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eral killed, that regiment destroyed, and successful attempts elsewhere. The sun goes down on this day of blood. We have lost several killed. . . . At dusk, I creep back to the ravine, where I am to sleep. . . . For food to-day, I have had two or three hard crackers and cold potatoes. We have no blankets: so down I lie to sleep as I can on the earth, without covering; and, before morning, am chilled through with the dew and coldness of the air.

James K. Hosmer, The Color-Guard (Boston, 1864), 187–195 passim.

88. The Bummers (1863)

BY REVEREND GEORGE HUGHES HEPWORTH

Hepworth was a clergyman who was with the Union army in Louisiana in 1862 and 1863, first as chaplain of a Massachusetts regiment and later as a member of General Banks's staff. The piece is inserted to show a very common and depressing side of the war- - the demoralized soldier. - Bibliography as in No. 84 above.

A

FTER our column reached Opelousas, I left it, intending to go on with my work in the labor system; and I found but one thing, that, to my mind, marred the glory of our march through the Têche. That was the extensive system of plundering and pillaging which was carried on by the stragglers, - a class of men sufficiently large to attract attention. I afterwards found that their practices had been made known to the general, and that several of the offenders had been condemned to be shot. I am not one of those who would have mercy on a rebel; but even war is not exactly barbarism: it does not give a soldier license to do as he chooses with what does not belong to him. . . .

What made me more indignant was the fact, that the men who were bearing the brunt of the battle were not the ones who were enriching themselves. They simply hewed a way, through which others, less worthy, came at their leisure. The stragglers numbered not more than five hundred in all. These did all the mischief. One of these we found in the Newtown jail, with a thousand dollars in gold and silver on his person. If you should go up to any cottage within fifty miles of the rear, you would probably find some five or six of these fellows sitting in the gallery, smoking, sleeping, or boasting of their exploits. If you should take the trouble to empty their pockets, you would find an assortment of articles sufficiently large for a Jew to commence business with. They would show you gold pencils, silver spoons, and large rolls of

Confederate bills, and offer to sell you relics enough to fill a good-sized museum. There was an independence or an audacity about these fellows which was very striking. They would enter a house with the air of one who owned the place, and order the landlord to prepare dinner for two or three, as the case might be; and, while the frightened Creole was hurrying and bustling to do their bidding, they were quietly opening all his drawers, looking under his beds, unlocking his trunks, and making whatever discoveries they could. Perhaps, by the time dinner was announced, the whole party would have donned a new suit of clothes; and, not satisfied with eating the best the poor man had, would proceed to fill their pockets with his watches, his wife's jewelry, and all the little articles of vertu which could be found. At Franklin, Mr. Secesh and his family were quietly seated at the breakfast-table. Upon congratulating himself, that, so far, his property had remained intact, he saw half a dozen soldiers just entering his gate. They came very leisurely into the room where he sat with his wife and children, and politely requested them to rise from the table, and make room for Uncle Sam's boys then, after having satisfied their hunger with what the planter had supplied for himself, they pocketed every silver fork and spoon, and as leisurely took their departure. I confess, that, in this particular instance, I heard Mr. Secesh whine about his trouble, with a great deal of inward chuckling. He was a bad man, a Northern man, an adventurer, who had married a large plantation, and out-Heroded Herod in his virulence against the Yankees.

But the practice I most deeply deplore. Once I came near getting into difficulty by trying to check it. I remained all night with a man who had suffered severely from these military thieves. About five o'clock in the morning, I was roused by a tremendous noise down stairs. Dressing myself with all due haste, I went to the window, and, looking down, saw one of the gang just emerging from the cellar window below, his arms and pockets full of plunder. Presenting my pistol to his caput, I demanded what he was doing. He turned suddenly, caught sight of the ugly little revolver close to his brains, and, with a rapidity only equalled by a turtle drawing in his head when struck, he tumbled back into the room, greatly surprised. I went to the door to find the rest of the gang, when I was met by the roundest and most complete cursing it has ever been my fortune to receive. Expletives which I had supposed were long since obsolete, and all the most damnatory phrases in our language, were used with refreshing license. The men

had screened themselves on the other side of a bayou; and, when I drew my weapon on them, they dodged behind the levee, and made good their escape. Just then, I recollected that I was in my shirtsleeves, and without any insignia of rank, and started for the house to get my coat. I had proceeded but a few steps, however, when I found myself surrounded by five of the gang, each with his musket. A pretty fix to be in, surely! The rascals might shoot me, and then swear that I was a planter who had offered them violence. Nothing but the most unadulterated bravado would clear me. So, just as I was pondering what it was best to do, the fellow who had played the turtle so beautifully, quietly cocked his musket, and said,

"Throw down your pistol, or I will shoot!"

This, of course, was unendurable. My pistol had on it the name of the friend who gave it to me, and it was one of the last things to be given up. He repeated his very praiseworthy determination to shoot me; when I rather took him by surprise by bellowing in my loudest tones,

"Sirrah, I place you under arrest; and, if you budge an inch, you shall become intimately acquainted with that" (displaying my pistol to the best possible advantage). "Shoulder arms!" I repeated, as loud as I could bawl.

