How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion Part 10

We had got sixteen pretty good horses, when a window on the other side opened, and the minister's head was put out, and he said, "In the name of the church I command you to desist." He looked so fierce that Jim, who was on guard on that side, and who had objected to the scheme on account of its being a church, c.o.c.ked his carbine and pointed it at the minister and said, "gol darn you, dry up!" He dried up, the window closed and except for the heads at the windows, and faces looking very mad, all was quit. When we had got the horses strung out, and the men were mounted, I looked in a carriage, accidentally, and saw a basket, covered over with a paper. The paper was a religious one, published at Savannah, and being a newspaper man, I looked at the leading editorial, which was headed, "The Lord will provide." I never took much stock in regular stereotyped editorials, but when I turned my eye from the editorial to the basket, I realized than an editorial in a religious newspaper, was liable to contain much truth, for the basket was filled with as fine a lunch as a man ever saw. It seemed that the people came quite a long distance to church, and brought their dinner, remaining to the afternoon services. O, but I was hungry. I looked in several other carriages, and found baskets in each. Every man in my party was as hungry as a she wolf, and I knew they would not leave a mouthful if they once got to going on the lunches, and as it wasn't the policy of my government to take the bread from the mouths of Sunday-school children, I decided to divide the lunches. So I appointed Jim and an Irishman to help me, and we opened all the baskets and took half. Jim came to one basket with two loaves of bread and two bottles of wine, and he stopped.

He said, "Pard, that lay-out in the big basket, with the silver pitcher, is for the communion. I'm a bold buccaneer of the Spanish main, but I'll be cussed if I touch that."

The Irishman said no power on earth could get him to touch it, and he crossed himself reverently, and we left the communion lay-out, and pa.s.sed the half we had taken from the baskets around among the boys, and they eat as though a special providence had provided them with appet.i.tes and means of satisfying them. After enjoying the meal the boys said we ought to return thanks for the good things the pious people had provided for us, so I went to the door of the church, opened it, and faced the congregation. There were old and young, and some of them looked mad, and I didn't blame them. In a few well chosen remarks I addressed the minister, telling him I regretted the circ.u.mstances, but it was necessary to do what we had done. We had tried to do it as pleasantly as possible, but no doubt it seemed hard to them. I said we had got to go to Montgomery, and that if any of them who had lost their horses, would come there within a few days, I had no doubt the proper authorities would return them their horses, but that they must stand the loss of a half of their lunch, as we had divided it up as square as we knew how.

One young Confederate soldier, with an empty sleeve, who had come to church with his mother, and who could, no doubt, realize the situation better than the rest, said, "That is all right, Mr. Yankee. I would do the same thing, under the circ.u.mstances, if I was in your country, horseless and hungry." There were some murmurs of dissatisfaction, some smiled at the situation, and we mounted and rode away. Before we were out of sight the whole congregation was out of the church, under the pine trees, taking an account of stock, or lost stock, and no doubt saying hard things of the Yankees. We traveled all day and nearly all night, picked up some of our dismounted men, and arrived in Montgomery the next day before noon. In a few days my one-armed confederate soldier, who was home from the army in Virginia, having been discharged for disability, came to Montgomery with the people who had lost their horses at the church, and I had the satisfaction of seeing many of them either receive their animals back, or vouchers from the quartermaster, by which they got pay from the government for the animals. And I entertained the one-armed confederate for two days, and we became great friends. Two years ago I met him in Georgia, grown gray, and found him connected with a Georgia railroad, and we had a great laugh over my capture of the congregation.

CHAPTER XXII.

The Spotted Horse--His Shameful Behaviour at a Funeral--I was Tempted to Have My Horse Shot--But I Traded Him to the Chaplain.

