On the March.
"He smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the Captains and the shouting."-- Job.
The weary weeks in Camp of Instruction ended with the Summer.
September had come, and Nature was hanging out crimson battle-flags every-where--on the swaying poppy and the heavy-odored geranium.
The sumach and the sassafras wore crimson signals of defiance, and the maples blazed with the gaudy red, yellow and orange of warlike pomp.
The regiment made its first step on Kentucky soil with a little bit of pardonable ostentation.Every one looked upon it as the real beginning of its military career.When the transport was securely tied up at the wharf, the Colonel mounted his horse, drew his sword, placed himself at the head of the regiment, and gave the command "Forward." Eleven hundred superb young fellows, marching four abrest, with bayonets fixed, and muskets at "right shoulder shift,"strode up the bank after him and went into line of battle at the top, where he made a short soldierly speech, the drums rolled, the colors dipped, the men cheered, and the band played "Star-spangled Banner" and "Dixie."Three years later the two hundred survivors of this number returning from their "Veteran furlough," without a band and with their tattered colors carefully cased, came off a transport at the same place, without uttering a word other than a little grumbling at the trouble of disposing of some baggage, marched swiftly and silently up the bank, and disappeared before any one fairly realized that they were there.So much had Time and War taught them.
"Now our work may be said to be fairly begun." said the Colonel, turning from the contemplation of his regiment, and scanning anxiously the tops of the distant line of encircling hills, as if he expected to see there signs of the Rebels in strong force.All the rest imitated his example, and studied the horizon solicitously.
"And I expect we shall have plenty of it!" continued the Colonel.
"No doubt of that," answered the Major."They say the Rebels are filling Kentucky with troops, and gonig to fight for every foot of the Old Dark and Bloody Ground.I think we will have to earn all we get of it.""To-day's papers report," joined in Surgeon Denslow, "that General sherman says it will take two hundred thousand troops to redeem Kentucky.""Yes," broke in the Colonel testily, "and the same papers agree in pronouncing Sherman crazy.But no matter how many or how few it takes, that's none of our affair.We've got eleven hundred good men in ranks, and we're going to do all that eleven hundred good men can do.God Almighty and Abe Lincoln have got to take care of the rest."It will be seen that the Colonel was a very practical soldier.
"First think we know, the Colonel will be trying to make us 'leven hundred clean out 'leven thousand Rebs," growled Abe Bolton.
"Suppose the Colonel should imagine himself another Leonidas, and us his Spartan band, and want us to die around him, and start another Thermopylae down her in the mountains, some place," suggested Kent Edwards, "you would cheerfully pass in your checks along with the rest, so as to make the thing an entire success, wouldn't you?""The day I'm sent below, I'll take a pile of Rebs along to keep me company," answered Abe, surlily.
Glen, standing in the rear of his company in his place as file-closer, listened to these words, and saw in the dim distance and on the darkling heights the throngs of fierce enemies and avalanches of impeding dangers as are likely to oppress the imagination of a young soldier at such unfavorable moments.The conflict and carnage seemed so imminent that he half expected it to begin that very night, and he stiffened his sinews for the shock.
Lieutenant Alspaugh also heard, studied over the unwelcome possibilities shrouded in the gathering gloom of the distance, and regretted that he had not, before crossing the Ohio, called the Surgeon's attention to some premonitory symptoms of rheumatism, which he felt he might desire to develop into an acute attack in the event of danger assuming an unpleasant proximity.
But as no Rebels appeared on the sweeping semi-circle of hills that shut in Convington on the south, he concluded to hold his disability in abeyance, by a strong effort of the will, until the regiment had penetrated farther into the enemy's country.
For days the regiment marched steadily on through the wonderfully lovely Blue Grass Region, toward the interior of the State, without coming into the neighborhood of any organized body of the Rebels.
Glen's first tremors upon crossing the Ohio subsided so as to permit him to thoroughly enjoy the beauties of the scenery, and the pleasures of out-door life in a region so attractive at that season of the year.
The turnpike, hard and smooth as a city pavement, wound over and around romantic hills--hills crowned with cedar and evergreen laurel, and scarred with cliffs and caverns.It passed through forests, aromatic with ripening nuts and changing leaves, and glorious in the colors of early Autumn.Then its course would traverse farms of gracefully undulating acres, bounded by substantial stone-walls, marked by winding streams of pure spring water, centering around great roomy houses, with huge outside chimneys, and broad piazzas, and with a train of humble negro cabins in the rear.The horses were proud stepping thoroughbreds, the women comely and spirited, the men dignified and athletic, and all seemed well-fed and comfortable.The names of the places along the route recalled to Harry's memory all he had ever read of the desperate battles and massacres and single-handed encounters of Daniel Boone and his associates, with the Indians in the early history of the country.
