"IN THE COMPANY STREET."

By Col. Charles E. Sprague.

How some things appeared to a boy of nineteen, who lived in a company street in the Army of the Potomac, is gathered from his memory and from the letters he wrote to his mother.

One Monday late in November, over thirty years ago, our company came pulling ourselves along, at the finish of about fifteen miles of rather tough travel, and after dark turned into a piece of woods, stacked arms, and were told to "bivouac in rear of stacks, ready to march at daybreak." Now it was a rule we soldiers learned to recognize, that if you camped down at night with strict injunctions to be ready to march on at daybreak, with advices from your officers, that you'd better not waste any time in getting up comfortable shelter because this was the most temporary kind of halt, then for a certainty, if you followed this advice, you were going to be kept right in that bivouac long enough to repent not going to work at getting comfortably housed. So, after some experience, we never took any stock in assurances of brief stay; we went right to work at house building on the assumption that we should stay a month; if we marched next day no great harm was done, but if we stayed a week we were well paid for our trouble.

The pine trees were thick around us that night, in the morning we could scarcely see the nearest regiment; but instead of marching at daybreak we stayed and stayed and went away and came back again and stayed again until the company street first traced by our stacks of arms seemed like a home, and till the thick woods had disappeared; every tree was cut down, first wastefully and extravagantly, at shoulder height, then down to a decent stump, then this stump was cut to the very quick, and finally we had no wood at all, having grubbed up the very roots. We stuck up our shelter tent that night and Eugene and Wilcox and I crawled under. The next morning after reveille, the first business was, of course, to settle bets on the sun. You see, in our company, when we got to camp after dark, we usually had a debate as to which way was north. Some of us were good at keeping in our heads the points of the compass in spite of the meanderings of Virginia paths; the rest of us thought we were equally smart, until the sun arose and we found our bets were lost. As I have said, we knew we should probably stay some time on account of the notification we had had, and sure enough symptoms of the kind soon broke out, some agreeable, such as the arrival of the sutler, others rather unpleasant, such as the posting of a regular camp guard.

We soon had enough to do in complying with all that the unceasing drum-beats suggested and compelled, but the improvement of our domestic architecture filled a large place in our thoughts. We built, tore down, and rebuilt on the self-same spot until our shanty seemed a part of ourselves, and of all the homes that I have ever loved and left there is none which has left so deep an impression as that little hut of one room, built of pine logs, sticks, sods, mud and canvas. It was built by days' work-a good many days-and Eugene and I (the third man having fallen out sick) were its architects, builders, masons, carpenters, sanitary engineers, and walking delegates.

This residence of ours was situated in the State of Virginia. As nothing in that region is described by any closer geographical limit than a county, a Virginian would merely have said that it was "Stahf'd" County, but we could define our location more accurately. Our township was the Fifth Army Corps; our village was the Third Brigade, First Division; our ward was the 44th N. Y.; and our street was Company E. As it turned out we were not far from Falmouth and near the railroad at a point which thenceforward, and possibly to this day, became known as "Stoneman's Switch." Stafford County never had so large a population up to the night we arrived, and probably never will have again. In our regiment they were not so strenuous for uniformity of architecture as in some commands, and allowed scope for individuality; as long as the line of front doors was pretty straight down the company streets, we could build our shanties of size and style to suit our tastes. Ours in its final form was about as follows: There was first, a cellar dug the full size of the ground plan, about two feet deep, Next came a wall of split pine logs, resting on the ground and held up by stakes, carrying up the cellar wall to a height of five feet in all. Now, the roof was of canvas, made of several of the little shelter tents, fastened together and stretched over a ridge-pole, which was supported by two stout uprights in front and rear. The front or door was also of canvas until we got our chimney built later on. Our next step was to caulk our wall with mud. Glorious Virginia mud! The one product of which there was always enough. Plastic as butter, but tough as spruce gum when dried; for architectural purposes, admirable; for pedestrian uses, vile. We plastered our wall pretty tightly with this natural stucco, and banked up the lower edge. We ditched around our home, and conducted the waters into the company gutter. Our bed, which comprised all our furniture, being also chair, sofa and table, was our next care. It was a spring bed. We split long straight pine saplings and laid them crosswise of the shanty on supports which held them about level with the surface of the ground. The bed was about three feet wide. Eugene and I were both slender. When sitting on the edge of the bed our feet rested against the front wall of our mansion. Here we talked; here we smoked; here we read; in pleasant weather, with our front canvas fastened back, we conversed with our neighbors, discussing every subject under heaven; and here we sat, Eugene and I, by our own fireside after the chimney was built.

