The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 Part 12

I will now resume the account of what occurred after we reached the blockhouse. It will be brief. We formed in line with the reinforcements that had come from Murfreesboro, and advanced toward the train. We encountered no opposition; the enemy had set fire to the cars, and then had hastily and entirely disappeared.

I have recently discovered in a modern edition of the Reports of the Adjutant-General of Illinois, (the date on the t.i.tle page being 1901,) that in the revised sketch of our regiment a recital has crept in stating that in our subsequent advance we "recaptured the train in time to prevent its destruction." How that statement got into the sketch I do not know, and I am sorry to be under the necessity of saying that it is not true. When we got back to the scene of the fight the train was a ma.s.s of roaring flame, the resulting consequence being that every car was finally consumed. No matter how much it may hurt, it is always best to be fair, and tell the truth.

[Ill.u.s.tration: J. B. Nulton Major, 61st Illinois Infantry (later Colonel).]

In the course of the day our troops all returned to Murfreesboro. Maj.

Nulton, who was now our regimental commander, gave us of the 61st permission to march back "at will." That is, we could start when we got ready, singly or in squads, and not in regimental formation. So Bill Banfield and I started out to get something to eat, as we were very hungry. Since leaving Stevenson on the morning of the 14th, we had had no opportunity to cook anything, and had eaten nothing but some hardtack and raw bacon. Then that night we had left our haversacks on top of the cars when we got off the train to skirmish with the enemy, and never saw them again. And this was a special grievance for Bill and me. We each had a little money, and on the morning we left Stevenson had gone to a sutler's, and made some purchases to insure us an extra good meal when we got back to Murfreesboro. I bought a little can of condensed milk, (having always had a weakness for milk in coffee,) while Bill, with a kind of queer taste, invested in a can of lobsters.

One time that night, while sitting on the ground, in the cold and dark, tired, hungry, and sleepy, waiting while our engineers patched a break in the railroad, Bill, with a view, I reckon, to cheering us both up, delivered himself in this wise: "This is a little tough, Stillwell, but just think of that bully dinner we'll have when we get to Murfreesboro!

You've your can of condensed milk, and I've mine of lobsters; we'll have coffee with milk in it, and then, with some hardtack, we'll have a spread that will make up for this all right." But, alas!

"The best laid schemes o' mice and men Gang aft a-gley."

My precious condensed milk, and the crustaceans aforesaid of Bill's, doubtless went glimmering down the alimentary ca.n.a.l of some long-haired Texan, to his great satisfaction. My wish at the time was that the darned lobsters might make the fellow sick,--which they probably did.

So Bill and I were now at the burning train, looking for something to take the place of our captured Belshazzar banquet. We found a car that was loaded with pickled pork in barrels, and getting a fence rail, we finally succeeded, after some peril and much difficulty, in prying off one of the barrels, and it fell to the ground, bursting open as it did so, and scattering the blazing pieces of pork all around. We each got a portion, and then sat down on a big rock, and proceeded to devour our respective chunks without further ceremony. The outside of the meat was burned to a coal, but we were hungry, all of it tasted mighty sweet, and we gnawed it just like dogs. At the close of the repast, I took a look at Bill. His face was as black as tar from contact with the burnt pork, and in other respects his "tout ensemble" "left much to be desired." I thought if I looked as depraved as Bill certainly did it would be advisable to avoid any pocket looking-gla.s.s until after a thorough facial ablution with soft water and plenty of soap. Dinner over, we were soon ready for the march to camp, (there being no dishes to wash,) and started down the railroad track for Murfreesboro. We took our time, and didn't reach camp till about sundown. We were the last arrivals of Co. D, and, as there were all sorts of rumors afloat, we afterwards learned that Capt. Keeley had become quite anxious about us.

As we turned down our company street I saw the Captain standing in front of his tent, looking in our direction. After the affairs of the 4th and the 7th, I had taken much satisfaction, in speaking to him of those events, in adopting the phraseology of the old chaplain, and had expressed myself several times in language like this: "And we smote them, hip and thigh, even as Joash smote Boheel!" But it was now necessary to amend my boastful statement, so as I approached Capt.