It seemed to me that my luck was the worst of any man's in the army, and I was constantly getting into situations that caused, my conduct to be talked about. When we raided the church, mentioned last week, for horses, I saw a nice white horse with red spots on him, with a saddle, and being the commander of the squad of horse-thieves, it was no more than right for me to take my choice first, so I chose the spotted horse, and thought I had the showiest horse in the army. The animal was a sort of Arabian, and before I had rode him a mile I was in love with him.

then I got to Montgomery a man told me that horse used to belong to a circus that closed up there the first year of the war, and was sold to a planter. He said the horse was considered one of the finest ever seen in the South. I felt much elated over my capture, and refused several offers to trade. I thought no horse was too good for me, and for two or three days I did nothing but feed and groom my spotted horse, until his coat shone like satin, and he felt so kitteny that I was almost afraid to get on his back. One morning an order was issued for the regiment to turn out in a body to attend the funeral of a major of one of the regiments, who had died, and I was sent for to carry the brigade colors, a position I had been relieved from after we arrived at Montgomery. The boys all dressed up in their best, and I looked about as slick as any of them, and with my spotted horse, I felt as though I would attract about as much attention as any of the officers in the procession. At the proper time I mounted my horse and rode over to brigade headquarters, not without some difficulty, for my horse saw the crowd on the streets, and evidently thought it was circus day, for he pranced and snorted, and walked with one fore-foot at a time, pawing as you have seen a horse in a circus, trained to walk that way. As I rode up to brigade headquarters and stopped, I must have touched my horse with my foot somewhere, for he got down on his knees, and as I got off, the horse laid down right in front of the colonel's tent, just as he would in a circus. Even then I did not realize that the confounded brute was a circus trick-horse. He had been taught to lay down, evidently, at a certain signal. And he laid there, looking up at me with his cunning eyes, waiting for me to give the signal for him to get up, but I "did not know the combination," and he wouldn't get up for kicking, so I stood there like a fool waiting to see what he would do next. The colonel commanding the brigade, the nice old man who had helped me out of my difficulty with my other horse, on the march when he got on a tantrum, come out of his tent and said he guessed my horse was sick, and he told an orderly to go to the cook house and get a little red pepper and let the horse take a snuff of it. In the meantime my horse got up on his fore feet and sat on his haunches, like a dog, just as circus horses always do, reached up his neck and took a nice white silk handkerchief out of the breast of the colonel's coat, and held it in his mouth. It was a circus trick, and I knew it, but the colonel said, "Poor horse, he is sick," and as the orderly come with the red pepper the colonel held it to the horse's nose. The horse got up, and I mounted, and it must have been about that time that the red pepper began its work, for my horse stood on his fore feet and kicked up, then got on his hind feet and reared up, and snorted, and come down on the colonel's tent, and crushed it to the-ground, and broke the colonel's camp cot, got tangled in the guy ropes, and tore everything loose and jumped out in the street, and began to paw and snort. I suppose there was a thousand people around by that time, soldiers and citizens, and I sat there on that horse and wished I was dead, and I guess the colonel did so too.

Finally it was time to move, and the colonel sent out the brigade colors to me, and the start started up street towards the funeral. My horse started with them, and seemed proud of the flag, and I guess he would have gone along all right, only a band down the street began to play a waltz. Do you know, that spotted horse began to waltz around just as though he was in a circus, and I couldn't keep him straight to save me.

The colonel seemed mortified, as we were approaching the place where the services were to be held, and it was necessary to appear solemn.

Finally we began to get out of hearing of the band, and my horse stopped waltzing, but he kept up a-dancing, and snorting from the red pepper, until I could have killed him. When the colonel and his staff, including myself and the circus-horse, arrived at the place where the funeral was, another band was playing a very solemn sort of a funeral tune, and for a wonder my horse did not act up at all. He seemed to stand and think, as though trying to make out what kind of music it was. He had evidently never heard such music in the circus and did not know what to do. When the body was brought out of the house, and the procession started down the street for the grave, a drum major, with a staff in his hand, came along by me, and I have always thought my horse took the drum major for the ring master of a circus, for he reared up and walked on his hind feet, and pawed the air, and made a spectacle of me that made me so ashamed that I wanted to be killed. I had the brigade colors in one hand, and had only one hand and two feet to cling on the horse by, and I must have looked like a cat climbing the roof of a whitewashed barn. The drum major got scared at my horse walking towards him in that way, and he lost his bear-skin cap off and fell over it, and rolled in the sand, and the horse, thinking that was a part of the circus turned and kicked at the drum major with both his hind feet, until the poor a.s.sistant musician got up and climbed over a fence. The horse got quiet then, only he began to nibble his fore leg, as though trying to untie a handkerchief that the clown had tied on, as they do in the circus. The colonel rode up to me, and with a good deal of indignation, asked me what I. meant by causing ourselves to become a spectacle for G.o.ds and men on so solemn an occasion. He said he was tempted to have my horse shot, and me placed in the guard-house. I told him I hoped to die if I could help it. I said the horse seemed to be possessed to do some circus business wherever he went. I confided to the colonel that the horse had been a circus-horse before the war, and the music and tinsel, and crowd that he saw, had turned his head and made him think that he was again with his beloved circus, where he had spent the best years of his life.