The fellow was completely disconcerted, and actually came to the shoulder arms; when I put on the coat I had sent for (having on shoulder-straps, of course), and placed the fellow under arrest. But I never preferred charges against him, and so the matter ended as a joke. George H. Hepworth, The Whip, Hoe, and Sword, or The Gulf-Department in '63 (Boston, 1864), 278–283 passim.

89. The Sanitary Commission (1863)

BY REVEREND FREDERICK NEWMAN KNAPP

Knapp, previously a minister, joined the Sanitary Commission in 1861, and became the superintendent of the special relief department; he furnished aid to some fifty thousand sick and wounded soldiers. He was a personal friend of Lincoln and Grant. The extract below gives information about only one of the many duties undertaken by the Sanitary Commission in its noble work of mitigating the horrors of war. - Bibliography as in No. 84 above.

TH

WASHINGTON, D. C.,

CENTRAL OFFICE, U. S. SANITARY COM'N, October 1st, 1863.

HE main purpose kept in view in this work of Special Relief for the past two years has been . . .

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First. To supply to the sick men of the newly arrived regiments such medicines, food, and care as it is impossible for them to receive, in the midst of the confusion, and with the unavoidable lack of facilities, from their own officers. The men to be thus aided are those who are not so sick as to have a claim upon a general hospital, and yet need immediate care to guard them against serious sickness.

Second. To furnish suitable food, lodging, care and assistance to men who are honorably discharged from service, sent from general hospitals, or from their regiments, but who are often delayed a day or more in the city, sometimes many days before they obtain their papers and pay.

Third. To communicate with distant regiments in behalf of discharged men whose certificates of disability or descriptive lists on which to draw their pay prove to be defective - the invalid soldiers meantime being cared for, and not exposed to the fatigue and risk of going in person to their regiments to have their papers corrected.

Fourth. To act as the unpaid agent or attorney of discharged soldiers who are too feeble or too utterly disabled to present their own claim at the paymaster's office.

Fifth. To look into the condition of discharged men who assume to be without means to pay the expense of going to their homes; and to furnish the necessary means where we find the man is true and the need real.

Sixth. To secure to disabled soldiers railroad tickets at reduced rates, and, through an agent at the railroad station, see that these men are not robbed or imposed upon by sharpers.

Seventh. To see that all men who are discharged and paid off do at once leave the city for their homes; or, in cases where they have been induced by evil companions to remain behind, to endeavor to rescue them, and see them started with through-tickets to their own towns.

Eighth. To make reasonably clean and comfortable before they leave the city, such discharged men as are deficient in cleanliness and clothes. Ninth. To be prepared to meet at once with food or other aid, such immediate necessities as arise when sick men arrive in the city in large numbers from battle-fields or distant hospitals.

Tenth. To keep a watchful eye upon all soldiers who are out of hospitals, yet not in service; and give information to the proper authorities of such soldiers as seem endeavoring to avoid duty or to desert from the ranks. . .

Having made these general statements, I will now report, in detail, but briefly as may be, upon the several branches of Relief; - and first, at Washington:

Ist. "The Home," 374 North Capitol Street. Increased accommodations for securing room and comfort at the Home, referred to in my last report, have been obtained; and now, instead of 140 beds, we have at the Home 320, besides a large baggage-room, a convenient washroom, a bath-house, &c. . . . The third building . . . for a "Hospital." The necessity for this building, devoted exclusively to Hospital purposes, is found in the fact, that although the men who come under the care of the Commission are mostly on their way to their homes, and might therefore be supposed to be not so very feeble as to need specially "Hospital" treatment, yet, as a matter of fact, many of them are weakened to such a degree by disease, that by the time they reach Washington, or the railway station from the front, or from the various hospitals, their strength is nearly exhausted, and they are only restored, if at all, by such care as hospital treatment affords; and frequently they are too far gone to make even that available. . . . These were nearly all men having their discharge papers with them, and they had, consequently, given up their claim upon the General or Regimental Hospitals, and had taken the first stage of their journey towards their homes. If they had not found the care which the Commission thus offered to them, these same men must have died in the cars along the way, or at some stoppingpoint on their journey.

"The doors of the 'Home' are open night and day; yet vigilant watch is kept, not to harbor any man who ought to be with his regiment, or reporting to some Medical Officer. Otherwise, the 'Home' would quickly become what of course there is, as we are ready to acknowledge, apparent and real danger of its becoming, unless wisely managed, viz., a philanthropic interference with Army discipline, pleading its humanity as an excuse for its intrusion. . . ." . . .

Lodge No. 4, in "H" Street. This is the new Lodge with large accommodations, immediately connected with the office of the Paymaster for discharged soldiers. . . .

This relief station consists of six buildings. A dormatory of a hundred beds a dining-room, seating about one hundred, with a large kitchen attached: a baggage-room, where all the discharged men coming in to be paid off can deposit their baggage, receiving a check for it: a storehouse: quarters for the guard: and a building containing the office of the Free Pension Agency, office of the Medical Examiner for pensions, and ticket office for the Railroad agent, selling through-tickets to soldiers at reduced rates of fare.