E.LLJON
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University of California • Berkeley
The Theodore H. Koundakjian
Collection of American Humor
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mm
HOW PRIVATE GEO, W. PECK
PUT DOWN
THE REBELLION,
OB THE
Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit.
[" War Papers "—a la Century Magazine, from the standpoint of a pri vate soldier, who was afraid of his shadow, and who didn't want to fight unless he had to.]
BY THE AUTHOR OF
PECK'S FUN, PECK'S SUNSHINE, PECK'S BAD BOY AND His PA, PECK'S Boss BOOK, AND LOTS OF SUCH STUFF.
ILLUSTRATED BY TRUE WILLIAMS.
CHICAGO AND NEW YORK :
BELFORD, CLARKE & CO.
1887.
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COPYRIGHT,
BY GEO. W. PECK.
1887.
Printed and Bound by DONOHUE & HENNEBEKKY, CHICAGO.
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DEDICATION.
TO THE "BOYS IN BLUE" AND THE "BOYS IN GRAY,"
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Who got real spunky at each other, some years ago, while playing in their adjoining door-yards, threw tomato cans and dead cats back and forth, called each other names, pulled hair, and snubbed noses until they got into real, actual war, in which such bravery was shown on both sides, as the world had never seen before, and who have decided to be neighbors and friends again, ready to protect and defend each other against all the ^orld; these reminis cences of the ridiculous part taken In the struggle, by a raw recruit, who was too scared to fight and too frightened to run, are most respectfully dedicated, with the earnest hope that no occasion may ever again arise in which it shall seem necessary for one American citizen to seek to shed the gore of another American citizen.
GEOKGE W. PECK.
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CONTENTS.
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
iSBP^r. 11
CHAPTER II.
I Am Rudely Awakened from Dreams of Home — I Go on Picket — The Foe Advances— A Desperate Conflict— The Union-Confed- .erate Breakfast on the Alabama Race-track — A Friendly Part ing 21
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 35
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 46
CHAPTER V.
The Funeral of the Colored Cook — I Plead for a Larger Procession — The Funeral Oration — The Funeral Disturbed— I Am Ar rested — My Fortunate Escape , 60
v
VI CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VI. .
I Capture "Jeff "—I Get Back at the Chaplain — The Chaplain is Arrested — Off on a Raid — I Meet the Relatives of the Dead Confederate — My Powers of Lying are Brought into Play. 73
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 87
CHAPTER VIII.
Three Days Without Food! — The Value of Hard Tack — A Silver Watch for a Pint of Meal — I Steal Corn From a Hungry Mule — The Delirium of Hunger — I Dine on Mule — I Capture a Rebel Ram 99
CHAPTER IX.
Bacon and Hard-Tack — In Danger of Ague — In Search of Whisky and Quinine — I am Appointed Corporal — I Make a Speech — I Am a Leader of Ten Picked Men— I Am Willing to Resign. . 114
CHAPTER X.
Yearnings for Military Fame — What I Want Is a Chance — I feel I Could Crush the Rebellion — My Chance Arrives — I Am Crushed— The Rebellion Remains Pretty Well 128
CHAPTER XI.
I Am Detailed to Build a Bridge — It Was a Good Bridge, But Over the Wrong Stream — The General Appears — I Am Crushed, in Fact Pulverized!— I Am Attacked With Rheumatism . .141
CONTENTS. vii
CHAPTER XII.
I Am Instructed to Capture and Search a Female Smuggler — I Pro test in Vain — The Terrible Ordeal — Beauty Behind the Pulpit — Pills, Plaisters, Quinine — The Pathetic Letter— We Meet Under Happier Stars 153
CHAPTER XIII.
The Female Smuggler Episode Makes Me Famous — I Am Sent Forth in Women's Clothes — My Interview With the Bad Cor poral—A Fist Fight — The Rebellion Is Put Down Once More —I Reveal My Identity 168
CHAPTER XIV.
Military Attire— My Suit of Government Clothes— The Memory of Them Saddens Me Still — The Dreadful March— The Adjutant Appoints Me to Make Out a Monthly Report— The Report is an Astonishing One 178
CHAPTER XV.
My Experience as a Sick Man — Jim Thinks I Have Yellow Fever — What I Suffered— "A Rebel Angel" — I Am Sent to the Hos pital 188
CHAPTER XVI.
My Varied Experience in the Hospital — The Doctor Seems Sure of My Death — I Suggest the Postponement of My Funeral — I Get Very Sick of Gruel— I Go Back to My Regiment 199
CHAPTER XVII.
Thanksgiving Dinner with the "Rebel Angel" — She Gives Me a World of Good Advice — Can an Officer Be Detailed to Go and Shovel Dirt? — My First Day as a Commissioned Officer 210
Vlll CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XVIII.
My Sickness and Hospital Experiences Have Spoiled Me for a Sol dier— I Am Full of Charity and Hope the War Will Cease— We Have a Grand Attack— The Battle Lasted Ten Minutes— The "Rebel Angel's " Brother Is Captured 219
CHAPTER XIX.
I Am Detailed to Drive a Six-mule Team — I Am Covered with Red Mud — I Am Sent on an Expedition of Cold-blooded Murder — I Make a Dozen ex-Confederate Soldiers Happy by Setting Them up in Business , 229
CHAPTER XX.
I Demonstrate that Gambling does not pay — I Cause a General Stampede — Christmas in the Pine Woods of Alabama — Mill ions of Dollars, but no Christmas Dinner 239
CHAPTER XXI.
I Go Out on a Scouting Expedition — My Horse Dies of Poison — I Turn Horse-Thief — I Capture a Church, Congregation and Minister, but I Spare the Communion Wine 249
CHAPTER XXII.
The Spotted Horse — His Shameful Behavior at a Funeral — I was Tempted to Have my Horse Shot — But I Traded Him to the Chaplain 261
CHAPTER XXIII.
Tells How the Chaplain was Paralyzed by the Spotted Circus- jjorse — i am Court -Martialed — I Plead My Own Case and am Acquitted 269
CONTENTS. ix
CHAPTER XXIV.
Mingled Reminiscences — I Relate a Mississippi River Steamboat Experience 278
CHAPTER XXV.
Our Party of Recruits Own the Earth— We Live High, Give a Ball, and Go to the Guard-House— And are Arrested by Col ored Troocs . . .289
CHAPTER XXVI.
I Strike another Soft Snap, which is Harder than Any Snap Here tofore — I Begin taking Music Lessons, and Fill Up a Con federate Prisoner with Yankee Food... 299
CHAPTER XXVII.
A Short Story about a Pair of Boots, Showing the Monumental Gall of Their Owner. . . . .308
ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE.
FRONTISPIECE The Chaplain up a Tree.
Mounting my Arab Steed from the Top of a Fence Rail 16
On Went the Two Night Riders 28
" Great Caesar's Ghost ! How it did Taste " 41
" I Never Knew How I Got Out of the General's Tent " 50
I Pronounce a Solemn Funeral Oration 65
" You are a Darling Good Man," said the Little Girl 86
I am Wounded by a Locomotive and a Piece of Coal 95
We Went into Camp That Way 112
A Pretty Position for a Man just Promoted to the Proud
Position of Corporal 121
"Jim, Excuse Me, but What Kind of a Thing is That?" 146
Two Stockings and a Pair of Dainty Shoes came Over the Pulpit 163 He Fell to the Ground and Gave a Yell you Could have Heard
a Mile 174
The "Rebel Angel" Gives the Doctor a Piece of Her Mind.. 197
I Forbid you Touching that Mare 258
I Jerked him Down Off'n There., , 265
HOW PRIVATE GEORGE W. PECK PUT DOWN THE REBELLION;
OR
THE FUNNY EXPERIENCES OF A RAW RECRUIT.
