Winter Quarters
(Orange, Virginia)
“The seemingly endless time of cold darkness crept past in a succession of grey days and long nights.
In its camps, the Army of Northern Virginia once again experienced the religious fervor that came to them when they were not busy. At such times, men of all faiths sought solace in prayer and gathered in revival meetings where many found the inner peace that war denied them.
Families came to the winter camps to spend the season with their men. Most boarded with local families. Bearded warriors held in their arms for the first time tiny folk who had not yet been seen. The children brought joy to them all, but in the evenings the soldiers brooded over their families, their thoughts unreadable in the light of the fireplaces.
Amateur theatrical productions were a natural gift of this army, something so familiar from home that the men expected them. Wooden theaters sprang up in the snow and frost caked mud. These were crude structures of field sawn boards, each with its glowing pot-bellied iron stove. The programs were filled with familiar plays, but some of them were only a year or so old in London or New York. One of these was entitled “Our American Cousin.”
Balthazar was fond of the theater. At school in England, he had been prominent in Christmas pantomime and Shakespeare alike. Now, he did all a commander properly could to interest his men in this activity, thinking it a healthy diversion from the boredom of the winter. The Stephen Foster songs he had heard in Richmond appeared on the boards as renditions by his battalion chorus. Soldiers’ singing groups were a tradition in the French Army. He followed the custom in America. The foreigners in the battalion made up the backbone of the soloists and Joseph White played the piano to accompany. His skill was yet another of Clotilde Devereux’s gifts to the Whites. Balthazar played the role of Falstaff in a Second Corps’ officers’ production of “The Merry Wives of Windsor.” His English accent and baritone were praised around sentry fires for weeks after the play’s run.
Food was short that winter, but the Commissary Department managed to deliver just enough to give everyone a chance to rebuild strength worn down by years of deprivation.
Sick and rundown horses and mules were sent to the big veterinary hospital at Lynchburg. Cynics laughed at the possibility of seeing them again, knowing that the army supply system would somehow send those beasts who recovered to some other home. Well-loved mounts and the odd artillery horse lucky enough to have a friend were nursed in secret by men who hid them from the veterinary service.
Smoot came back from leave bringing with him his family. He had found that life in western Prince William County had become too hard. They could not be left behind. The Yankee army had learned of his new rank and his wife could not stay with her people any longer.
Balthazar was surprised by Smoot’s wife.
In the crucible of war Smoot had become a worldly person, a man at home in all surroundings and circumstance, a man who looked natural with his feet under Clotilde Devereux’s table.
His wife was not like that. She remained the simple country woman he had left at home in 1861 when he joined Turner Ashby’s cavalry. Balthazar could not but wonder how she would adapt to the life of an officer’s wife if they managed to gain the South’s independence.
Balthazar now understood that Isaac Smoot’s personal world had been forever altered by life in the Devereux household and that the memory of Hope Devereux was lodged in a special place in his inner being. How that would end he could not imagine.
All winter Balthazar trained the battalion, working them hard the whole day long. In the time available he did what he could to transfer to them the knowledge he had gained in a lifetime of active soldiering. Everything he had to give, he gave them, for he felt deep in his bones that the fight coming in the spring would be the greatest fight of the war, perhaps the greatest fight of all time. He continued to teach them battle drills of various kinds, seeking through the inculcation of rote reaction to command to make them into a force more effective than mere numbers would suggest. He also continued to receive reinforcement in the form of individuals that no other command was well suited to absorb. After interviewing them he decided whether or not they were acceptable for inclusion in what he was building. By the middle of February, he had three hundred and fifty men in the battalion.
In the evenings he devoted many hours to instruction of his officers. He found that many of them had soldiered a great deal but there were bad habits to be undone and his own way of doing things to impress on them.”
*************
This is from one of my novels. pl
Please Santa all I want for Christmas is more, painful as it must surely be.
Time for a re-read of DPH- I’d forgotten that Balthazar had been Falstaff in “Merry Wives.”
Ahhhh, my favorite character in all the novels, the wonderful Smoot!