The colonel said I ought to have known better than to bring a circus horse to a funeral. Well, when the drum major got out of sight the horse acted better, and we went along all right, the solemn music of the march to the grave seeming to take the circus out of him. He didn't do anything out of the way on the march, except to put out his fore-feet stiff, and keep time to the music, like a trained circus horse, which attracted a good deal of attention among the citizens on the street, who seemed to know the horse. Just as we got out at che edge of town he _did_ make one raw break. There was a colored drayman, with his dray backed up towards the procession, and when my circus horse saw the dray, before I could prevent him, he whirled around and put his fore feet upon the hind end of the dray, put one foot on the top of a stake on the dray, and stood there for a minute, like a horse statute, until I jerked him down off of there.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Stood there for a minute, like a horse statute 297]

O, I was so mortified that my teeth fairly ached, and the perspiration stood out on me in great beads. A staff officer of the general commanding, came along to the colonel, presented the compliments of the general, and asked if he could not do something to prevent that redheaded clown on the spotted horse from doing any more circus acts until after the last sad rites had been performed. The colonel said it should be stopped, and told the start officer to present his compliments to the general and say that he was humiliated beyond endurance by the performance of the horse, but that the young man riding the horse was not to blame, as he had done all in his power to keep the circus tendencies of the horse down, but he added that he would have the horse shot if there was any more of it.

The horse kept quiet until we had got to the cemetery, and returned to town. As we got into a wide street there was an old circus ring, partly grown up with weeds, near where the division quartermaster had a large tent inside a picket fence, filled with quartermaster stores. If I had known anything, I would have kept the horse's head turned away from the circus ring, and the tent, but I thought there would be no more trouble.

Just as we got opposite the ring, the band, which had heretofore played dead marches, struck up a regular ripety-rap-rap-boom-boom circus tune, and I felt the horse tremble all over. Before I could think twice, the confounded horse had tried to jump through the ba.s.s drum, had knocked the drummer down, and jumped into the circus ring. I sawed on the bit and tried to stop him, and dug into his ribs with the spurs, but he galloped around the circus ring three or four times, and stopped still, as though expecting a clown would come up and say, "What will the little lady have now?" O, if I could have had one more hand to use, I would have drawn my revolver and put a bullet through the brain of the wretched horse, who was making me the laughing stock of the whole army, and the citizens.

The procession moved on towards camp, the colonel seeming relieved to have me out of sight, with my spotted horse, and a crowd of citizens, boys and n.i.g.g.e.rs collected around the ring, yelling and laughing. I made one desperate effort and reined the horse out of the ring, and just then he caught sight of the quartermaster's tent across the road, and evidently thinking it was the dressing-room of the circus, he started for it on a run, jumped the picket fence as though it was a circus hurdle, and rushed in the door of the tent where a dozen clerks were weighing out commissary stores, stopped suddenly, and I went over his head, into a barrel of ground, coffee. The clerks picked me out of the coffee, and laid me on a pile of corn sacks, and then the horse began to lay back his ears and chase the clerks out of the tent, and it was awful the way the animal acted. After I had recovered from the effects of my fall into the coffee barrel, I got up and took the horse by the bridle, and led him out of the gate, and up the street to headquarters, with the brigade flag in my hand. I finally got to headquarters and left the flag, and the colonel told me he never wanted me around brigade headquarters again. He said I was a regular Jonah, that brought bad luck. I apologized the best I could, told him I would never bother him again, and led my horse back to my regiment. The chaplain of my regiment, who had not been to the funeral with us, and knew nothing about the circus, met me, and, as usual, bantered me to trade horses. I felt as though if I could saw that horse off on to the chaplain, and fix him so he could engage in the circus business, life would yet have some charms for me, so after some bantering we got down to business. The chaplain asked me if I thought it would cause any remark if he should ride a spotted horse, and I told him I did not know why it should, if the chaplain behaved himself. He said he didn't know but the boys might think that a spotted horse was too gay for a chaplain. I told him I didn't know why a spotted horse couldn't be just as solemn as any horse.