Our chimney was a picturesque structure of sods. The mortar which held together these substitutes for brick was the aforesaid mud. An open fireplace faced the right-hand man of the two inmates who sat on the bed, and that man did the cooking from that position. Our chimney was a large one, covering more than half the front of the house and forming our front wall. A wooden mantel defined the top of the fireplace. Above this the chimney tapered somewhat and ended in a barrel. Some of our comrades had double-barreled chimneys, but we found it hard enough to steal one barrel at a time to supply those which caught fire; total loss; no insurance.

This was our home in the company street, as finished, but its evolution was gradual. It began as a mere tent; it ended in a house. To what further flights of architecture we might have gone, cannot be known.

Our first exodus was to Fredericksburg. We had begun to take root a little in our company street; the trees were pretty well thinned out, the street itself was graded and drained, our drill was regained, and it was evident we were now in camp. A sure sign was the fact that there was time to waste in court-martials, for the adjutant read us, at day parade, long stories of certain soldiers, who had "on or about" such a time, "at or near" such a place, done or said something, or "words to that effect."

But one Thursday, December 11th, we broke camp, never again, we supposed, to see the old street. The old shanty was dismantled to the music of that long and solemn call which every soldier knew as "Strike tents." First the brigade bugler had given it to us, after twice repeating a preface, or heading as it were, to his proclamation, which to every Third Brigade man seemed to chant the name of our old commander thus:

The angel Gabriel in his musical capacity is always associated with General Butterfield in the mind of any soldier of our brigade. If the bugler was not at hand, "Dan" could even sound the call himself and blow his own trumpet.

Mike, the regiment bugler, next lifts his old battered copper horn to his good-natured mouth, and easy as a bird, out floats his little song. His preliminary call was different and addressed to the 44th alone. The buglers of the other regiments had each sounded his own tune, and about the same moment was ringing through the whole brigade the long, drawn exhortation,

Down came the ponchos, and the camp looked like the skeleton of itself. We used to call our pieces of shelter-tent "ponchos," through some confusion of terms, for really the poncho was a rubber thing with a slit to put your head through. Our first sergeant had made us pack up everything beforehand, and now we sat around on our worldy possessions, having destroyed what we could not carry, for we never expected to see that camp again. Pat Riley, our next neighbor in the street, threw back his head and sang some ancient Irish lays in a voice up near his skull, with never a pause till the end, when his spare wind blew itself off like that of a bagpipe. Pat, being of bardic ancestry, was doubtless intoning a war-song, but it was unpleasantly like a dirge and did not inspirit us, except to throw things at Pat. The day was well advanced when we finally got the assembly, which we welcomed with a shout, for it meant doing something and not waiting in suspense. If I wanted to take all the spunk out of a lot of soldiers, I should get them all ready to go somewhere, or do something, and then-not do it. We were marched down in sight of Fredericksburg and spent two days as lookers-on, watching the explosive puffs of smoke on both sides of the river. At night we retired to the woods to sleep, regretting the old camp we had just left, and the spare blankets that were there. Saturday afternoon came a change. Our division headed for the pontoons and we knew where we were going, for we had seen a good many cross but few come back. One of the first who came back, a man from a new regiment, was well escorted. He was supported by a comrade on each side and another behind carried guns and knapsacks. The whole group of four must have gone, not wishing to confuse their company by counting off anew. The wounded man's injury was in one of his fingers. Our company kept straight on, though, and not a man dropped out. After getting through the town, Mike's bugle sounded "Lie down," and here I came to grief. The butt of my gun slipped, and the whole lock went into puddle and was covered with wet mud. I felt sure that I could not fire it, and I did not want a gun that would not shoot. My gun was very bright outside and in; so elegant looking, that I hoped to get the vacant sergeantcy soon on the strength of its exquisite polish. Pretty soon we went ahead, and I was on the lookout for another weapon. I found one alongside of a soldier among some piled timber. He looked and acted as if he needed some quinine and his gun wasn't the kind that could bring promotion, but I took it from him and went on, I might just as well have had the old rifle into whose surface so much rubbing had gone, for firstly, we had no chance to shoot at all, merely excellent facilities to be shot at; secondly, when I investigated his, I found a cartridge in it bottom side up. Finally, the owner of the gun had cut his initials, which were T. M., on the left side of the stock-a most flagrant crime against military propriety. I had afterwards to explain away those deeply cut letters, to the first sergeant, to the captain, to the adjutant, to the officer of the day, to the major, and to the colonel, each in turn; and at last when Inspector-General Webb inspected us in person, I caught it again. By this time I had become a sergeant, in spite of the musket, which I had scoured up to a pretty good shine, but the carving was there still. Of course I was out in front, in plain sight, little finger on the scam of the pantaloons, body erect on the hips, inclining a little forward, eyes gazing into futurity with a stony stare. Expressionless as I made my face, there must have been guilt in it. I thought, "Will he see it?" (If it were now, I should have said, "Will he get on to it?" but in those days our language was more correct.) See it? Get on to it? General Webb looked right through that gun stock and saw the letters on the opposite side. I stood at "inspection arms." He turned the musket right over, read T. M.'s autograph, looked through my eyes into my back hair, and proceeded to scrutinize every inch of the piece, concluding by jingling the rammer up and down and trying to soil his glove with the end of it, while I was wondering how soon I should be the subject of the adjutant's recital-" said Sergeant Sprague, wilfully, maliciously at or near Falmouth, Va., on or about-letters T. M. or words to that effect," and ending up with "Fort Wool, Rip Raps, Hampton Roads, Virginia." But probably there was no ring of rust on the glove. There was a rusty ring in his voice though when he burst forth"Sergeant, what do you mean by cutting your name on your rifle?" I rattled off my now well learned explanation: "Did not cut it, sir; not my name, sit; could not fire my rifle at Fredericksburg, sit; dropped it, and picked up this one, sir." Then he threw it into my hand so that it stung, with the advice, in a much lower tone, "Swop, again, sergeant." He didn't touch another gun in our company-no other man had guilt in his eye.

