The Project Gutenberg EBook of Quite So, by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

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Title: Quite So

Author: Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Release Date: November 6, 2007 [EBook #23359]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK QUITE SO ***

Produced by David Widger

QUITE SO

By Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Boston And New York Houghton Mifflin Company

Copyright, 1873, 1885, and 1901

I.

Of course that was not his name. Even in the State of Maine, where it
is still a custom to maim a child for life by christening him Arioch or
Shadrach or Ephraim, nobody would dream of calling a boy "Quite So."
It was merely a nickname which we gave him in camp; but it stuck to him
with such bur-like tenacity, and is so inseparable from my memory of
him, that I do not think I could write definitely of John Bladburn if I
were to call him anything but "Quite So."

It was one night shortly after the first battle of Bull Run. The Army
of the Potomac, shattered, stunned, and forlorn, was back in its
old quarters behind the earthworks. The melancholy line of ambulances
bearing our wounded to Washington was not done creeping over Long
Bridge; the blue smocks and the gray still lay in windrows on the field
of Manassas; and the gloom that weighed down our hearts was like the fog
that stretched along the bosom of the Potomac, and enfolded the valley
of the Shenandoah. A drizzling rain had set in at twilight, and, growing
bolder with the darkness, was beating a dismal tattoo on the tent--the
tent of Mess 6, Company A, --th Regiment, N. Y. Volunteers. Our mess,
consisting originally of eight men, was reduced to four. Little Billy,
as one of the boys grimly remarked, had concluded to remain at Manassas;
Corporal Steele we had to leave at Fairfax Court-House, shot through
the hip; Hunter and Suydam we had said good-by to that afternoon. "Tell
Johnny Reb," says Hunter, lifting up the leather side-piece of the
ambulance, "that I 'll be back again as soon as I get a new leg." But
Suydam said nothing; he only unclosed his eyes languidly and smiled
farewell to us.

The four of us who were left alive and unhurt that shameful July day
sat gloomi