He asked me if the horse had any tricks, and if he was sound. I told him I had not had him long, but it seemed to me if the horse had any tricks I should have found it out by this time, and I knew he was sound, because I jumped a fence with him not an hour ago, and he took the fence just as though he had jumped fences all his life. I asked ten dollars to boot, and the chaplain said if I would warrant the horse not to have any tricks he would take him. I told him I couldn't warrant the horse not to have any tricks, but that the colonel commanding the brigade wanted my horse, and he certainly would not want a horse that had tricks. What the colonel wanted was a horse noted for its strict attention to business.

Then the chaplain said he would trade, and we changed saddles, and the chaplain led the spotted horse away, and I was revenged for many things the chaplain had done me. When the chaplain led the spotted horse to his tent, and all the boys in the regiment saw that I had traded the brute off, and they thought what a pic-nic they would have the first time the chaplain rode the horse down town, there was a laugh all through the regiment, but n.o.body squealed, or told the chaplain what a prize package he had secured. I cannot account for it, how I could have coolly traded that dastardly horse off on to the chaplain, but I was young then. Now, after arriving at a ripe old age, I would not play such a trick on a chaplain. The next day there was to be a review, and when the regiment was notified, I got sick and could not go. I felt as though I did not want to be a witness of the chaplain's attempt to exhibit a solemn demeanor, on that circus horse. I thought I should probably die right in my tracks if the horse acted with him as he did with me, so I remained in my tent with a wet towel on my head, and saw the regiment ride out to review, the chaplain on the spotted horse beside the colonel, not dreaming that it was going to be the most eventful day of his life.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Tells How the Chaplain was Paralyzed by the Spotted Circus- Horse--I am Court Martialed--I Plead my own Case, and am Acquitted.

In the last chapter I told of trading my circus-horse to the chaplain, and how the chaplain had rode away with the regiment for review, and I remained in camp, pretending to be sick. The result of that scheme on my part was not all my fancy painted it. I stood in front of my tent with a wet towel around my head, and saw the regiment return from review, the chaplain's spotted circus horse with no rider, being led by a colored man, the horse looking as innocent as any horse I ever saw. Where was the 'chaplain? Had he been killed? I noticed half the men were laughing and it seemed to me they wouldn't laugh if the good chaplain was dead.

I also noticed that the colonel and his staff wore faces clouded with anger, and that they seemed as though they would like to kill somebody.

Before the regiment had got fairly dismounted, a sergeant and three men marched to my tent, and I was arrested, and was informed that I would be tried at once, by court-martial, for conduct prejudicial to good order and military discipline. I knew the sergeant, and tried to joke with him, telling him to "go on with his old ark, as there wasn't going to be much of a shower," but he wouldn't have any funny business, and kindly informed me that I had probably got to the end of my rope, and that I would no doubt spend the remainder of my term of enlistment in the military prison. I asked him what the row was about, and he said. I would find out soon enough. One soldier got on each side of me, and one behind with sabers drawn, to stick me with if I attempted to get away, and we started for the colonel's tent. On the way there, the chaplain came towards us, covered with red clay, and begged the sergeant to allow him to kill me right there. He was the maddest truly good man I ever saw. He fairly foamed at the mouth, and said, "O, sergeant, turn him loose, and let me chew him up." I said to the sergeant:

"Now, look-a-here, don't you let that savage get at me, or he will get hurt. I don't want to have any trouble with the church, but if any regularly ordained ministerial cannibal of a sky pilot attempts to chew me, he will find a good deal more gristle than tender loin, and I will italicise his nose so he will look so crossed-eyed that he can't draw his pay."

