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005 - Out on Picket · Army Life in a Black Regiment

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Speaker 1: Chapter five of Army Life in a Black Regiment. This
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Speaker 1: is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
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Speaker 1: public domain. For more information all to volunteer, please visit
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Speaker 1: LibriVox dot org. Recording by f n H. Army Life
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Speaker 1: in a Black Regiment by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Chapter five,
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Speaker 1: Out on Picket. One can hardly imagine a body of
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Speaker 1: men more disconsolate than a regiment suddenly transferred from an
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Speaker 1: adventurous life in the enemy's country to the quiet of
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Speaker 1: a sheltered camp on safe and familiar ground. The men
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Speaker 1: under my command were deeply dejected when, on a most
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Speaker 1: appropriate day, the first of April eighteen sixty three, they
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Speaker 1: found themselves unaccountably recalled from Florida, that region of delights
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Speaker 1: which had seen theirs by right of conquest. My dusky soldiers,
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Speaker 1: who based their whole walk and conversation strictly on the
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Speaker 1: ancient Israelites, found that the prophecies were all set at nought,
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Speaker 1: and that they were on the wrong side of the
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Speaker 1: Red Sea. Indeed, I feared they regarded even me as
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Speaker 1: a sort of reversed Moses, whose pisgar fronted in the
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Speaker 1: wrong direction. Had they foreseen how the next occupation of
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Speaker 1: the promised land was destined to result, they might have
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Speaker 1: acquiesced with more than their wounded cheerfulness. As it was,
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Speaker 1: we were very glad to receive, after a few days
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Speaker 1: of discontented repose on the very ground where we had
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Speaker 1: once been so happy, an order to go out on
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Speaker 1: picket at Port Royal Ferry, with the understanding that we
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Speaker 1: might remain there for some time. This picket station was
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Speaker 1: regarded as a sort of military picnic by the regiments
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Speaker 1: stationed at Beaufort, South Carolina. It meant blackberries and oysters,
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Speaker 1: wild roses and magnolias, flowery lanes instead of sandy barrens,
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Speaker 1: and a sort of guerrilla existence in place of the
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Speaker 1: camp routine. To the coloured soul, especially with their love
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Speaker 1: of the country life and their extensive personal acquaintance on
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Speaker 1: the plantations, it seemed quite like a Christmas festival. Besides,
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Speaker 1: they would be in sight of the enemy, and who
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Speaker 1: knew that there might, by the blessing of providence, be
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Speaker 1: arrayed or a skirmish if they could not remain on
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Speaker 1: the Saint John's River. It was something to dwell on
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Speaker 1: the Cousaw in the end, they enjoyed it as much
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Speaker 1: as they expected, and though we went out several times
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Speaker 1: subsequently until it became an old story, the enjoyment never waned.
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Speaker 1: And as even the march from the camp to the
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Speaker 1: picket lines was something that could not possibly have been
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Speaker 1: the same for any white regiment in the service, it
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Speaker 1: is worth while to begin at the beginning and to
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Speaker 1: describe it. A regiment ordered on picket was expected to
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Speaker 1: have revelli at daybreak and to be in line for
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Speaker 1: departure by sunrise. This delighted our men, who always took
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Speaker 1: a childlike pleasure in being out of bed at any
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Speaker 1: unreasonable hour. And by the time I had emerged, the
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Speaker 1: tents were nearly all struck, and the great wagons were
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Speaker 1: lumbering into camp to rest them with whatever else was
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Speaker 1: to be transported. The first rays of the sun must
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Speaker 1: fall upon the line of these wagons moving away across
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Speaker 1: the wide parade ground, followed by the column of men
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Speaker 1: who would soon outstrip them. But on the occasion which
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Speaker 1: I especially describe, the sun was shrouded, and when once
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Speaker 1: upon the sandy plain, neither camp, nor town nor river
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Speaker 1: could be seen in the dimness. And when I rode
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Speaker 1: forward and looked back. There was only visible the long
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Speaker 1: moving shadow column, seeming rather awful in its snakelike advance.
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Speaker 1: There was a swaying of flags and multitudinous weapons that
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Speaker 1: might have been camel's necks for all one could see,
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Speaker 1: and the whole thing might have been a caravan upon
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Speaker 1: the desert. Soon we debouched upon the shell road, and
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Speaker 1: the wagon train drew on one side into the fog,
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Speaker 1: And by the time the sun appeared, the music ceased,
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Speaker 1: and the men took up the root step, and the
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Speaker 1: fun began. The root step is an abandonment of all
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Speaker 1: military strictness, and nothing is required of the men but
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Speaker 1: to keep four abreast and not like behind. They are
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Speaker 1: not required to keep step, though with the rhythmic or
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Speaker 1: ear of our soldiers, they almost always instinctively did so,
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Speaker 1: talking and singing are aloud, and of this privilege at
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Speaker 1: least they eagerly availed themselves. On this day they were
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Speaker 1: at the top of their exhilaration. There was one broad
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Speaker 1: grin from one end of the column to the other.
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Speaker 1: It might have been a caravan of elephants instead of camels.
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Speaker 1: For the ivory in the blackness, the chatter and The
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Speaker 1: laughter almost drowned the tramp of feet and the clatter
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Speaker 1: of equipments. At cross roads and plantation gates, the colored
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Speaker 1: people thronged to see us pass. Everyone found a friend
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Speaker 1: and a greeting. How do you do, auntie, huddy, bloody Benjamin,
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Speaker 1: how do you find yourself this morning? Titu wissa? Such
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Speaker 1: salutations rang out to everybody known or unknown. In return,
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Speaker 1: venerable kerchiefed matrons curtsied laboriously to everyone with an unfailing breasty, Lord, brudder,
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Speaker 1: grave little boys blacker than ink, shook hands with our
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Speaker 1: laughing and utterly unimaginable drummers, who greeted them with this
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Speaker 1: sure word of prophecy. Demsdy drummers for d Nex's war.
