How terrible to them
has been the breaking up of that delusion!
When a poor yokel in
England is enlisted with a shilling and a promise of unlimited beer
and glory, one pities, and, if possible, would save him. But with
him the mode of life to which he goes may not be much inferior to
that he leaves. It may be that for him soldiering is the best
trade possible in his circumstances. It may keep him from the hen-
roosts, and perhaps from his neighbors' pantries; and discipline
may be good for him. Population is thick with us; and there are
many whom it may be well to collect and make available under the
strictest surveillance. But of these men whom I saw entering on
their career upon the banks of the Mississippi, many were fathers
of families, many were owners of lands, many were educated men
capable of high aspirations - all were serviceable members of their
State. There were probably there not three or four of whom it
would be well that the State should be rid. As soldiers, fit or
capable of being made fit for the duties they had undertaken, I
could find but one fault with them. Their average age was too
high. There were men among them with grizzled beards, and many who
had counted thirty, thirty-five, and forty years. They had, I
believe, devoted themselves with a true spirit of patriotism. No
doubt each had some ulterior hope as to himself, as has every
mortal patriot. Regulus, when he returned hopeless to Carthage,
trusted that some Horace would tell his story. Each of these men
from Minnesota looked probably forward to his reward; but the
reward desired was of a high class.
The first great misery to be endured by these regiments will be the
military lesson of obedience which they must learn before they can
be of any service. It always seemed to me, when I came near them,
that they had not as yet recognized the necessary austerity of an
officer's duty. Their idea of a captain was the stage idea of a
leader of dramatic banditti - a man to be followed and obeyed as a
leader, but to be obeyed with that free and easy obedience which is
accorded to the reigning chief of the forty thieves. "Waal,
captain," I have heard a private say to his officer, as he sat on
one seat in a railway car, with his feet upon the back of another.
And the captain has looked as though he did not like it. The
captain did not like it; but the poor private was being fast
carried to that destiny which he would like still less. From the
first I have had faith in the Northern army; but from the first I
have felt that the suffering to be endured by these free and
independent volunteers would be very great. A man, to be available
as a private soldier, must be compressed and belted in till he be a
machine.
As soon as the men had left the vessel we walked over the side of
it and took possession. "I am afraid your cabin won't be ready for
a quarter of an hour," said the clerk. "Such a body of men as that
will leave some dirt after them." I assured him, of course, that
our expectations under such circumstances were very limited, and
that I was fully aware that the boat and the boat's company were
taken up with matters of greater moment than the carriage of
ordinary passengers. But to this he demurred altogether. "The
regiments were very little to them, but occasioned much trouble.
Everything, however, should be square in fifteen minutes." At the
expiration of the time named the key of our state-room was given to
us, and we found the appurtenances as clean as though no soldier
had ever put his foot upon the vessel.
From La Crosse to St. Paul the distance up the river is something
over 200 miles; and from St. Paul down to Dubuque in Iowa, to which
we went on our return, the distance is 450 miles. We were,
therefore, for a considerable time on board these boats - more so
than such a journey may generally make necessary, as we were
delayed at first by the soldiers, and afterward by accidents, such
as the breaking of a paddle-wheel, and other causes, to which
navigation on the Upper Mississippi seems to be liable. On the
whole, we slept on board four nights, and lived on board as many
days. I cannot say that the life was comfortable, though I do not
know that it could be made more so by any care on the part of the
boat owners. My first complaint would be against the great heat of
the cabins. The Americans, as a rule, live in an atmosphere which
is almost unbearable by an Englishman. To this cause, I am
convinced, is to be attributed their thin faces, their pale skins,
their unenergetic temperament - unenergetic as regards physical
motion - and their early old age. The winters are long and cold in
America, and mechanical ingenuity is far extended. These two facts
together have created a system of stoves, hot-air pipes, steam
chambers, and heating apparatus so extensive that, from autumn till
the end of spring, all inhabited rooms are filled with the
atmosphere of a hot oven. An Englishman fancies that he is to be
baked, and for awhile finds it almost impossible to exist in the
air prepared for him. How the heat is engendered on board the
river steamers I do not know, but it is engendered to so great a
degree that the sitting-cabins are unendurable. The patient is
therefore driven out at all hours into the outside balconies of the
boat, or on to the top roof - for it is a roof rather than a deck -
and there, as he passes through the air at the rate of twenty miles
an hour, finds himself chilled to the very bones.
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