Transcriber’s Note:

Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).

Additional Transcriber’s Notes are at the end.

       *       *       *       *       *

MULTUM IN PARVO LIBRARY.

Entered at the Boston Post office as second class matter.

Vol. 2. MAY, 1895. Published Monthly. No. 17.




The Unique Story Book.


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  PUBLISHED BY
  A. B. COURTNEY,
  Room 74, 45 Milk Street,
  BOSTON, MASS.




THE THREE DIAMONDS.


“Do you remember the diamonds we found up at old Gray Jake Wagner’s
house when we were making that little raid around Taylorsville?” was
asked of Colonel Andrew M. Benson, of Portland, Me., by a former
companion with whom he was dining at Syracuse, N. Y. The colonel at
first failed to recall the circumstances, but on the mention of a
certain Miss Wagner’s name a relaxation of his features showed that
all recollection of the episode was not lost, and the dinner party
was soon in possession of the facts, as follows: In the latter part
of the year 1864, Colonel Benson, the captain of the First District
of Columbia cavalry, with Colonel James M. Gere, also captain at the
time, Colonel Walpole, of Syracuse, and Lieutenant Cornell, of Vermont,
were confined in the prison pen at Columbia, S. C., and during December
they escaped and made their way to Crab Orchard, on Doe River Cove.
There they found a company of 83 struggling Federal soldiers. Though
in the heart of the enemy’s country, the members of this little band
were suddenly stimulated to excessive bravery by thus meeting with
their fellows, and conceived it would be a fine joke to make a little
raid on Taylorsville, a village nearly 50 miles further north. The
daring of the scheme appeared when, upon examination, it was found
that 30 of the men had just one round of ammunition, while 31 had only
one extra charge. Six, however, were mounted, and, at the head of this
plucky detachment of cavalry Captain Benson was placed. Captain Gere
led the infantry, and the whole squad was in command of Lieutenant
James Hartley. Such was the make-up of the band that started out with
more pluck than powder to capture Taylorsville. About 40 miles of the
distance had been covered when the plantation of a rebel was reached
who was notorious in all the country round. A halt was ordered to treat
with the owner, Gray Jake Wagner, who was at that time just walking out
to feed his hogs.

“Oh, take what you want; but only spare my life,” cried Gray Jake
Wagner, throwing up his hands like a flash and dropping his pail
of swill as a bullet whistled past his ear, advising him of his
distinguished visitors.

“We want,” said Captain Benson, “whatever you have of use to us.” And
it took but a glance to tell the astonished planter that nothing could
come amiss to that ragged company so lately escaped from the horrors
of a rebel prison. Now, among other members of the Wagner family was a
pretty daughter of the old rebel, aged eighteen, who had just returned
from boarding school to spend the holidays. After listening to the
conversation with her father, and catching a glimpse of the visitors,
she ran frightened to her own room. The troops swarmed about the place
like bees and rushed into the house at every door. Several soldiers
soon found their way even to the room of the scared young lady and
demanded the immediate surrender of her revolver and ammunition.

“I have no revolver,” cried the frightened girl.

“You have,” yelled one of the soldiers with an oath, “and you will give
it up.” But at just this juncture the tall form of Captain Benson,
who was then a dashing officer of 28, appeared, and he took in the
situation at a glance. Drawing his revolver, he threatened to drop the
first man who touched a thing in that room or failed to leave without
a word. The men withdrew in silence, while the frightened Miss Wagner,
with tears and sobs, expressed her heartfelt thanks to her gallant
protector.

“What did you find in the house?” asked Captain Benson of the infantry
officer, as they left the place. “I found these diamonds,” he quietly
added, pointing to three glistening drops on his shoulder. The raid
did not extend very far beyond Gray Jake Wagner’s. Taylorsville, they
learned, was full of rebel soldiers, and the little party barely
managed to reach the Union lines.

Miss Wagner obtained in some way the address of her benefactor, and
afterward, by letter, it is said, she sent her thanks, which she could
only partially express in the excitement of their meeting.




BUILDING A BRIDGE IN SEVENTEEN HOURS.