My thus showing that I was not afraid of a non-combatant, seemed to have the desired effect, for he spit on his hands, jumped up and cracked his heels together, said he would wipe the Southern Confederacy with my remains, and he went to his tent to change his clothes, and get ready for the court-martial. The guard took me to the colonel's tent, and I walked right in where the colonel and major and several others were, and I said h.e.l.lo, and smiled, and extended my hand to the colonel. None of them h.e.l.loed, and none of them returned my smile, and the colonel did not shake hands with me. He said, however, that I had brought disgrace on the regiment, and broken the heart of a n.o.ble man, the chaplain. I told him I didn't think the chaplain's heart was very badly broke, as he had just ottered to whip me in several languages, and threatened to eat me. The colonel had me sit down on a trunk and keep still, while the court-martial convened. It was not many minutes before the officers had arrived, and organized, the adjutant read the charges and specifications against me. Not to go into the military-form of charges and specifications, the substance of them was that I had with malice aforethought, procured a trick-horse from a circus, with the intention of inducing the chaplain to trade for it, with the purpose of causing the aforesaid chaplain to become a spectacle for laughter. When the charges were read I was asked what I had to say, and I told the Judge Advocate it was a condemned lie. That made him mad, and he was going to commence whipping me where the chaplain left off, when the colonel smoothed matters over by asking me if I didn't mean to plead "not guilty." I said, "Certainly, not guilty. It is false. I did not secure the horse for the purpose of sawing it off on the chaplain. I jayhawked it, and when I found it was not the kind of a horse for a modest fellow like me, who didn't want to make any display, I thought I would trade it to some officer with gall, and the chaplain was the first man who struck me for a trade, and he got it, and from his remarks to me, and from these court-martial proceedings, I was satisfied the chaplain did not like the horse." The officers laughed then, and I suppose they were thinking of something that happened to the chaplain on review. The colonel asked me if I wanted anybody to defend me, and I told him I had a printing office once next door to a lawyer's office, and I knew a little about law, and would defend myself. The chaplain came soon, and began to tell his story, but I insisted, that he be sworn, and then he proceeded to tell his tale. He said that he was a G.o.d-fearing man, and meant to do right, and was willing to take his chances in the lottery of war, but when a man got him to ride a circus trick-horse, and bring upon his sacred calling the ribald laughter of the wicked, he felt that civilization was a failure. He said he traded for the spotted horse in good faith, and that he was particular to ask me if the horse had any tricks, and I said he had none, and he traded on that understanding, that he rode the afore--said horse to the review, and as soon as the aforesaid horse heard the band play, he waltzed out into the middle of the street, whirled around more than fifty times, waltzed into an infantry regiment, breaking the ranks of the soldiers just as the reviewing officer come along, causing the reviewing officer to say, "get out of the ranks, you d-d fool, and take that horse back to the circus,"

thus causing him, the chaplain, to be scandalized. He said he would have stood that, but the horse carried him to a battery of artillery which was in position, and began to jump over the guns, and that a gunner took a swab with which he had been cleaning a gun, and punched him, the chaplain, in the face, covering his face with burnt powder which smelled badly.

Then the horse carried him out on the field in front of the reviewing officers, got up on its hind feet and walked for half a block, making the chaplain appear as though climbing up the horse's neck, and when some of the general's staff came out to arrest him, the horse whirled around and kicked, in every direction at once, and broke the saber of one of the staff-officers. That the horse seemed to be possessed of the devil. That he finally got the horse to go back to the regiment where he belonged, but on the way he had to pa.s.s brigade headquarters, when the horse stopped in front of the commanding officer and sat down like a dog, on his hind parts, and tried to shake hands with the colonel commanding, who was offended, and told the chaplain he was an a.s.s, and to go away with his museum, or he would have the chaplain put in the guard house. That a colored man near the review ground had a ginger bread stand, with a sheet tacked up to keep the sun off, and the spotted horse attempted to jump through the sheet, evidently thinking it was a paper hoop in a circus. And in conclusion, after making the chaplain so mortified and ashamed that he wished he might die, the horse laid down in the road and rolled over the aforsaid chaplain, leaving him in the road covered with dirt, while the horse run across the street and walked up a pair of stairs, outside a store, went into the rooms occupied by some milliners and scared the women so they put their heads out of the windows and yelled fire, and said a regiment of Yankee cavalry had raided their homes. That the review was made a farce, the chaplain a laughing stock, and that it took ten men to get the horse down stairs, and half the regiment to console the milliners, and convince them that no harm was intended. He said he demanded that I be sentenced to be shot.

The colonel asked me if I had anything to say, and I asked permission to cross-examine the witness. Permission being granted, I asked the chaplain what his business was. He said he was a minister. I asked him if he didn't consider trading horses one of the n.o.blest professions extant. He said he didn't know about that. Then I asked him if he didn't take advantage of me when I came to the regiment, as a raw recruit, and trade me a kicking mule, that made my life a burden. He said he remembered that he traded me a mule. I asked him if he didn't know the mule was balky, vicious, and spavined, that it would kick its best friend, bite anybody, that it was so ugly that he had to put the saddle on with a long pole, that he warranted the mule sound when he knew it had all the diseases that were going.

