Scott Memoirs: Part 2

-- Bradford Ripley Alden Scott: Memoirs of the Civil War

Boyhood Escapades

They told us of a famous young violinist they had in their command named Carlo Patti, brother of Adelina Patti, just then coming into fame as a songbird. One evening after our soldier guests had recovered and returned to camp we were treated to a serenade by their talented young comrade. I say "we", for though this music was close enough to the house I was the only one who heard its soft strains, being already wakeful from pain of a blinded eye. The hour was late, but it did not occur to me that the others needed to be awakened, till next morning and afterwards when I was berated for neglecting them when they learned what they had missed. I have repeatedly since been awakened by entrancing music, but never heard anything to equal the soft expressive soul talk of that violin.

To account for the injury to my eye --: When Private Guest was up and ready to return to camp I volunteered to clean his army gun for him. Trying to dry out the tube with some gun caps too small for it, they would not explode; so I tested one on a nail - just one - and that one did the business for my left eye, blinding me on that side for life. I was too ashamed to make any complaint but Mother soon found me out and called Father, who made me hold the lids open and try to see. His form dimly outlined against the evening sky was the last object that eye ever discerned. Our family physician, Dr. George Carmichael, was called and a specialist consulted in Richmond, but to no purpose, till the eye had to be removed about thirty years afterwards to save the other eye.

The next silliest thing I remember doing as a youngster about that time (besides seeing how far I could get feet foremost into a columbiad cannon or mortar, was purposely getting caught by a train on the R.R. bridge in sight of the house one day when walking back from town. I had carefully calculated the space between the rails and crossties and floor as sufficient to hold my small body clear of the engine pilot, or "cow catcher", brakebeam, etc., and coveted the experience of being run over by a train without harm. So waiting until the train was coming through the deep cut back below our yard, I started across the bridge too late to get over or turn back (in case anyone should see me from home) and at the proper time took refuge down between the rails in front of the oncoming engine. I forgot about live embers, hot ashes, leaking hot water pipes till too late to get up, and suffered all manner of anticipated scalding till the engine had passed and the danger was over. No one happened to see this adventure and it was a long time before I boasted of it around home.

I knew every locomotive on the line by sight or sound and loved to watch them pass, especially at full speed around the curve beyond the road-crossing before slowing up for the bridge and town; and particularly "my engine" as I claimed the one named the "J.A. Lancaster", (driven by engineer ...... Chandler, and another newer and prettier one claimed by my brother Lewis, named the "G.W. Munford" (driven by engineer ...... Crowder, who kept his clothes as well as his engine wonderfully clean and neat).