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FIRST LESSONS; OR, DOING THE IMPOSSIBLE

I was appointed adjutant of the One Hundred and Thirty-second Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers, by our great war Governor, Andrew G. Curtin, at the solicitation of Colonel Richard A. Oakford, commanding the regiment, my commission dating the 22d day of August, 1862. I reported for duty to Colonel Oakford at Camp Whipple, where the regiment was then encamped, on the 3d day of September, 1862. This was immediately following the disasters of "Chantilly" and "Second Bull Run," and as I passed through Washington to Camp Whipple, I found the greatest excitement prevailing because of these reverses, and a general apprehension for the safety of the capital in consequence. The wildest rumors were abroad concerning the approach of the victorious rebel troops, and an alarm amounting almost to a panic existed. Being without a horse or other means of transportation, I was obliged to make my way, valise in hand, on foot from Washington over the "long bridge" across the Potomac, to Camp Whipple, some two miles up the river nearly opposite Georgetown. From the wild rumors floating about Washington, I did not know but I should be captured bag and baggage before reaching camp. Undertaking this trip under those circumstances, I think, required almost as much nerve as "real work" did later on.

Getting beyond the long bridge there were abundant evidences of the reported disasters. Straggling troops, army wagons, etc., were pouring in from the "front" in great disorder. I reached camp about three o'clock P.M. and found Colonel Oakford out with the regiment on battalion drill. An hour later I reported to his office (tent) as ready for duty. The colonel had been a lifelong personal friend, and I was received, as I expected, most cordially. I was assigned quarters, and a copy of the daily routine orders of camp was placed in my hands, and my attention specially called to the fact that the next "order of business" was "dress parade" at six o'clock. I inquired the cause of this special notice to me, and was informed that I was expected to officiate as adjutant of the regiment at that ceremony. I pleaded with the colonel to be allowed a day or so in camp to see how things were done before undertaking such difficult and important duties; that I knew absolutely nothing about any part of military service; had never served a day in any kind of military work, except in a country fire company; had never seen a dress parade of a full regiment in my life, and knew nothing whatever about the duties of an adjutant.

My pleadings were all in vain. The only reply I received was a copy of the "Army Regulations," with the remark that I had two hours in which to study up and master the details of dress parade, and that I could not learn my duties any easier nor better than by actual practice; that my condition was no different from that of my fellow officers; that we were all there in a camp of instruction learning our duties, and there was not a moment to lose. I then began to realize something of the magnitude of the task which lay before me. To do difficult things, without knowing how; that is, to learn how in the doing, was the universal task of the Union volunteer officer. I took up my "Army Regulations" and attacked the ceremony of dress parade as a life and death matter. Before my two hours were ended, I could repeat every sentence of the ceremony verbatim, and felt that I had mastered the thing, and was not going to my execution in undertaking my duties as adjutant. Alas for the frailty of memory; it failed me at the crucial moment, and I made a miserable spectacle of myself before a thousand officers and men, many of them old friends and acquaintances, all of whom, it seemed to me, were specially assembled on that occasion to witness my début, and see me get "balled up." They were not disappointed. Things tactically impossible were freely done during that ceremony. Looking back now upon that scene, from the long distance of forty years, I see a green country boy undertaking to handle one thousand men in the always difficult ceremony of a dress parade. (I once heard Governor Hartranft, who attained the rank of a major-general during the war, remark, as he witnessed this ceremony, that he had seen thousands of such parades, and among them all, only one that he considered absolutely faultless.) I wonder now that we got through it at all. Think of standing to give your first command at the right of a line of men five hundred abreast, that is, nearly one thousand feet in length, and trying to make the men farthest away hear your small, unused, and untrained voice. I now can fully forgive my failure. The officers and men were considerate of me, however, and, knowing what was to be done, went through with it after a fashion in spite of my blunders.

The regiment was one of the "nine months'" quota; it had been in the service barely two weeks at this time. It was made up of two companies, I and K, from Scranton (Captains James Archbald, Company I, and Richard Stillwell, Company K), Company A, Danville, Pa.; B, Factoryville; C, Wellsboro and vicinity; E, Bloomsburg; F and G, Mauch Chunk, and H, Catawissa. It numbered, officers and men, about one thousand. Its field officers were Colonel Richard A. Oakford, Scranton; Lieutenant-Colonel Vincent M. Wilcox, Scranton; Major Charles Albright, Mauch Chunk; staff, Frederick L. Hitchcock, first lieutenant and adjutant, Scranton; Clinton W. Neal, first lieutenant and quartermaster, Bloomsburg; Rev. Schoonmaker, first lieutenant and chaplain, Scranton.

The transition from home life to that of an army in the field can only be appreciated from a stand-point of actual experience. From a well-ordered, well-cooked meal, served at a comfortable table with the accessories of home, howsoever humble, to a "catch as catch can" way of getting "grub," eating what, and when and where, you are fortunate enough to get to eat; and from a good, comfortable bed, comfortably housed in a comfortable home, to a blanket "shake down" under the beautiful sky, mark some of the features of this transition.

CAPT. MARTIN M. BROBST CO. H
CAPT. WARNER H. CARNOCHAN CO. D	CAPT. GEO. W. WILHELM CO. F
CAPT. SMITH W. INGHAM CO. B	CAPT. CHAS. M'DOUGAL CO. C
CAPT. RICHARD STILLWELL CO. K	CAPT. JAMES ARCHBALD, JR. CO. I
CAPT. CHARLES C. NORRIS CO. A	CAPT. JACOB D. LACIAR CO. F
CAPT. JACOB B. FLOYD CO. K	CAPT. ROBERT A. ABBOTT CO. G

Another feature is the utter change in one's individual liberty. To be no longer the arbiter of your own time and movements, but to have it rubbed into you at every turn that you are a very small part of an immense machine, whose business is to march and fight; that your every movement is under the control of your superior officers; that, in fact, you have no will of your own that can be exercised; that your individuality is for the time sunk, is a trial to an American freeman which patriotism alone can overcome. Not the least feature of this transition is the practical obliteration of the Lord's day. This is a great shock to a Christian who has learned to love the Lord's day and its hallowed associations. Routine duty, the march, the fighting, all go right on, nothing stops for Sunday.