He said he objected to being asked such questions, but the judge-advocate said I had a right to bring out any previous transactions in the horse-trade line, as it would have some effect in this case. Then I asked him if he didn't know the horse he beat me out of was sound, a splendid rider, and that the mule was the worst one in the army. He admitted that he knew the animal was not a desirable animal, but he thought a recruit could get along with a kicking mule better than a chaplain. I had saved my best shot for the last, and I said, "knowing the mule was unsound, a vicious animal, and that my horse was sound and desirable, and worth more than a dozen such mules, did you consider that you was pursuing your calling as a minister when you gained my confidence, and not only sawed the mule off on to me, bereaved me of a fine horse, but took twenty dollars of my hard-earned bounty money as boot in the trade? In doing that to an innocent and fresh recruit who had confidence in you, did you not pave the way for me to get even with you on a horse trade, and haven't I got even, and do you blame me for doing it?" The chaplain was perspiring while I was asking the questions, and all the officers were looking at him as though he had caught a tartar, but he blushed, choked, and finally answered that perhaps he did wrong in trading me that mule, and he asked to be forgiven.

Then I turned to the officers and said, "Gentlemen, I admit that I traded the spotted circus-horse to the chaplain. I did it on purpose to show him that there is a G.o.d in Israel. When I came to the regiment, right fresh from the people, I needed salting. The boys all salted me whenever they got a chance, and I took it like a little man. In turning to the chaplain for comfort, I did not expect that he would salt me worse than all of the boys combined, but when I found that he had gone through me, and taken advantage of my guileless innocence, and laughed at my woe when I found the confounded mule was not all his fancy had painted it, and that it laid awake nights to devise ways to kick my head on, I took a blooded oath that before the cruel war was over I would salt that chaplain on a horse trade, until he would own up the corn. I leave it to you, gentlemen, if I have done it or not. When that spotted horse fell to me, by the fortunes of war, I was not long in learning that it was the relic of a circus. I rode the horse one day last week at a funeral, and it acted in such a manner as to almost wake up the late lamented. I was made the laughing stock of the brigade, and of the town. It was government property, and I could not kill the horse, and I thought the time had arrived for me to get even with my old friend. He was mashed on my spotted horse, and bantered me for a trade. Finally we traded, and I got ten dollars to boot. The result has been all that I could desire. I have had the satisfaction of demonstrating to this truly good man that all is not gold that glitters. I have shown him that however spotted a man may be, if he rides a spotted circus horse, he will get there. I will leave it to the chaplain, now, if I was not justified in trading him that horse, after what he had done to me, and will ask him if he was not served perfectly right, and if in trading me that mule he did not do to others as he would have others do to him, and if so, if he does not think the others did it to him in great shape. I am done. I leave my life in your hands."

When I quit they were all laughing except the chaplain, and there was a quiet smile around his mouth, as he thought of his experience on the spotted horse. The colonel asked the chaplain, if he had anything to say, and he said he had just been thinking that he could go over to a New Jersey regiment and trade that spotted horse to the chaplain of that regiment, and if he could, he would be willing to drop the case. He said that chaplain played a mean trick on him once, and he wanted to get even. The court martial acquitted me, and while we were all taking a drink with the colonel, the chaplain went out, and pretty soon we saw his servant leading the spotted horse over towards the camp of the New Jersey regiment, and later the chaplain sauntered off in that direction on foot, as though there was some weighty subject on his mind. The weighty subject was the spotted circus-horse.

I do not suppose any incident ever caused so much talk as did the chaplain's circus. The boys were talking and laughing about it in every company all that afternoon, and when it was found that I had not been punished, for trading the horse to him, the boys were wild. They wanted to show their appreciation of the fun I had given them, so a lot of them got together to give me a sort of reception. They sent for me to come over to Co. D., and when I got over there they grabbed me and carried me off on their shoulders. I felt proud to see them so joyous and friendly, until they put me in a blanket and tossed me up into the trees, and caught me in the blanket as I came down. Of all the sensations I ever experienced, that of being tossed up in a blanket was the worst. I tried to laugh, at first, but it became serious, as I went into the air twenty feet, let loose of the air and came down, expecting to be crushed maimed, killed. My breath forsook me, I was dizzy, but I struck the blanket easy, and after being sent up a dozen times they let me go, and my reception was over.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Mingled Reminiscences-I Relate a Mississippi River Steamboat Experience.

