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Si Klegg, by John Mcelroy.
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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Si Klegg, Book 1 (of 6), by John McElroy
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: Si Klegg, Book 1 (of 6)
His Transformation From A Raw Recruit To A Veteran
Author: John McElroy
Release Date: March 25, 2010 [EBook #31771]
Last Updated: October 31, 2012
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SI KLEGG, BOOK 1 (OF 6) ***
Produced by David Widger
</pre>
<p>
<br /><br />
</p>
<h1>
SI KLEGG
</h1>
<h2>
His Transformation From a Raw Recruit To A Veteran.
</h2>
<p>
<br /><br />
</p>
<h2>
By John McElroy.
</h2>
<p>
<br /><br /> <a name="linkimage-0002" id="linkimage-0002">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/frontispiece.jpg" alt="Frontispiece " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0001" id="linkimage-0001">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/titlepage.jpg" alt="Title Page" width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
<br />
</p>
<h3>
PUBLISHED BY <br /><br /> THE NATIONAL TRIBUNE CO., <br /><br /> WASHINGTON,
D. C
</h3>
<h4>
SECOND EDITION <br /><br /><br /> COPYRIGHT 1910
</h4>
<p>
<br /> <br />
</p>
<hr />
<p>
<br /> <br />
</p>
<h2>
THE SIX VOLUMES
</h2>
<table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto" cellpadding="4" border="3">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31771/31771-h/31771-h.htm"><b> SI
KLEGG, Book I, Transformation From a Raw Recruit </b></a>
</td>
<td>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31772/31772-h/31772-h.htm"><b> SI
KLEGG, Book II, Through the Stone River Campaign </b></a>
</td>
<td>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31773/31773-h/31773-h.htm"><b> SI
KLEGG, Book III, Meets Mr. Rosenbaum, the Spy </b></a>
</td>
<td>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31774/31774-h/31774-h.htm"><b> SI
KLEGG, Book IV, On The Great Tullahoma Campaign </b></a>
</td>
<td>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31775/31775-h/31775-h.htm"><b> SI
KLEGG, Book V, Deacon's Adventures At Chattanooga </b></a>
</td>
<td>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31776/31776-h/31776-h.htm"><b> SI
KLEGG, Book VI, Enter On The Atlanta Campaign </b></a>
</td>
<td>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>
<br /> <br /> <br />
</p>
<hr />
<p>
<br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_PREF" id="link2H_PREF">
<!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
</p>
<h2>
PREFACE.
</h2>
<p>
"Si Klegg, of the 200th Ind., and Shorty, his Partner," were born more
than 25 years ago in the brain of John McElroy, editor of The National
Tribune, who invented the names and characters, outlined the general plan,
and wrote a number of the chapters. Subsequently, the editor, having many
other important things pressing upon his attention, called in an assistant
to help on the work, and this assistant, under the direction and guidance
of the editor, wrote some of these chapters. Subsequently, without the
editor's knowledge or consent, the assistant adopted all the material as
his own, and expanded it into a book which had a limited sale and then
passed into the usual oblivion of shortlived subscription books.
</p>
<p>
The sketches in this first number are the original ones published in The
National Tribune in 1885-6, revised and enlarged somewhat by the editor.
</p>
<p>
Those in the second and all following numbers appeared in The National
Tribune when the editor, John McElroy, resumed the story in 1897, 12 years
after the first publication, and continued it for the unprecedented period
of seven years, with constantly growing interest and popularity. They gave
"Si Klegg" a nation-wide and enduring celebrity. Gen. Lew Wallace, the
foremost literary man of his day, pronounced "Si Klegg" the "great idyll
of the war."
</p>
<p>
How true they are to nature every veteran can abundantly testify from his
own service. Really, only the name of the regiment was invented. There is
no doubt that there were several men of the name of Josiah Klegg in the
Union Army, and who did valiant service for the Government. They had
experiences akin to, if not identical with, those narrated here, and
substantially every man who faithfully and bravely carried a musket in
defense of the best Government on earth had sometimes, if not often,
experiences of with those of Si Klegg, Shorty and the boys are strong
reminders.
</p>
<p>
Many of the illustrations in this first number are by the late Geo. Y.
Coffin, deceased, a talented artist, whose work embellished The National
Tribune for many years. He was the artist of The National Tribune until
his lamented and premature death, and all his military work was done by
daily consultation, instruction and direction of the editor of The
National Tribune.
</p>
<p>
THE NATIONAL TRIBUNE. <br /> <br />
</p>
<hr />
<p>
<br /> <br />
</p>
<blockquote>
<p class="toc">
<big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
</p>
<p>
<br /> <a href="#link2H_PREF"> PREFACE. </a><br /><br /> <a
href="#link2H_4_0004"> <b>SI KLEGG</b> </a><br /><br /><br /> <a
href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I. </a>GOING TO WAR—SI KLEGG'S
COMPLETE EQUIPMENT <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II. </a>THE
DEADLY BAYONET <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III. </a>THE
OLD CANTEEN <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV. </a>THE
AWFUL HARDTACK <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V. </a>FAT
PORK—INDISPENSABLE BODY TIMBER FOR PATRIOTISM <br /><br /> <a
href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI. </a>DETAILED AS COOK—SI FINDS
RICE ANOTHER INNOCENT <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII.
</a>IN THE AWKWARD SQUAD <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER
VIII. </a>ON COMPANY DRILL <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER
IX. </a>SI GETS A LETTER <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X.
</a>SI AND THE DOCTORS <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI.
</a>THE PLAGUE OF THE SOLDIER <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0012">
CHAPTER XII. </a>A WET NIGHT <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER
XIII. </a>SI "STRAGGLED" <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER
XIV. </a>SI AND THE MULES <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER
XV. </a>UNDER FIRE—SI HAS A FIGHT, CAPTURES A PRISONER <br /><br />
<a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI. </a>ONE OF THE "NON-COMMISH" <br /><br />
<a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII. </a>FORAGING ON THE WAY <br /><br />
<a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII. </a>A SUNDAY OFF
<br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX. </a>A CLOSE CALL <br /><br />
<a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX. </a>"THE SWEET SABBATH" <br /><br />
<a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI. </a>SI AND SHORTY WERE RAPIDLY
LEARNING <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII. </a>A NIGHT
OF SONG <br /><br /> <br /> <br />
</p>
<hr />
<p>
<br /> <br />
</p>
<p class="toc">
<big><b>ILLUSTRATIONS</b></big>
</p>
<p>
<br />
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0001"> Title Page </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0002"> Frontispiece </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0003"> Si Decides to Enlist </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0004"> Off to the War </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0005"> As Si Looked when he Landed at Louisville
</a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0006"> Si's Load Begins to Get Heavy </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0007"> Si's Chum, "shorty" Elliott </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0008"> The Diverse Uses of the Good Old Canteen </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0009"> What the Bayonet Was Good for </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0010"> As Maria Pictured Si Using his Bayonet </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0011"> He Tries the Butt of his Gun on It </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0012"> The Best Way After All </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0013"> The Veteran Talks to Si </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0014"> Drawing Rations </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0015"> "All Right, Boss; Dats a Go" </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0016"> Si Falls out With his Food </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0017"> Si Thinks It over </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0018"> The Trouble Begins </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0019"> The Rice Gets the Bulge </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0020"> Si Makes the Acquaintance of The Guard House
</a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0021"> "Right Shoulder Shift—Arms!" </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0022"> "Fix—bayonets!" </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0023"> Brought his Gun Down on the Man's Foot </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0024"> Don't Care a Continental </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0025"> "Right—face!" </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0026"> "Forward—march!" </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0027"> "Company—right Wheel!" </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0028"> It's from Annabel </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0029"> Si Carries a Rail </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0030"> Si Writes to "deer Annie." </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0031"> An Army Writing-desk </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0032"> Laying the Foundation </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0033"> A Rude Awakening </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0034"> Visits the Doctor </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0035"> "Let Yer Nails Grow; Ye'll Need 'em" </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0036"> "Say, Cap, What Kind O' Bug is This?" </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0037"> "Skirmishing" </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0038"> "Naw! Lemme Show Ye How!" </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0039"> Struck by a Cyclone </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0040"> Supper Under Difficulties </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0041"> A Field Shanty </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0042"> It's the Morning </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0043"> Taking the Top Rail </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0044"> "Don't Stab Me." </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0045"> Hydropathic Treatment </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0046"> Si Defies a Regiment </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0047"> He Let Both Heels Fly </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0048"> Si Went Sprawling </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0049"> Stuck in the Mud </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0050"> It Burst With a Loud "bang." </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0051"> Si Takes a Crack at A Reb </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0052"> Si Captures a Johnny </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0053"> Corporal si Klegg </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0054"> One of the "Non-Com Mish." </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0055"> "Not 'less Ye Say 'Bunker Hill.'" </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0056"> They Had Shot a Mule </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0057"> The 200th Ind. Was Not Without Talent in
Foraging </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0058"> Si Beat a Retreat </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0059"> Si Being Worked for a "good Thing." </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0060"> Si Was Disposed to Grumble </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0061"> Showing the Old Man a Trick </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0062"> Waiting for Their Clothes to Dry </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0063"> An Assault on the Well-filled Corn Crib </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0064"> Shorty Held the Calf </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0065"> Si Sprang Upon Him </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0066"> "Shorty if We—only Git—out O'
This—" </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0067"> So Straight he Leaned Backward </a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0068"> Si Almost Fainted when the Colonel Stopped
</a>
</p>
<p class="toc">
<a href="#linkimage-0069"> Shorty Was There—with a Guard </a>
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
<br /> <br />
</p>
<hr />
<p>
<br /> <br />
</p>
<h3>
THIS BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
</h3>
<h3>
TO THE RANK AND FILE
</h3>
<h3>
OF THE GRANDEST ARMY EVER MUSTERED FOR WAR.
</h3>
<p>
<br /> <br />
</p>
<hr />
<p>
<br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004">
<!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
</p>
<h1>
SI KLEGG
</h1>
<p>
<a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
<!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER I. GOING TO WAR—SI KLEGG'S COMPLETE EQUIPMENT
</h2>
<h3>
AND WHAT BECAME OF IT.
</h3>
<p>
AFTER Si Klegg had finally yielded to his cumulative patriotic impulses
and enlisted in the 200th Ind. for three years or until the rebellion was
put down, with greater earnestness and solemnity to equip himself for his
new career.
</p>
<p>
He was thrifty and provident, and believed in being ready for any
emergency. His friends and family coincided with him. The Quartermaster
provided him with a wardrobe that was serviceable, if not stylish, but
there were many things that he felt he would need in addition.
</p>
<p>
"You must certainly have a few pairs of homeknit socks and some changes of
underclothes," said his tearfully-solicitous mother. "They won't weigh
much, and they'll in all likelihood save you a spell of sickness."
</p>
<p>
"Certainly," responded Josiah, "I wouldn't think of going away without
'em."
</p>
<p>
Into the capacious knapsack went several pounds of substantial knit woolen
goods.
</p>
<p>
"You can't get along without a couple of towels and a piece of soap," said
his oldest sister, Maria, as she stowed those things alongside the socks
and underclothes.
</p>
<p>
"Si," said Ellen, his second sister, "I got this pocket album for my gift
to you. It contains all our pictures, and there is a place for another's
picture, whose name I suppose I needn't mention," she added archly.
</p>
<p>
Si got a little red in the face, but said:
</p>
<p>
"Nothing could be nicer, Nell. It'll be the greatest comfort in the world
to have all your pictures to look at when I'm down in Dixie."
</p>
<p>
"Here's a 'housewife' I've made for you with my own hands," added Annabel,
who was some other fellow's sister. She handed him a neatly-stitched
little cloth affair. "You see, it has needles, thread, buttons, scissors,
a fine-tooth comb, and several other things that you'll need very badly
after you've been in camp awhile. And" (she got so near Si that she could
whisper the rest) "you'll find in a little secret pocket a lock of my
hair, which I cut off this morning."
</p>
<p>
"I suppose I'll have a good deal of leisure time while we're in camp,"
said Si to himself and the others; "I believe I'll just put this Ray's
Arithmetic and Greene's Grammar in."
</p>
<p>
"Yes, my young friend," added the Rev. Boanarg, who had just entered the
house, "and as you will be exposed to new and unusual temptations, I
thought it would be judicious to put this volume of 'Baxter's Call to the
Unconverted' in your knapsack, for it may give you good counsel when you
need it sorely."
</p>
<p>
"Thankee," said Si, stowing away the book. Of course, Si had to have a
hair-brush, blackingbrush, a shaving kit, and some other toilet
appliances.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0003" id="linkimage-0003">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/017.jpg" alt="Si Decides to Enlist 017 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
Then it occurred to his thoughtful sister Maria that he ought to have a
good supply of stationery, including pens, a bottle of ink, and a
portfolio on which to write when he was far away from tables and desks.
</p>
<p>
These went in, accompanied by a half-pint bottle of "No. 6," which was
Si's mother's specific for all the ills that flesh is heir to. Then, the
blanket which the Quartermaster had issued seemed very light and
insufficient to be all the bed-clothes a man would have when sleeping on
the bare ground, and Si rolled up one of the warm counterpanes that had
helped make the Indiana Winter nights so comfortable for him.
</p>
<p>
"Seems rather heavy," said Si as he put his knapsack on; "but I guess I'll
get used to it in a little while. They say that soldiers learn to carry
surprising loads on their backs. It'll help cure me of being
round-shouldered; it'll be better 'n shoulder-braces for holding me up
straight."
</p>
<p>
Of course, his father couldn't let him go away without giving him
something that would contribute to his health and comfort, and at last the
old gentleman had a happy thought—he would get the village shoemaker
to make Si a pair of his best stout boots. They would be ever so much
better than the shoes the Quartermaster furnished for tramping over the
muddy roads and swamps of the South. Si fastened these on top of his
knapsack until he should need them worse than at present.
</p>
<p>
His old uncle contributed an immense bowie knife, which he thought would
be of great use in the sanguinary hand-to-hand conflicts Si would have to
wage.
</p>
<p>
On the way to the depot Si found some of his comrades gathered around an
enterprising retail dealer in hardware, who was convincing them that they
could serve their country much better, besides adding to their comfort, by
buying from him a light hatchet and a small frying-pan, which he offered,
in consideration of their being soldiers, to sell them at remarkable low
rates.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0004" id="linkimage-0004">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/019.jpg" alt="Off to the War 019 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
Si saw at once the great convenience a hatchet and a frying-pan would be,
and added them to his kit. An energetic dealer in tinware succeeded in
selling him, before he reached the depot, a cunning little coffee-pot and
an ingenious combination of knife, fork and spoon which did not weigh more
than a pound.
</p>
<p>
When he got in the cars he was chagrined to find that several of his
comrades had provided themselves with convenient articles that he had not
thought of. He consoled himself that the regiment would stop some time in
Louisville, when he would have an opportunity of making up his
deficiencies.
</p>
<p>
But when the 200th reached Louisville there was no leisure for anything.
Bragg was then running his celebrated foot-race with Buell for the
Kentucky metropolis, and the 200th Ind. was trotted as rapidly as unused
legs could carry it to the works several miles from the center of the
city.
</p>
<p>
Everybody who was in that campaign remembers how terribly hot and dry
everything was.
</p>
<p>
Si Klegg managed to keep up tolerably near the head of the column until
camp was reached, but his shoulders were strained and blisters began to
appear on his feet.
</p>
<p>
"That was a mighty tough pull, wasn't it?" he said to his chum as they
spread their blankets on the dog-kennel and made some sort of a bed; "but
I guess after a day or two we'll get so used to it that we won't mind it."
</p>
<p>
For a few days the 200th Ind. lay in camp, but one day there came an order
for the regiment to march to Bardstown as rapidly as possible. A battle
was imminent. The roads were dusty as ash-heaps, and though the pace was
not three miles an hour, the boys' tongues were hanging out before they
were out of sight of camp.
</p>
<p>
"I say, Captain, don't they never have resting spells in the army?" said
Si.
</p>
<p>
"Not on a forced march," answered the Captain, who, having been in the
first three months' service, was regarded as a veteran. "Push on, boys;
they say that they'll want us before night." Another hour passed.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0005" id="linkimage-0005">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/021.jpg"
alt="As si Looked when he Landed at Louisville 021 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
"Captain, I don't believe you can put a pin-point anywhere on my feet that
ain't covered with a blister as big as a hen's egg," groaned Si.
</p>
<p>
"It's too bad, I know," answered the officer; "but you must go on. They
say Morgan's cavalry are in our rear shooting down every straggler they
can find."
</p>
<p>
Si saw the boys around him lightening their knapsacks. He abominated waste
above all things, but there seemed no help for it, and, reaching into that
receptacle that bore, down upon his aching shoulders like a glacier on a
groundhog, he pulled out and tossed into the fence corner the educational
works he had anticipated so much benefit from. The bottle of "No. 6"
followed, and it seemed as if the knapsack was a ton lighter, but it yet
weighed more than any stack of hay on the home farm.
</p>
<p>
A cloud of dust whirled up, and out of it appeared a galloping Aid.
</p>
<p>
"The General says that the 200th Ind. must push on much faster. The enemy
is trying to get to the bridge ahead of them," he shouted as he dashed off
in another cloud of dust.
</p>
<p>
A few shots were heard in the rear.
</p>
<p>
"Morgan's cavalry are shooting some more stragglers," shouted some one.
</p>
<p>
Si was getting desperate. He unrolled the counterpane and slashed it into
strips with his bowie. "My mother made that with her own hands," he
explained to a comrade, "and if I can't have the good of it no infernal
rebel shall. He next slashed the boots up and threw them after the quilt,
and then hobbled on to overtake the rest of his company.
</p>
<p>
"There's enough dry-goods and clothing lying along in the fence corners to
supply a good-sized town," the Lieutenant-Colonel reported as he rode over
the line of march in rear of the regiment.
</p>
<p>
The next day Si's feet felt as if there was a separate and individual
jumping toothache in every sinew, muscle, tendon and toe-nail; but that
didn't matter. With Bragg's infantry ahead and John Morgan's cavalry in
the rear, the 200th Ind. had to go forward so long as the boys could put
one foot before the other.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0006" id="linkimage-0006">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/023.jpg" alt="Si's Load Begins to Get Heavy 023 "
width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
The unloading went on even more rapidly than the day before.
</p>
<p>
"My knapsack looks like an elephant had stept on it," Si said, as he
ruefully regarded it in the evening.
</p>
<p>
"Show me one in the regiment that don't," answered his comrade.
</p>
<p>
Thenceforward everything seemed to conspire to teach Si how vain and
superfluous were the things of this world. The first rain-storm soaked his
cherished album until it fell to pieces, and his sister's portfolio did
the same. He put the photographs in his blouse pocket and got along just
as well. When he wanted to write he got paper from the sutler. A mule
tramped on his fancy coffee-pot, and he found he could make quite as good
coffee in a quart-cup. A wagon-wheel lan over his cherished frying-pan,
and he melted an old canteen in two and made a lighter and handier pan out
of one-half of it. He broke his bowie-knife prying the lid off a
cracker-box. He piled his knapsack with the others one day when the
regiment was ordered to strip them off for a charge, and neither he nor
his comrades ever saw one of them again. He never attempted to replace it.
He learned to roll up an extra pair of socks and a change of underclothing
in his blanket, tie the ends of this together and throw it over his
shoulder sash fashion. Then, with his socks drawn up over the bottoms of
his pantaloons, three days' rations in his haversack and 40 rounds in his
cartridgebox, he was ready to make his 30 miles a day in any direction he
might be sent, and whip anything that he encountered on the road.
</p>
<p>
<a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
<!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER II. THE DEADLY BAYONET
</h2>
<h3>
IT IS USED FOR NEARLY EVERYTHING ELSE THAN FOR PRODDING MEN.
</h3>
<p>
IN COMMON with every other young man who enlisted to defend the glorious
Stars and Stripes, Si Klegg, of the 200th Ind., had a profound
superstition concerning the bayonet. All the war literature he had ever
read abounded in bloodcurdling descriptions of bayonet charges and
hand-to-hand conflicts, in which bayonets were repeatedly thrust up to the
shanks in the combatants' bodies just as he had put a pitch-fork into a
bundle of hay. He had seen pictures of English regiments bristling with
bayonets like a porcupine with quills, rushing toward French regiments
which looked as prickly as a chestnut-bur, and in his ignorance he
supposed that was the way fighting was done. Occasionally he would have
qualms at the thought of how little his system was suited to have cold
steel thrust through it promiscuous-like, but he comforted himself with
the supposition that he would probably get used to it in time—"soldiers
get used to almost anything, you know."
</p>
<p>
When the 200th Ind. drew its guns at Indianapolis he examined all the
strange accouterments with interest, but gave most to the triangular bit
of steel which writers who have never seen a battle make so important a
weapon in deciding contests.
</p>
<p>
It had milk, molasses, or even applejack, for Si then was not a member of
the Independent Order of Good Templars, of which society he is now an
honored officer. Nothing could be nicer, when he was on picket, to bring
buttermilk in from the neighboring farm-house to his chum Shorty, who
stood post while he was gone.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0007" id="linkimage-0007">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/026.jpg" alt="Si's Chum, 'shorty' Elliott 026 "
width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
Later in the service Si learned the inestimable value of coffee to the
soldier on the march. Then he stript the cloth from his canteen, fastened
the strand with bits of wire and made a fine coffee-pot of it. In the
morning he would half fill it with the splendid coffee ihe Government
furnished, fill it up with water and hang it from a bush or a stake over
the fire, while he went ahead with his other culinary preparations. By the
time these were finished he would have at least a quart of magnificent
coffee that the cook of the Fifth Avenue could not surpass, and which
would last him until the regiment halted in the afternoon.
</p>
<p>
The bully of the 200th took it into his thick head one day to try to "run
over" Si. The latter had just filled his canteen, and the bully found that
the momentum of three pints of water swung at arm's length by an angry boy
was about equal to a mule's kick.
</p>
<p>
Just as he was beginning to properly appreciate his canteen, he learned a
sharp lesson, that comes to all of us, as to how much "cussedness" there
can be in the simplest things when they happen to go wrong. He went out
one day and got a canteen of nice sweet milk, which he and "Shorty"
Elliott heartily enjoyed. He hung the canteen upon the ridge-pole of the
tent, and thought no more about it until the next day, when he came in
from drill, and found the tent filled with an odor so vile that it made
him cough.
</p>
<p>
"Why in thunder don't the Colonel send out a detail to find and bury that
dead mule? It'll pizen the hull camp."
</p>
<p>
He had been in service just long enough to believe that the Colonel ought
to look out for and attend to everything.
</p>
<p>
"'Taint no dead mule," said Shorty, whose nose had come close to the
source of the odor. "It's this blamed canteen. What on earth have you been
putting in it. Si?"
</p>
<p>
"Ha'int had nothin' in but that sweet milk yesterday."
</p>
<p>
"That's just what's the matter," said the Orderly, who, having been in the
three-months' service, knew all about war. He had come in to detail Si and
Shorty to help unload Quartermaster's stores. "You must always scald 'out
your canteens when you've had milk in 'em. Don't you remember how careful
your mother is to scald her milk pans?"
</p>
<p>
After the company wagon had run over and hopelessly ruined the neat little
frying-pan which Si had brought from Posey County, he was in despair as to
how he should fry his meat and cook his "lobscouse." Necessity is the
mother of invention. He melted in two a canteen he picked up, and found
its halves made two deep tin pans, very light and very handy. A split
stick made a handle, and he had as good a frying-pan as the one he had
lost, and much more convenient, for when done using the handle was thrown
away, and the pan slipt into the haversack, where it lay snug and close,
instead of clattering about as the frying-pan did when the regiment moved
at the double-quick.
</p>
<p>
The other half of the canteen was useful to brown coffee, bake hoe-cake,
and serve for toilet purposes.
</p>
<p>
One day on the Atlanta campaign the regiment moved up in line to the top
of a bald hill. As it rose above the crest it was saluted with a terrific
volley, and saw that another crest across the narrow valley was occupied
by at least a brigade of rebels.
</p>
<p>
"We'll stay right here, boys," said the plucky little Colonel, who had
only worn Sergeant's stripes when the regiment crossed the Ohio River.
"We've preempted this bit of real estate, and we'll hold it against the
whole Southern Confederacy. Break for that fence there, boys, and every
fellow come back with a couple of rails."
</p>
<p>
It seemed as if he hardly ceased speaking when the boys came running back
with the rails which they laid down along the crest, and dropped flat
behind them, began throwing the gravelly soil over them with their useful
half-canteens. In vain the shower of rebel bullets struck and sang about
them. Not one could penetrate that little ridge of earth and rails, which
in an hour grew into a strong rifle-pit against which the whole rebel
brigade charged, only to sustain a bloody repulse.
</p>
<p>
The war would have lasted a good deal longer had it not been for the daily
help of the ever-useful half-canteen.
</p>
<p>
<a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
<!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER III. THE OLD CANTEEN
</h2>
<h3>
THE MANY AND QUEER USES TO WHICH IT WAS AT LAST PUT.
</h3>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0008" id="linkimage-0008">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/029.jpg"
alt="The Diverse Uses of the Good Old Canteen 029 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
WHEN Josiah (called "Si" for short) Klegg, of the 200th Ind., drew his
canteen from the Quartermaster at Louisville, he did not have a very high
idea of its present or prospective importance. In the 22 hot Summers that
he had lived through he had never found himself very far from a well or
spring when his thirst cried out to be slacked, and he did not suppose
that it was much farther between wells down South.
</p>
<p>
"I don't see the use of carrying two or three pints o' water along all day
right past springs and over cricks," he remarked to his chum, as the two
were examining the queer, cloth-covered cans.
</p>
<p>
"We've got to take 'em, any way," answered his chum, resignedly, "It's
regulations."
</p>
<p>
On his entry into service a boy accepted everything without question when
assured that it was "regulations." He would have charged bayonets on a
buzz-saw if authoritatively informed that it was required by the
mysterious "regulations."
</p>
<p>
The long march the 200th Ind. made after Bragg over the dusty turnpikes
the first week in October, 1862, taught Si the value of a canteen. After
that it was rarely allowed to get empty.
</p>
<p>
"What are these grooves along each side for?" he asked, pointing out the
little hollows which give the "prod" lightness and strength.
</p>
<p>
"Why," answered the Orderly, who, having been in the three-months'
service, assumed to know more about war than the Duke of Wellington, "the
intention of those is to make a wound the lips of which will close up when
the bayonet is pulled out, so that the man'll be certain to die."
</p>
<p>
Naturally so diabolical an intention sent cold shivers down Si's back.
</p>
<p>
The night before Si left for "the front" he had taken his musket and
couterments home to show them to his mother and sisters—and the
other fellow's sister, whose picture and lock of hair he had safely stowed
away. They looked upon the bayonet with a dreadful awe. Tears came into
Maria's eyes as she thought of Si roaming about through the South like a
bandit plunging that cruel steel into people's bowels.
</p>
<p>
"This is the way it's done," said Si, as he charged about the room in an
imaginary duel with a rebel, winding up with a terrifying lunge. "Die,
Tur-r-rraitor, gaul durn ye," he exclaimed, for he was really getting
excited over the matter, while the girls screamed and jumped upon the
chairs, and his good mother almost fainted.
</p>
<p>
The attention that the 200th Ind. had to give to the bayonet drill
confirmed Si's deep respect for the weapon, and he practiced assiduously
all the "lunges," "parries," and "guards" in the Manual, in the hope that
proficiency so gained would save his own dearly-beloved hide from
puncture, and enable him to punch any luckless rebel that he might
encounter as full of holes as a fishing net.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0009" id="linkimage-0009">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/033.jpg" alt="What the Bayonet Was Good for 033 "
width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
The 200th Ind.'s first fight was at Perryville, but though it routed the
rebel force in front of it, it would have taken a bayonet half-a-mile long
to touch the nearest "Johnny." Si thought it odd that the rebels didn't
let him get close enough to them to try his new bayonet, and pitch a dozen
or two of them over into the next field.
</p>
<p>
If the truth must be told, the first blood that stained Si's bayonet was
not that of a fellow-man.
</p>
<p>
Si Klegg's company was on picket one day, while Gen. Buell was trying to
make up his mind what to do with Bragg. Rations had been a little short
for a week or so. In fact, they had been scarcely sufficient to meet the
demands of Si's appetite, and his haversack had nothing in it to speak of.
Strict orders against foraging had been, issued. It was the day of
"guarding rebel onion patches." Si couldn't quite get it straight in his
head why the General should be so mighty particular about a few pigs and
chickens and sweet potatoes, for he was really getting hungry, and when a
man is in this condition he is not in a fit mood to grapple with fine-spun
theories of governmental policy.
</p>
<p>
So when a fat pig came wabbling and grunting toward his post, it was to Si
like a vision of manna to the children of Israel in the wilderness. A
wild, uncontrollable desire to taste a fresh spare-rib took possession of
him. Naturally, his first idea was to send a bullet through the animal,
but on second thought he saw that wouldn't do at all. It would "give him
away" at once, and, besides, he had found that a single shot on the
picket-line would keep Buell's entire army in line-of-battle for a whole
day.
</p>
<p>
Si wrote to his mother that his bright new bayonet was stained with
Southern blood, and the old lady shuddered at the awful thought. "But,"
added Si, "it was only a pig, and not a man, that I killed!"
</p>
<p>
"I'm so glad!" she exclaimed.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0010" id="linkimage-0010">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/035.jpg" alt="As Maria Pictured si Using his Bayonet 035 "
width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
By the time Si had been in the service a year there was less zeal in the
enforcement of orders of this kind, and Si had become a very skillful and
successful forager. He had still been unable to reach with his bayonet the
body of a single one of his misguided fellow citizens, but he had stabbed
a great many pigs and sheep. In fact, Si found his bayonet a most useful
auxiliary in his predatory operations. He could not well have gotten along
without it.
</p>
<p>
Uncle Sam generally furnished Si with plenty of coffee—roasted and
unground—but did not supply him with a coffee mill. Si thought at
first that the Government had forgotten something. He saw that several of
the old veterans of '61 had coffee mills, but he found on inquiry that
they had been obtained by confiscation only. He determined to supply
himself at the first opportunity, but in the meantime he was obliged to
'use his bayonet as a substitute, just as all the rest of the soldiers
did.
</p>
<p>
We regret to say that Si, having thrown away his "Baxter's Call to the
Unconverted" in his first march, and having allowed himself to forget the
lessons he had learned but a few years before in Sunday-school, soon
learned to play poker and other sinful games. These, at night, developed
another use for the bayonet. In its capacity as a "handy" candlestick it
was "equaled by few and excelled by none." The "shank" was always ready to
receive the candle, while the point could be thrust into the ground in an
instant, and nothing more was necessary. This was perhaps the most general
sphere of usefulness found by the bayonet during the war. Barrels of
candle-grease flowed down the furrowed sides of this weapon for every drop
of human blood that dimmed its luster.
</p>
<p>
<a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004">
<!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER IV. THE AWFUL HARDTACK
</h2>
<h3>
THE HARD AND SOLID STAFF OF MILITARY LIFE.
</h3>
<p>
"APPETITE'S a queer thing," said Si to Shorty one day, when both were in a
philosophical mood. "It's an awful bother when you haven't it, and it's a
great deal worse when you have it, and can't get anything for it." "Same
as money," returned sage Shorty. During the first few months of Si Klegg's
service in the army the one thing that bothered him more than anything
else was his appetite. It was a very robust, healthy one that Si had, for
he had grown up on his father's farm in Indiana, and had never known what
it was to be hungry without abundant means at hand for appeasing his
desires in that direction. His mother's cupboard was never known to be in
the condition of Old Mother Hubbard's, described in the nursery rhyme. The
Kleggs might not have much tapestry and bric-a-brac in their home, but
their smoke-house was always full, and Mrs. Klegg's kitchen could have fed
a camp-meeting any time without warning. So it was that when Si enlisted
his full, rosy face and his roundness of limb showed that he had been well
fed, and that nature had made good use of the ample daily supplies that
were provided. His digestive organs were kept in perfect condition by
constant exercise.