CHAPTEE I.
THE WAR LITERATURE OF THE ' ' CENTURY " is VERY CONFUSING — I AM RESOLVED TO TELL THE TRU^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 arti cles 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 oppo nents, and drove them off in disorder. To read those arti cles it seems strange that the Union generals who won so many decisive battles, should not have ended the war
11
12 HOW PRIVATE GEORGE W. PECK
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 mar vellous 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 un born in the most hopeless manner.
It has seemed to me as though the people of this coun try 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 sol dier 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 some thing 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,
PUT DOWN THE REBELLION. 13
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 probabili ties 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 con tinued 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 grand father, 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, when- 1 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
14 HOW PKIVATE GEORGE W. PECK
had been credited to the town from which I enlisted, I heard of a town that was paying as high as twelve-hundred dol lars 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 de signing 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 hun dreds 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 cap tain 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
PUT DOWN THE REBELLION. 15
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 inti mated 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
16 HOW PRIVATE GEOEGE W. PECK
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 per manently, 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 out spoken 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 acticles 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 impossi bility to fall off. 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 s 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
PUT DOWJST THE KEBELLIOK. 17
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 would n't know where to write for me to come back. There is nothing that will give a man such an appe tite 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 govern ment 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
18 HOW PRIVATE GEORGE W. PECK
kave 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 hav ing 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 in veigled 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 off 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
PUT DOWN THE REBELLION. • 19
gave me was the meanest horse in the regiment. Tie 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 es caped 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 some-
20 HOW PKIVATE GEORGE W. PECK
thing 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
PUT DOWN THE KEBELLIOtf. 21
CHAPTEE I.
I AM RUDELY AWAKENED FROM DREAMS OP HOME — I Go ON PICKET — THE FOE ADVANCES — A DESPERATE CONFLICT — THE UNION-CONFEDERATE BREAKFAST ON THE ALABAMA RACE TRACK — A FRIENDLY PARTING
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 weep ing 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 tell ing me I was too fresh, but I couldn't see why a private
22 HOW PRIVATE GEOEGE W. PECK
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 com mon 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
PUT DOWN THE KEBELLION. 23
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. 0, 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 cor poral. 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 in structions. 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 I" and if the
24 HOW PRIVATE GEORGE W. PECK
party did not halt to shoot him, and then call for the cor poral of the guard,, who wonld 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 morn ing. 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
PUT DOWN THE REBELLION. 25
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 con ciliate 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 precipi tating 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 approach ing 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 al ready halted. If he would let me alone and stay where he was, what sense was there in picking a quarrel with him ?
26 HOW PRIVATE GEORGE W. PECK
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
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the other horse started, as though some one had said "go."*
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 gaming 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
* [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.]
28 HOW PEIVATE GEORGE W. PECK
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 after wards, but he said he only wanted me to stop so he could get acquainted with me. 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 dan ger 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 ex hausted 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
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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 Mother'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
30 HOW PRIVATE GEORGE W. PECK
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 camp ing 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
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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 be fore we got started to playing he suggested that we call it a stand-off, and agree that neither of us should be a pris oner, 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
32 HOW PRIVATE GEORGE W. PECK
we play poker for money. I consented and he put up Con federate 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 chap lain 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 sad dle. I was rather glad to get rid of some of my extra bag gage, 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 coun try. 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 be-
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*
fore 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 sensi tive 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 handker chief 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, think ing up a good lie to tell about where I had been, and what I had been doing, I heard horses neighing, and presently I
3
34 HOW PRIVATE GEORGE W. PECK
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."
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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 OP 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 regi ment, 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 hM never expected to see me alive, and the soldiers looked at me as one re turned 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,
36 HOW PRIVATE GEOKGE W. PECK
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 h^ ought at least to have waited till the battle had actually com menced. 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
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fire into the ranks of the rebels, and that they fell all around. I could not tell how many were killed, but prob ably ten, as I fired eleven shots from my carbine, and I usually calculated on missing one out of ten, when shoot ing 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" in so short a time. The other officers congratulated me, and the soldiers said I was
38 HOW PKIVATE GEOIIGE W. PECK
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 in terested 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 pos sibly 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, be cause 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
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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 with out 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 commission, 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 in creased, and I had to tell the chaplain that I must have relief before it was everlastingly too late, so he poured out
40 HOW PRIVATE GEORGE W. PECK
a dose of brandy for me. I could see that I was becoming a veteran very fast, as I could work the chaplain for sani tary stores pretty early in the game. Well, the chaplain and me had pains off and on, for an hour or two, and be came 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 sur geon'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 sol diers, 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
Page 41.
GREAT CAESAR'S GHOST, HOW IT DID TASTE!"
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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. 0, I could have killed him. I rushed to the chaplain's tent and took a drink of black berry 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.
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 the^ti did not believe I had killed as many of the enemy as I had owned up to having killed. Any-
42 HOW PRIVATE GEORGE W. PECK
way 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 un charitable 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 breast plate, 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 with out my breast-plate, but there was no sure thing about the chaplain, so I asked the soldier where I could get a breast plate. 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 breast plate to save me from the effects of eating unripe fruit, and I felt that if it would save me from bullets it would be
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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, snd 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 wore 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. 0, I hankered for gore, before en listing, and while editing a paper, and now I had got it,
44 HOW PEIVATE GEORGE W. PECK
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, intox icating 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 re moved 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
PUT DOWN THE REBELLION. 45
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.
46 HOW PRIVATE GEORGE W. PECK
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 OP 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 shoot ing, and I thought how much better it was to go off shoot ing ducks and geese, and chickens, that could not shoot back, than to be hunting bold, 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. 0, how I did want to train that pup. The news that one of my com rades had been granted a furlough, after three years' ser vice, 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 get-
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ting 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
*I neglected to say, in my account of the battle at the race-track, that when firing1 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.
48 HOW PRIVATE GEORGE W. PECK
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 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 Grossest 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 mon umental 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 gen eral 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
PUT DOWK THE KEBELLIOtf. 49
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 offi cer, 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 imita tion 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. Finally he said :
" What do you want, man.?"
It was a little tough to be called plain "man," but I swallowed it. I made u:p 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 4
50 HOW PRIVATE GEOKGE W. PECK
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? " 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 luna tic, and telling the guards to tie me up by the thumbs, and buck and gag me. They led me away, and from their con versation 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 carry ing 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,
PUT DOWN THE KEBELLION. 51
and try to earn my thirteen dollars a month, but there must be a line drawn somewhere, and I drew it at trans porting 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 doctor's 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 for gave 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
52 HOW PRIVATE GEORGE W. PECK
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 chap lain.
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 ad viser 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
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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 com menced 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 some thing 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
54 HOW PKIVATE GEOBGE W. PECK
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 com pany 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!"