But I am wandering. We got over the broken ground and out into a field in front of the enemy or of a place where sheet lightning seemed to be playing. On we went, right towards that lightning. Pat Riley came to the front, he jumped about six feet forward and swung his rifle circularly above his head, dropping in a moment all the manual that had been drilled into him, and reverting to ancestral instincts. I think we were now beyond the point where there was any distinction between courage and cowardice; we were thoroughly insane and would have run right into that sheet lightning if little Major Knox had let us. But instead, he wheeled the battalion to the right. Why, I don't know, but I distinctly remember that our regiment wheeled in line of battle at double-quick. I remember how, in my delirium, with all the pedantry of a corporal who has studied the tactics and knows it all, I said to myself, "there's no such thing in Casey as 'Battalion, right wheel.' It ought to have been, 'Change direction to the right."'

It was not more than ten minutes from the time I swopped guns, when we were lying behind a hill and Captain Larrabee of Company B was saying in his cheery voice, "Major, these two left companies are under an enfilading fire." Major Knox replied, "Move them more to the right." Then, as I still had a touch of insanity, I said to myself: "Enfilading. Never heard that word pronounced before, though I have read it all my life. Now, first time I hear it, I am enfiladed. Practical example, like Squeer's teaching at Dotheboys Hall."

Now we were in a queer box, but we did not know it till morning. We slept a little during the night, not knowing but that we were in a very desirable location. It turned out at sunrise that we were just barely hidden from the rebels, who could just graze the air a few feet above us. It was possible to get your head blown off by standing up; it was possible to remain alive by close contact with the earth. We chose to spend a very quiet Sunday. Twenty-four hours we lay there until it was as dark as it had been when we came. Then we put our tin cups in our haversacks, and fixed everything so it would not rattle. We departed very unostentatiously, not with the pride, pomp, and circumstance with which we came there Saturday afternoon. That night we slept on the sidewalk of Fredericksburg; the next night, oh, most joyful change, we went to bed in a house. The house had been ventilated with some cannon balls, but some of the roof was there still and it could not be denied that we were sleeping in a house. It did not quite meet our anticipations, but it sounded well. At midnight we were waked up again, and very quietly taken out of the town to a place very much like our Sunday's lodging, relieving the 64th N. Y. Before daylight, we crept back to the town even more quietly, and in the grey of the morning, recrossed the pontoons with the usual cold rain in our faces. Although it seemed too good to be true, we were headed for the old camp-home again. We, prodigal sons, could now appreciate the comforts of a home, and were willing to dispense with the veal cutlets.

