance was short as he. Ellsworth was organizing the Fire Zouavesat the time, and the lad, in longing and misery and in envy of Snipe'sinches, had stolen away to the old haunt at "40's" house down in ElmStreet to beg the boys to tell their enthusiastic young colonel how wellhe could drum and how mad he was to go. He was home again by midnight,and late to school and lax in conduct and lessons the following day. Itwas all settled within a week, and as the Doctor had advised, and almostcrazy with joy the youngster was hurried on to the capital to join hissoldier kindred, was welcomed and set to work to teach other and biggerboys the army calls and beats for the snare-drum, and then, along inAugust, the general, for whom he had run many an errand and deliveredmany a message, ordered him to duty at head-quarters and set him insaddle.
Then presently McClellan found himself strong enough to risk a slightforward movement, and two brigades crossed the Potomac one night in faceof the pickets at Chain Bridge, and, hardly waiting for dawn, begantossing up earthworks on the heights beyond, and here the saucy rebelscame and "felt" the pickets and, riding through the wood lanes, madesome effort to dislodge them, but there was evidently heavy force behindthose strong picket-posts, and though rifles and revolvers were poppingday and night all along the guarded lines from the Potomac belowAlexandria to the Potomac above Chain Bridge, no real attempt was madeby the "Johnnies" to push through at any point. Night after night, atfirst, gay young gallants from the Southern lines would mount theirhorses and ride out ahead just to "stir up the Yanks," and then therewould be no end of a bobbery along the front, picket firing in everydirection and the long roll in every camp, and everybody would turn outunder arms and form line on the designated parade-ground, and stand andshiver and say unpublishable and improper things for an hour or more,and then go back to bed disgusted. After a week or so at this thecolonels would no longer form line, but let the companies muster intheir respective streets in camp, and the long waits were reduced to anhour, and then to a half, and in course of a fortnight it becamedifficult even to rouse a drummer when the long roll was actuallyordered. And when the sputter and crackle of musketry began far out atthe picket-posts in the dead hours of the night, men in camp would rollover and grunt something to the effect that those fellows were makingdashed fools of themselves again. And so by the end of August it becamea sign of "scare" or "nerves" when pickets began firing at night, andwhen Shorty's brigade took post along those densely wooded heights andhad got fairly shaken down to business, matters at the front, out towardthe hamlet of Lewinsville and the lanes to Vienna and Ball'sCross-Roads, became almost professionally placid and disciplined, andthe lad was in a sort of military seventh heaven, trotting about withorders and despatches, recognized and passed without check at almostall the posts of the main guards, where even officers below certaingrades had to show their permits, welcomed at every regimental camp forthe news and gossip he could bring,--ay, and it must be owned, for itemsmuch more stimulating than even the latest rumors from the WarDepartment, for Shorty was many a time the bearer of despatches toMcClellan's head-quarters or the office of some high dignitary in thecity, and his saddle-bags were never inspected by provost-marshals andpatrols, and, now that the sutlers were forbidden to sell the fieryliquids of the first weeks of the war, many a flask of forbidden"commissary" found its way to some favored tent among the brigade lines,and in return, when Sergeant This or Corporal That was out on picket,the lad was sure of friends at court when he strove for a peep outsidethe lines, and one of his absorbing crazes was to ascertain what mightbe going on around that mysterious hamlet, nearly two miles out there inthe lovely Virginia slopes beyond the pickets.
The fact is that Shorty was consumed with ambition to "do something"like Snipe. He envied his former chum the distinction of that capture ofLieutenant Grayson infinitely more than he envied "Little Mac" thecommand of the army. Just to think that the first Confederate officercaught in front of Washington should turn out to be a first cousin ofthe very Graysons who were with them at school! Just to think that itshould be Snipe of all others--Snipe, a First Latin boy--to make thecapture! Just to think that Snipe should have been all through Bull Run,while he, Shorty, was far to the rear where he could only hear thethunder of the guns and the tales of the stragglers! Just to think thatthe old men in the reorganized New-Englanders declared that Snipe wasthe best soldier in the ranks of Company "C" if he was theyoungest!--Snipe who couldn't shoot a gun six months ago withoutshutting his eyes, and who would rather fish all day or figure outequations than follow the band of the Seventh itself! Just to think thatthe old colonel's written report of Bull Run shou
ld include among thefew names of those deserving especial credit and commendation that ofCorporal George Lawton, Company "C," "who sacrificed himself in theheroic effort to save Major Stark from death or capture, and was lastseen fighting hard over his prostrate body,"--Snipe who used to turnsick at sight of a fist fight, even though he was the "bulliest" firstbaseman the Uncas ever had.
