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Title: How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion
       or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887

Author: George W. Peck

Release Date: May 16, 2008 [EBook #25492]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRIVATE GEORGE W. PECK ***




Produced by David Widger





HOW PRIVATE GEORGE W. PECK PUT DOWN THE REBELLION

OR, THE FUNNY EXPERIENCES OF A RAW RECRUIT.

By George W. Peck




CHAPTER I.

     The War Literature of the "Century" is very Confusing--I am
     Resolved to tell the True Story of the War--How and "Why I
     Became a Raw Recruit--My Quarters--My Horse--My First Ride.

For the last year or more I have been reading the articles in the
_Century_ magazine, written by generals and things who served on both
the Union and Confederate sides, and have been struck by the number of
"decisive battles" that were fought, and the great number of generals
who fought them and saved the country. It seems that each general on the
Union side, who fought a battle, and writes an article for the aforesaid
magazine, admits that his battle was the one which did the business.
On the Confederate side, the generals who write articles invariably
demonstrate that they everlastingly whipped their opponents, and drove
them on in disorder. To read those articles it seems strange that the
Union generals who won so many decisive battles, should not have ended
the war much sooner than they did, and to read the accounts of battles
won by the Confederates, and the demoralization that ensued in the
ranks of their opponents, it seems marvellous that the Union army was
victorious. Any man who has followed these generals of both sides, in
the pages of that magazine, must conclude that the war was a draw game,
and that both sides were whipped. Thus far no general has lost a battle
on either side, and all of them tacitly admit that the whole thing
depended on them, and that other commanders were mere ciphers. This is
a kind of history that is going to mix up generations yet unborn in the
most hopeless manner.

It has seemed to me as though the people of this country had got so
mixed up about the matter that it was the duty of some private soldier
to write a description of _the_ decisive battle of the war, and as I was
the private soldier who fought that battle on the Union side, against
fearful odds, _viz_: against a Confederate soldier who was braver than
I was, a better horseback rider, and a better poker player, I feel it
my duty to tell about it. I have already mentioned it to a few veterans,
and they have advised me to write an article for the _Century_, but
I have felt a delicacy about entering the lists, a plain, unvarnished
private soldier, against those generals. While I am something of a liar
myself, and can do fairly well in my own class, I should feel that in
the _Century_ I was entered in too fast a class of liars, and the result
would be that I should not only lose my entrance fee, but be distanced.
So I have decided to contribute this piece of history solely for the
benefit of the readers of my own paper, as they will believe me.

It was in 1864 that I joined a cavalry regiment in the department of the
Gulf, a raw recruit in a veteran regiment. It may be asked why I waited
so long before enlisting, and why I enlisted at all, when the war was so
near over. I know that the most of the soldiers enlisted from patriotic
motives, and because they wanted to help shed blood, and wind up the
war. I did not. I enlisted for the bounty. I thought the war was nearly
over, and that the probabilities were that the legiment I had enlisted
in would, be ordered home before I could get to it. In fact the
re-cruiting officer told me as much, and he said I would get my bounty,
and a few months' pay, and it would be just like finding money. He said
at that late day I would never see a rebel, and if I did have to join
the regiment, there would be no fighting, and it would just be one
continued picnic for two or three months, and there would be no more
danger than to go off camping for a duck shoot. At my time of life, now
that I have become gray, and bald, and my eyesight is failing, and I
have become a grandfather, I do not want to open the sores of twenty-two
years ago. I want a quiet life. So I would not assert that the
recruiting officer deliberately lied to me, but I was the worst deceived
man that ever enlisted, and if I ever meet that man, on this earth, it
will go hard with him. Of course, if he is dead, that settles it, as I
shall not follow any man after death, where I am in doubt as to which
road he has taken, but if he is alive, and reads these lines, he can
hear of something to his advantage by communicating with me. I would
probably kill him. As far as the bounty was concerned, I got that all
right, but it was only three-hundred dollars. Within twenty-four hours
after I had been credited to the town from which I enlisted, I heard of
a town that was paying as high as twelve-hundred dollars for recruits.
I have met with many reverses of fortune in the course of a short, but
brilliant career, have loaned money and never got it back, have been
taken in by designing persons on three card monte, and have been beaten
trading horses, but I never suffered much more than I did when I found
that I had got to go to war for a beggerly three-hundred dollars bounty,
when I could have had twelve hundred dollars by being credited to
another town. I think that during two years and a half of service
nothing tended more to dampen my ardor, make me despondent, and hate
myself, than the loss of that nine-hundred dollars bounty. There was not
an hour of the day, in all of my service, that I did not think of what
might have been. It was a long time before I brought to my aid that
passage of scripture, "There is no use crying for spilled bounty," but
when I did it helped me some. I thought of the hundreds who didn't get
any bounty.

I joined my regiment, and had a cavalry horse issued to me, and was
assigned to a company. I went up to the captain of the company, whom I
had known as a farmer before the war commenced, and told him I had come
to help him put down the rebellion. I never saw a man so changed as he
was. I thought he would ask me to bring my things into his tent, and
stay with him, but he seemed to have forgotten that he had known me,
when he worked on the farm. He was dressed up nicely, and I thought he
put on style, and I could only think of him at home, with his overalls
tucked in his boots, driving a yoke of oxen to plow a field. He seemed
to feel that I had known him under unfavorable circumstances before the
war, and acted as though he wanted to shun me. I had drawn an infantry
knapsack, at Madison, before I left for the front, and had it full of
things, besides a small trunk. The captain called a soldier and told him
to find quarters for me, and I went out of his presence. At my quarters,
which consisted of what was called a pup-tent, I found no conveniences,
and it soon dawned on me that war was no picnic, as that lying
recruiting officers had told me it was. I found that I had got to throw
away my trunk and knapsack, and all the articles that I couldn't strap
on a saddle, and when I asked for a mattress the men laughed at me. I
had always slept on a mattress, or a feather bed, and when I was told
that I would have to sleep on the ground, under that little tent, I felt
hurt. I had known the colonel when he used to teach school at home, and
I went to him and told him what kind of a way they were treating me,
but he only laughed. He had two nice cots in his tent, and I told him
I thought I ought to have a cot, too. He laughed some more. Finally I
asked him who slept in his extra cot, and intimated that I had rather
sleep in his tent than mine, but he sent me away, and said he would see
what could be done. I laid on the ground that night, but I didn't sleep.
If I ever get a pension it will be for rheumatism caught by sleeping on
the ground. The rheumatism has not got hold of me yet, though twenty-two
years have passed, but it may be lurking about my system, for all I
know.

I had never rode a horse, before enlisting. The only thing I had ever
got straddle of was a stool in a country printing office, and when I
was first ordered to saddle up my horse, I could not tell which way the
saddle and bridle went, and I got a colored man to help me, for which I
paid him some of the remains of my bounty. I hired him permanently, to
take care of my horse, but I soon learned that each soldier had to take
care of his own horse. That seemed pretty hard. I had been raised a pet,
and had edited a newspaper, which had been one of the most outspoken
advocates of crushing the rebellion, and it seemed to me, as much as I
had done for the government, in urging enlistments, I was entitled to
more consideration then to become my own hostler. However, I curbed my
proud spirit, and after the nigger cook had saddled my horse, I led the
animal up to a fence to climb on. From the remarks of the soldiers, and
the general laugh all around, it was easy to see that mounting a cavalry
horse from off the top of a rail fence was not according to tactics,
but it was the only way I could see to get on, in the absence of
step-ladders. They let me ride into the ranks, after mounting, and then
they laughed. It was hard for me to be obliged to throw away all the
articles I had brought with me, so I strapped them on the saddle in
front and behind, and only my head stuck out over them. There was one
thing, it would be a practicable impossibility to fall off.

[Illustration: Mounting a horse from the top of a rail fence 021]

The regiment started on a raid. The colonel came along by my company
during the afternoon, and I asked him where we were going. He gave me an
evasive answer, which hurt my feelings. I asked his pardon, but told him
I would like to know where we were going, so as to have my letters
sent to me, but he went off laughing, and never told me, while the old
soldiers laughed, though I couldn't see what they were laughing at.
I did not suppose there was so much difference between officers and
privates, and wondered if it was the policy of this government to have
a cavalry regiment to start off on a long raid and not let the soldiers
know where they were going, and during the afternoon I decided to write
home to the paper I formerly edited and give my opinion of such a fool
way of running a war. Suppose anybody at home was sick, they wouldn't
know where to write for me to come back. There is nothing that will give
a man such an appetite as riding on a galloping horse, and along about
the middle of the afternoon I began to get hungry, and asked the orderly
sergeant when we were going to get any dinner. He said there was a hotel
a short distance ahead, and the colonel had gone forward to order dinner
for the regiment. I believed him, because I had known the orderly before
the war, when he drove a horse in a brickyard, grinding clay. But he
was a liar, too, as I found out afterwards. There was not a hotel within
fifty miles, and soldiers did not stop at hotels, anyway. Finally the
orderly sergeant came along and announced that dinner was ready, and I
looked for the hotel, but the only dinner I saw was some raw pork that
soldiers took out of their saddle bags, with hard tack. We stopped in
the woods, dismounted, and the boys would cut off a slice of fat pork
and spread it on the hard tack and eat it. I had never supposed the
government would subject its soldiers to such fare as that, and I
wouldn't eat. I did not dare dismount, as there was no fence near that
I could use to climb on to my horse, so I sat in the saddle and let the
horse eat some grass, while I thought of home, and pie and cake, and
what a condemned fool a man was to leave a comfortable home to go
and put down anybody's rebellion. The way I felt then I wouldn't have
touched a rebellion if one lay right in the road. What business was it
of mine if some people in the South wanted to dissolve partnership and
go set up business for themselves? How was I going to prevent them
from having a southern confederacy, by riding an old rack of bones of a
horse, that would reach his nose around every little while and chew my
legs? If the recruiting officer who inveigled me into the army had
come along then, his widow would now be drawing a pension. While I was
thinking, dreaming of home, and the horse was eating grass, the fool
animal suddenly took it into his head to lay down and roll, and before I
could kick any of his ribs in, he was down, and I was rolling off, with
one leg under him. The soldiers quit eating and pulled the horse of
me, and hoisted me up into the space between my baggage, and then they
laughed, lit their pipes and smoked, as happy as could be. I couldn t
see how they could be happy, and wondered if they were not sick of war.
Then they mounted, and on we went. My legs and body became chafed, and
it seemed as though I couldn t ride another minute, and when the captain
came along I told him about it, and asked him if I couldn t be relieved
some way. He said the only way was for me to stand on my head and ride,
and he winked at a soldier near me, and, do you know, that soldier
actually changed ends with himself and stood on his head and hands in
the saddle and rode quite a distance, and the captain said that was the
way a cavalry soldier rested himself. Gracious, I wouldn t have tried
that for the world, and I found out afterwards that the soldier who
stood on his head formerly belonged with a circus.

I suppose it was wrong to complain, but the horse they gave me was the
meanest horse in the regiment. He would bite and kick the other horses,
and they would kick back, and about half the time I was dodging the
heels of horses, and a good deal of the time I was wondering if a man
would get any pension if he was wounded that way. It would seem pretty
tough to go home on a stretcher, as a wounded soldier, and have people
find out a horse kicked you. I never had been a man of blood, and didn't
enlist to kill anybody, as I could prove by that recruiting officer,
and I didn t want to fight, but from what I could gather from the
conversation of the soldiers, fighting and killing people was about all
they thought about. They talked about this one and that one who had been
killed, and the hundreds of confederates they had all shot or killed
with sabres, until my hair just stood right up. It seems that twelve or
fifteen men, more or less, had been shot off the horse I was riding, and
one fellow who rode next to me said no man who ever rode that old yellow
horse had escaped alive. This was cheering to me, and I would have given
my three hundred dollars bounty, and all I could borrow, if I could get
out of the army. However, I found out afterwards that the soldier lied.
In fact they all lied, and they lied for my benefit. We struck into the
woods, and traveled until after dark, with no road, and the march was
enlivened by remarks of the soldiers near me to the effect that we would
probably never get out of the woods alive. They said we were trying to
surround an army of rebels, and cut them off from the main army, and the
chances were that when tomorrow's sun rose it would rise on the ghostly
corpses of the whole regiment, with jackals and buzzards eating us.
One of the soldiers took something from his pocket, about the size of
a testament, pressed it to his heart, and then kissed it, and I felt as
though I was about to faint, but by the light of a match which another
soldier had scratched on his pants to light his pipe, I saw that what I
supposed to be a testament, was a box of sardines the soldier had bought
of the sutler. I was just about to die of hunger, exhaustion, and fright
at the fearful stories the veterans had been telling, when there was
a shout at the head of the regiment, which was taken up all along the
line, my horse run under the limb of a tree and raked me out of the
saddle, and I hung to the limb, my legs hanging down, and




CHAPTER II.