</p>
<p>
After Si had put down his name on the roll of Co. Q of the 200th Ind. he
had but a few days to remain at home before his regiment was to start for
Louisville. During this time his mother and sisters kept him filled up
with "goodies" of every sort. In fact, it was the biggest thing in the way
of a protracted picnic that Si had ever struck.
</p>
<p>
"You must enjoy these things while you can, Si," said his mother, "for
goodness knows what you'll do when you really git into the army. I've
heerd 'em tell awful things about how the poor sogers don't have half
enough to eat, and what they do git goes agin' any Christian stomach.
Here, take another piece of this pie. A little while, and it'll be a long
time, I reckon, till ye git any more."
</p>
<p>
"Don't keer if I do!" said Si, for there was scarcely any limit to his
capacity.
</p>
<p>
And so during those days and nights the old lady and the girls cooked and
cooked, and Si ate and ate, until it seemed as if he wouldn't want any
more till the war was over.
</p>
<p>
Si was full, and as soon as Co. Q was, it was ordered to camp, and Si had
to go. They loaded him down with good things enough to last him a week.
The pretty Annabel—the neighbor's daughter who had solemnly promised
Si that she wouldn't go with any other fellow while he was away—came
around to see Si off and brought him a rich fruit cake.
</p>
<p>
"I made that for you," she said.
</p>
<p>
"Bully for you!" said Si, for he felt that he must begin to talk like a
soldier.
</p>
<p>
The first day or two after reaching Louisville the 200th received rations
of "soft bread." But that didn't last long. It was only a way they had of
letting the fresh soldier down easy. Orders came to get ready to pull out
after Bragg, and then Si'a regiment had its first issue of army rations.
As the Orderly pried open a box of hardtack and began to distribute them
to the boys, exclaimed:
</p>
<p>
"Them's nice-looking soda crackers. I don't believe the grub is going to
be so bad, after all."
</p>
<p>
Si had never seen a hardtack before.
</p>
<p>
"Better taste one and see how you like it!" said one of Buell's ragged
Indiana veterans, who had come over to see the boys of the 200th and hear
the latest news from "God's country."
</p>
<p>
It happened that this lot was one of extra quality as to hardness. The
baker's watch had stopped, or he had gone to sleep, and they had been left
in the oven or dry-kiln too long. Si took one of them and carried it to
his mouth. He first tried on it the bite which made such havoc with a
quarter section of custard pie, but his incisors made no more impression
upon it than if it had been a shingle.
</p>
<p>
"You have to bear on hard," said the veteran, with a grim smile.
</p>
<p>
"Je-ru-sa-lem!" exclaimed Si after he had made two or three attempts
equally barren of results.
</p>
<p>
Then he tried his "back teeth." His molars were in prime order, and his
jaw power was sufficient to crack a hickory nut every time. Si crowded one
corner of the hardtack as far as he could between his "grinders," where he
could get a good "purchase" on it, shut his eyes and turned on a full head
of steam. His teeth and jaws fairly cracked under the strain, but he
couldn't even "phase" it.
</p>
<p>
"If that ain't old pizen!" said Si. "It beats anything I ever seen up in
the Wabash country."
</p>
<p>
But his blood was up, and laying the cracker upon a log, he brought the
butt of his gun down upon it like a pile-driver.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0011" id="linkimage-0011">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/041.jpg" alt="He Tries the Butt of his Gun on It 041 "
width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
"I thought I'd fix ye," he said, as he picked up the fragments, and tried
his teeth upon the smaller ones. "Have I got to eat such stuff as that?"
with a despairing look at his veteran friend. "I'd just as soon be a
billy-goat and live on circus-posters, fruit-cans and old hoop-skirts."
</p>
<p>
"You'll get used to it after a while, same's we did. You'll see the time
when you'll be mighty glad to get even as hard a tack as that!"
</p>
<p>
Si's heart sank almost into his shoes at the prospect, for the taste of
his mother's pie and Annabel's fruit cake were yet fresh in his mouth. But
Si was fully bent on being a loyal, obedient soldier, determined to make
the best of everything without any more "kicking" than was the inalienable
right of every man who wore a uniform.
</p>
<p>
For the first time in his life Si went to bed hungry that night. Impelled
by the gnawings of his appetite he made repeated assaults upon the
hardtack, but the result was wholly insufficient to satisfy the longings
of his stomach. His supper wasn't anything to speak of. Before going to
bed he began to exercise his ingenuity on various schemes to reduce the
hardtack to a condition in which it would be more gratifying to his taste
and better suited to the means with which nature had provided him for
disposing of his rations. Naturally Si thought that soaking in water would
have a beneficial effect. So he laid five or six of them in the bottom of
a camp-kettle, anchored them down with a stone, and covered them with
water. He thought that with the aid of a frying-pan he would get up a
breakfast that he could eat, anyway.
</p>
<p>
Si felt a little blue as he lay curled up under his blanket with his head
pillowed on his knapsack. He thought some about his mother, and sister
Maria, and pretty Annabel, but he thought a good deal more about the beef
and potatoes, the pies and the puddings, that were so plentifully spread
upon the table at home.
</p>
<p>
It was a long time before he got to sleep. As he lay there, thinking and
thinking, there came to his mind some ether uses to which it seemed to him
the hardtack might be put, which would be much more consistent with its
nature than to palm it off on the soldiers as alleged food. He thought he
could now understand why, when he enlisted, they examined his teeth so
carefully, as if they were going to buy him for a mule. They said it was
necessary to have good teeth in order to bite "cartridges" successfully,
but now he knew it was with reference to his ability to eat hardtack.
</p>
<p>
Si didn't want to be killed if he could help it.
</p>
<p>
While he was lying there he determined to line one of his shirts with
hardtacks, and he would put that on whenever there was going to be a
fight. He didn't believe the bullets would go through them. He wanted to
do all he could toward paralyzing the rebels, and with such a protection
he could be very brave, while his comrades were being mowed down around
him. The idea of having such' a shirt struck Si as being a brilliant one.
</p>
<p>
Then, he thought hardtack would be excellent for half-soling his shoes. He
didn't think they would ever wear out.
</p>
<p>
If he ran short of ammunition he could ram pieces of hardtack into his gun
and he had no doubt they would do terrible execution in the ranks of the
enemy.
</p>
<p>
All these things and many more Si thought of until finally he was lost in
sleep. Then he dreamed that somebody was trying to cram stones down his
throat.
</p>
<p>
The company was called out at daylight, and immediately after roll-call Si
went to look after the hardtacks he had put to soak the night before. He
thought he had never felt so hungry in his life. He fished out the
hardtack and carefully inspected them, to note the result of the
submerging and to figure out the chances on his much-needed breakfast.
</p>
<p>
To any old soldier it would be unnecessary to describe the condition in
which Si found those hardtacks, and the effect of the soaking. For the
information of any who never soaked a hardtack it may be said that Si
found them transformed, to all appearances, into sole-leather. They were
flexible, but as tough as the hide that was "found in the vat when the
tanner died."
</p>
<p>
Si tried to bite a piece off one of them to see what it was like, but he
couldn't get his teeth through it. In sheer desperation he laid it on a
log, seized a hatchet, and chopped off a corner. He put it in his mouth
and chewed on it a while, but found it as tasteless as cold codfish.
</p>
<p>
Si thought he would try the frying-pan. He chopped the hardtacks into
bits, put in equal parts of water and grease, sifted over the mixture a
little salt and pepper, and then gave it a thorough frying. Si's spirits
rose during the gradual development of this scheme, as it seemed to offer
a good prospect for his morning meal. And when it came to the eating. Si
found it really good, comparatively speaking, even though it was very much
like a dish compounded of the sweepings from around a shoemaker's bench. A
good appetite was indispensable to a real enjoyment of this—which
the soldiers called by a name that cannot be given here—but Si had
the appetite, and he ate and was thankful.
</p>
<p>
"I thought I'd get the bulge on them things some way or other," said Si,
as he drank the last of his coffee and arose from his meal, feeling like a
giant refreshed with new wine.
</p>
<p>
For the next two or three months Si largely devoted his surplus energies
to further experimenting with the hardtack. He applied every conceivable
process of cookery he could think of that was possible with the meager
outfit at his command in the way of utensils and materials. Nearly all of
his patient and persevering efforts resulted only in vexation of spirit.
</p>
<p>
He continued to eat hardtack from day to day, in these various forms, but
it was only because he had to do it. He didn't hanker after it, but it was
a military necessity—hardtack or starvation. It was a hard choice,
but Si's love of life—and Annabel—induced him to choose the
hardtack.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0012" id="linkimage-0012">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/045.jpg" alt="The Best Way After All 045 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
But for a long-time Si's stomach was in a state of chronic rebellion, and
on the whole he had a hard time of it getting used to this staple article
of army diet. He did not become reconciled to it until after his regiment
had rations of flour for a week, when the "cracker-line" had been cut by
the guerillas and the supply of that substantial edible was exhausted.
Si's experience with the flour swept away all his objections to the
hardtack. Those slapjacks, so fearfully and wonderfully made, and those
lumps of dough, mixed with cold water and dried on flat stones before the
fire, as hard as cannon balls, played sad havoc with his internal
arrangements. For the first time he was obliged to fall into the
cadaverous squad at sick-call and wabble up to the doctor's shop, where he
was dosed with castor-oil and blue-mass. Si was glad enough to see
hardtack again. Most of the grumbling he did thereafter concerning the
hardtack was because he often couldn't get enough.
</p>
<p>
About six months taught Si what all the soldiers learned by experience,
that the best way to eat the average hardtack was to take it "straight"—just
as it came out of the box, without any soaking or frying or stewing. At
meal-time he would make a quart or so of coffee, stab the end of a ramrod
through three or four slices of sowbelly, and cook them over the coals,
allowing some of the drippings to fall upon the hardtack for lubricating
purposes, and these constituted his frugal repast.
</p>
<p>
<a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005">
<!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER V. FAT PORK—INDISPENSABLE BODY TIMBER FOR PATRIOTISM.
</h2>
<p>
IT WAS told in the last chapter how the patriotic impulses of Si Klegg, of
the 200th Ind., reached his stomach and digestive apparatus, and brought
them under obedient subjection to hardtack. He didn't have quite so rough
an experience with that other staple of army diet, which was in fact the
very counterpart of the hardtack, and which took its most popular name
from that part of the body of the female swine which is usually nearest
the ground. Much of Si's muscle and brawn was due to the fact that meat
was always plenty on his father's farm. When Si enlisted he was not
entirely free from anxiety on the question of meat, for to his appetite it
was not even second in importance to bread. If bread was the "staff of
life" meat was life itself to Si. It didn't make much difference to him
what kind it was, only so it was meat. He didn't suppose Uncle Sam would
keep him supplied with quail on toast and porterhouse steaks all the time,
but he did hope he would give him as much as he wanted of something in
that line.
</p>
<p>
"You won't get much pork, unless you're a good forager," said one of Si's
friends he met at Louisville, and who had been a year in the service.
</p>
<p>
Si thought he might, with practice and a little encouragement, be fairly
successful in foraging on his' own hook, but at the same time he said he
wouldn't grumble if he could only get plenty of pork. Fortunately for him
he had not been imbued with the teachings of the Hebraic dispensation
which declared "unclean" the beast that furnished the great bulk of the
animal food for the American defenders of the Union.
</p>
<p>
Co. Q of the 200th Ind. received with the first issue of army rations at
Louisville a bountiful supply of bacon of prime quality, and Si was happy
at the prospect. He thought it would always be that way.
</p>
<p>
"I don't see anything the matter with such grub as that!" said Si. "Looks
to me as though we were goin' to live like fighting-cocks."
</p>
<p>
"You're just a little bit brash," said his veteran friend, who had just
been through the long, hungry march from Huntsville, Ala., to Louisville.
"Better eat all you can lay yer hands on now, while ye've got a chance.
One o' these days ye'll git into a tight place and ye won't see enough
hog's meat in a week to grease a griddle. I've bin there, myself! Jest
look at me and see what short rations 'll bring you to?"
</p>
<p>
But Si thought he wouldn't try to cross a bridge till he got to it, nor
lie awake nights worrying over troubles that were yet in the future. Si
had a philosophical streak in his mental make-up and this, by the way, was
a good thing for a soldier to have. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil
thereof," was an excellent rule for him to go by.
</p>
<p>
So Si assimilated all the pork that fell to his share, with an extra bit
now and then from a comrade whose appetite was less vigorous. He thrived
under its fructifying influence, and gave good promise of military
activity and usefulness. No scientific processes of cookery were necessary
to prepare it for immediate use. A simple boiling or frying or toasting
was all that was required.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0013" id="linkimage-0013">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/049.jpg" alt="The Veteran Talks to si 049 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
During the few days at Louisville fresh beef was issued occasionally. It
is true that the animals slain for the soldiers were not always fat and
tender, nor did each of them have four hind-quarters. This last fact was
the direct cause of a good deal of inflammation in the 200th Ind., as in
every other regiment. The boys who got sections of the forward part of the
"critter," usually about three-quarters bone, invariably kicked, and fired
peppery remarks at those who got the juicy steaks from the rear portion of
the animal. Then when their turn came for a piece of hind-quarter the
other fellows would growl. Four-fifths of the boys generally had to
content themselves with a skinny rib or a soupshank. Si shared the common
lot, and did his full quota of grumbling because his "turn" for a slice of
steak didn't come every time beef was issued.
</p>
<p>
The pickled pork was comparatively free from this cause of irritation. It
was all alike, and was simply "Hobson's choice." Si remembered the
fragrant and delicious fried ham that so often garnished his mother's
breakfast table and wondered why there was not the same proportion of hams
and sides in the Commissary that he remembered in the meathouse on the
Wabash. He remarked to Shorty one day:
</p>
<p>
"I wonder where all this pork comes from?"
</p>
<p>
"It comes from Illinoy, I suppose," said Shorty. "I notice the barrels are
all marked 'Chicago'."
</p>
<p>
"Must grow funny kind o' hogs out there—a mile long each, I should
say. What do you mean?"
</p>
<p>
"Why, we've drawn a full mile o' sides from the Commissary, and haint
struck a ham yit. I'm wonderin' jest how long that hog is!"
</p>
<p>
"Well, you are green. You oughter know by this time that there are only
enough hams for the officers."
</p>
<p>
Now and then a few pigs' shoulders were handed round among the boys, but
the large proportion of bone they contained was exasperating, and was the
cause of much profanity.
</p>
<p>
Sometimes bacon was issued that had really outlived its usefulness,
except, perhaps, for the manufacture of soap. Improperly "cured," it was
strong and rancid, or, occasionally, so near a condition of putrefaction
that the stench from it offended the nostrils of the whole camp. Some
times it was full of "skippers," that tunneled their way through and
through it, and grew fat with riotous living.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0014" id="linkimage-0014">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/051.jpg" alt="Drawing Rations 051 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
Si drew the line at this point. He had an ironplated stomach, but putrid
and maggoty meat was too much for it. Whenever he got any of this he would
trade it off to the darkies for chickens. There is nothing like pork for a
Southern negro. He wants something that will "stick to his ribs."
</p>
<p>
By a gradual process of development his appetite reached the point when he
could eat his fat pork perfectly raw. During a brief halt when on the
march he would squat in a fence corner, go down into his haversack for
supplies, cut a slice of bacon, lay it on a hardtack, and munch them with
a keen relish.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0015" id="linkimage-0015">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/052.jpg" alt="'all Right, Boss; Dats a Go' 052 "
width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
At one of the meetings of the Army of the Cumberland Gen. Garfield told a
story which may appropriately close this chapter.
</p>
<p>
One day, while the Army of the Cumberland was beleaguered in Chattanooga
and the men were almost starving on quarter rations, Gen. Rosecrans and
his staff rode out to inspect the lines. As the brilliant cavalcade dashed
by a lank, grizzled soldier growled to a comrade:
</p>
<p>
"It'd be a darned sight better for this army if we had a little more
sowbelly and not quite so many brass buttons!"
</p>
<p>
<a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006">
<!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER VI. DETAILED AS COOK—SI FINDS RICE ANOTHER INNOCENT
</h2>
<h3>
WITH A GREAT DEAL OF CUSSEDNESS IN IT.
</h3>
<p>
IT WOULD have been very strange, indeed, if Si Klegg had not grumbled
loudly and frequently about the food that was dished up to him by the
company cooks. In the first place, it was as natural for a boy to grumble
at the "grub" as it was for him to try to shirk battalion drill or "run
the guard." In the next place, the cooking done by the company bean-boiler
deserved all the abuse it received, for as a rule the boys who sought
places in the hash foundry did so because they were too lazy to drill or
do guard duty, and their knowledge of cooking was about like that of the
Irishman's of music:
</p>
<p>
"Can you play the fiddle, Pat?" he was asked. "Oi don't know, sor-r-r—Oi
niver tried."
</p>
<p>
Si's mother, like most of the well-to-do farmers' wives in Indiana, was
undoubtedly a good cook, and she trained up her daughters to do honor to
her teachings, so that Si undoubtedly knew what properly-prepared food
was. From the time he was big enough to spank he had fared sumptuously
every day. In the gush of patriotic emotions that prompted him to enlist
he scarcely thought of this feature of the case. If it entered his mind at
all, he felt that he could safely trust all to the goodness of so
beneficent a Government as that for the preservation of which he had
offered himself as a target for the rebels to shoot at. He thought it no
more than fair to the brave soldiers that Uncle Sam should furnish
professional cooks for each company, who would serve everything up in the
style of a first-class city restaurant. So, after Si got down among the
boys and found how it really was, it was not long till his inside was a
volcano of rebellion that threatened serious results.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0016" id="linkimage-0016">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/055.jpg" alt="Si Falls out With his Food 055 "
width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
When, therefore, Si lifted up his voice and cried aloud, and spared not—when
he said that he could get as good coffee as that furnished him by dipping
his cup into a tan-vat; when he said that the meat was not good
soap-grease, and that the potatoes and beans had not so much taste and
nutrition in them as so much pine-shavings, he was probably nearer right
than grumblers usually are.
</p>
<p>
"Give it to 'em, Si," his comrades would Say, when he turned up his loud
bazoo on the rations question. "They ought to get it ten times worse. When
we come out we expected that some of us would get shot by the rebels, but
we didn't calculate that we were going to be poisoned in camp by a lot of
dirty, lazy potwrastlers."
</p>
<p>
One morning after roll-call the Orderly-Sergeant came up to Si and said:
</p>
<p>
"There's been so much chin-music about this cooking-business that the
Captain's ordered the cooks to go back to duty, and after this
everybody'll have to take his regular turn at cooking. It'll be your turn
to-day, and you'll stay in camp and get dinner."
</p>
<p>
When Co. Q marched out for the forenoon drill. Si pulled off his blouse
and set down on a convenient log to think out how he should go to work. Up
to this time he had been quite certain that he knew all about cooking that
it was worth while to know. Just now none of his knowledge seemed to be in
usable shape, and the more he thought about it the less able he seemed to
be to decide upon any way of beginning. It had always appeared very easy
for his mother and sisters to get dinner, and on more than one occasion he
had reminded them how much better times they had staying in the house
cooking dinner than he had out in the harvest field keeping up with the
reaper. At this moment he would rather have kept up with the fastest
reaper in Posey County, on the hottest of July days, than to have cooked
the coarse dinner which his 75 comrades expected to be ready for them when
they returned, tired, hot and hungry, from the morning drill.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0017" id="linkimage-0017">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/057.jpg" alt="Si Thinks It over 057 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
He went back to the barracks and inspected the company larder. He found
there the same old, coarse, greasy, strong, fat pork, a bushel or so of
beans, a few withered potatoes, sugar, coffee, bread, and a box of rice
which had been collected from the daily rations because none of the cooks
knew how to manage it. The sight of the South Carolina staple recalled the
delightful rice puddings his mother used to make. His heart grew buoyant.
</p>
<p>
"Here's just the thing," he said. "I always was fond of rice, and I know
the boys will be delighted with it for a change. I know I can cook it; for
all that you've got to do is to put it in a pot with water and boil it
till it is done. I've seen mother do that lots o' times.
</p>
<p>
"Let's see," he said, pursuing his ruminations.
</p>
<p>
"I think each boy can eat about a cupful, so I'll put one for each of 'em
in the kettle."
</p>
<p>
"There's one for Abner," he continued, pouring a cupful in for the first
name on the company-roll; "one for Acklin, one for Adams, one for Barber,
one for Brooks," and so on down through the whole well-known list.
</p>
<p>
"It fills the old kettle tol'bly full," he remarked, as he scanned the
utensil after depositing the contribution for Williams, the last name on
the roll; "but I guess she'll stand it. I've heard mother tell the girls
that they must always keep the rice covered with water, and stir it well,
so that it wouldn't burn; so here goes. Won't the boys be astonished when
they have a nice mess of rice, as a change from that rusty old side-meat!"
</p>
<p>
He hung the kettle on the fire and stepped out to the edge of the
parade-ground to watch the boys drilling. It was the first time he had had
the sensation of pleasure of seeing them at this without taking part in it
himself, and he began to think that he would not mind if he had to cook
most of the time. He suddenly remembered about his rice and hurried back
to find it boiling, bulging over the top like a small snowdrift.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0018" id="linkimage-0018">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/059.jpg" alt="The Trouble Begins 059 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
"I was afraid that kettle was a little too full," he said to himself,
hurrying off for another campkettle, in which he put about a third of the
contents of the first. "Now they're all right. And it'll cook better and
quicker in two than one. Great Scott! what's the matter? They're both
boiling over. There must be something wrong with that rice."
</p>
<p>
Pretty soon he had all the company kettles employed, and then all that he
could borrow from the other companies. But dip out as much as he would
there seemed no abatement in the upheaving of the snowy cereal, and the
kettles continued to foam over like so many huge glasses of soda water. He
rushed to his bunk and got his gum blanket and heaped upon it a pile as
big as a small haycock, but the mass in the kettle seemed larger than it
was before this was subtracted.
</p>
<p>
He sweat and dipped, and dipped and sweat; burned his hands into blisters
with the hot rice and hotter kettles, kicked over one of the largest
kettles in one of his spasmodic rushes to save a portion of the food that
was boiling over, and sent its white contents streaming over the ground.
His misery came to a climax as he heard the quick step of his hungry
comrades returning from drill.
</p>
<p>
"Right face; Arms a-port; Break ranks—March!" commanded the
Orderly-Sergeant, and there was a clatter of tin cups and plates as they
came rushing toward him to get their dinner—something to stay their
ravenous stomachs. There was a clamor of rage, ridicule, wrath and
disappointment as they took in the scene.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0019" id="linkimage-0019">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/061.jpg" alt="The Rice Gets the Bulge 061 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
"What's the matter here?" demanded the Captain, striding back to the
company fire. "You young rascal, is this the way you get dinner for your
comrades? Is this the way you attend to the duty for which you're
detailed? Waste rations in some fool experiment and scatter good food all
over the ground? Biler, put on your arms and take Klegg to the
guard-houae. I'll make you pay for this nonsense, sir, in a way that you
won't forget in a hurry, I'll be bound."
</p>
<p>
So poor Si marched to the guard-house, where he had to stay for 24 hours,
as a punishment for not knowing, until he found out by this experience,
that rice would "s-well." The Captain wouldn't let him have anything to
eat except that scorched and half-cooked stuff cut of the kettles, and Si
thought he never wanted to see any more rice as long as he lived.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0020" id="linkimage-0020">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/062.jpg"
alt="Si Makes the Acquaintance of The Guard House 062 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
In the evening one of the boys took Si's blanket to him, thinking he would
want it to sleep in.
</p>
<p>
"I tell ye, pard, this is purty derned tough!" said Si as he wiped a tear
out of the southwest corner of his left eye with the sleeve of his blouse.
"I think the Cap'n's hard on a feller who didn't mean to do nothin'
wrong!" And Si looked as if he had lost all his interest in the old flag,
and didn't care a pinch of his burnt rice what became of the Union.
</p>
<p>
His comrade "allowed" that it was hard, but supposed they, had got to get
used to such things. He said he heard the Captain say he would let Si out
the next day.
</p>
<p>
<a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007">
<!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER VII. IN THE AWKWARD SQUAD
</h2>
<h3>
SI HAS MANY TRIBULATIONS LEARNING THE MANUAL OP ARMS.
</h3>
<p>
WHEN Si Klegg went into active service with Co. Q of the 200th Ind. his
ideas of drill and tactics were exceedingly vague. He knew that a "drill"
was something to make holes with, and as he understood that he had been
sent down South to make holes through people, he supposed drilling had
something to do with it. He handled his musket very much as he would a
hoe. A "platoon" might be something to eat, for all he knew. He had a
notion that a "wheel" was something that went around, and he thought a
"file" was a screeching thing that his father used once a year to sharpen
up the old buck saw.
</p>
<p>
The fact was that Si and his companions hardly had a fair shake in this
respect, and entered the field at a decided disadvantage. It had been
customary for a regiment to be constantly drilled for a month or two in
camp in its own State before being sent to the front; but the 200th was
rushed off to Kentucky the very day it was mustered in. This was while the
cold chills were running up and down the backs of the people in the North
on account of the threatened invasion by Bragg's army. The regiment pushed
after the fleeing rebels, but whenever Suell's army halted to take breath,
"Fall in for drill!" was shouted through its camp three or four times a
day. It was liable to be called into action at any moment, and it was
deemed indispensable to begin at once the process of making soldiers out
of those tender-footed Hoosiers, whose zeal and patriotism as yet far
exceeded their knowledge of military things. Most of the officers of the
200th were as green as the men, though some of them had seen service in
other regiments; so, at first, officers and non-commissioned officers who
had been in the field a few months and were considered veterans, and who
knew, or thought they knew, all about tactics that was worth knowing, were
detailed from the old regiments to put the boys through a course of
sprouts in company and squad drill.
</p>
<p>
One morning three or four days after leaving Louisville, word was passed
around that the regiment would not move that day, and the boys were so
glad at the prospect of a day of rest that they wanted to get right up and
yell. Si was sitting on a log, with his shoes off, rubbing his aching
limbs and nursing his blisters, when the Orderly came along.
</p>
<p>
"Co. Q, be ready in 10 minutes to fall in for drill. Stir around, you men,
and get your traps on. Klegg, put on them gunboats, and be lively about
it."
</p>
<p>
"Orderly," said Si, looking as if he hadn't a friend on earth, "just look
at them blisters; I can't drill to-day!"
</p>
<p>
"You'll have to or go to the guard-house," was the reply. "You'd better
hustle yourself, too!"
</p>
<p>
Si couldn't think of anything to say that would do justice to his
feelings; and so, with wailing and gnashing of teeth, and a few muttered
words that he didn't learn in Sunday school, he got ready to take his
place in the company.
</p>
<p>
As a general combustion of powder by the armies of Buell and Bragg was
hourly expected, it was thought best for the 200th to learn first
something about shooting. If called suddenly into action it was believed
the boys could "git thar," though they had not yet mastered the science of
company and battalion evolutions. Co. Q was divided into squads of eight
for exercise in the manual of arms. The man who took Si's squad was a
grizzled Sergeant, who had been "lugging knapsack, box and gun" for a
year. He fully realized his important and responsible functions as
instructor of these innocent youths, having at the same time a supreme
contempt for their ignorance. "Attention, Squad!" and they all looked at
him in a way that meant business.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0021" id="linkimage-0021">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/067.jpg" alt="'right Shoulder Shift--arms!' 067 "
width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
"Load in nine times—Load!"
</p>
<p>
Si couldn't quite understand what the "in" meant, but he had always been
handy with a shotgun, to the terror of the squirrels and coons up in Posey
County, and he thought he would show the Sergeant how spry he was. So he
rammed in a cartridge, put on a cap, held up his musket, and blazed away,
and then went to loading again as if his life depended upon his activity.
For an instant the Sergeant was speechless with amazement. At length his
tongue was loosened, and he roared out:
</p>
<p>
"What in the name of General Jackson are you doing, you measly idiot! Who
ordered you to load and fire your piece?"
</p>
<p>
"I—I th—thought you did!" said Si, trembling as if he had the
Wabash ague. "You said for us to load nine times. I thought nine loads
would fill 'er chuck full and bust 'er and I didn't see any way but to
shute 'em oft as fast as I got 'em in."
</p>
<p>
"No, sir! I gave the command according to Hardee, 'Load—in—nine—times!'
and ef yer hadn't bin in such a hurry you'd 'a' found out what that means.
Yer'll git along a good deal faster ef you'll go slower. Yer ought ter be
made ter carry a rail, and a big one, for two hours."
</p>
<p>
Si protested that he was sorry, and didn't mean to, and wouldn't do so
again, and the drill went on. The master went through all the nine "times"
of "Handle—Cartridge!" "Draw—Rammer!" etc., each with its two
or three "motions." It seemed like nonsense to Si.
</p>
<p>
"Boss," said he, "I kin get 'er loaded in just half the time ef yer'll let
me do it my own way!"
</p>
<p>
"Silence!"' thundered the Sergeant. "If you speak another word I'll have
ye gagged 'n' tied up by the thumbs!"
</p>
<p>
Si had always been used to speaking right out when he had anything to say,
and had not yet got his "unruly member" under thorough subjection. He saw
that it wouldn't do to fool with the Drill Sergeant, however, and he held
his peace. But Si kept thinking that if he got into a fight he would ram
in the cartridge and fire them out as fast as he could, without bothering
his head about the "one time and three motions."
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0022" id="linkimage-0022">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/069.jpg" alt="'fix--bayonets!' 069 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
"Order—Arms!" commanded the Sergeant, after he had explained how it
was to be done. Si brought his gun down along with the rest like a
pile-driver, and it landed squarely on the foot of the man next to him.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0023" id="linkimage-0023">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/065.jpg" alt="Brought his Gun Down on the Man's Foot 065 "
width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
"Ou-ou-ouch!" remarked the victim of Si's inexperience.
</p>
<p>
"Didn't do it a'purpose, pard," said Si compassionately; "'pon my word I
didn't. I'll be more keerful after this."
</p>
<p>
His suffering comrade, in very pointed language, urged upon Si the
propriety of exercising a little more care. He determined that he would
manage to get some other fellow to stand next to Si after that.
</p>
<p>
"Shoulder—Arms!" ordered the Sergeant, and the guns came straggling
up into position. Then, after a few words of instruction, "Right shoulder
shift—Arms!"
</p>
<p>
"Don't you know your right shoulder?" said the Sergeant, with a good deal
of vinegar in his tone, to Si, who had his gun on the "larboard" side, as
a sailor would say.
</p>
<p>
"Beg yer pardon," said Si; "I always was lefthanded. I'll learn if yer
only gimme a show!"
</p>
<p>
"Silence!" again roared the Sergeant. "One more word, sir, and I will tie
ye up, fer a fact!"
</p>
<p>
The Sergeant got his squad down to an "order arms" again, and then, after
showing them how, he gave the order, "Fix—Bayonets!"
</p>
<p>
There was the usual clicking and clattering, during which Si dexterously
managed to stick his bayonet into the eye of his comrade, whose toes were
still aching from the blow of the butt of Si's musket. Si assured him he
was sorry, and that it was all a mistake, but his comrade thought the
limit of patience had been passed. So he confidently informed Si that as
soon as drill was over he was going to "pound the stuffin'" out of him,
and there wouldn't be any mistake about it, either.
</p>
<p>
When the hour was up the Captain of the company came around to see how the
boys were getting along. The upshot of it was that poor Si was immediately
organized into an "awkward squad" all by himself, and drilled an extra
hour.
</p>
<p>
"We'll see, Mr. Klegg," said the Captain, "if you can't learn to handle
your arms without mashing the toes and stabbing the eyes out of the rest
of the company."
</p>
<p>
<a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008">
<!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER VIII. ON COMPANY DRILL
</h2>
<h3>
SI GETS TANGLED IN THE MAZES OF THE EVOLUTIONS.