Keeley, and before anything else had been spoken, I made to him this announcement: "And they smote us, hip and thigh, even as Joash smote Boheel!" Keeley laughed, but it was a rather dry laugh, and he answered: "Well, I'm glad they didn't smite you boys, anyhow--but, great G.o.d! go wash your faces, and clean up generally. You both look like the very devil himself." We pa.s.sed on, complied with the Captain's directions, and then I curled up in my dog tent and slept without a break until next morning.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Lorenzo J. Miner 1st Lieutenant Co. B, 61st Illinois Infantry.

Died December 19, 1864, of a wound received in a fight on the railroad, near Murfreesboro, Tenn., December 15, 1864.]

In concluding my account of this affair it will be stated that the most of our boys who were captured in the fight, and (I think) all the line officers who had the same bad luck, made their escape, singly, or in little parties, not long thereafter. Their Confederate captors, on or about the day after our encounter, had hurriedly joined the army of Gen. Hood, taking their prisoners with them. In their retreat from Tennessee on this occasion, the Confederates had a hard and perilous time. The guards of the captured Yankees were probably well-nigh worn out, and it is likely that, on account of their crus.h.i.+ng defeat at Nashville, they had also become discouraged and careless. Anyhow, the most of our fellows got away while Hood was yet on the north side of the Tennessee river. He crossed that stream with the wreck of his army on the 26th and 27th of December, and fell back into Mississippi.

CHAPTER XXIII.

MURFREESBORO. WINTER OF 1864-1865. FRANKLIN. SPRING AND SUMMER OF 1865.

After the retreat of Hood from Nashville, matters became very quiet and uneventful with us at Murfreesboro. The regiment s.h.i.+fted its camp from the inside of Fortress Rosecrans out into open ground on the outskirts of the town, and proceeded to build winter quarters. These consisted of log cabins, like those we built at Little Rock the previous winter, only now the logs were cedar instead of pine. There were extensive cedar forests in the immediate vicinity of Murfreesboro, and we had no difficulty whatever in getting the material. And we had plenty of nice, fragrant cedar wood to burn in our fire-places, which was much better than soggy Arkansas pine. And I remember with pleasure a matter connected with the rations we had in the fore part of the winter. For some reason or other the supply of hardtack became practically exhausted, and we had but little in the line of flour bread, even for some weeks after Hood retreated from Nashville. But in the country north of Murfreesboro was an abundance of corn, and there were plenty of water-mills, so Gen. Rousseau sent out foraging parties in that region and appropriated the corn, and set the mills to grinding it, and oh, what fine cornbread we had! We used to make "ash-cakes," and they were splendid. The method of making and cooking an ash-cake was to mix a quant.i.ty of meal with proper proportions of water, grease, and salt, wrap the meal dough in some dampened paper, or a clean, wet cloth, then put it in the fire and cover it with hot ashes and coals. By testing with a sharp stick we could tell when the cake was done, then we would yank it from the fire, sc.r.a.pe off the fragments of the covering and the adhering ashes,--and then, with bacon broiled on the cedar coals, and plenty of good strong coffee, we would have a dinner better than any (from my standpoint) that Delmonico's ever served up in its palmiest days.

On February 4th, 1865, the non-veterans and recruits of the regiment came to us from Arkansas, and so we were once more all together, except a few that were in the Confederate prisons down South. We were all glad to see each other once more, and had many tales to "swap," about our respective experiences during our separation.

On February 10th, Lieutenant Wallace resigned, and returned to his home in Illinois. The chief reason for his resignation was on account of some private matter at home, which was giving him much anxiety and trouble. Further, the war in the region where we were was practically over, and there was nothing doing, with no prospect, so far as we knew, of any military activity for the regiment in the future. Wallace's resignation left Co. D without a second lieutenant, as we then did not have enough enlisted men in the company to ent.i.tle us to a full complement of commissioned officers, and the place remained vacant for some months.