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Speaker 1: Pretty Melotto girls ogled and coquetted and made eyes, as
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Speaker 1: Thackeray would say, at half the young fellows in the battalion. Meantime,
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Speaker 1: the singing was brisk along the whole column, and when
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Speaker 1: I sometimes reined up to see them pass, the chant
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Speaker 1: of each company entering my ear drove out from the other,
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Speaker 1: the ear and strain of the preceding. Such an odd
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Speaker 1: mixture of things military and missionary as the successive waves
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Speaker 1: of song drifted by first John Brown. Of course, then
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Speaker 1: what makes old Satan for? Follow me? So then marching along,
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Speaker 1: Then hold your light on Canaan shore. Then, when this
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Speaker 1: cruel war is over, a new favorite sung by a few,
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Speaker 1: yielding presently to a grand burst of the favorite marching
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Speaker 1: song among them all, and the one which at every
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Speaker 1: step instinctively quickened so light and jubilant its rhythm. All
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Speaker 1: true children gwine into wilderness, gwine in de ways, gwineind wilderness.
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Speaker 1: True believers gwind in the wilderness to take de Sin's
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Speaker 1: O de World, ending in a hoi after each verse,
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Speaker 1: a sort of Irish yell. For all the songs, but
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Speaker 1: especially for their own wild hymns. They constantly improvise simple
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Speaker 1: verses with the same odd mingling, the odd little facts
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Speaker 1: of today's march being interwoven with the depths of theological gloom,
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Speaker 1: and the same jubilant chorus annexed to all. Thus we're
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Speaker 1: gwinto di ferry dibel dun ringing, gwine too delanding, dibel
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Speaker 1: dune ringing. Trost believer, Oh di bell dun ringing. Satan's
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Speaker 1: behind me dibel dune ringing tis a misty morning dibel
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Speaker 1: done ringing on de roade, and sandy dibel dun ringing,
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Speaker 1: hell bin open dibel done ringing, and so on indefinitely.
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Speaker 1: The little drum corps kept in advance, a jolly crew,
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Speaker 1: their drums slung on their backs and the drumsticks perhaps
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Speaker 1: balanced on their heads. With them went the officer's servant boys,
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Speaker 1: more uproarious, still always ready to lend their shrill treble
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Speaker 1: to any song. At the head of the whole force,
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Speaker 1: there walked by some self imposed pre eminence, a respectable
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Speaker 1: elderly female, one of the company landresses, whose vigorous stride
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Speaker 1: we never could quite overtake, and who had an enormous
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Speaker 1: bundle balanced on her head while she waved in her
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Speaker 1: hand like a sword, a long handled tin dipper. Such
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Speaker 1: a picturesque medley of fun, war and music, I believe
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Speaker 1: no white regiment in the service could have shown. And
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Speaker 1: yet there was no straggling, and a single tap of
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Speaker 1: the drum would at any moment bring order out of
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Speaker 1: this seeming chaos. So we marched our seven miles out
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Speaker 1: upon the smooth and shaded road, beneath jasmine clusters and
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Speaker 1: great pine cones dropping and great bunches of mistletoes still
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Speaker 1: in bloom among the branches arrived at the station. The
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Speaker 1: scene soon became busy and more confused. Wagons were being unloaded,
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Speaker 1: tents pitched, water brought wood, cut, fires made while the
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Speaker 1: field and staff could take possession of the abandoned quarters
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Speaker 1: of their predecessors, and we could look round in the
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Speaker 1: lovely summer morning to survey our empire and behold our home.
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Speaker 1: The only through fare by land between Beaufort and Charleston
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Speaker 1: is the Shell Road, a beautiful avenue which, about nine
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Speaker 1: miles from Beaufort strikes a ferry across the Cousau River.
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Speaker 1: War abolished the ferry and made the river the permanent
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Speaker 1: barrier between the opposing picket lines for ten miles right
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Speaker 1: and left. These lines extended, marked by well worn footpaths
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Speaker 1: following the endless windings of the stream, and they never
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Speaker 1: varied until nearly the end of the war. Upon their
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Speaker 1: maintenance depended our whole foothold in the Sea Islands, and
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Speaker 1: upon that again finally depended the whole campaign of Sherman.
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Speaker 1: But for the services of the Color troops, which finally
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Speaker 1: formed the main garrison of the Department of the south,
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Speaker 1: the Great March would never have been performed. There was
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Speaker 1: thus a region ten or twelve mile square of which
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Speaker 1: I had exclusive miller command. It was level, but otherwise
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Speaker 1: broken and bewildering to the last degree. No road traversed it,
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Speaker 1: properly speaking, but the Shell Road. All the rest was
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Speaker 1: a wild medley of cypress, swamp, pine barren, muddy creek,
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Speaker 1: and cultivated plantation, intersected by intermediate lanes and bridle paths
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Speaker 1: through which we must ride day and night, and which
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Speaker 1: our horses soon knew better than ourselves. The regiment was
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Speaker 1: distributed at different stations, the main force being under my
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Speaker 1: immediate command at a plantation close by the Shell Road,
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Speaker 1: two miles from the Ferry and seven miles from Beaufort.