     I Am Rudely Awakened from Dreams of Home--I Go on Picket--
     The Foe Advances--A Desperate Conflict--The Union--
     Confederate Breakfast on the Alabama Race-Track--A Friendly
     Partin

The careful readers of this history have no doubt been worried about the
manner in which the first chapter closed, leaving me hanging to a limb
of a tree, like Absalom weeping for her children, my horse having gone
out from under me. But I have not been hanging there all this time. The
soldiers took me down, and caught my horse, and the regiment dismounted
and a council of war was held. I suppose it was a council of war, as I
noticed the officers were all in a group under a tree, with a candle,
examining a map, and drinking out of a canteen. I had read of councils
of war, but I had never seen one, and so I walked over to the crowd
of officers and asked the colonel if there was anything particular the
matter. I never saw a crowd of men who seemed so astonished as those
officers were, and suddenly I felt myself going away from where they
were consulting, with somebody's strong hand on my collar, and an
unmistakable cavalry boot, with a man in it, in the vicinity of my
pantaloons. I do not know to this day, which officer it was that kicked
me, but I went away and sat under a tree in the dark, so hungry that I
was near dead, and I wished I _was_ dead. I guess the officers wished
that I was, too. The soldiers tried to console me by telling me I was
too fresh, but I couldn't see why a private soldier, right from home,
who knew all about the public sentiment at the north in regard to the
way the war was conducted, should not have a voice in the consultations
of officers. I had written many editorials before I left home,
criticising the manner in which many generals had handled their
commands, and pointed out to my readers how defeat could have been
turned into victory, if the generals had done as I would have done in
their places. It seemed to me the officers of my regiment were taking a
suicidal course in barring me out of their consultations. A soldier had
told me that we were lost in the woods, and as I had studied geography
when at school, and was well posted about Alabama, it seemed as though a
little advice from me would be worth a good deal. But I concluded to let
them stay lost forever before I would volunteer any information. It was
crawling along towards midnight, of my first day in the army, and I
had eaten nothing since morning. As I sat there under the tree I fell
asleep, and was dreaming of home, and warm biscuit, with honey, and a
feather bed, when I was rudely awakened by a corporal who told me to
mount. I asked him what for, and told him that I didn t want to ride any
more that night. What I wanted was to be let alone, to sleep. He said to
get on the horse too quick, and I found there was no use arguing with a
common corporal, so the boys hoisted me on to the horse, and about nine
of us started off through the woods in the moonlight, looking for a main
road. The corporal was kind enough to say that as soon as we found a
road we would put out a picket, and send a courier back to the regiment
to inform the colonel that we had got out of the woods, and the rest of
us would lay down and sleep till morning. I don't think I was ever so
anxious to see a road in all my life, because I _did_ want to lay down
and sleep, and die. O, if I could have telegraphed home, how I would
have warned the youth of the land to beware of the allurements held out
by recruiting officers, and to let war alone. In an hour or so we came
to a clearing, and presently to a road, and we stopped. The corporal
detailed me to go up the road a short distance and stand picket on my
horse. That was not what I had expected of the corporal. I used to know
him before the war when he worked in a paint shop in a wagon factory,
and I had always treated him well, and it seemed as though he ought
to favor me by letting somebody else go on picket. I told him that the
other boys were more accustomed to such work than I was, and that I
would resign in their favor, because what I wanted was rest, but he
said I would have to go, and he called me "Camp and Garrison Equipage,"
because I carried so much luggage on my horse, a name that held to
me for months. I found that there was no use kicking against going on
picket duty that night, though I tried to argue with the corporal that
it would be just as well to all lay down and sleep till morning, and
put out a picket when it got light enough to see. I was willing to work
during the day time for the government, but it seemed as though it was
rushing things a little to make a man work day and night for thirteen
dollars a month. So the corporal went out on the road with me about
a quarter of a mile, and placed me in position and gave me my
instructions. The instructions were to keep a sharp lookout up and down
the road for Confederate cavalry, and if I saw anybody approaching to
sing out "halt!" and if the party did not halt to shoot him, and then
call for the corporal of the guard, who would come out to see what was
the matter. I asked him what I should do if anybody came along and shot
me, and he said that would be all right, that the boys would come out
and bury me. He said I must keep awake, for if I got to sleep on my post
I would be court-martialed and shot, and then he rode away and left
me alone, on a horse that kept whinnying, and calling the attention of
possible Confederates to my position.

I do not think any reader of these papers will envy me the position I
was in at that time. If I remained awake, I was liable to be killed by
the enemy, and if I fell asleep on my post I would be shot anyway.
And if I was not killed, it was probable I would be a murderer before
morning. Hunger was gnawing at my stomach, and the horse was gnawing
at my legs, and I was gnawing at a hard tack which I had found in the
saddle-bag. Every little while I would hear a noise, and my hair would
raise my hat up, and it would seem to me as though the next minute a
volley would be fired at me, and I shrunk down between the piles of
baggage on my saddle to be protected from bullets. Suddenly the moon
came out from behind a cloud and around a turn in the road a solitary
horseman might have been seen coming towards me. I never have seen a
horse that looked as high as that horse did. He seemed at least eighteen
feet high, and the man on him was certainly twelve feet high. My heart
pounded against a tin canteen that I had strung around my shoulder, so
I could hear the beating perfectly plain. The man was approaching, and I
was trying to think whether I had been instructed to shoot and then call
for the corporal of the guard, or call for the corporal and then ask him
to halt. I knew there was a halt in my instructions, and wondered if
it would not conciliate the enemy to a certain extent if I would say
"Please Halt." The fact was, I didn t want to have any fuss. If I could
have backed my horse up into the woods, and let the man go by, it seemed
as though it would save precipitating a conflict. It is probable that
no military man was ever in so tight a place as I was that minute. The
enemy was advancing, and I wondered if, when he got near enough, I could
say "halt," in a commanding tone of voice. I knew enough, then, to feel
that to ask the stranger to halt in a trembling and husky voice would
give the whole thing away, that I was a recruit and a coward. Ye gods,
how I suffered! I wondered if I could hit a man with a bullet. Before
the war I was quite a good shot with a shotgun, shooting into flocks of
pigeons and ducks, and I thought what a good idea it would be if I could
get that approaching rebel into a flock. The idea seemed so ridiculous
that I laughed right out loud. It was not a hearty, happy laugh, but it
was a laugh all the same, and I was proud that I could laugh in the face
of danger, when I might be a corpse any minute. The man on the horse
stopped. Whether he heard me laugh it is impossible to say, but he
stopped. That relieved me a great deal. As he had stopped it was
unnecessary for me to invite him to halt. He was welcome to stay there
if he wanted to. I argued that it was not my place to go howling around
the Southern Confederacy, ordering people to halt, when they had already
halted. If he would let me alone and stay where he was, what sense was
there in picking a quarrel with him?

Why should I want to shoot a total stranger, who might have a family
at home, somewhere in the South, who would mourn for him. He might be
a dead shot, as many Southern gentlemen were, and if I went to advising
him about halting, it would, very likely cause his hot Southern blood to
boil, and he would say he had just as much right to that road as I had.
If it come right down to the justice of the thing, I should have to
admit that Alabama was not my state. Wisconsin was my home, and if I
was up there, and a man should trespass on my property, it would be
reasonable enough for me to ask him to go away from there, and enforce
my request by calling a constable and having him put off the premises.
But how did I know but he owned property there, and was a tax-payer. I
had it all figured out that I was right in not disturbing that rebel,
and I knew that I could argue with my colonel for a week, if necessary,
on the law points in the case, and the courtesy that I deemed proper
between gentlemen, if any complaint was made for not doing my duty. But,
lordy, how I _did_ sweat while I was deciding to let him alone if he
would let me alone. The war might have been going on now, and that rebel
and myself might have been standing there today, looking at each other,
if it hadn't been for the action of the fool horse that I rode. My
horse had been evidently asleep for some time, but suddenly he woke up,
pricked up his ears, and began to prance, and jump sideways like a race
horse that is on the track, and wants to run. The horse reared up and
plunged, and kept working up nearer to my Southern friend, and I tried
to hold him, and keep him still, but suddenly he got the best of me and
started towards the other man and horse, and the other horse started, as
though some one had said "go".{*}

     * [Before I get any further on this history of the war, it
     is necessary to explain. The facts proved to be that my
     regiment had got lost in the woods, and the scouting party,
     under the corporal, who had been sent out to find a road,
     had come upon the three-quarter stretch of an old private
     race track on a deserted southern plantation, instead of a
     main road, and I had been placed on picket near the last
     turn before striking the quarter stretch. A small party of
     Confederates, who had been out on a scout, and got lost, had
     come on the track further down, near the judges' stand, and
     they had put a man, on picket up near where I was, supposing
     they had struck the road, and intending to wait until
     morning so as to find out where they were. My horse was an
     old race horse, and as soon as he saw the other horse, he
     was in for a race and the other horse was willing. This will
     show the situation as well as though I had a race track
     engraved, showing the positions of the two armies. The
     Confederates, except the man on picket, were asleep beside
     the track near the quarter stretch, and our fellows, except
     myself, were asleep over by the three-quarter pole.]

I do not suppose any man on this earth, or any other earth, ever tried
to stop a fool horse quite as hard as I did that one. I pulled until my
arms ached, but he went for all that was out, and the horse ahead of
me was buckling in as fast as he could. I could not help wondering what
would happen if I should overtake that Southern man. I was gaining on
him, when suddenly eight or nine men who were sleeping beside the road,
got up and began to shoot at us. They were the friends of the rebel, who
believed that the whole Union army was making a charge on them. We got
by the shooters alive, and then, as we passed the rickety old judge's
stand, I realized that we were on a race track, and for a moment I
forgot that I was a soldier, and only thought of myself as a rider of
a race horse, and I gave the horse his head, and kicked him, and yelled
like a Comanche Indian, and I had the satisfaction of seeing my horse
go by the rebel, and I yelled some more. I got a glimpse of my rebel's,
face as I went by him, and he didn't look much more like a fighting man
than I did, but he was, for as soon as I had got ahead of him he drew
a revolver and began firing at me on the run. I thought that was a mean
trick, and spoke to him about it afterwards, but he said he only wanted
me to stop so he could get acquainted with me.

[Illustration: On went the two night riders 039]

