The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army: A Story of the Great Rebellion, - [story reading .TXT] 📗

I’m going again! Fred and I mean to have a good time to-day. Will you go?”

“Have you got a pass?”

“A pass! What a stupid! What do you want of a pass? You can’t get one. They won’t give any.”

“Then we can’t go, of course.”

“Bah! What a great calf you are! Don’t you want to cry again?”

“Ben, you needn’t say cry to me again as long as you live,” added Tom. “If you do, I’ll give you something to cry for.”

Tom did not like the style of remark which the other had adopted. He was angry, and, as he spoke, his fist involuntarily clinched, and his eye looked fierce and determined.

“Come, come, Tom; don’t bristle up so. If you are a man, just show that you are, and come along with us.”

“I say, Ben, I want to know who’s a baby or a calf, you or I, before we go, I won’t stand any more of your lip.”

“Will you go with us?” demanded Ben, who was rather disposed to dodge the issue.

“What do you mean by calling me a calf and a baby? And this isn’t the first time you’ve done it.”

“Don’t you know that every man in the regiment has been all over the city, and without any pass? When I ask you to go, you begin to talk about a pass.”

“I choose to obey orders,” replied Tom.

“O, you daresn’t go with us.”

“Come along!” said Tom, who had not yet learned to bear the taunts of his companion.

“Get your pail.”

Tom got his pail, and was immediately joined by Fred and Ben, each of whom was also supplied with a pail. There was no water to be had within the camp ground, and the men were obliged to bring it in pails from the hydrants in the street. A pail, therefore, was quite as good as a written document to enable them to pass the guard.

The party thus provided had no difficulty in passing the sentinels. At a convenient place outside the line, they concealed the pails, and, for three hours, roamed at will over the city.

“Now, Tom, you wanted to see the congressmen?” said Ben, after they had “done” the city pretty thoroughly.

“Yes, but I have seen them at the Capitol.”

“But don’t you want to get nearer to them, and hear them talk?”

“Well, I should like to.”

“Come with us, then.”

Ben led the way down the avenue, and entered a building not far from the railroad station. After passing through a long, narrow entry, they ascended a flight of stairs, at the head of which the conductor gave two raps. The door was opened by a negro, and they were invited to enter. At a table in the middle of the room was seated a foppish-looking man who held in his hand a silver box. As he turned it, Tom saw that it contained a pack of cards.

“Where are your congressmen?” asked the soldier boy, whose eyes had been opened by the appearance of the cards.

“They will be here pretty soon,” replied Ben.

The foppish man looked at his watch, and declared they would come in the course of five or ten minutes. He then took the cards out of the box, and, after shuffling them, returned them to their place. Fred placed a “quarter” on the table; the gambler put another by its side, and drew out a card from the silver case. Tom did not understand the game; but his companion put the quarters in his pocket.

“See that, Tom!” said he. “Got any money?”

“If I have I shall keep it.”

“Put down a quarter, and make another.”

“No, sir! I’m no gambler!” replied Tom, with emphasis.

“Quite respectable, I assure you,” added the blackleg at the table.

“I’m going,” said Tom, decidedly.

“Baby!” sneered Ben. “Afraid to play!”

“I won’t play! I’m going.”

The negro opened the door, and he passed out. Contrary to his expectation, he was followed by Fred and Ben.

“Baby is afraid of cards!” sneered Ben, as they passed through the long entry.

“Afraid of cards, but not afraid of you,” replied Tom, as he planted a heavy blow between the eyes of his companion.

Ben Lethbridge returned the blow, and it cost him another, and there was a prospect of quite a lively skirmish in the entry; but Fred Pemberton interposed his good offices, and effected a compromise, which, like most of the political compromises, was only the postponement of the conflict.

“I told you not to call me ‘baby,’ again,” said Tom, as they passed out of the building. “I will convince you before I am done that I’m not a baby.”

Ben found it convenient to offer no reply to this plain statement of facts, and the three soldiers made their way back to the camp, and, having obtained their pails and filled them with water at the hydrants, they passed the guard without a question.

Chapter XII. On to Richmond.

Return to Table of Contents

It so happened that Ben Lethbridge, probably satisfied that it was not the fist of a baby which had partially blackened both of his eyes, and produced a heavy pain under his left ear, did not demand the satisfaction which was needed to heal his wounded honor. The matter was duly discussed in the tent of Tom’s mess; but our soldier boy, while he professed to be entirely satisfied, was willing to meet Ben at such time and place as he desired, and finish up the affair.

The other party was magnanimous, and declared that he too was satisfied; and old Hapgood thought they had better proceed no further with the affair, for both of them might be arrested for disorderly conduct.

“I am satisfied, Ben; but if you ever call me a baby or a calf again, it will all have to be settled over again,” said Tom, as he laid aside his musket, which he had been cleaning during the conversation.

“I don’t want to quarrel with you, Tom,” replied Ben, “but I wish you would be a little more like the rest of the fellows.”

“What do you mean by that? I am like the rest of the fellows.”

“You wouldn’t play cards.”

“Yes, I will play cards, but I won’t gamble; and there isn’t many fellows in the company that will.”

“That’s so,” added Hapgood. “I know all about that business. When I went to Mexico, I lost my money as fast as I got it, playing cards. Don’t gamble, boys.”

“I won’t, for one,” said Tom, with emphasis.

“Are you going to set up for a soldier-saint, too?” sneered Ben, turning to the old man.