Time and again the general's diminutive orderly would ride to ColonelFlint to inquire if any news had been heard, and to talk with the oldmen of Company "C" about his chum. There were two drawbacks to this. Itbegan to bore Flint, who felt a trifle jealous of the praises sung ofStark, and it gave the New-Englanders abundant opportunity to chaff thelad about his old friends, the Fire Zouaves, whose conduct ormisconduct at Bull Run was the subject of the derision of the "steady"regiments of the army. It wasn't that the "b'hoys" lacked nerve,stamina, courage. They had lost their soldierly little colonel, shotdead by a fanatic the very day they entered Alexandria. There was no oneto discipline them, with Ellsworth gone, and the bravest men in theworld are of no account in battle except when acting in disciplinedunison. Other regiments ran down that hill as hard as did the FireZouaves, and without half the provocation; but everybody pitched on thered shirts and made them the scapegoats because they had come with sucha tremendous swagger and had boasted so much. Shorty believed in his oldfriends and stood up for them, and lost his temper and said things tothe New-Englanders in turn that they didn't like. "How came it that youcould stand and see your major down with a dozen rebs around him andmake no effort at rescue?" he demanded, and this was a home thrust thatmade many men wince, and at last it leaked out somehow, as such thingswill, that none of the left wing saw or heard of it until too late. Thesmoke was thick. They were falling back as ordered, but the seniorcaptain had been wounded and sent to the rear. Flint was acting as wingcommander, and when two companies on the right begged their officers,after the confusion, to let them rush back and bring off the major,Flint himself refused. "We have lost far more now than our share," hesaid, "and the general orders us back."
And still there lived among the New-Englanders that abiding faith thatthe honored major was not dead and would yet be heard from. "And when heis," said Shorty, "you can bet your buttons Snipe and Sergeant Keatingwill prove to be the ones that pulled him out, and they were firemen."
The fact of the matter is that Shorty was getting "too big for hisboots," as Colonel Flint began to say. He was indulged and spoiled tosuch an extent by guards and sentries around Chain Bridge, greeted socordially by generals and colonels, and hailed with such confidentfamiliarity by the line, that the youngster's head was probably not alittle inflated. He was getting "cheeky," said a spectacledadjutant-general of a neighboring brigade. "He talks too much," saidstaff-officers about their own head-quarters. "He'll run up againstsomebody some day that'll take the shine off him if he isn't morecareful with that big horse of his," said a certain few, who hated ahorseman on general principles; and this proved a true prediction.
The big bay ridden by Shorty had a very hard mouth, and when once he gotgoing it was a most difficult thing to stop him. Galloping about theneighborhood of Chain Bridge, where almost everybody knew the youngsteras the general's orderly, it made little difference (although an irateGreen Mountain boy of Baldy Smith's brigade did threaten to bayonet himif he ever galloped over his post again); so, too, on the road toWashington, where permanent guards were placed at different points.But, to put an end to straggling and visiting town without authority,the provost-marshal had taken to sending patrols here, there, andeverywhere in Georgetown and Washington with orders to halt everysoldier and examine his pass. The regular infantry, now recruited to awar footing, were assigned, much to their disgust, to patrol duty. Anumber of new regiments of regulars were being raised. A number of theNew York Seventh and other crack regiments of the militia reappeared atthe front with the uniforms and commissions of lieutenants in theregular army. It even happened that not a few young fellows who hadnever even served in the militia, and who knew nothing whatever of dutyor discipline of any kind, had secured through family or politicalinfluence, which the administration was glad to cultivate, commissionsdenied to better men, and these young fellows were now wearing theirfirst swords, sashes, and shoulder-straps in the onerous duty of runningdown the merry-makers from surrounding camps, who, dodging the guards,had managed to make a way to town.