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Speaker 1: Our first picket duty was just at that time of
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Speaker 1: the first attack on Charleston under DuPont and Hunter, and
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Speaker 1: it was generally supposed that the Confederates would make an
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Speaker 1: effort to recapture the Sea islands. My orders were to
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Speaker 1: watch the enemy closely, keep informed as to his position
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Speaker 1: and movements, attempt no advance, and in case they were
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Speaker 1: attempted from the other side, to delay it as long
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Speaker 1: as possible. Sending instant notice to hea headquarters as to
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Speaker 1: the delay that could easily be guaranteed. There were causeways
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Speaker 1: on the shell road which a single battery could hold
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Speaker 1: against a large force, and the plantations were everywhere so
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Speaker 1: intersected by hedges and dikes that they seemed expressly planned
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Speaker 1: for defense. Although creeks wound in and out everywhere, yet
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Speaker 1: these were only navigable at high tide, and at all
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Speaker 1: times were impassable marshes. There were but a few posts
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Speaker 1: where the enemy were within rifle range, and their occasional
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Speaker 1: attacks at those points were soon stopped by our enforcement
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Speaker 1: of a pithy order from General Hunter, give them as
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Speaker 1: good as they send, so that with every opportunity for
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Speaker 1: being kept on the alert, there was small prospect of
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Speaker 1: serious danger, and all promised an easy life, with only
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Speaker 1: enough of care to make it pleasant. The picket station
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Speaker 1: was therefore always a coveted post among the regiments, combining
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Speaker 1: some undeniable importance with a kind of relaxation. And as
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Speaker 1: we were there three months on our first tour of duty,
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Speaker 1: and returned there several times afterwards, we got well acquainted
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Speaker 1: with it. The whole region always reminded me of the
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Speaker 1: descriptions of Levenz, and I always expected to meet Henry
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Speaker 1: Laroche Jacqueline riding in the woods. How can I ever
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Speaker 1: describe the charm and picturesqueness of that summer life. Our
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Speaker 1: house possessed four spacious rooms and a piazza. Around it
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Speaker 1: were grouped sheds and tents. The camp was a little
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Speaker 1: way off on one side, the Negro quarters of the
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Speaker 1: plantation on the other, and always immersed in a dense
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Speaker 1: mass of waving and murmuring locusts bossoms. The spring days
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Speaker 1: were always lovely, while the evenings were always conveniently damp,
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Speaker 1: so that we never shut the windows by day, nor
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Speaker 1: omitted our cheerful fire by night. Indoors, the main headquarters
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Speaker 1: seemed like a camp of some party of young engineers
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Speaker 1: in time of peace, only with a little female society
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Speaker 1: added and a good many martial associations throught in a large, low,
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Speaker 1: dilapidated room with an immense fireplace, and with window panes
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Speaker 1: chiefly broken, so that the sashes were still open even
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Speaker 1: when closed. Such was our home. The walls were scratched
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Speaker 1: with capital charcoal sketches by r. Of the fourth New Hampshire,
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Speaker 1: and with a good map of the island and its
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Speaker 1: wood paths by sea of the first Massachusetts Cavalry. The
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Speaker 1: room had the picturesqueness which comes everywhere from the natural
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Speaker 1: grouping of articles of daily use swords, belts, pistols, rifles,
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Speaker 1: filled glasses, spurs, canteens, gauntlets, while wreaths of gray moss
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Speaker 1: above the windows and a pelican's wing three feet long
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Speaker 1: over the high mantelpiece indicated more deliberate decoration. This and
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Speaker 1: the whole atmosphere of the place spoke of the refining
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Speaker 1: presence of agreeable women, and it was pleasant when they
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Speaker 1: held their little court in the evening, unpleasant all day
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Speaker 1: with the different visitors who were always streaming in and out,
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Speaker 1: Officers and soldiers on various bass business, turbaned women from
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Speaker 1: the plantations coming with complaints or questionings, fugitives from the
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Speaker 1: mainland to be interrogated, visitors riding up on horseback, the
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Speaker 1: hands full of jasmine and wild roses, and the sweet
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Speaker 1: sunny air, all perfumed with magnolias and the southern pine
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Speaker 1: from the neighboring camp. There was a perpetual low hum,
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Speaker 1: louder voices and laughter re echoed amid the sharp sounds
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Speaker 1: of the axe from the pine woods, and sometimes when
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Speaker 1: the relieved pickets were discharging their pieces, there came the
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Speaker 1: hollow sound of dropping rifle shots, as in skirmishing. Perhaps
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Speaker 1: the most unmistakable and fascinating association that wore bequeaths to
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Speaker 1: the memory of the year. And domestic arrangements were of
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Speaker 1: the oddest description. From the time when we began housekeeping
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Speaker 1: by taking down the front door to complete here with
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Speaker 1: a little office for the surgeon on the piazza, everything
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Speaker 1: seemed upside down. I slept on a shelf in the
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Speaker 1: corner of the parlor, bequeathed me by Major f my Jove,
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Speaker 1: your predecessor, and if I waked at any time, could
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Speaker 1: put my head through the broken window, arouse my orderly,
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Speaker 1: and ride off to see if I could catch a
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Speaker 1: picket asleep. We used to spell the word p I
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Speaker 1: c qu e T, because that was understood to be
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Speaker 1: the correct thing in that department at least, And they
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Speaker 1: used to say at the post headquarters that as soon
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Speaker 1: as the officer in command of the outpost grew negligent
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Speaker 1: and was guilty of a k he was ordered in immediately.
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Speaker 1: Then the arrangements for the ablution were peculiar. We fitted
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Speaker 1: up a bathing place in a brook, which somehow got
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Speaker 1: appropriated at once by the company lawn dresses. But I
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Speaker 1: had my revenge, for I took to bathing in the
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Speaker 1: family washtub. After all. However, the kitchen department had their advantage,
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Speaker 1: for they used my solitary napkin to wipe the mess table.
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Speaker 1: As for food, we found it impossible to get chickens,
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Speaker 1: save in the immature shape of eggs. Fresh pork was
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Speaker 1: prohibited by the surgeon, and other fresh meat came rarely.
