In course of time they saw a great
deal of “the army,” which meant
the Confederates. The idea that the Yankees could
ever get to Oakland never entered any one’s
head. It was understood that the army lay between
Oakland and them, and surely they could never get by
the innumerable soldiers who were always passing up
one road or the other, and who, day after day and
night after night, were coming to be fed, and were
rapidly eating up everything that had been left on
the place. By the end of the first year they
had been coming so long that they made scarcely any
difference; but the first time a regiment camped in
the neighborhood it created great excitement.
It became known one night that a cavalry
regiment, in which were several of their cousins,
was encamped at Honeyman’s Bridge, and the boys’
mother determined to send a supply of provisions for
the camp next morning; so several sheep were killed,
the smoke-house was opened, and all night long the
great fires in the kitchen and wash-house glowed;
and even then there was not room, so that a big fire
was kindled in the back yard, beside which saddles
of mutton were roasted in the tin kitchens. Everybody
was “rushing.”
The boys were told that they might
go to see the soldiers, and as they had to get off
long before daylight, they went to bed early, and left
all “the other boys” that is,
Peter and Cole and other colored children squatting
about the fires and trying to help the cooks to pile
on wood.
It was hard to leave the exciting scene.
They were very sleepy the next morning;
indeed, they seemed scarcely to have fallen asleep
when Lucy Ann shook them; but they jumped up without
the usual application of cold water in their faces,
which Lucy Ann so delighted to make; and in a little
while they were out in the yard, where Balla was standing
holding three horses, their mother’s
riding-horse; another with a side-saddle for their
Cousin Belle, whose brother was in the regiment; and
one for himself, and Peter and Cole were
holding the carriage-horses for the boys, and several
other men were holding mules.
Great hampers covered with white napkins
were on the porch, and the savory smell decided the
boys not to eat their breakfast, but to wait and take
their share with the soldiers.
The roads were so bad that the carriage
could not go; and as the boys’ mother wished
to get the provisions to the soldiers before they broke
camp, they had to set out at once. In a few minutes
they were all in the saddle, the boys and their mother
and Cousin Belle in front, and Balla and the other
servants following close behind, each holding before
him a hamper, which looked queer and shadowy as they
rode on in the darkness.
The sky, which was filled with stars
when they set out, grew white as they splashed along
mile after mile through the mud. Then the road
became clearer; they could see into the woods, and
the sky changed to a rich pink, like the color of
peach-blossoms. Their horses were covered with
mud up to the saddle-skirts. They turned into
a lane only half a mile from the bridge, and, suddenly,
a bugle rang out down in the wooded bottom below them,
and the boys hardly could be kept from putting their
horses to a run, so fearful were they that the soldiers
were leaving, and that they should not see them.
Their mother, however, told them that this was probably
the reveille, or “rising-bell,” of the
soldiers. She rode on at a good sharp canter,
and the boys were diverting themselves over a discussion
as to who would act the part of Lucy Ann in waking
the regiment of soldiers, when they turned a curve,
and at the end of the road, a few hundred yards ahead,
stood several horsemen.
“There they are,” exclaimed both boys.
“No, that is a picket,”
said their mother; “gallop on, Frank, and tell
them we are bringing breakfast for the regiment.”
Frank dashed ahead, and soon they
saw a soldier ride forward to meet him, and, after
a few words, return with him to his comrades.
Then, while they were still a hundred yards distant,
they saw Frank, who had received some directions,
start off again toward the bridge, at a hard gallop.
The picket had told him to go straight on down the
hill, and he would find the camp just the other side
of the bridge. He accordingly rode on, feeling
very important at being allowed to go alone to the
camp on such a mission.
As he reached a turn in the road,
just above the river, the whole regiment lay swarming
below him among the large trees on the bank of the
little stream. The horses were picketed to bushes
and stakes, in long rows, the saddles lying on the
ground, not far off; and hundreds of men were moving
about, some in full uniform and others without coat
or vest. A half-dozen wagons with sheets on them
stood on one side among the trees, near which several
fires were smoking, with men around them.
As Frank clattered up to the bridge,
a soldier with a gun on his arm, who had been standing
by the railing, walked out to the middle of the bridge.
“Halt! Where are you going
in such a hurry, my young man?” he said.
“I wish to see the colonel,”
said Frank, repeating as nearly as he could the words
the picket had told him.
“What do you want with him?”
Frank was tempted not to tell him;
but he was so impatient to deliver his message before
the others should arrive, that he told him what he
had come for.
“There he is,” said the
sentinel, pointing to a place among the trees where
stood at least five hundred men.
Frank looked, expecting to recognize
the colonel by his noble bearing, or splendid uniform,
or some striking marks.
