Page:Nurse and spy in the Union Army.djvu/73

Picket duty is one of the most perilous and trying duties connected with the service. A clergy-man-soldier writing upon this subject, briefly describes it: "Picket duty at all times is arbitrary, but at night it is trebly so. No monarch on a throne, with absolute power, is more independent, or exercises greater sway for the time being, than a private soldier stationed on his beat with an enemy in front. Darkness veils all distinctions. He is not obliged to know his own officers or comrades, or the commanding general, only through the means of the countersign. With musket loaded and capped he walks his rounds, having to do with matters only of life and death, and at the same time clothed with absolute power. It is a position of fearful importance and responsibility, one that makes a man feel solemn and terribly in earnest. Often, too, these posts are in thick woods, where the soldier stands alone, cut off from qamp, cut off from his fellows, subject only to the harrassings of his own imagination and sense of danger. The shadows deepen into inky night; all objects around him, even the little birds that were his companions during the day, are gathered within the curtains of a hushed repose; but the soldier, with every nerve and faculty of his mind strained to the utmost tension of keenness and sensibility, speaks only in whispers; his fingers tighten round the stock of his musket as he leans forward to catch the sound of approaching foot-