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Speaker 1: We could indeed hun for wild turkeys and even deer,
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Speaker 1: but such hunting was found only to increase the appetite
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Speaker 1: without corresponding supply. Still, we had our luxuries large delicious
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Speaker 1: drum fish and alligator steaks like a more substantial fried halibut,
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Speaker 1: which might have afforded the theme for Charles Lamb's dissertation
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Speaker 1: on roast pig, and by whose aid, for the first
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Speaker 1: time in our lives we tasted crackling. The post bakery
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Speaker 1: yielded admirable bread, and for vegetables and fruit, we had
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Speaker 1: a very poor sweet potatoes, and in their season an
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Speaker 1: unlimited supply of the largest blackberries. For beverage, we had
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Speaker 1: the vapid milk of that region, in which if you
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Speaker 1: let it stand, the water sinks instead of the cream rising.
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Speaker 1: And the delicious sugar cane syrup, which we had brought
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Speaker 1: from Florida, and which we drank at all hours. Old
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Speaker 1: Floridorians say that no one is justified in drinking whisky
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Speaker 1: while he can get cane juice. It is sweet and spirited,
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Speaker 1: without cloying foams like ale. And they were little spots
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Speaker 1: on the ceiling of the dining room where our lively
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Speaker 1: beverage had popped out its cork. We kept it in
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Speaker 1: a whisky bottle, and as whisky itself was absolutely prohibited
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Speaker 1: among us, it was amusing to see the surprise of
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Speaker 1: our military visitors when this innocent substitute was brought in.
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Speaker 1: They usually liked it in the end, but like the
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Speaker 1: old frenchwoman over a glass of water, wished that it
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Speaker 1: were a sin to give it a relish. As the
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Speaker 1: foaming beakers of molasses and water were handed round, the
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Speaker 1: guests would make with them the courteous little gestures of
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Speaker 1: polite in bibing, and would then quaff the beverage. Some
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Speaker 1: with gusto, others with the slight after look of dismay.
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Speaker 1: But it was a delicious and cooling drink while it lasted,
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Speaker 1: and at all events was the best and the worst
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Speaker 1: we had. We used to have ravelli at six and
16:48
Speaker 1: breakfast about seven. Then the mounted couriers began to arrive
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Speaker 1: from a dozen different locations with written reports of what
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Speaker 1: had happened during the night, a boat seen, a picket,
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Speaker 1: fired upon, a battery erecting. These must be consolidated and
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Speaker 1: forwarded to the headquarters with the daily report of the command.
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Speaker 1: So many sick, so many detached service, and all the rest.
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Speaker 1: This was our morning newspaper, our herald and tribune. I
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Speaker 1: never got tired of it. Then the couriers must be
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Speaker 1: furnished with countersign and instructions and sent off again. Then
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Speaker 1: we scattered to our various rides, all disguised as duty.
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Speaker 1: One to inspect the piquettes, one to visit a sick soldier,
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Speaker 1: one to build a bridge or clear a road, and
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Speaker 1: still another to headquarters for ammunition or commissary stores. Galloping
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Speaker 1: through green lanes, miles of triumphal arches of wild roses,
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Speaker 1: roses pale and large and fragrant, mingled with great boughs
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Speaker 1: of the white cornell, fantastic masses of showy surprises. Such
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Speaker 1: were our rides, ranging from eight to fifteen and even
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Speaker 1: twenty miles, back to a late dinner with our various
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Speaker 1: experiences and perhaps specimens to match a thunder snake eight
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Speaker 1: feet long, alive apossum with a young clinging to it,
18:06
Speaker 1: a natural pouch, an armful of great white, scentless pond lilies.
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Speaker 1: After dinner, to the tangled garden for the rosebuds or
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Speaker 1: early magnolias, whose cloying fragrance will always bring back to
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Speaker 1: me the full zest of those summer days. Then dress
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Speaker 1: parade and a little drill as the day grew cool
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Speaker 1: in the evening tea, and then the piazza or the fireside,
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Speaker 1: as the case might be, chess cards, perhaps a little
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Speaker 1: music by aid of the assistant surgeon's melodeon, a few
18:35
Speaker 1: pages of Jean Paul's Titan, almost my only book, and
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Speaker 1: carefully husbanded, perhaps a male with its infinite felicities. Such
18:44
Speaker 1: was our day. Night brought its own fascinations, more solitary
18:49
Speaker 1: and profound. The darker they were, the more clearly it
18:52
Speaker 1: was our duty to visit the pickets. The paths that
18:56
Speaker 1: had grown so familiar by day seemed a wholly new
18:59
Speaker 1: labyrinth by any night, and every added shade of darkness
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Speaker 1: seemed to shift and complicate them all anew till at
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Speaker 1: last man's skill grew utterly baffled, and the clue must
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Speaker 1: be left to the instinct of the horse riding beneath
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Speaker 1: the solemn starlight, or by soft gray mist or densest blackness.
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Speaker 1: The frogs croaking, the strange chuckwat's widow droning his ominous
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Speaker 1: note above my head, the mocking bird dreaming in music,
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Speaker 1: the great sudden fireflies rising to the tree tops, or
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Speaker 1: hovering close to the ground like glowworms, till the horse
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Speaker 1: raised his hoofs to avoid them. Then pine woods and
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Speaker 1: cypress swamps, or pass sullen brooks, or white tents, or
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Speaker 1: the dimly seen huts of sleeping negroes, down to the
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Speaker 1: glimmering shore, where black statues leaned against trees, or stood
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Speaker 1: alert in the pathways. Never, in all the days of
19:48
Speaker 1: my life shall I forget the magic of those haunted nights.