“I’m no saint, but I’ve larned better than to gamble.”

“I think you’d better stop drinking too,” added Ben.

“Come, Ben, you are meaner than dirt,” said Tom, indignantly.

Old Hapgood was a confirmed toper. The people in Pinchbrook said he was a good man, but, they used to add, with a shrug of the shoulders, “pity he drinks.” It was a sad pity, but he seemed to have no power over his appetite. The allusion of Ben to his besetting sin was cruel and mortifying, for the old man had certainly tried to reform, and since the regiment left Boston, he had not tasted the intoxicating cup. He had declared before the mess that he had stopped drinking; so his resolution was known to all his companions, though none of them had much confidence in his ability to carry it out.

“I didn’t speak to you, Tom Somers,” said Ben, sharply.

“You said a mean thing in my presence.”

“By and by we shall be having a prayer meeting in our tent every night.”

“If you are invited I hope you will come,” added Tom, “for if prayers will do any body any good, they won’t hurt you.”

“If you will take care of yourself, and let me alone, it’s all I ask of you.”

“I’m agreed.”

This was about the last of the skirmishing between Tom and Ben. The latter was a little disposed to be bully; and from the time the company left Pinchbrook, he had been in the habit of calling Tom a baby, and other opprobrious terms, till the subject of his sneers could endure them no longer. Tom had come to the conclusion that he could obtain respectful treatment only by the course he had adopted. Perhaps, if he had possessed the requisite patience, he might have attained the same result by a less repulsive and more noble policy.

The regiment remained in Washington about a fortnight. The capital was no longer considered to be in danger. A large body of troops had been massed in and around the city, and the rebels’ boast that they would soon capture Washington was no longer heeded. Fear and anxiety had given place to hope and expectation. “On to Richmond!” was the cry sounded by the newspapers, and repeated by the people. The army of newly-fledged soldiers was burning with eagerness to be led against the rebels. “On to Richmond!” shouted citizens and soldiers, statesmen and politicians. Some cursed and some deprecated the cautious slowness of the old general who had never been defeated.

“On to Richmond!” cried the boys in Tom’s regiment, and none more earnestly than he.

“Don’t hurry old Scott. He knows what he is about. I know something about this business, for I’ve seen old Scott where the bullets flew thicker’n snow flakes at Christmas,” was the oft-repeated reply of Hapgood, the veteran of Company K.

The movement which had been so long desired and expected was made at last, and the regiment struck its tents, and proceeded over Long Bridge into Virginia. The first camp was at Shuter’s Hill, near Alexandria.

“Now we are in for it,” said Tom Somers, when the mess gathered in their tent after the camp was formed. “I hope we shall not remain here long.”

“Don’t be in a hurry, my brave boy,” said old Hapgood. “We may stop here a month.”

“I hope not.”

“Don’t hope anything about it, Tom. Take things as they come.”

But the impatience of the soldier boy was soon relieved; for at daylight on the morning of the 16th of July, the regiment was routed out, the tents were struck, and at nine o’clock they took up the line of march to the southward. It was “on to Richmond,” in earnest, now, and merrily marched the men, who little knew what trials and sufferings, what scenes of blood and death, lay in their path.

The little colonel’s command had been put in Franklin’s brigade, which formed a part of Heintzelman’s division; but little did Tom or his fellow-soldiers know of anything but their own regiment. The “sacred soil” of Virginia seemed to be covered with Federal soldiers, and whichever way he turned, columns of troops might be seen, all obedient to the one grand impulse of the loyal nation—“On to Richmond.”

The great wagons, gun carriages, and caissons rolling slowly along, the rattling drums, with here and there the inspiring strains of a band, the general officers, with their staffs, were full of interest and excitement to the soldier boy; and though the business before him was stern and terrible, yet it seemed like some great pageant, moving grandly along to celebrate, rather than win, a glorious triumph.

The novelty of the movement, however, soon wore away, and it required only a few hours to convince the inexperienced soldiers in our regiment that it was no idle pageant in which they were engaged. The short intervals of rest which were occasionally allowed were moments to be appreciated. All day long they toiled upon their weary way, praying for the night to come, with its coveted hours of repose. The night did come, but it brought no rest to the weary and footsore soldiers.

Tom was terribly fatigued. His knapsack, which had been light upon his buoyant frame in the morning, now seemed to weigh two hundred pounds, while his musket had grown proportionally heavy. Hour after hour, in the darkness of that gloomy night, he trudged on, keeping his place in the ranks with a resolution which neither the long hours nor the weary miles could break down.

“I can’t stand this much longer,” whined Ben Lethbridge. “I shall drop pretty soon, and die by the roadside.”

“No, you won’t,” added Hapgood. “Stick to it a little while longer; never say die.”

“I can’t stand it.”

“Yes, you can. Only think you can, and you can,” added the veteran.

“What do they think we are made of? We can’t march all day and all night. I wish I was at home.”

“I wish I hadn’t come,” said Fred Pemberton.

“Cheer up! cheer up, boys. Stick to it a little longer,” said the veteran.

It was three o’clock the next morning before they were permitted to halt, when the boys rolled themselves up in their blankets, and dropped upon the ground. It was positive enjoyment to Tom, and he felt happy; for rest was happiness when the body was all worn out. A thought of the cottage and of his mother crossed his mind, and he dropped asleep to dream of the joys of home.

Short and sweet was that blessed time of rest; for at four o’clock, after only one brief hour of