In July, 1861, General J. D. Cox’s division was chasing General Henry
A. Wise’s Confederate forces up the Kanawha River, in West Virginia,
and to impede the rapid advance of the Union troops the bridge across
Pocotaligo Creek was destroyed. The stream was only a couple of rods
wide, but its banks were steep and the bed of the creek was too much
of a slough to allow fording by the wagon trains and artillery. The
regular army engineers wanted a few weeks’ time to prepare plans, and
considered it necessary to send to Cincinnati for tools and material
to construct a bridge. The General, being informed that the Eleventh
Ohio Infantry Regiment, then encamped at “Poco,” had a company
composed entirely of mechanics, sent for the captain, and, after a
short conference with that officer, directed him to put his men at
work. Commencing at nine o’clock in the morning, in seventeen hours a
substantial “bridge” was built across the creek, and which was used by
army wagons, cannons and soldiers for a long time, probably until the
war closed. A raft of logs, timbers from a deserted house, and poles
cut in the woods near by, were the materials used for the bridge, the
tools being a few axes and augers. These practical bridge-builders were
members of Company K, principally machinists, molders, etc., from the
shops of Lane & Bodley, of Cincinnati, the captain being their late
employer, P. P. Lane, afterward colonel of the regiment.




THE COLONEL’S FORAGED BREAKFAST.


Colonel Johnson, commanding the 108th Regiment, Illinois Volunteer
Infantry, during the late war, up to the time he fairly earned and
secured his “single star,” was a strict disciplinarian. Straggling and
foraging were especially tabooed by him; certain and severe was the
punishment of the culprit who was caught away from his command without
authority, and if any foraged provisions were found on the scoundrel
they were at once confiscated. As it was not practicable to return the
provisions to the lawful owner, the colonel would have them served up
at his own mess table, “to keep them from going to waste.”

As a consequence, the colonel was cordially hated by many of his men,
and many were the plans laid down by them “to get even” and circumvent
him, but, owing to his astuteness, they generally came to grief.

One day a soldier of the regiment, who had the reputation of being “a
first-class, single-handed forager,” but who had nevertheless been
repeatedly compelled to disgorge his irregularly procured supply of
fresh meat, and as repeatedly to pass an interval of his valuable
time in the regimental bull-pen, slipped away from camp and, after an
absence of several hours, returned with a loaded haversack and tried
to get to his tent without attracting any attention. He was noticed,
however, and promptly arrested and escorted to regimental headquarters.

“Omar, you infernal scoundrel, you have been foraging again,” said the
colonel.

“No, I haven’t.”

“Haven’t, eh! Let’s see what is in your haversack. Leg o’ mutton, eh!
Killed some person’s sheep,” said the colonel. Omar was sent to the
guard house as usual, and the foraged property to the colonel’s cook.

The regimental mess, consisting of most of the field and staff
officers, had fresh meat for supper and breakfast. During the latter
meal the colonel happened to look out from under the tent fly that was
in use as a mess-room, and noticed Omar, who was under guard cleaning
up around headquarters, eyeing him very closely. The colonel remarked:
“Well, prisoner, what is it?”

“Nothing, colonel,” replied Omar, “except I was just wondering how you
liked your breakfast of _fried dog_.”

Consternation seized the party at the table. With an exclamation or
expletive, every one of them sprang to his feet, and from under the
tent fled.

Omar ran for his life, and at once, as per preconcerted agreement,
over half the men in the regiment commenced barking and howling like
dogs--big dogs, little dogs, hoarse and fine, bass and soprano,
fortissimo and mezzo-soprano, dogs ’round the corner and dogs under
the house--in short, there was the “dog”-onedest kind of a racket made
until the colonel grasped his sword, and, foaming with rage, rushed for
the men’s tents; but they were too old to be caught.

For a long time, though, they would “regulate” the colonel if he
showed signs of being excessive by barking, but at their peril, for he
would certainly have killed a _barker_ if discovered.

After that breakfast the regimental mess strictly abstained from eating
any second-hand foraged meat.




THE NOBLE ACT OF A HERO.


Louis Abear, says the Detroit _Free Press_, was a private in Company
H, Fifth Michigan Cavalry, and made a good soldier. At the battle of
Trevillian Station he was taken prisoner, and before his release he was
confined in five different prison-pens and two jails.

While he was in Millen Prison, an exchange of sixty prisoners was to be
made. The officer of the day told off sixty names at the door of the
pen, but for some reason, probably because he was too ill, or perhaps
dead, one man did not come forth. At that moment Louis, who had been
sent out after fuel, under guard of course, came through the gates
pushing a wheelbarrow loaded with wood.