Well, I never could find any bullets in any of the clothes strapped on
the back of my saddle, but it _did_ seem to me as though every bullet
from his revolver hit very near my vital parts. But a new danger
presented itself. We were rapidly approaching the corporal and his men,
with whose command I belonged, and they would wake up and think the
whole Confederate army was charging them, and if I was not killed by the
confounded rebel behind me, I should probably be shot all to pieces by
our own men. As we passed our men they fired a few sleepy shots towards
us, and took to the woods. On went the two night riders, and when the
rebel had exhausted his revolver he began to urge his horse, and passed
me, and I drew my revolver and began to fire at him. As we passed the
judge's stand the second time a couple of shots from quite a distance in
the woods showed that his rebel friends had taken alarm at the frequent
charges of cavalry, and had skipped to the woods and were getting away
as fast as possible. We went around the track once more, and when near
the judge's stand I was right behind him, and his horse fell down and
my horse stumbled over him, and I guess we were both stunned. Finally I
crawled out from under my horse, and the rebel was trying to raise up,
when I said, "What in thunder you want to chase a man all around the
Southern Confederacy for, on a dark night, trying to shoot him?" He asked
me to help him up, which I did, when he said, "Who commenced this here
chasing? If you had kept whar you was, I wouldn't a had no truck with
you." Then I said, "You are my prisoner," and he said, "No, you are my
prisoner." I told him I was no hand to argue, but it seemed to me it was
about a stand off, as to which was 'tother's prisoner. I told him that
was my first day's service as a soldier, and I was not posted as to the
customs of civilized warfare, but I was willing to wait till daylight,
leaving matters just as they were, each of us on the defensive, giving
up none of our rights, and after daylight we would play a game of
seven-up to see which was the prisoner. That seemed fair to him, and he
accepted the situation, remarking that he had only been conscripted a
few days and didn't know any more about war than a cow. He said he was
a newspaper man from Georgia, and had been taken right from the case in
his office before his paper could be got out. I told him I was only a
few days out of a country printing office my-self, the sheriff having
closed out my business on an old paper bill. A bond of sympathy was
inaugurated at once between us, and when he limped along the track to
the fence, and found that his ankle was hurt by the fall, I brought a
bottle of horse liniment out of my saddle-bags, and a rag, and bound
some liniment on his ankle. He said he had never seen a Yankee soldier
before, and he was glad he had met me. I told him he was the first rebel
I had ever met, and I hoped he would be the last, until the war was
over. By this time our horses had gone to nibbling grass, as though
there were no such thing as war. We could hear occasional bugle calls
off in the woods in two directions, and knew that our respective
commands had gone off and got lost again, so we concluded to camp there
till morning. After the excitement was over I began to get hungry, and I
asked him if he had anything to eat. He said he had some corn bread and
bacon, and he could get some sweet potatoes over in a field. So I built
a fire there on the track, and he hobbled off after potatoes. Just about
daylight breakfast was served, consisting of coffee, which I carried
in a sack, made in a pot he carried, bacon fried in a half of a tin
canteen, sweet potatoes roasted in the ashes, and Confederate corn
bread, warmed by holding it over the fire on a sharp stick. My friend,
the rebel, sat on my saddle, which I had removed from my horse, after he
had promised me on his honor to help me to put it on when it was time to
mount. He knew how to put on saddles, and I didn t, and as his ankle
was lame I gave him the best seat, he being my guest, that is, he was
my guest if I beat him in the coming game of seven-up, which we were to
play to see if he was my prisoner, or I was his. It being daylight, I
could see him, and study his character, and honestly he was a mighty
fine-looking fellow. As we eat our early breakfast I began to think
that the recruiting officer was more than half right about war being a
picnic. He talked about the newspaper business in the South, and before
breakfast was over we had formed a partnership to publish a paper at
Montgomery, Ala., after the war should be over. I have eaten a great
many first-class meals in my time, have feasted at Delmonico's, and
lived at the best hotels in the land, besides partaking pretty fair food
camping out, where an appetite was worked up by exercise and sporting,
but in all my life I have never had anything taste as good as that
combination Union-Confederate breakfast on the Alabama race track,
beside the judges stand. After the last potato peeling, and the last
crumb of corn bread had been "sopped" in the bacon gravy and eaten, we
whittled some tobacco off a plug, filled our pipes and leaned up against
the fence and smoked the most enjoyable smoke that ever was smoked.
After smoking in silence a few minutes my rebel friend said, as he blew
the smoke from his handsome mouth, "War is not so unpleasant, after
all." Then we fell to talking about the manner in which the different
generals on each side had conducted things. He went on to show that if
Lee had taken his advice, the Yankees would then be on the run for the
North, and I showed him, by a few well-chosen remarks that if I
could have been close to Grant, and given him some pointers, that the
Confederates would be hunting their holes. We were both convinced that
it was a great mistake that we were nothing but private soldiers, but
felt that it would not be long before we were called to occupy high
places. It seemed to stand to reason that true merit would find its
reward. Then he knocked the ashes out of his pipe and said if I had a
pack of cards we would go up in the judges stand and play seven-up
to see whether I was his prisoner, or he was mine. I wanted to take a
prisoner back to the regiment, at I thought it would make me solid with
the colonel, and I played a strong game of seven-up, but before we got
started to playing he suggested that we call it a stand-off, and agree
that neither of us should be a prisoner, but that when we got ready to
part each should go hunt up his own command, and tell the biggest lie we
could think of as to the fight we had had. That was right into my hand,
and I agreed, and then my friend suggested that we play poker for money.
I consented and he put up Confederate money, against my greenbacks, ten
to one. We played about an hour, and at the close he had won the balance
of my bounty, except what I had given to the chaplain for safe keeping,
and a pair of pants, and a blouse, and a flannel shirt, and a pair of
shoes, which I had on my saddle. I was rather glad to get rid of some
of my extra baggage, and when he put on the clothes he had won from me,
blessed if I wasn t rather proud of him. A man could wear any kind of
clothes in the Confederate army, and my rebel looked real comfortable in
my clothes, and I felt that it was a real kind act to allow him to win
a blue suit that I did not need. If the men of both the armies, and the
people of both sections of the distracted country could have seen us two
soldiers together, there in the judges stand, peacefully playing poker,
while the battles were raging in the East and in the West, that would
have felt that an era of good feeling was about to dawn on the country.
After we had played enough poker, and I had lost everything I had that
was loose, I suggested that he sing a song, so he sung the "Bonnie Blue
Flag." I did not think it was right for him to work in a rebel song on
me, but it did sound splendid, and I forgot that there was any war, in
listening to the rich voice of my new friend. When he got through he
asked me to sing something. I never _could_ sing, anyway. My folks had
always told me that my voice sounded like a corn sheller, but he urged
me at his own peril, and I sung, or tried to, "We'll Hang Jeff Davis
to a Sour Apple Tree." I had no designs on Mr. Davis, honestly I hadn't,
and it was the farthest thing from my thoughts to hurt the feelings of
that young man, but before I had finished the first verse he took his
handkerchief out and placed it to his eyes. I stopped and apologized,
but he said not to mind him, as he was better now. He told me,
afterwards, in the strictest confidence, that my singing was the worst
he ever heard, and gave it as his opinion that if Jeff Davis could hear
me sing he would be willing, even anxious, to be hung. If I had been
sensitive about my musical talents, probably there would have been hard
feelings, and possibly bloodshed, right there, but I told him I always
knew I couldn't sing, and he said that I was in luck. Well, we fooled
around there till about ten o'clock in the morning, and decided that we
would part, and each seek our respective commands, so I put some more
horse liniment on his sprained ankle, and he saddled my horse for me,
and after expressions of mutual pleasure at meeting each other, and
promises that after the war we would seek each other out, we mounted,
he gave three cheers for the Yanks, and I gave three cheers for the
Johnnies, he divided his plug of tobacco with me, and I gave him the
bottle of horse liniment, he turned his horse towards the direction his
gray coats had taken the night before, while I turned my horse towards
the hole in the woods our fellows had made, and we left the race track
where we had fought so gamely, eat so heartily, and played poker so
disastrously, to me. As we were each about going into the woods, half
a mile apart, he waved his handkerchief at me, and I waved mine at him,
and we plunged into the forest.

After riding for an hour or so, alone in the woods, thinking up a good
lie to tell about where I had been, and what I had been doing, I heard
horses neighing, and presently I came upon my regiment, just starting
out to hunt me up. The colonel looked at me and said, "Kill the fat
prodigal, the calf has got back."




CHAPTER III.

     I Describe a Deadly Encounter--Am Congratulated as a Warrior
     With a Big "W"--The Chaplain Gives Good Advice--I Attend
     Surgeon's Call--Castor Oil out of a Dirty Bottle--Back to
     the Chaplain's Tent--I am Wounded in the Canteen.

The last chapter of this history left me facing my regiment, which
had started out to hunt me up, after my terrible fight with that
Confederate. The colonel rode up to me and shook me by the hand,
and congratulated me, and the major and adjutant said they had never
expected to see me alive, and the soldiers looked at me as one returned
from the grave, and from what I could gather by the looks of the boys,
I was something of a hero, even before I had told my story. The colonel
asked me what had become of all the baggage I had on my saddle when I
went away, and I told him that I had thrown ballast over-board all over
the Southern Confederacy, when I was charging the enemy, because I found
my horse drew too much water for a long run. He said something about my
being a Horse-Marine, and sent me back to my company, telling me that
when we got into camp that night he would send for me and I could tell
the story of my capture and escape. I rode back into my company, and you
never saw such a change of sentiment towards a raw recruit, as there
was towards me, and they asked me questions about my first fight. The
corporal who had placed me on picket, and stampeded at the first fire,
was unusually gracious to me, and said when he saw a hundred and fifty
rebels come charging down the road, yelling and firing, he knew it was
no place for his small command, so he lit out. He said he supposed of
course I was shot all to pieces. I didn't tell him that it was me that
did all the yelling, and that there was only one rebel, and that he was
perfectly harmless, but I told him that he miscalculated the number of
the enemy, as there were, all told, at least five hundred, and that I
had killed fourteen that I knew of, besides a number had been taken away
in ambulances, wounded. The boys opened their eyes, and nothing was too
good for me during that march. We went into camp in the pine woods late
in the afternoon, and after supper the colonel sent for me, and I went
to his tent. All the officers were there, and as many soldiers as dared
crowd around. The colonel said the corporal had reported where he left
me, and how the enemy had charged in force, and he supposed that I had
been promptly killed. That he felt that he could not hold his position
against such immense odds, so he had fallen back slowly, firing as he
did so, until the place was too hot for him, and now he wanted to hear
my story. I told the colonel that I was new at the business, and may
be I did not use the best judgment in the world, by remaining to fight
against such odds, but I meant well. I told him I did not wish to
complain of the corporal, who no doubt was an able fighter, but it did
seem to me that he ought at least to have waited till the battle had
actually commenced. I said that the first charge, which stampeded the
corporal and his men, was not a marker to what took place afterwards. I
said when the enemy first appeared, I dismounted, got behind a tree, and
poured a murderous fire into the ranks of the rebels, and that they fell
all around. I could not tell how many were killed, but probably ten,
as I fired eleven shots from, my carbine, and I usually calculated on
missing one out of ten, when shooting at a mark. Then they fell back and
I mounted my horse and rode to their right flank and poured it into them
red hot from my revolver, and that I saw several fall from their horses,
when they stampeded, and I drew my saber and charged them, and after
cutting down several, I was surrounded by the whole rebel army and
captured. They tied me to the wheel of a gun carriage, and after trying
to pump me as to the number of men I had fighting against them, they
left me to hold a council of war, when I untied myself, mounted my
horse, and cut my way out, and took to the woods. I apologized to the
colonel for running away from the enemy, but told him it seemed to me,
after the number I had killed, and the length of time I had held them at
bay, it was no more than right to save my own life, as I had use for it
in my business. During my recital of the lie I had made up, the officers
and soldiers stood around with mouths open, and when I had concluded my
story, there was silence for a moment, when the colonel stepped forward
and took me by the hand, and in a few well chosen remarks congratulated
me on my escape, and thanked me for so valiantly standing my ground
against such fearful odds, and he said I had reflected credit upon my
regiment, and that hereafter I would be classed as a veteran instead of
a recruit. He said he had never known a man to come right from the paths
of peace, and develop into a warrior with a big "W" so short a time. The
other officers congratulated me, and the soldiers said I was a bully boy.
The colonel treated to some commissary whisky, and then the business of
the evening commenced, which I found to be draw poker. I sat around for
some time watching the officers play poker, when the chaplain, who was
a nice little pious man, asked me to step outside the tent, as he wished
to converse with me. I went out into the moonlight with him, and he
took me away from the tents, under a tree, and told me he had been much
interested in my story. I thanked him, and said I had been as brief as
possible. He said, "I was interested, because I used to be something
of a liar myself, before I reformed, and studied for the ministry." It
occurred to me that possibly the chaplain did not believe my simple
tale, and I asked him if he doubted my story. "That is about the size of
it," says he. I told him I was sorry I had not told the story in such
a manner that he would believe it, because I valued the opinion of the
chaplain above all others. He said he had known a good many star liars
in his time, some that had national reputations, but he had never
seen one that could hold a candle to me in telling a colossal lie, or
aggregation of lies, and tell them so easy. I thanked him for his good
opinion, and told him that I flattered myself that for a recruit, right
fresh from the people, who had never had any experience as a military
liar, I had done pretty well. He said I certainly had, and he was glad
to make my acquaintance. I asked him to promise not to give it away to
the other officers, which he did, and then I told him the whole story,
as it was, and that I was probably the biggest coward that ever
lived, and that I was only afraid that my story of blood-letting would
encourage the officers to be constantly putting me into places of
danger, which I did not want to be in. I told him I believed this war
could be ended without killing any more men, and cited the fact that I
had been a soldier nearly forty-eight hours, and nobody had been killed,
and the enemy was on the run. I told the chaplain that if there was
one thing I didn't want to see, it was blood. Others might have an
insatiable appetite for gore, but I didn't want any at all. I was
willing to do anything for this government but fight; and if he could
recommend to me any line of action by which I could pull through without
being sent out to do battle with strangers who could shoot well, I
should consider it a favor. What I wanted was a soft job, where there
was no danger. The chaplain looked thoughtful a moment, and then took me
over to his tent, where he opened a bottle of blackberry brandy. He
took a small dose, after placing his hand on his stomach and groaning a
little. He asked me if I did not sometimes have a pain under my vest. I
told him I never had a pain anywhere. Then he said I couldn't have any
brandy. He said the brandy came from the sanitary commsssion, and was
controlled entirely by the chaplains of the different regiments, and the
instructions were to only use it in case of sickness. He said a great
many of the boys had pains regularly, and came to him for relief. He
smacked his lips and said if I felt any pain coming on, to help myself
to the brandy. It is singular how a pain will sometimes come on when
you least expect it. It was not a minute before I began to feel a small
pain, not bigger than a man's hand, and as I looked at the bottle the
pain increased, and I had to tell the chaplain that I must have relief
before it was everlastingly too late, so he poured out a dose of brandy
for me. I could see that I was becoming a veteran very fast, as I could
work the chaplain for sanitary stores pretty early in the game. Well,
the chaplain and me had pains off and on, for an hour or two, and became
good friends. He told me of quite a number of methods of shirking active
duty, such as being detailed to take care of baggage, acting as orderly,
and going to surgeon's call. He said if a man went to surgeon's call,
the doctor would report him sick, and he could not be sent out on duty.
The next day we went back to our post, where the regiment was stationed,
and where they had barracks, that they wintered in, and remained there
several weeks, drilling. I was drilled in mounting and dismounting,
and soon got so I could mount a horse without climbing on to him from a
fence. But the drill became irksome, and I decided to try the chaplain's
suggestion about going to surgeon's call. I got in line with about
twenty other soldiers, and we marched over to the surgeon's quarters. I
supposed the doctor would take each soldier into a private room, feel of
his pulse, look at his tongue, and say that what he needed was rest, and
give him some powders to be taken in wafers, or in sugar. But all he did
was to say "What's the matter?" and the sick man would tell him, when
the doctor would tell his assistant to give the man something, and pass
on to the next. I was the last one to be served, and the interview was
about as follows:

Doc.--What's the matter?

