3 A Soldier of the Republic

I visited none of my friends that day, wishing to be alone—that is, alone in a crowd, where I could observe and myself pass unnoticed. The drama now unfolding in Washington was of the most absorbing nature, and all my personal interests were involved in it. Yet my own course was clear, and I could watch others.

I passed from crowd to crowd, noting the increasing strain of the situation, caused by the arrival of Lincoln, the news of which soon spread throughout the city, and the growing volume of belligerent talk, much of it real. In the course of the afternoon I entered a hotel where the crowd in the public room was the thickest that I had met yet; a crowd, too, which seemed to be wholly Southern. I saw no one whom I knew, and my attention wandering shortly, I began to think of Varian and Elinor and Mrs. Maynard. The thought of these three in connection was not pleasant, but I could not dismiss it.

When I looked up again I saw that another man in all that turbulent crowd was silent. The stranger’s glance wandered my way presently, and I was drawn by his expression of humorous sympathy. There seemed to be between us the indefinable but mutual attraction of two who are of one mind and differ from those around them, the hostile crowd acting as a force to press them together.

I examined this man who held my gaze. He was about fifty, short, dark, thick, his shoulders and chest immense, his face almost as brown as an Indian’s, and his hands large and rough. His dress was plain and careless; evidently he was not of high station in life, but the open expression of his broad face, his steady gaze which said, though not offensively, that he considered himself as good as anybody, made him singularly attractive to those who liked strength and candour. His eyes twinkled as if he were enjoying a fine comedy at a theatre, and presently he came over and sat down beside me. I observed at once the erectness of his figure, the manner in which he threw back his shoulders, and that his was a soldier’s walk.

“Heap big talk, as the Indians would say,” began the stranger, filling his pipe slowly and lighting it.

His manner invited confidence.

“They are telling each other that the war will last but two or three months,” I said, wishing to draw him. “One or two battles they believe will suffice to divide the Union.”

The stranger took his pipe from his mouth and watched a whiff of smoke rise to the ceiling. His eyes still twinkled, and the lines of his face curved into a smile, making deep creases.

“I heard them,” he replied. “I had an uncle who was a sailor. He used to say that lots of stuff came alongside, but he hoisted mighty little of it on board, and stowed away still less in the hold. That’s my opinion of talk like this.”

He waved his hand at the crowd, which was paying no attention either to him or me.

“What do they know of war?” he continued. “Not one of them ever saw a battle.”

“You are a soldier,” I said, my first impression confirmed.

“Perhaps these gabblers would not call me one, but I’ve drawn Uncle Sam’s pay for thirty years, and I’ve tried to earn my little per diem. I followed old Fuss and Feathers to the Halls of the Montezumas—and I don’t want any such halls to live in; I can tell you the tribe of every Indian on the plains by the style of his war paint; and I know by one look into a quartermaster’s eye whether he steals rations. Isn’t that enough?”

He took the pipe out of his mouth again, and with heartfelt satisfaction watched the smoke curl upward. Evidently he had the just proportion of egotism that makes a man happy. He showed, too, the slight and repressed tinge of garrulity necessary to a good comrade.

“You are of the regular army, then?” I said.

“Of course; I never heard of any other army—real army.”

Obviously his professional pride was aroused. My liking increased. The stranger’s appearance was attractive and his manner yet more so. He was the incarnation of good humour.

“Thirty years in the army!” I repeated.

“Yes, and it’s more years than you are old, with, some to spare. Thirty years ago I enlisted with Uncle Sam as a private—a common, raw private, mind you—a green, fool private—a private that was nothing but dirt under the captain’s heel, and six months ago I resigned as a——”

“As a what?”

“As a private, still a common private.”

He laughed a quiet but deep and unctuous laugh.

“Still a private,” he resumed, “and willing to be one, but not a raw private, nor a green private, nor dirt under the officer’s heel. A good many lieutenants fresh from West Point, with their dress-parade uniforms on, and with as much knowledge of real war as a baby has of a saw mill, have been willing to ask the opinion of Thomas Shaftoe, private soldier, U. S. A.”

“Why did you quit the army?”

“Things were dull then. I didn’t know that this war was breeding so fast; but now it’s close at hand, and I’ll enlist again. I’m going to join the volunteer boys in the West; they’re fine stuff—the best in the world, but raw, and maybe an old soldier like myself can do a lot of good among them.”

He smoked his pipe vigorously, looking keenly at me from under his heavy eyebrows.

He said presently:

“You’re carrying the whole world on your shoulders!”

I started and then smiled. His manner was so genial that one could not take offence.

“Why do you say that?” I asked.

“I know it; I can see it, and the load’s getting heavy, young man; throw it off! you look tired. Don’t fret; it doesn’t pay; there are just twelve hundred million people in the world, so I’ve heard, and no man is responsible for every one of them. Now, I take it that you’re trying to settle this whole war business all by your young and inexperienced self, and, just naturally, you are getting mixed up and troubled with the size of the job. Let it go and do your part, which is the one twelve-hundred-millionth of the whole. It will come out all right; if it don’t, let it go wrong—you’ll not be to blame.”

“You are sure that there will be a war?” I asked, pleased at his sympathy, but not telling him that the coming struggle was not the whole cause of my concern.

