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THE LOST ARMY
By Thomas W. Knox
Illustrated
The Werner Company
New York
1899
THE LOST ARMY.
CHAPTER I. HARRY AND JACK--OUTBREAK OF THE WAR--TRYING TO ENLIST.
|Let’s go and enlist!”
“Perhaps they won’t take us,” was the reply.
“Well, there ‘s nothing like trying,” responded the first speaker.“Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”
“That’s so,” said the other. “And if we can’t go for soldiers, perhapsthey ‘ll find us useful about the camp for something else.”
This conversation took place between two boys of Dubuque, Iowa, onepleasant morning early in the year 1861. They were Jack Wilson andHarry Fulton, neither of whom had yet seen his sixteenth birthday. Theywere the sons of industrious and respectable parents, whose houses stoodnot far apart on one of the humbler streets of that ambitious city; theyhad known each other for ten years or more, had gone to school together,played together, and at the time of which we are writing they wereworking side by side in the same shop.
The war for the destruction of the Union on the one hand and itspreservation on the other had just begun. The election of AbrahamLincoln to the presidency had alarmed the Southern states, who regardedit as a menace to their beloved system of negro slavery. In consequenceof his election the Southern leaders endeavored to withdraw theirstates from the Union, and one after another had passed ordinances ofsecession. South Carolina was the first to secede, her action beingtaken on the twentieth of December, five weeks after the presidentialelection. Ten other states followed her example and united with SouthCarolina in forming the Confederate States of North America, choosingJefferson Davis as their first president. Then followed the demand forthe surrender of the forts and other property of the United States inthe region in rebellion. Fort Sumter was taken after a bloodless fight,in which the first gun was fired by the South; other states seceded, andthen came the uprising of the North in defense of the Union.
As if by the wand of a magician the whole North was transformed into avast military camp, where only a few days before nothing was to be seensave the arts and arms of peace and industry. Recruiting offices wereopened in every city and almost in every village. Squads were formedinto companies, companies into regiments and regiments into brigades,with a celerity that betokened ill for the cause of secession. TheNorth had been taunted over and over again that it was more intent uponmoneymaking than anything else, and nothing could provoke it intoa fight. It had been patient and long-suffering, but the point ofexasperation had been reached, and the men of the Northern states werenow about to show of what stuff they were made.
The president issued a call for seventy-five thousand men to serve forthree months, and the call was responded to with alacrity. And it was inthe recruiting that formed a part of this response that our story opens.
Jack and Harry went to the recruiting office, which was on one of theprincipal streets of Dubuque and easy to find. Over the doorway animmense flag--the flag of the nation--was waving in the morning breeze,and in front of the door was an excited group of men discussing theprospects for the future, and particularly the chances of war.
“It ‘ll be over in a month,” said one, “and we ‘ll all be back here athome before our enlistment time’s up.”
“Yes; the South’ll be cleaned out in no time,” said another. “Thosefellows are good on the brag, but when they look into the muzzles ofNorthern muskets they ‘ll turn tail and run.”
“Don’t be so sure of that,” said a third. “The South may be wrong in allthis business, but they ‘ll give us all the fighting we want.”
“You’d better go and fight for Jeff Davis,” was the retort whichfollowed. “We don’t want any fellows like you around us.”
“That we don’t, you bet,” said another, and the sentiment was echoed byfully half the listeners.
“You ‘re all wrong,” persisted the man who had just spoken. “Don’tmisunderstand me; I’m just as good a Union man as anybody, and I’m goingto fight for the Union, but I don’t want anybody to go off half-cocked,and think we’re going to lick the South out of its boots in no time;because we can’t do it. We ‘re going to win in this fight; we ‘re twentymillions and they ‘re eight, and we’ve got most of the manufacturing andthe men who know how to work with their hands. But the Southerners areAmericans like ourselves, and can fight just as well as we can. Theythink they ‘re right, and thinking so makes a heap of difference whenyou go in for war. They ‘ll do their level best, just as we shall.”
“Perhaps they will,” was the reply, “but we ‘ll make short work of ‘em.”
“All right,” responded the other, “we won’t lose our tempers over it;but anybody who thinks the war will be over in three months doesn’tappreciate American fighting ability, no matter on which side of theline it is found.”
This mode of putting the argument silenced some of his opponents,particularly when he followed it up by showing how the Southernregiments in the Mexican war covered themselves with glory side by sidewith the Northern ones. But the loudest of the talkers refused to besilenced, and continued to taunt him with being a sympathizer with therebellion.
