November 18,
1864
Warm it is this morning — too much so; I would prefer it
frosty, but remember the farmer whom Jupiter allowed to regulate the weather
for his own farm, and who made very poor crops in consequence. As Albert1
came last night, I honorably discharged the ebony John this morning, giving him
a character, an antique pair of trousers and a dollar or two extra wages,
whereat John showed his ivory, but still remarked, standing on one leg: “Er ud
like er pass.” “What do you want a pass for?" asked I, in that fatherly
voice that should always be used to a very black nig. “Go a Washington.” “If
you go to Washington they’ll draft you, if you don't look out.” “Oh,” said
John, with the grave air of a man of mundane experience, “dem fellers what
ain't travelled none, dey gets picked up: but I's travelled a right
smart lot!” Whereupon the traveller departed. It should be stated that his
travels consist in having run away from his master, near Madison Court House,
and in having since followed the army on the back of a spare horse. We were
favored with a batch of two J. Bulls (lately they have taken to hunting about
here, in couples and singly). These were a certain legation person, Kirkpatrick,
and an extraordinary creature named H–––, who is said to have been once in the
British army and to be now in Oxford — rather a turning about. He had a
sort of womanish voice and a manner of sweet sap; his principal observations
were: “Ao, inde—ed”; “Ao, thank you”; and “Ao, I wish you a good morning.” He
had an unaccountable mania for getting shot through the head, and insisted on
going to Fort Hell, and staring through embrasures; from which I judge he was
more idiotic than he seemed. He was also, it would appear, very fond of fresh
air, while his companion (who also disagreed with him on the
shooting-through-the-head matter) rather liked a door shut. They were put in a
log cabin to sleep, and H––– secretly opened the door at night; whereupon it
came to rain and blow, and the Bulls awaked in the morning to behold their
shoes and stockings sailing about the room! Really, General Hunt, to whom these
creatures are usually billetted, ought to get board free from his many former
guests for the rest of his life.
In the evening we had a charge on the enemy under a new
form, or rather a very old one, for it was after the fashion of Samson's foxes.
A number of beef cattle, in a pen near Yellow Tavern, were seized, in the
night, with one of those panics for which oxen are noted, and to which the name
“stampede” was originally applied. They burst out of the enclosure and a body
of them, forty strong, went, at full gallop, up the Halifax road, towards
Petersburg! What our pickets did does not appear; one thing they did not do
— stop the fugitive beef. On they went in wild career through the dark, with no
little clatter, we may be sure. The Rebel videttes discharged their pieces and
fled; the picket sentries opened fire; the reserves advanced in support, and
fired too; heedless of killed and wounded, the oxen went slap through the whole
of them; and, the last that was heard from that drove was the distant crash of
a volley of musketry from the enemy's breastworks! When the gray morn lifted,
the first sight that greeted our disgusted pickets was a squad of grey-backs
comfortably cutting savory steaks from a fat beef, the quarry of their bow and
their spear! The evening brought us warm rain; also, as toads fall in a shower,
one military Englishman, and one civilian Blue-nose. The Briton was a Major
Smyth, of the Royal Artillery — a really modest, gentlemanly man, with a red
face, hooked nose, and that sure mark of greatness, a bald head. The Blue-nose
was modest also (the only one I ever saw) and was of the class of well-to-do,
honorable Common-Councilmen; his name was Lunn, suggestive of “Sally Lunns.”
_______________
1 The servant, whom he had brought from
Brookline, who had been absent on sick leave.
SOURCE: George R. Agassiz, Editor, Meade’s
Headquarters, 1863-1865: Letters of Colonel Theodore Lyman from the Wilderness
to Appomattox, p. 273-6
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