19:54
Speaker 1: We had nocturnal boat service, too, for it was a
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Speaker 1: part of our instructions to obtain all possible information about
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Speaker 1: the enemy's position, and we accordingly, as usually in such cases,
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Speaker 1: incurred a great many risks that harmed nobody and picked
20:07
Speaker 1: up much information which did nobody any good. The center
20:10
Speaker 1: of these nightly reconnaissances for a long time was the
20:13
Speaker 1: wreck of the George Washington, the story of whose disaster
20:16
Speaker 1: is perhaps worth telling. Till about the time when we
20:21
Speaker 1: went on picket, it had been the occasional habit of
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Speaker 1: the smaller gunboats to make the circuit of Port Royal Island,
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Speaker 1: a practice which seemed very essential to the safety of
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Speaker 1: our position, but which the rebels effectively stopped a few
20:34
Speaker 1: days after our arrival by destroying the army gunboat George
20:37
Speaker 1: Washington with a single shot from a light battery. I
20:41
Speaker 1: was roiled soon after daybreak by the firing, and a
20:44
Speaker 1: courier soon came dashing in with the particulars, forwarding these
20:48
Speaker 1: hastily to Beaufort, for we had then no telegraph. I
20:51
Speaker 1: was soon at the scene of action, five miles away.
20:55
Speaker 1: Approaching I met on the picket paths man after man
20:58
Speaker 1: who had escaped from the wreck across half a mile
21:01
Speaker 1: of almost impassable marsh. Never did I see such objects,
21:06
Speaker 1: some stripped to their shirts, some fully clothed, but all
21:10
Speaker 1: having every garment literally pasted to their bodies with mud.
21:15
Speaker 1: Across the river, the rebels were retiring, having done their work,
21:18
Speaker 1: but were still shelling from greater and greater distances the
21:21
Speaker 1: wood through which I rode, I arrived at the spot
21:25
Speaker 1: nearest the wreck, a point opposite to what we called
21:28
Speaker 1: the brick yard station. I saw the burning vessel aground
21:31
Speaker 1: beyond a long stretch of marsh, out of which the
21:34
Speaker 1: forlorn creatures were still floundering. Here and there in the
21:38
Speaker 1: mud and reeds, we could see the laboring heads slowly advancing,
21:42
Speaker 1: and could hear excruciating cries from the wounded men in
21:44
Speaker 1: the more distant depths. It was the strangest mixture of
21:47
Speaker 1: war and Dante and Robinson Crusoe, our energetic chaplain coming up,
21:52
Speaker 1: I sent him with four men, under a flag of truce,
21:55
Speaker 1: to the place. Whence the worst cries proceeded while I
21:58
Speaker 1: went to another part of the marsh. During that morning
22:00
Speaker 1: we got them all out, our last achievement being the
22:03
Speaker 1: rescue of the pilot, an immense negro with a wooden leg,
22:07
Speaker 1: an article so particularly unavailable for mud traveling that it
22:10
Speaker 1: would have almost seemed better, as one of the men suggested,
22:13
Speaker 1: to cut the traces and leave it behind. A naval gunboat, too,
22:18
Speaker 1: which had originally accompanied this vessel and should never have
22:21
Speaker 1: left it, now came back and took off the survivors.
22:24
Speaker 1: Though there had been several deaths from the scalding and shell,
22:28
Speaker 1: it proved that the wreck was not a ground after all,
22:31
Speaker 1: but an anchor. Having foolishly lingered till after daybreak, and
22:35
Speaker 1: having thus given time for the enemy to bring down
22:38
Speaker 1: their guns, the first shot had struck the boiler and
22:41
Speaker 1: set the vessel on fire, after which the officer in
22:43
Speaker 1: command had raised the white flag and then escaped with
22:46
Speaker 1: his men to our shore. And it was for this
22:49
Speaker 1: flight in the wrong direction that they were shelled in
22:51
Speaker 1: the marshes by the rebels. The case furnished in this
22:55
Speaker 1: respect some parallel to that of the Crsiage and Alabama,
22:58
Speaker 1: where it was afterwards sight I believe, officially or unofficially,
23:02
Speaker 1: to show that the rebels acclaimed the right to punish
23:04
Speaker 1: in this case the course of action which they approved
23:07
Speaker 1: in the SEMs. I know that they always asserted, thenceforward,
23:11
Speaker 1: that the detachment on board the George Washington had become
23:14
Speaker 1: rightful prisoners of war and were justly fired upon when
23:17
Speaker 1: they tried to escape. This was at the time of
23:20
Speaker 1: the first attack on Charlestown, and the noise of this
23:23
Speaker 1: cannonading spread rapidly thither, and brought four regiments to reinforce
23:27
Speaker 1: Beaufort in a hurry, under the impression that the town
23:30
Speaker 1: was already taken and that they must save what remnants
23:33
Speaker 1: they could. General Saxton too had made such capital plans
23:37
Speaker 1: for defending the post that he could not bear to
23:39
Speaker 1: have it attacked. So while the rebels brought down a
23:42
Speaker 1: force to keep us from taking the guns off the wreck,
23:44
Speaker 1: I was also supplied with this section or two of
23:47
Speaker 1: regular artillery and some additional infantry with which to keep
23:51
Speaker 1: them from it. And we tried to make believe very
23:53
Speaker 1: hard and rivaled the Charleston expedition on our own island. Indeed,
23:59
Speaker 1: our affair came about us much nearly nothing, and lasted
24:03
Speaker 1: decidedly longer, for both sides nibbled away at the guns
24:06
Speaker 1: by night for weeks afterwards, though I believed the mud
24:09
Speaker 1: finally got them at least we did not. We tried
24:13
Speaker 1: in vain to get the use of a steamboat or
24:16
Speaker 1: floating derrick of any kind, for it needed more mechanical
24:19
Speaker 1: ingenuity than we possessed to transfer anything so heavy to
24:22
Speaker 1: our small boats by night, while by day we did
24:25
Speaker 1: not go near the wreck in anything larger than a dugout.