On March 21st, we left Murfreesboro by rail and went to Nashville, and thence to Franklin, about twenty miles south of Nashville, and on what was then called the Nashville and Decatur railroad. A desperate and b.l.o.o.d.y battle occurred here between our forces under the command of Gen. Schofield and the Confederates under Gen. Hood, on November 30th, only two days after our arrival at Murfreesboro. I have often wondered why it was that Gen. Thomas, our department commander, did not send our regiment, on our arrival at Nashville, to reinforce Schofield, instead of to Murfreesboro, for Gen. Schofield certainly needed all the help he could get. But it is probable that Gen. Thomas had some good reason for his action.

When we arrived at Franklin we relieved the regiment that was on duty there as a garrison, and it went somewhere else. It was the 75th Pennsylvania, and the officers and men composing it, so far as I saw, were all Germans. And they were fine, soldierly looking fellows, too.

From this time until we left Franklin in the following September, our regiment comprised all the Union force that was stationed at the town.

Maj. Nulton was in command of the post, and, subject only to higher authorities at a distance, we were "monarchs of all we surveyed." When we came to Franklin the signs of the battle of November 30th were yet fresh and plentiful. As soon as time and opportunity afforded, I walked over the whole field, (in fact, several times,) looking with deep interest at all the evidences of the battle. I remember especially the appearance of a scattered grove of young locust trees which stood at a point opposite the right center of the Union line. For some hours the grove was right between the fire of both the Union and the Confederate lines, and the manner in which the trees had been riddled with musket b.a.l.l.s was truly remarkable. It looked as if a s...o...b..rd could not have lived in that grove while the firing was in progress.

General William A. Quarles, of Tennessee, was one of the Confederate generals who were wounded in this battle, and after incurring his wound was taken to the house of a Tennessee planter, Col. McGavock, about a mile from Franklin, near the Harpeth river. Two or three other wounded Confederate officers of less rank were taken to the same place. When the Confederates retreated from Nashville, Gen. Quarles and these other wounded officers were unable to accompany the army. They remained at McGavock's, and were taken prisoners by our forces. They were put under a sort of parole of honor, and allowed to remain where they were, without being guarded. They had substantially recovered from their wounds at the time our regiment arrived at Franklin, and not long thereafter Capt. Keeley came to me one day, and handed me an order from Maj. Nulton, which directed me to take a detail of four men, with two ambulances, and go to McGavock's and get Gen. Quarles and the other Confederate officers who were there, and bring them into Franklin, for the purpose of being sent to Nashville, and thence to the north to some military prison. I thereupon detailed Bill Banfield and three other boys, told them what our business was, and instructed them to brush up nicely, and have their arms and accouterments in first cla.s.s condition, and, in general, to be looking their best. Having obtained the ambulances, with drivers, we climbed aboard, and soon arrived at the fine residence of old Col. McGavock. I went into the house, met the lady of the establishment, and inquired of her for Gen. Quarles, and was informed that he was in an upper room. I requested the lady to give the general my compliments, and tell him that I desired to see him. She disappeared, and soon the general walked into the room where I was awaiting him. He was a man slightly below medium stature, heavy set, black hair, piercing black eyes, and looked to be about thirty years old. He was a splendid looking soldier. I stepped forward and saluted him, and briefly and courteously told him my business. "All right, sergeant," he answered, "we'll be ready in a few minutes." Their preparations were soon completed, and we left the house. I a.s.signed the general and one of the other officers to a seat near the front in one of the ambulances, and Bill Banfield and I occupied the seat behind them, and the remaining guards and prisoners rode in the other conveyance. There was only one remark made on the entire trip back to Franklin, and I'll mention it presently. We emerged from the woods into the Columbia pike at a point about three-quarters of a mile in front of our main line of works that had been charged repeatedly and desperately by the Confederates in the late battle. The ground sloped gently down towards the works, and for fully half a mile was as level as a house floor. I noticed that at the moment we reached the pike Gen. Quarles began to take an intense interest in the surroundings. He would lean forward, and look to the right, to the front, to the left, and occasionally throw a hasty glance backward,--but said nothing. Finally we pa.s.sed through our works, near the historic "cotton-gin," and the general drew a deep breath, leaned back against his seat, and said: "Well, by G.o.d, the next time I fight at Franklin, I want to let the Columbia pike severely alone!" No one made any response, and the remainder of the journey was finished in silence. I duly delivered Gen.

