appalling to us in those days, when we were yet unused to camp 'chin.'
The regiment was to go to Harper's Ferry. Johnston was there. They would
hang him if they took him. They were to march straight to Richmond, One
man of the 'Engineer Company' was going to resign, he said, because his
company had to remain to guard the camp. They were to take two days'
rations and forty rounds of cartridges per man--_ball_ cartridges. Forty
rounds of ball cartridges and two days' work! Surely, we thought, the
days of the rebellion are numbered. And then, chewing the bitter cud of
the reflection that the war would almost certainly be ended before we
got a chance at the enemy, we wandered sadly back to our quarters,
Smallweed growling horribly all the way. Our 'headquarters' we find in a
great state of excitement. We find the orderly and Major Heavysterne
discussing the prospects of the rebels being able to hold out a month,
and Color-Sergeant Hepp and the adjutant both trying to decide the
dispute. Hepp thinks they can't do without leather, and the adjutant
thinks the want of salt must fetch them in a few weeks. Thinks? Decides!
Whatever may be doubtful, this is certain. Everybody seems strangely
excited. We tell them our news. 'Tell us some'n do'n know!' rasps
Lieutenant Harch; 'our b'ttalion's goin', too; get ready, both of,
quick! Smallweed, where in the h-- have you been? I've had to do all
your work.' We were to go at nine o'clock at night. It was then eight.
Whither? No one knew. The chaplain comes in, with symptoms of erysipelas
in his nose, and a villanous breath, to tell us, while we--the
quartermaster-sergeant and I--are packing our knapsacks and leaving
lines of farewell for those at home and at other people's homes, that
the major has imparted to him in confidence the awful secret that we are
bound for Mount Vernon, to remove the bones of Washington. This gives us
something terrible to think of as we march down, in quick time (a
suggestion of that adjutant, I know), to the Long Bridge, and during the
long delay there, spent by commanding officers in pottering about and
gesticulating. By commanding officers? There is one there who does not
potter, standing erect--that one with the little point of fire between
his fingers that marks the never-quenched cigarette--talking to Major
Heavysterne in low and earnest tones, but perfectly cool and clear the
while. That is our splendid Colonel Diamond, as brave and good a soldier
as ever