“Here, Louis, here’s a chance for you. We want sixty men to go North
and are short one. Jump into the ranks here!” exclaimed the officer.

“To be exchanged?” asked Louis, trembling more than he did when under
fire.

“Yes. Be quick.”

“Then take Hank. He’s sick, and will die if he remains here,” and Louis
darted into the hospital ward. Hank had a pair of pantaloons and shoes,
but no coat or hat. Louis pulled off his, put them on Hank, and brought
him out, weak and tottering. As Hank filed out the gate and once more
breathed the air of freedom, Louis, hatless and coatless, took hold of
the handles of his wheelbarrow and started for another load of wood.

Can mortal mind conceive of such an act? It cost him seven months of a
living death, and all for a man with whom he was not even intimately
acquainted.

And now for the other side of the picture. Ever since the close
of the war, until a few months ago, when Hank died, these two men
have lived right here in Wayne County, Hank with a home and family,
Louis with neither; have met occasionally, but at no time did Hank
ever refer to the act in Millen Prison that set him free and saved
his life; never invited him to his home; never alluded to the past,
or addressed his savior other than as a mere acquaintance. On his
death-bed, however, he told the story, and asked his relatives if they
ever had an opportunity, to befriend Louis for his sake. It was tardy
acknowledgement of one of the noblest acts the world has ever known.




SOME OF LINCOLN’S JOKES.


President Lincoln has been made responsible for so many jokes, writes
Ben. Perley Poore, that he reminds one of a noted Irish wit who, having
been ruined by indorsing the notes of his friends, used to curse the
day when he learned to write his name, as he had obtained such a
reputation for willingness to oblige that he could not refuse. Mr.
Lincoln might well have regretted ever having made a joke, for he was
expected to say something funny on all occasions, and has been made
answerable for all manner of jests, stories and repartee, as if he
had combined all the elements of humor, commonplace heartlessness and
coarseness, mingled with a passion for reviving the jokes of Joe Miller
and the circus clowns. Yet he did say many excellent things. On one
occasion Senator Wade came to him and said:

“I tell you, Mr. President, that unless a proposition for emancipation
is adopted by the government, we will all go to the devil. At this very
moment we are not over one mile from hell.”

“Perhaps not,” said Mr. Lincoln, “as I believe that is just about the
distance from here to the Capitol, where you gentlemen are in session.”

On one occasion, at a reception, when the crowd of citizens and
soldiers were surging through the salons of the White House, evidently
controlled by the somewhat brusque Western element, a gentleman said to
him:

“Mr. President, you must diminish the number of your friends, or
Congress must enlarge this edifice.”

“Well,” promptly replied Mr. Lincoln, “I have no idea of diminishing
the number of my friends; but the only question with me now is whether
it will be best to have the building stretched or split.”

At one of these receptions, when a paymaster in full major’s uniform
was introduced, he said:

“Being here, Mr. Lincoln, I thought I would call and pay my respects.”

“From the complaints made by the soldiers,” responded the President, “I
guess that is all any of you do pay.”

Ward Lamon, when Lincoln had appointed him Marshal of the District
of Columbia, accidentally found himself in a street fight, and, in
restoring peace, he struck one of the belligerents with his fist, a
weapon with which he was notoriously familiar. The blow was a harder
one than Lamon intended, for the fellow was knocked senseless, taken up
unconscious, and lay for some hours on the border of life and death.
Lamon was alarmed, and the next morning reported the affair to the
President.

On another occasion a young soldier had fallen out of ranks when his
regiment passed through Washington, and, getting drunk, failed to join
his regiment when it left the city. To the friend who came to secure a
pardon, Mr. Lincoln said: “Well, I think the boy can do us more good
above ground than under ground,” and he wrote out the pardon.

In all such cases as the above, where the ordinary human weakness
was the motive, Mr. Lincoln’s heart was tender as a woman’s, but to
prove that he could entertain no sympathy for a cool, deliberate,
mercenary crime, he was approached by the Hon. John B. Alley, of
Massachusetts, one day, with a petition for the pardon of a man who had
been convicted of engaging in the slave trade, and sentenced to five
years’ imprisonment and the payment of a fine of one thousand dollars.
His term of imprisonment had expired, but in default of payment of the
fine, he was still held. In answer to the appeal for pardon Mr. Lincoln
said: “You know my weakness is to be, if possible, too easily moved by
appeals for mercy, and if this man were guilty of the foulest murder
that the arm of man could perpetrate, I might forgive him on such an
appeal; but the man who would go to Africa and rob her of her children
and sell them into an interminable bondage with no other motive than
that which is furnished by dollars and cents, is so much worse than the
most depraved murderer that he can never receive pardon at my hands.
No, he may rot in jail before he shall have liberty by any act of mine.”