Quarles and his fellow-prisoners to Maj. Nulton, and never saw any of them again.

Early in April, decisive military operations took place in Virginia. On the 3rd of that month our forces marched into Richmond, and on the 9th the army of Gen. Lee surrendered to Gen. Grant. At Franklin we were on a telegraph line, and only about twenty miles from department headquarters, so the intelligence of those events was not long in reaching us. I am just unable to tell how profoundly gratified we were to hear of the capture of Richmond, and of Lee's army. We were satisfied that those victories meant the speedy and triumphant end of the war. It had been a long, desperate, and b.l.o.o.d.y struggle, and frequently the final result looked doubtful and gloomy. But now,--"there were signs in the sky that the darkness was gone; there were tokens in endless array"; and the feeling among the common soldiers was one of heart-felt relief and satisfaction. But suddenly our joy was turned into the most distressing grief and mourning. Only a few days after we heard of Lee's surrender came the awful tidings of the foul murder of Mr. Lincoln. I well remember the manner of the men when the intelligence of the dastardly crime was flashed to us at Franklin. They seemed dazed and stunned, and were reluctant to believe it, until the fact was confirmed beyond question. They sat around in camp under the trees, talking low, and saying but little, as if the matter were one that made mere words utterly useless. But they were in a desperate frame of mind, and had there been the least appearance of exultation over the murder of Mr. Lincoln by any of the people of Franklin, the place would have been laid in ashes instanter. But the citizens seemed to understand the situation. They went into their houses, and closed their doors, and the town looked as if deserted. To one who had been among the soldiers for some years, it was easy to comprehend and understand their feelings on this occasion. For the last two years of the war especially, the men had come to regard Mr. Lincoln with sentiments of veneration and love. To them he really was "Father Abraham," with all that the term implied. And this regard was also entertained by men of high rank in the army. Gen. Sherman, in speaking of Mr. Lincoln, says this:

"Of all the men I ever met, he seemed to possess more of the elements of greatness, combined with goodness, than any other."

(Memoirs of Gen. W. T. Sherman, revised edition, Vol. 2, p. 328.)

For my part, I have been of the opinion, for many years, that Abraham Lincoln was the greatest man the world has ever known.

In the latter part of June the recruits of the 83rd, the 98th, and the 123rd Illinois Infantry were transferred to the 61st, making the old regiment about nine hundred strong. Co. D received forty-six of the transferred men, all of these being from the 83rd Illinois. And they were a fine set of boys, too. Their homes were, in the main, in northwestern Illinois, in the counties of Mercer, Rock Island, and Warren. They all had received a good common school education, were intelligent, and prompt and cheerful in the discharge of their duties.

They were good soldiers, in every sense of the word. It is a little singular that, since the muster-out of the regiment in the following September, I have never met a single one of these boys.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Daniel S. Keeley Major, 61st Illinois Infantry.]

The ranks of the regiment now being filled nearly to the maximum, the most of the vacancies that existed in the line of commissioned officers were filled just as promptly as circ.u.mstances would permit. Lieut. Col.

Gra.s.s had been discharged on May 15th, 1865, and Maj. Nulton, who was now our ranking field officer, was, on July 11th, promoted to the position of Colonel. He was the first, and only, colonel the regiment ever had. The vacancy in the lieutenant-colonelcy of the regiment was never filled, for what reason I do not know. Capt. Keeley was promoted Major, and first Lieutenant Warren to Captain of Co. D in Keeley's stead. And thus it came to pa.s.s that on July 11th I received a commission as second lieutenant of our company, and on August 21st was promoted to first lieutenant. Soon after receiving my commission, Capt.