</h3>
<p>
"ALL in for company drill!"
</p>
<p>
These words struck the unwilling ears of Co. Q, 200th Ind., the next time
Buell halted his army to draw a long breath.
</p>
<p>
"Wish somebody would shoot that durned Orderly," muttered Si Klegg. "For
two cents I'd do it myself."
</p>
<p>
"Don't do it, Si," admonished Shorty, "They'd git another one that'd be
just as bad. All orderlies are cusses."
</p>
<p>
Si believed it would be a case of justifiable homicide, and, if the truth
must be told, this feeling was largely shared by the other members of the
company. For more than a week the boys had been tramping over a
"macadamized" Kentucky pike. Feet were plentifully decorated with
blisters, legs were stiff and sore, and joints almost refused to perform
their functions.
</p>
<p>
It had rained nearly all the previous day, and the disgusted Hoosiers of
the 200th went sloshing along, wet to the skin, for 20 dreary miles. With
that diabolical care and method that were generally practiced at such
times, the Generals selected the worst possible locations for the camps.
The 200th was turned into a cornfield, where the men sank over their
shoetops in mud, and were ordered to bivouac for the night. The wagons
didn't get up at all. How they passed the slowly-dragging hours of that
dismal night will not be told at this time. Indeed, bare mention is enough
to recall the scene to those who have "been there."
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0024" id="linkimage-0024">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/073.jpg" alt="Don't Care a Continental 073 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
In the morning, when the company was ordered out for drill, Si Klegg was
standing before the sputtering fire trying to dry his steaming clothes,
every now and then turning around to give the other side a chance. The
mercury in his individual thermometer had fallen to a very low point—in
fact, it was a cold day for Si's patriotism. He had reached that stage,
not by any means infrequent among the soldiers, when he "didn't care
whether school kept or not."
</p>
<p>
"Well, Si, I s'pose you love your country this mornin'!" said Shorty. He
was endeavoring to be cheerful under adverse circumstances.
</p>
<p>
"I ain't quite as certain about it," said Si, reflectively, "as I was when
I left home, up in Posey County. I'm afeared I haven't got enough of it to
last me through three years of this sort of thing!"
</p>
<p>
Si felt at that moment as though he was of no account for anything, unless
it was to be decked with paint and feathers and stood for a sign in front
of a cigar store.
</p>
<p>
The rain had ceased, and the Colonel of the 200th felt that he must, like
the busy bee, "improve each shining hour" in putting his command into
condition for effective service. So he told the Adjutant to have the
companies marched over to an adjacent pasture for drill.
</p>
<p>
"Attention, Co. Q!" shouted the Captain, after the Orderly had got the
boys limbered up enough to get into ranks. The Captain didn't know very
much about drilling himself, but he had been reading up "Hardee," and
thought he could handle the company; but it was a good deal like the blind
trying to lead the blind.
</p>
<p>
"Right—Face!"
</p>
<p>
Not quite half the men faced the wrong way, turning to the left instead of
the right, which was doing pretty well for a starter.
</p>
<p>
"Get around there, Klegg, and the rest of you fellows! Can't ye ever learn
anything."
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0025" id="linkimage-0025">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/075.jpg" alt="'right--face!' 075 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
Si was so particularly awkward that the Captain put him at the tail-end of
the company. Then he tried the right face again, and as the boys seemed to
get around in fair shape he commanded:
</p>
<p>
"Right shoulder shift arms! Forward—March!"
</p>
<p>
The company started off; but the Captain was not a little surprised, on
looking back, to see Si marching: off in the opposite direction. He had
faced the wrong way again, and, as he didn't see the others, he thought he
was all right, and away he went on his own hook, till a shout from the
Captain told him of his mistake.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0026" id="linkimage-0026">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/076.jpg" alt="'forward--march!' 076 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
When the Captain reached the field which was the drill-ground for the day,
he thought he would try a wheel. After a brief lecture to the company on
the subject he gave the command for the movement.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0027" id="linkimage-0027">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/077.jpg" alt="'company--right Wheel!' 077 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
It is scarcely necessary to say that the first trial was a sad failure.
The line bulged out in the center, and the outer flank, unable to keep up,
fell behind, the company assuming nearly the shape of a big letter C. Then
the boys on the outer end took the double-quick, cutting across the arc of
the proper circle, which soon resulted in a hopeless wreck of the whole
company. The Captain halted the chaotic mass of struggling men, and with
the help of the Orderly finally succeeded in getting them straightened out
and into line again. The men had often seen practiced soldiers going
through this most difficult of all tactical movements, and it seemed easy
enough; they didn't see why they couldn't do it just as well as the other
fellows. They kept at it, and in the course of half an hour had improved
so much that they could swing around in some kind of shape without the
line breaking to pieces.
</p>
<p>
<a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009">
<!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER IX. SI GETS A LETTER
</h2>
<h3>
AND WRITES ONE TO PRETTY ANNABEL, UNDER DIFFICULTIES.
</h3>
<p>
"COMPANY Q, tumble up here and git yer mail!" shouted the Orderly one
afternoon, soon after the 200th Ind. turned into a tobacco patch to
bivouac for the night. It had been two weeks since the regiment left
Louisville, and this was the first mail that had caught up with it.
</p>
<p>
It seemed to the boys as if they had been away from home a year. For a
whole fortnight they hadn't heard a word from their mothers, or sisters,
or their "girls." Si Klegg couldn't have felt more lonesome and forsaken
if he had been Robinson Crusoe.
</p>
<p>
In the excitement of distributing the mail everything else was forgotten..
The boys were all getting their suppers, but at the thought of letters
from home even hunger had to take a back seat.
</p>
<p>
Si left his coffee-pot to tip over into the fire, and his bacon sizzling
in the frying-pan, as he elbowed his way into the crowd that huddled
around the Orderly.
</p>
<p>
"If there ain't more'n one letter for me," said Si softly to himself, "I
hope it'll be from Annabel; but, of course, I'd like to hear from Ma and
sister Marier, too!"
</p>
<p>
The Orderly, with a big package of letters in his hand, was calling out
the names, and as the boys received their letters they distributed
themselves through the camp, squatting about on rails or on the ground,
devouring with the greatest avidity the welcome messages from home. The
camp looked as if there had been a snowstorm.
</p>
<p>
Si waited anxiously to hear his name called as the pile letters rapidly
grew smaller, and he began to think he was going to get left.
</p>
<p>
"Josiah Klegg!" at length shouted the Orderly, as he held out two letters.
Si snatched them from his hand, went off by himself, and sat down on a
log.
</p>
<p>
Si looked at his letters and saw that one of them was addressed in a
pretty hand. He had never received a letter from Annabel before, but he
"felt it in his bones" that this one was from her. He glanced around to be
certain nobody was looking at him, and gently broke the seal, while a
ruddy glow overspread his beardless cheeks. But he was secure from
observation, as everybody else was similarly intent.
</p>
<p>
"Dear Si," the letter began. He didn't have to turn over to the bottom of
the last page to know what name he would find there. He read those words
over and over a dozen times, and they set his nerves tingling clear down
to his toe-nails. Si forgot his aches and blisters as he read on through
those delicious lines.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0028" id="linkimage-0028">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/081.jpg" alt="It's from Annabel 081 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
She wrote how anxious she was to hear from him and how cruel it was of him
not to write to her real often; how she lay awake nights thinking about
him down among those awful rebels; how she supposed that by this time he
must be full of bullet-holes; and didn't he ge' hungry sometimes, and
wasn't it about time for him to get a furlough? how it was just too mean
for anything that those men down South had to get up a war; how proud she
was of Si because he had 'listed, and how she watched the newspapers every
day to find some thing about him; how she wondered how many rebels he had
killed, and if he had captured any batteries yet—she said she didn't
quite know what batteries were, but she read a good deal about capturing
'em, and she supposed it was something all the soldiers did; how she hoped
he wouldn't forget her, and she'd like to see how he looked, now that he
was a real soldier, and her father had sold the old "mooley" cow, and
Sally Perkins was engage to Jim Johnson, who had stayed at home, and as
for herself she wouldn't have anybody but a soldier about the size of Si,
and 'Squire Jones's son had been trying to shine up to her and cut Si out,
but she sent him off with a flea in his ear.
</p>
<p>
"Yours till deth, Annabel."
</p>
<p>
The fact that there was a word misspelt now and then did not detract in
the least from the letter, so pleasing to Si. In fact, he was a little
lame in orthography himself, so that he had neither the ability nor the
disposition to scan Annabel's pages with a critic's eye. Si was happy, and
as he began to cast about for his supper he even viewed with complacence
his bacon burned to a crisp and his capsized coffee-pot helplessly melting
away in the fire.
</p>
<p>
"Well, Si, what does she say?" said his friend Shorty.
</p>
<p>
"What does who say?" replied Si, getting red in the face, and bristling up
and trying to assume an air of indifference.
</p>
<p>
"Just look here now. Si," said Shorty, "you can't play that on me. How
about that rosy-cheeked girl up in Posey County?"
</p>
<p>
It was Si's tender spot. He hadn't got used to that sort of thing yet, and
he felt that the emotions that made his heart throb like a sawmill were
too sacred to be fooled with. Impelled by a sudden impulse he smote Shorty
fairly between the eyes, felling him to the ground.
</p>
<p>
The Orderly, who happened to be near, took Si by the ear and marched him
up to the Captain's quarters.
</p>
<p>
"Have him carry a rail in front of my tent for an hour!" thundered the
Captain. "Don't let it be a splinter, either; pick out a good, heavy one.
And, Orderly, detail a guard to keep Mr. Klegg moving."
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0029" id="linkimage-0029">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/083.jpg" alt="Si Carries a Rail 083 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
Of course, it was very mortifying to Si, and he would have been almost
heartbroken had he not been comforted by the thought that it was all for
her! At first he felt as if he would like to take that rail and charge
around and destroy the whole regiment; but, on thinking it over, he made
up his mind that discretion was the better part of valor.
</p>
<p>
As soon as Si's hour was up, and he had eaten supper and "made up" with
Shorty, he set about answering his letter. When, on his first march, Si
cleaned out all the surplusage from his knapsack, he had hung on to a
pretty portfolio that his sister gave him. This was stocked with postage
stamps and writing materials, including an assortment of the envelopes of
the period, bearing in gaudy colors National emblems, stirring legends,
and harrowing scenes of slaughter, all intended to stimulate the patriotic
impulses and make the breast of the soldier a very volcano of martial
ardor.
</p>
<p>
When Si got out his nice portfolio he found it to be an utter wreck. It
had been jammed into a shapeless mass, and, besides this, it had been
soaked with rain; paper and envelopes were a pulpy ruin, and the postage
stamps were stuck around here and there in the chaos. It was plain that
this memento of home had fallen an early victim to the hardships of
campaign life, and that its days of usefulness were over.
</p>
<p>
"It's no use; 'tain't any good," said Si sorrowfully, as he tossed the
debris into the fire, after vainly endeavoring to save from the wreck
enough to carry, out his epistolary scheme.
</p>
<p>
Then he went to the sutler—or "skinner," as he was better known—and
paid 10 cents for a sheet of paper and an envelope, on which were the
cheerful words, "It is sweet to die for one's country!" and 10 cents more
for a 3-cent postage stamp. He borrowed a leadpencil, hunted up a piece of
crackerbox, and sat down to his work by the flickering light of the fire.
Si wrote:
</p>
<p>
"Deer Annie."
</p>
<p>
There he stopped, and while he was scratching his head and thinking what
he would say next the Orderly came around detailing guards for the night,
and directed Klegg to get his traps and report at once for duty.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0030" id="linkimage-0030">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/085.jpg" alt="Si Writes to 'deer Annie.' 085 "
width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
"It hain't my turn," said Si. "There's Bill Brown, and Jake Schneider, and
Pat Dooley, and a dozen more—I've been since they have!"
</p>
<p>
But the Orderly did not even deign to reply. Si remembered the
guard-house, and his shoulder still ached from the rail he had carried
that evening; so he quietly folded up his paper and took his place with
the detail.
</p>
<p>
The next morning the army moved early, and Si had no chance to resume his
letter. As soon as the regiment halted, after an 18-mile march, he tackled
it again. This time nothing better offered in the way of a writing-desk
than a tin plate, which he placed face downward upon his knee. Thus
provided, Si plunged briskly into the job before him, with the following
result:
</p>
<p>
"I now take my pen in hand to let you know that I am well, except the
doggoned blisters on my feet, and I hope these few lines may find you
enjoying the same blessings."
</p>
<p>
Si thought this was neat and a good start for his letter. Just as he had
caught an idea for the next sentence a few scattering shots were heard on
the picket-line, and in an instance the camp was in commotion. "Tall in!"
"Be lively, men!" were heard on every hand.
</p>
<p>
Si sprang as if he had received a galvanic shock, cramming the letter into
his pocket. Of course, there wasn't any fight. It was only one of the
scares that formed so large a part of that campaign. But it spoiled Si's
letter-writing for the time.
</p>
<p>
It was nearly a week before he got his letter done. He wrote part of it
using for a desk the back of a comrade who was sitting asleep by the fire.
He worked at it whenever he could catch a few minutes between the marches
and the numerous details for guard, picket, fatigue and other duty. He
said to Annie:
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0031" id="linkimage-0031">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/087.jpg" alt="An Army Writing-desk 087 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
"Bein' a soljer aint quite what they crack it up to be when
they're gittin' a fellow to enlist. It's mity rough, and
you'd better believe it. You ought to be glad you're a gurl
and don't haf to go. I wish't I was a gurl sometimes. I
haven't kild enny rebbles yet. I hain't even seen one except
a fiew raskils that was tuk in by the critter soljers, they
calls em cavilry. Me and all the rest of the boys wants to
hav a fite, but it looks like Ginral Buil was afeared, and
we don't git no chance. I axed the Ordly couldn't he get me
a furlow. The Ordly jest laft and says to me, Si, says he,
yer don't know as much as a mule. The Capt'n made me walk up
and down for an hour with a big rail on my sholder.
"You tell Squire Joneses boy that he haint got sand enuff to
jine the army, and if he don't keep away from you I'll bust
his eer when I git home, if I ever do. Whattle you do if I
shouldn't ever see you agin? But you no this glorus Govyment
must be pertected, and the bully Stars and Strips must
flote, and your Si is goin to help do it.
"My pen is poor, my ink is pale,
My luv for you shall never fale.
"Yours, aflfeckshnitly, Si Klegg."
</pre>
<p>
<a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010">
<!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER X. SI AND THE DOCTORS
</h2>
<h3>
HE JOINS THE PALE PROCESSION AT SICK-CALL.
</h3>
<p>
SI KLEGG was a good specimen of a healthy, robust Hoosier lad—for he
could scarcely be called' a man yet. Since he lay in his cradle and was
dosed with paregoric and catnip tea like other babies, he had never seen a
sick day, except when he had the mumps on "both sides" at once. He had
done all he could to starve the doctors.
</p>
<p>
When the 200th Ind. took the field it had the usual outfit of men who
wrote their names sandwiched between a military title in front and "M. D."
behind, a big hospital tent, and an apothecary shop on wheels, loaded to
the guards with quinine, blue-mass, castor oil, epsom salts, and all other
devices to assuage the sufferings of humanity.
</p>
<p>
The boys all started out in good shape, and there had been hardly time for
them to get sick much yet. So up to this stage of the regiment's history
the doctors had found little to do but issue arnica and salve for lame
legs and blistered feet, and strut around in their shiny uniforms.
</p>
<p>
But there came a day when they had all they could attend to. On going into
camp one afternoon, the regiment, well in advance, struck a big field of
green corn and an orchard of half-ripe apples. Of course, the boys sailed
in, and natural consequences followed.
</p>
<p>
"Now this is something like!" said Si, as he squatted on the ground along
with Shorty and half a dozen messmates. They surrounded a camp-kettle full
of steaming ears and half a bushel or so of apples heaped on a poncho.
</p>
<p>
"Wish we had some o' mother's butter to grease this corn with," observed
Si, as he flung a cob into the fire and seized a fresh ear.
</p>
<p>
All agreed that Si's head was level on the butter question, but under all
the circumstances of the case they were glad enough to have the com
without butter.
</p>
<p>
The ears went off with amazing rapidity. Every man seemed to be afraid he
wouldn't get his share. When the kettle was empty the boys turned
themselves loose on the apples, utterly reckless of results. So, they were
filled full, and were thankful.
</p>
<p>
When Si got up he burst off half the buttons on his clothes. He looked as
if he was carrying a bass-drum in front of him. After he began to shrink
he had to tie up his clothes with a string until he had a chance to repair
damages. But during the next 24 hours he had something else to think of.
</p>
<p>
In fact, it wasn't long till Si began to wish he had eaten an ear of corn
and an apple or two less. He didn't feel very well. He turned in early,
thinking he would go to sleep and be all right in the morning.
</p>
<p>
Along in the night he uttered a yell that came near stampeding the
company. An enormous colic was raging around in his interior, and Si
fairly howled with pain. He thought he was going: to die right away.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0032" id="linkimage-0032">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/091.jpg" alt="Laying the Foundation 091 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
"Shorty," said he, between the gripes, to his comrade, "I'm afeared I'm
goin' to peter out. After I'm gone you write to—to—Annie and
tell her I died for my country like a man. I'd ruther been shot than die
with the colic, but I 'spose 'twont make much difference after it's all
over!" 9 "I'll do it," replied Shorty. "We'll plant you in good shape; and
Si, we'll gather up the corn-cobs and build a monument over you!"
</p>
<p>
But Si wasn't cut off in the bloom of youth by that colic. His eruptive
condition frightened Shorty, however, and though he was in nearly as bad
shape himself, he went up and routed out one of the doctors, who growled a
good deal about being disturbed.
</p>
<p>
The debris of the supper scattered about the camp told him what was the
matter, and he had no need to make a critical diagnosis of Si's case. He
gave him a dose of something or other that made the pain let up a little,
and Si managed to rub along through the night.
</p>
<p>
Fortunately for Si, and for more than half the members of the regiment,
the army did not move next day, and the doctors had a good opportunity to
get in their work.
</p>
<p>
At the usual hour in the morning the bugle blew the "sick-call." A
regiment of tanned and grizzled veterans from Ohio lay next to the 200th
Ind., and as Si lay there he heard them take up the music:
</p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
"Git yer qui-nine! Git yer qui-nine!
Tumble up you sick and lame and blind;
Git a-long right smart, you'll be left be-hind."
</pre>
<p>
"Fall in fer yer ipecac!" shouted the Orderly of Co. Q. Si joined the
procession and went wabbling up to the "doctor's" shop. He was better than
he had been during the night, but still looked a good deal discouraged.
</p>
<p>
It was a regular matinee that day. The Surgeon and his assistants were all
on hand, as the various squads, colicky and cadaverous, came to a focus in
front of the tent.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0033" id="linkimage-0033">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/093.jpg" alt="A Rude Awakening 093 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
The doctors worked off the patients at a rapid rate, generally prescribing
the same medicine for all, no matter what ailed them. This was the way the
army doctors always did, but it happened in this case that they were not
far wrong, as the ailments, arising from a common cause, were much the
same.
</p>
<p>
Si waited till his turn came, and received his rations from the Hospital
Steward. Of course, he was excused from duty for the day, and as he
speedily recovered his normal condition he really had a good time.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0034" id="linkimage-0034">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/094.jpg" alt="Visits the Doctor 094 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
A few days after this the whole regiment was ordered on fatigue duty to
repair an old corduroy road. Si didn't want to go, and "played off." He
told the Orderly he wasn't able to work, but the Orderly said he would
have to shoulder an ax or a shovel, unless he was excused by the doctor.
He went up at sick-call and made a wry face, with his hands clasped over
his body in the latitude of his waistband.
</p>
<p>
The doctor gave him a lot of blue-mass pills, which Si threw into the fire
as soon as he got back to his quarters. Then he played seven-up all day
with Shorty, who had learned before Si did how to get a day off when he
wanted it.
</p>
<p>
Si thought it was a great scheme, but he tried it once too often. The
doctor "caught on," and said, the next time Si went up, that castor oil
was what he needed to fetch him around. So he poured out a large dose and
made Si take it right then and there.
</p>
<p>
The next time fatigue duty was ordered Si thought he felt well enough to
go along with the boys.
</p>
<p>
<a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011">
<!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER XI. THE PLAGUE OF THE SOLDIER
</h2>
<h3>
INTRODUCTION TO "ONE WHO STICKETH CLOSER THAN A BROTHER."
</h3>
<p>
"HELLO Si; goin' for a soljer, ain't ye?"
</p>
<p>
"You bet!"
</p>
<p>
"Wall, you'd better b'lieve its great fun; it's jest a picnic all the
time! But, say, Si, let's see yer finger-nails!"
</p>
<p>
"I'd like ter know what finger-nails 's got to do with soljerin'!" said
Si. "The 'cruitin' ossifer 'n' the man 't keeps the doctor shop made me
shuck myself, 'n' then they 'xamined my teeth, 'n' thumped me in the ribs,
'n' rubbed down my legs, 'n' looked at my hoofs, same 's if 'I'd bin a
hoss they wuz buyin', but they didn't say nothin' 'bout my finger-nails."
</p>
<p>
"You jest do 's I tell ye; let 'em grow, 'n' keep 'em right sharp. Ye'll
find plenty o' use fer 'em arter a while, 'n' 'twont be long, nuther. I
know what I'm talkin' 'bout; I've been thar!"
</p>
<p>
This conversation took place a day or two before Si bade farewell to his
mother and sister Marier and pretty Annabel and left the peaceful
precincts of Posey County to march away with the 200th Ind. for that awful
place vaguely designated as "the front!" He had promptly responded to the
call, and his name was near the top of the list of Company Q.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0035" id="linkimage-0035">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/097.jpg" alt="'let Yer Nails Grow; Ye'll Need 'em' 097 "
width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
Si already had his blue clothes on. By enlisting early he had a good pick
of the various garments, and so got a suit that fitted his form—which
was plump as an apple-dumpling tolerably well. It was left for the
tail-enders of the company to draw trousers that were six inches too long
or too short, and blouses that either wouldn't reach around, and left
yawning chasms in front, or were so large that they looked as if they were
hung on bean-poles.
</p>
<p>
Of course, Si couldn't be expected to do any more plodding farm work, now
that he had "jined" the army. While the company was filling up he spent
most of his time on dress parade in the village near by, eliciting
admiring smiles from all the girls, and an object of the profoundest awe
and wonder to tha small boys.
</p>
<p>
One day Si was sitting on the sugar-barrel in the corner grocery, gnawing
a "blind robin," and telling how he thought the war wouldn't last long
after the 200th Ind. got down there and took a hand and got fairly
interested in the game; they would wind it up in short meter. Such ardent
emotions always seethed and bubbled in the swelling breasts of the new
troops when they came down to show the veterans just how to do it.
</p>
<p>
One of the town boys who had been a year in the service, had got a bullet
through his arm in a skirmish, and was at home on furlough, came into the
store, and then took place the dialog between him and Si that opens this
chapter.
</p>
<p>
Si wondered a good deal what the veteran meant about the finger-nails. He
did not even know that there existed in any nature a certain active and
industrious insect which, before he had been in the army a great while,
would cause his heart to overflow with gratitude to a beneficent
Providence for providing him with nails on his fingers.
</p>
<p>
When the 200th left Indiana all the boys had, of course, brand-new outfits
right from Uncle Sam's great one-price clothing house. Their garments were
nice and clean, their faces well washed, and their hair yet showed marks
of the comb. At Louisville they stuck up their noses, with a lofty
consciousness of superiority, at the sight of Buell's tanned and ragged
tramps, who had just come up on the gallop from Tennessee and northern
Alabama.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0036" id="linkimage-0036">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/099.jpg" alt="'say, Cap, What Kind O' Bug is This?' 099 "
width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
If the new Hoosier regiment had been quartered for a while in long-used
barracks, or had pitched its tents in an old camp, Si would very soon have
learned, in the school of experience, the delightful uses of finger-nails.
But the 200th stayed only a single night in Louisville and then joined the
procession that started on the chase after the rebel army. It generally
camped on new ground, and under these circumstances the insect to which
allusion has been made did not begin its work of devastation with that
suddenness that usually marked its attack upon soldiers entering the
field. But he never failed to "git there" sooner or later, and it was more
frequently sooner than later.
</p>
<p>
One afternoon, when a few days out on this march, a regiment of Wisconsin
veterans bivouacked next to the 200th Ind. The strange antics as they
threw off their accouterments attracted Si's attention.
</p>
<p>
"Look a' thar," he said to Shorty. "What 'n name of all the prophets 's
them fellers up to?"
</p>
<p>
"Seems like they was scratchin' theirselves!"
</p>
<p>
"I s'pose that's on account of the dust 'n' sweat," said Si.
</p>
<p>
"It's a mighty sight worse 'n that!" replied Shorty, who knew more about
these things than Si did. "I reckon we'll all be doin' like they are 'fore
long."
</p>
<p>
Si whistled softly to himself as he watched the Wisconsin boys. They were
hitching and twisting their shoulders about, evidently enjoying the
friction of the clothing upon their skins. There was a general employment
of fingers, and often one would be seen getting come other fellow to
scratch his back around where he couldn't reach himself. If everybody was
too busy to do this for him he would back up to a tree and rub up and down
against the bark.
</p>
<p>
Life has few pleasures that can equal the sensations of delightful
enjoyment produced in those days, when graybacks were plenty, by rubbing
against a tree that nicely fitted the hollow of the back, after throwing
off one's "traps" at the end of a day's march.
</p>
<p>
Directly the Wisconsin chaps began to scatter into the woods. Si watched
them as they got behind the trees and threw off their blouses and shirts.
He thought at first that perhaps they were going in swimming, but there
was no stream of water at hand large enough to justify this theory in
explanation of their nudity. As each man set down, spread his nether
garment over his knees and appeared to be intently engaged, with eyes and
fingers. Si's curiosity was very much excited.
</p>
<p>
"Looks 's if they wuz all mendin' up their shirts and sewin' on buttons,"
said Si, "Guess it's part o' their regular drill, ain't it, Shorty?"
</p>
<p>
Shorty laughed at Si's ignorant simplicity. He knew what those veterans
were doing, and he knew that Si would have to come to it, but he didn't
want to shock his tender sensibilities by telling him of it.
</p>
<p>
"Them fellers ain't sewin' on no buttons. Si," he replied; "they're
skirmishin'."
</p>
<p>
"Skirmishin'!" exclaimed Si, opening his eyes very wide. "I haint seen any
signs o' rebs 'round here, 'n' there aint any shootin' goin' on, 'nless
I've lost my hearin'. Durned if 't aint the funniest skirmishin' I ever
hearn tell of!"
</p>
<p>
"Now, don't ax me nuthin' more 'bout it, Si," said Shorty. "All I'm goin'
to tell ye is that the longer ye live the more ye'll find things out.
Let's flax 'round 'n' git supper!"
</p>
<p>
A little while after, as Si was squatting on the ground holding the
frying-pan over the fire, he saw a strange insect vaguely wandering about
on the sleeve of his blouse. It seemed to be looking for something, and Si
became interested as he watched it traveling up and down his arm. He had
never seen one like it before, and he thought he would like to know what
it was. He would have asked Shorty, but his comrade had gone to the spring
for water. Casting his eye around he saw the Captain, who chanced to be
sauntering through the camp.
</p>
<p>
The Captain of Co. Q had been the Principal of a seminary in Posey County,
and was looked upon with awe by the simple folk as a man who knew about
all that was worth knowing. Si thought he might be able to tell him all
about the harmless's-looking little stranger.
</p>
<p>
So he put down his frying-pan and stepped up to the Captain, holding out
his arm and keeping his eye on the insect so that he shouldn't get away.
</p>
<p>
"Good evenin', Cap.," said Si, touching his hat, and addressing him with
that familiar disregard of official dignity that characterised the average
volunteer, who generally felt that he was just as good as anybody who wore
shoulder straps.
</p>
<p>
"Good evening, Klegg," said the Captain, returning the salute.
</p>
<p>
"Say, Cap, you've been ter collidge 'n' got filled up with book-larnin';
p'raps ye kin tell me what kind o' bug this is. I'm jest a little bit
curious to know."
</p>
<p>
And Si pointed to the object of his inquiry that was leisurely creeping
toward a hole in the elbow of his outer garment.
</p>
<p>
"Well, Josiah," said the Captain, after a brief inspection, "I presume I
don't know quite as much as some people think I do; but I guess I can tell
you something about that insect. I never had any of them myself, but I've
read of them."
</p>
<p>
"Never had 'em himself," thought Si. "What 'n the world does ha mean?" And
Si's big eyes opened with wonder and fear at the thought that whatever it
was he had "got 'em."
</p>
<p>
"I suppose," continued the Captain, "you would like to know the scientific
name?"
</p>
<p>
"I reck'n that'll do 's well 's any."
</p>
<p>
"Well, sir, that is a Pediculus. That's a Latin word, but it's his name."
</p>
<p>
"Purty big name fer such a leetle bug, ain't it, Perfessor?" observed Si.
"Name's big enough for an el'fant er a 'potamus."
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0037" id="linkimage-0037">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/103.jpg" alt="'skirmishing' 103 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
"It may seem so, Klegg; but when you get intimately acquainted with him I
think you will find that his name isn't any too large for him. There is a
good deal more of him than you think."
</p>
<p>
The young soldier's eyes opened still wider.
</p>
<p>
"I was going on to tell you," continued the Captain, "that there are
several kinds of Pediculi—we don't say Pediculuses. There is the
Pediculus Capitis—Latin again—but it means the kind that lives
on the head. I presume when you were a little shaver your mother now and
then harrowed your head with a fine-tooth comb?"
</p>
<p>
"Ya-as" said Si; "she almost took the hide off sometimes, an' made me yell
like an Injun."
</p>
<p>
"Now, Klegg, I don't wish to cause you unnecessary alarm, but I will say
that the head insect isn't a circumstance to this one on your arm. As you
would express it, perhaps, he can't hold a candle to him. This fellow is
the Pediculus Corporis!"
</p>
<p>
"I s'pose that means they eats up Corporals!" said Si.
</p>
<p>
"I do not think the Pediculus Corporis confines himself exclusively to
Corporals, as his name might indicate," said the Captain, laughing at Si's
literal translation and his personal application of the word. "He no doubt
likes a juicy and succulent Corporal, but I don't believe he is any
respecter of persons. That's my opinion, from what I've heard about him.
It is likely that I 'will be able to speak more definitely, from
experience, after a while. Corporis means that he is the kind that
pastures on the human body. But there's one thing more about this fellow,
some call him Pediculus Vestimenti; that is because he lives around in the
clothing."
</p>
<p>
"But we don't wear no vests," said Si, taking a practical view of this new
word; "nothin' but blouses, 'n' pants, 'n' shirts."
</p>
<p>
"You are too literal, Klegg. That word means any kind of clothes. But I
guess I've told you as much about him as you care to know at present. If
you want any more information, after two or three weeks, come and see me
again. I think by that time you will not find it necessary to ask any more
questions."
</p>
<p>
Si went back to his cooking, with the Pediculus still on his arm. He
wanted to show it to Shorty. The Captain's profound explanation, with its
large words, was a little too much for Si. He did not yet clearly
comprehend the matter, and as he walked thoughtfully to where Shorty was
"bilin'" the coffee he was trying to get through his head what it all
meant.
</p>
<p>
"Hello, Si," said Shorty; "whar ye bin? What d'ye mean, goin' off 'n'
leavin' yer sowbelly half done?"
</p>
<p>
"Sh-h!" replied Si. "Ye needn't git yer back up about it. Bin talkin' to
the Cap'n. Shorty, look at that 'ere bug!"
</p>
<p>
And Si pointed to the object of the Captain's lecture on natural history
that was still creeping on his arm. Shorty slapped his thigh and burst
into a loud laugh.
</p>
<p>
"Was that what ye went to see the Cap'n 'bout?" he asked as soon as he
could speak.
