CHAPTER
XXII
ON
THE MARCH
To make up for the tongue Ehrhart claimed the liver,
which was conceded to him, and which more than compensated him for his loss.
After cutting up his ox-ship into numerous pieces, in
order to make it convenient to carry, and after dividing it out into parcels,
which was done by two of our company boys, after the reported manner in which
choice fish were divided at a certain fishery, located not many miles from
Selinsgrove, Lot Ulrich turned his back and Serg’t. Eby pointed out the lots,
and whenever he came to a choice parcel, he would prefix the word “and” to the
usual question, thus, “and, whose is this?”
The ownership would be sure to fall to some one of
company G’s boys, thus verifying the old
saw “that everything is fair in war.”
After we had secured all the meat that we possibly
could, we returned to the camp, feeling mighty proud over our success as
foragers, and soon had all the company camp kettles in use, making the air redolent with the odor of
boiling beef.
The evening passed pleasantly, we had the means to
fill our stomachs, and were subsequently happy.
Ehrhart was somewhat riled when he discovered who had the tongue, but
Yankee Garman made things all right when he told him that he had better taken
the whole ox.
The next morning, December 12th, bright and
early the Army made arrangements to move, and by seven o’clock we were moving
along as though the fate of nation depended upon our Division.
During the day we passed through a number of deserted
camps which we at first supposed had been occupied by rebel troops, but upon
investigation, we found old envelopes, letters and papers promiscuously
scattered about, that the quarters had been occupied by the 1st
Division of our Corps, under the command of General Williams.
It was upon this march, when about halfway between Gum
Springs and Fairfax courthouse that we first saw the Commander of the old 12th
Army Corps, Major General Henry Slocum, who with his staff and military escort
galloped past us.
Never, in the course of our military experience, had
we been more completely taken by surprise than we were when General Slocum was
pointed out to us, General Geary, who was a large man in our eyes filled the
measure of what a General should be, and so when a small, quiet and
unostentatious man rode past us, we were scarcely prepared to believe this was
the brave and gallant Corps commander, of whom we had heard so much.
It was soon after the General had ridden past us, that
we heard anything definite concerning the advance of the Army under
Burnside. It did not take long get the
grape-vine telegraph into operation and we were soon supplied with all the
information needed, each operator receiving different information.
As we approached a small a tributary of Goose Creek,
we were ordered to left-oblique, in order to give the batteries, which were
hurried to the front, room to pass.
Soon in our immediate front was heard the report of
artillery, in quick succession, and from the low rumbling sounds we made up our
minds that it was not many miles distant, and that in a very short time we
expected that we might be called upon to face the foe in martial array.
We think that this little episode created the greatest
scare that the company ever had.
We do not know how we looked upon the occasion but
distinctly recollect how we felt, whilst we also have a faint recollection as
to how a number of the boys looked upon the occasion of that innocent little
scare; cards flew and bibles were in demand.
As Our company gained the brow of a little eminence,
they made a discovery that quickly dispelled the anxious forebodings which had
taken possession of them but a short time ago, when they heard the artillery
(?)
In a large field to the right of the pike the
batteries were parked, and the men were getting dinner.
General Geary and staff passed us, and as their horses
crossed the temporary bridge that spanned the stream, we discovered where the
cannonading was.
The Division filed to the field, and in less time than
it takes us to describe it every vestige of the fence had disappeared and a
thousand fires burned in the field on which six thousand men were boiling
coffee, toasting hard-tack and salt pork.
The meat which we had foraged for and prepared the evening before,
furnished us with a sumptuous repast and for which the 12 miles we had already
traveled since we broke camp, had sharpened our appetites so that we were fully
able to do it justice.
It was strange to behold the change that had come over
the members of the company, since they had received the scare but a very short
time before, then all were scared, now it would have been impossible to find anyone
that would own that he had been frightened. We remember of one of the chaps
who had pitched his euchre deck away, tried to borrow one we carried, to play a
game while we were resting, and when he was twitted about it, said that he
would not have done so only that his cartridge box strap passed over it and the
darned cards rubbed him so. Of course
old Bill’s reason, under the circumstances, were considered ample, as we should
undoubtedly have had followed his example, had it not been owing to the fact
that we had packed it in our knapsack and were unable to get at it at the time
of the alarm, since we know that we were
scared fully as bad as any of the rest.
After a halt of an hour, the bugle sounded the
advance, and we started on what proved another hard and long march.
Those of the boys who were in ranks on that, our first
campaign, remember how anxiously we longed for camp, and how as we gazed down
along the level farms on either side of the pike for miles, and not a vestige
of camp could be discovered, we were quite prepared to agree with Solly App,
“that playing soldier at Harrisburg was all very nice, but to march 24 miles,
carrying knapsacks, gun, accouterments and rations is horse of it different
color.”
It was the fortune of the company to do its full share
of marching subsequently but we never beheld the camp fires in the distance
more joyfully than upon the evening of the 12th of December
1862 .
The Division went into camp at Fairfax Courthouse, and
in the formation of the line, our regiment was placed in a piece of woods, in
which the under brush was so thick as to be almost impenetrable. Of course there was no growling or nothing as
the men, almost exhausted with the fatigues of the day, stumbled, staggered and
fell around in that woods, whilst the Colonel was vainly endeavoring to form a
line.
As soon as the command had arms stacked a number of
the members of the company, hastily cleaned up the rubbish sufficiently to make
room for their beds, spread out their blankets, and stretched out their tired
limbs, without eating a mouthful of supper, were soon lost to the world.
Whilst a number of the boys, not-with-standing the
fact that they were also nearly played out, attempted to get supper.
We found it rather difficult to procure water for
coffee, and when we had water it was
almost impossible to get fire started, as we had no fuel save the green
bushes and twigs that grew in the dense dark woods in which we were encamped,
and never shall we forget the fearful smoking we got while attempting to boil
that cup of coffee, and how when it was finished it tasted more of pine and
smoke than of coffee.
It was our bad luck, in company with Peter Lahr, John
C. Long and Jacob Leider of our company to be placed on camp guard,
thus being on duty four hours out of the 12.
Early in the morning, long before light, we heard the
dull far off b-o-o-m of a heavy gun, which no doubt was the big gun fired in
what afterwards proved to be the disastrous battle of Frederickburg.
In the morning when we told Freddy Ulrich about the
cannonading we had heard, he replied, “oh, you was only addled again, Lumbard,
at the noise made by some battery of artillery passing over the bridge.”
This sally of Freddy’s caused the boys to laugh at our
expense, but ere the smile had time to disappear from the faces of those who
happened to hear Freddy, there ears were saluted with sound, following each
other in quick succession announcing that in all probability the much talked of
advance had been made by the Army of the Potomac under Burnside, and the guns
we now heard were those served by the Rebels, hurling death and defiance into
the ranks of the veterans of the U. S. Army.
No comments:
Post a Comment