The White Pine news. [volume] (Treasure City, Nev.) 1868-1906, 1892-01-16
THE LAST ROLL CALL.
A Pathetic Incident of the Late War

! just all even DuHuIeu llltu huSWtitu
"Hereln as the Sergeant called the
roll on the morning we awoke beside
the Potomac. There were young men
middle-aged men, men from the town
and men from the farm. Men who
90 to war to fight and die form strong
attachments. Companies and regi-
ments resolve themselves into com
munities which do not look with IA
yor upon intruders. There was an
even hundred as we marched away
AS we took our first turn at picket
as we first sighted the enemy-as we
went into BATTLE for the first time.
After the roar of battle had died away
and the dead had been buried only
eiehty-nine men answered "Here ~ 10
the Sergeant morning roll-call. The
others were covered up in the long
trenches. and their loss drew the
others closer together.
A few weeks went by and we stood
shoulder to shoulder in battle line
again. There were charge and coun-
ter charge men screamed out as they
were wounded fell dead and
uttered no cry. In the gloomy for
est by the light of campfire, the
Sergeant called the roll, and now
only seventy-eight men answered
"Herel I" The red earth trenches had
claimed move victims, and the ties
between the living were drawn closer.
When man has braved dead with
you, that excuses hundred short
comings in camp or ON the march.
Then came Cold Harbor and the
falling back to Malvern Hill. Cam
non doomed and musketry crackled all
oay long and far ipto the night.
Wounded men eursed aud groaned rs
they limped away ar fell helpless
men pitched forward with but single
CRY and died with their faces hidden
the weeds and grass. Alter Malvern
Hill the Sergeant call, d the roll again
mot The same Sergeant as before,
but another had taken his place -ise
was living dead in the thlckeis Al Far
Oaks aud this time only hyty-two
men answered "lltrei
Aud so could you wonder TINT when
recruits came down 10 Us We locked
upon them as intruders, even though
they were od men and true and bad
come To help Us win our vietoriesi
What did they know of our dead, IT
of our wearisome marches, of touch
inc elbows with rs as we waited for
the word to charge the flaming guns
Their names were called with ours,
aud we heard them answer "Herel'
But they were only with us; they
could not be of us. They had come
too late.
After South Mountain and Antie-
tam and Second Manassas and Fred
ericksburg and Chancellorsville and
Gettysburg and the Wilderness the
roll was called and our dead were
covered up and other men went down
to take their places. We shook hands
with them and pretended to ee COM
rades, but we had no ties with them.
They had not learned war with us.
They could not go back to the begin
ning-to the first dead. And at last
came Appomatox and the surrender,
and then peace and the return to
Washington. We we're almost iull
company again as we turned out on
the meadows of Arlington for the last
roll call. Upwards of seventy living
men could have answered "Here !" to
their names.
Fall in, Company O Attention to
roll-call -
1t was not the Sergeant who called
the roll after Fredericksburg, after
Chancellorville, after the awful Crap
pie IN the thickets and swamps of the
| Wildness. 1t was new man--one
who had been promoted before his
checks had hardly been burned by
Southern sun. But he had heard OF
the ties which bound the old veter-
ans together-he realized what this
last roll-call meant to the survivors.
And from the musty archives of The
past he took the roll of the dead aud
called:
"Anson - Armitage-
AIsdorf T. No one replied
Berry = Bloomingdale- Benson
Barstow Benham !"
No one replied
"Carey Carter--CarnahaD Gum
mings-Comstock ~
No one replied!
And so he called, and 30 the silence