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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 set tled 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 chap lain 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 tne dust, and be carried off 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 out fit 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 detailed 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 or derly 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,
56 HOW PKIVATE GEOEGE W. PECK
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 chap lain came in and said the colored cook of one of the com panies 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, arid 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
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IP
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 walk ing in green gastures, 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 inter est those who may attend ? "
" 0, I don't know," said the orderly. " The deceased was a liar, a thief, and a drunkard. He would steal any thing that was not chained down. He would murder a man for a dollar. He was the worst nigger that ever was.
58 HOW PEIVATE GEORGE W. PECK
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 de ceased 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
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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.
60 HOW PKIVATE GEOIIGE W. PECK
CHAPTER V.
THE FUNERAL OP THE COLORED COOK — I PLEAD FOR A LARGER PROCESSION — THE FUNERAL ORATION — THE FUNERAL DIS TURBED — I AM ARRESTED — MY FORTUNATE ESCAPE.
The 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, foi 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 lolig-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
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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 " mumbletypeg," 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 congrega tion. 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 rest ing 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 hard tack. 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 inter esting remarks befitting the occasion, and I do not want to
62 HOW PKIVATE GEORGE W. PECK
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, ex cept 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
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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 off. He told several stories, better calculated for a gathering where bacchana lian 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?! 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 off 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
64 HOW PRIVATE GEORGE W. PECK
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. Finally 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 prac tice 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 remem ber at this late day, spoke about as follows:
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" 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 percep tible on the faces of 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 any body 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 fun eral.) 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 5
66 HOW PRIVATE GEORGE W. PECtf
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 staff 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 exam ining 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 con fusion. The niggers scattered towards town, the driver of the cart taking the lead, trying to catch the general and his staff, 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 pos sessed me at the grave, and tried to talk to the mule like a mule-driver, but the animal just fooled along, as though
t>UT DOWK THE REBELLION. 67
there was no especial hurry. Occasionally I could hear bullets ' zipping ' along by me, and the rebels were yelling for all that was out. 0, 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 con founded fast when after the enemy, and one not so alfired 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 far ther, I raised the large, flat, white- washed picket which I had torn off 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
68 SOW PEIf ATE GEORGE W. PECK:
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 com rades, "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
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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 off 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
70 HOW PEIVATE GEOEGE W. PECK
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
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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 /ie'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 re mark 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 responsi ble for his death. Anyway, I would never touch the con founded old pipe again, and if I ever heard of his mother or sister, after the war was over, I would stand by them as
72 HOW PRIVATE GEORGE W. PECK
long as I had a nickel. An ambulanee 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 strag gling 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."
' ' 0, 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."
(( 0, 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 re turned 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,'*
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CHAPTER VI.
I CAPTURE " JEFF" — I GET BACK AT THE CHAPLAIN — THE CHAP LAIN 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 down hearted 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 any body 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 occu pied 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
74 HOW PRIVATE GEORGE W. PECK
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 officer's horses, and break the officer's legs. The colonel said he had not thought of that contingency. He had en joyed 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,
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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 home sick, that was all that ailed him. The horse was a Con federate 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 off, or walk on me, as I sat under a tree, I got up and patted him on tlie 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,
76 HOW PEIVATE GEOKGE W. PECK
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 intelli gent 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 improve ments, and you needn't be afraid that I will disgrace you
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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 occasion ally, 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 shoulder-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
?8 HOW PRIVATE GEORGE W. PECK
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 sug gested 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 pic nic 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 exhib iting 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 Jeif 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 him self and mix up with the boys. There never was a chap lain 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
PUT DOWK THE REBELLION. ?9
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 honor ably, 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 provcst 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 chap lain. 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 sani tary stores, but it did not occur to marat 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
80 HOW PRIVATE GEOKGE W. PECK
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 un becoming an officer and a gentleman. He said charges were preferred against him for drunkenness and dis orderly conduct, horse-racing, playing billiards on horse back, riding his horse into a saloon and trying to jump him over the bar, jind lots of things too numerous to men tion. I felt sorry for him, and told him I had been fear ful all along that he would get into trouble by going away from me so much, and associating with the chaplains of
PUT BOWK THE REBELLION. 8l
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 reputa tion 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, talk ing 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 6 ,
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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 gal loped for about ten miles, and were ordered to halt, when I dismounted and led my horse up to the colonel, and
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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 tteal 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 magnificant 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 planta tion 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,
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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 loojk, tnen at the horse, rushed down the steps and threw her arms around the neck of the horse and sobbed in a despair ing manner:
"0, 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 beauti ful, proud woman, the son of this charming old lady. I had seen him brought in, dead, had seen him buried, and
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had thrown a bunch of roses in his grave. Now I was sur rounded 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 dread ful 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 try ing 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."
" 0, thank ^ou, sir," said the little mother, as a lovely smile chased a dimple all around her mouth, and corraled ft in her left cheek, while a pair of navy-blue eyes looked
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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.
"You are a darling good man," said the little girl, dancing on the gravel path. The mother blushed and said, (l 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 moon light 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 s*ome corn fodder and dreamed of nothing but blue-eyed mamma'? and golden- haired Maudie's and white-haired angel grandmothers,
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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 OP COAL — I NEARLY KILL AN OLD MAN.
When our foraging party got back to camp, and I un loaded the corn fodder from my horse, I was about as dis gusted 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
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expected to forage for him as well as myself, and not to let another soldier come into camp with a better assortment of the luxuries afforded by the country, than I did. He said that he picked me out as a man that. would fill the bill, and do his duty. I told him if he had selected me from all the men in the regiment as being the most expert sneak thief, he had made a mistake, and I would be teetotally d — d if I would go through the country stealing hens and chickens for any chaplain that ever lived, and he could put that in his pipe and smoke it. It was pretty sassy talk for a private soldier to indulge in towards a chaplain, but I was so dis gusted to hear a man who should discountenance anything unsoldierly, talk so flippantly about taking from the women and children of the country what little they had to live on, because we had the power, their men folks being away in the army, that I got on my ear, as it were. I told him that I was not much mashed on war, and hoped I would never have to fire a gun at a human being, but now that I was into the business, I would fight if I had to, or do any duty of a soldier, but I would be cussed if I would rob hen roosts, and he didn't weigh enough to compel me to. Then he said I could go back to my company, as he didn't want a man around him that hadn't sand enough to do his duty. I asked him if I hadn't better wait till after supper, it being after dark, but he said I could go right away, and he would have another man detailed to take my place. I was discharged, because I struck against stealing hens. I saddled my horse, took my share of the fodder, and started for my company to return to duty as a soldier. On the way to my company I saw a half a dozen soldiers, cov ered with mud, and their horses covered with foam, ride
"YOU ARE A DARLING GOOD MAN," SAID THE LITTLE GIRL Page 86.
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up to the colonel's tent, and I stopped to see what was the matter. A sergeant gave the colonel a dispatch, which he tore open, read it, looked excited, and then he turned to me and said, " Eide to every commanding officer of a com pany and say with my compliments, that ' Boots and Sad dles ' will be sounded in ten minutes, and every man must be in line, mounted, within five minutes after the call is sounded, then come back here." Well, I was about as ex cited as the colonel, and I rode to every captain's tent and gave the command. Some of the captains, who were just sitting down to supper, asked, " What you giving us," thinking it was some foolishness on my part. One captain said if I came around with any more such orders he would run a saber through me and turn it around a few times ; another said to his lieutenant, "That is the chaplain's idiot, that the boys play jokes on ; some corporal has prob ably told him to carry that message."