24:27
Speaker 1: One of these nocturnal visits to the wreck I recall
24:30
Speaker 1: with particular gusto, because it brought back that contest with
24:34
Speaker 1: Katah and coughing among my own warriors, which had so
24:37
Speaker 1: ludicrously beset me in Florida. It was always fascinating to
24:41
Speaker 1: be on those forbidden waters by night, stealing out with
24:44
Speaker 1: muffled oars through the creeks and reeds. Our eyes always
24:47
Speaker 1: strained for other voyagers, our ears listening breathlessly to all
24:51
Speaker 1: the marsh sounds, blackfish splashing, and little wakened reed birds
24:55
Speaker 1: that fled whiling away over the dim river, equally safe
24:58
Speaker 1: on either side. But it always appeared to the watchful
25:01
Speaker 1: senses that we were making noise enough to be heard
25:04
Speaker 1: at form sumter. And somehow the victims of Katar seemed
25:08
Speaker 1: always the most eager for any enterprise requiring peculiar caution.
25:13
Speaker 1: In this case, I thought I had sifted them beforehand.
25:17
Speaker 1: But as soon as we were afloat, one poor boy
25:19
Speaker 1: near me began to wheeze, and I turned upon him
25:22
Speaker 1: in exasperation. He saw his danger and meekly said, I
25:26
Speaker 1: won't cough gunnel, and he kept his word for two
25:31
Speaker 1: mortal hours. He sat grasping his gun with never a chirrup.
25:35
Speaker 1: But two unfortunates in the bow of the boat developed
25:38
Speaker 1: symptoms which I could not suppress. So putting in at
25:41
Speaker 1: a picket station with some risk, I dumped them in
25:44
Speaker 1: mud knee deep, and embarked a substitute, who, after the
25:47
Speaker 1: first five minutes absolutely coughed louder than both of the others.
25:50
Speaker 1: United handkerchiefs, blankets, overcoats, suffocation in its direst forms. We
25:58
Speaker 1: tried in vain, but arrently the rebel pickets slept through
26:01
Speaker 1: it all, and we explored the wreck in safety. I
26:06
Speaker 1: think they were asleep, for certainly, across the level marshes
26:09
Speaker 1: there came a nasal sound, as of the confiefery in
26:12
Speaker 1: its slumbers. It may have been a bullfrog, but it
26:15
Speaker 1: sounded like a human snore. Picket life was of course
26:20
Speaker 1: the place to fill the charm of natural beauty. On
26:22
Speaker 1: the sea islands, we had a world of profuse and
26:26
Speaker 1: tangled vegetation around us, such as would have been a
26:29
Speaker 1: dream of delight to me. But for the constant sense
26:31
Speaker 1: of responsibility and care which came between Amid this preoccupation,
26:37
Speaker 1: nature seemed but a mirage, and not the close and
26:40
Speaker 1: intimate associate I had known before. I pressed no flowers, collected,
26:45
Speaker 1: no insects or birds, eggs, made no notes on natural objects,
26:50
Speaker 1: reversing in these respects all previous habits. Yet now in
26:54
Speaker 1: the retrospect, there seems to have been infused into me
26:57
Speaker 1: through every pore, the voluptuous charm of the season and
27:00
Speaker 1: the place, and the slightest corresponding sound or odor now
27:04
Speaker 1: calls back the memory of those delicious days before being
27:08
Speaker 1: on picket. At almost every season I tasted the sensations
27:12
Speaker 1: of all, and though I hardly then thought of such
27:15
Speaker 1: a result, the associations of beauty will remain forever. In February,
27:20
Speaker 1: for instance, though this was during a later period of
27:23
Speaker 1: picket service, the woods were usually draped with that net
27:26
Speaker 1: of shining haze which marks our northern May, and the
27:30
Speaker 1: house was embowered in wild plum blossoms, small, white, profuse
27:34
Speaker 1: and tenanted by murmuring bees. There were peach blossoms too,
27:38
Speaker 1: and the yellow jasmine was opening its multitudinous buds, climbing
27:42
Speaker 1: all over the trees and waving from bow to bow.
27:45
Speaker 1: There were fresh young ferns and white blood root in
27:48
Speaker 1: the edges of the woods, matched by snowdrops in the
27:51
Speaker 1: garden beneath budded myrtle and pettisporum. In the wilderness. The
27:56
Speaker 1: birds were busy, the two main songsters being the mocking
27:59
Speaker 1: bird and the cardinal grosbeak, which monopolized all the parts
28:03
Speaker 1: of our more varied northern orchestra, save the tender and
28:06
Speaker 1: liquid notes, which in South Carolina seemed unattempted except by
28:10
Speaker 1: some stray blue bird jays were as loud and busy
28:14
Speaker 1: as at the north. In autumn, there were sparrows and wrens,
28:18
Speaker 1: and sometimes I noticed the shy and winnsibigor chewink. From
28:22
Speaker 1: this early springtime onward there seemed no great difference in
28:25
Speaker 1: atmospheric sensations, and only a succession of bloom. After two months,
28:31
Speaker 1: one's notions of the season grew bewildered, just as at
28:34
Speaker 1: the very early rising bewilders the day in the army
28:38
Speaker 1: one is perhaps roused after a bivouac march is before daybreak, halts, fights,
28:43
Speaker 1: somebodies killed, A long day's life has been lived. And
28:46
Speaker 1: after all, it is not seven o'clock and breakfast is
28:49
Speaker 1: not ready. So when we had lived in summer so
28:53
Speaker 1: long as hardly to remember winter, it suddenly occurred to
28:56
Speaker 1: us that it was not yet June. One escape at
29:00
Speaker 1: the south, that mixture of hunger and avarice, which is
29:03
Speaker 1: felt in the northern summer, counting each hour's joy with
29:06
Speaker 1: the sad consciousness that an hour is gone. The compensating
29:11
Speaker 1: loss is in missing those soft, sweet, liquid sensations of
29:14
Speaker 1: the northern spring, that burst of life and joy, those
29:18
Speaker 1: days of heaven that even April brings. And this absence
29:21
Speaker 1: of childhood in the year creates a feeling of hardness
29:24
Speaker 1: in the season, like that I have suggested in the
29:27
Speaker 1: melody of the southern birds. It seemed to me also
29:31
Speaker 1: that the woods had not those pure, clean, innocent odours
29:34
Speaker 1: which so abound in the New England forest in early spring.