</p>
<p>
"Why—ya-as," replied Si, somewhat surprised at Shorty's unseemly
levity. "I saw that thing crawlin' round, 'n' I was a-wonderin' what it
was, fer I never seen one afore. I knowed Cap was a scolard, 'n' a
perfesser, 'n' all that 'n' I 'lowed he c'd tell me all about it. So I
went 'n' axed him."
</p>
<p>
"What'd he tell ye?"
</p>
<p>
"He told me lots o' big, heathenish words, 'n' said this bug was a
ridiculous, or suthin' like that."
</p>
<p>
"'Diculus be blowed!" said Shorty, "The ole man was a'stuffin' ye. I'll
tell ye what that is, Si," he added solemnly, "that's a grayback!"
</p>
<p>
"A grayback!" said Si. "I've hearn 'em call the Johnnies graybacks, but I
didn't know 's there was any other kind."
</p>
<p>
"I reck'n 'twont be long, now, till yer catches on ter the meanin' ol what
a grayback is. Ye'll know all 'bout it purty sudden. This ain't the first
one I ever seen."
</p>
<p>
Si was impressed, as he had often been before, by Shorty's superior wisdom
and experience.
</p>
<p>
"See here. Si," Shorty continued, as his eye suddenly lighted up with a
brilliant thought, "I guess I kin make ye understand what a grayback is.
What d'ye call that coat ye've got on?"
</p>
<p>
"Why, that's a fool question; it's a blouse, of course!"
</p>
<p>
"Jesso!" said Shorty. "Now, knock off the fust letter o' that word, 'n'
see what ye got left!"
</p>
<p>
Si looked at Shorty as if he thought his conundrums were an indication of
approaching idiocy. Then he said, half to himself:
</p>
<p>
"Let's see! Blouse—blouse—take off the 'b' 'n' she spells
l-o-u-s-e, louse! Great Scott, Shorty, is that a louse?"
</p>
<p>
"That's jest the size of it. Si. Ye'll have millions of 'em 'fore the
war's over 'f they don't hurry up the cakes."
</p>
<p>
Si looked as if he would like to dig a hole in the ground, get into it,
and have Shorty cover him up.
</p>
<p>
"Why didn't the Cap'n tell me it was that? He said suthin' about ridiculus
corporalis, and I thought he was makin' fun o' me. He said these bugs
liked to eat fat Corporals.'
</p>
<p>
"I reck'n that's so," replied Shorty; "but they likes other people jest as
well—even a skinny feller like me. They lunches off'n privits, 'n'
Corp'rils, 'n' Kurnals, 'n' Gin'rals, all the same. They ain't satisfied
with three square meals a day, nuther; they jest eats right along all the
time 'tween regular meals. They allus gits hungry in the night, too, and
chaws a feller up while he sleeps. They don't give ye no show at all. I
rayther think the graybacks likes the ossifers best if they could have
their ch'ice, 'cause they's fatter 'n the privits; they gits better grub."
</p>
<p>
Si fairly turned pale as he contemplated the picture so graphically
portrayed by Shorty. The latter's explanation was far more effectual in
letting the light in upon Si's mind than the scientific disquisition of
the "Perfesser." He had now a pretty clear idea of what a "grayback" was.
Whatever he lacked to make his knowledge complete was soon supplied in the
regular way. But Si was deeply grieved and shocked at what Shorty had told
him. It was some minutes before he said anything more.
</p>
<p>
"Shorty," he said, with a sadness in his tone that would almost have moved
a mule to tears, "who'd a-thought rd ever git as low down 's this, to have
them all-fired graybacks, 's ye call 'em, crawlin' over me. How'd mother
feel if she knew about 'em. She wouldn't sleep a wink fer a month!"
</p>
<p>
"Ye'll have to come to it. Si. All the soljers does, from the
Major-Gin'rals down to the tail-end of the mule-whackers. Ye mind them
'Sconsin chaps we was lookin' at a little bit ago?"
</p>
<p>
"Yes," said Si.
</p>
<p>
"Well, graybacks was what ailed 'em. The fellers with their shirts on
their knees was killin' 'em off. That's what they calls 'skirmishin'.
There's other kinds o' skirmishing besides fitin' rebels! Ye'd better git
rid of that one on yer arm, if he hasn't got inside already; then there'll
be one less of 'em."
</p>
<p>
Si found him after a short search, and proposed to get a chip, carry him
to the fire and throw him in.
</p>
<p>
"Naw!" said Shorty in disgust, "that's no way. Lemme show yer how!"
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0038" id="linkimage-0038">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/107.jpg" alt="'naw! Lemme Show Ye How!' 107 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
Shorty placed one thumb-nail on each side of the insect. There was a quick
pressure, a snap like the crack of a percussion cap, and all was over.
</p>
<p>
Si shuddered, and wondered if he could ever engage in such a work of
slaughter.
</p>
<p>
"D'ye s'pose," he said to Shorty, "that there's any more of 'em on me?"
And he began to hitch his shoulders about, and to feel a desire to put his
fingers to active use.
</p>
<p>
"Shouldn't wonder," replied Shorty. "Mebbe I've got 'em, to. Let's go
out'n do a little skirmishin' ourselves."
</p>
<p>
"We'd better go off a good ways," said Si, "so's the boys won't see us."
</p>
<p>
"You're too nice and pertickler for a soljer. Si. They'll all be doin' it,
even the Cap'n himself, by termorrer or nex' day."
</p>
<p>
They went out back of the camp, where Si insisted on getting behind the
largest tree he could find. Then they sat down and engaged in that
exciting chase of the Pediculus up and down the seams of their garments,
so familiar to all who wore either the blue or the gray. Thousands of nice
young men who are now preachers and doctors and lawyers and statesmen,
felt just as bad about it at first as Si did.
</p>
<p>
"Shorty," said Si, as they slowly walked back to eat their supper, which
had been neglected in the excitement of the hour, "before Co. Q left Posey
County to jine the rigiment a feller 't was home on furlow told me ter let
my finger-nails grow long 'n' sharp. He said I'd need 'em. I didn't know
what he meant then, but I b'lieve I do now."
</p>
<p>
<a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012">
<!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER XII. A WET NIGHT
</h2>
<h3>
THE DEPRAVITY OF AN ARMY TENT REVEALS ITSELF.
</h3>
<p>
NIGHT threw her dark mantle over the camp of the 200th Ind. The details of
guard and picket had been made. Videts, with sleepless eye and listening
ear, kept watch and ward on the outposts, while faithful sentries trod
their beats around the great bivouac. All day the army had marched, and
was to take the road again at an early hour in the morning. Supper had
been eaten, and the tired soldiers were gathered around the campfires that
gleamed far and near through the darkness.
</p>
<p>
"Si," said Shorty to his chum as they sat on a log beside the dying
embers, "how d'ye like soldierin', as fur as ye've got?"
</p>
<p>
"It's purty hard business," said Si, reflectively, "an' I s'pose we haint
seen the worst on it yet, either, from what I've hearn tell. Pity the men
that got up this war can't be made to do all the trampin' 'n' fitin'. An'
them fellers up in old Injjeanny that come 'round makin' such red-hot
speeches to git us boys to 'list, wouldn't it be fun to see 'em humpin'
'long with gun 'n' knapsack, 'n' chawin' hardtack, 'n' stan'in' guard
nights, 'n' pourin' water on their blisters, 'n' pickin' graybacks off
their shirts, 'n' p'leecin' camp, 'n' washin' their own clothes?"
</p>
<p>
"I think we'd enj'y seein' 'em do all that," said Shorty, laughing at the
picture Si had drawn. "I reckon most of 'em 'd peter out purty quick, and
I'd like to hear what sort o' speeches they'd, make then. I tell ye, Si,
there's a big diff'rence 'tween goin' yerself an' tellin' some other
feller to go."
</p>
<p>
"Mebbe they'll git to draftin' after a while," observed Si, "'n' if they
do I hope that'll ketch em!"
</p>
<p>
"Wall, we're in fur it, anyway," said Shorty. "Let's take down the bed 'n'
turn in!"
</p>
<p>
It didn't take long to complete the arrangements for the night. They
spread their "gum" blankets, or ponchos, on the ground, within the tent,
and on these their wool blankets, placed their knapsacks at the head for
pillows, and that was all. It was warmer than usual that evening, and they
stripped down to their nether garments.
</p>
<p>
"Feels good once in a while," said Si, "to peel a feller's clothes oft,
'n' sleep in a Christian-like way. But, Great Scott! Shorty, ain't this
ground lumpy? It's like lying on a big washboard. I scooted all over the
country huntin' fer straw to-night. There wasn't but one little stack
within a mile of camp. Them derned Ohio chaps gobbled every smidgin of it.
They didn't leave enuff to make a hummin'-bird's nest. The 200th Ind. 'll
git even with 'em some day."
</p>
<p>
So Si and Shorty crept in between the blankets, drew the top one up to
their chins, and adjusted their bodily protuberances as best they could to
fit the ridges and hollows beneath them.
</p>
<p>
"Now, Si," said Shorty, "don't ye git to fitin' rebels in yer sleep and
kick the kiver off, as ye did last night."
</p>
<p>
As they lay there their ears caught the music of the bugles sounding the
"tattoo." Far and near floated through the clear night air the familiar
melody that warned every soldier not on duty to go to bed. Next to the
200th Ind. lay a regiment of wild Michigan veterans, who struck up,
following the strains of the bugles:
</p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
Say, oh Dutch'y, will ye fight mit Si-gel?
Zwei glass o' la-ger, Yaw! Yaw! Yaw!!!
Will yet fight to help de bul-ly ea-gle?
Schweitzer-ksse und pret-zels,
Hur-raw! raw! raw!
</pre>
<p>
During the night there came one of those sudden storms that seemed to be
sent by an inscrutable Providence especially to give variety to the
soldier's life.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0039" id="linkimage-0039">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/111.jpg" alt="Struck by a Cyclone 111 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
A well-developed cyclone struck the camp, and Si and Shorty were soon
awakened by the racket. The wind was blowing and whirling in fierce gusts,
wrenching out the tent-pins or snapping the ropes as if they were threads.
Everywhere was heard the flapping of canvas, and the yells and shouts of
the men as they dashed about in the darkness and wild confusion. Many of
the tents were already prostrate, and their demoralized inmates were
crawling out from under the ruin. To crown all the rain began to fall in
torrents. The camp was a vast pandemonium. The blackest darkness
prevailed, save when the scene was illuminated by flashes of lightning.
These were followed by peals of thunder that made the stoutest quake.
</p>
<p>
Si sprang up at the first alarm. "Git up, here, you fellers!" he shouted.
"We'd better go outside and grab the ropes, or the hull shebang 'll go
over."
</p>
<p>
There was not a moment to spare. Si dashed out into the storm and
darkness, followed by his comrades. Seizing the ropes, some of which were
already loosened, they braced themselves and hung on for dear life, in the
drenching rain, their hair and garments streaming in the wind.
</p>
<p>
Si's prompt action saved the tent from the general wreck. The fury of the
storm was soon past. Si and his comrades, after driving the pins and
securing the ropes, re-entered the tent, wet and shivering for the mercury
had gone down with a tumble, or rather it would have done so had they been
supplied with thermometers. But the scanty costume in which Si found
himself afforded a weather indicator sufficiently accurate for all
practical purposes.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0040" id="linkimage-0040">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/115.jpg" alt="Supper Under Difficulties 115 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
The ground was flooded, and their blankets and garments were fast
absorbing the water that flowed around in such an exasperating way. Sleep
under such conditions was out of the question. Si and Shorty put on their
clothes and tried to make the best of their sorry plight.
</p>
<p>
By this time the rain had nearly ceased. Fortunately they had laid in a
good stock of fuel the night before, and after a little patient effort
they succeeded in getting a fire started. Around this the boys hovered,
alternately warming their calves and shins.
</p>
<p>
"This is a leetle more'n I bargained fer," said Si. Then, taking a
philosophical view of the case, he added, "but there's one good thing
about it, Shorty, we'll be all fixed for mornin', an' we won't have to get
up when they sound the revel-lee. The buglers kin jest bust theirselves
a-blowin' fer all I keer!"
</p>
<p>
In this way the soldiers spent the remainder of the night. Before daybreak
the blast of a hundred bugles rang out, but there was little need for the
reveille.
</p>
<p>
Breakfast was soon over, and in the gray dawn of that murky morning the
long column went trailing on its way. The weather gave promise of a sloppy
day, and the indications were fully verified. A drizzling rain set in, and
continued without cessation. The boys put their heads through the holes in
their ponchos, from the corners of which the water streamed. With their
muskets at a "secure" they sloshed along through the mud, hour after hour.
In spite of their "gums" the water found its way in at the back of the
neck and trickled down their bodies. Their clothes became saturated, and
they were altogether about as miserable as it is possible for mortals to
be.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0041" id="linkimage-0041">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/117.jpg" alt="A Field Shanty 117 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
It seemed to Si that the maximum of discomfort had been reached. He had
experienced one thing after another during the few weeks since he left
home, and he thought each in turn was worse than the last, and about as
bad as it could be. But Si learned a good deal more before he graduated.
All through the long, dreary day the soldiers plodded on. There was little
comfort to be derived from the "rest," for the ground was soaked with
water.
</p>
<p>
"Why didn't we think of it, Shorty," said Si, "'n' make it part o' the
bargain' when we 'listed that we were to have umbrellers. These gum things
don't amount to shucks, nohow, to keep the rain off. I sh'd think Uncle
Sam might do that much for us!"
</p>
<p>
"I reckon our clothes 'll be purty well washed by the time we git out o'
this mess," said Shorty.
</p>
<p>
"Feels that way," said Si; "but how about the bilin'? A cold bath jest
refreshes them pesky little varmints, 'n' makes 'em livelier 'n ever. Say,
Shorty, ye didn't write home anything 'bout our havin' graybacks, did ye?"
</p>
<p>
"No, not yet; but I was thinkin' I'd tell 'em 'bout it one o' these days."
</p>
<p>
"Well, Shorty, I ain't going to tell my folks; it 'd jest make my mother
feel awful to know I was that way. And sister Maria, and—"
</p>
<p>
Si was thinking aloud, and was going to say "Annabel," but he checked
himself. That name was not to be mentioned in other ears. But he was
afraid she would go back on him if she knew, all about it.
</p>
<p>
It was nearly night when the 200th Ind., dripping and discouraged, filed
off into a field of standing corn to pass the night. The men sank to their
shoetops in the soft earth. Si remarked to Shorty that he didn't see why
the officers should turn 'em loose in such a place as that. But the longer
he lived the more he found out about those things. That was the way they
always did.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0042" id="linkimage-0042">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/119.jpg" alt="It's the Morning 119 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
In five minutes after arms were stacked not a cornstalk remained standing
in the field. During the afterfnoon the troops had gone over a long
stretch of swamp road that was almost impassable for teams. Fears were
entertained that the wagons of the regiment would not be up that night,
and they would not have their tents to shelter them from the storm. In
anticipation of such a calamity the boys, gathered in the cornstalks,
having a vague idea that they would help out in case of emergency.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0043" id="linkimage-0043">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/113.jpg" alt="Taking the Top Rail 113 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
Then there was a scramble for the fences. Recognizing the need of good
fuel, an order from the General was filtered through the various
headquarters that the men might take the top rails, only, from the fence
inclosing tha field. This order was literally interpreted and carried out,
each man, successively, taking the "top rail" as he found it. The very
speedy result was that the bottom rails became the "top," and then there
weren't any. Almost in the twinkling of an eye the entire fence
disappeared.
</p>
<p>
The drizzle continued through the evening, and by the sputtering fires the
soldiers prepared and ate their frugal suppers. Word came that, as was
feared, the wagons were hopelessly bemired three or four miles back, and
the men would have to make such shift as they could.
</p>
<p>
The prospect was dreary and cheerless enough. It was little wonder that
many of the young Hoosiers felt as if they wanted to quit and go home. But
with that wonderful facility for adapting themselves to circumstances that
marked the volunteer soldiers, they set about the work of preparing for
the night. No one who has not "been there" can imagine how good a degree
of comfort—comparatively speaking, of course—it was possible
to reach, with such surroundings, by the exercise of a little patience,
ingenuity and industry.
</p>
<p>
Si and Shorty and the others of the "mess" bestirred themselves, and it
did not take them more than 20 minutes to build, out of rails and
cornstalks, a shelter that was really inviting. They kindled a big fire in
front of it, laid some rails within, covered with stalks, and on these
spread their blankets. Si, who had "bossed" the job, viewed the work with
great satisfaction.
</p>
<p>
"I tell ye, that's no slouch of a shanty!" said he.
</p>
<p>
<a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013">
<!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER XIII. SI "STRAGGLED"
</h2>
<h3>
AND THE OTHER BOYS MADE IT MIGHTY LOVELY FOR HIM.
</h3>
<p>
ONE day while Buell was chasing Bragg, two or three weeks after leaving
Louisville, the army was pushing forward at a gait that made the cavalry
ahead trot half the time to keep out of the way of the infantry. The
extraordinary speed that day was due to the fact that there were no rebels
in sight. Half a dozen ragged troopers with shotguns, a mile away, would
have caused the whole army to halt, form line-of-battle, and stay thera
the rest of the day.
</p>
<p>
The tanned veterans didn't mind the marching. They stretched their legs
and went swinging along with a happy-go-lucky air, always ready for
anything that might turn up. But it was rough on the new troops, just from
home. It taxed their locomotive powers to the utmost limit.
</p>
<p>
The boys of the 200th Ind. started out bravely. Their fresh, clean faces,
new uniforms, and shiny accouterments contrasted strongly with those of
the weather-beaten soldiers of '61. You could tell a "tenderfoot" as far
as you could see him.
</p>
<p>
They trudged along in fair shape for an hour or two. Before starting in
the morning strict orders had been read to the regiment forbidding
straggling, for any reason, under the most terrifying pains and penalties.
</p>
<p>
"Them fellers that's been in the service longer 'n we have think they're
smart," said Si Klegg, as he and Shorty plodded on, both already a little
blown. "Well show 'em that we can hoof it jest as fast as they can, and
jest as fur in a day!"
</p>
<p>
"Seems to me we're git'n over the ground party lively to-day," replied
Shorty, who was in a grumbling mood. "Wonder if the Gin'ral thinks we're
bosses! I'm a little short o' wind, and these pesky gunboats are scrapin'
the bark off'n my feet; but I'll keep up or bust."
</p>
<p>
Though e spirit of these young patriots was willing, the flesh was weak.
It wasn't long till Si began to limp. Now and then a groan escaped his
lips as a fresh blister "broke." But Si clinched his teeth, humped his
back to ease his shoulders from the weight of his knapsack, screwed up his
courage, and tramped on over the stony pike. He thought the breathing
spells were very short and a long way apart.
</p>
<p>
Si's knapsack had experienced the universal shrinkage, as told in a
previous chapter of our hero's martial career. He still had, however, a
good many things that he thought he couldn't spare, but which he found
later he could very well get along without.
</p>
<p>
By noon the 200th began to show signs of going to pieces. The column
stretched out longer and longer, like a piece of India-rubber. The ranks
looked thin and ragged. Lame and foot-sore, with wo-begone faces, their
bodies aching in every bone and tendon, and overcome with a weariness that
no one can realize unless he has "been there," the men dropped out one by
one and threw themselves into the fence-corners to rest. The officers
stormed and drew their swords in vain. Nature—that is, the nature of
a new soldier—could endure no more. The ambulances were filled to
their utmost, but these would not hold a twentieth part of the crippled
and suffering men.
</p>
<p>
"How're ye gittin' on, Shorty?" said Si, as he and his comrade still
struggled along.
</p>
<p>
"Fair to middlin'," replied Shorty. "I'm goin' to try and pull through!"
</p>
<p>
"I thought I could," said Si, "but I'm 'bout played out! I am, fer a fact!
I guess ef I rest a bit I'll be able to ketch up after a while."
</p>
<p>
Si didn't know till he found out by experience how hard it was to "ketch
up" when a soldier once got behind on the march. Si was too fat for a good
roadster, but it didn't take a great while to work off his surplus flesh.
Shorty was tall and slim, mostly bone—one of the sort that always
stood the marching best, crept up to the Orderly and told him that he
would have to stop and puff a while and give his blisters a rest. He'd
pull up with Co. Q in an hour or so.
</p>
<p>
"Better not, Si" said the Orderly; "ye know it's agin orders, and the
rear-guard 'll punch ye with their bay'net's if they catch ye stragglin'."
</p>
<p>
But Si concluded that if he must die for his country it would be sweeter
to do so by having a bayonet inserted in his vitals, and then it would be
all over with at once, than to walk himself to death.
</p>
<p>
So he gradually fell back till he reached the tail of the company.
Watching his opportunity, he left the ranks, crept into a clump of bushes,
and lay down, feeling as if he had been run through a grist-mill. Soon the
rear-guard of the 200th came along, with fixed bayonets, driving before
them like a flock of frightened sheep a motley crowd of limping, groaning
men, gathered up by the roadside.
</p>
<p>
Si lay very still, hoping to escaoe discovery; but the keen eye of the
officer detected the blue heap among the bushes.
</p>
<p>
"Bring that man out!" said he sternly to one of the guards.
</p>
<p>
Poor Si scarcely dare to breathe. He hoped the man would think he was
dead, and therefore no longer of any account. But the soldier began to
prod him with his bayonet, ordering him to get up and move on.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0044" id="linkimage-0044">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/123.jpg" alt="'don't Stab Me.' 123 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
"Look-a-here, pard," said Si, "don't stab me with that thing! I jest can't
git along any furder till I blow a little. You please lemme be, an' I'll
do as much for you. P'rhaps some time you'll get played out and I'll be on
the rear-guard. The Cap'n 'll tell me ter fotch ye 'long, an' I'll jest
let ye rest, so I will!"
</p>
<p>
This view of the case struck the guard with some force. Moved with
compassion, he turned away, leaving Si to enjoy his rest.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0045" id="linkimage-0045">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/125.jpg" alt="Hydropathic Treatment 125 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
Si threw aside his traps, took off his shoes and stockings, and bathed his
feet with water from his canteen. He ate a couple of hardtack, and in the
course of half an hour began to feel more like Si Klegg. He geared himself
up, shouldered his gun, and started to "ketch up."
</p>
<p>
All this time the stream of troops—regiments, brigades and divisions—had
flowed on. Of course, soldiers who were with their colors had the right of
way, and the stragglers were obliged to stumble along as best they could,
over the logs and through the bushes at the sides of the roads or skirt
along the edges of the fields and woods adjoining. It was this fact added
to their exhausted and crippled condition, that made it almost impossible
for stragglers to overtake their regiments until they halted for the
night. Even then it was often midnight before the last of the wayfarers,
weary and worn, dragged their aching limbs into camp.
</p>
<p>
Si started forward briskly, but soon found it was no easy matter to gain
the mile or so that the 200th Ind. was now ahead of him. It was about all
he could do to keep up with the fast-moving column and avoid failing still
further to the rear. Presently the bugles sounded a halt for one of the
hourly rests.
</p>
<p>
"Now," said Si to himself, "I'll have a good chance to git along tor'd the
front. The soljers 'll all lie down in the fence corners an' leave the
road clear. I'll jest git up an' dust!"
</p>
<p>
The sound of the bugles had scarcely died away when the pike was deserted,
and on either side, as far as the eye could reach, the prostrate men that
covered the ground mingled in a long fringe of blue.
</p>
<p>
Si got up into the road and started along the lane between these lines of
recumbent soldiers. His gait was a little shaky, for the blisters on his
feet began to give evidence of renewed activity. He trudged pluckily
along, limping some in spite of himself, but on the whole making very good
headway.
</p>
<p>
Pretty soon he struck a veteran regiment from Illinois, the members of
which were sitting and lying around in all the picturesque and
indescribable postures which the old soldiers found gave them the greatest
comfort during a "rest." Then they commenced—that is, it was great
sport for the Sucker boys, though Si did not readily appreciate the
humorous features of the scene.
</p>
<p>
"What rigiment is this?" asked Si, timidly.
</p>
<p>
"Same old rijiment!" was the answer from half a dozen at once. A single
glance told the swarthy veterans that the fresh-looking youth who asked
this conundrum belonged to one of the new regiments, and they immediately
opened their batteries upon him:
</p>
<p>
"Left—left-=left!"
</p>
<p>
"Hayfoot—strawfoot! Hayfoot—strawfoot!" keeping time with Si's
somewhat irregular steps.
</p>
<p>
"Hello, there, you! Change step and you'll march easier!"
</p>
<p>
"Look at that 'ere poor feller; the only man left alive of his regiment!
Great Cesar, how they must have suffered! Say, what rijiment did you
b'long to?"
</p>
<p>
"Paymaster's comin', boys, here's a chap with a pay-roll round his neck!"
Si had put on that morning the last of the paper collars he had brought
from home.
</p>
<p>
"You'd better shed that knapsack, or it'll be the death of ye!"
</p>
<p>
"I say, there, how's all the folks to home?"
</p>
<p>
"How d'ye like it as far as you've got, any way?"
</p>
<p>
"Git some commissary and pour into them gunboats!"
</p>
<p>
"Second relief's come, boys; we can all go home now."
</p>
<p>
"Grab a root!"
</p>
<p>
"Hep—hep—hep!"
</p>
<p>
"How'd ye leave Mary Ann?"
</p>
<p>
Si had never been under such a fire before. He stood it as long as he
could, and 'then he stopped.
</p>
<p>
"Halt!" shouted a chorus of voices. "Shoulder—Arms!" "Order—Arms!"
</p>
<p>
By this time Si's wrath was at the boiling point. Casting around him a
look of defiance, he exclaimed:
</p>
<p>
"You cowardly blaggards; I can jest lick any two of ye, an' I'll dare ye
to come on. If the 200th Ind. was here we'd clean out the hull pack of ye
quicker'n ye can say scat!"
</p>
<p>
This is where Si made a mistake. He ought to have kept right on and said
nothing. But Si had to find out all these things by experience, as the
rest of the boys did.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0046" id="linkimage-0046">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/129.jpg" alt="Si Defies a Regiment 129 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
All the members took a hand in the game. They just got right up and
yelled, discharging at Si a volley of expletives and pointed remarks that
drove him to desperation. Instinctively he brought up his gun.
</p>
<p>
"Load in nine times—Load!" shouted a dozen of the Illinois tramps.
</p>
<p>
If Si's gun had been loaded he would have shot somebody, regardless of
consequences. Thinking of his bayonet, he jerked it quickly from its
scabbard.
</p>
<p>
"Fix—Bay'net!" yelled the ragged veterans.
</p>
<p>
And he did, though it was more from the promptings of his own hostile
feelings than in obedience to the orders.
</p>
<p>
"Charge—Bay'net!"
</p>
<p>
Si had completely lost control of himself in his overpowering rage. With
blood in his eye, he came to, a charge, glancing fiercely from one side of
the road to the other, uncertain where to begin the assault.
</p>
<p>
Instantly there was a loud clicking all along the line. The Illinois
soldiers, almost to a man, fixed their bayonets. Half of them sprang to
their feet, and all aimed their shining points at the poor young Hoosier
patriot, filling the air with shouts of derision.
</p>
<p>
It was plain, even to Si in his inflamed state of mind, that the odds
against him were too heavy.
</p>
<p>
"Unfix—Bay'net!" came from half the regiment.
</p>
<p>
Si concluded he had better get out of a bad scrape the best way he could.
So he took off his bayonet and put it back in its place. He shouted words
of defiance to his tormentors, but they could not be heard in the din.
</p>
<p>
"Shoulder—Arms!" "Right—Face!" "Right shoulder shift—Arms!"
"Forward—March!" These commands came in quick succession from the
ranks amidst roars of laughter.
</p>
<p>
Si obeyed the orders and started off.
</p>
<p>
"Left—left—left!"
</p>
<p>
"Hayfoot—strawfoot!"
</p>
<p>
Forgetting his blisters. Si took the double-quick while the mob swung
their caps and howled with delight.
</p>
<p>
Si didn't "ketch up" with the 200 Ind. until after it had gone into camp.
Shorty had a quart of hot coffee waiting for him.
</p>
<p>
"Shorty," said Si as they sat by the fire,—"I'm goin' to drop dead
in my tracks before I'll fall out again."
</p>
<p>
"Why, what's the matter?"
</p>
<p>
"Oh, nothin'; only you jest try it," said Si.
</p>
<p>
Had it not been for the "fun" the soldiers had in the army to brighten
their otherwise dark and cheerless lives, they would all have died. Si was
a true type of those who had to suffer for the good of others until they
learned wisdom in the school of experience.
</p>
<p>
<a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014">
<!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER XIV. SI AND THE MULES
</h2>
<h3>
ONE DAY'S RICH EXPERIENCE AS COMPANY TEAMSTER.
</h3>
<p>
"I'VE GOT to have a man to drive team for a few days," said the Orderly of
Co. Q of the 200th Ind. one morning at roll-call. "The teamster's sick and
I'm goin' to send him to the hospital to-day."
</p>
<p>
The Orderly-Sergeant of Co. Q was a wily fellow. All Orderly-Sergeants
have to be. If they are not naturally, they learn it very quickly, or lose
the little diamond on their sleeves, if not all their stripes. The man who
undertakes to manage 60 or 75 stalwart, high-spirited young Americans
through all their moods and tenses, and every kind of weather, has to be
as wise as a serpent, though not necessarily as harmless as a dove.
Therefore, the Orderly-Sergeant didn't tell the boys what ailed the
teamster. The fact was that the heels of the "off=wheeler" caught the
teamster in the pit of the stomach and doubled him up so badly that he
wouldn't be fit for duty for a week. It was worse than the green-corn
colic.
</p>
<p>
"'Tisn't every man," continued the Orderly, "that's gifted with fust-class
talent fur drivin' team. I'd like to find the best man to steer them
animals, an' if there's a real sientifick mule-whacker in this comp'ny let
him speak up an' I'll detail him right off. It'll be a soft thing fur
somebody; them mules are daises."
</p>
<p>
Somehow they didn't all speak at once. The company had only had the team
two or three weeks, but the boys were not dull of hearing, and ominous
sounds had come to them from the rear of the camp at all hours of the
night—the maddening "Yeehaw-w-w!" of the long-eared brutes, and the
frantic ejaculations of the teamster, spiced with oaths that would have
sent a shudder through "our army in Flanders."
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0047" id="linkimage-0047">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/133.jpg" alt="He Let Both Heels Fly 133 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
So they did not apply for the vacant saddle with that alacrity which might
have been expected, when so good a chance was offered for a soldier to
ride and get his traps carried on a wagon. Whenever an infantryman threw
away such an opportunity it is safe to assume that there was some good
reason for it.
</p>
<p>
But the idea of riding for a few days and letting his blisters get well
was too much for Si Klegg. Besides, he thought if there was any one thing
he could do better than another it was driving a team. He had been doing
it on his father's farm all his life. It is true, he didn't know much
about mules, but he imagined they were a good deal like horses.
</p>
<p>
"I'm your man!" spoke up Si cheerfully.
</p>
<p>
"All right," said the Orderly. "Company, Right—Face! Break ranks—March!"
</p>
<p>
"There ain't any trouble about it!" Si said to Shorty as they walked back
to the tent. "I reckon it's easy enough to manage mules if you go at 'em
right. It'll be just fun for me to drive team. And say. Shorty, I'll carry
all your traps on my wagon. That'll be a heap better'n totin' 'em!"
</p>
<p>
Si gathered up his outfit and started to enter upon his new sphere of
usefulness.
</p>
<p>
"Shall I take my gun and bay'net along?" he asked the Orderly.
</p>
<p>
"Guess you'd better; they might come handy!" replied the Orderly, as he
thought of the teamster's disastrous encounter with the "off-wheeler."
</p>
<p>
After Shorty had eaten his breakfast he thought he would go back to the
tent and see how Si was getting on. With thoughtful care Si had fed his
mules before appeasing his own appetite, and Shorty found him just waiting
for his coffee to cool a bit.
