As to patriotism, let not the few bring disgrace upon the many. It is true that scarcely a day passes unmarked by the discovery that some grovelling wretch has been writing to the army to persuade soldiers to desert on political grounds; yet as these disgraceful letters, as published in the papers, give conclusive proof of the utter ignorance of their writers, we must not judge the spirit of the State by them, any more than by the louder disloyal utterances of men who have not their excuse. Governor Yates speaks for the PEOPLE when he says:
'Our State has stood nobly by the Constitution and the Union. She has not faltered for a moment in her devotion. She has sent her sons in thousands to defend the Flag and avenge the insults heaped upon it by the traitor hordes who have dared to trail it in the dust. On every battle field she has poured out her blood, a willing sacrifice, and she still stands ready to do or die. She has sent out also the Angel of Mercy side by side with him who carries the flaming sword of War. On the battle field, amid the dying and the dead; in the hospital among the sick and wounded of our State, may be seen her sons and daughters, ministering consolation and shedding the blessings of a divine charity which knows no fear, which dreadeth not the pestilence that walketh by night or the bullet of the foe by day.'
Governor Yates himself, on receiving intelligence of the battle of Fort Donelson, repaired at once to the scene of suffering, feelinglike the lamented Governor Harvey of Wisconsin, who lost his life in the same servicethat where public good is to be done, the State should be worthily and effectively represented by her chief executive officer. There on the spot, trusting to no hearsay, Mr. Yates, while distributing the bounteous stores of which he was the bearer, ascertained by actual observation the condition and wants of the troops, and at once set about devising measures of relief. After Shiloh, that Golgotha of our brave boys, the Governor organized a large corps of surgeons and nurses, and went himself to Pittsburg Landing to find such suffering and such destitution as ought never to exist on the soil of our bounteous land, under any possible conjuncture of circumstances, however untoward and unprecedented. Without surgeons or surgical appliances, without hospital supplies, and, above all, worse than all, without SYSTEM, there lay the defenders of our national life, their wounds baking in the hot sun, worms devouring their substance while yet the breath of life kept their desolate hearts beating. Doing all that could be done on the spot, and bringing away all who could be brought, the Governor returned, sending the adjutant-general back on the same errand, and going himself a second time as soon as a new supply of surgeons and sanitary stores, contributed by private kindness, could be got together. And so on, as long as the necessity existed. The great expenses involved in the relief and transportation of many thousands of sick and wounded, expenses unusual and not provided for by law, were gladly borne by the State, and careful provision was made against the recurrence of the evil. May our Heavenly Father in His great mercy so order the future as to make these preparations unnecessary, wise and humane though they be! Says Governor Yates:
'I have hope for my country, because I think the right policy has been adopted. There remains but one other thing to make my assurance doubly sure; and that is, I want to see no divisions among the friends of the Union in the loyal States. Could I know that the people of the Free States were willing to ignore party, and resolved to act with one purpose and one will for the vigorous prosecution of the war and the restoration of the Union, then I should have no doubt of a happy end to all our difficulties. * * *
'If the members of this General Assembly, and the press and people of Illinois, in the spirit of lofty patriotism, could lay aside everything of a party character, and evince to the country, to our army, and, especially to the secession States, that we are one in heart and sentiment for every measure for the vigorous prosecution of the war, it would have a more marked effect upon the suppression of the rebellion than great victories achieved over the enemy upon the battle field. For, when the North shall present an undivided fronta stern and unfaltering purpose to exhaust every available means to suppress the rebellion, then the last prop of the latter will have fallen from under it, and it will succumb and sue for peace. Should divisions mark our councils, or any considerable portion of our people give signs of hesitation, then a shout of exultation will go up, throughout all the hosts of rebeldom, and bonfires and illuminations be kindled in every Southern city, hailing our divisions as the sure harbingers of their success. We must stand by the President, and send up to him, and to our brave armies in the field, the support of an undivided sentiment and one universal cheer from the masses of all the loyal States. The stern realities of actual war have produced unanimity among our soldiers in the army. With them the paltry contests of men for political power dwindle into insignificance before the mightier question of the preservation of the national life. Coming into closer contact with Southern men and society, the sentiments of those who looked favorably upon Southern institutions have shifted round. They have now formed their own opinions of the proper relations of the Federal Government to them, which no sophistry of the mere politician can ever change. Seeing for themselves slavery and its effects upon both master and slave, they learn to hate it and swear eternal hostility to it in their hearts. Fighting for their country, they learn doubly to love it. Fighting for the Union, they resolve to preserve, at all hazards, the glorious palladium of our liberties.