One night there came a heavy storm, and down went the telegraph line.Morning broke, radiant after the deluge. The Potomac had risen in itsmight and swept away some bridge and crib work as well as certainpontoons. The general wrote a despatch to army head-quarters, and calledup Shorty. "Gallop with that," said he, "and don't stop for anything."
What the general meant was, don't stop for breakfast or nonsense, butthe lad took it literally. He and "Badger" were a sight to behold whenthey came tearing into the main street of Georgetown about eighto'clock. Badger was blowing a bit, after laboring through nearly fivemiles of thick mud, but, once he struck the cobble-stones and sent thelast lumps of clay flying behind him, he took a new grip on the bit andlunged ahead as though on a race for his life, Shorty sitting him closeand riding "hands down" and head too, his uniform besmeared, but hisgrit and wind untouched.
Out came the regulars at the second cross street. "Halt! Halt!" were theshouted orders, but Shorty's instructions were to stop for nothing, andhe couldn't stop short of three blocks anyhow, no matter how much hemight want to. Past the first soldiers he shot like a dart, but theiryells resounded down the avenue, and out came others,--too late at thesecond crossing but formidably prompt at the third. Two of them levelledtheir bayonets, a third making ready to leap at the reins. In vainShorty reached in his saddle-bag and brandished his papers and yelled,"Despatch for General McClellan! Ordered not to stop!" The soldierscould not or would not understand, so he had to lie back and tug at thereins; but "Badger" only pricked up his ears at sight of the humanobstacles, and when six great strides brought him close to them, made amagnificent dash to one side, and left them raging behind. But now allthe avenue seemed alive with blue coats and bayonets. A dozen men linedup at the next crossing, and with a sob of rage and dismay, Shortyrealized that they'd bayonet Badger rather than let him defy orders, andso, with all his might and main he pulled, and at last, plunging,panting, heaving, and sweating, the splendid brute was brought to ahalt, two or three big Irish infantrymen at his head, while, scowlingand threatening, others came thronging around him.
"Come down aff the top o' dthat harrse!" shouted a Milesian veteran whoknew his trade.
"Despatches for General McClellan! Most important!" panted Shorty."Ordered not to lose a minute----"
"Ah-h-h! none av yer guff! Who'd be sendin' anything 'portant by thelikes av you? Tumble off, Tom Thumb!" and the sergeant had seized theofficial envelope and was trying to lug it away.
"Don't you dare touch that!" almost screamed the lad. "I tell you, I'm ageneral's orderly!"
But for answer the sergeant thrust a brawny hand under the hoodedstirrup, and with sudden hoist sent Shorty tumbling over to the otherside. Furious at the indignity, he grasped the mane and let drive askilful and well-aimed kick at the Irishman's head, which the latterducked and dodged only in the nick of time. More patrolmen came runningto the spot,--corporals and sergeants whose orders had beendefied,--and in less than a minute the bumptious youngster was draggedfrom his horse and led fuming to the sidewalk, just as there appeared atthe doorway of the corner building the spruce and dapper figure of theyouthful officer of the guard, his uniform spick and span, his sash andsword and gloves of the daintiest make.
"Now, then, you young tarrier, make yer manners an' tell yer lies to yerbetthers!" said the big sergeant, half grinning as he spoke, his hand onShorty's collar all the time. The throng of soldiers gave way right andleft, their white-gloved left hands striking the promptly shoulderedmuskets in salute to their young superior, and then, covered with mud,flushed with wrath and the sense of his wrongs, writhing in the grasp of
his captor, Shorty Prime stood staring into the pallid features, theshifting, beady eyes, the twitching, bluish lips of the butt of theFirst Latin and the whole school,--Polyblasphemous in the garb of asecond lieutenant of the regular infantry.
Dead silence for a moment, then,--
"Put him in the cell," said Hoover, and turned loftily away.