Warren was detailed on some special duty which took him away from Franklin for some weeks, and consequently during his absence I was the commanding officer of Co. D. So far as ever came to my knowledge, I got along all right, and very pleasantly. It is a fact, at any rate, that I presented a more respectable appearance than that which was displayed during the brief time I held the position at Austin, Arkansas, in May, 1864.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE SOLDIER'S PAY. RATIONS; ALLUSIONS TO SOME OF THE USEFUL LESSONS LEARNED BY SERVICE IN THE ARMY IN TIME OF WAR. COURAGE IN BATTLE.

This story is now drawing to a close, so I will here speak of some things of a general nature, and which have not been heretofore mentioned, except perhaps casually.

One important feature in the life of a soldier was the matter of his pay, and a few words on that subject may not be out of place. When I enlisted in January, 1862, the monthly pay of the enlisted men of a regiment of infantry was as follows: First sergeant, $20; duty sergeants, $17; corporals and privates, $13. By act of Congress of May 1st, 1864, the monthly pay of the enlisted men was increased, and from that date was as follows: First sergeant, $24; duty sergeants, $20; corporals, $18; privates, $16. That rate existed as long, at least, as we remained in the service. The first payment made to our regiment was on May 1st, 1862, while we were in camp at Owl Creek, Tennessee. The amount I received was $49.40, and of this I sent $45 home to my father at the first opportunity. For a poor man, he was heavily in debt at the time of my enlistment, and was left without any boys to help him do the work upon the farm, so I regarded it as my duty to send him every dollar of my pay that possibly could be spared, and did so as long as I was in the service. But he finally got out of debt during the war. He had good crops, and all manner of farm products brought high prices, so the war period was financially a prosperous one for him. And, to be fair about it, I will say that he later repaid me, when I was pursuing my law studies at the Albany, New York, Law School, almost all the money I had sent him while in the army. So the result really was that the money received by me, as a soldier, was what later enabled me to qualify as a lawyer.

I have heretofore said in these reminiscences that the great "stand-bys" in the way of the food of the soldiers of the western armies were coffee, sow-belly, Yankee beans, and hardtack. But other articles of diet were also issued to us, some of which we liked, while others were flat failures. I have previously said something about the antipathy I had for rice. The French General, Baron Gourgaud, in his "Talks of Napoleon at St. Helena" (p. 240), records Napoleon as having said, "Rice is the best food for the soldier." Napoleon, in my opinion, was the greatest soldier that mankind ever produced,--but all the same, I emphatically dissent from his rice proposition. His remark may have been correct when applied to European soldiers of his time and place,--but I know it wouldn't fit western American boys of 1861-65.

There were a few occasions when an article of diet was issued called "desiccated potatoes." For "desiccated" the boys promptly subst.i.tuted "desecrated," and "desecrated potatoes" was its name among the rank and file from start to finish. It consisted of Irish potatoes cut up fine and thoroughly dried. In appearance it much resembled the modern preparation called "grape nuts." We would mix it in water, grease, and salt, and make it up into little cakes, which we would fry, and they were first rate. There was a while when we were at Bolivar, Tennessee, that some stuff called "compressed vegetables" was issued to us, which the boys, almost unanimously, considered an awful fraud. It was composed of all sorts of vegetables, pressed into small bales, in a solid ma.s.s, and as dry as threshed straw. The conglomeration contained turnip-tops, cabbage leaves, string-beans (pod and all), onion blades, and possibly some of every other kind of a vegetable that ever grew in a garden. It came to the army in small boxes, about the size of the Chinese tea-boxes that were frequently seen in this country about fifty years ago. In the process of cooking, it would swell up prodigiously,--a great deal more so than rice. The Germans in the regiment would make big dishes of soup out of this "baled hay," as we called it, and they liked it, but the native Americans, after one trial, wouldn't touch it. I think about the last box of it that was issued to our company was pitched into a ditch in the rear of the camp, and it soon got thoroughly soaked and loomed up about as big as a fair-sized hay-c.o.c.k. "Split-peas" were issued to us, more or less, during all the time we were in the service. My understanding was that they were the ordinary garden peas. They were split in two, dried, and about as hard as gravel. But they yielded to cooking, made excellent food, and we were all fond of them. In our opinion, when properly cooked, they were almost as good as Yankee beans.