On the morning after reaching camp I had the pleasure of seeing Major-General John Pope, who commanded the Union forces in the recent battles of Chantilly and Second Bull Run, and his staff, riding past camp into Washington. He hailed us with a cheery "Good-morning" in reply to our salute. He did not look like a badly defeated general, though he undoubtedly was—so badly, indeed, that he was never given any command of importance afterwards.

On Saturday, September 6, we received orders to join the Army of the Potomac—again under the command of "Little Mac"—at Rockville, Md., distant about eighteen miles. This was our first march. The day was excessively hot, and Colonel Oakford received permission to march in the evening. We broke camp about six o'clock P.M. It was a lovely moonlight night, the road was excellent, and for the first six miles the march was a delight. We marched quite leisurely, not making over two miles an hour, including rests, nevertheless the last half of the distance was very tiresome, owing to the raw and unseasoned condition of our men, and the heavy load they were carrying. We reached the bivouac of the grand Army of the Potomac, of which we were henceforth to be a part, at about three o'clock the next morning. Three miles out from the main camp we encountered the outpost of the picket line and were duly halted. The picket officer had been informed of our coming, and so detained us only long enough to satisfy himself that we were all right.

Here we encountered actual conditions of war with all its paraphernalia for the first time. Up to this time we had been playing at war, so to speak, in a camp of instruction. Now we were entering upon the thing itself, with all its gruesome accessories. Everything here was business, and awful business, too. Here were parks of artillery quiet enough just now, but their throats will speak soon enough, and when they do it will not be the harmless booming of Fourth of July celebrations. Here we pass a bivouac of cavalry, and yonder on either side the road, in long lines of masses, spread out like wide swaths of grain, lie the infantry behind long rows of stacked guns. Here were upward of seventy-five thousand men, all, except the cordon of pickets, sound asleep. In the midst of this mighty host the stillness was that of a graveyard; it seemed almost oppressive.

Halting the regiment, Colonel Oakford and I made our way to the head-quarters of Major-General Sumner, commanding the Second Army Corps, to whom the colonel was ordered to report. We finally found him asleep in his head-quarters wagon. A tap on the canvas top of the wagon quickly brought the response, "Hello! Who's there? What's wanted?"

Colonel Oakford replied, giving his name and rank, and that his regiment was here to report to him, according to orders.

"Oh, yes, colonel, that is right," replied the general. "How many men have you?"

Receiving the colonel's answer, General Sumner said:

"I wish you had ten times as many, for we need you badly. Glad you are here, colonel. Make yourselves as comfortable as you can for the rest of the night, and I will assign you to your brigade in the morning."

Here was a cordial reception and hospitality galore. "Make yourselves comfortable"—in Hotel "Dame Nature!" Well, we were all weary enough to accept the hospitality. We turned into the adjacent field, "stacked arms," and in a jiffy were rolled up in our blankets and sound asleep. The mattresses supplied by Madame Nature were rather hard, but her rooms were fresh and airy, and the ceilings studded with the stars of glory. My last waking vision that night was a knowing wink from Jupiter and Mars, as much as to say, "sleep sweetly, we are here."

The morning sun was well up before we got ourselves together the next morning. The "reveille" had no terrors for us greenhorns then. We found ourselves in the midst of a division of the bronzed old Army of the Potomac veterans. They were swarming all over us, and how unmercifully they did guy us! A regiment of tenderfeet was just taffy for those fellows. Did our "Ma's know we were out?" "Get off those purty duds." "Oh, you blue cherub!" etc., etc., at the same time accepting (?) without a murmur all the tobacco and other camp rarities they could reach.

We were soon visited by Brigadier-General Nathan Kimball, a swarthy, grizzly-bearded old gentleman, with lots of fire and energy in his eyes. He told the colonel our regiment had been assigned to his brigade. He directed the colonel to get the regiment in line, as he had something to say to the men, after which he would direct us where to join his troops. General Kimball commanded a brigade which had achieved a great reputation under McClellan in his West Virginia campaign, and it had been named by him the "Gibraltar brigade." It had also been through the Peninsular and Second Bull Run campaigns. It had comprised the Fourth and Eighth Ohio, Fourteenth Indiana and Seventh West Virginia regiments, all of which had been reduced by hard service to mere skeleton regiments. The Fourth Ohio had become so small as to require its withdrawal from the army for recuperation, and our regiment was to take its place.

To step into the shoes of one of these old regiments was business, indeed, for us. Could we do it and keep up our end? It was certainly asking a great deal of a two weeks' old regiment. But it was the making of us. We were now a part of the old Gibraltar brigade. Our full address now was "One Hundred and Thirty-second Pennsylvania Volunteers, First Brigade, Third Division, Second Army Corps, Army of the Potomac." Our own reputation we were now to make. We were on probation in the brigade, so to speak. These veterans were proud, and justly so, of their reputation. What our relation to that reputation was to be, we could see was a mooted question with them. They guyed us without measure until the crucial test, the "baptism of fire," had been passed. This occurred just ten days later, at the battle of Antietam, the greatest battle of the war thus far, where for four bloody hours we held our section of the brigade line as stanch as a rock. Here we earned our footing. Henceforth we belonged to them. There was never another syllable of guying, but in its place the fullest meed of such praise and comradeship as is born only of brave and chivalrous men.