Part 4 (1/2)

Now, this leaven of truer thought about religion was leading society all through the South; the Southern men and boys everywhere were feeling its influence, and it was having most remarkable effects. The increase in the number of men, who after the war were brought into the church by the direct influence of the returned soldiers, ”who had found their souls”

through the experiences of their army life, was tremendous. Those soldiers did a bigger service to the men of their race by bringing back religion to them than they did in fighting for them during the war.

Just after the war, in the far harder trials and soul agony of the Reconstruction days, I think that the wonderful patience, and courage which resisted humiliation, and won back the control of their States, and rebuilt their shattered fortunes and pulled their country triumphantly up out of indescribable disaster, can only be thus really explained--that those men were ”strong and of a good courage” because ”their minds were staked on G.o.d.”

The history of the Southern people during that epoch is unmatched by the history of any people in all time. The result they achieved, this was the reason--beneath the superb ”grit” of the Southern people lay deep the conviction ”G.o.d is our refuge and strength” and ”The G.o.d whom we serve. He will deliver us.” It was the spiritual vision of the men of the South that saved it when it was ready to perish--and let the men of the South never forget it! Let them give unceasing recognition and thanks to G.o.d, for that great deliverance.

If I have made clear my thought--the connection of the religious revival in the army with the fortunes of our people at home after the war--I am glad! If I haven't, I am sorry! I can't say any fairer than that, and I can only make the plea that was stuck up in a church in the West, in the old rough days, when a dissatisfied auditor of the sermon, or the organist, was likely to express his disapproval with a gun. The notice up in front of the choir read like this: ”Please don't shoot the musician, he's doing his level best”--I make the same request.

But, to return to our muttons! Let us get back to the winter camp at Morton's Ford.

=Spring Sprouts and a ”Tar Heel” Story=

The winter had now worn away and the spring had come. Vegetation began to show signs of life. Its coming bore us one comfort in one way--among others. It was not so cold, and we did not have to tote so many logs of wood to keep up our fires. Down on the river flats, where vegetation showed sooner than it did on the hills, green things began to shoot up.

Dandelions, sheep sorrel, poke leaves and such, though not used in civil life, were welcome to us, for they were much better than no salad at all. The men craved something green. The unbroken diet of just bread and meat--generally salt meat at that--gave some of the men scurvy. The only remedy for that was something acid, or vegetable food. The men needed this and craved it--so when the green shoots of any kind appeared we would go down on the flats, and gather up all the green stuff we could find, and boil it with the little piece of bacon we might have. It improved the health of the men very much.

At this time, there was a North Carolina Brigade of Infantry at the front furnis.h.i.+ng pickets for the river bank. They were camped just back of our winter quarters. Those fellows seemed to be very specially strong in their yearning for vegetable diet, so much so that they attracted our attention. Every day we would see long lines of those men pa.s.sing through our camp. They would walk along, one behind another, in almost unending procession, silent and lonesome, never saying a word and never two walking together--and all of them meandered along intent on one thing--getting down to the flats below ”to get some sprouts” as they would say when asked where they were going.

Later on, we would see them in the same solemn procession coming back to camp--every man with a bunch of something green in his fist.

This daily spectacle of Tar Heels swarming through our camp interested us; we watched them mooning along. We tried to talk with them, but all we got from them was, ”We'uns is going to git some sprouts. Don't you'uns love sprouts?”

We did, but we didn't go after them in such a solemn manner. Our ”sprout” hunts were not so funereal a function; rather more jovial, and much more sociable. Also this devotion to the search for the herb of the field excited our curiosity. They were all the time craving green stuff, and going after it so constantly. We had a story going around which was supposed to explain the craving of a Tar Heel's insides for greens.

This was the story:

One of these men got into the hospital. He had something the matter with his liver. The doctor tried his best to find out what was the matter, and tried all sorts of remedies--no results. At last, in desperation, the doctor decided to try heroic treatment. He cut the fellow open, took out his liver, fixed it up all right (whatever that consisted in), washed it off and hung it on a bush to dry, preparatory to putting it back in place. A dog stole the liver, and carried it off. Here was a bad state of things--the soldier's liver gone, the doctor was responsible.

The doctor was up against it. He thought much, and anxiously. At last a bright idea struck him. He sent off, got a sheep, killed it, took out its liver, got it ready, and sewed it up in that soldier in place of his own. The man got well, and about his duties again. One day, soon after, the doctor met him and said with much friendly interest, ”Well, Jim, how are you?”

”Oh, doctor,” he replied in a very cheerful tone, ”I'm well and strong again.”

The doctor looked at him, and asked him significantly, ”Jim, do you feel _all right_?”

Falling into that characteristic whine, Jim said, ”Yes, sir, I am well and strong, but, Doctor, all the time, now, I feel the strangest hankering after gra.s.s.”

That was the sheep's liver telling. Our theory was that all of those fellows had sheep's livers, and that accounted for the insatiable ”hankering after gra.s.s.”

I told this story in an after-dinner speech at a banquet some time ago to a company of twenty-nine female doctors of medicine--trained, and practicing physicians. They made no protest; listened with unbroken gravity; accepted it as a narrative of actual occurrence, and looked at me with wide-eyed interest. When I finished I thought it best to tell them that it was all a joke. Then they laughed themselves into a fit.

Well, this little account of our doings, and our life in the winter camp at Morton's Ford--1863-1864--is done. Out of its duties, and companions.h.i.+ps; its pleasures, and its deeper experiences, we Howitzers were laying up pleasant memories of the camp for the years to come. And often in after years, when some of us comrades got together we would speak of the old camp at Morton's Ford.

The spring was now coming on. We knew that our stay here could not last much longer. How, and when, and where we should go from here, we did not know. We knew we would go somewhere--that was all. ”We would know when the time came, and 'Ma.r.s.e Robert' wanted us” he would tell us.

That is the soldier's life--”Go, and he goeth; come, and he cometh; do this, and he doeth it.” No choice. Wait for orders--then, quick! Go to it!

Well we were perfectly willing to trust ”Ma.r.s.e Robert” and perfectly ready to do just what he said. Meantime we take no anxious thought for the morrow; we go on with our work, and our play--we are ”prepared to move at a moment's warning.”

CHAPTER II