When our forces captured Little Rock in September, 1863, we obtained possession, among other plunder, of quite a quant.i.ty of Confederate commissary stores. Among these was a copious supply of "jerked beef."

It consisted of narrow, thin strips of beef, which had been dried on scaffolds in the sun, and it is no exaggeration to say that it was almost as hard and dry as a cottonwood chip. Our manner of eating it was simply to cut off a chunk about as big as one of our elongated musket b.a.l.l.s, and proceed to "chaw." It was rather a comical sight to see us in our cabins of a cold winter night, sitting by the fire, and all solemnly "chawing" away, in profound silence, on the Johnnies'

jerked beef. But, if sufficiently masticated, it was nutritious and healthful, and we all liked it. I often thought it would have been a good thing if the government had made this kind of beef a permanent and regular addition to our rations. As long as kept in the dry, it would apparently keep indefinitely, and a piece big enough to last a soldier two or three days would take up but little s.p.a.ce in a haversack.

Pa.s.sing from the topic of army rations, I will now take leave to say here, with sincerity and emphasis, that the best school to fit me for the practical affairs of life that I ever attended was in the old 61st Illinois during the Civil War. It would be too long a story to undertake to tell all the benefits derived from that experience, but a few will be alluded to. In the first place, when I was a boy at home, I was, to some extent, a "spoiled child." I was exceedingly particular and "finicky" about my food. Fat meat I abhorred, and wouldn't touch it, and on the other hand, when we had chicken to eat, the gizzard was claimed by me as my sole and exclusive tid-bit, and "Leander" always got it. Let it be known that in the regiment those habits were gotten over so soon that I was astonished myself. The army in time of war is no place for a "sissy-boy;" it will make a man of him quicker, in my opinion, than any other sort of experience he could undergo. And suffice it to say, on the food question, that my life as a soldier forever cured me of being fastidious or fault-finding about what I had to eat. I have gone hungry too many times to give way to such weakness when sitting down in a comfortable room to a table provided with plenty that was good enough for any reasonable man. I have no patience with a person who is addicted to complaining or growling about his food. Some years ago there was an occasion when I took breakfast at a decent little hotel at a country way-station on a railroad out in Kansas. It was an early breakfast, for the accommodation of guests who would leave on an early morning train, and there were only two at the table,--a young traveling commercial man and myself. The drummer ordered (with other things) a couple of fried eggs, and that fellow sent the poor little dining room girl back with those eggs three times before he got them fitted to the exact shade of taste to suit his exquisite palate.

And he did this, too, in a manner and words that were offensive and almost brutal. It was none of my business, so I kept my mouth shut and said nothing, but I would have given a reasonable sum to have been the proprietor of that hotel about five minutes. That fool would then have been ordered to get his grip and leave the house,--and he would have left, too.

I do not know how it may have been with other regiments in the matter now to be mentioned, but I presume it was substantially the same as in ours. And the course pursued with us had a direct tendency to make one indifferent as to the precise cut of his clothes. It is true that attention was paid to shoes, to that extent, at least, that the quartermaster tried to give each man a pair that approximated to the number he wore. But coats, trousers, and the other clothes were piled up in separate heaps, and each man was just thrown the first garment on the top of the heap; he took it and walked away. If it was an outrageous fit, he would swap with some one if possible, otherwise he got along as best he could. Now, in civil life, I have frequently been amused in noting some dudish young fellow in a little country store trying to fit himself out with a light summer coat, or something similar. He would put on the garment, stand in front of a big looking gla.s.s, twist himself into all sorts of shapes so as to get a view from every possible angle, then remove that one, and call for another.