I got all around the companies, and went back to the colonel, and told him that I had delivered his invitation, but the most of the captains sent regrets in one way and another, and one was going to jab me with a saber. He called the bugler, and told him to blow "Boots and Sad dles," and in five minutes to sound, "To Horse;" then he turned to me and said, "You will be my orderly tonight, and you will have the liveliest ride you ever experienced. Buckle up your saddle girth and lead my horse out here." I told the colonel I should have to buckle up my own belt a few holes, as I hadn't had any supper, when he told his servant to bring me out what was left of his supper, which he did, one small hard tack. I eat pretty hearty, and let my horse fill himself all he could on corn stalks,
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and in a short time the bugle calls were echoing through the woods, men were saddling up and mounting, and pick ing up camp utensils in the dark, and swearing some at being ordered out in that unceremonious manner when they had got all ready to have a night's rest". There was not near as much swearing as I had supposed there would be, but there was enough. The chaplain came rushing up to where I was with his coat off, and asked me what was the matter, and the colonel having gone to the major's tent, I answered him that we were going to have the liveliest ride he eyer experienced, and not to forget it, and that probably before morning we would have the biggest fight of the season.
' ' Come and help me catch my horse," said the chaplain, " I turned him loose so he could roll over, and he has stampeded."
" Go catch your own horse," said I with lofty dignity, "and steal your own chickens. I am serving on the staff of the commanding officer, sir. I am the colonel's orderly ! "
I thought that would break the chaplain all up, but it didn't. "The devil you say," remarked the chaplain, as he went off in the darkness, whistling for his horse. Gen tle reader, did you ever ride on horseback fifty miles in one night, on an empty stomach, after having ridden thirty miles during the day? If you never have accomplished such a feat, you don't know anything about suffering. 0, to this day I can feel my stomach freeze itself to my back bone. We started soon after orders were given on a gallop, and if we walked our horses a minute during the whole night, I did not know it. We marched by "fours/' but I
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had the whole road to myself, as I rode behind the colonel. I wanted to know where we were going and what for, and once, when the colonel fell back to where I was, while he was taking a drink out of a canteen, I said, " This is a little sudden, ain't it?" My idea was to draw him out, and get him to tell me all about the destination of the expedition, and its object. The colonel got through drink ing, and as he knocked the cork into the canteen, he said, " Yes, this is a little spry." That was all he said, and evidently he wanted me to draw my own inference, which I did. Pretty soon the orderly sergeant of the company that was on the advance, directly behind the colonel, rode up to me and asked me if I had any idea where we were going. He said he had seen me talking with the colonel, and thought maybe he had told me the programme. He added that he thought it was a shame that men couldn't be allowed a little rest. I told him that I had just been talking with the colonel about it, but I had no authority to communicate what he said. However, I would assure the orderly that we were going to have the liveliest ride he ever experienced. I knew I was safe in saying that, and the orderly remarked that he had about come to that con clusion himself, and he left me. I had never expected to rise, on pure merit, to that proud position of colonel's orderly, and I made up my mind if that night's ride did not founder me, or drive my spine up into the top of my hat, or glue the two sides of my empty stomach together, so they would never come apart, that I would try to con duct myself so that the commanding officers would all cry for me and want me on their staffs. I argued, to myself, as we rode along, that the position of colonel's orderly
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could not be so very unsafe, as it did not stand to reason that a colonel would go into any place that was particularly dangerous, as long as he could send other officers. I knew that colonels in action should ride behind their regiments, and wondered if this colonel knew his place, or would he be fool enough to go right ahead of his men ? I was going to speak to him about it, if we ever stopped galloping long enough, but everything was jarred out of my head.
A fellow can think of a good many things, riding on a gallop all night, and I guess I thought of about everything that night. There were few interruptions of the march. There were about four stops, two being caused by horses falling down and being run over by those behind them, and two by carbines going off accidentally. One man was dismounted and run over by half the horses in the regi ment, and when he was pulled out from under the horses he asked for a chew of tobacco, and saying he was marked for life by horse shoes, he kicked his horse in the ribs for falling down, climbed on and said the procession might move on. He was all cut to pieces by horse's hoofs, but he was full of fight the next morning. Another soldier had his big toe shot off by the accidental discharge of a carbine, and when the regiment stopped, and the colonel asked him if he wanted to stop there and wait for an am bulance to overtake him, he said, " Not if there is going to be a fight. I don't use a big toe much, anyway, and if there is a fight ahead, I want to be there, if I haven't got a toe left on my feet." The colonel smiled and said, "all right, boy." I never saw fellows who were so anxious to fight, and I wondered how much money it would take to induce me to go into a fight when I was crippled up
DOWK THE HEBELLIOtf. 93
enough to be excused. Along toward morning everybody felt that we were so far into the enemy's lines that there must be some object in the long ride, and the probabilities of a fight seemed to be settled in every man's mind. Up hill and down we galloped, until it seemed to me I should fall off my horse and die. About half an hour before day light the command was halted, and the officers of each company were sent for, and they surrounded the colonel, separated from the men, and he said: "There is a town ahead, about four miles, garrisoned by confederate troops. We are to charge it at daylight, drive the enemy out the other side of town, kill as many as possible, and when they go out they will be attacked by another Union regiment that has been sent around to the rear. There is a railroad there, and a bridge across a river, Confederate stores of ammunition, provisions, cotton, etc. The stores are to be burned, the railroad bridge destroyed, the track torn up, engines, if there are any, are to be ditched, and everything destroyed except private residences. You understand?" The officers said they did, and they went back to their companies and ordered the men to get a bite to eat. When the officers had gone I was pretty scared, and I said, ff Colonel, suppose the rebels do not get out of that town." The colonel was chewing a hard-tack when he answered. Daylight was just streaking up from the East, and he held a piece of the hard-tack up to the light to pick a worm out of it, after which he answered: "If they don't get out, we will, those of us who are not killed. I always like to eat hard-tack in the dark, then I can't see the worms." To say that I was reassured would be untrue. I admired a man who could mingle business with pleasure, as he did
§4 SOW JPRIVATi: GEOKGE W. PECK
when talking of possible death and worms in hard-tack, but death was never an interesting subject to me. I wanted to talk with the colonel more, and asked him if colonels often get killed, and if an orderly was exactly safe in his immediate vicinity, but he leaned against a tree and went to sleep, and I stood near, as wide awake as any man ever was. I wondered whose idea it was to send us fifty miles into the Confederacy to destroy provisions and rail* roads. Did they suppose the Confederates didn't want anything to eat. I thought it was a mean man or govern ment that would burn up good wholesome provisions be cause they couldn't eat them themselves. And who owned this railroad that was going to be torn up? Why burn a bridge that probably cost several hundred thousand dollars. As I was thinking these things over and finding fault with the persons responsible for such foolishness, the chaplain, who had not showed up during the night, came up to where I was, without any hat, leading his horse, which was lame. The first thing he asked me how I would trade horses. They all wanted my Jeff, but he was not in the market. The chaplain said he had caught up with the regiment about midnight, and had rode at the rear, with the horse- doctor. He said this expedition was foolish, and had no object except to try the endurance of the horses and men. I told him that we were going to have a fight in less than an hour, and burn a town, and probably we would all be killed. The chaplain turned pale and looked faint.