29:38
Speaker 1: But there was something luscious, voluptuous, almost oppressively fragrant about
29:43
Speaker 1: the magnolias, as if they belonged not to Hebe but
29:46
Speaker 1: to Magdalen. Such immense and lustrous butterflies I had never
29:51
Speaker 1: seen but in my dreams, and not even dreams had
29:53
Speaker 1: prepared me for the sand flies, almost too small to
29:56
Speaker 1: be seen, they inflicted a bite which appeared larger than them,
30:00
Speaker 1: a positive wound, more torturing than that of a mosquito,
30:04
Speaker 1: and leaving more annoyance behind. These tormentors elevated dress parade
30:10
Speaker 1: into the dignity of a military engagement. I had to
30:14
Speaker 1: stand motionless, with my head a mere nebula of winged atoms,
30:17
Speaker 1: while tears rolled profusely down my face from mere muscular irritation.
30:22
Speaker 1: Had I stirred a finger, the whole battalion would have
30:24
Speaker 1: been slapping its cheek. Such enemies were, however, a valuable
30:28
Speaker 1: aid to discipline on the whole, as they abounded in
30:31
Speaker 1: the guard house and made that institution an object of
30:34
Speaker 1: unusual abhorrence among the men. The presence of ladies and
30:39
Speaker 1: the homelike air of everything made the picket Station a
30:42
Speaker 1: very popular resort while we were there. It was the
30:46
Speaker 1: one agreeable ride from Beaufort, and we often had a
30:49
Speaker 1: dozen people unexpectedly to dinner. On such occasions, there was
30:53
Speaker 1: sometimes mounting in hot haste and in eager search among
30:56
Speaker 1: the outlying plantations for additional chickens and eggs, or through
31:00
Speaker 1: the company kitchens for some of those villanous tin cans,
31:03
Speaker 1: which everywhere marked the progress of our army. In those cans,
31:07
Speaker 1: so far as my observation went, all fruit relapsed into
31:11
Speaker 1: a common acidulation, and all meats into a similarity of tastelessness,
31:16
Speaker 1: while the condensed milk was best described by the men
31:19
Speaker 1: who often unconsciously stumbled on a better joke than they knew,
31:22
Speaker 1: and always spoke of it as condemned milk. We had
31:27
Speaker 1: our own excursions, too, to the Barnwell plantations, with their
31:31
Speaker 1: beautiful avenues and great live oaks, the perfection of Southern beauty.
31:36
Speaker 1: To Hawes Island, debatable ground close to the enemy's fire,
31:39
Speaker 1: where half wild cattle were to be shot under military
31:42
Speaker 1: precautions like Scottish moss trooping, Or to the ferry, where
31:47
Speaker 1: it was fascinating to the female mind to scan the
31:49
Speaker 1: rebel pickets through a field glass. Our horses, like the
31:53
Speaker 1: bye Ways far better than the level hardness of the
31:56
Speaker 1: shell road, especially those we had brought from Florida, which
31:59
Speaker 1: enjoyed the wildness as they had belonged to Marion's men.
32:03
Speaker 1: They delighted to feel the long sedge brush their flanks,
32:06
Speaker 1: or to gallop down the narrow wood paths, leaping the
32:09
Speaker 1: fallen trees and scaring the bright little lizards which shot
32:12
Speaker 1: across our track like live rays broken from the sunbeams.
32:16
Speaker 1: We had an abundance of horses, mostly captured and left
32:20
Speaker 1: in our hands by some convenient delay of the post
32:22
Speaker 1: quarter master. We had also two side saddles, which, not
32:27
Speaker 1: being munitions of war, could not, properly, as we explained,
32:30
Speaker 1: be transferred, like other captured articles, to the general stock.
32:33
Speaker 1: Otherwise the pequem a married man would have showed no
32:37
Speaker 1: unnecessary delay in their case for miscellaneous accommodation. There was
32:42
Speaker 1: not an ambulance that most in the esteemable of army conveniences,
32:46
Speaker 1: equally ready to carry the merry to a feast or
32:49
Speaker 1: the wounded from a fray. Ambulance was one of those
32:53
Speaker 1: words rather numerous, which Ethiopian lips were not framed by
32:56
Speaker 1: nature to articulate. Only the highest stages of colored culture
33:01
Speaker 1: could compass it on the tongue of many. It was
33:04
Speaker 1: transformedistically as amulet, or ambitiously as epulet, or in culinary
33:10
Speaker 1: fashion as omelet. But it was our experience that an
33:14
Speaker 1: ambulance under any name jolted equally hard. Besides these diversements,
33:20
Speaker 1: we had more laborious vocations, a good deal of fatigue,
33:24
Speaker 1: and genuine through small alarms. The men went on duty
33:28
Speaker 1: every third day at furthest and the officers nearly as often,
33:32
Speaker 1: most of the tours of duty lasting twenty four hours,
33:35
Speaker 1: though the stream was considered to watch itself tolerably well
33:38
Speaker 1: by daylight. This kind of responsibility suited the men, and
33:42
Speaker 1: we had already found as the whole army afterwards acknowledged
33:45
Speaker 1: that the constitutional watchfulness and distrustfulness of the colored race
33:49
Speaker 1: made them admirable sentinels. Soon after we went on picket,
33:54
Speaker 1: the commanding General sent an aide with a cavalry escort
33:57
Speaker 1: to visit all the stations without my knowledge. They spent
34:01
Speaker 1: the whole night, and the officer reported that he could
34:03
Speaker 1: not get within thirty yards of any post without a challenge.
34:07
Speaker 1: This was a pleasant assurance for me, since our position
34:10
Speaker 1: seemed so secure compared with Jacksonville, and that I had
34:13
Speaker 1: feared some relaxation of vigilance, while yet the safety of
34:17
Speaker 1: all depended on our thorough discharge of duty. Jacksonville had
34:23
Speaker 1: also seasoned the men so well that they were no
34:26
Speaker 1: longer nervous and did not waste much powder on false alarms.