Me--Bilious.

Doc.--Run out your tongue. Take a swallow out of the black bottle.

That seems very simple, indeed, but it nearly killed me. When he told me
to run out my tongue, I run out perhaps six inches of the lower end of
it, the doctor glanced at it as though it was nothing to him anyway, and
then he told me to take a swallow out of the bottle. In all my life I
had never taken four doses of medicine, and when I did the medicine was
disguised in preserves or something. The hospital steward handed me the
bottle that a dozen other sick soldiers had drank out of, and it was
sticky all around the top, and contained something that looked like
castor oil, for greasing a buggy. He told me to take a good big swallow,
and I tried to do so. Talk about the suffering brought on by the war, it
seems to me nobody ever suffered as I did, trying to drink a swallow
of that castor oil out of a two quart bottle, that was dirty. It run so
slow that it seemed, an age before I got enough to swallow, and then it
seemed another age before the oil could pass a given point in my neck.
And great Caesar's ghost how it _did_ taste. I think it went down my
neck, and I just had strength enough to ask the steward to give me
something to take the taste out of my mouth. He handed me a blue pill.
O, I could have killed him. I rushed to the chaplain's tent and took a
drink of blackberry brandy, and my life was saved, but for three years
after that I was never sick enough to get farther than the chaplain's
quarters.

[Illustration: Great Caesar's ghost how it did taste 049]

I suppose the meanest trick that was ever played on a raw recruit, was
played on me while we were in camp at that place. It seemed to me
that some of the boys got jealous of me, because I had become a hero,
accidentally. May be some of them did not believe I had killed as many
of the enemy as I had owned up to having killed. Anyway every little
while some soldier would say that he thought it was a mean man that
would go out and kill a lot of rebels and not bury them. He said a man
that would do that was a regular pot-hunter, who killed game and left it
on the ground to spoil. They made lots of such uncharitable remarks, but
I did not pay much attention to to them. I had a tent-mate who took a
great interest in me, and he said no soldier's life was safe who did not
wear a breast-plate, and he asked me if I did not bring any breast-plate
with me. I told him I never heard of a breastplate, and asked him what
it was. He said it was a vest made of the finest spring steel, that
could be worn under the clothes, which was so strong that a bullet could
not penetrate it. He supposed of course I had one, when he heard of the
fight I had, and said none of the old boys would go into a fight without
one, as it covered the vital parts, and saved many a life. I bit like
a bass. If there was anything I wanted more than a discharge, it was a
breast-plate. If the chaplain should succeed in getting me a soft job,
where there was no danger, I could get along without my breast-plate,
but there was no sure thing about the chaplain, so I asked the soldier
where I could get a breastplate. He said the quartermaster used to issue
them, but he didn't have any on hand now, but he said he knew where
there was one that once belonged to a soldier who was killed, and he
thought he could get it for me. I asked him how it happened that the
soldier was killed, when he had a breast-plate, and he told me the
man was killed by eating green peaches. Of course I couldn't expect a
breastplate to save me from the effects of eating unripe fruit, and
I felt that if it would save me from bullets it would be worth all it
cost, so I told the soldier to get it for me. That evening he brought it
around, and he helped me put it on. I learned afterwards that it was an
old breast-plate that an officer had brought to the regiment when the
war broke out, and that it had been played on raw recruits for two
years. After I had got it on, the soldier suggested that we go out with
several other dare devils, and run the guard and go down town and play
billiards, and have a jolly time. I asked him if the guard would not
shoot at us, and he said the guards would be all right, and if they did
shoot they would shoot at the breast-plates, as all the boys had them
on. So about six of us sneaked through the guards, went to town and had
a big time, and came back along towards morning, each with a canteen of
whisky. It was not easy getting back inside the lines, as the moon was
shining, but we got by the guards, and then my friends suggested that we
take our breast-plates off and put them on behind us, as the guards, if
they shot at all, would be firing in our rear. I took mine off and put
it on behind my pants, and just then somebody fired a gun, and the boys
said "run," and I started ahead, and the firing continued, and about
every jump I could hear and feel something striking my breast-plate
behind, which seemed to me to be bullets, and I was glad I had the
breast-plate on, though afterwards I found that the boys behind me were
firing off their revolvers in the air, and throwing small stones at my
breast-plate. Presently a bullet, as I supposed, struck me in the back
above the breast-plate, and I could feel blood trickling down my back,
and I knew I was wounded. O, I hankered for gore, before enlisting, and
while editing a paper, and now I had got it, got gore till I couldn't
rest. The blood run down my side, down my leg, into my boot, and I could
feel I was wading in my own blood. And great heaven's, how it did smell.
I had never smelled blood before, that I knew of, and I thought it had
the most peculiar, pungent, intoxicating odor. I ran towards my quarters
as fast as possible, fainting almost, from imaginary loss of blood, and
finally rushed into my tent, threw myself on my bunk and called loudly
for the doctor and chaplain, and then I fainted. When I came to I was
surrounded by the doctor, and a lot of the boys, all laughing, and
the chaplain was trying to say something pious, while trying to keep
a straight face. "Have you succeeded in staunching the blood, doc?" I
asked, in a trembling voice. He said the blood was quite staunch, but
the whisky could never be saved. I did not know what he meant, and I
turned to the chaplain and asked him if he wouldn't be kind enough to
say something appropriate to the occasion. I told him I had been a bad
man, had lied some, as he well knew, and had been guilty of things that
would bar me out of the angel choir, but that if he had any influence at
the throne of grace, and could manage to sneak me in under the canvass
anyway, he could have the balance of my bounty, and all the pay that
might be coming to me. The chaplain held up the breast-plate that had
been removed by kind hands, from the back portion of my person, and said
I had better take that along with me, as it would be handy to wear
when I wanted to stand with my back to the fire in hades. I could not
understand why the good man should joke me, on my death bed, and I
rolled over with my back to the wall, to weep, unobserved, and I felt
the blood sticking to my clothes and person, and I asked the doctor why
he did not dress my wound. He said he should have to send the wound
to the tin-shop to be dressed, and then they all laughed. This made me
indignant, and I turned over and faced the crowd, and asked them if they
had no hearts, that they could thus mock at a dying man. The doctor held
up my canteen with a hole in it, made by a stone thrown by one of my
companions, and said, "You d----d fool, you are not wounded. Somebody
busted your canteen, and the whiskey run down your leg and into your
boot, and you, like an idiot, thought it was your life blood ebbing
away. Couldn't you tell that it was whiskey by the smell?" I felt of
myself, where I thought I was wounded, and couldn't find any hole, and
then I took off my boot, and emptied the whisky out, and felt stronger,
and finally I got up, and the boys went away laughing at me, leaving the
chaplain, who was kind enough to tell me that of all the raw recruits
that had ever come to the regiment, he thought I was the biggest idiot
of the lot, to let the boys play that ancient breast-plate and canteen
joke on me. I asked him if the boys didn't all wear breast-plates, and
he said "naw!" He told me that was the only breast-plate in the whole
Department of the Gulf, and it was kept to play on recruits, and that I
must keep it until a new recruit came that was green enough to allow the
boys to do him up. So I hid the breast-plate under my bunk, and went
to bed and tried to dream out some method of getting even with my
persecutors, while the chaplain went out, after offering to hold himself
in readiness, day or night, to come and pray for me, if I was wounded in
the canteen any more.




CHAPTER IV.

     I Yearn for a Furlough--I Interview the General--I am
     Detailed to Carry a Rail--I Make a Horse-trade With the
     Chaplain--I am Put in Charge of a Funeral.

I had now been fighting the battles of my country for two weeks, and
felt that I needed rest, and one day I became so homesick that it _did_
seem as though it would kill me. Including the week it had taken me
to get from home to my regiment, three weeks had elapsed since I bid
good-bye to my friends, and I wanted to go home. I would lay awake
nights and think of people at home and wonder what they were doing, and
if they were laying awake nights thinking of me, or caring whether I was
alive, or buried in the swamps of the South. It was about the time of
year when at home we always went off shooting, and I thought how much
better it was to go off shooting ducks and geese, and chickens, that
could not shoot back, than to be hunting bloodthirsty Confederates that
were just as liable to hunt us, and who could kill, with great ease. I
thought of a pup I had at home that was just the right age to train, and
that he would be spoiled if he was not trained that season. O, how I
did want to train that pup. The news that one of my comrades had been
granted a furlough, after three years' service, and that he was going
home, made me desperate, and I dreamed that I had waylaid and murdered
the fortunate soldier, and gone home on his furlough. The idea of
getting a furlough was the one idea in my mind, and the next morning as
I took my horse to the veterinary surgeon for treatment,{*} I had a talk
with the horse doctor about the possibilities of getting a furlough.
I had known him before the war, when he kept a livery stable, and as I
owed him a small livery bill, I thought he would give it to me straight.
The horse doctor had his sleeves rolled up, and was holding a horse's
tongue in one hand while he poured some medicine down the animal's
throat out of a bottle with the other hand, which made me sorry for the
horse, as I remembered my experience at surgeon's call, in drinking a
dose of castor oil out of a bottle, and I was mean-enough to be glad
they played it on horses as well as the soldiers. The horse doctor
returned the horse's tongue to it's mouth, kicked the animal in the
ribs, turned and wiped his hands on a bale of hay, and said:

"Well, George, to get a furlough a man has got to have plenty of gall,
especially a man who has only been to the front a couple of weeks. There
is no use making an application in the regular way, to your captain,
have him endorse it and send it to regimental headquarters, and so on to
brigade headquarters, because you would never hear of it again. My idea
would be for you to go right to the general commanding the division, and
tell him you have got to go home. But you mustn't go crawling to him,
and whining. He is a quick-tempered man, and he hates a coward. Go
to him and talk familiar with him, and act as though you had always
associated with him, and slap him on the shoulder, and make yourself at
home. Just make up a good, plausible story, and give it to him, and if
he seems irritated, give him to understand that he can t frighten you,
and just as likely as not he will give you a furlough. I don't say he
will, mind you, but it would be just like him. But he does like to be
treated familiar like, by the boys."

     * I neglected to say, in my account of the battle at the
     race-track, that when firing with my revolver, at my friend
     the rebel, I put one bullet-hole through the right ear of my
     horse. I was so excited at the time that I did not know it,
     and only discovered it a week later when currying off my
     horse, which I made a practice of doing once a week, with a
     piece of barrel-stave, when I noticed the horse's ear was
     swelled up about as big as a canvas ham. I took him to the
     horse doctor, who reduced the swelling so we could find the
     hole through the horse's ear, and the horse doctor tied a
     blue ribbon in the hole. He said the blue ribbon would help
     heal the sore, but later I found that he had put the ribbon
     in the ear to call attention to my poor marksmanship, and
     the boys got so they made comments and laughed at me every
     time I appeared with the horse.

I thanked the horse doctor and went away with my horse, resolved to have
a furlough or know the reason why. The general's headquarters were about
half a mile from our camp, and after drill that morning I went to see
him. I had seen him several times, at the colonel's headquarters, and
he always seemed mad about something, and I had thought he was about the
crossest looking man I ever saw, but if there was any truth in what the
horse doctor had told me, he was easily reached if a man went at him
right, and I resolved that if pure, unadulterated cheek and monumental
gall would accomplish anything, I would have a furlough before night,
for a homesicker man never lived than I was. I went up to the general's
tent and a guard halted me and asked me what I wanted, and I said I
wanted to see "his nibs," and I walked right by the guard, who seemed
stunned by my cheek. I saw the general in his tent, with his coat
off, writing, and he _did_ look savage. Without taking off my hat, or
saluting him, I went right up to him and sat down on the end of a trunk
that was in the tent, and with a tremendous effort to look familiar, I
said:

"Hello, Boss, writing to your girl?"

I have seen a good many men in my time who were pretty mad, but I have
never seen a man who appeared to be as mad as the general did. He was
a regular army officer, I found afterwards, and hated a volunteer as he
did poison. He turned red in the face and pale, and I thought he frothed
at the mouth, but may be he didn't. He seemed to try to control himself,
and said through his clenched teeth, in a sarcastic manner, I thought,
in imitation of a ring master in a circus:

"What will the little lady have next?"

I had been in circuses myself, and when the general said that I answered
the same as a clown always does, and I said:

"The banners, my lord."

I thought he would be pleased at my joking with him, but he looked
around as though he was seeking a revolver or a saber with which to kill
me finnally he said:

"What do you want, man?"

