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

home and those that make it home, like the last fond gaze we bestow on the loved and the lost, was treasured up in the garner of the heart’s choicest memories, to be recalled in the solemn stillness of the midnight vigil, amid the horrors of the battle-field when the angry strife of arms had ceased, and in the gloom of the soldier’s sick bed when no mother’s hand was near to lave the fevered brow.

The moment when he obtained his last view of the home of his childhood seemed like the most eventful period of his existence. His heart grew big in his bosom, and yet not big enough to contain all he felt. He wept again, and his tears seemed to come from deeper down than his eyes. He did not hear the inspiring strains of the band, or the cheers that greeted the company as they went forth to do and die for their country’s imperilled cause.

“Blubbering again, Tom?” sneered Ben Lethbridge. “I thought you was more of a man than that, Tom Somers.”

“I can’t help it, Ben,” replied Tom, vainly struggling to subdue his emotions.

“Better go back, then. We don’t want a great baby in the ranks.”

“It’s nateral, Ben,” said old Hapgood. “He’ll get over it when he sees the rebels.”

“Don’t believe he will. I didn’t think you were such a great calf, Tom.”

“Shet up, now, Ben,” interposed Hapgood. “I’ll bet my life he’ll stand fire as well as you will. I’ve been about in the world some, and I reckon I’ve as good an idee of this business as you have. Tom’s got a heart under his ribs.”

“I’ll bet he runs away at the first fire.”

“I’ll bet he won’t.”

“I know I won’t!” exclaimed Tom, with energy, as he drew his coat sleeve across his eyes.

“It isn’t the cock that crows the loudest that will fight the best,” added the old man. “I’ll bet Tom will be able to tell you the latest news from the front, where the battle’s the hottest. I fit my way up to the city of Mexico long er old Scott, and I’ve heard boys crow afore today.”

“Look here, old un! If you mean to call me a coward, why don’t you say so, right up and down?” growled Ben.

“Time’ll tell, my boy. You don’t know what gunpowder smells like yet. If you’d been with the fust Pennsylvany, where I was, you’d a-known sunthin about war. Now, shet up, Ben; and don’t you worry Tom any more.”

But Tom was no longer in a condition to be worried. Though still sad at the thought of the home and friends he had left behind, he had reduced his emotions to proper subjection, and before the column reached Boston, he had even regained his wonted cheerfulness. The procession halted upon the wharf, where the company was to embark on a steamer for Fort Warren. As the boat which was to convey them to the fort had not yet arrived, the men were permitted to mingle with their friends on the wharf, and, of course, Tom immediately sought out his brother. He found him engaged in a spirited conversation with Captain Benson.

“What is it, Jack?” asked the soldier boy.

“I want to join this company, and the captain won’t let me,” replied John.

“You, Jack!”

“Yes, I.”

“Did mother say so?”

“No, but she won’t care.”

“Did you ask her?”

“No; I didn’t think of going till after I started from home.”

“Don’t think of it, Jack. It would be an awful blow to mother to have both of us go.”

For half an hour Tom argued the matter with John; but the military enthusiasm of the latter had been so aroused by the march and its attendant circumstances, that he could not restrain his inclination.

“If I don’t join this company, I shall some other,” said John.

“I shall have to go home again, if you do; for I won’t have mother left alone. We haven’t been mustered in yet. Besides, I thought you wanted to go into the navy.”

“I do; but I’m bound to go somehow,” replied John.

But what neither Tom nor Captain Benson could do, was accomplished by Captain Barney, who declared John should go home with him if he had to take him by the collar. The ardent young patriot yielded as gracefully as he could to this persuasion.

The steamer having arrived, the soldiers shook hands with their friends again, went on board, and, amid the hearty cheers of the citizens of Pinchbrook, were borne down the bay.

Chapter X. Company K.

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Tom Somers felt that he was now a soldier indeed. While the company remained in Pinchbrook, he had slept every night in his own bed, and taken his meals in the kitchen of the little cottage. He fully realized that he had bade a long farewell to all the comforts and luxuries of home. That day, for the first time, he was to partake of soldiers’ fare, and that night, for the first time, he was to sleep upon a soldier’s bed. These thoughts did not make him repine, for before he signed the muster roll, he had carefully considered, with the best information he could obtain, what hardships and privations he would be called to endure. He had made up his mind to bear all things without a murmur for the blessed land of his birth, which now called upon her sons to defend her from the parricidal blow of the traitor.

Tom had not only made up his mind to bear all these things, but to bear them patiently and cheerfully. He had a little theory of his own, that rather more than half of the discomforts of this mortal life exist only in the imagination. If he only thought that every thing was all right, it went a great way towards making it all right—a very comforting and satisfactory philosophy, which reduced the thermometer from ninety down to seventy degrees on a hot day in summer, and raised it from ten to forty degrees on a cold day in winter; which filled his stomach when it was empty, alleviated the toothache or the headache, and changed snarling babies into new-fledged angels. I commend Tom’s philosophy to the attention and imitation of all my young friends, assured that nothing will keep them so happy and comfortable as a cheerful and contented disposition.

“Tom Somers,” said a voice near him, cutting short the consoling meditation in which he was engaged.