Thanks for posting this excerpt, dear brother- hoping for a few more of them on SST/TA in 2012.
“Our American Cousin,” a nice bit of foreshadowing. Good writing allows the reader to slip easily into the environment and mind of the characters. Well done, Col.
Saw The Conspirators recently, too timely, as if we’ve gone full circle but with the twist that we seem to be preparing for a civil war instead of ending one.
Ah, my old friend John Balthazar. His ability to turn the men that don’t fit in into a quality fighting force is something I admire and can relate to. A common disciplinary tool in the 25th Infantry Division in the late 70s was the rehab transfer. When a young soldier became a problem and a candidate for a chapter 13 discharge, the brigade commander would often transfer that soldier to another battalion to give him one more chance to prove himself. After having great success with two of these rehab transfers, my rifle platoon became the repository for the brigade’s rascals, sad sacks and ne’r-do-wells. I ended up with more than a third of my platoon being rehab transfers. Unlike Balthazar, I was not given the opportunity to interview these rehab transfers. These hard cases seldom became angels, but they had great field initiative and ingenuity. My platoon often served as the second scout platoon for the battalion.
For the rehabilitation to occur. the soldier had to see the error of his ways.
I had a similar, though not identical, experience in the 1980s while serving in the 7th Infantry Division as it transformed from a low tier mech division into a light infantry division and became a test bed for the Army’s experiment with cohort battalions. To find enough NCOs to fill fire team, squad leader, and platoon sergeant positions, the Army scoured numerous TRADOC posts for NCOs who appeared to be dodging duty in line units. Few were pleased with their reassignment, but most of them got with the program and performed well. I took particular satisfaction watching my platoon sergeant mentor a young recalcitrant E-5 into becoming a competent fire team leader. That sergeant went on to re-enlist whereas before he was determined to ETS.
TTG
I know the feeling. pl
Just finished reading “Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion, and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson” by S.C. Gwynne. His chapter on winter quarters of 1862-1863 is wonderful with its description of the theater produced by the soldiers. Folks would come out from Richmond for the productions.
Also mentioned is the great snowball fight, with hundreds of men fighting in battle formation commanded by field officers, complete with regimentmal bands and full military display. General Lee himself was pelted a few times.
Then too was the mention of the Union and Confederate bands playing at each other across the river. After the Union boys played “John Brown’s Body”, the Confederate soldiers hollered back, “now play one for our side”. The Union band promptly played a rousing rendition of Dixie.
Tears rise up…
On Monday the statue of General R.E. Lee was removed from the National Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol.
And the likes of Northam, Kaine, and Pelosi gloat that a man of Lee’s character has no place of honor in the Statuary Hall.
In a hundred years, no one will remember Northam, Kaine, or Pelosi. R.E. Lee will be remembered by tens of thousands (and for all the right reasons).
Best wishes for a Merry Christmas to all SST contributors and readers.
Ah, my old friend John Balthazar. His ability to turn the men that don’t fit in into a quality fighting force is something I admire and can relate to. A common disciplinary tool in the 25th Infantry Division in the late 70s was the rehab transfer. When a young soldier became a problem and a candidate for a chapter 13 discharge, the brigade commander would often transfer that soldier to another battalion to give him one more chance to prove himself. After having great success with two of these rehab transfers, my rifle platoon became the repository for the brigade’s rascals, sad sacks and ne’r-do-wells. I ended up with more than a third of my platoon being rehab transfers. Unlike Balthazar, I was not given the opportunity to interview these rehab transfers. These hard cases seldom became angels, but they had great field initiative and ingenuity. My platoon often served as the second scout platoon for the battalion.
haris
You have read “Down the Sky?” The scene of the destruction of Balthazar’s battalion is based on my personal witness of the destruction of D 2/7 Cavalry on 3 December, 1968 at Ap Bhu No in Phuoc Long Province as well as a previous day in which while accompanying the same unit on an Arclight BDA we came upon an NVA officer blown completely to pieces but somehow still living. I have never been able to escape those events.
pl,
That’s weird. Haris’ comment is a copy of the comment I left five years ago. Either Typepad is having a nervous breakdown or Haris really liked what I wrote years ago. I still feel that special kinship with Balthazar.