It was a little tough to be called plain "man," but I swallowed it. I
made up my mind it was time to act, so I stood up, put my hand on the
shoulder of the general familiarly, and said:

"The fact is, old man, I want a furlough to go home. I have got business
that demands my attention; I am sick of this inactivity in camp, and
besides the shooting season is just coming on at home, and I have got a
setter pup that will be spoiled if he is not trained this season. I came
down here two weeks ago, to help put down the rebellion; but all we
have done since I got here is to monkey around drilling and cleaning off
horses, while the officers play poker for red chips. Let me go home
till the poker season is over, and I will be back in time for the fall
fighting. What do you say, old apoplexy. Can I go?"

[Illustration: Never did know, how I got out of the general's tent 059]

I do not now, and never did know, how I got out of the general's tent,
whether he kicked me out, or threw his trunk at me, or whether there was
an explosion, but when I got outside there were two soldiers trying to
untangle me from the guy ropes of the general's tent, his wash basin and
pail of water were tipped over, and a cord that was strung outside
with a lot of uniforms, shirts, sabers, etc., had fallen down, and the
general was walking up and down his tent in an excited manner, calling
me an escaped lunatic, and telling the guards to tie me up by
the thumbs, and buck and gag me. They led me away, and from their
conversation I concluded I had committed an unpardonable offense, and
would probably be hung, though I couldn't see as I had done much more
than the horse doctor told me to. Finally the officer of the day came
along and told the guards to get a rail and make me carry it. So they
got a rail and put it on my shoulder, and I carried it up and down the
camp, as a punishment for insulting the general. I thought they picked
out a pretty heavy rail, but I carried it the best I could for an hour,
when I threw it down and told the guards I didn't enlist to carry rails.
If the putting down of this rebellion depended on carrying fence rails
around the Southern Confederacy, and I had to carry the rails, the
aforesaid rebellion never would be put down. I said I would fight if I
had to, and be a hostler, and cook my own food, and sleep on the ground,
and try to earn my thirteen dollars a month, but there must be a line
drawn somewhere, and I drew it at transporting fences around the sunny
South. The guards were inclined to laugh at my determination, but they
said I could carry the rail or be tied up by the thumbs; and I said
they could go ahead, but if they hurt me I would bring suit against
the government. They were fixing to tie me up when the colonel of my
regiment rode up to see the general, and he got the guards to let up
on me till he could see the general. The general sent for me after the
colonel had talked with him, and they called me in and asked me how
I happened to be so fresh with the general; and I told them about the
horse doctors' advice as to how to get a furlough; and then they both
laughed, and said I owed the horse doctor one, and I must get even with
him. The colonel told the general who I was, that he had known me before
the war, and that I was all right only a little green, and that the boys
were having fun with me. The colonel told the general about my first
fight the first day of my service, and how I had, single-handed, put to
flight a large number of rebels, and the general got up and shook hands
with me, and said he forgave me for my impertinence, and gave me some
advice about letting the boys play it on me, and said I might go back
to my company. He was all smiles, and insisted on my taking a drink with
himself and the colonel. When I was about leaving his tent, I turned
to him and said: "Then I don't get any furlough?" "Not till the cruel
war is over," said the general, with a laugh, and I went away.

The guards treated me like a gentleman when they saw me taking a drink
with the general, and I went back to my regiment, resolved not to go
home, and to get even with the horse doctor for causing me to make a
fool of myself. However, I was glad I visited the general, for, after
getting acquainted with him, he seemed a real nice man, and he kept a
better article of liquor than the chaplain.

For several days nothing occurred that was worthy of note, except that
the chaplain took a liking to my horse, and wanted to trade a mule for
him. I never did like a mule, and didn't really want to trade, but the
chaplain argued his case so eloquently that I was half persuaded. He
said the horse I rode, from its friskiness, and natural desire to "get
there, Eli!" would eventually get me killed, for if I ever got in sight
of the enemy the horse would rush to the front, and I couldn't hold him.
He said he didn't want to have me killed, and with the mule there would
be no danger, as the mule knew enough to keep away from a fight. The
chaplain said he had always rode a mule, because he thought the natural
solemnity of a mule was in better keeping with a pious man, but lately
he had begun to go into society some, in the town near where we were
camped, and sometimes had to preach to different regiments, so he
thought he ought to have a horse that put on a little more style, and
as he knew I wanted an animal that would keep as far from the foe as
possible, and not lose its head and go chasing around after rebels, and
running me into danger, as my spiritual adviser he would recommend the
mule to me. He warranted the mule sound in every particular, and as a
mule was worth more than a horse he would trade with me for ten dollars
to boot. He said there was not another man in the regiment he would
trade with on such terms, but he had taken a liking to me, and would
part with his mule to me, though it broke his heart. At home there was
a sentiment against trading horses with a minister, as men who did so
always got beat, but I thought it would be an insult to the chaplain
to refuse to trade, when he seemed to be working for my interests, to
prevent me from being killed in a fight by the actions of my horse, so I
concluded to trade, though it seemed to me that if I couldn't shoot off
a horse without hitting its ears, I would fill a mule's ears full of
bullets. I spoke to the chaplain about that, and he said there was no
danger, because whenever fighting commenced the mule always wore his
ears lopped down below the line of fire. He said the mule had been
trained to that, and I would find him a great comfort in time of trial,
and a sympathizing companion always, one that I would become attached
to. I told him there was one thing I wanted to know, and that was if the
mule would kick. I had always been prejudiced against mules because
they kicked. He said he knew mules had been traduced, and that their
reputations were not good, but he believed this mule was as free from
the habit of kicking as any mule he had ever met. He said he would not
deny that this mule could kick, and in fact he had kicked a little, but
he would warrant the mule not to kick unless something unusual happened.
He said I wouldn't want a mule that had no individuality at all, one
that hadn't sand enough to protect itself. What I wanted, the chaplain
said, was a mule that would treat everybody right, but that would, if
imposed upon, stand up for its rights and kick. I told the chaplain that
was about the kind of mule I wanted, if I had any mule at all, and we
traded. The chaplain rode off to town on my horse, on a canter, as proud
as a peacock, while I climbed on to the solemn, lop-eared mule and went
out to drill with my company. I do not know what it was that went wrong
with the mule while we were drilling, but as we were wheeling in company
front, the mule began to "assert his individuality," as the chaplain
said he probably would, and he whirled around sideways and kicked three
soldiers off their horses; then he backed up the other way and broke
up the second platoon, kicked four horses in the ribs, stampeded the
company, and stood there alone kicking at the air. The major rode down
to where I was and began to swear at me, but I told him I couldn't
help it. He told me to dismount and lead the mule away, but I couldn't
dismount until the mule stopped kicking, and he seemed to be wound up
for all day. The major got too near and the mule kicked him on the
shin, and then started for the company again, which had got into ranks,
kicking all the way, and the company broke ranks and started for camp,
the mule following, kicking and braying all the way. I never was so
helpless in all my life. The more I spurred the mule, the more it
kicked, and if I stopped spurring it, it kicked worse. When we got to
camp, I fell off some way, and rushed into the chaplain's tent, and the
mule kicked the tent down, and some boys drove the mule away, and while
I was fixing up the tent the chaplain came back looking happy, and asked
me how I liked the mule. I never was a hypocrite, anyway, and I was mad,
so I said: "Oh, dam that mule!"

Of course it is wrong to use such language, especially in the presence
of a minister, but I couldn't help it. I could see it hurt the chaplain,
for he sighed and said he was sorry to hear such words from me, inasmuch
as he had just got me detailed as his clerk, where I would have a soft
thing, and no drilling or fighting. He said he had wanted a clerk, one
who was a good-hearted, true man, and he had picked me out, but if I
used such language, that settled it. He said he didn't expect to find a
private soldier that was as pious as he was, but he did think I would
be the best man he could find. I wanted a soft job, with no fighting, as
bad as any man ever did, and I told the chaplain that he need not fear
as to my swearing again, as it was foreign to my nature, but I told him
if he had been on the hurricane deck of a kicking mule for an hour, and
seen comrades fall one by one, and bite the dust, and be carried on with
marks of mule shoes all over their persons, he would swear, and I would
bet on it. So it was arranged that I was to be the chaplain's clerk, and
I moved my outfit over to his tent, and for the first time since I had
been a soldier, I was perfectly happy. There was no danger of being
detached for guard duty, police duty, drilling, or fighting, and the
only boss I had was the chaplain. The chaplain and myself sat that
evening in his tent, and ate sanitary stores, drank wine for sickess,
and smoked pipes, and didn't care whether school kept or not, and that
night I slept on a cot, and had the first good night's rest, and in the
morning I awoke refreshed, and with no fear of orderly sergeants, or
anybody. I had a soft snap.

The next morning I asked the chaplain what my duties were to be, and
he said I was to take care of the tent, write letters for him, issue
sanitary stores to deserving soldiers who might need them, ride with him
sometimes when he went to town, or to preach, go to funerals with him
occasionally, set a good example to the other soldiers, and make myself
generally useful. He said I would have to attend to the burial of the
colored people who died, and any such little simple details. He went out
and left me pondering over my duties. I liked it all except the nigger
funerals. I had always been a Democrat, at home, and not very much
mashed on our colored brothers, and one thing that prevented me from
enlisting before I did was the idea of making the colored men free. I
had nothing against a colored man, and got to think a great deal of them
afterwards, but the idea of acting as an undertaker for the colored
race never occurred to me. I made up my mind to kick on that part of the
duties, when the chaplain came in and said the colored cook of one of
the companies was dead, and would be buried that afternoon, and as he
had to go to a meeting of chaplains down town, I would have to go and
conduct the services, and I better prepare myself with a little speech.
I was in a fix. I told the chaplain that it might not have occurred
to him, but honestly, I couldn't pray. He said that didn't make any
difference. I told him I couldn't preach hardly at all. He said I didn't
need to. All I had to do was to go and find out something about the life
of the deceased, what kind of a man he was, and say a few words at the
grave complimentary of him, console the mourners, if there were any, and
counsel them to try to lead a different life, that they might eventually
enter into the glory of the New Jerusalem, or words to that effect.
Well, this made me perspire. This was a tighter place than I was in when
I met the rebel. The idea of my conducting the funeral exercises of
such a black-burying party, made me tired. The chaplain said a good deal
depended on how I got through this first case, as if I succeeded well,
it would be a great feather in my cap. His idea, he said, was to try me
first on a nigger, and if I was up to snuff, and carried myself like a
thoroughbred, there would be nothing too good for me in that regiment.

I went to the orderly sergeant of the company where the man died, to
get some points as to his career, in order to work in a few remarks
appropriate to the occasion, and I said to the orderly:

"I understand your company cook has gone to that bourne from whence no
traveler returns. I thought that was pretty good for a green hand, for a
starter."

"Yes," said the orderly, as he looked solemn, "The old son-of-a-gun has
passed in his chips, and is now walking in green pastures, beside still
waters, but he will not drink any of the aforesaid still waters, if he
can steal any whisky to drink."

"You astonish, me," said I to the orderly. "The fact is, the chaplain
has sawed off on to me the duty of seeing to the burial of our deceased
friend, and I called to gather some few facts as to his characteristics
as a man and a brother. Can you tell me of anything that would interest
those who may attend?"

"O, I don't know," said the orderly. "The deceased was a liar, a thief,
and a drunkard. He would steal anything that was not chained down. He
would murder a man for a dollar. He was the worst nigger that ever was.
If there was a medical college here that wanted bodies, it would be a
waste of money to bury him. But when he was sober he could bake beans
for all that was out, and there was no man that could boil corned mule
so as to take the taste of the saltpetre out, as he could."

This was not a very good send off for my first funeral, but I clung to
the good qualities possessed by the late lamented. Though he might have
been a bad man, all was not lost if he could bake beans well, and boil
the salt horse or corned mule that soldiers had to eat, so they were
appetizing. Many truly good men of national reputation, could not have
excelled him in his chosen specialties, and I made a memorandum of that
for future use. I made further inquiries in the company, and found that
the deceased had a bad reputation, owed everybody, had five wives living
that he had deserted, and was suspected of having murdered two or three
colored men for their money. His death was caused by delirium tremens.
He had stole a jug of whisky from the major's tent, laid drunk a week,
and when the whisky was gone he had tremens, and had gone to the horse
doctor for something to quiet his nerves, and the horse doctor had given
him a condition powder to take, to be followed with a swallow of mustang
liniment, and the man died.

This was the information I got to use in my remarks at the grave of the
deceased, and I went back to my tent to think it over. I thought perhaps
I had better work in the horse doctor for mal-practice, in my discourse,
and thus get even with him for sending me to the general after a
furlough. While I was thinking over the things I would say, and trying
to forget the bad things about the man, the orderly sent word that the
funeral cortege was ready to proceed to the bone yard. I looked down the
company street and saw the remains being lifted into a cart, and I went
out and put the saddle on my mule, and with a mental prayer that the
confounded mule wouldn't get to kicking till the funeral was over,
started to do the honors at the grave of the late company cook.