</p>
<p>
"Why, them 'ere mules is jist as gentle'n' peaceful-like ez so many
kittens. Look at 'em, Shorty!" and Si pointed with a proud and gratified
air to where the six "daisies" were standing, three on each side of the
wagon-pole, with their noses in the feed-box, quietly munching their
matutinal rations, and whisking their paint-brush tails about in evident
enjoyment.
</p>
<p>
Indeed, to look at those mules one who was ignorant of the peculiar
characteristics of the species would not have thought that beneath those
meek exteriors there were hearts filled with the raging fires of total
depravity. Shorty thought how it would be, but he didn't say anything. He
was sure that Si would find out about it soon enough.
</p>
<p>
The brigade to which the 200th Ind. belonged was to march in the rear of
the long procession that day. This was lucky for Si, as it gave him an
hour or two more than he would otherwise have had to get hitched up. But
all the same he thought he would begin early, so as to be on hand with his
team in good time.
</p>
<p>
"Want any help?" asked Shorty.
</p>
<p>
"No," said Si; "I can hitch 'em up slick's a whistle. I can't see why so
many makes sich a fuss 'bout handlin' mules."
</p>
<p>
Shorty lighted his cob pipe and sat down on a stump to watch Si. "Kinder
think there'll be a circus!" he said to himself.
</p>
<p>
Si got up from his coffee and hardtack, and addressed himself to the
business of the hour. It proved to be just as much as he could attend to.
When Si poured half a bushel of corn into the feed box it was all very
nice, and the animals rubbed their heads against him to give expression to
their grateful emotions. But when it came to putting on the harness, that
was quite a different thing. The mere touch of a strap was enough to
stimulate into baleful activity all the evil passions of mule-nature.
</p>
<p>
"Now, Pete and Jim and Susan, we must git ready to pull out!" said Si to
his charge, in a familiar, soothing tone, preliminary to getting down to
business. It was his evident desire to maintain the friendly relations
that he thought he had already established. At the first rattle of the
harness Pete and Susan and the rest, moved by a common impulse, laid back
their ears and began to bray, their heels at the same time showing
symptoms of impatience.
</p>
<p>
"Whoa, there—whoa!" exclaimed Si, in a conciliatory way, as he
advanced with a bridle in his hand toward one of the big wheelers, whose
ears were flapping about like the fans of a windmill.
</p>
<p>
Si imprudently crept up from the rear. A flank movement would have been
better. As soon as he had got fairly within range the mule winked
viciously, lowered his head, and let fly both heels. Si was a spry boy,
and a quick dodge saved him from the fate of his predecessor. One of the
heels whizzed past his ear with the speed of a cannon ball, caught his
hat, and sent it spinning through the air.
</p>
<p>
Shorty, who was whittling up a piece of Kentucky twist to recharge his
pipe, laughed till he rolled off the stump all in a heap. A few of the
other boys had stayed out to see the fun, and were lounging around the
outskirts of the corral. "Go for 'em, Si!" they shouted.
</p>
<p>
Si was plucky, and again advanced with more caution. This time he was
successful, after a spirited engagement, in getting the bridle on. He
thought he would ride him down to the creek for water, and this would give
him a chance to get acquainted with him, as it were. He patted the
animal's neck, called him pet names, and gently stroked his stubby mane.
Alas, Si didn't know then what an utter waste of material it was to give
taffy to an army mule.
</p>
<p>
With a quick spring Si vaulted upon the back of the mule. He started off
in good shape, waving his hand exultingly to the boys with the air of a
General who has just won a great battle.
</p>
<p>
All at once the animal stopped as suddenly as if he had run against a
stone wall. He planted his fore feet, throwing his ears back and his head
down. There was a simultaneous rear elevation, with the heels at an upward
angle of about 45 degrees. Si went sprawling among the bushes. This
performance was greeted with great enthusiasm by the fast increasing crowd
of spectators.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0048" id="linkimage-0048">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/137.jpg" alt="Si Went Sprawling 137 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
"I oughter have told you that saddle-mule's the worst bucker in the Army
o' the Ohio," said the Quartermaster-Sergeant, who was among the
onlookers. "Why, he'd buck off the stripe that runs down his back, if he
took it into his measly head. He bucked off a chattel mortgage, and that's
the way he come into the army. You can't ride him without using one of
Aunt Jemima's sticking plasters."
</p>
<p>
"Much obliged for your information. But I will ride him all the same,"
said Si, whose temper had risen to the exploding point. "I kin ride him if
he ties himself in a double bow-knot."
</p>
<p>
Si was too much of a farmer boy to give in to anything that walked on four
legs.
</p>
<p>
He had hung on to the bridle rein, and after addressing a few impressive
words to the obstreperous mule he again leaped upon his back. The mule
took a docile turn, his motive having apparently been merely to show Si
what he could do when he took a notion.
</p>
<p>
The space at command will not permit us to follow Si through all the
details of "hitching up" that team. He did finally "git thar, Eli," after
much strategic effort. The mules brayed and kicked a good deal, and Si's
wrath was fully aroused before he got through. He became convinced that
soft words were of no account in such a contest, and he enforced
discipline by the judicious use of a big club, together with such
appropriate language as he could think of. Si hadn't yet learned to swear
with that wonderful and appalling proficiency that was so soon acquired by
the army teamsters. In the management of mules profanity was considered an
invaluable accessory in times of great emergency.
</p>
<p>
At last Si climbed into the saddle, as proud as a King. Seizing the long,
single line running to the "leaders"—by which contrivance the army
team was always guided—he shouted "Git up, thar, Pete! G'lang
Susan!" and the caravan started. But the unregenerated brutes didn't go
far. Si was gaily cracking his whip, trying to hit a big blue-bottle fly
that was perched on the ear of one of the "swing" mules.
</p>
<p>
As if by a preconcerted plan, the establishment came to a sudden halt and
the mules began to rear and kick and plunge around in utter disregard of
consequences. It didn't take more than a minute for them to get into a
hopeless tangle. They were in all conceivable shapes—heads and tails
together, crosswise and "every which way," tied up with the straps of the
harness. The air in all directions was full of heels. There was a
maddening chorus of discordant braying.
</p>
<p>
In the course of the scrimmage Si found himself on the ground. Gathering
himself up, he gazed in utter amazement at the twisted, writhing mass. At
this moment a messenger came from the Captain to "hurry up that team," and
poor Si didn't know what to do. He wished he could only swear like the old
mule drivers. He thought it would make him feel better. There was no one
to help him out of his dilemma, as the members of the company were all
getting ready for the march.
</p>
<p>
A veteran teamster happened along that way, and took in the situation at a
glance. He saw that Si had bit off more than he could chew, and
volunteered his assistance.
</p>
<p>
"Here, young feller," said he, "lemme show ye how to take the stiffenin'
out o' them ere dod-gasted mules!"
</p>
<p>
Seizing the whip at the small end of the stock he began laying on right
and left with the butt, taking care to keep out of range of the heels.
During these persuasive efforts he was shouting at the top of his voice
words that fairly hissed through the air. Si thought he could smell the
brimstone and see the smoke issuing from the old teamster's mouth and
nostrils. This is a section of what that experienced mule driver said, as
nearly as we can express it:
</p>
<p>
"_________;;_____________!!!***???!!!! ____???________???!!!!"
</p>
<p>
Si thanked the veteran for these timely suggestions in the way of
language, and said he would remember them. He had no doubt they would help
him out the next time.
</p>
<p>
They finally got the team untied, and Si drove over to the company ground.
The regiment had been gone some time, a detail having been left to load
the wagon. After getting out upon the road the mules plodded along without
objection, and Si got on famously. But having lost his place in the column
in consequence of the delay, he was obliged to fall in rear of the
division train, and it was noon before he got well started.
</p>
<p>
Along towards evening Si struck a section of old corduroy road through a
piece of swamp. The passage of the artillery and wagons had left the road
in a wretched condition. The logs were lying at all points of the compass,
or drifting vaguely about in the mire, while here and there were seas of
water and pits of abysmal depth.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0049" id="linkimage-0049">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/141.jpg" alt="Stuck in the Mud 141 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
To make the story short, Si's mules stumbled and floundered and kicked,—while
Si laid on with the whip and used some of the words he had learned from
the old teamster before starting.
</p>
<p>
At length the wagon became hopelessly stalled. The wheels sank to the
hubs, and Si yelled and cracked his whip in vain. Perhaps if he had had
the old teamster there to swear for him he could have pulled through, but
as it was he gave it up, dismounted, hunted a dry spot, and sat down to
think and wait for something to turn up.
</p>
<p>
Just before dark a large detail from Co. Q, which had been sent back on an
exploring expedition for Si and his team, reached the spot. After hours of
prying and pushing and tugging and yelling they at length got the wagon
over the slough, reaching camp about midnight.
</p>
<p>
"Orderly," said Si, "I believe I'd like to resign my place as mule-driver.
It's a nice, soft thing, but I'd jest as lief let s'mother feller have it,
so I'll take my gun an' go to hoofin' it agin!"
</p>
<p>
<a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015">
<!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER XV. UNDER FIRE—SI HAS A FIGHT, CAPTURES A PRISONER
</h2>
<h3>
AND GETS PROMOTED.
</h3>
<p>
"SEEMS to me it's 'bout time ter be gitt' into a fite!" said Si Klegg to
Shorty one night as they sat around the fire after supper, with their
shoes and stockings off, comparing the size and number of their respective
blisters. Neither of them had much of the skin they started out with left
on their feet. "I always s'posed," he continued, "that bein' a sojer meant
fitin' somebody; and here we are roaming over the country like a lot of
tramps. I can't see no good in it, nohow."
</p>
<p>
"Don't be in a hurry. Si," replied Shorty; "I reckon we'll ketch it soon
'nuff. From what I've hearn the old soldiers tell a battle ain't such a
funny thing as a feller thinks who don't know anything about it, like
you'n me. The boys is always hungry at first for shootin' and bein' shot
at, but I've an idee that it sorter takes away their appetite when they
gits one square meal of it. They don't hanker after it no more. It's
likely we'll git filled full one o' these days. I'm willin' to wait!"
</p>
<p>
"Wall," said Si, "I sh'd think we might have a little skirmish, anyway.
I'd like to have a chance to try my gun and to hear what kind of a noise
bullets make. Of course, I'd ruther they'd hit some other feller besides
me, but I'm ready to take the chances on that. I don't b'lieve I'd be
afeard."
</p>
<p>
Si was ambitious, and full of the martial ardor that blazed in the breast
of every young volunteer. He was really glad when the Orderly came around
presently and told them that the 200th Ind. would have the advance next
day, and Co. Q would be on the skirmish-line. He told the boys to see that
their cartridge-boxes were all full and their guns in good order, as they
would be very like to run foul of the rebels.
</p>
<p>
This was just before the battle of Perryville. The rebels were very saucy,
and there seemed to be a fair prospect that the curiosity of the members
of the 200th Ind. to "see the elephant" would be at least measurably
gratified.
</p>
<p>
Before Si went to bed he cleaned up his gun and made sure that it would
"go off" whenever he wanted it to. Then he and Shorty crawled under the
blankets, and as they lay "spoon fashion," thinking about what might
happen the next day. Si said he hoped they would both have "lots of sand."
</p>
<p>
All night Si dreamed about awful scenes of slaughter. Before morning he
had destroyed a large part of the Confederate army.
</p>
<p>
It was yet dark when the reveille sounded through the camp. Si and Shorty
kicked off the blankets at first blast of bugle, and were promptly in
their places for roll-call. Then, almost in a moment, a hundred fires were
gleaming, and the soldiers gathered around them to prepare their hasty
breakfast.
</p>
<p>
Before the sun was up the bugles rang out again upon the morning air. In
quick succession came the "general," the "assembly," and "to the colors."
The 200th marched out upon the pike, but soon filed off into a cornfield
to take its assigned place in the line, for the advance division was to
move in order of battle, brigade front, that day.
</p>
<p>
In obedience to orders, Co. Q moved briskly out and deployed as
skirmishers, covering the regimental front. As the line advanced through
field and thicket Si Klegg's heart was not the only one that thumped
against the blouse that covered it.
</p>
<p>
It was not long till a squad of cavalrymen came galloping back, yelling
that the rebels were just ahead. The line was halted for a few minutes;
while the Generals swept the surrounding country with their field glasses
and took in the situation.
</p>
<p>
The skirmishers, for fear of accidents, took advantage of such cover as
they could find. Si and Shorty found themselves to leeward of a large
stump.
</p>
<p>
"D'ye reckon a bullet 'd go through this 'ere stump?" said Si.
</p>
<p>
Before Shorty could answer something else happened that absorbed their
entire attention. For the time they didn't think of anything else.
</p>
<p>
'Boom-m-m-m!'
</p>
<p>
"Great Scott! d'ye hear that?" said Si through his chattering teeth.
</p>
<p>
"Yes, and there's somethin' comin' over this way," replied Shorty.
</p>
<p>
A shell came screaming and swishing through the air. The young Hoosiers
curled around the roots of that stump and flattened themselves out like a
pair of griddle-cakes. If it was Si that the rebel gunners were after,
they timed the shell to a second, for it burst with a loud bang just over
them. The fragments flew all around, one striking the stump and others
tearing up the dirt on every side.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0050" id="linkimage-0050">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/145.jpg" alt="It Burst With a Loud 'bang.' 145 "
width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
To say that for the moment those two soldiers were demoralized would be
drawing it very mildly. They showed symptoms of a panic. It seemed as
though they would be hopelessly stampeded. Their tongues were paralyzed,
and they could only look silently into each other's white faces.
</p>
<p>
Si was the first to recover himself, although it could hardly be expected
that he could get over his scare all at once.
</p>
<p>
"D-d-did it hit ye, Sh-Shorty?" he said.
</p>
<p>
"N-no, I guess not; b-b-but ain't it aw-awful. Si? You look so bad I
th-thought you was k-k-killed!"
</p>
<p>
"Who's afeard?" said Si. "I was only skeered of you. Shorty. Brace up, now
same's I do!"
</p>
<p>
"Skirmishers—Forward!" was heard along the line. "Come on, Shorty!"
said Si, and they plunged bravely ahead.
</p>
<p>
Emerging suddenly from a thick wood, they came upon the rebel skirmishers
in full view, posted on the opposite side of the field.
</p>
<p>
Crack! Crack!—Zip! Zip!
</p>
<p>
"Guess there's a bee-tree somewhere around here, from the way the bees are
buzzin'," said Si.
</p>
<p>
"'Taint no bees," replied Shorty; "it's a mighty sight worse'n that.
Them's bullets, Si Don't ye see the dumed galoots over yonder a-shootin'
at us?"
</p>
<p>
Si was no coward, and he was determined to show that he wasn't. The shell
a little while before had taken the starch out of him for a few minutes,
but that was nothing to his discredit. Many a seasoned veteran found
himself exceedingly limber under such circumstances.
</p>
<p>
"Let's give the rascals a dose," said he; "the best we've got in stock!"
</p>
<p>
Suiting the action to the word, Si crept up to a fence, thrust his gun
between the rails, took good aim and fired.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0051" id="linkimage-0051">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/147.jpg" alt="Si Takes a Crack at A Reb 147 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
A bullet from one of the other fellows made the splinters fly from a rail
a foot or two from Si's head; but he was getting excited now, and he
didn't mind it any more than if it had been a paper wad from a
pea-shooter.
</p>
<p>
It makes a great difference with a soldier under fire whether he can take
a hand in the game himself, or whether he must lie idle and let the enemy
"play it alone."
</p>
<p>
"Did ye hear him squeal?" said Si, as he dropped upon the ground and began
to reload with all his might. "I hit that son-of-a-gun, sure. Give 'em H—Hail
Columbia, Shorty. We'll show 'em that the 200th Ind. is in front to-day!"
</p>
<p>
"Forward, men!" shouted the officers. "Go right for 'em!"
</p>
<p>
The skirmishers sprang over the fence and swept across the field at a
"double-quick" in the face of a sputtering fire that did little damage.
None of them reached the other side any sooner than Si did. The rebels
seemed to have found out that the 200th boys were coming, for they were
already on the run, and some of them had started early. Pell-mell through
the brush they went, and the blue-blouses after them.
</p>
<p>
"Halt, there, or I'll blow ye into the middle o' next week!" yelled Si, as
he closed up on a ragged specimen of the Southern Confederacy whose wind
had given out. Si thought it would be a tall feather in his hat if he
could take a prisoner and march him back.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0052" id="linkimage-0052">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/149.jpg" alt="Si Captures a Johnny 149 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
The "Johnny" gave one glance at his pursuer, hesitated, and was lost. He
saw that Si meant business, and surrendered at discretion.
</p>
<p>
"Come 'long with me!" said Si, his eyes glistening with pleasure and
pride. Si marched him back and delivered him to the Colonel.
</p>
<p>
"Well done, my brave fellow!" said the Colonel.
</p>
<p>
"This is a glorious day for the 200th Ind., and you've taken its first
prisoner. What's your name my boy?"
</p>
<p>
"Josiah Klegg, sir!" said Si, blushing to the very roots of his hair.
</p>
<p>
"What company do you belong to?"
</p>
<p>
"Company Q, sir!" and Si saluted the officer as nicely as he knew how.
</p>
<p>
"I'll see your Captain to-night, Mr. Klegg, and you shall be rewarded for
your good conduct. You may now return to your company."
</p>
<p>
It was the proudest moment of Si's life up to date. He stammered out his
thanks to the Colonel, and then, throwing his gun up to a right
shoulder-shift, he started off on a canter to rejoin the skirmishers.
</p>
<p>
That night Si Klegg was the subject of a short conversation between his
Captain and the Colonel. They agreed that Si had behaved very handsomely,
and deserved to be promoted.
</p>
<p>
"Are there any vacancies in your non-commissioned officers?" asked the
Colonel.
</p>
<p>
"No," was the reply, "but there ought to be. One of my Corporals skulked
back to the rear this morning and crawled into a wagon. I think we had
better reduce him to the ranks and appoint Mr. Klegg."
</p>
<p>
"Do so at once," said the Colonel.
</p>
<p>
Next morning when the 200th was drawn up in line an order was read by the
Adjutant reducing the skulker and promoting Si to the full rank of
Corporal, with a few words commending the gallantry of the latter. These
orders announcing rewards and punishments were supposed to have a salutary
effect in stimulating the men to deeds of glory, and as a warning to those
who were a little short of "sand."
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0053" id="linkimage-0053">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/151.jpg" alt="Corporal si Klegg 151 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
The boys of Co. Q showered their congratulations upon Si in the usual way.
They made it very lively for him that day. In the evening: Si hunted up
some white cloth, borrowed a needle and thread, went off back of the tent,
rammed his bayonet into the ground, stuck a candle in the socket, and
sewed chevrons on the sleeves of his blouse. Then he wrote a short letter:
</p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
"Deer Annie: I once more take my pen in hand to tell you
there's grate news. I'm an ossifer. We had an awful fite
yisterdy. I don't know how menny rebbles I kild, but I guess
thare was enuff to start a good sized graveyard. I tuk a
prizner, too, and the Kurnal says to me bully fer you,
Mister Klegg, or sumthin to that effeck. This mornin they
made me a Corporil, and red it out before the hull rijiment
I guess youd been prowd if you could have seen me. To-night
the boys is hollerin hurraw fer Corporal Klegg all over
camp. I ain't as big is the Ginrals and gum of the other
ossifers, but thars no tellin how hi I'll get in three
years.
"Rownd is the ring that haint no end,
So is my luv to you my friend.
"Yours, same as before,
"Corporal Si Klegg."
</pre>
<p>
<a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016">
<!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER XVI. ONE OF THE "NON-COMMISH"
</h2>
<h3>
A NIGHT'S ADVENTURES AS "CORPORAL OF THE GUARD."
</h3>
<p>
"CORPORAL Klegg, you will go on duty to-night with the camp guard!" said
the Orderly of Co. Q one evening, as the 200th Ind. filed off into a piece
of woods to bivouac for the night, two or three days after Si had been
promoted.
</p>
<p>
The chevrons on his arms had raised Si several degrees in the estimation
not only of himself, but of the other members of the company. His conduct
in the skirmish had shown that he had in him the material for a good
soldier, and even the Orderly began to treat him with that respect due to
his new rank as one of the "non-commish."
</p>
<p>
Like every other man who put on the army blue and marched away so bold,
"With gay and gallant tread," Si could not tell whether he was going to
amount to anything as a soldier until he had gone through the test of
being under fire. There were many men who walked very erect, talked
bravely, drilled well, and made a fine appearance on dress parade, before
they reached "the front," but who wilted at the "zip" of bullets like
tender corn blades nipped by untimely frost. And a good many of them
continued in that wilted condition. Perhaps they really couldn't help it.
An inscrutable Providence had seen fit to omit putting any "sand in their
gizzards," as the boys expressed it.
</p>
<p>
It must be confessed that Si was somewhat unduly elated and puffed up
over, his own achievements as a skirmisher and his success in climbing the
ladder of military rank and fame. It is true, it wasn't much of a fight
they had that day, but Si thought it was pretty fair for a starter, and
enough to prove to both himself and his comrades that he wouldn't be one
of the "coffee coolers" when there was business on hand.
</p>
<p>
Si was sorry that his regiment did not get into the fight at Perryville.
The 200th Ind. belonged to one of the two corps of Buell's army that lay
under the trees two or three miles away all through that October
afternoon, while McCook's gallant men were in a life-and-death struggle
against overwhelming odds. It bothered Si as much to understand it all as
it did 30,000 other soldiers that day.
</p>
<p>
Si responded with alacrity when he was detailed for guard duty. He had
walked a beat once or twice as a common tramp, and had not found it
particularly pleasant, especially in stormy weather; but now he was a peg
higher, and he thought as Corporal he would have a better time. He had
already observed that the rude winds of army life were tempered, if not to
the shorn lambs, at least to the officers, in a degree proportionate to
their rank. The latter had the first pick of everything, and the men took
what was left. The officers always got the softest rails to sleep on, the
hardtack that was least tunneled through by the worms, the bacon that had
the fewest maggots, and the biggest trees in a fight.
</p>
<p>
"Forward—March!" shouted the officer in command, when the detachment
was ready. Si stepped off very proudly, thinking how glad his good old
mother and sister Marier and pretty Annabel would be if they could see him
at that moment. He was determined to discharge his official duties "right
up to the handle," and make the boys stand around in lively style.
</p>
<p>
When the guard reached the place selected for headquarters the officer
drily lectured them in regard to their duties, impressing upon them the
necessity of being alert and vigilant. There was only a thin picket-line
between them and the enemy. The safety of the army depended upon the
faithfulness of those appointed to watch while others slept. He gave them
the countersign, "Bunker Hill," and ordered them under no circumstances to
allow any person to pass without giving it, not even the Commanding
General himself.
</p>
<p>
Then the guards were posted, the "beats" laid off and numbered, and as the
fast-gathering shadows deepened among the trees the sentinels paced to and
fro around the tired army.
</p>
<p>
For an hour or two after the guards were stationed all was quiet along the
line. The noise of the great camp was hushed for the night, and no sound
broke the stillness of the gloomy forest. The moon rose and peeped timidly
through the branches.
</p>
<p>
"Corporal of the Guard; Post No. 6."
</p>
<p>
Si's quick ear, as he lay curled up at the foot of a tree, caught these
words, rapidly repeated by one sentinel after another. It was his first
summons. He sprang to his feet, gun in hand, his heart beating at the
thought of adventure, and started on the run for "Post No. 6."
</p>
<p>
"What's up?" he said to the guard, with a perceptible tremor in his voice.
</p>
<p>
"There's one o' the boys tryin' to run the guards!" was the answer. "He's
been out foragin', I reckon. He's got a lot o' plunder he wants to git
into camp with. See him, out there in the bush?"
</p>
<p>
The forager, for such he proved to be, was nimbly dodging from tree to
tree, watching for a chance to cross the line, but the alertness of the'
guards had thus far kept him outside. He had tried to bribe one or two of
the boys by offering to "whack up" if they would let him pass or give him
the countersign, so that he could get in at some other point in the
cordon. But the guards were incorruptible. They were "fresh" yet, and had
not caught on to the plan of accepting an offered chicken, a section of
succulent pig, or a few sweet potatoes, and then walking off to the remote
limit of the beat, with eyes to the front, while the forager shot across
the line in safety. They learned all about this after a while.
</p>
<p>
The raider tried to parley with Si, but Si wouldn't have it. Raising his
gun to a "ready" he ordered the man to come in or he would put a hole
through him.
</p>
<p>
The best thing to do under the circumstances was to obey. The forager, who
belonged to Si's company, crept up to Corporal Klegg and in a conciliatory
tone opened negotiations.
</p>
<p>
"You jest let me pass, and you may have your pick of this stuff," said he,
holding up a fowl in one hand and a ham in the other. "It'll be all right,
and nobody 'll ever know nothin' 'bout it!"
</p>
<p>
Si hesitated; it was human nature. The offer was a tempting one, but he
remembered his responsibility to his country, and his stomach appealed in
vain. Duty came before stewed chicken or roasted sparerib.
</p>
<p>
"Can't do it!" said Si. "You've got hold of the wrong man this time. I
ain't goin' to have nobody monkeyin' 'round while I'm Corporal of this
'ere guard. Come along with me, and step out lively, too!"
</p>
<p>
Si marched the culprit back to headquarters and delivered him up to the
officer, who commended Si for his fidelity.
</p>
<p>
Next day the ground back of the Colonel's tent was strewn with feathers,
chicken bones, ham rinds, and potato skins, while the unlucky forager who
had provided the field officers' mess with such a royal meal was humped
around for two hours on "knapsack drill," and condemned to spend 24 hours
in the guard-house.
</p>
<p>
An hour later Si had another experience. The Captain of Co. Q felt a
kindly interest, and not a little pride in him, since the skirmish, and he
thought he would take a turn that night and see whether his newly-made
Corporal was "up to snuff."
</p>
<p>
"Post No. 3," was Si's second call. He responded promptly, and as he
approached the guard the latter said:
</p>
<p>
"Corporal, here's the Cap'n, and he wants to get in! He hain't got the
countersign; shall I pass him?"
</p>
<p>
"Good evening. Corporal!" said the Captain, as Si came up, at the same
time extending his hand.
</p>
<p>
Si was thrown completely off his guard. Dropping the butt of his gun
carelessly to the ground he replied cheerily, "Good evening, Cap'n,"
touching his hat by way of salute. Then he took the proffered hand,
pleased at the Captain's mark of kindly recognition. He didn't understand
the scheme then. "How are you getting on, Mr. Klegg?" "First rate!" said
Si, with the air of one conscious that he had done his duty well. "I
capchered a forager a little bit ago and took him to headquarters!"
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0054" id="linkimage-0054">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/159.jpg" alt="One of the 'non-com Mish.' 159 "
width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
"Well done, Corporal I have no doubt you will honor the good name of the
200th Ind. in general and Company Q in particular, I got caught outside to
night, and I want to get back into camp. Of course, you know me and it's
all right!"
</p>
<p>
"Certainly, sir!" said Si, as he stood leaning on his gun and allowed the
officer to pass the magic line. "Good night, Cap'n!"
</p>
<p>
"Good night, Corporal! By the way," said the Captain, retracing his steps,
"I notice that you do not carry your gun just right. Let me show you how
to handle it!"
</p>
<p>
Si didn't know what a flagrant offense it was for a soldier on guard to
let his gun go out of his hands; nor had he the faintest suspicion that
the Captain was playing it on him. So he promptly handed his picee to the
Captain, who immediately brought it down to a "charge," with the bayonet
at Si's breast.
</p>
<p>
"Suppose, now, I was a rebel in disguise," said the Captain, "what kind of
a fix would you be in?"
</p>
<p>
Light began to dawn upon Si, and he started back in terror at the thought
of the mistake he had made.
</p>
<p>
"Of course, I wouldn't let anybody else have it," he stammered; "but I
knew you, Cap'n!"
</p>
<p>
"That makes no difference to a man on duty. Corporal. You hang on to your
gun the rest of the night, and if anybody—I don't care if it's Gen.
Buell himself—insists on your giving it to him, let him have two or
three inches of the point of your bayonet. Don't let anybody pass without
the countersign, either! Come to my quarters when you are relieved
tomorrow."
</p>
<p>
All this illustrates the way the officers had of testing new soldiers and
teaching them a thing or two, when, as was frequently the case, they were
not yet up to the mark. A trick of extra duty for the hapless novitiate
was generally the penance for his simplicity.
</p>
<p>
The cold chills ran up and down Si's back as he took his gun and slowly
returned to the guard fire. He felt that he had utterly spoiled his good
record.
</p>
<p>
"Lieutenant," he said to the officer, "I wish you'd please detail a man to
kick me for about an hour."
</p>
<p>
The Lieutenant wanted to know what the matter was, and Si told him all
about it, ending with:
</p>
<p>
"So now I s'pose the Cap'n 'll yank the stripes off'n my blouse!"
</p>
<p>
The officer quieted his fears by assuring him that there was no cause for
alarm. The Captain knew that he was trying to do his duty, and what he had
done was for Si's own good.
</p>
<p>
Si sat down by the fire and was thinking it over when there was another
call, "Corporal of the guard!" He was soon at the point indicated and
found two officers on horseback, whom he recognized as the Colonel and
Adjutant of the 200th Ind. Si's friend Shorty was the guard who had halted
them.
</p>
<p>
"Now, Corporal Klegg," said Si to himself, laying his finger alongside his
nose, "you jist watch out this time. Here's big game! Shouldn't wonder if
them ossifers had bin out skylarkin', and they're tryin' to git in. Don't
ye let 'em fool ye as the Cap'n did!"
</p>
<p>
Si was right in his surmise. The Colonel and Adjutant had been enjoying a
good supper at a house half a mile away, and had not the slightest idea
what the countersign was.
</p>
<p>
Si was determined not to "get left" this time. As he approached, the
Colonel saw that it was soldier he had commended for his gallantry at the
time of the skirmish.
</p>
<p>
"Ah, Corporal Klegg, I'm glad to see you so prompt in your duty. I was
sure we had made no mistake when we promoted you. Of course, you can see
who I am. I'm your Colonel, and this is the Adjutant. We are,
unfortunately, outside without the countersign; but you can just let us
through."
</p>
<p>
The Colonel's taffy had no effect on Si. He just brought himself into a
hostile attitude, with his bayonet in fair range of the Colonel, as he
replied:
</p>
<p>
"Colonel, my orders is to pass no livin' man unless he says 'Bunker Hill.'
I'd be glad to do ye a good turn, but there's no use talkin'. I'm goin' to
obey orders, and ye can't pass here."
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0055" id="linkimage-0055">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/155.jpg" alt="'not 'less Ye Say 'bunker Hill.'' 155 "
width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
The Colonel chuckled softly as he dismounted and came up to Si.
</p>
<p>
"It's all right," he said, "of course I know what the countersign is. I
was only trying you."
</p>
<p>
"Hold on there," said Si, "don't come too close. If you've got the
countersign, advance and give it. If ye ain't got it, I'll jest call the
Officer of the Guard!"
</p>
<p>
Leaning over the point of Si's bayonet the Colonel gently whispered
"Bunker Hill".
</p>
<p>
"Correct!" said Si, and bringing his gun to a shoulder, he respectfully
saluted the Colonel. The latter started to remount, but turned back as he
said:
</p>
<p>
"Just let me show you how to hold your gun. You don't—"
</p>
<p>
"Not if the court knows herself," said Si, again menacing the Colonel with
his bayonet. "That's bin played on me once to-night, and if anybody does
it again my name ain't Si Klegg!"
</p>
<p>
"That's right, Corporal," said the Colonel as he sprang into the saddle;
"but don't tell anybody what the countersign is again! Good night!"
</p>
<p>
"Good night. Colonel," said Si, touching his hat. As the officers rode
away Si began to think he had put his foot in it again. He was confirmed
in this opinion by seeing Shorty sit down on a log in a paroxysm of
laughter.