His name was pronounced in a low and cautious tone, but the voice sounded familiar to him, and he turned to ascertain who had addressed him. He did not discover any person who appeared to be the owner of the voice, and was leaving the position he had taken on the forward deck of the steamer, when his name was repeated, in the same low and cautious tone.

“Who is it? Where are you?” said Tom, looking all about him, among the groups of soldiers who were gathered on various parts of the deck, discussing the present and the future.

“Here, Tom,” replied the voice, which sounded more familiar every time he heard it.

He turned his eye in the direction from which the sound proceeded, and there, coiled up behind a heap of barrels and boxes, and concealed by a sail-cloth which had been thrown over the goods to protect them from an expected shower, he discovered Fred Pemberton.

“What in the name of creation are you doing there, Fred?” exclaimed Tom, laughing at the ludicrous attitude of the embryo secessionist.

“Hush! Don’t say a word, Tom. Sit down here where I can talk with you,” added Fred.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’ll tell if you will keep quiet a moment. Is the company full?”

“What company?”

“Captain Benson’s, of course.”

“No.”

“I want to join.”

“You!” ejaculated Tom.

“Come, come, Tom, no blackguarding now. You and I used to be good friends.”

“I’ve nothing against you, Fred—that is, if you’re not a traitor.”

“I want to join the company.”

“Is your father willing?”

“Of course he isn’t; but that needn’t make any difference.”

“But you don’t believe in our cause, Fred. We don’t want a traitor in the ranks.”

“Hang the cause! I want to go with the company.”

“Hang the cause? Well, I reckon that’s a good recommendation.”

“I’m all right on that.”

“Are you willing to take the oath of allegiance, and swear to sustain the flag of your country?”

“Of course I am. I only followed the old man’s lead; but I have got enough of it. Do you think Captain Benson will take me into the company?”

“Perhaps he will.”

“Ask him—will you? You needn’t say I’m here, you know.”

“But what will your father say?”

“I don’t care what he says.”

Tom thought, if Fred didn’t care, he needn’t, and going aft, he found the captain, and proposed to him the question.

“Take him—yes. We’ll teach him loyalty and patriotism, and before his time is out, we will make him an abolitionist,” replied Captain Benson. “What will his father say?”

“His father doesn’t know anything about it. Fred ran away, and followed the company into the city.”

“Squire Pemberton is a traitor, and I believe the army will be the best school in the world for his son,” added the captain. “It will be better for him to be with us than to be at home. If it was the son of any other man in Pinchbrook, I wouldn’t take him without the consent of his father; as it is, I feel perfectly justified in accepting him.”

Tom hastened to the forward deck to report the success of his mission. The result was, that Fred came out of his hiding-place, and exhibited himself to the astonished members of the Pinchbrook company. When he announced his intention to go to the war, and, with a pardonable flourish, his desire to serve his country, he was saluted with a volley of cheers. Captain Benson soon appeared on the forward deck, and the name of the new recruit was placed on the enlistment paper.

Fred was seventeen years of age, and was taller and stouter than Tom Somers. No questions were asked in regard to his age or his physical ability to endure the hardships of a campaign.

The steamer arrived at Fort Warren, and the company landed. After waiting a short time on the wharf, the color company of the —th regiment, to which they were attached, came down and escorted them to the parade ground within the fort. It was a desolate and gloomy-looking place to Tom, who had always lived among green fields, and the beautiful surroundings of a New England rural district.

If the fort itself looked dreary, how much more so were the casemates in which the company was quartered! But Tom’s philosophy was proof against the unpleasant impression, and his joke was as loud and hearty as that of any of his companions. The men were divided off into messes, and they had an abundance of work to do in bringing up the company’s luggage, and making their new habitation as comfortable and pleasant as the circumstances would permit.

The next day the Pinchbrook boys were designated as Company K, and placed in the regimental line. The limits of this volume do not permit me to detail the every-day life of the soldier boy while at Fort Warren, however interesting and instructive it might be to our friends. A large portion of the forenoon was devoted to squad and company drill, and of the afternoon to battalion drill. The colonel, though a very diminutive man in stature, was an enthusiast in military matters, and had the reputation of being one of the most thorough and skilful officers in the state. Tom Somers, who, since he joined the company, had felt ashamed of himself because he was no bigger, became quite reconciled to his low corporeal estate when he found that the colonel of the regiment was no taller and no heavier than himself. And when he heard the high praise bestowed upon the colonel’s military skill and martial energy, he came to the conclusion that it does not require a big man to make a good soldier. With a feeling of satisfaction he recalled the fact that Napoleon Bonaparte, when he commanded the army of Italy, was scarcely a bigger man than the colonel or himself.

The colonel was a strict disciplinarian, and he soon diffused his energy throughout the regiment. It made rapid progress in its military education. Tom was deeply interested in the details of his new profession, and used his best endeavors to do his duty promptly and faithfully. This was not the case with all the boys in the company from Pinchbrook, and I am sorry to say that some of them, including the brave and chivalric Ben Lethbridge, had to sit upon the stool of repentance in the guard room on several occasions.

Fred Pemberton was clothed in the uniform of the United States volunteers, and we must do him the justice to say that he performed his duty to the entire satisfaction of his officers. Fred was a good fellow, and barring his treason, which he had derived from his father,