CHAPTER V.

     The Funeral of the Colored Cook--I Plead for a Larger
     Procession--The Funeral Oration--The Funeral Disturbed--I am
     Arrested--My Fortunate Escape.

This last chapter of these celebrated war papers closed with me saddling
my mule to ride to the funeral of the colored cook, at which I was to
act as chaplain. The mule evidently knew that it was a solemn occasion,
for there was a mournful look on its otherwise placid face, the ears
drooped more than usual, and there seemed a sweet peace stealing over
the animal, which well became a funeral, until I began to buckle up the
saddle, when the long-eared brute began to paw and kick and bite, and it
took six men to get me into the saddle. I rode down the company street
where the cart stood with the remains, and a colored driver sitting on
the foot of the plain pine box, asleep. I woke the driver up with the
point of my saber, when another colored man came out of a tent with a
shovel in one hand, and a hardtack with a piece of bacon in the other.
He climbed into the cart, sat down on the coffin and began to eat his
dinner. This was my funeral. All that seemed necessary for a funeral was
a corpse, a driver of a cart, and a man with a shovel. I rode up to the
orderly's tent and asked him where the mourners were, and he laughed at
me. The idea of mourners seemed to be ridiculous. I had never, in all my
life, seen so slim a funeral, and it hurt me. In the meantime the nigger
with the shovel had woke up the driver of the cart, and he had followed
me, with the remains. I told them to halt the funeral right there, until
I could skirmish around and pick up mourners enough for a mess, and
a choir, and some bearers. As I rode away to the colonel's tent,
the driver of the cart and the man with the shovel were playing
"mumbleypeg," with a jack-knife, on the coffin, which shocked me very
much, as I was accustomed to living where more respect was paid to the
dead. I went to the colonel's tent and yelled "Say! The colonel, who was
changing his shirt, came to the door with his eyes full of soap, rubbing
his neck with a towel, and asked what was the row. I told him I would
like to have him detail me six bearers, seven or eight mourners, a few
singers, and fifteen or twenty men for a congregation. He asked me what
on earth I was talking about, and just then the cart with the corpse
in was driven up to where I was, the orderly having told the driver to
follow me with the late lamented. I pointed to the outfit, and said:

"Colonel, in that box lie the remains of a colored cook. The chaplain
has appointed me to conduct the funeral service, and I find that the two
colored men on the cart are the only ones to accompany the remains to
their last resting place. No man can successfully run a funeral on three
niggers, one of whom is dead, one liable to go to sleep any minute, and
the other with an abnormal appetite for hardtack. It is a disgrace
to civilization to give a dead man such a send off, and I want you to
detail me some men to see me through. I have loaded myself with some
interesting remarks befitting the occasion, and I do not want to fire
them off into space, with no audience except these two coons. Give me
some mourners and things, or I drop this funeral right where it is."

While I was speaking the general rode up to visit with the colonel,
with his staff, and the colonel came out with his undershirt on, and his
suspenders hanging down, and he and the general consulted for a minute,
and laughed a little, which I thought was disgraceful. Then the colonel
sent for the sergeant-major and told, him to detail all the company
cooks and officer's servants, to attend the funeral with me, and he said
I could divide them off into reliefs, letting a few be mourners at a
time. In the meantime, he said, I could move my procession off down
by the horse-doctor's quarter's, as he did not want it in front of his
tent. That reminded me that the horse-doctor had prescribed for the
deceased, and had given him condition powders, and I asked the colonel
to compel the horse-doctor to go with me. It had always seemed to me at
home that the attending physician, under whose auspices the person died,
should attend the funeral of his patient, and when I told the colonel
about it, he called the horse-doctor and told him he would have to
go. It took half an hour or so to get the colored cooks and servants
together, but when all was ready to move, it was quite a respectable
funeral, except that I could not help noticing a spirit of levity on
the part of the mourners. All the followers were mounted, the officer's
servant's on officer's horses, and the cooks on mules, and it required
all the presence of mind I possessed to keep the coons from turning the
sad occasion into a horse race, as they would drop back, in squads, a
quarter of a mile or so, and then come whooping up to the cart containing
the remains, and each vowing that his horse could clean out the others.
I rode in front of the remains with the horse-doctor, and tried to
conduct myself in as solemn a manner as befitted the occasion, and tried
to reason with the horse-doctor against his unseemly jokes, which he was
constantly getting on. He told several stories, better calculated for a
gathering where bacchanalian revelry was the custom, and I told him that
while I respected his calling, he must respect mine. He said something
about calling a man on a full hand, against a flush, but I did not
pretend to know what he meant. We had to go out of town about two
miles, to the cemetery. Unfortunately we were in the watermelon growing
section, and the horse-doctor called my attention to the fact that my
procession was becoming scarce, when I looked around, and every blessed
one of the cooks and servants, and the man with the shovel, had gone on
into the field after melons, and I stopped the cart and yelled to them
to come back to the funeral. Pretty soon they all rode back, each with
a melon under his arm, and every face looked as though there was no
funeral that could prevent a nigger from stealing a watermelon. After
several stops, to round up my mourners, from corn fields and horse
racing, we arrived at the cemetery, and while the grave was being dug
the niggers went for the melons, and if it had been a picnic there
couldn't have been much more enjoyment. The horse-doctor took out a big
knife that he used to bleed horses, and cut a melon, and offered me a
slice, and while I did not feel that it was just the place to indulge
in melon, it looked so good that I ate some, with a mental reservation,
however. It was all a new experience to me. I had never believed that
in the presence of death, or at a funeral, people could be anything but
decorous and solemn. I had never attended a funeral before, except where
all present were friends of the deceased, and sorry, but here all seemed
different. They all seemed to look upon the thing as a good joke. I
had read that in New York and other large cities, those who attended
funerals had a horse race on the way back, and stopped at beer saloons
and filled up, but I never believed that people could be so depraved. I
tried to talk to the coons, and get them to show proper respect for the
occasion, but they laughed and threw melon rinds at each other. Finnally
the colonel and the general, with quite a lot of soldiers, who were
out reconnoitering, rode to where we were, and the coons acted a little
better, but I could see that the officers were not particularly solemn.
They seemed to expect something rich. They evidently looked upon me as
a star idiot, who would make some blunder, or say something to make them
laugh: I made up my mind that in my new position I would act just as
decorous, and speak as kindly as though the deceased was the president.
During all my life I had made it a practice never to speak ill of any
person on earth, and if I could not say a good word for a person I would
say nothing, a practice which I have kept up until this writing, with
much success, and I decided that the words spoken on that occasion
should not reflect against the poor man who had passed in his checks,
and laid down the burden of life. The grave was completed, and with a
couple of picket ropes the body was let down, and there was for a moment
a sort of solemnity. I arose, and as near as I can remember at this late
day, spoke about as follows:

[Illustration: A solemn funeral oration 077]

"Friends: We have met here today to conduct the last rites over a man,
who but yesterday was among us but who, in an unguarded moment drank too
much whisky, and paid the penalty. (There was a smile perceptible on
the faces on the officers.) The ignorant man who died, did not know any
better, but I see around me men who know better, but who drink more than
this man did, and if they are not careful they will go the same way.
(There was less smiling among the officers.) It is said of this man that
he was bad, that he would steal. I have investigated, and have found
that it is true, but that his peculations consisted of small things, of
little value, and I am convinced that the habit was not worse with him
than with any of us. In war times, everybody steals. We are all thieves
to a certain extent. The soldier will not go hungry if he can jay-hawk
anything to eat. The officer will not go thirsty if he can capture
whisky, nor will anybody walk if he can steal a horse. The higher a man
gets the more he will steal. Shall we harbor unkind thoughts against
this dead man for stealing a pair of boots, and honor a general who
steals a thousand bales of cotton? (No! no! shouted the cooks and
servants, while the officers looked as though they were sorry they
attended the funeral.) Friends let us look at the good qualities of our
friend. I say, without fear of successful contradiction, that a man,
however humble his station, who can bake beans as well as the remains
could bake them, is entitled to a warm place in the heart of every
soldier, and if he goes to the land that is fairer than this,-and who
can say that he will not,--he is liable to be welcomed with 'well done,
good and faithful servant,' and he will be received where horse doctors
can never enter with their condition powders, and where there will never
be war any more. To his family, or several families, as the case may be,
I would say----"

At this point I had noticed an uneasiness on the part of my mourners and
bearers, as well as the officers. Nine of the negroes fell down on the
ground and groaned as if in pain, and the general and his stall looked
off to a piece of woods where a few shots had been fired, and rode away
hurriedly, the colonel telling me I had better hurry up that funeral or
it was liable to be interrupted. The horse-doctor went to the negroes
who were sick, and after examining them he said they had been poisoned
by eating melons that had been doctored, and he advised them to get to
town as quick as possible. They scrambled on their horses the best way
they could, and just then there was a yell, and out of the woods came
half a dozen Union soldiers followed by fifteen or twenty Confederates,
and all was confusion. The niggers scattered towards town, the driver of
the cart taking the lead, trying to catch the general and his start, who
were hurrying away, leaving the horse-doctor, myself and the deceased.
The horse-doctor seized the shovel and threw a little dirt on the
coffin, then mounted his horse, I mounted my mule, and away we went
towards town, with the rebels gaining on us every jump. The horse-doctor
soon left me, and with a picket I had pulled off the fence of the
cemetery, I worked my passage on that mule. I mauled the mule, and the
more I pounded the slower it went. There was never a more deliberate
mule in the world. I forgot all the solemn thoughts that possessed me
at the grave, and tried to talk to the mule like a mule-driver, but
the animal just fooled along, as though there was no especial hurry.
Occasionally I could hear bullets 'zipping' along by me, and the rebels
were yelling for all that was out. O, how I did wish I had my old race
horse that the chaplain had beat me out of. In my first engagement my
horse was too fast, and there was danger that I would catch my friend,
the rebel, and I complained of the horse. Now I had a mule that was
too slow. What I wanted was a 'middling' horse, one that was not too
confounded fast when after the enemy, and one not so all-fired slow when
being pursued. The Johnnies were coming closer, but we were only half
a mile from town. Would they chase us clear into town? At that critical
moment the blasted mule stopped short, never to go again, and began to
kick. What on earth possessed that fool mule to take a notion to stop
right there and kick, is more than I shall ever know, but it simply
kicked, and I felt that my time had come. The Union soldiers that were
being chased by the Confederates passed me, and told me I better light
out or I would be captured, but I couldn't get the mule to budge an
inch. It just kicked. The good Lord only knows, what that mule was
kicking at, or why it should have been scheduled to stop and kick at
that particular time, when every minute was precious. I saw the rebels
very near me, and as it was impossible to get the mule to go a step
farther, I raised the large, flat, white-washed picket which I had torn
on the cemetery fence to maul the mule with, in token of surrender, and
the Confederate boys surrounded me, though they kept a safe distance,
after my mule had kicked in the ribs of one of their horses. The rebs
had gone about as far towards the town as it was safe to go, and and
they knew the whole garrison would be out after them pretty soon, so
they laughed at me for being armed with a whitewashed picket, and asked
me if I expected to put down the rebellion by stabbing the enemy with
such things. I told them I had been burying a nigger. One of my captors
run the point of his saber into my mule, to stop its kicking, and then
he said to his comrades, "Boys, we came out here with the glorious
prospect of capturing a Yankee general and his staff, and instead of
getting him, we have broken up a nigger funeral and captured the gospel
sharp, armed with a picket fence, and a kicking mule. Shall we hang
him for engaging in uncivilized, warfare, by stabbing us with pickets
poisoned with whitewash, or shall we take the red-headed slim-jim back
with us as a curiosity." The boys all said not to hang me, but to take
me along. I saw that it was all day with me this time. I felt that I
was helping put down the rebellion rapidly, as I had been a soldier four
weeks, been captured twice, and not a drop of blood had been spilled.
The rebels started back, with me and my mule ahead of them, and they
kept the mule ahead by jabbing it with a saber occasionally. I felt
humiliated and indignant at being called slim-jim, sorrel-top, and
elder. They seemed to think I was a preacher. I stood it all until a
cuss reached into my pocket and took my meershaum pipe and a bag of
tobacco, filled the pipe and lit it, then I was mad. I had paid eight
dollars of my bounty for that pipe, and I said to the leader: "Boss, I
can stand a joke as well as anybody, but when you capture me, in a fair
fight, you have no right to jab my mule with a saber, or call me names.
I am a meek and lowly soldier of the army of the right, and want to so
live that I can meet you all in the great hereafter, but by the gods I
can whip the condemned galoot that stole my meershaum pipe. You think
I am pious, and a non-combatant, but I am a fighter from away back, and
don't you forget it." The young man who seemed to be in command told me
to dry up, and he would get my pipe. He went and took it away from the
one who had stolen it, filled it and lit it himself, and said it was a
good pipe, and then he passed it around among them all. We moved on at a
trot, and were getting far away from my regiment, and I realized that I
was a captive, and that I should probably die in Andersonville prison. I
looked at the dozen stalwart rebels that were riding behind me, and knew
I could not whip them all with one picket off the cemetery fence, and so
I resolved to remain a captive, and die for my country, of scurvey, if
necessary. I turned around in my saddle to ask if it wasn t about time
for me to have a smoke out of my own pipe, and as I looked up the road
we had come over I saw a large body of our own cavalry, coming like the
wind toward us. I said nothing, but my face gave me away. I looked so
tickled to see the boys coming that the rebels noticed it, and they
looked back and saw the soldiers in pursuit, they yelled, "The Yanks are
coming!" put spurs to their horses, stabbed my mule and told me to pound
it with the picket, and hurry up, and then they passed me, and away they
went, leaving me in the road alone between them and my own soldiers, I
yelled to the leader to give me back my pipe, and I can hear his mocking
laugh to this day, as he told me to "go to hell." This made me mad, and
drawing my picket I dashed after the retreating rebels, knowing that the
men of my regiment would soon overtake me, and they would think I had
chased the rebels three miles from town, armed only with a picket off
the fence, and saved the garrison from capture. The thing worked
to perfection, and when our command came up, the horses panting and
perspiring, and the boys looking wild, the captain in command asked me
how many there was of em, and I told him about forty, and he said I
had done well to drive them so far, and he charged by me after them.
I yelled to the captain to try and kill that long-legged rebel on
the sorrel horse, and get my meershaum pipe, but he didn't hear me. I
hurried along as fast as I could, but before I caught up, there was
a good deal of firing, and when I got there flankers were out in the
woods, and there was sorrow, for three or four boys in blue had been
killed in an ambush, and the rebels had got away across a bayou. As I
rode up on my mule, with the picket still in my hand, I saw the three
soldiers of my regiment lying dead under a tree, two others were wounded
and had bandages around their heads, and for the first time since I had
been a soldier, I realized that war was not a picnic. I could not keep
my eyes off the faces of my dead comrades, the best and bravest boys
in the regiment, boys who always got to the front when there was a
skirmish. To think that I had been riding right amongst the rebels who
had done this thing but a few minutes before, and never thought that
death would claim anybody so soon. I wondered if those rebels were not
sorry they had killed such good boys. I wondered, as I thought of the
fathers and mothers, and sisters of my dead companions, whether the
rebels would not sympathize with them, and then I thought suppose our
fellows had not been killed, and we had killed some of the Confederates,
wouldn't it have been just as sorrowful, wouldn't _their_ fathers,
mothers and sisters have mourned the same.