I had read about hell, and seen pictures of it, from the imagination of some eminent artist, but the hell I had read of, and seen pictured, was not a marker to the experi ence of the next three hours. In a few minutes the colonel
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Woke up, and the regiment mounted and moved on. An ad vance guard was put further out than before, with orders to charge the rebel picket almost into town, and then hold up for the rest of us. As we neared the town it was just light enough to see. The advance captured the picket post without a shot being fired, and moved right into town, followed by the regiment, and we actually rode right into the camp of the boys in gray, and woke them up by firing. They scattered, coatless and shoeless, firing as they ran, and in five minutes they were all captured, killed, gone out of town, or were in hiding in the buildings. Then began the conflagration. Immense buildings, filled with goods, or bales of cotton, were fired, and soon the black smoke and falling walls made a scene that was enough to set a recruit crazy. A train came in just as the fire was at its greatest, and a squad of men was sent to burn it, and the colonel told me to go and capture the engineer and bring him to the headquarters. I rode up as near to the engine as my horse would go and told the engineer I wanted him. He turned a cock somewhere, and a jet of steam came out towards me that fairly blinded me and the horse, and I couldn't see the engine any more. My horse turned tail, the engineer threw a lump of coal and hit me on the head, and I went away and told the colonel the engineer wouldn't come, and beside had scalded me with steam, and hit me with a lump of coal. The colonel said the engineer could be arrested for such conduct. Pretty soon the train was on fire, and one of our boys clubbed the engineer, got on the engine and run it on to a side track and ditched it, and brought the engineer up to headquar ters, where I had quite a talk with him about squirting
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steam and throwing lumps of coal at peaceable persons. Then the railroad bridge was set on fire, and it looked cruel to see the timbers licked up by flames, but when the burning trestle fell into the river below, it was a grand, an awful sight. I came out of the fight alive, but with a lump on my head as big as a hen's egg, so big I couldn't wear my hat, and a firm determination to whip that engineer who threw the lump of coal when I could catch him alone. We cooked a late breakfast on the embers of the ruins, and after eating, I noticed a sign, " Printing Office," in front of a residence just outside the burnt district, and asked permission to go there and print a paper, with an account of the fight, and the destruction of the town. Permission was granted, and I went to the office and found an old man and two daughters, beautiful girls, but in tensely bitter rebels. The old man was near eighty years old, and he said he could whip any dozen yankees. I told him I would like to use his type and press, but he said if I touched a thing I did it at- my peril, as he should consider the type contaminated by the touch of a yankee. The girls felt the same way, but I talked nice to them, and they didn't kick much when I took a "stick" and began to set type. I worked till dinner time, when they asked me to take dinner with them, which I did. During the conver sation I convinced them that I was practically a non-com batant, and wouldn't hurt anybody for the world. I worked till about the middle of the afternoon, when I noticed that the girls, who had been up on the house, looked tickled about something, and presently I heard some firing at the edge of the town, some yelling, more firing, bugle calls among our soldiers, and finally there was an
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absence of blue coats, and I looked for my horse, and found the old man leading him away. I halted the old man, and he stopped and told me that the Confederates had come into town from the East and driven our cavalry out on the other side, and I would be a prisoner in about five minutes, and he laughed, and the girls clapped their hands, and I felt as though my time had come. I had never killed an old man in my life, but I made up my mind to have my horse or kill him in his tracks, so I drew my revolver and told him to let go the horse or he was a dead man. It was a questionn with me whether I could hold my hand still enough to kill him, if he didn't let go the horse, and I hoped to heaven he would drop the bridle. He looked so much like my father at home that it seemed like killing a near relative, and when I looked at the two beautiful daughters on the gallery, looking at us, pale as death, I almost felt as though it would be better to lose the horse and be captured, then to put a bullet through the gray head of that beautiful old man. How I wished that he was a young fellow, and had a gun, and had it pointed at me. Then I could kill him and feel as though it was self- defense. But the rebels were yelling and firing over the hill, and my regiment was going the other way on import ant business, and it was a question with me whether I should kill the old man, and see his life-blood ebb out there in front of his children, or be captured, and perhaps shot for burning buildings. I decided that it was my duty to murder him, and get my horse. So I rested my revolver across my left forearm, and took deliberate aim at his left eye, a beautiful, large, expressive gray eye, so much like my father's at home that I almost imagined I was about to
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kill the father who loved me. I heard a scream on the gal lery, and the blonde girl fainted in the arms of her brunette sister. The sister said to me, " Please don't kill my father." He was not ten feet from me, and I said, "Drop the horse or you die." The old man trembled, the girl said, "Pa, give the man his horse," the old man dropped the bridle and walked towards the house. I mounted the horse and rode off towards the direction my regiment had taken, thanking heaven that the girl had spoken just in time, and that I had not been compelled to put a bullet through that noble-looking gray head. The face haunted me all the way, as I rode along to catch my regiment, and when I overtook it, and rode up to the colonel, and asked him what in thunder he wanted to go off and leave me to fight the whole southern Confederacy for, he said, "0, get out! There were no rebels there. That was the Indiana regiment that started out day before yes terday, to get on the other side of the town. The fellows were shooting some cattle for food. What makes you look- so pale? " I was thinking of whether a man ever prospered who killed old people.
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CHAPTER VIII.
THREE DAYS WITHOUT Food! — THE VALUE OF HARDTACK — A SILVER WATCH FOR A PINT OF MEAL — I STEAL CORN FROM A HUNGRY MULE— THE DELIRIUM OF HUNGER— I DINE ON MULE— I CAPTURE A REBEL RAM.