At the outbreak of the war a great deal of this kind of talk was to beheard on both sides; men in the North declaring that the South would beconquered and the war ended in three months, while people at the Southboasted of the ability of one Southern man to whip three Northerners.When the armies fairly met in the field and steel clashed againststeel all this boasting on both sides was silenced, and North and Southlearned to respect each other for their soldierly qualities. One of thegreatest of military mistakes is to hold your enemy in contempt, and tothis mistake is due some of the disasters of the early days of the war.
And the lesson may be carried further. One of the greatest mistakesin the battle of life is to underrate those who oppose you or thehindrances that lie in your path. Always regard your opponent as fullyyour equal in everything, and then use your best endeavors to overcomehim. Do your best at all times, and you have more than an even chance ofsuccess in the long run.
Jack and Harry listened a few moments to the debate among the men infront of the recruiting office, and then made their way inside. A man inthe uniform of a captain was sitting behind a desk taking the names ofthose that wanted to enlist, and telling them to wait their turn forexamination. In a few moments a man came out from an inner room, andthen a name was called and its owner went inside.
“Don’t think you ‘ll get in there, sonny,” said a man, who observed thepuzzled look of Jack as he glanced toward the inner door.
“What are they doing in there?” queried Jack encouraged by the friendlyway in which he had been addressed.
“They ‘re putting the recruits through their paces,” was the reply;“examining ‘em to see whether they ‘ll do for service.”
“How do they do it?”
“They strip a man down to his bare skin,” was the reply, “and then theythump him and measure him, to see if his lungs are sound; weigh himand take his height, make him jump, try his eyes, look at his teeth; infact, they put him through very much as you’ve seen a horse handled bya dealer who wanted to buy him. They’ve refused a lot of men here thatquite likely they ‘ll be glad to take a few months from now.”
And so it was. The first call for troops was responded to by far moremen than were wanted to fill the quota, and the recruiting officerscould afford to be very particular in their selections. Subsequent callsfor troops were for three years’ service, and, as the number under armsincreased, recruiting became a matter of greate
r difficulty. Men thatwere refused at the first call were gladly accepted in later ones.Before the end of the first year of the war more than six hundred andsixty-one thousand men were under arms in the North.
Jack and Harry walked up to the desk where the officer sat as soon asthey saw he was unoccupied.
“Well, my boys, what can I do for you?” said the captain cheerily.
Jack waited a moment for Harry to speak, and finding he did not do so,broke the ice himself with--
“We want to enlist, General.”
The youth was unfamiliar with the insignia of rank, and thought he wouldbe on the safe side by applying the highest title he knew of. The gildedbuttons and shoulder-straps dazzled his eyes, and it is no wonder thathe thought a man with so much ornamentation was deserving of the highesttitle.
“Captain, if you please,” said the officer, smiling; “but I’m afraid you‘re too young for us. How old are you?”
“Coming sixteen,” both answered in a breath.
The captain shook his head as he answered that they were altogether tooyoung.
“Could n’t we do something else?” queried Harry, eagerly. “We can drivehorses and work about the camp.”
“If you ever go for a soldier,” replied the captain, “you ‘ll find thatthe men do their own camp work, and don’t have servants. Perhaps we cangive you a chance at the teams. Here, take this to the quartermaster,” and he scribbled a memorandum, suggesting that the boys might be handyto have about camp and around the horses. They could n’t be enlisted, ofcourse, but he liked their looks, and thought they could afford to feedthe youths, anyhow.
The boys eagerly hastened to the quartermaster, whom they had somedifficulty in finding. He questioned them closely, and finally said theymight go with the regiment when it moved. It was not then ready for thefield, and he advised the boys to stay at home until the organizationwas complete and the regiment received orders to march to the seat ofwar.
The parental permission was obtained with comparatively littledifficulty, as the fathers of both the youths were firm believers inthe theory of a short war, without any fighting of consequence; theythought the outing would be a pleasant affair of two or three monthsat farthest. Had they foreseen the result of the call to arms, andespecially the perils and privations which were to befall Jack andHarry, it is probable that our heroes would have been obliged to runaway in order to carry out their intention of going to the field. Andpossibly their ardor would have been dampened a little, and they mighthave thought twice before marching away as they did when the regimentwas ordered to the front and the scene of active work in the field.
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