Then I made a resolve that I would never kill anybody if I could help
it; I even decided that if I should meet the rebel that had my meershaum
pipe, I would not fight him to get it. If he wasn't gentleman enough to
give it up peaceably, he could keep it, and be darned. Just then some
of our skirmishers came in carrying another dead body, and we were all
speculating as to which one of our poor boys had fallen, when we noticed
that the dead soldier had on a gray suit, and it was soon found that he
was one of the Confederates. He was laid down beside our dead boys, and
I don't know but I felt about as bad to see him dead, as it was possible
to feel. It is true he had told me, half an hour before, when I asked
him for my pipe, to go to hades, but I did not have to go unless I
wanted to. And he was gone first. I saw something sticking out of the
breast pocket of the dead Confederate, and could see that it was my
pipe. Then I thought of the foolish remark I made to the captain, to
kill that long-legged rebel and get my meershaum. God bless him, I
didn't want anybody to kill him for a bad smelling old pipe, and I
wondered if that remark would be registered up against me, in the great
book above, when I didn't mean it. I tried to make myself believe that
my remark did not have any influence on the man's fate. He just took
his chances with his comrades, and was killed, no doubt, and yet it was
impossible to get the idea off my mind that I was responsible for his
death. Anyway, I would never touch the confounded old pipe again, and
if I ever heard of his mother or sister, after the war was over, I would
stand by them as long as I had a nickel. An ambulance was sent for and
the dead and wounded were placed in it, and we went back to town, a sad
procession. There was no need to detail any mourners for this occasion,
and there was no straggling for watermelons. Everybody was full of
sorrow. The next day there was a Union funeral in that Southern town,
and the three Union boys were laid side by side, while a little, to one
side my Confederate was buried, receiving the same kind words from the
chaplains. As a volley was about to be fired over the graves, I picked
a handful of roses, buds and blossoms, from a rose bush in the cemetery,
and went to the grave of the Confederate and tenderly tossed them upon
the coffin. The horse doctor saw me do it, and in his rough manner said,

"What you about there? It ain t necessary to plant flowers on the graves
of rebels.

"O, no, it isn't necessary, I said, as the volley was fired over the
graves, but it will make his mother or his sister feel better to know
that there are a few roses in there, and it won't hurt anybody. I will
just play that I am the authorized agent of that Confederate soldier's
sister.

"O, all right if you say so, said the horse-doctor, as he drew the
sleeve of his blue blouse across his eyes, which were wet. The last
volley was fired, and the soldiers returned to camp, leaving the dead of
two armies sleeping together. As I went in the chaplain's tent and sat
down to think, the chaplain handed me something, saying:

"Here's your pipe. They found it on that Confederate soldier that
captured you."

I pushed it away and said, "I don't want it. I have quit smoking."




CHAPTER VI.

     I Capture "Jeff"--I Get Back at the Chaplain--The Chaplain
     Arrested--Off on a Raid--I Meet the Relatives of the Dead
     Confederate--My Powers of Lying are Brought into Play.

The winding up of the last chapter of this history, with its sad
incidents, deaths and burials, was unavoidable, but it shall not occur
again. The true historian has got to get in all the particulars. I think
I never felt quite as downhearted as I did the day or two after the
skirmish, when our boys were killed. It had seemed as though there
was no danger of anybody getting hurt, as long as they looked out for
themselves, but now there was a feeling that anybody was liable to be
killed, any time, and why not me? Of course the old veterans of the
regiment were the ones who would naturally be expected to take the brunt
of the battle, but there was a habit of sending raw recruits into places
of danger that struck me as being mighty careless, as well as very bad
judgment. Then there were great preparations being made for an advance
movement, or a retreat, or something, and my mind was constantly occupied
in trying to find out whether it was to be an advance or a retreat. If
it was an advance, I wanted to arrange to be in the rear, and if it was
a retreat, it seemed to me as as though the proper place for a man who
wanted to live to go home, was in front. And yet what chance was there
for a common private soldier to find out whether it was an advance or
a retreat. Finally I decided that when the regiment _did_ start out, I
would manage to be about the middle, so it wouldn't make much difference
which way we went. When that idea occurred to me I pondered over it
a good deal and told the chaplain, and he said it was a piece of as
brilliant strategy as he had ever heard of, and he was willing to adopt
it, only being a staff officer it was necessary for him and me to ride
with the colonel, and the colonel most always rode at the head, though
his place was about the middle. He said he would speak to the colonel
about it. It made my hair stand to see the preparations that were being
made for carnage. Ammunition enough was issued to kill a million men,
and the doctors were packing bandages and plasters, and physic, and
splints and probes, until it made me sick to look at them. When I
thought of actual war, my mind reverted to my mule, the kicking brute
that was no good, and I decided to get a horse. I had got so, actually,
that I could hear bullets whistle without turning pale and having cold
chills run over me, and it seemed as though a horse was none too good
for me, so I went to the colonel and told him that a soldier couldn't
make no show on a kicking mule and I wanted a horse. I told him I
supposed, as chaplain's clerk. I should have to ride with him and his
staff on the march, and he didn't want to see as nice a looking fellow
as I was riding a kicking mule that would kick the ribs of the officers
horses, and break the officers legs. The colonel said he had not thought
of that contingency. He had enjoyed seeing me ride the mule, because I
was so patient when the mule kicked. He said they used that mule in the
regiment to teach recruits to ride. A man who could stay on that mule
could ride any horse in the regiment, and as I had been successful,
and had displayed splendid mulemanship, I should be promoted to ride a
horse, and he told the quartermaster to exchange with me and give me the
chestnut-sorrel horse that the Confederate was shot off of. I went with
the quartermaster to the corral, turned out my mule, and cornered the
beautiful horse that had been rode so proudly a few days before by my
friend, the rebel. It took six of us to catch the horse, and bridle and
saddle him, and the men about the corral said the horse was no good. He
hadn't eaten anything since being captured, and his eyes looked bad,
and he wanted to kick and bite everybody. I told them the poor horse was
homesick, that was all that ailed him. The horse was a Confederate at
heart, and he naturally had no particular love for Yankees. I remembered
that once or twice when I was riding with the rebels, after they
captured me, the young fellow on this horse patted him on the neck and
called him "Jeff", so I knew that was his name, so I led him out of the
corral away from the other fellows, where there was some grass growing,
and made up my mind I would "mash" him. After he had eaten grass a
little while, looking at me out of the corner of his eyes as though he
didn't know whether to kick my head on, or walk on me, as I sat under
a tree, I got up and patted him on the neck and said, "Well, Jeff, old
boy, how does the grass fit your stomach?"

You may talk about brute intelligence, but that horse was human. He
stopped eating, with his mouth full of grass, looked astonished at being
addressed by a stranger without an introduction, and turned a pair of
eyes as beautiful and soft as a woman's upon me, and then began to chew
slowly, as though thinking. I rubbed his sleek coat with, my bare hands,
and did not say much, desiring to have Jeff make the first advances. He
looked me over, and finally put his nose on my sleeve, and rubbed me,
and looked in my face, and acted as though he would say, "Well, of
course this red-headed fellow is no comparison to my dead master, but
evidently he's no slouch, and if I have got to be bossed around by a
Yankee, as he is the only one that has spoken a kind word to me since I
was captured, and he seems to know my name, I guess I will tie to him,"
and the intelligent animal rubbed his nose all over me, and licked my
hand. I rubbed the horse all over, petted him, took up his feet and
looked at them, and spoke his name, and pretty soon we were the best of
friends. I mounted him and rode around and it was just like a rocking
chair. That poor, dead Confederate had probably rode Jeff since he was
a kid and Jeff was a colt, and had broken him well, and I was awfully
sorry that the original owner was not alive, riding his horse home safe
and sound, to be greeted by his family with loving embraces. But he was
dead and buried, and his horse belonged to me, by all the laws of war.
And yet I had not become a hardened warrior to such an extent that I
could forget the hearts that would ache at his home, and I made up
mind that horse would be treated as tenderly as though he was one of my
family. I rode Jeff around for an hour or two, found that he was trained
to jump fences, stand on his hind feet, trot, pace, rack, and that he
could run like a scared wolf, and everything the horse did he would sort
of look around at me with one eye as much as to say, "Boss, you will
find I have got all the modern improvements, and you needn't be afraid
that I will disgrace you in any society." I was fairly in love with my
new horse, and, except for a feeling that I was an interloper with the
horse, and sorry for the poor boy that had been shot off him, I should
have been perfectly happy.

The chaplain had got in the habit of wearing a nice, blue broadcloth
blouse which I had brought from home, which had two rows of brass
buttons on it. I had paid about twenty dollars of my bounty for the
blouse, and had found that the private soldiers did not wear such
elaborate uniforms in active duty, so I kept it in the chaplain's tent.
I thought if I was killed and my body was sent home, the blouse would
come handy. The chaplain wore it occasionally, and he said any time I
wanted to wear any of his clothes to just help myself. An order had been
issued to move the following day, with ten days' rations, and some of
the boys asked for passes to go down town and have a little blow-out
before we started. They wanted me to go along, and so I got a pass, too.
We were to go down town in the afternoon and stay till nine o clock at
night, when we had to be in camp. I saddled up Jeff and looked for
my blouse, but it was gone, the chaplain having worn it to visit the
chaplain of some other regiment, so I took his coat and put it on, as
he had told me to. The coat had the chaplain's shoulder-straps on, but
I thought there would be no harm in wearing it, so about a dozen of
us privates started for town to have a good time, and I with
chaplain's-straps on. It was customary, when soldiers went to town on
a pass, to partake of intoxicating beverages more or less, as that was
about the only form of enjoyment, and I blush now, twenty-two years
afterward, to write the fact that we all got pretty full. It seemed
so like home to be able to go into a saloon and drink beer, good old
northern beer, and who knew but tomorrow we would be killed. So we ate,
drank, and were merry. One of the boys said when the officers got on a
tear, they would ride right into billiard saloons, and sometime shoot at
decanters of red liquor behind the bar, and he said a private was just
as good as an officer any day, and suggested that we mount our horses
and paint the town. We mounted, and rode about town, racing up and down
the streets, and finally we came to a billiard saloon, and half a
dozen of us rode right in, took cues out of the rack, and tried to play
billiards on horse-back. It was a grand picnic then, though it seems
foolish now. My horse Jeff would do anything I asked him, and when I
rode up to the bar and told him to rear up, he put both fore feet on the
bar, and looked at the bartender as much as to say, "set up the best you
have got."