After overtaking my regiment, and enjoying a feeling of safety which I did not feel in the presence of that vio lent old man who laid savage hands on my horse, and the girls, I began to reflect. Of course the old man was not armed, and I was, but how did I know but those Confed erate girls had revolvers concealed about their persons, and might have killed me. To feel that I was once more safe with my regiment, where there was no danger as long as they did not get into a fight, was bliss indeed, and I rode along in silence, wondering when the cruel war would be over, and what all this riding around the country, burning buildings and tearing up railroad tracks amounted to, any way. I didn't enlist as a section hand, nor a railroad wrecker, and there was nothing in my enlistment papers that said anything about my being compelled to commit arson. The recruit-officer who, by his gilded picture of the beauties of a soldier's life, induced me to enlist as a soldier, never mentioned anything that would lead me to believe that one of my duties would be to touch a match to another man's bales of cotton, or ditch a locomotive belonging to parties who never did me any harm, and who had a right to expect dividends from their railroad stock. If I had the money, that was represented in the stuff destroyed by our
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troops that day, I could run a daily newspaper for years, if it didn't have a subscriber or a patent medicine advertise ment. And who was benefitted by such wanton destruction of property. As we rode along I told the colonel I thought it was a confounded shame to do as we had done, and that such a use of power, because we had the power, was un worthy of American soldiers. He said it was a soldier's duty to obey orders and not talk back, and if he heard any more moralizing on my part he would send me back to my company, where I would have to do duty like the rest. I told him I was one of the talking backest fellows he ever saw, and that one of my duties as a newspaper man was to criti cise the conduct of the war. Then he said I might report to the captain of my company. It seemed hard to go into the ranks, after having had a soft job with the chaplain, and again as colonel's orderly, but I thought if I got my back up and showed the captain that I was no ordinary soldier, but one who was qualified for any position, that maybe he would be afraid to monkey too much with me. I knew the captain would be a candidate for some office when the war was over, and if he knew I was on to him, and that I should very likely publish a paper that could warm him up quite lively, he would see to it that I wasn't compelled to do very hard work. So I rode back to my company and told the captain that the colonel and the chaplain had got through with me, and I had come back to stay, and would be glad to do any light work he might have for me. The captain heaved a sigh, as though he was not particularly tickled to have me back, and told me to fall in, in the rear of the company. I asked if I couldn't ride at the head of the company. He said no, there was more room at the
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rear. I tried to tell him that I was accustomed to riding at the head of the regiment, but he told me to shut up my mouth and get back there, and I got back, and fell in at the tail end of the company, with the cook and an officer's servant, and the orderly sergeant came back and wanted to know if the company had got to have me around again. Here was promotion with a vengeance. From the proud pinnacle from which I had soared, as chaplain's clerk, and colonel's orderly, I had dropped with one fell swoop to the rear end of my company, and nobody wanted me, because I had kicked against stealing hens in one instance, and burn ing buildings and tearing up railroads in the other. "We rode all day, and at night laid down in the woods and slept, after eating the last of our rations. I slept beside a log, and before going to sleep and after waking, I swore by the great horn spoons I would not steal anything more while I was in the army, nor do any damage to property. In the morning the soldiers had scarcely a mouthful to eat, and an order was read to each company that for three or four days it would be necessary to live off the country, foraging for what we had to eat. I asked the captain what we would do for something to eat if we didn't find anything in the country to gobble up. He said we would starve. That was an encouraging prospect for a man who had taken a solemn oath not to steal any more. I told the captain I did not intend to steal any more, as I did not think it right. Then he said I better begin to eat the halter off my horse, because leather would be the only thing I would have to stay my stomach. The first day I did not eat a mouthful, except half of a hard-tack that I had a quarrel with my horse to get. In throwing the saddle on my
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horse, one solitary hard-tack that was in the saddle-bag, fell out upon the ground, and the horse picked it up. I did not know the hard-tack was in the saddle, and when it fell upon the ground I was as astonished as I would have been had a clap of thunder come from the clear sky, and when the horse went for it, my stomach rebelled and I grabbed one side of the hard-tack while the horse held the other side in his teeth. Something had to give, and as the horse's teeth nor my hands would give, the hard-tack had to, and I saved half of it, and placed it in the inside pocket of my vest, as choice as though it were a thousand dollar bill.
I have listened to music, in my time, that has been pretty bad, and which has sent cold chills up my back, and caused me pain, but I never heard any bad music that seemed to grate on my nerves as did the noise my horse made in chewing the half of my last hard-tack, and the look of triumph the animal gave me was adding insult to injury. Several times during the day I took that piece of hard-tack from my pocket carefully, wiped it on my coat-sleeve, and took a small bite, and the horse would look around at me wickedly, as though he would like to divide it with me again. People talk about guarding riches carefully, and of placing diamonds in a safe place, but no riches were ever guarded as securely as was that piece of hard-tack, and riches never took to themselves wings and flew, regretted more than did my last hard-tack. Each bite made it smaller, and finally, the last bite was taken, with a sigh, and nothing remained for me to eat but the halter. Some of the boys went out foraging, and were moderately successful, while others did not get a thing
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to eat. The country was pine woods, with few settlers, and those that lived there were so poor that it seemed murder to take what they had. One of the men of our company came back with about two quarts of corn meal, that night, and I traded him a silver watch for about a pint of it. I mixed it up in some water, and after the most of the men had fallen asleep, I made two pancakes of the wet meal, and put them in the ashes of the camp- fire to bake, but fell asleep before it was done, and when I woke up and reached into the ashes for the first pancake, it was gone. Some Union soldier, whom it were base flattery to call a thief, had watched me, and stole my riches as I slept, robbed me of all I held dear in life. With trembling hands I raked the ashes for my other pancake, hopelessly, because I thought that, too, was gone, but to my surprise I found it. The villain who had pursued me as I slept, had failed to discover the second pancake, and I was safe, and my life was saved. I have seen a play in a theater in which a miser hides his gold, first in one place, then in another, looking to the right and to the left to see if any body was watching him. I was the same kind of a miser about my pancake. If I hid it in the woods I might fail to find the place, in the morning, where I had hid it, and besides, some soldier that was peacefully snoring near me, apparently, might have one eye on me, and commit burg lary. If I put it in my pocket, and went to sleep, I might have my pocket picked, so I concluded to remain awake and hold it in my hands. There appeared to be nothing between me and death by starvation, except that cornmeal pancake, and I sat there for an hour, beside the dying embers of the camp-fire, trying to make up my mind
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who stole my other pancake, and what punishment should be meted out to him if I ever found him out. I would follow him to my dying day. I suspected the captain, the colonel, the chaplain, and six hundred soldiers, any one of whom was none too good to steal a man's last pancake if he was hungry. To this day I have never found out who stole my pancake, but I have not given up the search, and if I live to be as old as Methuselah, and I find out the fel low that put himself outside my pancake that dark night in the pine woods, I will gallop all over that old soldier, if he is older than I am. That is the kind of avenger that is on the track of that pancake-eater. I sat there and nodded over my remaining pancake, clutched in my hands, and finally started to my feet in alarm. Suppose I should fall asleep, and be robbed? The thought was maddening. I have read of Indians who Would eat enough at one sitting to last them several days, and the thought occurred to me that if I ate the pancake my enemies could not get it away from me, and perhaps it would digest gradually, a little each day, and brace me up until we got where there were rations plenty. So I sat there and deliberately eat every mouthful of it, and looked around at the sleeping compan ions with triumph, laid down and slept as peacefully on the ground as I ever slept in bed.
