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Show "MARKING TIME." Ex-Gov. [Governor] Wise, who had been made a Brigadier-General by President Davis, arrived at this time in Stranton, enroute for the Kanawha Valley. His arrival was the remote cause of a ludicrous incident which came very near opening our campaign with an unpleasant tragedy. Lieut.-Col. [Lieutenant-Colonel] Crenshaw, who had gone with me to pay our respects to Gov. [Governor] Wise on the evening of his arrival, invited his staff surgeon, Dr. Peter Lyons, to accompany us to our camp, with a promise of sardines, cigars, and other comforts with which he was provided. We reached camp about nine o'clock, and were hailed by the first sentinel we approached, who ordered one of us to advance and give the countersign. Unfortunately, although having the envelope containing the countersign, which had been handed us by the Adjutant, we had not opened it, and it was too dark to read it. We replied, "Commanding officer without the countersign; call the Sergeant of the guard." "That won't do," said the sentinel. "Now, mark time! Them's my orders." We remonstrated against the indignity to which he contemplated subjecting his field-officers in the presence of a stranger, as well as against the exercise involved in the execution of his command on a hot summer night, but he was inflexible. "Mark time!" he replied, "or I will certainly shoot you," and, suiting the action to the word, cocked his musket and leveled it at us. We tried threats, but he was not to be intimidated -- reason, but he was unreasonable, he knew nothing, and would neither permit us to advance or retire. Insisted upon "doing his duty," which was to shoot us if we did not "mark time." He was master of the situation, and as we looked down the musket barrel we "marked time" until the perspiration rolled from our foreheads. We were relieved by the Sergeant of the guard, who relieved the sentinel, but not until we had whetted our appetite for the expected repast by abundant exercise. I supposed the man was a lunatic, and sent for his company officers to make inquiries. It turned out that he had been instructed at Caine? Lee by cadets of the Military Institute, who required all who failed to have the countersign to "mark time" for their amusement until the guard officer appeared. He was very much alarmed when told of the deception which had been practiced upon him by his youthful instructors. -From Major-General Taliaferro's Memoirs. |