The chaplain's shoulder-straps gave the crowd a sort of confidence that
everything was all right, and after exhibiting in a saloon for a time,
there was something said about horse-racing, and I said my horse could
beat anything on four legs, so we adjourned to the outskirts of town for
a race, followed by half the people in town. We had a horse-race,
and Jeff beat them all, and wherever I went the crowd would cheer the
chaplain. They said they liked to see a man in that position who could
unbend himself and mix up with the boys. There never was a chaplain more
popular than the "Wisconsin preacher" was. It did not occur to me that
I was placing the chaplain in an unfavorable position before the public,
by wearing his coat. _Nothing_ occurred to me, that day, except that we
were having a high old time. Finally, after dark, one of our boys got
into a row with a loafer in a saloon, and picked the loafer up and
tossed him through the window, to the sidewalk. This was very wrong, but
it couldn't be helped. There was a great noise, cries for the provost
guard, and we knew that the only way to get out of the scrape honorably,
would be to get out real quick, so we mounted and rode to our camp. My
horse was the fastest and I got home first, unsaddled my horse and went
to the tent, took off the chaplain's coat and hung it up carefully, and
was at work writing a letter, and thinking how my horse acted as though
he had been on sprees before, he enjoyed it so, when I heard a noise
outside, and it was evident that the provost guard had followed us to
camp, and were making complaint to the colonel about our conduct down
town. Finally the guard went away, and shortly the colonel and the
adjutant called at our tent and inquired for the chaplain. I told them
the chaplain had been away most of the day, and had not returned. The
colonel and the adjutant winked at each other, and asked me if he wasn t
away a good deal. I told them that he was away some. They asked me if I
never noticed that his breath had a peculiar smell. I told them that it
was occasionally a little loud. They went away thoughtfully. Now that
I think of it I ought to have explained that the peculiarity of the
chaplain's breath was caused from eating pickled onions of the sanitary
stores, but it did not occur to me at the time. After a while the
chaplain came back, asked me if anybody had died during the day, took a
drink of blackberry brandy for what ailed him, and we retired. The next
morning there was a circus. The little town boasted, a daily paper, and
it contained the following:

     "The community is prepared to overlook an occasional scene
     of hilarity among the Federal soldiers stationed in this
     vicinity, but when a gang of roysterers is led by a
     chaplain, as was the case yesterday, all right-minded people
     will be indignant. It is said by our informant that the
     chaplain of a certain cavalry regiment was the liveliest one
     of the crowd, that he rode into a billiard room, caused his
     horse to place its forefeet on the bar, and that he played a
     better game of billiards on horseback than many worldly men
     can play on foot. It is the duty of the commanding officer
     to discipline his chaplain. The chaplain also beat the boys
     several horse races while in town, and they say he is a
     perfect horseman, and has one of the finest horses ever
     seen here, which he probably stole."

I had a boy bring me a paper every morning, and I read the article
before the chaplain awoke, and destroyed the paper. Early the next
morning the colonel sent for the chaplain, placed him under arrest, and
the good man came back to the tent feeling pretty bad. I asked him what
was wrong, and he said he was under arrest for conduct unbecoming an
officer and a gentleman. He said charges were preferred against him for
drunkenness and disorderly conduct, horse-racing, playing billiards on
horse-back, riding his horse into a saloon and trying to jump him over
the bar, and lots of things too numerous to mention. I felt sorry for
him, and told him I had been fearful all along that he would get
into trouble by going away from me so much, and associating with the
chaplains of the other regiments, but I had never supposed it would come
to this.

"Wine is a mocker," said I, becoming warmed up, "and none of us can
afford to tamper with it. With me, it does not make so much difference,
as I have no reputation but that which is already lost, but you, my dear
sir, think of your position. Go to the colonel and confess all, and ask
him to forgive you," and I wiped my eyes on my coat sleeve.

"But I was not drunk," said the chaplain, indignantly. "I was not in a
saloon, and never saw a game of billiards in my life. I was over to
the New Jersey regiment, talking with their chaplain about getting up a
revival, among the soldiers," and the good man groaned as he said, "it
is a case of mistaken identity."

"Bully, elder," said I. "If you can make the court-martial believe you,
you will be all right, and you will not be cashiered. But it looks dark,
very dark, for you. May heaven help you."

The chaplain was worried all the morning, and the officers and men joked
him unmercifully. At noon the chaplain was released from arrest, as we
were to move at four p. m., and he begged so to be allowed to accompany
the regiment. The colonel told him he could be tried when we got back,
and he was happy. There was a great commotion as the regiment broke up
its camp and got ready to move. There was the usual crowd of negresses
who had been doing washing for the soldiers, to be paid on pay day, and
we were going away, no one knew where, and no one knew when we would
meet pay day. There were saloon-keepers with bills against officers, and
standing-off creditors was just about as hard in the army as at home.
I couldn't see much difference. But finally everything was ready, the
ammunition wagons, wagon train of stores, and a battery of little guns,
about three pounders, had been added. I didn't like the battery. It
seemed to me hard enough to kill our fellow citizens with revolver
balls, without shooting them with cannon. At 4 p.m. the bugle sounded
"forward," and with the clanking of sabers, rattling of hoofs and
wagons, we marched outside the picket line, past the cemetery where
my deceased friends were buried, and were going towards the enemy. The
chaplain and myself were riding behind the colonel, when the colonel
asked the good man to ride up to a log that was beside the road, and
make his horse put his forefeet upon it, as he did on the bar in the
saloon. I felt sorry for the chaplain, and I rode up to the log, and had
Jeff put his feet up on it. Then I rode back and saluted the colonel
and told him it was I who had done the wicked things the chaplain was
accused of, and I told him how the chaplain was using my coat, so I put
on his, with the shoulder straps on, and all about it. He laughed at
first and then said, "Then you are under arrest. You may dismount and
walk and lead your horse until further orders." I dismounted, like a
little man, and for five miles I walked, keeping up with the regiment.
Finally the colonel sung out, "gallop, march," and I got on my horse.
I reasoned that the order to gallop was "further orders," and that as he
knew I couldn't very well gallop on foot he must have meant for me to
get on. We galloped for about ten miles, and were ordered to halt, when
I dismounted and led my horse up to the colonel, and saluted him. "Well,
you must have had a hard time keeping up with us on foot," said he. I
told him it rested me to go on foot. We were just going into camp for
the night, and the colonel said, "Well, as you are rested so much from
your walk, you may go out with the foraging party and get some feed for
your horse and the chaplain's." I was willing to do anything for a quiet
life, so I fell in with a party of about forty, under a lieutenant, and
we rode off into the country to steal forage from a plantation, keeping
a sharp lookout for Confederates who might object. I guess we rode away
from camp two or three miles, when we came to a magnificent plantation
house, and outhouses, negro quarters, etc. The house was on a hill, in a
grove of live oaks, and had immense white pillars, or columns in
front. As we rode up to the plantation the boys scattered all over the
premises. This was the first foraging expedition I had ever been with,
and I thought all we went for was to get forage for our horses, so I
went to a shock of corn fodder and took all that I could strap on my
saddle, and was ready to go, when I passed a smoke house and found some
of the boys taking smoked hams and sides of bacon. I asked one of the
boys if they had permission to take hams and things, and he laughed and
said, "everything goes," and he handed me a ham which I hung on to my
saddle. Then the lieutenant told me to go up in front of the house and
stand guard, and prevent any soldier from entering the house. I rode up
to the house, where there was an old lady and a young married woman
with a little girl by her side. They were evidently much annoyed and
frightened, though too proud to show it, and I told them they need have
no fear, as the men were only after a little forage for their horses.
The old lady looked at the ham on my saddle and asked me if the horses
eat meat, and I said, "No, but sometimes the men eat horses." I thought
that was funny. The young woman was beautiful, and the child was
perfectly enchanting. They were on the opposite side of the railing from
me, and my horse kept working up towards them, rubbing his nose on the
pickets, and finally his nose touched the clasped hands of the mother
and child. The little girl laughed and patted the horse on the nose,
while the mother drew back. It was almost dark and the horse was almost
covered with corn fodder, but the little girl screamed and said:

"Mamma, that is Jeff, papa's horse!"

The mamma looked at me with a wild, hunted look, then at the horse,
rushed down the steps and threw her arms around the neck of the horse
and sobbed in a despairing manner:

"O, where is my husband? Where is he? Is he dead?

"My son, my son!" cried the old lady.

"Bring me my papa, you bad man!" said the little child, and I was
surrounded by the three.

Gentle reader, I have been through many scenes in my life, and have been
many times where it was not the toss of a copper whether death or life
was my portion, and I had some nerve to help me through, but I never
was in a place that tried me like that one. I had been captured by the
father of this little child, the husband of this beautiful, proud woman,
the son of this charming old lady. I had seen him brought in, dead, had
seen him buried, and had thrown a bunch of roses in his grave. Now I was
surrounded by these mourners, mourners when they should know the worst.
Cold chills run all over me, and cold perspiration was on my brow.

"Is he dead?" they all shouted together.

I hate a liar, on general principles, and yet there are times when a lie
is so much easier to tell than truth. I did not want to be a murderer,
and I knew, by the dreadful light in the eyes of that lovely wife, as
she looked up at me from the neck of the horse, her face as white as
snow, that if I told the truth she would fall dead right where she was.
If I told the truth that blessed old lady's heart would be broken, and
that little child's face would not have any more smiles, during the war,
for mamma and grandma, and, with a hoarse voice, and choking, and trying
to swallow something that seemed as big as a baseball in my throat, I
deliberately lied to them. I told them the young man who rode this horse
had been captured, after a gallant fight, unharmed, and sent north.
That he was so brave that our boys fell in love with him, and there was
nothing too good for him in our army, and that he would be well taken
care of, and exchanged soon, I had no doubt, and bade them not to worry,
but to look at the discomforts and annoyances of war as leniently as
possible, and all would be well soon.

"Thank heaven! Take all we have got in welcome," said the old lady, as a
heavenly smile came over her face. "My boy is safe."

"O, thank you, sir," said the little mother, as a lovely smile chased a
dimple all around her mouth, and corraled it in her left cheek, while a
pair of navy-blue eyes looked up at me as though she would hug me if
I was not a Yankee, eyes that I have seen a thousand times since, in
dreams, often with tears in them.

[Illustration: You are a darling good man 103]

"You are a darling good man," said the little girl, dancing on the
gravel path. The mother blushed and said,

"Why, Maudie, don't be so rude;" and there was a shout:

"Fall in!"

The lieutenant rode up to me and asked, as he noticed the glad smiles on
the faces of the ladies, if this was a family reunion, and, apologizing
for being compelled to raid the plantation, we rode away. I was afraid
they would mention the news I had brought them, and the lieutenant would
tell the truth, so I was glad to move. I was glad to go, for if I had
remained longer I would have cried like a baby, and given them back the
horse, and walked to camp. As we moved away, I took out my knife and
cut the string that held the smoked ham on my saddle, and had the
satisfaction of hearing it drop on the path before the house. I could
not give back the husband of the blue-eyed woman, the son of the saintly
Southern mother, the father of the sweet child, but I _could_ leave that
ham. As we rode back to camp that beautiful moonlight night, I did not
join in the singing of the boys, or the jokes. I just thought of that
happy home I had left, and how it would be stricken, later, when the
news was brought them, and wondered if that fearful lie I had been
telling, them was justifiable, under the circumstances, and it it would
be laid up against me, charged up in the book above. That night I slept
on the ground on some corn fodder and dreamed of nothing but blue-eyed
mamma's and golden-haired Maudie's and white-haired angel grandmothers.




CHAPTER VII.

     "Boots and Saddles"--"I am the Colonel's Orderly"--Riding
     Fifty Miles on an Empty Stomach--The Chaplain Appears--I am
     Wounded by a Locomotive and a Piece of Coal--I Nearly Kill
     an Old Man.

When our foraging party got back to camp, and I unloaded the corn fodder
from my horse, I was about as disgusted with war as a man could be. The
faces of those people I had met at the plantation rose up before me, and
I could imagine how they would look when they heard that the Confederate
soldier who was their all, was dead. I hoped that they would never hear
of it. While I was thinking the matter over, and grooming my horse, the
chaplain came along and took nearly all the fodder I had brought in, and
fed it to his horse, and asked me where the chickens and hams, and sweet
potatoes were. I told him I didn't get any. Then he spoke very plainly
to me, plainer than he had ever spoken before, and told me that fodder
for horses was not all that soldiers got when they went out foraging. He
said I wanted to snatch anything that was lying around loose, that could
be eaten. I asked him if the government did not furnish rations enough
for him to live comfortably, in addition to the sanitary stores. He
said sometimes he yearned for chicken. Then I told him his salary was
sufficient to buy such luxuries. He was hot, and talked back to me, and
told me he didn't propose to be lectured by no red-headed private as to
his duties, or his conduct, and he wanted me to understand that I was
expected to forage for him as well as myself, and not to let another
soldier come into camp with a better assortment of the