The Brigade Commander

The Brigade Commander, by J.
W. Deforest

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Brigade Commander, by J. W.
Deforest This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and
with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: The Brigade Commander
Author: J. W. Deforest
Release Date: October 24, 2007 [EBook #23182]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
BRIGADE COMMANDER ***

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 the
bragging brigade which for the last six months he had commanded.
He was the idol, not because he was good and gracious, not because he
spared his soldiers or treated them as fellow-citizens, but because he
had led them to victory and made them famous. If a man will win
battles and give his brigade a right to brag loudly of its doings, he may
have its admiration and even its enthusiastic devotion, though he be as
pitiless and as wicked as Lucifer.
"It's nothin' to me what the Currnell is in prrivit, so long as he shows us
how to whack the rrebs," said Major Gahogan, commandant of the "Old
Tenth." "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 that
was 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 human
burrnin' bussh, perhaps, but he's got the god of war in um. Adjetant
Wallis, it's a------long time between dhrinks, as I think ye was sayin',
an' with rayson. See if ye can't confiscate a canteen of whiskee
somewhere in the camp. Bedad, if I can't buy it I'll stale it. We're goin'
to fight tomorry, an' it may be it's the last chance we'll have for a dhrink,
unless there's more lik'r now in the other worrld than Dives got."
The brigade was bivouacked in some invisible region, amid the damp,
misty darkness of a September night. The men lay in their ranks, each
with his feet to the front and his head rearward, each covered by his
overcoat and pillowed upon his haversack, each with his loaded rifle
nestled close beside him. Asleep as they were, or dropping placidly into
slumber, they were ready to start in order to their feet and pour out the
red light and harsh roar of combat. There were two lines of battle, each
of three regiments of infantry, the first some two hundred yards in
advance of the second. In the space between them lay two four-gun
batteries, one of them brass twelve-pounder "Napoleons," and the other
rifled Parrotts. To the rear of the infantry were the recumbent troopers
and picketed horses of a regiment of cavalry. All around, in the far,
black distance, invisible and inaudible, paced or watched stealthily the
sentinels of the grand guards.

There was not a fire, not a torch, nor a star-beam in the whole bivouac
to guide the feet of Adjutant Wallis in his pilgrimage after whiskey.
The orders from brigade headquarters had been strict against
illuminations, for the Confederates were near at hand in force, and a
surprise was proposed as well as feared. A tired and sleepy youngster,
almost dropping with the heavy somnolence of wearied adolescence, he
stumbled on through the trials of an undiscernible and unfamiliar
footing, lifting his heavy riding-boots sluggishly over imaginary
obstacles, and fearing the while lest his toil were labor misspent. It was
a dry camp, he felt dolefully certain, or there would have been more
noise 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-follower of African extraction, and blasphemed him.
"It's a God-forsaken camp, and there isn't a horn in it," said Adjutant
Wallis to himself as he pursued his groping journey. "Bet you I don't
find the first drop," he continued, for he was a betting boy, and
frequently argued by wagers, even with himself. "Bet you two to one I
don't. Bet you three to one--ten to one."
Then he saw, an indefinite distance beyond him, burning like red-hot
iron through the darkness, a little scarlet or crimson gleam, as of a
lighted cigar.
"That's Old Grumps, of the Bloody Fourteenth," he