Finally, after trying on about every coat in the house, he would leave without making a purchase, having found nothing that suited the exact contour of his delicately moulded form. A very brief experience in a regiment that had a gruff old quartermaster would take that tuck out of that Beau Brummell, in short order.

Sometimes I have been, at a late hour on a stormy night, at a way-station on some "jerk-water" railroad, waiting for a belated train, with others in the same predicament. And it was comical to note the irritation of some of these fellows and the fuss they made about the train being late. The railroad, and all the officers, would be condemned and abused in the most savage terms on account of this little delay. And yet we were in a warm room, with benches to sit on, with full stomachs, and physically just as comfortable as we possibly could be. The thought would always occur to me, on such episodes, that if those kickers had to sit down in a dirt road, in the mud, with a cold rain pelting down on them, and just endure all this until a broken bridge in front was fixed up so that the artillery and wagon train could get along,--then a few incidents of that kind would be a benefit to them. And instances like the foregoing might be multiplied indefinitely. On the whole, life in the army in a time of war tended to develop patience, contentment with the surroundings, and equanimity of temper and mind in general. And, from the highest to the lowest, differing only in degree, it would bring out energy, prompt decision, intelligent action, and all the latent force of character a man possessed.

I suppose, in reminiscences of this nature, one should give his impressions, or views, in relation to that much talked about subject,--"Courage in battle." Now, in what I have to say on that head, I can speak advisedly mainly for myself only. I think that the princ.i.p.al thing that held me to the work was simply pride; and am of the opinion that it was the same thing with most of the common soldiers. A prominent American functionary some years ago said something about our people being "too proud to fight." With the soldiers of the Civil War it was exactly the reverse,--they were "too proud to run";--unless it was manifest that the situation was hopeless, and that for the time being nothing else could be done. And, in the latter case, when the whole line goes back, there is no personal odium attaching to any one individual; they are all in the same boat. The idea of the influence of pride is well ill.u.s.trated by an old-time war story, as follows: A soldier on the firing line happened to notice a terribly affrighted rabbit running to the rear at the top of its speed.

"Go it, cotton-tail!" yelled the soldier. "I'd run too if I had no more reputation to lose than you have."

It is true that in the first stages of the war the fighting qualities of American soldiers did not appear in altogether a favorable light.

But at that time the fact is that the volunteer armies on both sides were not much better than mere armed mobs, and without discipline or cohesion. But those conditions didn't last long,--and there was never but one Bull Run.

Enoch Wallace was home on recruiting service some weeks in the fall of 1862, and when he rejoined the regiment he told me something my father said in a conversation that occurred between the two. They were talking about the war, battles, and topics of that sort, and in the course of their talk Enoch told me that my father said that while he hoped his boy would come through the war all right, yet he would rather "Leander should be killed dead, while standing up and fighting like a man, than that he should run, and disgrace the family." I have no thought from the nature of the conversation as told to me by Enoch that my father made this remark with any intention of its being repeated to me. It was sudden and spontaneous, and just the way the old backwoodsman felt. But I never forgot it, and it helped me several times. For, to be perfectly frank about it, and tell the plain truth, I will set it down here that, so far as I was concerned, away down in the bottom of my heart I just secretly dreaded a battle. But we were soldiers, and it was our business to fight when the time came, so the only thing to then do was to summon up our pride and resolution, and face the ordeal with all the fort.i.tude we could command. And while I admit the existence of this feeling of dread before the fight, yet it is also true that when it was on, and one was in the thick of it, with the smell of gun-powder permeating his whole system, then a signal change comes over a man. He is seized with a furious desire to kill. There are his foes, right in plain view, give it to 'em, d---- 'em!--and for the time being he becomes almost oblivious to the sense of danger.

And while it was only human nature to dread a battle,--and I think it would be mere affectation to deny it, yet I also know that we common soldiers strongly felt that when fighting did break loose close at hand, or within the general scope of our operations, then we ought to be in it, with the others, and doing our part. That was what we were there for, and somehow a soldier didn't feel just right for fighting to be going on all round him, or in his vicinity, and he doing nothing but lying back somewhere, eating government rations.