“As sure as I am that the sun will rise in the morning. You don’t think that the political orators, the stump speakers, have been at work all these years for nothing, do you? You’ve heard, no doubt, that there are special hells reserved for special people, but if I had my way the special hell of the special hells would be put aside for the stump speakers. It’s a funny thing to me that the people of this country, who do most things so well, and are so keen, should allow themselves to be led off by any man with the gift of gab that comes along. He may be a fool or a scamp in everything but stump speaking, a drunkard, a gambler, a fellow who does not pay his debts, and whose word you would not trust five minutes; but let him get up on a platform and tell a string of jokes, and rave about our wrongs, and the whole crowd will shout that he’s the very fellow to manage the finances and the army and the navy and the post office, and everything else that the Government’s got. Now, the South knows that slavery is wrong, even when she says it’s not; but she’s been abused so much about it, and charged with so many things that she hasn’t done by the Northern people—some of whom are still living on the inherited profits of the slave trade, and whose consciences have spoken late—that she’s put her back up, and she says: ‘All right; I’ve got slavery, and I’m going to keep it; what are you going to do about it?’ She is so mad she can’t see straight, and she will make a fool of herself and have a war; but if you could find a wide plain, lead all the thirty million people of the United States into it, introduce ’em to each other, and let ’em see what they really are, the whole trouble—slavery, State rights, and everything else—would be finished in ten minutes. Instead, there will be a bloody war, and the demagogues of both sides who have caused it will be the first to take to the woods when the shooting begins.”

He spoke with frankness, and it was manifest from his tone that he had no feeling against either section. The more I looked at him the more I liked him, and I thought that he liked me as well. This seemed to be one of those happy chances of which every man has a fair percentage, and a serious thought developed itself rapidly in my mind. Meanwhile I gazed at him with intentness, though in a manner that was unconscious.

“Well, Mr. Judge, what do you think of me?” he asked at length, the humorous twinkle reappearing in his eyes, and the creases forming again around his mouth.

I would have apologized for my rude gaze, but I saw that he was not offended, and I said:

“I think that you look like a good soldier and a man who would prove a first-class comrade. I am to he a soldier, too, or at least try. I suggest that you undertake my education in the ranks.”

“It’s a heavy responsibility that you are putting on me,” he replied, the twinkle deepening. “Are you prepared to take advice and never to sulk?”

“I’ll try.”

“Then, if you keep your word, you will make a good beginning,” he said, “and we stand agreed.”

The bargain was signed, attested, and sealed with a handshake, and then we adjourned to hear a street preacher, who had been on the sidewalk for the last five minutes haranguing whomsoever would listen.

In our country, where every man may speak. his mind, or his lack of it, strange people sometimes lift up their voices and add to the picturesqueness of life, if not to its wisdom. The preacher who addressed the crowd was tall, thin, angular, and the fire of fanaticism burned in his eyes.

“I bring a message of peace on earth and good will to men,” he said.

The words had an unreal echo in the war-laden atmosphere of that city. Somebody laughed.

“You prepare for war, and lo! the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” continued the preacher, turning his burning eyes upon the one who laughed.

The crowd was silent, respecting his earnestness, and he began to talk with a natural but wild and disjointed eloquence. He quoted the command, “Thou shalt do no murder.” He spoke of the wicked cities destroyed for their sins, and he said that we were marching to the same fate. He was like some Hebrew prophet upbraiding the children of Israel when they were sunk in sin.

The crowd was awed for a little while by his wild emphasis and his striking appearance as he stood there, his eyes lighting up his meagre face like two coals and his long white hair thrown back. But the impression soon faded, and they began to laugh at him as a fanatic. Then I saw how idle his efforts were. The passions of the multitude had been raised, and they could not be stilled by a few words. One might as well preach to soldiers of the blessings of peace when their fingers were on the trigger and the enemy coming.

The crowd passed from laughing to jeering, and then two or three missiles were thrown, but in a moment a tall man strode among them and pushed the offenders violently to one side, speaking to them so sternly and with such authority that they slipped away ashamed.

It was Varian.

“It is just as I told you, Mr. Kingsford,” he said to me. “The mob is fit only to be ruled by the best, who are also the fewest. Freedom of speech, even to the lowest, is one of the chief boasts of this country, and you have just beheld the common people themselves trying to prevent it. Only an aristocracy can secure free speech and other rights for the multitude. I think that if I had not interfered you would have done so speedily.”

He held out his hand as if we were the best of friends, and I had no choice but to take it. Then I introduced my new acquaintance Shaftoe, and he was polite to him also.

“You are a type of the American regular soldier, Mr. Shaftoe,” he said, “and I think that you will soon have a chance to prove what you can do.”

Shaftoe assented silently, and we walked a little way together. Then the soldier left us, he and I agreeing to meet on the morrow.

“Rough, but honest and stanch, I should say,” commented Varian. “The plebeian type in its best form. Society, I repeat, Mr. Kingsford, must be composed of two classes, the patrician and plebeian, each with its virtues. The ancient world has proved it. I know that you do not agree with me, but at last you will find me to be right.”

When we parted he gave me a courteous invitation to visit him at his rooms.

“I shall have some friends there,” he said, “who, I think, you will find agreeable, and we can play cards, discuss politics or not, as you choose, and practise with the foils. I learned swordsmanship in Europe, and I think I can promise that you shall not be bored.”

His manner as he gave me the invitation was simple and wholly agreeable, and I accepted.

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