258
��The Northern Volunteers.
��Fredericksburg, Atlanta, Columbia, Richmond, New Orleans, Savannah, and Mobile, no instance of general incendiarism, sack, drunken riot, or violence to women occurred.
Our soldiers, orders to the contrary or not, would lay hands on every- thing eatable. The temptation to eke out or vary their bill of fare was too great for them to resist. It was said of some parts of the country which had been marched over repeat- edly, that a crow could not fly over them without carrying his rations. "When we marched through the coun- try east of the Rappahannock in 1863, on the way to Gettysburg, I came into camp with my company from picket duty one night, and when I went to the colonel to report our arrival, I smelt the savory fumes of fresh pork over the colonel's camp- fire. My surprise at detecting so un- usual a thing in that exhausted region was apparent, and the colonel, by way of explanation, said, " Captain, the last pig of the Rappahannock has just come in and surrendered him- self."
CONDUCT IN THE PRESENCE OF THE ENEMY.
In the leffort to arrive at a judg- ment of the conduct of the volunteers in the presence of the enemy, we naturally turn to the examples af- forded us in the great wars of modern Europe for a standard of comparison. But wc at once find ourselves at a loss for this standard of comparison in one very important service which has not held a i)rominent place in these European wars.
The deep veil of sunless forest which covered so much of the country
��in which we fought gave such a chance for concealment, that, whether the line of battle was moving forward or was at rest, it was needful to cover its front at a long reach ahead with a line of pickets or skirmishers. The men in this line would l>e about five paces apart, so that, while they were not close enough together to suffer great loss from a sudden fire, they suflflced to detect the enemy's advance in time to get ready for him, or to draw his fire, so as to forewarn our advancing Hue of his presence. This necessity does not exist in a country where the opposing lines are seen by each other at long distances, as has been the case on most fields in the wars of modern P^urope. It was in such ser- vice as this that the intelligence and self-reliance of the American volun- teer were of the greatest value.
The line of skirmishers, or pickets, under a brigade officer, was some- times a mile long. The trees and undergrowth often hid the soldier from his neighbor and from the view of his officers, and the commanding officer had to trust to his hearing and militai-y instinct as much as to siglit to tell him how his men were acting. The moral support of the touch of shoulder to shoulder was absent, and the soul and heart of the men had to keep them up without the encourage- ment or restraint which the presence of the officers gives in line of battle. In spite of the weakness of the for- mation, the skirmish line more than once refused to retire under the fire of a line of battle, and came out vic- torious. Such an instance was seen at Chancellorsville, w^here the skir- mish line of Hancock's division, un- der the gallant Miles, beat back the
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