“Where?” he asked, in
doubt; for while a number of the men were in uniform,
he knew these to be privates.
“There,” said the sentry,
pointing; “by that stump, near the yellow horse-blanket.”
Frank looked again. The only
man he could fix upon by the description was a young
fellow, washing his face in a tin basin, and he felt
that this could not be the colonel; but he did not
like to appear dull, so he thanked the man and rode
on, thinking he would go to the point indicated, and
ask some one else to show him the officer.
He felt quite grand as he rode in
among the men, who, he thought, would recognize his
importance and treat him accordingly; but, as he passed
on, instead of paying him the respect he had expected,
they began to guy him with all sorts of questions.
“Hullo, bud, going to jine the
cavalry?” asked one. “Which is oldest;
you or your horse?” inquired another.
“How’s pa and
ma?” “Does your mother know you’re
out?” asked others. One soldier walked
up, and putting his hand on the bridle, proceeded
affably to ask him after his health, and that of every
member of his family. At first Frank did not
understand that they were making fun of him, but it
dawned on him when the man asked him solemnly:
“Are there any Yankees around,
that you were running away so fast just now?”
“No; if there were I’d
never have found you here,” said Frank,
shortly, in reply; which at once turned the tide in
his favor and diverted the ridicule from himself to
his teaser, who was seized by some of his comrades
and carried off with much laughter and slapping on
the back.
“I wish to see Colonel Marshall,”
said Frank, pushing his way through the group that
surrounded him, and riding up to the man who was still
occupied at the basin on the stump.
“All right, sir, I’m the
man,” said the individual, cheerily looking
up with his face dripping and rosy from its recent
scrubbing.
“You the colonel!” exclaimed
Frank, suspicious that he was again being ridiculed,
and thinking it impossible that this slim, rosy-faced
youngster, who was scarcely stouter than Hugh, and
who was washing in a tin basin, could be the commander
of all these soldierly-looking men, many of whom were
old enough to be his father.
“Yes, I’m the lieutenant-colonel.
I’m in command,” said the gentleman, smiling
at him over the towel.
Something made Frank understand that
this was really the officer, and he gave his message,
which was received with many expressions of thanks.
“Won’t you get down?
Here, Campbell, take this horse, will you?” he
called to a soldier, as Frank sprang from his horse.
The orderly stepped forward and took the bridle.
“Now, come with me,” said
the colonel, leading the way. “We must get
ready to receive your mother. There are some ladies
coming and breakfast,” he called
to a group who were engaged in the same occupation
he had just ended, and whom Frank knew by instinct
to be officers.
The information seemed to electrify
the little knot addressed; for they began to rush
around, and in a few moments they all were in their
uniforms, and surrounding the colonel, who, having
brushed his hair with the aid of a little glass hung
on a bush, had hurried into his coat and was buckling
on his sword and giving orders in a way which at once
satisfied Frank that he was every inch a colonel.
“Now let us go and receive your
mother,” said he to the boy. As he strode
through the camp with his coat tightly buttoned, his
soft hat set jauntily on the side of his head, his
plumes sweeping over its side, and his sword clattering
at his spurred heel, he presented a very different
appearance from that which he had made a little before,
with his head in a tin basin, and his face covered
with lather. In fact, Colonel Marshall was already
a noted officer, and before the end of the war he
attained still higher rank and reputation.
The colonel met the rest of the party
at the bridge, and introduced himself and several
officers who soon joined him. The negroes were
directed to take the provisions over to the other side
of the stream into the camp, and in a little while
the whole regiment were enjoying the breakfast.
The boys and their mother had at the colonel’s
request joined his mess, in which was one of their
cousins, the brother of their cousin Belle.
The gentlemen could eat scarcely anything,
they were so busy attending to the wants of the ladies.
The colonel, particularly, waited on their cousin
Belle all the time.
As soon as they had finished the colonel
left them, and a bugle blew. In a minute all
was bustle. Officers were giving orders; horses
were saddled and brought out; and by what seemed magic
to the boys, the men, who just before were scattered
about among the trees laughing and eating, were standing
by their horses all in proper order. The colonel
and the officers came and said good-bye.
Again the bugle blew. Every man
was in his saddle. A few words by the colonel,
followed by other words from the captains, and the
column started, turning across the bridge, the feet
of the horses thundering on the planks. Then
the regiment wound up the hill at a walk, the men
singing snatches of a dozen songs of which “The
Bonnie Blue Flag,” “Lorena,” and
“Carry Me Back to Old Virginia Shore,”
were the chief ones.
It seemed to the boys that to be a
soldier was the noblest thing on earth; and that this
regiment could do anything.