</p>
<p>
"You give yerself away bad this time!" said Shorty, as soon as he could
speak. "What did ye tell him the countersign for?"
</p>
<p>
"Whew-w-w-w!" observed Si, with a prolonged whistle. "Shorty," said he, "I
wish you'd take a club and see if you can't pound a little sense into me;
I don't believe I've got any!" Without another word he shouldered his gun
and returned to the guard headquarters. "Now I'm a goner, sure!" he said
to himself.
</p>
<p>
On his way he found a guard sitting by a tree, sound asleep. Carefully
taking away his gun Si awoke him, and frightened him half to death by
telling him that he would report him and he would be shot for sleeping on
post. Si finally said he wouldn't tell on him this time, but he must never
do so again, or he would be a dead man.
</p>
<p>
"Corporal of the guard!" was heard again, sometime after midnight. "If
they try any more measly tricks on me to-night somebody 'll git hurt!"
thought Si as he walked briskly along the line in response to the call.
</p>
<p>
This time it was a "contraband"—an old negro, who stood shivering
with terror as the guard held him at the point of the bayonet. Recalling
the unlucky adventures of the night. Si imagined that it was one of the
officers, who had blackened himself like a minstrel, and had come there
purposely to "catch him."
</p>
<p>
"Ye can't get through unless ye've got the counter sign," said he,
decisively; "and I shan't give it to ye, nuther! And ye needn't try to
show me how to hold my gun! I can handle it well enough to shoot and punch
the Bayonet!"
</p>
<p>
"Don't know what dat all means, boss," said the frightened negro; "but fer
de good Lawd's sake don't shove dat t'ing frew me. I've only bin ober to
de nex' place to a 'possum roast and I'se jist gwine home. I didn't know
dese yer ge-yards was heah!"
</p>
<p>
Si didn't propose to take any chances, and so he marched the old
contraband back and delivered him to the officer, who kept him till
morning and then suffered him to go on his way.
</p>
<p>
Once more that night Si was called, in addition to his tramps with the
"reliefs" and the "grand rounds." It was, perhaps, an hour before
daylight, and Shorty was the guard who called him. He told Si there was
something walking around in the woods, and he believed it was a rebel
trying to creep up on them. He had challenged two or three times, but got
no answer. The moon had gone down, and in the dark woods objects at any
distance could not be distinguished.
</p>
<p>
"There, d'ye hear that?" said Shorty, as there came a sound of crackling
sticks and rustling leaves.
</p>
<p>
"Halt!" exclaimed Si. "Who comes there?"
</p>
<p>
There was no response, and Si challenged again with like result.
</p>
<p>
"Shorty," said Si, "let's fire both together," and crack went their
muskets.
</p>
<p>
For a moment there was a great floundering, and then all was still. As
soon as it was light, and Shorty was relieved, he and Si went out to see
the result of their fire. To their astonishment they found the prowler
cold and stiff in death—they had shot a big gray mule.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0056" id="linkimage-0056">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/163.jpg" alt="They Had Shot a Mule 163 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
On the whole, it was a busy and interesting night for Si. He did not lose
his chevrons on account of his mistakes. But he learned something, and the
lesson was impressed upon his mind by a few kindly words of caution and
advice from the Captain of Co. Q.
</p>
<p>
<a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017">
<!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER XVII. FORAGING ON THE WAY
</h2>
<h3>
SI HAS SOME VARIED EXPERIENCES WITH SOUTHERN PRODUCTS.
</h3>
<p>
THE long chase after Bragg from Louisville to the mountains of
southeastern Kentucky was rough on the new troops. It weeded them out very
fast, and in every town through which Buell's army passed the buildings
were turned into hospitals and filled with sick and crippled soldiers, who
had found out early that they were not physically able to endure the
hardships of an active campaign. At the end of two or three weeks some of
the new regiments were as much reduced in numbers as most of those that
went out in '61 were during their first six months.
</p>
<p>
The 200th Ind. jogged along bravely, but its ranks had suffered the common
skage. Not less than 400 of its men had fallen by the wayside, and were
taking quinine and blue-mass and rubbing arnica on their legs all along
the tortuous route.
</p>
<p>
Corporal Si Klegg and his friend Shorty proved to be "stayers." Full of
life and ambition, they were always prompt for duty and ready for a fight
or a frolic. No one was more quick than Si to offer a suffering comrade
the last drop of fresh water in his canteen or give him a lift by carrying
his gun a piece.
</p>
<p>
One day the regiment started out for an easy, comfortable day's march. The
coast was clear of rebels, and there being no excuse for crowding on the
steam, the boys were allowed to take their own gait, while the horses of
the officers and cavalry had a chance to recover their wind.
</p>
<p>
It was a warm day late in October. The nights at this time were keen and
frosty, but the sun at mid-day still showed much of his Summer vigor.
Perspiration flowed freely down the faces of those wandering Hoosiers—faces
that were fast assuming the color of half-tanned leather under the
influence of sunshine and storm.
</p>
<p>
Once an hour there was the customary halt, when the boys would stretch
their legs by the roadside, hitching their knapsacks up under their heads.
When the allotted time had expired the bugler blew "Fall in," the notes of
which during the next two years became so familiar to the ears of the
200th. Later in '64, the Indiana boys mingled their voices with the rest
of Sherman's hundred thousand veterans as they sang:
</p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
"I know you are tired, but still you must go
Down to Atlanta to see the big show."
</pre>
<p>
The soldiers were in good spirits. As they marched they fired jests at one
another, and laughter rippled along the line.
</p>
<p>
The only thing that troubled them was the emaciated condition of their
haversacks, with a corresponding state of affairs in their several
stomachs. The Commissary Department was thoroughly demoralized. The supply
train had failed to connect, and rations were almost exhausted. There was
no prospect that the aching void would be filled, at least, in the regular
way, until they reached a certain place, which would not be until the
following day.
</p>
<p>
Strict orders against foraging were issued almost daily under the Buell
dispensation. These were often read impressively to the new troops, who,
in their simplicity, "took it all in" as military gospel.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0057" id="linkimage-0057">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/169.jpg"
alt="The 200th Ind. Was Not Without Talent in Foraging 169 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
The effect was somewhat depressing upon the ardor with which otherwise
they would have pursued the panting pig and the fluttering fowl, and
reveled in the orchards and potato-fields. A few irrepressible fellows
managed to get a choice meal now and then—just enough to show that
the 200th Ind. was not without latent talent in this direction, which only
needed a little encouragement to become fruitful of results.
</p>
<p>
But these orders against foraging didn't hold the soldiers of the crop of
1861. It was like trying to carry water in a sieve. When rations were
short, or if they wanted to vary the rather monotonous bill of fare, they
always found a way to make up any existing deficiency.
</p>
<p>
On the day in question a few hints were thrown out which resulted in a
tacit understanding that, in view of the actual need of the soldiers, if
they got a good chance to pick up something the eyes of the officers would
be closed. In fact, the officers were as hungry as the men, and hoped to
come in for a "divide."
</p>
<p>
Soon after starting in the morning a persimmon tree, well laden with
fruit, was seen in a field not far from the road. About fifty men started
for it on a run, and in five minutes it was as bare as the barren fig
tree.
</p>
<p>
The persimmon has some very marked peculiarities. It is a toothsome fruit
when well ripened by frost, but if eaten before it has reached the point
of full maturity, the effect upon one's interior is unique and startling.
The pungent juices take hold of the mouth and pucker it up in such manner
as to make even speech for a time impossible. The tongue seems as if it
were tied in a knot. If the juice be swallowed, similar results follow all
along its course. But the novice does not often get far enough for that.
</p>
<p>
The boys soon found that the 'simmons, although they looked very tempting,
were too green to be eaten with any degree of enjoyment. So they filled
their pockets with them to pucker up the regiment.
</p>
<p>
Shorty had joined in the scramble, telling Si he would bring him a good
supply.
</p>
<p>
"Ain't them nice?" he said to Si, holding out three or four of the
greenest ones he could find. "Eat 'em; they're jest gorjus! You can't help
likin' 'em."
</p>
<p>
Si had never seen any persimmons before. They were certainly tempting to
the eye, and he thought they were sent as manna was supplied to the
children of Israel in the wilderness.
</p>
<p>
Eagerly seizing them, Si tossed one into his mouth and began to chew it
with great vigor. The persimmon got in its work at once. It took hold with
a mighty grip, wrinkling him up like the skins on scalded milk.
</p>
<p>
After sputtering vigorously a few minutes, while Shorty laughed at him. Si
managed to get his tongue untwisted.
</p>
<p>
"Yes," said he, "them things is nice—in a horn! 'Twouldn't take many
of 'em to make a meal!"
</p>
<p>
A little farther on Si's quick eye noticed a row of beehives standing on a
bench in the yard of one of the natives. Si had a weakness for honey.
</p>
<p>
"Shorty," said he, "see them hives over there? How'd ye like to have some
honey for supper?"
</p>
<p>
Shorty "allowed" that it would be a good thing. Si stopped and waited a
few minutes until his own regiment got past, thinking his plan would be
less liable to interruption. Then he leaped over the fence, went up to the
hives, and boldly tipped one of them over, hoping he could get out a comb
or two, fill up his coffee-kettle, and effect his retreat before the bees
really found out what he was up to.
</p>
<p>
But the bees instantly rallied their forces and made a vigorous assault
upon the invader. Si saw that it would be too hot for him, and without
standing upon the order of his going he went at once, in a decidedly
panicky state of mind. The bees made the most of their opportunity, using
their "business ends" on him with great activity and zeal. They seemed to
fully' share the common feeling in the South toward the "Yanks."
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0058" id="linkimage-0058">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/171.jpg" alt="Si Beat a Retreat 171 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
A pretty woman, standing on the porch, had watched Si's raid from the
doorway. As he fell back in utter rout she screamed "Sarves ye right!" and
then sat down on the doorstep and laughed till she cried. She enjoyed it
as much as the bees did.
</p>
<p>
The latter took hold of Si in various places, and by the time he had
caught up with the regiment one eye was closed, and there was a big lump
on his nose, besides several more stings which the bees had judiciously
distributed about his person. It was very evident that he had been
overmatched and had come out second best in the encounter.
</p>
<p>
Corporal Klegg presented a picturesque appearance as he reached Co. Q. The
boys fairly yelled with delight.
</p>
<p>
"Whar's yer honey?" said Shorty. "Pears like ye waked up the wrong
passenger that time!"
</p>
<p>
Si laughed with the rest, rubbed salt on his stings, and plodded on,
consoling himself with the thought that his was not the only case in which
the merit of earnest effort had gone unrewarded.
</p>
<p>
Soon after noon the 200th came to a large patch of sweet potatoes. Si and
Shorty, as well as a good many of the rest, thought it would be a good
place to lay in a supply for supper, as they might not have another So
good a chance. From all parts of the column the men, by dozens dashed into
the field. In a moment there was a man at every hill, digging away with
his bayonet, and chucking the tempting tubers into his haversack.
</p>
<p>
<br /> <img alt="173 (74K)" src="images/173.jpg" /> <br />
</p>
<p>
THERE WAS A MAN AT EVERY HILL
</p>
<p>
Two hours before going into camp the regiment passed a small spring,
around which a crowd of soldiers were struggling to fill their canteens.
There had been a long stretch without fresh water, and Si thought he would
supply himself.
</p>
<p>
"Gimme your canteen, too, Shorty, and I'll fill it!" he said.
</p>
<p>
"Here, Si, you're a bully boy, take mine!" "Mine, too!" "And mine!" said
one after another of his comrades. Si good naturedly complied and they
loaded him down with about 20 canteens.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0059" id="linkimage-0059">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/175.jpg" alt="Si Being Worked for a 'good Thing.' 175 "
width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
"All right," said Si, "I'll be along with 'em full d'reckly!"
</p>
<p>
He had to wait for his turn at the spring, and by the time he had filled
all the canteens he was half an hour behind. Slinging them around his neck
he started on, with just about as big a load as he could carry.
</p>
<p>
Si forged ahead, gradually gaining a little, through the tardy movement of
the column that generally preceded going into camp. The canteen straps
chafed his shoulders, his back ached, and perspiration streamed from every
pore. The smoke of the campfires ahead told that the end of the day's
march was near. He kept on and finally came up with Co. Q just as the
200th was stacking arms on the bank of a clear stream.
</p>
<p>
Si threw down his burdens of canteens, himself thoroughly blown and
well-nigh exhausted.
</p>
<p>
"Purty good load, wasn't it, Si?" said Shorty. "But what made ye lug all
that water in here? When ye saw they was goin' into camp ahead ye might
ha' knowed there was plenty o' water. Why in blazes didn't ye turn the
water out o' them 'ere canteens?"
</p>
<p>
"I'll be hanged if I thought o' that!" said Si, while the boys joined in a
hearty laugh.
</p>
<p>
At the command "Break ranks" there was a general scamper to engage in the
work of getting supper and preparing to spend the night with as much
comfort as possible. The members of each mess scattered in all directions
for water, rails, straw, etc., while some went out to scour the adjacent
region for edibles.
</p>
<p>
These exercises the soldiers always entered into with the heartiest gusto,
and the scene will be well remembered by all those who marched.
</p>
<p>
Si threw off his traps and dropped on the ground to rest a few minutes. He
got up presently to scratch around with the rest. As he took hold of his
haversack he was surprised at its lightness. When he laid it down it was
bulging out with sweet potatoes, and a glance showed him that these were
all gone.
</p>
<p>
"Dern my buttons!" exclaimed Si, as he forgot his weariness, and his eyes
flashed fire. "If I am a Corporal, I kin jest mash the feller that stole
my 'taters, I don't keer if he's ten foot high. Won't somebody show 'im to
me? There won't be 'nuff of 'im left to hold a fun'ral over?"
</p>
<p>
Si pranced around in a high state of inflammation, and it is probable that
if he had found the purloiner of his provender there would have been a
harder fight than any that occurred between Buell and Bragg.
</p>
<p>
The boys winked slyly at one another, and all said it was too bad. It was
a startling case of turpitude, and Si determined to have revenge by
getting even with some other fellow, without pausing to consider the
questions of moral philosophy involved.
</p>
<p>
"Come 'long with me. Shorty!" he said to his friend, and they strode away.
Just outside the camp they came upon two members of some other new
regiment coming into camp with a fine pig slung over a pole and two or
three chickens in their hands. Shorty suggested to Si that this was a good
chance for him to even up.
</p>
<p>
"Halt, there!" shouted Si to the foragers. "We're sent out to pick up such
fellows as you!"
</p>
<p>
The effect was like a discharge from a masked battery. The men dropped
their plunder and fled in wild confusion.
</p>
<p>
"Take hold 'o that pole, Shorty!" said Si, and laying it upon their
shoulders they made a triumphant entry into camp.
</p>
<p>
There seemed to be no danger of immediate starvation in the ranks of the
200th. Each man appeared to have supplied himself during the day. On every
hand fires gleamed brightly in the gathering twilight, and around them
crowded the hungry soldiers, intent upon the simple culinary processes
incident to the evening meal.
</p>
<p>
<a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018">
<!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER XVIII. A SUNDAY OFF
</h2>
<h3>
SI AND SHORTY GET A MUCH-NEEDED WASH-UP.
</h3>
<p>
"YOU can take it easy to-day, boys, for we ain't goin' to move!" said the
Orderly of Co. Q one morning at roll-call. "The orders is for to put the
camp in nice shape, and for the men to wash up. We're goin' to have an
extra ration of soap this mornin', and you fellows want to stir around
lively and fix yerselves as if it was Sunday and ye was goin' to meetin'.
The fust thing after breakfast all hands 'll turn out and p'leece ther
camp."
</p>
<p>
"What in the world does he mean by p'leecin' the camp?" Corporal Klegg
asked Shorty, as they stood by the fire making coffee and warming up the
fragments of chicken that had been left over from supper the night before.
"I didn't c'pose," said Si, "that we 'listed to be p'leecemen!"
</p>
<p>
Shorty replied that he didn't know, but he reckoned they'd find out soon
enough. The 200th Ind. had been on the jump every day since leaving
Louisville, and this was the first time it had been called on to "police"
a camp.
</p>
<p>
As soon as breakfast was over the Orderly directed each man to provide
himself with a small bundle of sticks, made by putting together a dozen
bits of brush or "switches" three or four feet long, such as are used to
rural pedagogs to enforce discipline. These, he said, were the implements
used in policing camp, which meant brushing the leaves and loose debris
outside the grounds.
</p>
<p>
"Does Corprils have to do that sort o' thing?" asked Si. He thought army
regulations and camp usage ought to show some consideration for his rank.
"What's the use of bein' a Corporil," he said to himself, "if it don't
give a feller a chance to play off once in a while?"
</p>
<p>
"Corporals ain't no better'n anybody else," replied the Orderly, "'n' you
can jist git some brush and go to work, 'long with the rest!"
</p>
<p>
Si was disposed to grumble a little, but he obeyed orders and was soon
scratching up the leaves and dust with great zeal. He did not find it a
particularly pleasant occupation, but the camp looked so much better when
the job was done, that he thought it was not a bad thing, after all.
</p>
<p>
"Now, Shorty," said Si, "let's go down to the creek and do our washin'. My
clothes has got to be biled, and I shouldn't wonder if yourn had, too."
</p>
<p>
"Yes, that's a fact!" said Shorty.
</p>
<p>
They got a big camp-kettle that had been used, and would be again, for
making bean-soup, and started for the stream back of the camp. They had no
change of clothing with them. Some days before, in order to lighten their
knapsacks, they had taken out their extra shirts and drawers, tied them in
a bundle, and put them on the company wagon, and this was somewhere back
in the rear, owing to the confusion of the campaign.
</p>
<p>
"Seems to me," observed Si, "it ain't hardly a fair shake for Uncle Sam to
make us do our washin'. They ought to confiscate the niggers 'n' set them
at it; or I don't see why the Guvyment can't furnish a washin' masheen for
each comp'ny! 'Twouldn't be no more'n the square thing!"
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0060" id="linkimage-0060">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/181.jpg" alt="Si Was Disposed to Grumble 181 "
width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
"The wimmen does the washin', ye know, Si, up where we live," said Shorty,
"'n' I don't quite like the notion o' doin' that kind o' workt, but I
can't jest see how we're goin' to git out of it. It's got to be done,
that's sure!"
</p>
<p>
On the bank of the stream they quickly threw off their clothes for a bath.
Si cast rueful glances at his nether garments as he laid them on the
ground.
</p>
<p>
"Hadn't we better pile some rocks on 'em, Shorty?" said he. I'm affeared
if we don't they'll crawl off into the bush.
</p>
<p>
"Guess we had," replied Shorty. "I b'lieve mine's started already!"
</p>
<p>
Having made sure of them, they plunged into the water. Far up and down the
stream were hundreds of men, swimming and splashing about.
</p>
<p>
The soldiers availed themselves of every opportunity to enjoy this luxury.
</p>
<p>
Having thoroughly performed their ablutions. Si and Shorty turned their
energies toward the clothes, which were in such sore need of soap and hot
water. Putting their garments into the kettle and filling it with water,
they built a fire under it. After half an hour of vigorous boiling they
concluded they were "done." Plenty of soap, rubbing and rinsing finished
the work, and the clothes sure presented a remarkable appearance,
particularly the blue trousers.
</p>
<p>
"How're we going to git 'em dry?" asked Si, as he wrung out the last of
his "wash."
</p>
<p>
"Hang 'em on the fence in the sun!" replied Shorty.
</p>
<p>
"But what'll we wear while they're dryin'?"
</p>
<p>
"Nothin', I reckon!"
</p>
<p>
So they spread out their garments, and then dashed again into the water.
After splashing awhile they came out and drew on their half-dried
trousers. Shorty lighted his pipe as they sat down to wait for the
sunshine to do its perfect work. All along the stream were soldiers in
similar stages of dishabille. It seemed like the Garden of Eden.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0061" id="linkimage-0061">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/183.jpg" alt="Showing the Old Man a Trick 183 "
width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
"Say, Shorty," said Si, "'taint very wicked to smoke, is it?"
</p>
<p>
"Guess not!" was the reply.
</p>
<p>
"That's the way it 'pears to me, 'n' I've been kinder thinkin' lately that
I'd learn how. The soljers all seem to enjoy their smokin' so much. You
know. Shorty, that I was always a reel good boy—never smoked, nor
chawed terbacker, nor cussed, nor done nothin' that was out o' the
straight an' narrer way. When I jined the regiment my good old mother says
to me: 'Now, Si,' says she, 'I do hope ye'll 'member what I've always
taught ye. I've beam 'em tell that they does dretful things in the army,
and I want ye to see if ye can't be as good a boy as ye've been at home.'
Of course, I told her I would, 'n' I mean, ter stick to it; but I don't
b'lieve there's any harm in smokin'. Is it hard to learn?"
</p>
<p>
"Wall, I dunno; I reck'n ye can't most always tell till ye try. Take a
whiff, 'nd see how she goes!" And Shorty handed him his pipe, which he had
just refilled with whittlings of black "navy plug."
</p>
<p>
"Derned if I don't try it!" said Si, as he took the pipe and began to puff
with great energy. He made a few wry faces at first, but Shorty told him
to stick to it, and he bravely pulled away while the clouds of smoke
curled above him.
</p>
<p>
It was not long till the color left his face, his head was in a whirl, and
his stomach began to manifest eruptive symptoms.
</p>
<p>
"Shorty," he gasped, "I'm awful sick. If smokin' makes a feller feel like
this I don't want any more of it in mine."
</p>
<p>
"Where's all yer sand ye brag so much about?" said Shorty, laughing.
"You're mighty poor timber for a soljer if ye can't stand a little pipe o'
terbacker like that. You'll get over it purty soon, and it won't bother ye
any next time ye try it."
</p>
<p>
Si found that he had on hand about as much as he could manage with his
dizzy head and the rebellion that was so actively going on at a point a
little lower in his physical system. The feeling wore gradually off,
however, and by the time he was able to walk their clothes were well
dried. They proceeded to "dress up," and then returned to camp.
</p>
<p>
During the afternoon the camp was visited by natives, black and white,
from the region round about, with corn "pones," alleged pies, boiled eggs,
and truck of various kinds, which they sought to dispose of for a valuable
consideration. They struck a bad crowd, however, in a financial sense. The
members of the 200th Ind. were not at this time in a condition of
opulence. Most of them had spent what money they brought from home, and
they had not been out long enough yet to receive a visit from the
Paymaster. The lank men and scrawny women cried their wares vociferously,
but with indifferent results. The boys wanted the stuff, but they were
"busted," and trade was dull.
</p>
<p>
Si looked wistfully at the "pies," and suggested to Shorty a joint
investment. Their purses were nearly empty, but the temptation was too
strong to be resisted.
</p>
<p>
"Them looks nice," said Si. They were the first pies he had seen since
leaving home, and his judgment was a little "off." As a matter of fact, it
was only by the greatest stretch of courtesy that they could be called
pies at all. But the word touched Si in a tender spot, and he only thought
of such as his mother used to make.
</p>
<p>
Si and Shorty "pooled in" and bought a pie. Impatiently whipping out his
pocket knife Si tried to cut it in two. It was hard work, for the "crust"—so
called—was as tough as the hide of a mule. By their united efforts
they at length succeeded in sawing it asunder. It was a fearful and
wonderful specimen of culinary effort. It was made of two slabs of sodden,
leathery dough, with a very feeble layer of dried apples sandwiched
between them.
</p>
<p>
Si tried his teeth on the pie, but it was like trying to chew an old
boot-leg.
</p>
<p>
"I say, old lady," said he, turning to the female of whom he had bought
it, "is these pies pegged or sewed?"
</p>
<p>
"Look a hyar, young feller," said the woman, with considerable vinegar in
her tone, "p'raps you-uns-all thinks it's right smart to insult we-uns; it
shows how yer wuz broughten up. I don't 'low yer ever seed any nicer
dog-g-goned pies 'n them is. Ye needn't try ter argify 'long 'th me, fur I
kin jest knock the spots off'n any woman there is 'round here in cookin'."
</p>
<p>
Si saw that it would be profitless to discuss the matter, and concluded to
make the best of a bad bargain. But he wouldn't eat the pie.
</p>
<p>
On the whole, the hucksters fared rather badly. The boys confiscated most
of the stuff that was brought in, promising to pay next time they came
that way. There was a good deal of grumbling, but the trouble always ended
in the soldiers getting the plunder.
</p>
<p>
The climax was reached when a putty-faced citizen drove into camp a bony
mule tied with straps and ropes and strings to a crazy cart, on which was
a barrel of cider, which he "allowed" to sell out to the boys at 10 cents
a drink, or a quarter a canteen full. He had a spigot rigged up in one end
and an old tin cup, with which he dealt out the seductive beverage to such
as would pay.
</p>
<p>
A thirsty crowd gathered around him, but sales were slow, on account of
the scarcity of money. Si and Shorty mingled with the boys, and then drew
aside and engaged in a whispered consultation.
</p>
<p>
"That'll be jest bully!" said Shorty. "If you can raise an auger somewhere
we'll git the bulge on that old chap."
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0062" id="linkimage-0062">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/187.jpg" alt="Waiting for Their Clothes to Dry 187 "
width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
Si returned after a brief absence, with an auger which he had borrowed
from the driver of an ammunition wagon.
</p>
<p>
"Now, Shorty," said Si, "you git the boys to stand around and keep up a
racket, and I'll crawl under the cart and bore a hole into that 'ere
barrel. Then pass in yer canteens and army kettles 'n' we'll show the old
man a trick!"
</p>
<p>
Shorty quietly broached the scheme to a few of his comrades, who fell in
with it at once. Gathering around the cart, they cheered and chattered so
as to drown any noise Si might make while carrying out his plan, and which
would "give it away."
</p>
<p>
It was not more than a minute till a gurgling sound was heard, and Si
began to pass out to the boys the buckets and canteens which they so
freely furnished him, filled with the fast-flowing contents of the barrel.
It didn't take long to empty it entirely, nor did the citizen discover the
state of affairs until the cider no longer ran from the spigot.
</p>
<p>
He had not sold more than a gallon or two, and he was amazed when the
liquid ceased to respond. Then he resolved himself into an investigating
committee, and after a protracted search he discovered the trick that had
been played on him.
</p>
<p>
"Wall, I'll be gosh-durned!" he exclaimed. "I've hearn tell 'bout Yankee
tricks, but dog my cats if this 'ere don't beat 'em all! I'd like to cut
the gizzard outen the rascal that bored the hole in that bar'l!"
</p>
<p>
"I declare, old pard; that was mean!" said Si, who stood looking on, with
his hands in his trousers pockets, the very picture of innocence. "I'm
jist goin' to flax 'round 'n' help ye find that feller. If I was you I'd
pound the stuffin' out of him—when ye cotch him!"
</p>
<p>
<a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019">
<!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER XIX. A CLOSE CALL
</h2>
<h3>
CORPORAL KLEGG HAS AN EXCITING ADVENTURE GUARDING A FORAGE TRAIN.
</h3>
<p>
"COMPANY Q's bin detailed to go out 'n' help guard a forage train
to-morrow," said the Orderly one evening at roll-call. "You fellers wants
to all be up 'n' dressed bright 'n' early, with yer cartridge-boxes full
'n' a day's rations in yer haversacks. Be sure yer guns is in good order,
fer likely's not we'll have a squirmish afore we git back."
</p>
<p>
The 200th Ind. had been lying in camp for two or three days, and the
ambitious heroes who composed that regiment were getting tired of loafing
about. Nothing chafed the raging patriotism of the new troops like a
condition, however brief, of masterly inactivity. They refused to be
comforted unless they were on the warpath all the time. Their ideal of a
soldier's life was to take a rebel battery every morning before breakfast,
storm a line of works to give them an appetite for dinner, and spend the
afternoon charging with cold steel the serried columns of the foe and
wading around through seas of gore.
</p>
<p>
So Corporal Klegg and Shorty and the rest of the boys betook themselves
with alacrity to the work of preparation for the duties of the morrow.
Members of the other companies watched the proceedings with jealous eye.
They almost turned green with envy because they were not detailed for the
expedition instead of Co. Q.
</p>
<p>
"Say, Si," remarked Shorty, thoughtfully, "hadn't we better write a letter
home? Who knows but we'll be as dead as mackerels to-morrer night!"
</p>
<p>
"Fiddlesticks!" said Si. "What's the use o' havin' a funeral afore there's
any corpse! We've bin through one fight 'n' didn't git hurt, 'n' I've made
up my mind there's no use gittin' into a stew over a thing that may hap'n
'n' may not. Time 'nuff to fret 'bout it when it comes. I recolleck one
thing I learned in Sunday-school—let's see, it was 'S'ficient unto
the day is the evil thereof,' or suthin' like that. Strikes me that's a
good passidge o' Scripter fer a soldier to keep pasted in his hat. I ain't
goin' ter hang back fer fear a billit 'll hit me, nuther. If we're going
to be killed we can't help it, so let's not fret our gizzards out!" And Si
crammed a handful of hardtack into his haversack.
</p>
<p>
Si's cheery view of the case was not without its effect upon Shorty.
Indeed, it cannot be denied that there was a great deal of common sense in
his homely, good-natured philosophy. Sooner or later every soldier who did
not "peter out" came gradually to adopt Si's idea as the governing
principle of his military career.
</p>
<p>
"Shouldn't wonder if you was 'bout right, after all," said Shorty, as he
sliced up some bacon to have it ready for an early breakfast. "You're
better'n medicine, Si, to a feller w'at gits the blues sometimes!"
</p>
<p>
The preparations were soon made, and Co. Q went to bed early. In the
morning the Orderly came around and stirred the boys up an hour before
reveille, as they were ordered to be ready to start at daylight. The
primary object of the expedition was forage for the animals, the supply of
which had run short. Besides this, each man had a secondary purpose, and
that was to gather in something on his own hook that would satisfy his
longing for a change from the regulation diet. This was always the
unwritten part of the order to "go out foraging." Daylight was just
streaking over the camp when Co. Q, equipped in light marching order,
leaving knapsacks behind, moved out to where the half dozen wagons
detailed from the regimental transportation were ready for the start. Each
regiment in the brigade furnished a company and the same number of wagons.
The impatient mules were braying and flapping their ears, as if they
understood that they were to be the chief beneficiaries of the raid.
</p>
<p>
"Pile in, boys!" said the Orderly, and they clambered into the wagons. The
guards were permitted to ride until there were symptoms of danger.
</p>
<p>
Then the muleteers, bestriding the big "wheelers," cracked their long
whips like pistol-snots, addressed to the mules the usual words of
exhortation, and the long procession drew out upon the stony pike and took
a brisk trot. Considerable foraging had already been done in the vicinity,
and it was expected the train would have to go out several miles in order
to fully accomplish its object. The boys were in fine spirits and enjoyed
their morning ride, albeit the jolting of the wagons gave them a thorough
shaking up.
</p>
<p>
"I guess they forgot to put any springs in when they built these wagons!"
said Shorty, as he shifted his position so that he might catch the bumps
in a new place for a while.
</p>
<p>
"Jest thinkin' that way myself," replied Si; "but all the same, it beats
travelin' on the hoof all holler!"
</p>
<p>
Three or four miles out from camp the train was halted while the officers
in command made inquiries of a cadaverous native who was sunning himself
on the fence and whose principal occupation seemed to be chewing tobacco
and distributing the resultant liquid around in a promiscuous way.
</p>
<p>
"Good morning, stranger," said the officer, "have you any corn on your
place?"
</p>
<p>
"Haint got a dog-goned ear left!" was the surly answer. "Some o' you-unses
men wuz out here yisterdy 'n' tuk every bit I hed."
</p>
<p>
This may or may not have been true. Inquiries of this nature always
developed the fact that it was a man's neighbors who had plenty of corn;
he never had any himself.
</p>
<p>
"There's ole man Scroggs," he continued; "he lives a matter of two miles
from hyar. I 'low ye'll git sum if ye go thar. He growed a power o' cawn
this yeah; he sold a heap, but I reckon he's got a right smart left."
