CHAPTER VI.

The war now raged in the South and some of Mr. Oertel's friends urged him to go to the scene of the conflict and make studies, as in their opinion when the time of peace came every record of the strife would be of interest. In accordance with this advice he set out September 21, 1862, spent several days in New York buying his outfit, and on September 28, he went to Washington, leaving there for the front October 3, when he joined the Sixth New York Cavalry, then under General Burnside, at Pleasant Valley, Md.

His letters to his wife show the usual enthusiasm which he displayed in all undertakings where he felt he was doing his duty. From New York he wrote: "I expect to get a special letter of introduction to General B. I do not want to be classed among the 'Special artists.' I expect to serve my country as but few can, and men like General B. ought to assist me.

"I am leaving for Washington; once more I shall see that city on a strange enterprise. Before I paused there; now my field lies beyond. The feeling of being cast adrift upon an untried sea is mine.

"I have put my new painting box in order and this took me some time, as I find tinkering necessary after every mechanic.

"I bought a pair of cavalry boots and a rubber blanket; likewise a soldier cap in which I look 'a la militaire' to the amusement of my friends, who never saw me but with exuberance of wild hair and an easy felt hat in a backward inclination planted on top.

"The little defenseless group of a mother and two children on the platform of the depot in Westerly at night is ever before my sight. May God bless and preserve you, and permit us to meet again in the safety and happiness of home and quiet.

"I go from all from all I value to obey a strange call. May the almighty arm of the good God never depart from shielding and guiding me."

He soon fell into the ways of soldier life, going on reconnaissance along the front with General Burnside's bodyguard and doing picket duty, and says "This is an exciting life full of wild interest -I rather like it."

"I have material for fine subjects and have made studies for 'An Army Train,' he writes from Warrenton, Va., November 11, 1862.

"It seems at first a subject of little importance, but to those who know it it is a subject illustrating much of a soldier's life and the life of a large army. Indeed one of those countless, endless trains is calculated to show more forcibly the magnitude and ponderousness of a great army than the scattered camps over a stretch of many miles and invisible one from another. Nor is it the wagons only that move in the train; the army that has marched ahead leaves its many representatives. There is the straggler from the ranks who throws his musket

and knapsack upon some team and saunters along leisurely, and more, there is the poor, weary, sick man, who is willing but can stagger no further, and, like the overworked horse or mule he is almost forgotten and left by the wayside. Forsaken, smouldering campfires all along tell where a rest has been made, lame horses tied to the backs of wagons are dragged along. Stony roads, with ruts and steep, rough hills impose dreaded difficulties on man and beast; and many more and sometimes thrilling incidents conform with the variety of ammunition and company wagon, the hay wagon, the ambulance, the caisson, and quartermaster, surgeons, etc. This is an army train. On the mountains of Virginia the eye can sometimes trace it for miles, winding, disappearing, and appearing again, still further and further off, till the white wagon tops seem like sheep in single file on the distant hills.

"I shall make a large picture of it, and am now at work on the material.

"To-day I saw General McClellan depart from his army for home. General Burnside accompanied him to the depot. I followed an impulse and went into the car to bid him good-bye. It needed but a mention of my name.

"I begged leave to shake hands with him as I might never have another opportunity. He was sad and seemed to struggle with his feelings, and after the train had got in motion he raised the car window and gave one more long look upon the crowd of officers behind, then shut it down again.

"Burnside also was unusually quiet, and for

once his fine teeth were not so prominent when he spoke-I was going to say smiled, but he did not smile, not to-day-'Some political deviltry has been intriguing again.'

"The army has made a tremendous demonstration at his leave-taking and feel bereaved of a friend and father. The event has saddened me also, though I never before spoke to the man, but I believe in him. May his removal at this juncture, when the whole army is in motion against the foe, work no great mischief to the country!"

This was the time of which has been said that it would only have needed a word from General McClellan for him to have returned to Washington at the head of his army as Dictator.

The month of November was spent in camps at Liberty, Morrisville, and Richards Ford, on the Rappahannock, where he was "busy making sketches in oil, a pile of which is constantly increasing," and he adds, "If a battle does not result in or around Fredericksburg I am mistaken.

"We are but 2 miles this side of Falmouth (Nov. 28), and the army is enlarging constantly— all now is life, expectation, and constant drill. The army lies close together, as it would before a great battle is fought, and the land literally swarms with an armed host. Nothing meets the eye than the sight of martial life, and martial sounds the ear. The plains and the woods, the hills and the valleys, are vast camps, and parks of wagons and dark columns of men moving hither and thither; and supply trains going and coming; and new armies moving thickly in, to fill what vacant place is left.

It is a grand spectacle. They cover indeed 'the face of the earth.'

"It can never be rendered in a picture, only a hint conveyed, and this I propose to do in the composition I have sketched.

"I am becoming more and more enlightened about the way of painting 'The Army Train' every day as I move among this new and tragic life all around me and see the men and objects which are to compose part of it, and I believe the picture will not be a failure. I can be literal, when needed, and literal I will be, even to the very rags, and dust, and dirt. The people shall see their soldier as he is and the people will not be unmerciful of the truth.

"You know my maxim is to strike few, but hard blows. Little pictures fret a man's energies; I have tried that. Few men can paint comprehensively, but many will be the penny productions cooked up from photographs and fancy which will flood the market after this war. I shall not belong to the latter class; I will endeavor to tell my story by one or two works of importance, and the one in contemplation will have as great variety of feature crowded into it as anything I have yet made."

So he continued to prepare for the work which he believed it his duty to execute even though it was not to his liking. He made about 80 studies and, the last of December, left camp and returned north to his home in Westerly, intending to go on at once painting "The Army Train" or "The Army in Motion" as he decided to call it.

This plan he never carried out, partly because