Our Captain, Robert
C. Stanard, died to-day at Camp Deep Creek, of disease contracted in the army.
He was a man of warm impulses and generous heart.
Remained in
Williamsburg about ten days, when I concluded to call on my Gloucester friends
once more, as it would be worse than folly to return to my command in such ill
health.
Hired a buggy in
Williamsburg and went to "Bigler's Wharf," on the York River; there
hired a boat and crossed over the river to Cappahoosic Wharf. At this place I
found a member of my company who lived some half a mile from the wharf.
Remained at his
father's, Captain Andrews, (a Captain of artillery in the war of 1812) for
several days, eating oysters and rolling ten-pins.
Captain Andrews is a
jolly specimen of an old Virginia gentleman, whose motto seems to be
Dum Vivimus Vivamus.
From Captain
Andrews's I went to "Waverly," where I most pleasantly spent ten
days, after having been joined by my brother, Rev. Thomas W. White, who
insisted on my getting a discharge from the army. Concluded to return to my
command, he and I going to Cappahoosic Wharf, he taking the up boat for West
Point and I waiting for the down boat for Yorktown. Whilst on the wharf, I was
again taken with a severe chill, and remembering my friend, Captain Andrews, I
crawled, rather than walked, to his house. I was then seriously ill, but had
every attention possible; my physician being Dr. Francis Jones, brother of the
owner of Waverly. Dr. Frank, seeming to take a fancy to me, told me if I would
come to his house, where he could pay me especial attention, he would promise
to get me all right in a week. As soon as I could sit up, I took him at his
word, and he put me through a regular course of medicine, watching carefully
everything I eat. Kind hearted old Virginian; I wonder if it will ever be in my
power to repay him and other dear friends in this good old county for
kindnesses to me? When I commenced improving, I felt a longing desire to get
back to camp, and accordingly returned to Yorktown in the latter part of
November. My company officers now are: Captain, Edgar F. Moseley; First
Lieutenant, John M. West; Senior Second Lieutenant, Benjamin H. Smith; Junior
Second Lieutenant, Henry C. Carter.
Found they were
stationed some twenty miles from Yorktown, and next day started to hunt them
up. Hearing they were at Young's Mill, I went to that place, but found the
First and Second detachments had returned to their camp, at Deep Creek, on the
east side of Warwick River, whilst the Third and Fourth detachments were on
picket duty at Watt's Creek, six miles from Newport News. Joined them at that
place, having been absent three months. None of the boys ever expected to see
me again, and they wondered but the more when I told them that since I had left
them I had swallowed enough quinine pills to reach from Newport News to Bristol,
Tennessee, were they to catch hold hands.
We remained at
Watt's Creek very quietly for a few days, but one night the Yankees brought up
a gun-boat and gave us a terrific shelling; when we got up and
"dusted."
My mess, composed of
Andrew, Dick and Mac. Venable, Gordon McCabe, Clifford Gordon, Kit Chandler,
and myself, owned a stubborn mule and a good cart, driven by a little black
"Cuffee" whose appellative distinction was "Bob." Now,
"Bob" and the mule came into our possession under peculiar
circumstances in fact, we "pressed" them into service on some of our
trips and kept them to haul our plunder. Bob was as black as the boots of the
Duke of Inferno and as sharp as a steel-trap; consequently, we endeavored to
give his youthful mind a religious tendency: yet Bob would gamble. Not that he
cared for the intricacies of rouge et noir, ecarté, German Hazard, or King
Faro, or even that subtlest of all games, "Old Sledge." No, no; he de
voted his leisure time to swindling the city camp cooks out of their spare change
at the noble game of "Five Corns."
George Washington
(Todd) had never heard of that little game, or there would have been a Corn
Exchange in Richmond long before the war.
It seems that they
shuffled the corns up in their capacious paws and threw them on a table or
blanket, betting on the smooth side or pithy side coming uppermost.
Night reigned—so did
"Bob," surrounded by his sable satellites, making night hideous with
their wrangling.
Say dar, nigger,
wha' you take dem corns for? My bet. I win'd dat."
Boom!-boom!—and two
nail-keg gunboat shells come screaming over our heads, disappearing into the
woods, crashing down forest oaks and leaving a fiery trail behind them.
"Hi -what dat?
Golly!" and up jumped Bob, leaving his bank and running into our tent.
"Say, Marse Andrew, time to git, ain't it?"
"We must wait
for orders, Bob.”
"I woodd'n wate
for no orders, I woodd'n; I'd go now," said Bob, as he tremblingly slunk
back into his house. But the Demon of Play had left Bob and grim Terror held
high carnival within his woolly head.
Boom! Boom!! Boom!!!
and as many shells came searching through the midnight air in quest of
mischief.
And Bob knelt him
down and prayed long and loud: "O-h! Lord, Marse, God'l Mity, lem me orf
dis hear one time, an' I'll play dem five corns no more. Mity sorry I dun it
now." And Robert ever afterward eschewed the alluring game. Returned to
our camp at Land's End, on the west side of Warwick river.
SOURCE: William S.
White, A Diary of the War; or What I Saw of It, p. 107-10