'I believe this infernal rebellion can be, ought to be, and will be subdued. The land may be left a howling waste, desolated by the bloody footsteps of war, from Delaware bay to the gulf, but our territory shall remain unmutilatedthe country shall be one, and it shall be free in all its broad boundaries, from Maine to the gulf, and from ocean to ocean.
'In any event, may we be able to act a worthy part in the trying scenes through which we are passing; and should the star of our destiny sink to rise no more, may we feel for ourselves and may history preserve our record clear before heaven and earth, and hand down the testimony to our children, that we have done all, perilled and endured all, to perpetuate the priceless heritage of Liberty and Union, unimpaired to our posterity.'
And in this fervid utterance of our warm-hearted Governor, the free choice of a free people, let us consider Illinois as expressing her honest sentiments.
A WINTER IN CAMP
I was painfully infusing my own 'small Latin and less Greek' into the young Shakspeares of a Western college, when the appointment of a friend to the command of the th Iowa regiment opened to me a place upon his staff. Three days afterward, in one of the rough board-shanties of Camp McClellan, I was making preparations for my first dress parade. The less said of the dress of that parade, the better. There was no lack of comfortable clothing, but every man had evidently worn the suit he was most willing to throw away when his Uncle Samuel presented him with a new one; and a regiment of such suits drawn up in line, made but a sorry figure in comparison with the smartly uniformed th, which had just left the ground. Their colonel, in the first glory of his sword and shoulder straps, was replaced by a very rough-looking individual, with a shabby slouched hat pushed far back on his head, and a rusty overcoat, open just far enough to show the place where a cravat might have been. It was very plain, as he stood there with his arms folded, thin lips compressed, and gray eyes hardly visible under their shaggy brows, that whether he looked the colonel or not was the last thought likely to trouble him. I fancied that he did, in spite of all, and that he saw a great deal of good stuff in the party-colored rows before him, which he would know how to use when the right moment came: subsequent events proved that I was not mistaken. The regiment had no reason to be ashamed of their rough colonel, even when the two hundred that were left of them laid down their arms late in the afternoon of that bloody Sabbath at Shiloh, on the very spot where the swelling tide of rebels had beaten upon them like a rock all day long.
But these after achievements are no part of my present story. The more striking passages of this great war for freedom will be well and fully told. Victories like Donelson, death-struggles like that on the plains of Shiloh, will take their place in ample proportions on the page of history. As years roll on they will stand out in strong relief, and be the mountain tops which receding posterity will still recognize when all the rest has sunk beneath the horizon. It were well that some record should also be made of the long and dull days and weeks and months that intervened between these stirring incidents: at least that enough should be told of them to remind our children that they existed, and in this as in all other wars, made up the great bulk of its toils. This indeed seems the hardest lesson for every one but soldiers to learn. Few but those who have had actual experience know how small a part fighting plays in war; how little of the soldier's hardships and privations, how little of his dangers even are met upon the battle field. Tame as stories of barrack life must seem when we are thrilling with the great events for which that life furnishes the substratum, it is worth our while, for the sake of this lesson, to give them also their page upon the record, to spread these neutral tints in due proportion upon the broad canvas. It is partly for this reason that I turn back to sketch the trivial and monotonous scenes of a winter in barracks. It is well to remind you, dear young friends, feminine and otherwise, at home, that a great many days and nights of patient labor go to one brilliant battle. When your loudest huzzas and your sweetest smiles are showered on the lucky ones who have achieved great deeds and walked through the red baptism of fire, remember also how much true courage and fortitude have been shown in bearing the daily hardships of the camp, without the excitement of hand-to-hand conflict.
