LIKE the royal personages in the drama, I was on the stage of life, , with flourish of . The Civil War was at its bursting-point, the President calling for recruits: it was impertinent of me, but in that solemn hour I came a-crowing into the world. And since I was born under allegiance, a lady whom I learned to love with incredible quickness,
"O bella Libertà! O bella!"—
rocked my fortunate cradle. She gave me a little flag for toy, instead of coral-and-bells; and filled my virginal ear with the classic strains of "John Brown's Body," ere yet I had heard a lullaby. She it was who dyed my infant mind in her own tri-color, and whose exciting companionship roused me surprisingly early into wide-awake consciousness and . In laughing recognition of her old, old favor, these confused memories (Impressions of America, as it were, ab ovo) may be recorded.
A young person some twenty-four years my senior, for whom I had a violent , had preceded me "to the warres." I saw his ship sail away, at that exceedingly tender age when a human being is involved in mummy-like cerements, and cannot properly be said to exist at all. In the winter of 1864—he had been away during that long interval—I and went South to visit him. I had thrived at home through the agony of those days. I had a general idea that my cue in life was to fight; and I would smile endearingly over a colored plate of the Battle of Trafalgar, whose smoky glare, and indications of and , were to my mind. Red, however, by some process of mistaken , I came to regard as inimical to the party to-119- which, as catechumen, I belonged. I had not then a very vocabulary at my command; but I soon indicated my convictions by like a young eagle at the most innocent auction-flag that ever floated out of a Boston door of a sunny morning, or flushing with unmistakable at a casual visitor who bore a trace of that color in anything worn or carried. It was long, indeed, before I was persuaded to transfer my misguided sentiment to A.D. 1775, and to believe that the neighboring rebel had no especial with the in question. Prior to my journey to Virginia, I had spent a few months in camp the year before. A slight ran the rounds of the tents, and took in ours. The only recollection which survives is a vivid one of neighboring trees, and a distant hill, visible as I lay facing the narrow door; a view which included the ever-flitting figure of the sentinel, his steady, silent tread, on shoulder, and the kind face in profile, which turned, ever and anon, smilingly about, like the moon at her merriest. That welcome shadow which fell before him in the broad light was cut down in the ranks at Malvern Hill.
But my earliest real experiences began in '64. had been some weeks suspended; yet the headquarters of a Southern lay within gun-shot, and my delighted terrors . Was Jeff Davis on the other bank of the stream? Might they creep over by night and fall upon us? If I should be allowed to venture alone into the , would the eyes of the "reb" glare upon me? Please could I settle difficulties with any little boy in the opposing camp? in the admirable Roman fashion, of whose I was yet ignorant.
How they would laugh, those bearded and epauletted guests of our exceptionally elegant log-house! And how uproariously they often planted me, regardless of ink and paper, on the table, and toasted me in some cordial until I in glee!
Be it admitted that the freedom I enjoyed among officers and men of several organizations, and the indulgence which they showed, tended not to improve my scarce seraphic . More than once was I called to order for some of discipline, the most of which were cutting the tent-strings, hanging about the and his progress with efforts to relieve him of his musket, or the drum-sticks to an anticipated signal. The dark-eyed young man to whom I owed allegiance—
"Ay me! while life did last that league was tender,"
—would exclaim, with the awful sense of a newly acquired dignity: "Disobey a colonel if you dare!" and threaten me, not with vulgar of supper, or trivial in closets, but with a veritable court-martial for my predestined , when I should be so bad again.
Our family consisted of a cook of jolly and , and a pleasant lad, who, among his other duties, cared for my glossy-coated Arabian, and led him about like a circus-master, while I "snatched a fearful joy" upon his back. The memory of the former personage is in the of roast beef and potatoes, which he announced frequently with a melodramatic flourish and never to be forgotten. Burly old Bush! He had a way of delivering his best things, stans pede in uno, with a sidelong light of the eye to let you into the secret of his rich hyperboles.
Another favorite of mine was an adjutant, owner of two King Charles spaniels, which I was permitted to endow with portions of my supper, and which I visited as regularly as a country lover his sweetheart, when the general evening set in. Captain J., too, stern, , and little popular with his men, was strangely gentle to one that rode on his arm, and fell asleep, many a time, at his knee. He was a fascinating story-teller, and held my fancy longer than any soldier-playmate of his day. He had the absolute confidence of my infallible young man. The old figure, "true as steel," was made for him. They forbore to tell me till long afterwards, that he fell, shot through and through, at the , with his face to the .
He had a brother, a boy, whose sunny hair I can remember under the military cap. But him I may come across any hour, prosperous and sunny-haired still. The only other figures plain to my mind's eye are F., the sweet-mannered gentleman who took care of me in a long railway journey; S., the surgeon, of jokes and of whistles; W., who used to sing "Malbrook s'en va-t en guerre," with immense satisfaction to h............