</p>
<p>
During this time a couple of men had been making a hasty examination of
the outbuildings on the place. They reported that they could find nothing
in the way of forage. If the man had any corn he had carefully concealed
it. The train started on to pay a visit to old man Scroggs.
</p>
<p>
"Say, old pard," asked Si as his wagon drove past, "is there any rebs
'round here?"
</p>
<p>
"There wuz a few Confedrit critter-men ridin' 'bout hyar this mawnin';—mebby
ye'll run agin 'em 'afore night."
</p>
<p>
"How many o' your boys is among em?"
</p>
<p>
"We'uns is all Union."
</p>
<p>
"Jest as long as we're 'round, I s'pose!" said Si.
</p>
<p>
A mile further on those who were in the lead, rising to the crest of a
hill, saw—or thought they saw a few vagrant cavalrymen far ahead.
The train was halted and dispositions were made to meet any emergency
likely to arise. The men were ordered to "tumble out" of the wagons. The
main body was formed in advance. A line of skirmishers was deployed in
front and flankers were thrown out on either side. Thus protected, the
mule drivers again cracked their whips and the procession moved cautiously
forward.
</p>
<p>
"Now keep yer eyes skinned," said Si to Shorty as they trailed along
through the woods and fields and over fences, on one of the flanks. "If
any of them raskils comes dodgin' 'round here let's try 'n' have the first
crack at 'em 'n' git the bulge on the rest o' the boys!"
</p>
<p>
Keenly alert, with muskets loaded and capped, they crept carefully along,
poking their noses into every thicket and peering around every building.
It was clear that there would not be anything in the nature of a surprise
if the whole line was as well taken care of as the particular point
guarded by Corporal Klegg and his faithful friend Shorty.
</p>
<p>
"It's some like huntin' squirrels up in the woods of Posey County," said
Si, as they forced their way through a patch of brambles.
</p>
<p>
"'Pears to be rayther more excitin' than huntin' squirrels," said Shorty.
"Ye know squirrels doesn't shute back at a feller as them pesky rebbles
does, an' the fun 's all on one side. I reckon ef squirrels c'd shute
there wouldn't be so much huntin' of 'em!"
</p>
<p>
It was really a disappointment to Si that he found no opportunity to
squint along the barrel of his musket in range of a foe. If any of his
misguided fellow-citizens were in the neighborhood they considered
discretion the better part of valor and kept out of harm's way.
</p>
<p>
In due time the Scroggs plantation was reached. A hasty examination showed
that there was an abundance of corn on the place to load the wagons, and
arrangements for a sudden transfer of the property were quickly made. A
third of the force established a cordon of picket-posts around the
marauding party, covering all the avenues of approach, with re serves at
convenient points. The remainder of the troops stacked arms and entered
briskly upon the work of confiscation.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0063" id="linkimage-0063">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/191.jpg"
alt="An Assault on the Well-filled Corn Crib 191 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
Part of the harvest had already been gathered, and the first assault
</p>
<p>
was made on a well-filled cornhouse—one of a group of dilapidated
out-buildings a little way from the dwelling. "Old man" Scroggs protested
with profane vehemence, reinforced by the "old woman" and the entire
family of children. We say "entire family," because there could not well
have been a more numerous progeny in one household anywhere outside of
Utah.
</p>
<p>
The head of the family cursed and swore, and his wife and the big girls
looked as if they wanted to do the same thing, as they stood wringing
their hands, their eyes flashing fire while the small-fry stood around and
sobbed with a vague idea that some dire calamity had befallen them.
</p>
<p>
The old Kentuckian declared that he was a "Union man," and that he would
demand of the Government full revenge for this outrage. It was noticed
that there were no young men around as there should be according to the
economy of nature, to preserve the balance of sex in so large a family.
The officer in command asked him where all his sons were.
</p>
<p>
"Wall, I kaint tell yer 'zactly whar they is," was the reply. "They ain't
to hum jest now. I 'low they've got a right to g'way ef they want ter."
</p>
<p>
The officer had been informed that there were several representatives of
the Scroggs family in the rebel army. The old man's avowal of loyalty was
taken for what it was worth. That it was not rated at a high figure was
well attested by the appearance of the plantation a few hours later.
</p>
<p>
Meanwhile the soldiers kept right along in the duty assigned them. The
corn-house was surrounded by wagons, the roof was gently lifted off, and
in scarcely more time than it takes to tell the story six or eight of the
wagons were heaped with the contents. The mules wagged their tails and
brayed in anticipation of the picnic they would have when they got back to
camp.
</p>
<p>
Then the force moved some distance and attacked a large field of standing
corn. The stalks had been "topped," but the ears were yet ungathered. The
men started in between the rows and swept through that field like a
cyclone, plucking the ears right and left. Bags, baskets and boxes were
pressed into the service, and as there were not enough of these to go'
round many bore the corn to the wagons by armfuls. It did not take more
than two or three hours to strip every ear from the field. A visitation of
overgrown Kansas grasshoppers could not have done a more thorough job.
</p>
<p>
"Fo' de Lawd, boss," said an old darky who had been roosting on the fence
watching the spoilers, "I nebber seed de crap gaddered so quick since I'se
bawn. You'uns all is powerful smart, da't shuah!"
</p>
<p>
But where were Corporal Klegg and his comrade. Shorty, while all this was
going on?
</p>
<p>
They had been stationed as sentinels near a house, half a mile beyond, on
the pike. They were cautioned to keep a sharp lookout, and for a time they
obeyed their instructions to the letter. Their vigilant eyes swept the
surrounding country, and no rebel could have crept up on them without
getting a pair of bullets from their ready muskets. They saw no signs of
an enemy, and after a while it began to grow monotonous.
</p>
<p>
"Shorty," said Si, "I don't b'lieve there's any seceshers in these parts,
an' there ain't any use'n us both keepin' this thing up. You jest watch
out awhile 'n' I'll skin around 'n' see what I kin find."
</p>
<p>
Shorty agreed to this, taking it as an order from his superior officer. Si
threw his gun up to a "right shoulder shift" and started off, after again
urging upon his companion the importance of attending strictly to
business.
</p>
<p>
Si had not gone far till he saw, penned in a corner of the barnyard, a cow
with a full udder, from which a frisky young calf was busily engaged in
pumping nourishment. A violent feeling of envy toward that calf began
immediately to rage in the 'breast of Si. He had not had a draft of fresh
milk since he had left home, and he felt that a little refreshment of that
kind would be particularly gratifying to his interior organism. It would
strengthen him and give him new courage to stand up to the rack if they
should happen to get into a fight.
</p>
<p>
"I say. Shorty," he called, "cum 'ere a minnit, quick!"
</p>
<p>
Si's conscience smote him for calling Shorty from his duty and leaving the
post unguarded, but the temptation was too strong for him to resist, and
he yielded to the impulse to take the chances. Shorty came on the run,
with eyes wide open, thinking his comrade had discovered some rebels
hanging around.
</p>
<p>
"Look there!" said Si, pointing to the maternal scene that has been
alluded to. "Let's have some o' that. We'll git over the fence 'n' you
jest hold the calf while I milk our canteens full. 'Twont take more'n a
jiffy!"
</p>
<p>
"We ort n't to leave the post, ort we?" suggested Shorty.
</p>
<p>
"Oh, there ain't no danger," Si replied; "an' besides, you can keep
lookin' out while you're hangin' on to the calf. I was alters a good
milker 'n' I'll fill up these canteens in a couple o' minnits." So they
climbed over and leaned their muskets against the fence. Shorty seized the
calf and held it with a firm grip, in spite of its struggling and
bleating. The cow seemed disposed at first to resent the interference, but
Si's persuasive "So, bossy" proved effectual in calming her fears, and she
stood placidly chewing her cud while Si, spurred on by a guilty
conscience, milked with all his might.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0064" id="linkimage-0064">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/195.jpg" alt="Shorty Held the Calf 195 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
The canteens were soon filled, and, with out stopping to drink. Si and
Shorty hurried back to their post of duty. All was quiet, and no harm had
resulted from their brief absence.
</p>
<p>
"I told ye 'twould be all right," said Si. "Now, we'll jest empty one o'
these canteens—here, take a swig—'n' we'll carry the other to
camp. It'll be jest bully to have milk in our coffee agin!"
</p>
<p>
Then they betook themselves to duty with redoubled vigilance, to atone for
their derelictions. After watching for an hour without seeing anything, Si
said he would take another little turn around the place.
</p>
<p>
Boldly advancing to the house, which was some distance in front of their
post, he was met by a girl of about 18. She was rather pretty, but to Si's
ardent imagination she was like a vision of surpassing loveliness. She
greeted him pleasantly—for Si was a comely youth—and, if the
truth must be told, he actually forgot for the moment all about his duty.
When she said she would get him a good dinner, and invited him into the
house to sit while she prepared it, he just went right along.
</p>
<p>
But his conscience began to thump so loudly that after a few minutes he
told her he guessed he'd have to go, but would be delighted to return in
an hour and partake of her hospitality.
</p>
<p>
"May I bring Shorty—he's my pard—'long with me?" he timidly
asked.
</p>
<p>
"Certainly!" she replied, with a sweet smile; and Si went away, his nerves
tingling with pleasant emotions to the very tips of his fingers.
</p>
<p>
"Shorty," he said, as he came up to "I've struck it this time. Over to
that house there's the purtiest gal I ever see."
</p>
<p>
"Wha-a-a-a-t!" interjected Shorty, with a look of astonishment; for he
knew something about Si and Annabel—the girl he left behind him—and
he was both surprised and pained at Si's treasonable enthusiasm.
</p>
<p>
Si easily divined his thoughts, for something of the same nature had
already caused his own heart to palpitate in a reproving way.
</p>
<p>
"Of—c-c-course—I d-d-don't—mean th-th-that. Shorty," he
stammered "but she's a nice girl, anyhow, 'n' she's gittin' up a dinner
fer me 'n' you. Bet ye it'll be a nice lay-out, too!"
</p>
<p>
Shorty did not feel quite at ease in his mind about leaving the post
again, but Si assured him it would be all right. The peculiar
circumstances of the case had sadly warped Si's judgment.
</p>
<p>
So they went to the house and were cordially greeted by their fair young
hostess, who was flying around, putting the finishing touches to the meal
she had prepared for them.
</p>
<p>
"Jiminy, don't that smell good?" said Si to Shorty in an undertone, as his
sensitive nostrils caught the savory odors that arose from the
nicely-spread board.
</p>
<p>
The young soldiers stood their guns on the floor in a corner of the room,
preliminary to an assault on the edibles.
</p>
<p>
"Ugh!" exclaimed the young woman, with a coquettish shiver, "be them awful
things loaded?"
</p>
<p>
"N—no!" said Si; "they won't hurt ye if ye don't touch 'em!"
</p>
<p>
Si was learning to fib a little, and he wanted to quiet the girl's fears.
</p>
<p>
The boys were soon seated at the table, bountifully supplied with ham,
chicken, eggs, bread and butter, honey, and all the accessories of a
well-ordered repast. They fell to with an eagerness that was, perhaps,
justified by the long time that had elapsed since they had had a "square
meal." Si thought that never in his life had anything tasted so good.
</p>
<p>
While they were thus engaged, without a thought of impending danger, the
girl suddenly opened the door, leading to the dining room. A wild-eyed man—who
proved to be her brother—in the uniform of a rebel soldier, dashed
in, and, presenting a cocked revolver, demanded their unconditional and
immediate surrender.
</p>
<p>
They were in a tight place. But Si proved equal to the sudden and
appalling emergency. It flashed through his mind in an instant how the
girl had "played it" on him. He made up his mind that he would rather be
shot than be captured under such circumstances.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0065" id="linkimage-0065">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/199.jpg" alt="Si Sprang Upon Him 199 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
Si sprang up, and the rebel, true to his word, fired. Si dodged, and the
ball only chipped a piece from his left ear. There was not time to get and
use his gun. With the quickness of a cat Si sprang upon him, and with a
blow of his fist laid him sprawling upon the floor. Disarming him, he
placed the revolver at his head and triumphantly exclaimed:
</p>
<p>
"Now, gol durn ye, you're my prisoner. I'd like to blow the top o' yer
head off fer spilin' my dinner, but I won't do it this time. But you jist
git up 'n' come 'long with me!"
</p>
<p>
With his complete mastery of the situation, Si's confidence returned, and
Shorty, who had been dazed and helpless at first, recovered himself and
came to his assistance.
</p>
<p>
But at this instant their ears caught the sound of horses' hoofs galloping
down the pike. Si's quick perception told him that is was a dash of rebel
cavalrymen, and that a few moments later escape would be impossible.
</p>
<p>
"Grab yer gun an' git!" he said to Shorty, at the same time casting one
ferocious glance at the terrified girl, who stood, white and speechless,
contemplating the scene.
</p>
<p>
Si and Shorty dashed out of the house and started for the reserve, at the
highest speed of which their legs were capable. On clattered the horses,
and a few shots from the carbines of the swift-riding horsemen whistled
through the air.
</p>
<p>
Six feet at a jump, with thumping hearts and bulging eyes, the fugitives
almost flew over the ground, throwing quick glances at their pursuers, and
then ahead, in the hope of catching a glimpse of succor.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0066" id="linkimage-0066">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/203.jpg"
alt="'shorty if We--only Git--out O' This--' 203 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
"Shorty, if we only git out o' this—" but Si found he hadn't any
wind to spare to finish the sentence. We must leave to the reader's
imagination the good resolutions as to his future conduct that were
forming in Si's mind at this critical juncture. He saw the awful
consequences of yielding to the influence of that alluring young woman and
her seductive dinner. What he had read about Adam and the trouble Eve got
him into, in pretty much the same way, flashed before him. It was a good
time to resolve that he wouldn't do so any more.
</p>
<p>
Shorty, long and lank, was swifter on his feet than Si. Hardtack and bacon
had not yet reduced the latter's surplus flesh to a degree that enabled
him to run well. Shorty kept ahead, but would not desert his comrade,
slowing up for an instant now and then to give Si, who was straining to
the utmost every nerve, and puffing like a locomotive on an upgrade, a
chance to keep within supporting distance.
</p>
<p>
The soldiers of the reserve taking the alarm, came out at a double-quick
and were fortunately able to cover the retreat of Si and Shorty. The half
dozen cavalrymen, upon the appearance of so large a force, turned their
horses and galloped away.
</p>
<p>
"Hello, Si," said the Orderly of Co. Q, "yer ear's bleedin'. What hurt
ye?"
</p>
<p>
"Fell down and scratched it on a brier!" said Si, as soon as he was able
to speak.
</p>
<p>
That night Si and Shorty sat on a log by the campfire talking over the
events of the day.
</p>
<p>
"Don't ye never blow on this thing," said Si. "It'll be a cold day for us
if they'd find it out."
</p>
<p>
"There ain't no danger o' my tellin'," replied Shorty. "But, say, ain't
that a nice girl out there?"
</p>
<p>
"She's a mean rebel, that's what she is! But that was a smart trick o'
her'n, wasn't it?"
</p>
<p>
"Come mighty near bein' too smart fer us!" replied Shorty. "I don't want
no more such close shaves in mine. You 'member the story of the spider and
the fly, don't ye? Well, she was the spider 'n' we was two poor little
fool flies!"
</p>
<p>
"Shorty," said Si, "I'd a mighty sight ruther be an angel an' have the
daisies a-bloomin' over my grave, than to have been tuk a prisoner in that
house. But that dinner was good, anyhow—what we got of it!"
</p>
<p>
<a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020">
<!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER XX. "THE SWEET SABBATH"
</h2>
<h3>
HOW THE BLESSED DAY OF REST WAS SPENT IN THE ARMY.
</h3>
<p>
"TOMORROW'S Sunday, ye know," said the Orderly of Company Q one Saturday
night at roll-call.
</p>
<p>
This was in the nature of news to the boys. But for the announcement very
few of them would have known it. The Orderly was not distinguished for his
piety, and it is not likely that the approach of Sunday would have
occurred to him if the Sergeant-Major had not come around with orders from
the Colonel for a proper observance of the day. The Colonel himself would
not have thought of it either, if the Chaplain had not reminded him of it.
Everybody wondered how even the Chaplain could keep track of the days well
enough to know when Sunday came—but that was chiefly what he wore
shoulder-straps and drew his salary for. It was the general impression
that he either carried an almanac in his pocket, or else a stick in which
he cut a notch every day with his jack-knife, and in that way managed to
know when a new week began.
</p>
<p>
"There'll be guard-mountin' at 9 o'clock," continued the Orderly,
"regimental inspection at 10, preachin' at 11, an' dress-parade at 5 in
the evenin'. All of ye wants to tumble out right promptly at revellee an'
git yer breakfast, an' then clean up yer guns an' put all yer traps in
apple-pie order, 'cause the Colonel's goin' to look at 'em. He's got sharp
eyes, an' I reck'n he'll be mighty pertickler. If there's anything that
ain't jest right he'll see it quicker'n litenin'. Ye know we hain't had
any inspections yet, an' the Cap'n wants us to be the boss company. So
ye've got to scratch around lively in the mornin'."
</p>
<p>
"Say," said Corporal Klegg, after the company had broken ranks, "seems to
me there wa'n't no use in the Orderly tellin' us to 'scratch around,' fer
we're doin' that purty much all the time, now that the graybacks is
gittin' in their work on us."
</p>
<p>
Shorty smiled faintly at what he seemed to consider a rather feeble joke,
even for Si.
</p>
<p>
The 200th Ind. had now been in the field for many weeks, but it had been
continually cantering about the country, and the Generals had kept it
particularly active on Sundays. Probably this regiment did not manifest
any more than the average degree of enthusiasm and fervor in religious
matters, but there were many in its ranks who, at home, had always sat
under Gospel ministrations, and to tramp on Sundays, the same as other
days, was, at first, a rude shock to their moral sensibilities. These were
yet keen, the edges had not been worn off and blunted and battered by the
hard knocks of army life. True, they could scarcely tell when Sunday came,
but they knew that they kept right along every day.
</p>
<p>
"Shorty," said Si, after they had curled up under the blanket for the
night, "'pears to me it'll seem sort o' nice to keep Sunday agin. At the
rate we've bin goin' on we'll all be heathens by the time we git home—if
we ever do. Our Chaplain haint had no chance to preachify yet. The boys of
Comp'ny X, w'at knows him, says he's a staver, 'n' I b'lieve it'll make us
all feel better to have him talk to us once. 'Twont do us no harm, nohow,
I'd like to be home to-morrer 'n' go to church with mother, 'n' sister
Marier, 'n'—er—I mean the rest of the folks. Then I'd jest eat
all the afternoon. I ain't goin' ter git homesick, Shorty; but a feller
can't help feelin' a little streaked once 'n' a while. Mebbe it's a good
idee fer 'em to keep us on the jump, fer then we don't git no chance to
think 'bout it. I don't suppose I'm the only boy 'n the regiment that 'd
be glad to git a jest fer to-morrer. I sh'd want ter be back bright 'n'
arly to fall in Monday mornin', fer I'm goin' to stick to the 200th
through thick 'n' thin, if I don't git knocked out. Say, Shorty, how d'ye
feel, any way?"
</p>
<p>
But Shorty was already fast asleep. Si spooned up to him and was soon, in
his dreams, away up in Posey County.
</p>
<p>
The sound of the bugle and drum, at daylight, fell upon unwilling ears,
for the soldiers felt the same indisposition to get up early Sunday
morning that is everywhere One of the characteristics of modern
civilization. Their beds were hard, but to their weary limbs no couch of
down ever gave more welcome rest than did the rough ground on which they
lay. But the wild yell of the Orderly, "Turn out for roll-call!" with the
thought of the penalties for non-obedience—which some of them had
abundant reason to remember—quickly brought out the laggards.
</p>
<p>
Si and Shorty were, as usual, among the first to take their places in
line. They were pleasantly greeted by the Captain, who had come out on the
run at the last moment, and wriggled himself into his coat as he strode
along the company street. The Captain did not very often appear at morning
rollcall. But one officer of the company was required to be present, and
the Captain generally loaded this duty upon the Lieutenants "turn about."
If he did show up, he would go back to bed and snooze for an hour while
the cook was getting breakfast. If one of the men did that he would soon
be promenading with a rail on his shoulder or standing on a barrel with a
stick or a bayonet tied in his mouth.
</p>
<p>
"I think that's a fust rate notion to mount the guards," said Si to Shorty
as they sat on a rail by the fire making coffee and frying bacon. "It'll
be so much better 'n walkin' back 'n' forrard on the beats. Wonder 'f
they'll give us bosses or mules to ride."
</p>
<p>
"I'd like to know what put that idee into yer head," said Shorty.
</p>
<p>
"Whydn't the Ord'ly say last night there 'd be guard-mountin' at 9 o'clock
this mornin'? I s'posed that fer a man to be mounted meant straddlin' a
boss or s'mother kind of an animal."
</p>
<p>
"Ain't ye never goin' to larn nuthin'," said Shorty, with a laugh.
"Guard-mountin' don't mean fer the men to git on hosses. It's only the
name they gives it in the Army Reggelations. Dunno why they calls it that,
'nless it's 'cause the guards has to 'mount' anybody that tries to pass
'thout the countersign. But don't ye fool yerself with thinkin' yer goin'
to get to ride. We'll keep pluggin' along afoot, on guard or anywhere
else, same's we have all the time."
</p>
<p>
Thus rudely was shattered another of Si Klegg's bright illusions.
</p>
<p>
The whole regiment turned out to witness the ceremony of guard-mounting.
It was the first time the exigencies of the campaign had permitted the
200th Ind. to do this in regular style. The Adjutant was the most
important personage, and stood so straight that he narrowly escaped
falling over backward. In order to guard against making a mess of it, he
had spent half the night rehearsing the various commands in his tent. Thus
prepared, he managed to get through it in very fair shape.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0067" id="linkimage-0067">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/211.jpg" alt="So Straight he Leaned Backward 211 "
width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
The next thing on the program for the day was the inspection. The boys had
been industriously engaged in cleaning up their muskets and accouterments,
and putting their scanty wardrobes in presentable condition. In arranging
his knapsack for the Colonel's eye, each man carefully laid a clean shirt,
if he had one, on the top. The garments that were not clean he either
stowed away in the tent or put at the bottom of the knapsack. In this he
was actuated by the same principle that prompts the thrifty farmer to put
the biggest apples and strawberries at the top of his measure.
</p>
<p>
The clothing of the regiment was already in an advanced stage of
demoralization. It was of the "shoddy" sort that a good hard wind would
almost blow to pieces.
</p>
<p>
Corporal Klegg was anxious that not only his person, but all his
belongings, should make as good an appearance as possible. He put on the
best and cleanest garments he had, and then betook himself to fixing his
knapsack so it would pass muster.
</p>
<p>
"Them duds is a bad lot," he said to Shorty, casting rueful glances at the
little heap of soiled and ragged clothes. "Purty hard to make a decent
show with them things."
</p>
<p>
"Wait a minute," said Shorty, "an' I'll show ye a little trick."
</p>
<p>
Taking his poncho under His arm. Shorty went to the rear of the camp,
where the mules were feeding, and presently returned with a bunch of hay.
</p>
<p>
"What ye goin' to do with that?" asked Si.
</p>
<p>
"You jest do 's I tell ye, and don't ask no questions. Cram some o' this
hay into yer knapsack 'n' fill 'er up 'n' then put a shirt or suthin', the
best ye kin find, on top, 'n' the Colonel 'll think she's full o' clothes
right from the laundry. I'm goin' to fix mine that way."
</p>
<p>
"Shorty, you're a trump!" said Si, approvingly. "That 'll be a bully
scheme."
</p>
<p>
It required but a few minutes to carry out the plan. The hay was stuffed
into the knapsack, and all vagrant spears were carefully tucked in.
</p>
<p>
Then a garment, folded so as to conceal its worst features, was nicely
spread over the hay, the flaps were closed and buckled, and the young
Hoosiers were ready for inspection.
</p>
<p>
"S'posen the Colonel sh'd take a notion to go pokin' down into them
knapsacks," said Si; "don't ye think it'd be purty cold weather for us?"
</p>
<p>
"P'r'aps it mout," answered Shorty; "but we've got ter take the chances.
He's got seven or eight hundred knapsacks to 'nspect, 'n' I don't b'lieve
he'll stick his nose down into very many on 'em!"
</p>
<p>
At the appointed time the battalion was formed and the inspection was gone
through with in good style. The Colonel and the field and staff officers,
escorted by the Captain of each successive company, moved gradually
between the ranks, their swords dangling around and getting mixed up with
their legs. The soldiers stood facing inward like so many wooden men, with
their open knapsacks lying upon the ground at their feet. The Colonel
looked sharply right and left, stopped now and then to commend a soldier
whose "straps" were in particularly good condition, or to "go for" another
whose slouchy appearance betokened untidy habits. If a button was missing,
or a shoe untied, his eye was keen to detect it, and a word of reproof was
administered to the delinquent.
</p>
<p>
As the Colonel started down the line of Company Q Si watched him out of
the corners of his eyes with no little anxiety. His heart thumped as he
saw him occasionally stoop and fumble over the contents of a knapsack,
evidently to test the truth of Longfellow's declaration that "things are
not what they seem." What if the Colonel should go down into the bowels of
Si's knapsack! Si fairly shuddered at the thought.
</p>
<p>
Si, being the shortest of the Corporals, was at the foot of the company,
while Shorty, on account of his hight, was well up toward the head. Si
almost fainted when he saw the Colonel stop in front of his "pard" and
make an examination of his fatlooking knapsack. Military official dignity
gave way when the removal of the single garment exposed the stuffing of
hay. The officers burst into a laugh at the unexpected revelation, while
the boys on either side almost exploded in their enjoyment of Shorty's
discomfiture.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0068" id="linkimage-0068">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/215.jpg"
alt="Si Almost Fainted when the Colonel Stopped 215 " width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
"Captain," said the Colonel, with as much sternness as he could command,
"as soon as your company is dismissed detail a guard to take charge of
this man. Have him take the hay out of his knapsack and fill it with
stones—and see that it is filled full. Have this man put it on and
march him up and down the company street till church-call, and then take
him to hear the Chaplain. He needs to be preached to. Perhaps, between the
knapsack-drill and the Chaplain, we can straight him out."
</p>
<p>
Corporal Klegg heard all this, and he wished the ground might open and
swallow him. "These stripes is gone this time, sure!" he said to himself,
as he looked at the chevrons on his arm. "But there's no use givin'
yourself away, Si. Brace up, 'n' mebbe the Colonel 'll skip ye."
</p>
<p>
Si had been badly shaken up by the Colonel's episode with Shorty, but by a
great effort he gathered himself together and was at his best, externally,
when the Colonel reached him, though his thoughts were in a raging
condition. His face was clean and rosy, and his general make-up was as
good as could be expected under the circumstances.
</p>
<p>
The Colonel had always remembered Si as the soldier he had promoted to be
a Corporal for his gallantry in the little skirmish a few days before. As
he came up he greeted the Corporal with a smile and a nod of recognition.
He was evidently pleased at his tidy appearance. He cast a glance at the
voluptuous knapsack, and Si's heart seemed to sink away down into his
shoes.
</p>
<p>
But the fates smiled on Si that day. The Colonel turned to the Captain and
told him that Corporal Klegg was the model soldier of Company Q. Si was
the happiest man in the universe at that precise moment. It was not on
account of the compliment the Colonel had paid him, but because his
knapsack had escaped a critical inspection of its contents.
</p>
<p>
The inspection over, Company Q marched back to its quarters and was
dismissed. Poor Shorty was soon tramping to and fro, under guard, humping
his back to ease the load that had been put upon it. Si was very sorry for
him, and at the same time felt a glow of pleasure at the thought that it
was not his own knapsack instead of Shorty's that the Colonel had
examined. He could not help feeling, too, that it was a great joke on
Shorty to be caught in his own trap.
</p>
<p>
<a name="linkimage-0069" id="linkimage-0069">
<!-- IMG --></a>
</p>
<div class="fig" style="width:60%;">
<img src="images/217.jpg" alt="Shorty Was There--with a Guard 217 "
width="100%" /><br />
</div>
<p>
Shorty took his medicine like a man, marching up and down the row of tents
bravely and patiently, unheeding the gibes and jeers of his hard-hearted
comrades.
</p>
<p>
The bugle sounded the call for religious services. Shorty was not in a
frame of mind that fitted him for devout worship. In fact, few in the
regiment had greater need of the regenerating influence. He had never been
inside of a church but two or three times in his life, and he really felt
that to be compelled to go and listen to the Chaplain's sermon was the
hardest part of the double punishment the Colonel had inflicted upon him.
</p>
<p>
The companies were all marched to a wooded knoll just outside the camp.
Shorty went by himself, save the companionship of the guard, with fixed
bayonet. He had been permitted to leave his knapsack behind. He was taken
to a point near the Chaplain, that he might get the full benefit of the
preacher's words.
</p>
<p>
Under the spreading trees, whose foliage was brilliant with the hues of
Autumn, in the mellow sunshine of that October day the men seated
themselves upon the ground to hear the Gospel preached. The Chaplain, in
his best uniform, stood and prayed fervently for Divine guidance and
protection and blessing, while the soldiers listened, with heads
reverently bowed. Then he gave out the familiar Methodist hymn,
</p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
"Am I a soldier of the cross,"
</pre>
<p>
and all joined in the old tune "Balerma," their voices swelling in mighty
chorus. As they sang,
</p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
"Are there no foes for me to face?"
</pre>
<p>
there came to the minds of many a practical application of the words, in
view of the long and fruitless chase after the rebels in which they had
been engaged for nearly a month.
</p>
<p>
The Chaplain had formerly been an old-fashioned Methodist circuit-rider in
Indiana. He was full of fiery zeal, and portrayed the terrors of eternal
punishment so vividly that His hearers could almost feel the heat of the
flame and smell the fumes of brimstone that are popularly believed to roll
out unceasingly from the mouth of the bottomless pit. It ought to have had
a salutary effect upon Shorty, but it is greatly to be feared that he
steeled his stubborn heart against all that the Chaplain said.
</p>
<p>
It was always difficult not to feel that there was something contradictory
and anomalous about religious services in the army. Grim-visaged, hideous
war, and all its attendant circumstances, seemed so utterly at variance
with the principles of the Bible and the teachings of Him who was meek and
lowly, that few soldiers had philosophy enough to reconcile them.
</p>
<p>
The soldiers spent the afternoon in reading what few stray books and
fugitive, well-worn newspapers there were in camp, mending their clothes,
sleeping, and some of them, we are pained to add, in playing eucher, old
sledge, and other sinful games. Dress parade closed the day that had
brought welcome rest to the way-worn soldiers of the 200th Ind..
</p>
<p>
"Shorty," said Si, after they had gone to bed that night, "I sh'd be
mighty sorry if I'd ha' got up that knapsack trick this mornin', 'cause
you got left on it so bad."
</p>
<p>
"There's a good many things," replied Shorty, "that's all right when ye
don't git ketched. It worked tip top with you, Si, 'n' I'm glad of it. But
I put ye up to it, 'n' I shouldn't never got over it if the Colonel had
caught ye, on account of them stripes on yer arm. He'd ha' snatched 'em
baldheaded, sure's yer born. You're my pard, 'n' I'm jest as proud of 'em
as you be yerself. I'm only a privit,' 'n' they can't rejuce me any lower!
Besides, I 'low it sarved me right 'n' I don't keer fer the knapsack
drill, so I didn't git you into a scrape."
</p>
<p>
<a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021">
<!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER XXI. SI AND SHORTY WERE RAPIDLY LEARNING
</h2>
<h3>
THE GREAT MILITARY TRUTH
</h3>
<p>
THAT IN THE ARMY THE MOST LIKELY THING TO HAPPEN IS SOMETHING ENTIRELY
UNLIKELY.
</p>
<p>
COL. TERRENCE P. McTARNAGHAN, as his name would indicate, had first opened
his eyes where the blue heavens bend over the evergreen sod of Ireland.