Merry Christmas to you, Marguerite and your herd of miniature yaks. And Merry Christmas to everyone in the SST committee of correspondence.
ttg
Maybe he loves him also. Or maybe he is just trying to annoy me. Merry Christmas to you as well.
It’s a great read. You feel you are there. Must say I was surprised too by TTG appearing years later under another name. Always think of you for some reason, TTG, when I use my Swedish axe. I suspect you have a great deal more to say in that line and others if you ever feel like it. Hoping you do.
Colonel, thank you for as ever providing a beacon of sanity in a world not noted for that quality. And for that great Christmas collection of stories and anecdotes that has now become a part of Christmas over here for us.
If I get the chance – I may not, we’re all grumpy as hell over in England at the moment – I’d like to quote your ‘Alid Christmas on an English website, with acknowledgment of course. Would that be OK, or would it bring down upon your head just another load of trolls or whatever to be waded through and discarded?
I’m sorry about the Biden thing. I no longer accept as a workable alternative sceniario that it was just normal shenanigans. If it were they’d be falling over each other to prove that the election wasn’t fixed. But it’s only a setback –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdImjJzAAIs
A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you and to your pilgrims, Colonel, and thank you for keeping the site going.
EO
TTG may love Jean-Marie Balthazar D’Orgueil (John Balthazar) as do many, but he IS NOT the man. Balthazar is altogether my creation and that of General de Brigade Jacques Kolly (decede) with whom we were visiting in the valley of the Lot once at Christmas. Jacques and I spent many hours walking along the bank of the river and talking of the local Cathar leaning Nobility of the Sword and how one of them might fit into my tale of a man of noble nature come to recognize a people much like his own who sees the need to share their fate. Jacques said to me that Balthazar must die at the end because “he is the last of his people as they are the last of theirs.” We climbed up one day to the ruins of Chateau d’Orgueil, destroyed by French crusaders and he prized a little piece of rock out of the curtain wall so that I could always feel it in my heart. I also have a colored sketch of the d’Orgueil blazon drawn by a local historian. They rest together in my office where I can see them every day and remember Jacques. I could not bring myself to kill him and so Claude Devereux died in his place.
EO
Feel free to quote whatever you like. The prince was a fine man.
I wrote imprecisely, Colonel. I had found it puzzling for a second or two that TTG’s comment appeared twice. The novels I think are great and I begin, only begin, to understand what was meant when you said some time ago that “something was lost” that afternoon with Pickett’s Charge.
I hope that General you mention appears in the memoirs. Also that the memoirs contain your encounter with the new President. Irrespective of politics or prejudice Biden’s sharklike smile I find worrying. He will have little difficulty in following in Obama’s footsteps and becoming Drone King number 2. If that’s not an inappropriate comment at Christmas time.
The ‘Alid Christmas is my favourite.
EO
Balthazar is a lovable fellow. Pat Devereux’s widow certainly thought so. It may be happenstance that TTG’s words and the other man’s are so similar. Yes, John Boles appears in the memoir. His father commanded the 26th Cavalry Regiment for six years at Camp John Hay at Baguio in Luzon. My father was a troop first sergeant in the regiment at that time having been forced by the approaching date of Filipino independence to return from secondment to the Constabulary. He taught Boles the boy to ride. It made for a strong bond between us. When we served together he was Chief of Staff of the NATO command ALFSEE in Izmir, Turkey and I was the head US spook in the headquarters. In that capacity I briefed him every day. We hunted and SCUBA dived together. The day he had a silent heart attack we were out diving in the Aegean with his ADC. He survived and in retirement ran a 200 room motel at Killeen, Texas outside the gate at Ft. Hood and was the head USMA recruiter in Texas. The Turks in the headquarters were awestruck by this man. He was a 1939 grad of WP and had commanded a tank battalion from the Normandy beaches all the way into Germany. His family had been in the US Regular cavalry since the founding of the 1st Dragoon Regiment in 1833.