All were glad to see him again, and he seemed pleased enough to see us until he found that Joe was not there. No more the bugle calls aroused him, and even the music of the band had lost its charm. He would just go looking in the different tents and keep up a continual whining.
One day he got tired waiting for Joe to come back and he left us, and that was the last we ever heard of dog Billy.
“I cannot sing the old songs, I sang long years ago, For heart and voice would fail me and foolish tears would flow; For by-gone hours come o’er my heart with each familiar strain; I cannot sing the old songs, or dream those dreams again.”
How many of our readers remember the old songs and melodies that were so popular in the sixties? People sang them in their homes and the soldiers in the camps and on the march, and they furnished inspiration for many a tired regiment to go into battle.
As I write there comes to my mind snatches of many of the old favorites such as “We’ll Rally Round the Flag, Boys,” “Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys are Marching.”
A story is told of a regiment who went into battle nearly one thousand strong and came out with less than half the number, but the survivors with their blood-stained banners and smoke-begrimed faces marched to another position in the line singing
“We’ll rally round the flag, boys, We’ll rally once again, shouting the battle cry of freedom.”
“When Johnnie Comes Marching Home Again” was always a favorite in the ranks, but in the quiet of camp the songs were a little more sentimental and suggestive of home and the loved ones. Some of the old time favorites were:
“Sweet Alice Ben Bolt,” “Hazel Dell,” “Annie Laurie,” “Kathleen Mavourneen,” “Tenting Tonight,” “The Faded Coat of Blue,” “The Vacant Chair,” “Just Before the Battle, Mother,” “Write Me a Letter from Home,” etc., etc., and an evening camp concert, with perhaps a hundred or more voices in the choruses would wind up with “The Shining Shore,” “Jesus, Lover of My Soul,” and “Nearer, My God, to Thee.”
After the Bull Run campaign our regiment was detailed for garrison duty again and sent to some forts near Arlington where we remained for a long time.
Our colonel (with a foreign military experience?) was relieved of his command immediately after Bull Run and there came to us a commander who proceeded to jerk things straight in the regiment. His name was Jeremiah N. G. Whistler and he had been in the regular army since he was a day old, having been born in camp. He was all military, through and through, and a disciplinarian of disciplinarians.