The new uniforms came at last, and all the slang epithets with which our regiment had been received were duly transferred to the newly arrived squads of the next in order. Then we began to speculate on the time and mode of our departure. It was remarkable how keenly the most contented dispositions entered into these questions. There is in military life a monotony of routine, and at the same time a constant mental excitement, that make changechange of some sort, even from better to worsealmost a necessity. I had already stretched myself in my bunk one evening, and was half asleep, when I heard joyful voices cry out, 'That's good!' and unerring instinct told me that orders had come for the th to move. On the third day again we stood in our ranks upon the muddy esplanade of the Benton Barracks, patiently waiting for the A. A. A. G. and the P. Q. M. to get through the voluminous correspondence which was to result in quarters and rations. At least twenty thousand men were crowded at that time into this dismal quadrangle. Perseverance and patience could overcome the prevalent impression at the commissary that every new regiment was a set of unlawful intruders, to be starved out if possible, but could not conquer the difficulty of crowding material bodies into less space than they had been created to fill. Two companies had to be packed into each department intended for one. As for 'field and staff,' they were worse off than the privates, and took their first useful lesson in the fact that they were by no means such distinguished individuals in the large army as they had been when showing off their new uniforms at home. It must have been comforting to over-sensitive privates to hear how colonels and quartermasters were snubbed in their turn by the 'general staff.' The regimental headquarters, where these crest-fallen dignitaries should have laid their weary heads, were tenanted by Captains A., who had a pretty wife with him, and B., who gave such nice little suppers, and C., whose mother was first cousin to the ugly half-breed that blew the general's trumpet from the roof of the great house in the centre. Wherefore the colonel, the surgeon, the chaplain, the quartermaster, and the 'subscriber' were content to spread their blankets for the first night with a brace of captains, on the particularly dirty floor of Company F., and dream those 'soldier dreams' in which Mrs. Soldier and two or three little soldiersassorted sizesrun down to the garden gate to welcome the hero home again, while guardian angels clap their wings in delight and take a receipt for him as 'delivered in good order and well-conditioned' to the deities that preside over the domestic altar.
Such dreams as these were easy matters for most of us, who had no experience. With our regimental colors fresh from the hands of the two inevitable young ladies in white, who had presented them (with remarks suitable to the occasion), we saw nothing before us but a march of double quick to 'glory or the grave.' Luckily we had cooler heads among us: men who had fought in Mexico, camped in the gulches of California, drilled hordes of Indians in South America, led men in desperate starving marches over the plains. These went about making us comfortable in a very prosaic, practical way. The first call for volunteers from the ranks was not to defend a breach or lead a forlorn hope, as we had naturally expected, butfor carpenters. They were set to knocking down the clumsy bunks in the men's quarters and rebuilding them in more convenient shape, piercing the roof for ventilators, building shanties for the dispensary and the quartermaster's stores. Colonel and chaplain made a daily tour of the cook rooms and commissary, smelt of meat, tasted hard bread, dived into dinner pots, examined coffee grounds to see whether any of the genuine article had accidentally got mixed with the post supply of burnt peas. The surgeon commenced vaccinating the men, and taking precautions against every possible malady, old age, I believe, included. Meanwhile the adjutant and the sergeant-major shut themselves up in a back room like a counting house, and were kept busy copying muster rolls, posting huge ledger-like books, making out daily and nightly returns, receiving and answering elaborate letters from the official personages in the next building. The company officers and men were assigned their regular hours for drill, as well as for everything else that men could think of doing in barracks. In short, we found ourselves all drawn into the operations of a vast, cumbrous, slow-moving machine, with a great many more cogs than drivers, through which no regiment or any other body could pass rapidly. The time required in our case was nearly three months.
How much of this delay was necessary or beneficial I leave for wiser military critics than myself to discuss. The complaint it awakened at the time has almost been forgotten in the glory of the achievements which followed when the great army actually began to move. Perhaps it is remembered only by those who mourn the brave young hearts that never reached the battle field, but perished in the inglorious conflict with disease and idleness. Few appreciate the fearful loss suffered from these causes, unless they were present from day to day, watching the regular morning reports, or meeting the frequent burial squads that thronged the road to the cemetery. Even in a place like St. Louis, with amply provided hospitals, and all the appliances of medical skill at hand, men died at a rate which would have carried off half the army before its three years' service expired. And of these deaths by far the greater portion were the direct consequence of idleness and its consequent evils in camp. The healthiest body of troops I saw in Missouri were busy night and day with scouting parties, and living in their tents upon a bleak hilltop, ten miles from the nearest hospital or surgeon. When their regiment was concentrated after four months' service, this company alone marched in the hundred and one men it had brought from home, not a single man missing or on the sick list. Perhaps another such instance could scarcely be found in the whole army.