The Brigade Commander Read online

  Produced by David Widger

  THE BRIGADE COMMANDER

  By J. W. Deforest

  By permission of "The New York Times."

  The Colonel was the idol of his bragging old regiment and of thebragging brigade which for the last six months he had commanded.

  He was the idol, not because he was good and gracious, not because hespared his soldiers or treated them as fellow-citizens, but because hehad led them to victory and made them famous. If a man will win battlesand give his brigade a right to brag loudly of its doings, he may haveits admiration and even its enthusiastic devotion, though he be aspitiless and as wicked as Lucifer.

  "It's nothin' to me what the Currnell is in prrivit, so long as he showsus how to whack the rrebs," said Major Gahogan, commandant of the "OldTenth." "Moses saw God in the burrnin' bussh, an' bowed down to it, an'worr-shipt it. It wasn't the bussh he worrshipt; it was his God thatwas in it. An' I worrship this villin of a Currnell (if he is a villin)because he's almighty and gives us the vict'ry. He's nothin' but a humanburrnin' bussh, perhaps, but he's got the god of war in um. AdjetantWallis, it's a------long time between dhrinks, as I think ye wassayin', an' with rayson. See if ye can't confiscate a canteen of whiskeesomewhere in the camp. Bedad, if I can't buy it I'll stale it. We'regoin' to fight tomorry, an' it may be it's the last chance we'll havefor a dhrink, unless there's more lik'r now in the other worrld thanDives got."

  The brigade was bivouacked in some invisible region, amid the damp,misty darkness of a September night. The men lay in their ranks, eachwith his feet to the front and his head rearward, each covered by hisovercoat and pillowed upon his haversack, each with his loaded riflenestled close beside him. Asleep as they were, or dropping placidly intoslumber, they were ready to start in order to their feet and pour outthe red light and harsh roar of combat. There were two lines of battle,each of three regiments of infantry, the first some two hundred yardsin advance of the second. In the space between them lay two four-gunbatteries, one of them brass twelve-pounder "Napoleons," and the otherrifled Parrotts. To the rear of the infantry were the recumbent troopersand picketed horses of a regiment of cavalry. All around, in the far,black distance, invisible and inaudible, paced or watched stealthily thesentinels of the grand guards.

  There was not a fire, not a torch, nor a star-beam in the whole bivouacto guide the feet of Adjutant Wallis in his pilgrimage afterwhiskey. The orders from brigade headquarters had been strict againstilluminations, for the Confederates were near at hand in force, and asurprise was proposed as well as feared. A tired and sleepy youngster,almost dropping with the heavy somnolence of wearied adolescence, hestumbled on through the trials of an undiscernible and unfamiliarfooting, lifting his heavy riding-boots sluggishly over imaginaryobstacles, and fearing the while lest his toil were labor misspent. Itwas a dry camp, he felt dolefully certain, or there would have been morenoise in it. He fell over a sleeping sergeant, and said to him hastily,"Steady, man--a friend!" as the half-roused soldier clutched his rifle.Then he found a lieutenant, and shook him in vain; further on a captain,and exchanged saddening murmurs with him; further still a camp-followerof African extraction, and blasphemed him.

  "It's a God-forsaken camp, and there isn't a horn in it," said AdjutantWallis to himself as he pursued his groping journey. "Bet you I don'tfind the first drop," he continued, for he was a betting boy, andfrequently argued by wagers, even with himself. "Bet you two to one Idon't. Bet you three to one--ten to one."

  Then he saw, an indefinite distance beyond him, burning like red-hotiron through the darkness, a little scarlet or crimson gleam, as of alighted cigar.

  "That's Old Grumps, of the Bloody Fourteenth," he thought. "I've raidedinto his happy sleeping-grounds. I'll draw on him."

  But Old Grumps, otherwise Colonel Lafayette Gildersleeve, had norations--that is, no whiskey.

  "How do you suppose an officer is to have a drink, Lieutenant?" hegrumbled. "Don't you know that our would-be Brigadier sent all thecommissary to the rear day before yesterday? A eanteenful can't last twodays. Mine went empty about five minutes ago."