There may be truth in the story about Indians eating enough to last them a week, but it did not work in my case, for in the morning I was hungry as a she wolf. The pancake had gone to work and digested itself right at once, as though there was no end of food, and my stomach yearned for something. I walked down by the quarter master's wagons, about daylight, and there was a four
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mule team, each with a nose bag on, with corn in it. The mules were eating corn, unconscious of a robber being near At home, where I had lived on good fresh meat, bread, pie, everything that was good, nobody could have made me believe that I would steal corn from a government mule, but when I heard the mules eating that corn a demon possessed me, and I meditated robbery. I did not want to take all the corn I wanted from one mule, so I decided to take toll from all of them. I went up to the first one, and reached my hand down into the nose bag beside the mule's mouth and rescued a handful of corn, then went to another to do the same, but that mule kicked at the scheme. I went to two others, and they laid their ears back and began to kick at the trace chains, so I went back to my first love, the patient mule, and took every last kernel of corn in the bag, and as I went away with a pocket full of corn the mule looked at me with tears in its eyes, but I couldn't be moved by no mule tears, with hun ger gnawing at my vitals, so I hurried away like a guilty thing. While I was parching the corn stolen from the mule, in a half of a tin canteen, over the fire, the chaplain came along and wanted to sample it. He was pretty hungry, but I wasn't running a free boarding house for chaplains any more, and I told him he must go forage for himself. He said he would give his birthright for a pocket full of corn. I told him I didn't want any birth right, unless a birthright would stay a man's stomach, but if he would promise to always love, honor and obey me, I would tell him where he could get some corn. He swore by the great bald headed Elijah that if I would steer him onto some corn he would remember me the longest day he
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lived, and pray for me. I never was very much mashed on the chaplain's influence at the throne, but I didn't want to see him starve, while government mules were living on the fat of the land, so I told him to go down to the quar termaster's corral and rob the mules as I had done. He bit like a bass, and started for the mules. Honestly, I had no designs on the chaplain, but he traded me a kicking mule once, and got a good horse of me, because I thought he wanted to do me a favor. As he was familiar with mules, I supposed he would know how to steal a little corn. Pretty soon I heard a great commotion down there, and presently the chaplain came out with a mule chasing him, its ears laid back, and blood in its eyes. The chap lain was white as a sheet, and yelling for help. Before I could knock the mule down with a neckyoke, the animal had grabbed the chaplain by the coat tail, with its mouth, taking some of his pants, also, and perhaps a little skin, raised him up into the air, about seven feet, let go of him, and tried to turn around and kick the good man on the fly as he came down. We drove the mule away, rescued the chaplain, tied his pants together with a piece of string, cut off the tail of his coat which the mule had not torn off, so it was the same length as the other one, and made him look quite presentable, though he said he knew he could never ride a horse again. It seems that instead of reaching into the nose bag, and taking a little corn, he had unbuckled the nose bag and taken it off. I told him he was a hog, and ought to have known better than take the nose bag off, thus leaving the mule's mouth unmuz zled, while the animal was irritated. He accused me of knowing that the mule was vicious, and deliberately send-
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ing him there to be killed, so rather than have any hard feelings I gave him a handful of my parched corn.
A few Sundays afterwards I heard him preach a sermon on the sin of covetousness, and I thought how beautifully he could have illustrated his sermon if he had turned around and showed his soldier audience where the mule eat his coat tail. Soon we saddled up and marched another day without food. Reader, were you ever so hungry that you could see, as plain as though it was before you, a din ner-table set with a full meal, roast beef, mashed potatoes, pie, all steaming hot, ready to sit down to? If you have not been very hungry in your life, you can not believe that one can be in a condition to " see things." The man with delirium tremens can see snakes, while the hungry man, in his delirium, can see things he would like to eat. Many times during that day's ride through the deserted pine- woods, with my eyes wide open, I could see no trees, no ground, no horses and men around me, but there seemed a film over the eyes, and through it I could see all of the good things I ever had eaten. One moment there would be a steaming roast turkey, on a platter, ready to be carved. Again I could see a kettle over a cook-stove, with a pigeon pot-pie cooking, the dumplings, light as a feather, bobbing up and down with the steam, and I could actually smell the odor of the cooking pot-pie. It seems strange, and unbelievable to those who have never experienced extreme hunger or thirst, that the imagination can picture eatables and streams of running water, so plain that one will almost reach for the eatables, or rush for the imaginary stream, to plunge in and quench thirst, but I have experi enced both of those sensations for thirteen dollars a
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month, and nary a pension yet. It is such experiences that bring gray hairs to the temples of young soldiers, and cause eyes to become hollow and sunken in the head. To day, your Uncle Samuel has not got silver dollars enough in his treasury to hire me to suffer one day of such hunger as to make me see things that were not there, but twenty- two years ago it was easy to have fun over it, and to laugh it off the next day. When we stopped that day, at noon, to rest, the company commissary sergeant came up to the company, with two men carrying the hind quarter of an animal that had been slaughtered, and he began to cut it up and issue it out to the men. It was peculiar looking meat, but it was meat, and every fellow took his ration, and it was not long before the smell of broiled fresh meat could be " heard " all around. When I took my meat I asked the sergeant what it was, and where he got it. I shall always remember his answer. It was this :
" Young man, when you are starving, and the means of sustaining life are given you, take your rations and go away, and don't ask any fool questions. If you don't want it, leave it."
Leave it? Egad, I would have eaten it if it had been a Newfoundland dog, and I took it, and cooked it, and ate it. I do not know, and never did, what it was, but when the quartermaster's mule teams pulled out after dinner, there were two (l spike teams;" — that is, two wheel mules and a single leader, instead of four-mule teams. After I saw the teams move out, each mule looking mournful, as though each one thought his time might come next, I didn't want to ask any questions about that meat, though I know there wasn't a " beef critter" within fifty miles of us. I
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have had my children ask me, many times, if I ever eat any mule in the army, and I have always said that I did not know. And I don't. But I am a great hand to mis trust.
It was on this hungry day, when filled with meat such as I had never met before that I did a thing I shall always regret. The captain came down to the rear of the com pany and said, so we could all hear it. "I want two men to volunteer for a perilous mission. I want two as brave men as ever lived. "Who will volunteer ? Don't all speak at once. Take plenty of time, for your lives may pay the penalty ! " I had been feeling for some days as though there was not the utmost confidence in my bravery, among the men, and I had been studying as to whether I would desert, and become a wanderer on the face of the earth, or do some desperate deed that would make me solid with the boys, and when the captain called for volunteers, I swal lowed a large lump in my throat, and said, "Captain, here's your mule. I will go ! " Whether it was that con founded meat I had eaten that had put a seeming bravery into me, or desperation at the hunger of the past few days, I do not know, but I volunteered for a perilous mission. A little Irishman named McCarty spoke up, and said, " Captain, I will go anywhere that red headed recruit will go."
