The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1893-09-21
FORT DERUssY.


sors of pocket New Testaments donated by
awell-known Boston church No reflection
is intended by hisstatement, or was intended
by their being known as lambs in the
regiment but it rather seemed as though
the eternal fitness of things had been re-
versed, and that the great efforts for their
salvation were in exact proportion to their
spiritual needs and general cussedness.
Events hurried each other in those days
and sunset found fully 900 rank and file at
the first dress-parade, and you can be assured
that it was corker."
The rolling grounds of Virginia along the
upper Potomac, particularly when fortified
dnot give enough level room for regiment
al line Of this length, and after the color COM
pany came up on the center, the right and
left wings generally rose and fell with the
swell of the land like ocean-waves. So
also with the drum corps There were no
regimental bands in those days.; it left the
right, dropped into a hollow, climbed out
over little ridge, down another hollow, and
finally crept up TO the Sergeant-Maior,
breathless and plucky. / say plucky, be-
cause drummer-boys were getting scarce in
those days, most of them claiming their
ability TO bite cartridges as well as bareback,
and those Of the 9th Mass. were young and
thin, but, oh, how full of grit!
Ispeak particularly of this dress-parade,
as our subject became so fascinated with the
Colonel, whose fat, red, sunburned face glist-
ened in the setting sum- and had so great an
attraction for him as TO keep his eyes right +"
permanently lit was his first dress parade,
you viii remember, and live Colonies were
scarce where he came from, until he was
prodded in the rear sufficiently to recall his
senses.
do {tas- Ca N
rounds of cartridges, and standing there in
their company streets, that during the day
had assumed quite rectilinear, rectangular,
and military aspect, with the sun setting
behind the distant Blue Ridge, the sunset
guns of Forts c. +. Smith, De Russey,
Stevens, CorcOran, and a score of others
booming up and down and across the Poto-
mae, they came finally to realize that the
stern realities of the front were fast COM
ing TO them, and that five days could do
much toward licking raw recruits into shape.
1t was forgotten to mention that the first
absolute day in Virginia had sandwiched
into Its other duties, the seemingly unmili-
tary labor of well-digging, wood-cutting,
and toting" cOmmissary stores Possibly
some of our kickers to-day who daily draw
ratioDs at the Preside that Grant and Meade
would have ridden miles to secure during
kicked under those burdens
Talk about work! Our subject felled
more trees in Virginia, bushwhacked more
scrub-oabs and pines in his first week there,
and shOveled more gravel than in any year
on his mothers farm, besides keeping up
regular details at guard and drill and his
case was 40 exception.
If any reader or historian of to-day fancies
that the Army of the Potomac only fought
soldierly, Economically, and bravey, they
will please correct their ideas OF 90 down to
pcsterity, from a veterans standpoint, un-
wept, unhonored, and hanged in effigy.
A veteran usually got cranky on three
subjects: First, rife pits OF light earthworks,
as they might accommodate and protect, re-
spectively, a squad or a line; second. grub.
which covered everything from one y. c.
bareback, hunk OF salt pork, and few
handfuls of ground coffee up to the most
extensive and expensive menu which cir
cumstsnces and his credit with the Sufler
would procure; third, cartridges. To these
he swore allegiance and fealty, and they all
stood him in good turn.
OF the two succeeding days, rounding out
our first week, little can be added of interest.
Possibly the long columns of the Sixth
Corps swinging mp through the Valley
mile distant on the sixth day, feeling that
during the preceding two months, they had
dropped 1000 out OF $4,000 men between the
Wilderness end Petersburg may have
sobered us little aud later in the evening
of the same day the orders TO fail in for three
days'rations and 60 more rounds Of cartridges
sent thrill through our backb bones, when il
was coupled with whispers that we were to
follow them the next morning to help out
little Sheridan up the Valley behind the
Blue Ridge.
If there were more letters written that
night on their knapsacks and tin plates than
commonly; if they put little more senti-
ment and pathOs into them than was usual :;
If, when they finally turned in, some of them
remembered how many nights had passed
since they had said their prayers, it was not
that they were any more boys or any less
men, but that the hardening and leavening
process had begun, and that they were slowly
realizing how near they were to war and
hate, and how far from home and mother"
1t so happened that they didn't march
nit" Sheridan or Sigel either the next
day, although both were hard up and near
by, the cold fact being that their Confederate
friend Early was quite as near and not quite
30 hard up, but that he was taking in a Penn
sylvania town per day and cleaning them
out al a stiff advance after a short holding.
-ith no margin either put up or in sight;