  "Oh, thunder!" groaned Wallis, saddened by that saddest of all thoughts,"Too late!" "Well, least said soonest mended. I must wobble back to myMajor."

  "He'll send you off to some other camp as dry as this one. Wait tenminutes, and he'll be asleep. Lie down on my blanket and light yourpipe. I want to talk to you about official business--about our would-beBrigadier."

  "Oh, _your_ turn will come some day," mumbled Wallis, rememberingGildersleeve's jealousy of the brigade commander--a jealousy which onlygave tongue when aroused by "commissary." "If you do as well as usualto-morrow you can have your own brigade."

  "I suppose you think we are all going to do well to-morrow," scoffed OldGrumps, whose utterance by this time stumbled. "I suppose you expect towhip and to have a good time. I suppose you brag on fighting and enjoyit."

  "I like it well enough when it goes right; and it generally does goright with this brigade. I should like it better if the rebs would firehigher and break quicker."

  "That depends on the way those are commanded whose business it is tobreak them," growled Old Grumps. "I don't say but what we are rightlycommanded," he added, remembering his duty to superiors. "I concede andacknowledge that our would-be Brigadier knows his military business. Butthe blessing of God, Wallis! I believe in Waldron as a soldier. But as aman and a Christian, faugh!"

  Gildersleeve had clearly emptied his canteen unassisted; he never talkedabout Christianity when perfectly sober.

  "What was your last remark?" inquired Wallis, taking his pipe from hismouth to grin. Even a superior officer might be chaffed a little in thedarkness.

  "I made no last remark," asserted the Colonel with dignity. "I'm nota-dying yet. If I said anything last it was a mere exclamation ofdisgust--the disgust of an officer and gentleman. I suppose you knowsomething about our would-be Brigadier. I suppose you think you knowsomething about him."

  "Bet you I know _all_ about him," affirmed Wallis. "He enlisted in theOld Tenth as a common soldier. Before he had been a week in camp theyfound that he knew his biz, and they made him a sergeant. Before westarted for the field the Governor got his eye on him and shoved himinto a lieutenancy. The first battle h'isted him to a captain. Andthe second--bang! whiz! he shot up to colonel right over the heads ofeverybody, line and field. Nobody in the Old Tenth grumbled. They sawthat he knew his biz. I know _all_ about him. What'll you bet?"

  "I'm not a betting man, Lieutenant, except in a friendly game of poker,"sighed Old Grumps. "You don't know anything about your Brigadier," headded in a sepulchral murmur, the echo of an empty canteen. "I have onlybeen in this brigade a month, and I know more than you do, far, very farmore, sorry to say it. He's a reformed clergyman. He's an apostatizedminister." The Colonel's voice as he said this was solemn and sad enoughto do credit to an undertaker. "It's a bad sort, Wallis," he continued,after another deep sigh, a very highly perfumed one, the sigh of abarkeeper. "When a clergyman falls, he falls for life and eternity,like a woman or an angel. I never knew a backslidden shepherd to cometo good. Sooner or later he always goes to the devil, and takes downwhomsoever hangs to him."

  "He'll take down the Old Tenth, then," asserted Wallis. "It hangs tohim. Bet you two to one he takes it along."

  "You're right, Adjutant; spoken like a soldier," swore Gildersleeve,"And the Bloody Fourteenth, too. It will march into the burning pit asfar as any regiment; and the whole brigade, yes, sir! But a backsliddenshepherd, my God! Have we come to that? I often say to myself, in thesolemn hours of the night, as I remember my Sabbath-school days, 'GreatScott! have we come to that?' A reformed clergyman! An apostatizedminister! Think of it, Wallis, think of it! Why, sir, his very wife r
anaway from him. They had but just buried their first boy," pursued OldGrumps, his hoarse voice sinking to a whimper. "They drove home from theburial-place, where lay the new-made grave. Arrived at their door, _he_got out and extended his hand to help _her_ out. Instead of accepting,instead of throwing herself into his arms and weeping there, she turnedto the coachman and said, 'Driver, drive me to my father's house.' Thatwas the end of their wedded life, Wallis."

  The Colonel actually wept