So it was settled that McCarty and myself should go, and with some misgivings on my part we rode up to the front and reported. I thought what a fool I was to volunteer, when I was liable to be killed, but I was in for it, and there was no use squealing now. We came to a cross road, and the captain whispered to us that we should camp there, and
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that he had been told by a reliable contraband that up the cross road about two miles was a house at which there was a sheep, and he wanted us to go and take it. He said there might be rebels anywhere, and we were liable to be ambushed and killed, but we must never come back alive without sheep meat. Well, we started off. McOarty said I better ride a little in advance so if we were ambushed, I would be killed first, and he would rush back and inform the captain. I tried to argue with McCarty that I being a recruit, and he a veteran, it would look better for him to lead, but he said I volunteered first, and he would waive his rights of precedence, and ride behind me. So we rode along, and I reflected on my changed condition. A few short weeks ago I was a respected editor of a country news paper in Wisconsin, looked up to, to a certain extent, by my neighbors, and now I had become a sheep thief. At home the occupation of stealing sheep was considered pretty low down, and no man who followed the business was countenanced by the best society. A sheep thief, or one who was suspected of having a fondness for mutton not be longing to him, was talked about. And for thirteen dollars a month, and an insignificant bounty, I had become a sheep thief. If I ever run another newspaper, after the war, how did I know but a vile contemporary across the street would charge me with being a sheep thief, and prove it by McCarty. May be this was a conspiracy on the part of the captain, whom I suspected of a desire to run for office when we got home, to get me in his power, so that if I went for him in my paper, he could charge me with stealing sheep. It worked me up considerable, but we were out of meat, and if there was a sheep in the vicinity,
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and I got it, there was one thing sure, they couldn't get any more mule down me. So we rode up to the plantation, which was apparently deserted. There was a lamb about two-thirds grown, in the front yard, and McCarty and my self dismounted and proceeded to surround the young sheep. As we walked up to it, the lamb came up to me bleating, licked my hand, and then I noticed there was a little sleigh-bell tied to its neck with a blue ribbon. The lamb looked up at us with almost human eyes, and I was going to suggest that we let it alone, when McCarty grabbed it by the hind legs and was going to strap it to his saddle, when it set up a bleating, and a little boy come rushing out of the house, a bright little fellow about three years old, who could hardly talk plain. I wanted to hug him, he looked so much like a little black-eyed baby at home, that was too awfully small to say "good bye, papa" when I left. The little fellow, with the dignity of an emperor, said, "Here, sir, you must not hurt my little pet lamb. Put him down, sir, or I will call the servants and have you put off the premises." McCarty laughed, and said the lamb would be fine "atin' for the boy's," and was pulling the little thing up, when the tears came into the boy's eyes, and that settled it. I said, " Mac, for heaven's sake, drop that lamb. I wouldn't break that little boy's heart for all the sheep-meat on earth. I will eat mule, or dog, but I draw the line at children's household pets. Let the lamb go." " Begorra, yer right," said McCarty, as he let the lamb down. "Luk at how the shep runs to the little bye. Ah, me little mon, yer pet shall not be taken away from yez," and a big tear ran down McCarty's face. The little boy said there was a great big sheep in the
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back yard we could have, if we were hungry, and we went around the house to see. There was an old black ram that looked as though he could whip a regiment of soldiers, but we decided that he was our meat. McCarty suggested that I throw a lariet rope around his horns, and lead him, while he would go behind and drive the animal. That looked feasible, and taking a horse-hair picket rope off my saddle, with a slip noose in the end, I tossed it over the horns of the ram, tied the rope to the saddle, and started. The ram went along all right till we got out to the road, when he held back a little. Mac jabbed the ram in the rear with his saber, and he came along all right, only a little too sudden. That was one of the mistakes of the war, Mac's pricking that ram, and it has been the source of much study on my part, for twenty-two years, as to whether the Irishman did it on purpose, knowing the ram would charge on my horse, and butt my steed in the hind legs. If that was the plan of the Irishman, it worked well, for the first thing I knew my horse jumped about eighteen feet, and started down the road towards camp, on a run, dragging the ram, which was bellowing for all that was out. I tried to hold the horse in a little, but every time he slackened up the ram would gather himself and run his head full tilt against the horse, and away he would go again. Sometimes the ram was flying through the air, at the end of the rope, then it would be dragged in the sand, and again it would strike on its feet, and all the time the ram was blatting, and the confounded Irishman was yelling and laughing. We went into the camp that way, and the whole regiment, hearing the noise, turned out to see us come in. As my horse stopped, and the ram was
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caught by a colored man, who tied its legs, I realized the ridiculousness of the scene, and would have gone off some where alone and hated myself, or killed the Irishman, but just then I saw the captain, and I said, " Captain, I have to report that the perilous expedition was a success. There's your sheep," and I rode away, resolved that that was the last time I should ever volunteer for perilous duty. The Irishman was telling a crowd of boys the particulars, and they were having a great laugh, when I said :
" McCarty, you are a villain. I believe you set that ram on to me on purpose. Henceforth we are strangers."
"Be gob," said the Irishman, as he held his sides with laughter, " yez towld me to drive the shape, and didn't I obey?"
lli HOW PRIVATE GEORGE W. PEC&
CHAPTER IX.
BACON AND HARD-TACK — IN DANGER OF AGUE — IN SEARCH OF WHISKY AND QUININE — I AM APPOINTED CORPORAL — I MAKE A SPEECH — I AM THE LEADER OF TEN PICKED MEN — I AM WILLING TO RESIGN.
The next day we arrived at a post where rations were plenty, and where it was announced we should remain for a week or two, so we drew tents and made ourselves as comfortable as possible. It did seem good to again be where we did not have to depend on our own resources, of stealing, for what we wanted to eat. To be able to draw from the commissary regular rations of meat, tea, coffee, sugar, baker's bread, and beans, was joy indeed, after what we had gone 'through, and we almost made hogs of our selves. There was one thing — those few days of starvation taught us a lesson, and that was, when ordered on a trip with two days' rations, to take at least enough for six days, especially of coffee and salt pork or bacon. With coffee and a piece of old smoked bacon, a man can exist a long time. I remember after that trip, wherever I went, there was a chunk of bacon in one of my saddle-bags that nobody knew anything about, and many a time, on long marches, when hunger would have been experienced almost as severe as the time written about last week, I would take out my chunk of bacon, cut off a piece and spread it on a hard-tack, and eat a meal that was more strengthening than any meal Delmonico ever spread. It was at this post that the boys in the regiment played a
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trick that caused much fun throughout all the army. There were a few men in each company who had the chills and fever, or ague, and the surgeon gave them each morn ing, a dose of whisky and quinine. It was interesting to see a dozen soldiers go to surgeon's call, take their " bitters," and return to their quarters. The boys would go to the surgeon's tent sort of languid, and drag along, and after swallowing a good swig of whisky and quinine they would walk back to their quarters swinging their arms like Pat Rooney on the stage, and act as though they could whip their weight in wild cats. I got acquainted with the hos pital steward, and he said if the boys were not careful they would all be down with the ague, and that an ounce of prevention was worth more than a pound of cure. I thought I would take advantage of his advice, so I fell in with the sick fellows the next morning, and when the doc tor asked, "What's the matter?" I said "chills," and he said, "Take a swallow out of the red bottle." I took a swallow, and it was bitter, but it had whisky in it, more than quinine, and the idea of beating the government out of a drink of whisky was pleasure enough to overcome the bitter taste. I took a big swallow, and before I got back to my quarters I had had a fight with a mule-driver, and when the quartermaster interfered I had insulted him by telling him I knew him when he carried a hod, before the war, and I shouted, "Mort, more mort!" until he was going to lather me with a mule whip, but he couldn't catch me. As I run by the surgeon's tent, somebody re marked that I had experienced a remarkably sudden cure for chills. The whisky was not real good, but as I had heard the hospital steward say they had just 'put in a
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requisition for two barrels of it, to be prepared for ail epidemic of chills, I thought the boys ought to know it, so that day I went around to the different companies and told the boys how to play it for a drink. There are very few soldiers, in the best regiment, that will not take a drink of whisky when far away from home, discouraged, and worn out by marching, and our fellows looked favor ably upon the proposition to all turn out to surgeon's call the next morning. I shall never forget the look on the face of the good old surgeon, as the boys formed in line in front of his tent the next morning. The last time I saw him, he was in his coffin, about five years ago, at the soldier's home, and a few of the survivors of the regiment that lived here had gone out to the home to take a last look at him, and act as mourners at the funeral. He looked much older than when he used to ask us fellows the conumdrum, " What's the matter?" but there was that same look on his white, cold face that there was the morn ing that nearly the whole regiment reported for " bitters." There must have been four hundred men in line, and it happened that I was the first to be called. When he asked me about my condition, and I told him of the chills, he studied a