We had picked up a good deal of plunder at Fredericksburg, but all I had brought back was a bad cough. Eugene and I went into the housebuilding again. We had our logs cut and in position, when about the last day of the year 1862, there was another pulling up of stakes-no, we didn't pull up many stakes this time. We may come back, thought we, or else some other fellow may, and we'll leave these sticks and things as they are. Our departure this time was part of a movement I never have seen mentioned in any history. We marched up the river about fifteen miles and camped in the snow, spending New Year's Day in a bitterly cold place, and then tramped back again. The manoeuver of getting back to the old camp was one we could now perform without tunes or motions. Again, after this interruption, we settled down to our regular professional work as architects.

Our next trip was the famous "stick-in-the-mud," that mixture of mud, misery, pack-mules, and profanity, where wretchedness was carried to such a point that it became overwhelmingly funny. This time we left all standing and soon came back to find several inches of water in the cellar of our shanty. Things were soon got to rights, however, and our dwelling made more comfortable than before. The street was jolly, gossipy, buzzing with jokes, full of rumors readily believed. Boxes from the north, letters from home, soft bread, and furloughs for a favored few brightened us up, and before we knew it we felt cheery and hopeful; it was no longer fashionable to growl. Fashion had a good deal to do with the prevailing tone of the street; we were bullish or bearish like other streets. After Antietam, the correct thing was to say, "Well, you just let me get out of here once and you'll never see me a soldier again." After we had left Warrenton, this changed to the "bold, bad man" style, "Oh, I'm so used to this sort of thing, that Uncle Sam can't spare me; if I felt like it, I could lick anything." After Fredericksburg. "I'm a sad-eyed, unappreciated martyr." Now, a few weeks after the mud campaign, optimism was in the ascendant again, especially after we found that Joe Hooker was working for us soldiers, was thinking of us. That is what the soldier appreciated-not so much what was done for him, as the fact that some one was interested in him, was sympathizing with him. So our sullenness disappeared and Joe Hooker might have quoted the proverb, "Soft bread turneth away wrath." As it was understood that a clean and handsome camp was a credential for furloughs, we policed our street so that you would have thought Tom Brennan expected a Tammany parade to pass that way. Cleanliness, in camp, was 'way ahead of godliness. The regiment had a pretty good guard-house and resolved to erect a creditable church. I suppose the idea was, instead of enlarging the guard-house, to cut off its supply of material. This was a grand lark for some of the boys, going off with the quartermaster's mules into the thick woods and hauling logs for the church. Then we started another enterprise; the boss flag-staff of the Army of the Potomac. There was a tall tree standing right on the parade ground; some of our best axemen went out and cut another pine, the tallest and straightest they could find. This was, trimmed down to a mast, dragged into camp, fitted with halliards, hoisted up through the branches of the standing tree, lashed to its top; then its branches were cut away, leaving a flag-staff of two lengths, the lower part rooted in the ground. Our zouave uniforms were sent down from Washington where they had been stored for many months, and with white leggings and gloves, dress parade became a thing of beauty. These measures restored our spirits, and the company became cheery, chatty and chaffy.

We had only one heavy snowstorm that I remember. Just at reveille one morning in February, I opened my eyes upon a cone-shaped mound of white snow in our fire-place, tall and slender, extending upward till its apex was invisible. At the same instant I became conscious that fine snow was sifting through the cracks, and that Eugene would soon be snowed under. just then, boom went a cannon somewhere in the distance, and boom, boom, was repeated in a lively cannonade.

This was disgusting. To get up in a snowstorm was bad enough, but here was somebody inconsiderate enough to start a fight in such uncomfortable weather, and doubtless the Fifth Corps would be turned out in a few minutes. The language used up and down our company street did not at all agree in temperature with the snow. In a minute, some fellow who was an expert on the almanac, shouted out, "Washington's birthday." What a groan of relief echoed along the street when we remembered that it was February 22d. If it had been in these latter days, we should have inquired what was the matter with Washington, and explained who he was; but in those times, we merely said, "Bully for George," and "How are you, Washington?" These two formulas, together with "big thing," and "can't see it," were about the only witticisms we knew in 1863.

We did have a fight before that snow vanished, but it was with snowballs, and the 17th New York was the enemy.