Naturally, therefore, he thought himself a born soldier, and this
conviction had been confirmed by a year's service as Second Lieutenant of
Volunteers in the Mexican War, and subsequent connection with the Indiana
Militia. Being an Irishman, when he went in for anything, and especially
soldiering, he went in with all his might. He had associated with Regular
Army officers whenever there was an opportunity, and he looked up to them
with the reverence and emulation that an amateur gives to a professional.
Naturally he shared their idea that an inspection and parade was the
summit of military art. Consequently, the main thing to make the 200th
Ind. the regiment it should be were frequent and rigid inspections.
</p>
<p>
Fine weather, two days of idleness, and the prospect that the regiment
would remain there some time watching the crossing of the Cumberland were
enough and more than enough to set the Colonel going. The Adjutant
published the following order:
</p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
Headquarters 200th Indiana,
In the Field, on the Cumberland,
Nov. 25, 1862.
I. The Regiment will be paraded for inspection tomorrow
afternoon at 4 o'clock.
II. Captains will be expected to parade the full strength of
their companies.
III. A half hour before the parade. Captains will form their
companies in the company streets and inspect every man.
IV. The men will be required to have their clothes neatly
brushed, blouses buttoned up, clean underclothes, shoes
blacked, letters and numbers polished, and arms and
accouterments in best condition. They will wear white
gloves.
V. The man who has his clothes, arms and accouterments in
the best order will be selected for the Colonel's Orderly.
By command of
Attest: COL. TERRENCE P. McTARNAGHAN, Colonel.
B. B. LAUGHLIN, Adjutant.
</pre>
<p>
When Capt. McGillicuddy marched Co. Q back to its street, he called
attention to the order with a few terse admonitions as to what it meant to
every one.
</p>
<p>
"Get at this as soon as you break ranks, boys," urged the Captain. "You
can do a whole lot between now and tattoo. The others will, and you must
not let them get ahead of you. No straw in knapsacks this time."
</p>
<p>
Company spirit was high, and it would be little short of a calamity to
have Co. Q beaten in anything.
</p>
<p>
There was a rush to the Sutler for white gloves, blacking, needles,
thread, paper collars, sweet oil and rotten stone for the guns.
</p>
<p>
That genial bird of prey added 50 per cent to his prices, because it was
the first business he had done for some weeks; 50 per cent more for
keeping open in the evening, another 50 per cent for giving credit till
pay day, and still another for good will.
</p>
<p>
The Government had just offered some very tempting gold-interest bonds, of
which he wanted a swad.
</p>
<p>
"'Tain't right to let them green boys have their hull $13 a month to waste
in foolishness," he said. "Some good man should gather it up and make a
right use of it."
</p>
<p>
Like Indiana farmer boys of his class. Si Klegg was cleanly but not neat.
Thanks to his mother and sisters, his Sunday clothes were always
"respectable," and he put on a few extra touches when he expected to meet
Annabel. He took his first bath for the year in the Wabash a week or two
after the suckers began to run, and his last just before the water got so
cold as to make the fish bite freely.
</p>
<p>
Such a thing as a "dandy" was particularly distasteful to him.
</p>
<p>
"Shorty," said Si, as he watched some of the boys laboring with sandpaper,
rotten stone and oil to make the gunbarrels shine like silver, "what's the
cense o' bein' so partickler about the outside of a gun? The business
part's inside. Making them screw heads look like beads don't make it no
surer of gitting Mr. Butternut."
</p>
<p>
"Trouble about you folks on the Wabash," answered Shorty, as he twisted a
screw head against some emery paper, "is that you don't pay enough
attention to style. Style goes a long ways in this vain and wicked world,"
(and his eyes became as if meditating on worlds he had known which were
not so vain and wicked), "and when I see them Kokomo persimmon knockers of
Co. B hustling to put on frills, I'm going to beat 'em if I don't lay up a
cent."
</p>
<p>
"Same here," said Si, falling to work on his gunbarrel. "Just as' nice
people moved into Posey County as squatted in Kokomo. Gang o' hoss thieves
first settled Howard County."
</p>
<p>
"Recollect that big two fister from Kokomo who said he'd knock your head
off if you ever throwed that up to him again?" grinned Shorty. "You
invited him to try it on, an' he said your stripes stopped him. You pulled
off your blouse, and you said you had no stripes on your shirt sleeves.
But I wouldn't say it again until those Co. B fellers try again to buck us
out of our place in the ration line. It's too good a slam to waste."
</p>
<p>
Tattoo sounded before they had finished their guns and accouterments.
These were laid aside to be completed in the full light of day.
</p>
<p>
The next morning work was resumed with industry stimulated by reports of
the unusual things being done by the other companies.
</p>
<p>
"This Tennessee mud sticks closer'n a $500 mortgage to a 40-acre tract,"
sighed Si, as he stopped beating and brushing his blouse and pantaloons.
</p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
"Or,
"'Aunt Jemima's plaster,
"The more you try to pull it off the more it sticks
the faster."
</pre>
<p>
hummed Shorty, with what breath he had left from his violent exercise.
</p>
<p>
So well did they work that by dinner time they felt ready for inspection,
careful reconnoissances of the other companies showing them to have no
advantages.
</p>
<p>
Next to the Sutler's for the prescribed white gloves.
</p>
<p>
Si' had never worn anything on his hands but warm, woolen mittens knit for
him by his mother, but the order said white gloves, and gloves they must
have. The accommodating sutler made another stoppage in their month's pay
of $1 for a pair of cheap, white cotton gloves. By this time the sutler
had accumulated enough from the 200th Ind. to secure quite a handful of
gold interest-bearing bonds.
</p>
<p>
"Well, what do you think of them. Si?" said Shorty, as he worked his
generous hands into a pair of the largest sized gloves and held them up to
view.
</p>
<p>
"If they were only painted yaller and had a label on them," said Si, "they
could be issued for Cincinnati canvas covered hams."
</p>
<p>
Shorty's retort was checked by hearing the bugle sound the officers' call.
The Colonel announced to them that owing to the threatening look of the
skies the parade and inspection would take place in an hour.
</p>
<p>
There was feverish haste to finish undone things, but when Capt.
McGillicuddy looked over his men in the company street, he declared
himself proud to stack up Co. Q against any other in the regiment. Gun
barrels and bayonets shone like silver, rammers rang clear, and came out
without a stain to the Captain's white gloves.
</p>
<p>
The band on the parade ground struck up the rollicking
</p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
"O, ain't I glad to git out of the wilderness,
Out of the wilderness-Out of the wilderness,"
</pre>
<p>
and Capt. McGillicuddy marched proudly out at the head of 75
broad-shouldered, well-thewed young Indianians, fit and fine as any south
of the Ohio.
</p>
<p>
The guides, holding their muskets butts up, indicated where the line was
to form, the trim little Adjutant, glorious as the day in a new uniform
and full breasted as a pouter-pigeon, was strutting over toward the band,
and the towering red-headed Colonel, martial from his waving plume to his
jangling spurs, stood before his tent in massive dignity, waiting for the
color company to come up and receive the precious regimental standard.
</p>
<p>
This scene of orderly pomp and pageantry was rudely disturbed by an Aid
dashing in on a sweating horse, and calling out to the statuesque
commander:
</p>
<p>
"Colonel, a train is stalled in the creek about three miles from here, and
is threatened with capture by Morgan's cavalry. The General presents his
compliments, and directs that you take your regiment on the double-quick
to the assistance of the train. You v'e not a moment lose."
</p>
<p>
"Tare and 'ounds!" swore the Colonel in the classic he used when excited,
"am I niver to have a dacint inspection? Orderly, bring me me harse. Stop
that band's ijiotic blatting. Get into line there, quick as love will let
you, you unblessed Indiana spalpeans. Without doubling; right face!
Forward, M-a-r-c-h!"
</p>
<p>
Col. McTarnaghan, still wearing his parade grandeur, was soon at the head
of the column, on that long-striding horse which always set such a hot
pace for the regiment; especially over such a rough, gullied road as they
were now traveling.
</p>
<p>
Still, the progress was not fast enough to suit the impatient Colonel, who
had an eye to the report he would have to make to the Brigadier General,
who was a Regular.
</p>
<p>
"Capt. McGillicuddy," commanded he, turning in his saddle, "send forward a
Corporal and five men for an advance guard."
</p>
<p>
"Corporal Klegg, take five men and go to the front," commanded the
Captain.
</p>
<p>
"Now you b'yes, get ahead as fast as you can. Get a move on them durty
spalpanes of tamesters. We must get back to camp before this storm strikes
us. Shove out, now, as if the divil or Jahn Morgan was after yez."
</p>
<p>
It was awful double-quicking over that rocky, rutty road, but taking
Shorty and four others. Si went on the keen jump to arrive hot and
breathless on the banks of the creek. There he found a large bearded man
wearing an officer's slouched hat sitting on a log, smoking a black pipe,
and gazing calmly on the ruck of wagons piled up behind one stalled in the
creek, which all the mules they could hitch to it had failed to pull out.
</p>
<p>
It was the Wagon Master, and his calmness was that of exhaustion. He had
yelled and sworn himself dry, and was collecting another fund of abuse to
spout at men and animals.
</p>
<p>
"Here, why don't you git a move on them wagons?" said Si hotly, for he was
angered at the man's apparent indifference.
</p>
<p>
"'Tend to your own business and I'll tend to mine," said the Wagon Master,
sullenly, without removing his pipe or looking at Si.
</p>
<p>
"Look here, I'm a Corporal, commanding the advance guard," said Si. "I
order you!"
</p>
<p>
This seemed to open the fountains of the man's soul.
</p>
<p>
"You order me?" he yelled, "you splay-footed, knock-kneed, chuckled-headed
paper-collared, whitegloved sprat from a milk-sick prairie. Corporal! I
outrank all the Corporals from here to Christmas of next year."
</p>
<p>
"The gentleman seems to have something on his mind," grinned Shorty.
"Mebbe his dinner didn't set well."
</p>
<p>
"Shorty?" inquired Si, "how does a Wagon Master rank? Seems to me nobody
lower'n a Brigadier-General should dare talk to me that way."
</p>
<p>
"Dunno," answered Shorty, doubtfully. "Seems as if I'd heard some of them
Wagon Masters rank as Kurnels. He swears like one."
</p>
<p>
"Corporal!" shouted the Wagon Master with infinite scorn. "Measly
$2-a-month water toter for the camp-guard, order me!" and he went off into
a rolling stream of choice "army language."
</p>
<p>
"He must certainly be a Kurnel," said Shorty.
</p>
<p>
"Here," continued the Wagon Master, "if you don't want them two
shoat-brands jerked offen you, jump in and get them wagons acrost. That's
what you were sent to do. Hump yourself, if you know what's good for you.
I've done all I can. Now it's your turn."
</p>
<p>
Dazed and awed by the man's authoritativeness the boys ran down to the
water to see what was the trouble.
</p>
<p>
They found the usual difficulty in Southern crossings. The stupid
tinkerers with the road had sought to prevent it running down into the
stream by laying a log at the edge of the water. This was an enormous one
two feet in diameter, with a chuckhole before it, formed by the efforts of
the teams to mount the log. The heavily laden ammunition wagon had its hub
below the top of the log, whence no amount of mule-power could extricate
it.
</p>
<p>
Si, with Indiana commonsense, saw that the only help was to push the wagon
back and lay a pile of poles to make a gradual ascent. He and the rest
laid their carefully polished muskets on dry leaves at the side, pulled
off their white gloves, and sending two men to hunt thru the wagons for
axes to cut the poles. Si and Shorty roused up the stupid teamsters to
unhitch the mules and get them behind the wagon to pull it back. Alas for
their carefully brushed pantaloons and well-blackened shoes, which did not
last a minute in the splashing mud.
</p>
<p>
The Wagon Master had in the meanwhile laid in a fresh supply of epithets
and had a fresh batch to swear at. He stood up on the bank and yelled
profane injunctions at the soldiers like a Mississippi River Mate at a
boat landing. They would not work fast enough for him, nor do the right
thing.
</p>
<p>
The storm at last burst. November storms in Tennessee are like the charge
of a pack of wolves upon a herd of buffalo. There are wild, furious
rushes, alternating with calmer intervals. The rain came down for a few
minutes as if it would beat the face off the earth, and the stream swelled
into a muddy torrent. Si's paper collar and cuffs at once became pulpy
paste, and his boiled shirt a clammy rag. In spite of this his temper rose
to the boiling point as he struggled thru the sweeping rush of muddy water
to get the other wagons out of the road and the ammunition wagon pulled
back a little ways to allow the poles to be piled in front of it.
</p>
<p>
The dashing downpour did not check the Wagon Master's flow of profanity.
He only yelled the louder to make himself heard above the roar. The rain
stopped for a few minutes as suddenly as it had begun and Col. McTarnaghan
came up with all his parade finery drenched and dripping like the feathers
of a prize rooster in a rainy barnyard. His Irish temper was at the
steaming point, and he was in search of something to vent it on.
</p>
<p>
"You blab-mouthed son of a thief," he shouted at the Wagon Master, "what
are you ordering my men around for? They are sent here to order you, not
you to order them. Shut that ugly potato trap of yours and get down to
work, or I'll wear my saber out on you. Get down there and put your own
shoulders to the wheels, you misbegotten villain. Get down there into the
water, I tell you. Corporal, see that he does his juty!"
</p>
<p>
The Wagon Master slunk down the hill, where Shorty grabbed him by the
collar and yanked him over to help push one of the wagons back. The other
boys had meanwhile found axes, cut down and trimmed up some pine poles and
were piling them into the chuckhole under Si's practical guidance. A
double team was put on the ammunition wagon, and the rest of Co. Q came up
wet, mad and panting. A rope was found and stretched ahead of the mules,
on which the company lined itself, the Colonel took his place on the bank
and gave the word, and with a mighty effort the wagon was dragged up the
hill. Some other heavily loaded ammunition wagons followed. The whole
regiment was now up, and the bigger part of it lined on the rope so that
these wagons came up more easily, even tho the rain resumed its wicked
pounding upon the clay soil.
</p>
<p>
Wading around thru the whirling water. Si had discovered, to his
discomfiture, that there was a narrow, crooked reef that had to be kept
to. There were deep overturning holes on either side. Into one of these Si
had gone, to come again floundering and spurting muddy water from his
mouth.
</p>
<p>
Shorty noted the place and took the first opportunity to crowd the Wagon
Master into it.
</p>
<p>
A wagon loaded with crackers and pork missed the reef and went over
hopelessly on its side, to the rage of Col. McTamaghan.
</p>
<p>
"Lave it there; lave it there, ye blithering numbskulls," he yelled,
"Unhitch those mules and get 'em out. The pork and wagon we can get when
the water goes down. If another wagon goes over Oi'll rejuce it every
mother's son of yez, and tie yez up by the thumbs besides."
</p>
<p>
Si and Shorty waded around to unhitch the struggling mules, and then,
taking poles in hand to steady themselves, took their stations in the
stream where they could head the mules right.
</p>
<p>
Thru the beating storm and the growing darkness, the wagons were, one by
one, laboriously worked over until, as midnight approached, only three or
four remained on the other side. Chilled to the bone, and almost dropping
with fatigue from hours of standing in the deep water running like a mill
race. Si called Al Klapp, Sib Ball and Jesse Langley to take their poles
and act as guides.
</p>
<p>
Al Klapp had it in for the sutlers. He was a worm that was ready to turn.
He had seen some previous service, and had never gone to the Paymaster's
table but to see the most of his $13 a month swept away by the sutler's
remorseless hand. He and Jesse got the remaining army wagons over all
right. The last wagon was a four-horse team belonging to a sutler.
</p>
<p>
The fire of long-watched-for vengeance gleamed in Al's eye as he made out
its character in the dim light. It reached the center of the stream, when
over it went in the rushing current of muddy water.
</p>
<p>
Al and Jesse busied themselves unhooking the struggling mules.
</p>
<p>
The Colonel raged. "Lave it there! Lave it there!" he yelled after
exhausting his plentiful stock of Irish expletives. "But we must lave a
guard with it. Capt. Sidney Hyde, your company has been doing less than
any other. Detail a Sergeant and 10 men to stand guard here until
tomorrow, and put them two thick-headed oudmahouns in the creek on guard
with them. Make them stand double tricks.
</p>
<p>
"All right. It was worth it," said Al Klapp, as the Sergeant put him on
post, with the water running in rivulets from his clothes. "It'll take a
whole lot of skinning for the sutlers to get even for the dose I've given
one of them."
</p>
<p>
"B'yes, yoi've done just splendid," said the Colonel, coming over to where
Si and Shorty were sitting wringing the water and mud from their
pantaloons and blouses. "You're hayroes, both of yez. Take a wee drap from
my canteen. It'll kape yez from catching cold."
</p>
<p>
"No, thankee, Kurnel," said Si, blushing with delight, and forgetting his
fatigue and discomfort, in this condescension and praise from his
commanding officer. "I'm a Good Templar."
</p>
<p>
"Sinsible b'y," said the Colonel approvingly, and handing his canteen to
Shorty.
</p>
<p>
"I'm mightily afraid of catching cold," said Shorty, reaching eagerly for
the canteen, and modestly turning his back on the Colonel that he might
not see how deep his draft.
</p>
<p>
"Should think you were," mused the Colonel, hefting the lightened vessel.
"Bugler, sound the assembly and let's get back to camp."
</p>
<p>
The next day the number of rusty muskets, dilapidated accouterments and
quantity of soiled clothes in the camp of the 200th Ind. was only equaled
by the number of unutterably weary and disgusted boys.
</p>
<p>
<a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022">
<!-- H2 anchor --> </a>
</p>
<div style="height: 4em;">
<br /><br /><br /><br />
</div>
<h2>
CHAPTER XXII. A NIGHT OF SONG
</h2>
<h3>
HOME-SICKNESS AND ITS OUTPOURING IN MUSIC.
</h3>
<p>
IT WAS Sunday again, and the 200th Ind. still lingered near Nashville. For
some inscrutible reason known only to the commanding officers the brigade
had been for nearly a week in camp on the banks of the swift running
Cumberland. They had been bright, sunshiny days, the last two of them.
Much rain in the hill country had swollen the swift waters of the
Cumberland and they fiercely clamored their devious way to the broad Ohio.
The gentle roar as the rippling wavelets dashed against the rock bound
shores sounded almost surf-life, but to Si, who had never heard the salt
waves play hide-and-go-seek on the pebbly beach, the Cumberland's angry
flood sang only songs of home on the Wabash. He had seen the Wabash raging
in flood time and had helped to yank many a head of stock from its
engulfing fury. He had seen the Ohio, too, when she ran bank full with her
arched center carrying the Spring floods and hundreds of acres of good
soil down to the continent-dividing Mississippi, and on out to sea. His
strong arms and stout muscles had piloted many a boat-load of boys and
girls through the Wabash eddies and rapids during the Spring rise, and as
he stood now, looking over the vast width of this dreary waste of waters,
a great wave of home-sickness swept over him.
</p>
<p>
After all, Si was only a kid of a boy, like thousands of his comrades.'
True, he was past his majority a few months, but his environment from
youth to his enlistment had so sheltered him that he was a boy at heart.
</p>
<p>
"The like precurse of fierce events and prologue to the omen coming on"
had as yet made small impression upon him. Grim visaged war had not
frightened him much up to that time. He was to get his regenerating
baptism of blood at Murfreesboro a few weeks later. Just now Si Klegg was
simply a boy grown big, a little over fat, fond of mother's cooking,
mother's nice clean feather beds, mother's mothering, if the truth must be
told. He had never in his life before been three nights from under the
roof of the comfortable old house in which he was born. He had now been
wearing the blue uniform of the Union a little more than three months, and
had not felt mother's work-hardened hands smoothing his rebellious hair or
seen her face or heard a prayer like she could make in all that three
months.
</p>
<p>
"Shucks!" he said fretfully to himself as he looked back at the droning,
half asleep brigade camp, and then off to the north, across the boiling
yellow flood of waters that tumbled past the rocks far below him.
</p>
<p>
"A feller sure does git tired of doin' nothin'."
</p>
<p>
Lusty, young, and bred to an active life, Si, while he did not really
crave hustle and bustle, was yet wedded to "keeping things moving." He had
already forgotten the fierce suffering of his early marching—it
seemed three years to him instead of three months back; he had forgotten
the graybacks, the wet nights, the foraging expeditions, the extra guard
duty and all that. There had been two days of soft Autumn sunshine in a
camp that was almost ideal. Everything was cleaned up, mended up, and the
men had washed and barbered themselves into almost dude-like neatness.
Their heaviest duties had been lazy camp guard duty, which Shorty, growing
indolent, had declared to be "dumned foolishness," and the only excitement
offered came from returning foraging parties. There was no lurking enemy
to fear, for the country had been cleared of guerrillas, and in very truth
the ease and quietness of the days of inactivity was almost demoralizing
the men.
</p>
<p>
There had been no Sunday services. The 200th Ind. was sprawled out on the
ground in its several hundred attitudes of ease, and those with whom they
were brigaded were just as carelessly disposed.
</p>
<p>
As Si sauntered aimlessly back to look for Shorty, the early twilight
began to close in as the sun slid down behind the distant hills. Campfires
began to glow as belated foragers prepared their suppers, and the gentle
hum of voices came pleasantly to the ear, punctuated by laughter, often
boisterous, but quite as often just the babbling, cheery laugh of carefree
boys.
</p>
<p>
Si felt—well, Si was just plain homesick for mother and the girls,
and one particular girl, whose front name was Annabel, and he almost felt
as though he didn't care who knew it.
</p>
<p>
The air was redolent with the odor of frying meat. Mingled with this were
vagrant whiffs of cooking potatoes, onions, chickens, and the fragrance of
coffee steaming to blackest strength, all telling tales of skillful and
successful foraging, and it all reminded Si of home and the odors in his
mother's kitchen.
</p>
<p>
Si couldn't find Shorty, so he hunched down, silent and alone, beside his
tent, a prey to the blue devils. It would soon be Christmas at home. He
could see the great apple bins in the cellar; the pumpkins in the hay in
the barn; the turkeys roosting above the woodshed; the yards of encased
sausages in the attic; he could even smell the mince meat seasoning in the
great stone jar; the honey in the bee cellar; the huge fruit cake in the
milk pan in the pantry; since he could remember he seen and smelled all
these, with 57 varieties of preserves, "jells," marmalades, and
fruit-butters thrown in for good measure at Christmas time. He had even
contemplated with equanimity all these 21 Christmases, the dose of "blue
pills" that inevitably followed over-feeding at Mother Klegg's, and now on
his 22d Christmas he might be providing a target for a rebel bullet.
</p>
<p>
Suddenly Si noticed that the dark had come; the fragrance of tobacco from
hundreds of pipes was filling the air, and from away off in the distance
the almost Indian Summer zephyrs were bringing soft rythmic sounds like—surely—yes,
he caught it now, it was that mighty soother of tired hearts—
</p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
"Jesus, lover of my soul,
Let me to Thy bosom fly.
While the billows near me roll.
While the tempest still is high."
</pre>
<p>
Si shut his eyes lest the tear drops welling suddenly up fall on his
uniform, not stopping to think that in the gloom they could not be seen.
</p>
<p>
Miles away the singers seemed to be when Si caught the first sounds, but
as the long, swinging notes reached out in the darkness, squad after
squad, company after company, regiment after regiment took up the grand
old hymn until Si himself lifted up his not untuneful voice and with the
thousands of others was pleading—
</p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
"Hide me, oh, my Savior hide,
'Till the storm of life is past;
Safe into the haven guide.
Oh, receive my soul at last."
</pre>
<p>
and the song rose and swelled out and up toward heaven, and stole away off
to the horizon till the whole vast universe seemed filled with the sacred
melody. As the last words and their music faded out in space. Shorty
lunged down beside Si.
</p>
<p>
"Say, Pard," he began banteringly, "you've missed yer callin'. Op'ry
oughter have been yer trade."
</p>
<p>
"Oh, chop off yer chin music for a minute. Shorty," broke in Si. "In the
dark here it seemed most as though I was at home in the little old church
with Maria and Annabel and Pap and Mother, and us all singing together,
and you've busted it—ah! listen!"
</p>
<p>
From not far away a bugler had tuned up and through the fragrant night
came piercingly sweet—
</p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
"I will sing you a song of that beautiful land—"
</pre>
<p>
Then near at hand a strong, clear, musical tenor voice took up the second
line,
</p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
"The far away home of the soul,"
</pre>
<p>
and almost instantly a deep, resonant bass voice boomed in—
</p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
"Where no storms ever beat on that glittering strand
While the years of eternity roll,"
</pre>
<p>
and soon a hundred voices were making melody of the spheres as they sang
Philip Phillips's beautiful song.
</p>
<p>
"That was Wilse Hornbeck singin' tenor," said Si, as the song ended.
</p>
<p>
"And it was Hen Withers doin' the bass stunt," returned Shorty.
</p>
<p>
"You just oughter hear him do the ornamental on a mule whacker. Why, Si,
he's an artist at cussing. Hen Withers is. Sodom and Gomorrah would git
jealous of him if he planted himself near 'em, he's that wicked."
</p>
<p>
"Well, he can sing all right," grunted Si.
</p>
<p>
Just then Hen Withers, in the squad some 50 feet away broke into song
again—
</p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
"Oh, say, can you see by the dawn's early light"
</pre>
<p>
It welled up from his throat like the pipe from a church organ, and as
mellow as the strains from a French horn. When the refrain rolled out
fully 3,000 men were singing, yelling and shouting in frenzied fervor—
</p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
"And the Star Spangled banner.
In triumph shall wave,
O'er the land of the free,
And the home of the brave."
</pre>
<p>
While Hen Withers rested on his well-earned laurels, a strong, clear
voice, whose owner was probably thinking of home and the shady gloom of
the walk through the grove to singing school with his sweetheart, trilled
an apostrophe to the queen of light.
</p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
"Roll on, silvery moon,
Guide the traveler on his way,"
</pre>
<p>
but he had it pretty much to himself, for not many knew the words, and he
trailed off into
</p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
"I loved a little beauty, Bell Brandon,"
</pre>
<p>
then his music died out in the night.
</p>
<p>
It was now the "tenore robusto" who chimed in bells, on a new battle song
that held a mile square of camp spellbound:
</p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
"Oh, wrap the flag around me, boys,
To die were far more sweet
With freedom's starry emblem, boys.
To be my winding sheet.
In life I loved to see it wave
And follow where it led,
And now my eyes grow dim, my hands
Would clasp its last bright shred.
Oh, I had thought to meet you, boys,
On many a well-worn field
When to our starry emblem, boys,
The trait'rous foe should yield.
But now, alas, I am denied
My dearest earthly prayer,
You'll follow and you'll meet the foe,
But I shall not be there."
</pre>
<p>
Wilse Hornback knew by the hush of the camp as the sound of his wonderful
voice died on the far horizon that he had his laurels, too, and so he sang
on while the mile square of camp went music-mad again as it sang with him—
</p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
"We are springing to the call of our brothers gone before,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom.
And we'll fill the vacant ranks with a million freemen more.
Shouting the battle cry of freedom."
</pre>
<p>
Chorus:
</p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
"The Union forever! Hurrah, boys. Hurrah;
Down with the traitor and up with the Star,
While we rally 'round the Flag, boys,
We'll rally once again,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom.
We will welcome to our numbers the loyal, true and brave.
Shouting the battle cry of freedom,
And although they may be poor, not a man shall
be a slave.
Shouting the battle cry of freedom.
So we're springing to the call from the East and from the West,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom,
And we'll hurl the rebel crew from the land we love the best,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom."
</pre>
<p>
In the almighty hush that followed the billows of sound, some sweet-voiced
fellow started Annie Laurie, and then sang—
</p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
"In the prison cell I sit"
</pre>
<p>
with grand chorus accompaniment. Then Wilse Hornback started and Hen
Withers joined in singing the Battle Hymn—
</p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord,"
</pre>
<p>
and oh, God of Battles! how that army of voices took up the refrain—
</p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
"Glory, glory, hallelujah,"
</pre>
<p>
and tossed and flung it back and forth from hill to hill and shore to
shore till it seemed as though Lee and his cohorts must have heard and
quailed before the fearful prophecy and arraignment.
</p>
<p>
Then the "tenore robusto" and the "basso profundo" opened a regular
concert program, more or less sprinkled with magnificent chorus: singing,
as it was easy or difficult for the men to recall the words. You must
rummage in the closets of memory for most of them! The Old Oaken Bucket;
Nellie Gray; Anna Lisle; No, Ne'er Can Thy Home be Mine; Tramp, Tramp,
Tramp; We are Coming, Father Abraham; Just as I Am; By Cold Siloam's Shady
Rill—how those home-loving Sunday school young boys did sing that!
It seemed incongruous, but every now and then they dropped into these old
hymn tunes, which many a mother had sung her baby to sleep with in those
elder and better days.
</p>
<p>
The war songs are all frazzled and torn fragments of memory now, covered
with dust and oblivion, but they were great songs in and for their day. No
other country ever had so many.
</p>
<p>
Laughter and badinage had long since ceased. Flat on their backs, gazing
up at the stars through the pine and hemlock boughs, the boys lay quietly
smoking while the "tenore robusto" assisted by the "basso profundo" and
hundreds of others sang "Willie, We Have Missed You," "Just Before the
Battle, Mother," "Brave Boys Are They," and the "Vacant Chair."
</p>
<p>
In a little break in the singing. Hen Withers sang a wonderful song, now
almost forgotten. It was new to the boys then, but the bugler had heard
it, and as Hen's magnificent voice rolled forth its fervid words the bugle
caught up the high note theme, and never did the stars sing together more
entrancingly than did the "wicked mule whacker" and that bugle—
</p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
"Lift up your eyes, desponding freemen.
Fling to the winds your needless fears.
He who unfurled our beauteous banner
Says it shall wave a thousand years."
</pre>
<p>
On the glorious chorus a thousand voices took up the refrain in droning
fashion that made one think of "The Sound of the Great Amen."
</p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
"A thousand years, my own Columbia!
Tis the glad day so long foretold!
'Tis the glad mom whose early twilight
Washington saw in times of old."
</pre>
<p>
By the time Hen had sung all of the seven verses the whole brigade knew
the refrain and roared it forth as a defiance to the Southern Confederacy,
which took on physical vigor in the days that came after, when the 200th
Ind. went into battle to come off victorious on many a fiercely contested
field.
</p>
<p>
Then the tenor sang that doleful, woe begone, hope effacing,
heart-string-cracking "Lorena." Some writer has said that it sung the
heart right out of the Southern Confederacy.
</p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
"The sun's low down the sky, Lorena,
The snow is on the grass again."
</pre>
<p>
As Wilse Hornbeck let his splendid voice out on the mournful cadences, Si
felt his very heart strings snap, and even Shorty drew his breath hard,
while some of the men simply rolled over, and burying their faces in their
arms, sobbed audibly.
</p>
<p>
Wilse had not counted on losing his own nerve, but found his voice
breaking on the melancholy last lines, and bounding to his feet with a
petulant,
</p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
"Oh, hang it!"
"Say, darkies, hab you seen de Massa"
</pre>
<p>
came dancing up from the jubilating chords of that wonderful human music
box, and soon the camp was reeling giddily with the jolly, rollicking,
</p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
"Or Massa ran, ha! ha!!
The darkies stay, ho! ho!!"
</pre>
<p>
Then, far in the distance a bugle sounded "lights out," and the songfest
was at an end; as bugler after bugler took it up, one by one the campfires
blinked out, and squad after squad sank into quiet.
</p>
<p>
"I feel a heap better somehow," remarked Si, as he crawled under his
blanket.
</p>
<p>
"Dogged if I hain't had a sort of uplift, too," muttered Shorty, as he
wrapped his blanket round his head. In the distance a tenor voice was
singing as he kicked out his fire and got ready for bed—
</p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
"Glory, glory, hallelujah."
</pre>
<p>
<br /> <br />
</p>
<hr />
<p>
<br /> <br />
</p>
<pre xml:space="preserve">
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