Upon another occasion the wife of a rebel officer, held as a prisoner
of war, begged for the relief of her husband, and to strengthen her
appeal said that he was a very religious man. In granting the release
of her husband, Mr. Lincoln said: “Tell your husband when you meet him
that I am not much of a judge of religion, but that in my opinion the
religion that sets men to rebel and fight against their government
because they think that government does not sufficiently help some men
to eat their bread in the sweat of other men’s faces, is not the sort
of religion upon which men can get to heaven.”

One day news of a great battle in progress reached Mr. Lincoln, and
his anxiety was so great that he could eat nothing. Soon after he was
seen to take a Bible and retire to his room, and in a few minutes he
was overheard in one of the most earnest prayers for the success of our
arms. Later in the day a Union victory was announced, and Mr. Lincoln,
with a beaming face, exclaimed: “Good news! good news! The victory is
ours, and God is good.”




AN ARMY NEWSBOY’S ROMANCE.


So many acts of heartlessness and cruelty during the great civil war
have been recorded that it is a real pleasure to have an opportunity to
record an act of manly kindness on the part of a gallant Confederate
soldier to a Yankee boy. In the town of Bennington, in the Green
Mountains of Vermont, in the spring of 1861, there lived a poor woman
with six children, five boys and one little girl, the youngest of the
former a stripling 14 years old. When the wires flashed the news from
Washington all over our land that the rebels had fired upon the old
flag at Fort Sumpter, the four older boys responded to the country’s
call and hurried to the seat of war. The younger lad, his heart fired
with genuine Green Mountain patriotism, ran away from home and, eluding
pursuit, made his way to the camp on the Potomac. But his ardor was
somewhat dampened by the discovery of the fact that he could not, in
consequence of his youth and diminutiveness, enlist as a soldier.
Determined to remain at the front; and having, as the saying is, to
scratch for a living, he went to selling newspapers to the soldiers.
Leaving the camp between New Baltimore and Warrenton about the 10th
of November, 1862, he went to Washington for a supply of papers.
Having accomplished his object, the young lad set out on horseback
for the camp, having to travel a distance of thirty miles. A change
of position by the army during his absence had occurred, and as a
consequence he ran into the rebel picket line and was taken to General
J. E. B. Stuart’s headquarters, at a hotel in Warrenton, and from there
sent to Libby Prison, in Richmond, arriving there November 13. Major
Turner was in command of the prison, and when the young prisoner was
brought into his presence, observing that he was a mere boy, the Major
spoke kindly to him, and, after his name had been enrolled, asked him
the customary question, if he had any money or valuables about his
person. The frightened boy had managed to conceal his money, $380, in
his boots, and in answer to the question, put his hand down, and while
a tear-drop glistened in his bright eye and his boyish lip quivered, he
brought it forth and handed it to the rebel major, and trying hard to
choke down the swelling in his throat, he told of his widowed mother at
home, his four brothers in the army, his having made his money selling
papers, and saving it to send with his brothers’ wages to his mother.
The Major folded the boy’s passes around the money and said to him:
“You shall have this again, my boy, when you are permitted to go from
here.” Six weeks afterward the lad was paroled, and, repairing to Major
Turner’s office, the kind officer, handing him the package of money and
the passes, just as he received them, said: “Here is your money, my
boy.” With trembling hands, but a joyous heart, the little fellow took
the package. He was sent to Washington, and a few weeks afterward was
going his old rounds selling newspapers. The boy was Doc Aubrey, the
newsboy of the Iron Brigade, who now resides in Milwaukee.

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Transcriber’s Notes:

Punctuation has been made consistent.

p. 12: Another version of this story (George B. Herbert, _The Popular
History of the Civil War in America_, F. M. Lupton, Publisher, New
York, 1885, p. 476) includes the following additional paragraph
immediately after the paragraph that starts “Ward Lamon, when Lincoln
had appointed him ...”.

“I am astonished at you, Ward,” said Mr. Lincoln; “you ought to have
known better. Hereafter, when you have to hit a man, use a club and not
your fist.”