So the days passed till the middle of April, when it was evident that something was going to happen. Our fancy uniforms were sent away and we lightened in advance the loads we were to carry through the summer. About two weeks were passed in suspense, losing something of the good feeling which had been so skillfully cultivated. Then off to Chancellorsville, making the fourth time we had assembled in the company street for a final departure, to the sound of the "Dan Butterfield" bugle. Each time, the line in front of the first sergeant had shortened by a few files, and we knew that if we ever fell in on that ground again, more of us would be absent. As we stood in line in marching order, we were a fair specimen of an American regiment. We stood about three hundred rank and file. Few regiments had anything like the nominal strength which a regiment should have. We were a very sunburned, hearty-looking set of fellows; we looked as if we could eat a square meal whenever we got one. In fact, we were a set of boys. The ages of our company averaged twenty-four, and probably there were more men about twenty-two than of any other age. We were not punctilious about the regulations as to dress. Our regimental uniforms of semi-zouave pattern had been turned in, and we had frock-coats, blouses, or jackets, just as it happened-anything blue would do. In hats and caps there was also much variety; the hideous regular army cloth cap, with slanting peak, which some turned up and some turned down-each way it looked worse; or the more nobby French shape, with straight visor; or the McClellan cap, with top falling forward-these had been sent on from home or purchased when on furlough; or the army black felt, which was generally worn with the crown depressed in the center; or other varieties of black soft hats, which were worn in spite of regulations. But every one had on his cap or hat a red Maltese cross, the badge of our division. Some had leggings, some had not; some old hands were in favor of stuffing the trousers into the stockings and tying them there with strings. The broad shoes furnished by the Government and usually called "gunboats" were the most fashionable foot wear; this was a part of the uniform which private enterprise did not much improve on. Only one thing about our get-up would have pleased a military critic,-our guns were clean and bright.

We were well keyed up to do anything Hooker asked, and I think that up to the very last of that discouraging campaign we were ready to make tremendous efforts for him. But the coming home was the worst yet. We had been the rear-guard as usual, and in the rain as usual; we had struggled through a wilderness and waded knee-deep in mud; and when we had crossed the pontoons again, all semblance of discipline seemed suspended and the only thing was to get back to the old camp anyhow. Right glad we were to find ourselves there again. It was wisdom to let us rally on the old camp; in no other way could we so readily have been brought back to our accustomed condition. I find that I wrote this to my mother:

"We got back to the old camp, Wednesday, soaked with mud and rain. We had not enough ponchos to cover our foundations, as we only carried one apiece and the extra ones we had left had been taken by the contractor for paper rags. So we had to huddle together about twice the number in the miserable wet holes. We were at about the lowest depth of misery and demoralization, which was not alleviated by being ordered to be ready to march next afternoon. But on Friday morning we were ordered to commence policing the street and make other preparations for a stay. This, with the more favorable news we received and a ration of soft bread, got us into better spirits, and now (Sunday) we are in the old routine of camp duty."

It began to seem as though that old camp ground was our predestined habitat for all time. It was impossible for us to stay away, and each attempt had resulted in disaster. It was an unlucky place to start from evidently. Therefore our next campaign must start from somewhere else. Whether this was the line of argument or not, we finally broke up the old camp without waiting for the campaign to open. The brigade fell in in the old company street and this was, actually, the last time. We marched off to a new camp-ground and made preparations enough to stay there several years. As a result, we soon left it and never saw it again.

I have never talked about the company street and about the best way to fix up a shanty with but one major-general,-until to-night. I had some conversation on the subject with the corps commander on the last day I revisited the old camp. Some half-dozen of our company asked permission to go over to the old ground and bring away some of the bric-a-brac left behind, and I was with them. We were tramping cheerily across the country (I think we had a pass to go through the picket line) and crossed a road just as the General was riding by, accompanied by an officer and followed by a headquarters' wagon. He reined up and evidently had something to say. "Who is in command of these men?" I modestly replied that "I was, sir," and explained that our captain had permitted us to go back to get some boards and things, "Boards and things! a soldier has no business to have anything but what he can carry on his back." I involuntarily rolled my eyes to the left, where the big headquarters wagon had halted; perhaps this hint that soldiers of high degree need not carry all their possessions on their backs, hurt General Meade's feelings, for he rode on with a "Humph!" Evidently General Meade did not agree with General Hooker's ideas as to the treatment of the soldiers. Probably he thought that from a dead level of discomfort we could easier bear any additional suffering, but that was not Hooker's theory. He believed in compensation, and thought the higher the pendulum swung on one side, the higher it would go on the other; that a soldier would, and could, endure more when called upon, if he had been made contented and comfortable up to that time.

As I seldom have a chance to address an audience mostly of major generals, I will take the opportunity to give them some advice on the conduct of the next war.

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