34:30
Speaker 1: The rebels made no formal attacks and rarely attempted to
34:33
Speaker 1: capture pickets. Sometimes they came stealing through the creeks in dugouts,
34:37
Speaker 1: as we did on their side of the water, and
34:40
Speaker 1: occasionally an officer of ours was fired upon while making
34:42
Speaker 1: his rounds by night. Often some boat or scrowl would
34:47
Speaker 1: go adrift, and sometimes a mere dark mass of river
34:50
Speaker 1: weed would be floated by the tide past the successive stations,
34:54
Speaker 1: eliciting a challenge and perhaps a shot from each. I
34:58
Speaker 1: remember the vivid way in which one of the men
35:00
Speaker 1: stated to his officer the manner in which a faithful
35:02
Speaker 1: picket should do his duty after challenging, in case a
35:05
Speaker 1: boat came in sight fusting, I shoot, and then I shoot,
35:10
Speaker 1: and then I shoot again. Then I creep creep up
35:13
Speaker 1: near the boat and see who day him in them,
35:16
Speaker 1: and spose anybody pop up to head. Then I shoot again.
35:20
Speaker 1: Suppose I fire my forty rounds, I tink he here
35:23
Speaker 1: at de camp and send more mans, which seemed a
35:27
Speaker 1: reasonable presumption. The soldier's name was Paul Jones, a daring
35:31
Speaker 1: fellow quite worthy of his namesake. In time, however, they
35:36
Speaker 1: learned quieter methods and would weighed out far in the water.
35:39
Speaker 1: They are standing motionless at last, hoping to surround and
35:42
Speaker 1: capture these floating boats, though to their great disappointment, the
35:46
Speaker 1: prize usually proved empty. On one occasion they tried a
35:50
Speaker 1: still profounder strategy. For an officer visiting the pickets after
35:54
Speaker 1: midnight and hearing in the stillness a portentous snore from
35:57
Speaker 1: the end of a causeway, our most important station straightway
36:01
Speaker 1: hurried to the point of danger with wrath in his soul,
36:05
Speaker 1: But the sergeant of the squad came out to meet him,
36:07
Speaker 1: imploring silence and explaining that they had seen or suspected
36:11
Speaker 1: about hovering near, and were feigning sleep in order to
36:14
Speaker 1: lure and capture those who would entrap them. The one
36:18
Speaker 1: military performance of the Picket station of which my men
36:20
Speaker 1: were utterly intolerant, was an occasional flag of truce for
36:24
Speaker 1: which this was appointed locality, These farces, for which it
36:29
Speaker 1: was our duty to furnish the stock actors, always struck
36:33
Speaker 1: them as being utterly despicable and unworthy the serious business
36:37
Speaker 1: of war. They felt, I suppose what mister Pickwick felt
36:41
Speaker 1: when he heard his council remarked to the Council for
36:43
Speaker 1: the plaintiff that it was a very fine morning. It
36:47
Speaker 1: goaded their souls to see the young officers from the
36:50
Speaker 1: two opposing armies salute each other courteously and interchange cigars.
36:55
Speaker 1: They despised the object of such negotiations, which was usually
36:58
Speaker 1: to send over to the enemy's family of rebel women,
37:01
Speaker 1: who had made themselves quite intolerable on our side, but
37:05
Speaker 1: were not above collecting a subscription among the Union officers
37:08
Speaker 1: before departure to replenish their wardrobes. The men never showed
37:13
Speaker 1: disrespect to these women by word or deed, but they
37:17
Speaker 1: hated them from the bottom of their souls. Besides, there
37:21
Speaker 1: was a grievance behind all this. The rebel order remained unrevoked,
37:25
Speaker 1: which consigned the new Colored troops and their officers to
37:29
Speaker 1: a felon's death if captured. And we all felt that
37:32
Speaker 1: we fought with ropes round our necks. Dere's no flags
37:35
Speaker 1: or protruce for us, the men would contemptuously say, when
37:39
Speaker 1: d secesh fight de first south for South Carolina, he
37:44
Speaker 1: fight in earnest. Indeed, I myself took it as rather
37:47
Speaker 1: a compliment when the commander on the other side, though
37:50
Speaker 1: an old acquaintance of mine in Massachusetts and the Kansas,
37:54
Speaker 1: at first refused to negotiate through me or my officers,
37:58
Speaker 1: a refusal which was kept up greatly to the enemy's
38:01
Speaker 1: inconvenience until our men finally captured some of the opposing pickets,
38:05
Speaker 1: and their friends had to waive all scruples in order
38:08
Speaker 1: to send them supplies. After this there was no trouble.
38:13
Speaker 1: And I think that the first rebel officer in South
38:15
Speaker 1: Carolina who officially met any officer of Colored troops under
38:18
Speaker 1: a flag of truce was Captain John C. Calhoun in Florida.
38:22
Speaker 1: We had been so recognized long before, but that was
38:25
Speaker 1: when they wished to frighten us out of Jacksonville. Such
38:29
Speaker 1: was our life on picket at Port Royal, a thing
38:32
Speaker 1: whose memory is now fast melting into such stuff as
38:35
Speaker 1: dreams are made of. We stayed there more than two
38:39
Speaker 1: months at that time the first attack on Charleston exploded
38:42
Speaker 1: with one path and had its end. General Hunter was
38:46
Speaker 1: ordered north, and the busy Gilmore reigned in his stead,
38:49
Speaker 1: And in June, when the blackberries were all eaten, we
38:53
Speaker 1: were summoned. Nothing loath to other scenes and encampments knew.
38:58
Speaker 1: End of Chapter five recording by f n H. Visit
39:03
Speaker 1: www dot book Ranger dot co dot uk