Title:  Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics

Author:  Various

Release Date:  June 18, 2005 [EBook #16087]

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ASCII

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[Transcriber’s note:  Footnotes moved to end of text.]

THE

Atlantic monthly.

A magazine of literature, art, and politics.

Vol.  XIV.—­October, 1864.—­No.  LXXXIV.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by Ticknor and
fields, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of
Massachusetts.

* * * * *

A night in the water.

That was a pleasant life on picquet, in the delicious early summer of the South, and among the endless flowery forests of that blossoming isle.  In the retrospect, I seem to see myself adrift upon a horse’s back amid a sea of roses.  The various outposts were within a five-mile radius, and it was one long, delightful gallop, day and night.  I have a faint impression that the moon shone steadily every night for two months; and yet I remember certain periods of such dense darkness that in riding through the wood-paths it was really unsafe to go beyond a walk, for fear of branches above and roots below; and one of my officers was once shot at by a Rebel scout who stood unperceived at his horse’s bridle.

We lived in a dilapidated plantation-house, the walls scrawled with capital charcoal-sketches by R., of the New Hampshire Fourth, with a good map of the island and its paths by C. of the First Massachusetts Cavalry; there was a tangled garden, full of neglected roses and camellias, and we filled the great fireplace with magnolias by day and with logs by night; I slept on a sort of shelf in the corner, bequeathed to me by Major F., my jovial predecessor,—­and if I waked up at any time, I could put my head through the broken window, arouse my orderly, and ride off to see if I could catch a picquet asleep.  I spell the word with a q, because such was the highest authority, in that Department at least, and they used to say at post head-quarters that so soon as the officer in command of the outposts grew negligent, and was guilty of a k, he was instantly ordered in.