Long before this I should have related a little experience I had on my first journey south, when I was a fresh recruit. After leaving Wisconsin, in the winter, a lot of us recruits were corralled at Benton Barracks, St. Louis, and for six weeks we had a picnic. There were about fifty of us, that belonged to the cavalry, our regiments being down the Mississippi river, and the commanding officer of the barracks seemed to be waiting for a chance to send us to our regiments.

I have often wondered what he waited six weeks for, when we were not doing any duty in camp, and were making him trouble enough every day and every night to turn his hair gray. He was a Colonel Bonneville, if I remember right, a regular army officer of French extraction. Anyway, he always swore at us in French. The camp was run in a slack sort of a way, and it was easy for us to get out and go down town, or wander off into the country, and, as we had plenty of money, and were dressed better than soldiers in active service, we were welcome to all the saloons, and painted old St. Louis all the colors of the rainbow, returned to the barracks at unseasonable hours, crawled through the fence and went to our quarters howling, waking up the old general, who invariably ordered the provost-guard to arrest us, which the provost-guard invariably didn't do, for some reason or other. The old colonel was fast aging, in trying to lead a quiet life in the vicinity of "dose d-----d cavalry regruits," and he said he "would order them all shot if they didn't behave." Benton Barracks was the greatest place for the breeding of rats that I ever saw. In every house there were millions of them, and at night they were out in full force. One night our crowd of recruits, about forty in number, had been down to St. Louis on a painting expedition, and it was midnight when camp was reached. Every recruit had a revolver, and it was decided that if the rats insulted us, as they had often done before, we would shoot them. It was a beautiful moonlight night, as still as death, and we could almost hear the snoring of the excitable colonel in his house across the parade ground. As we came near our barrack, a few thousand rats crossed our path, and I drew my revolver and fired at a large one that seemed unusually impudent, and the rest of the crowd opened fire, and there was a battle in no time. A bugler got out and blowed some call that I did not know, a drum sounded a continuous roll, men rushed out and formed in line, and before we had fired the six charges from our revolvers, the Invalid Corps came hobbling across the parade ground, the colonel behind them with his s.h.i.+rt on, his pants in his hand, and swearing in French, and ordering the troops to arrest the whole crowd of recruits. We went right in the barrack, and retired, as soon as the troops showed up, and were snoring, with smoking revolvers under our pillows, when the guard entered.

The colonel came in with the guard, and then put on his pants, after which he woke up some of us, and asked what was the cause of the firing.

Every recruit swore that he had not fired a shot, but that he had heard some firing over the fence, on the outside, at a road-house and saloon, where bad men from St. Louis congregated and drank to excess. It seemed very hard to thus lie to so estimable a gentleman as the colonel, but as he was only half-dressed, and sleepy, and excited, it didn't seem as though the lies ought to count. But they did. The colonel apologized for waking us up, when we were enjoying our much-needed rest, and he went away with the guard. Then we all got up and danced a can-can, in our army underclothes, pa.s.sed a series of resolutions endorsing the colonel as one of the ablest officers in the army, recommended that he be promoted to brigadier-general at the first opportunity, gave three cheers and a tiger for the Union, and went to bed. That is one thing that we recruits always come out strong in, i. e., three cheers for the Union. We had enlisted to save the Union, and as there was no fighting that we could do, during our stay at St. Louis, whenever we got a chance we gave three cheers for the Union. Sometimes it was not appreciated, however. I remember one evening our crowd went into a saloon and ordered beer all around, and after we had drank it, I proposed three cheers for the Union, which we gave in a hearty manner, and went out without paying for the beer. You would hardly credit it, but the saloonkeeper, an Irishman named Oppenheimer, became offended, and wanted us to pay cash for the beer. The boys wanted me to reason with him, and I began by asking him if he was a loyal man, and he said he was. Then I asked him if he didn't believe in supporting the Union. He said he did, but he couldn't pay the brewer for his beer by giving three cheers for the Union. He had to put up cash. I confess that his remarks made quite an impression on me, as I had not thought of it in that light before. I proposed that we give three cheers for Oppenheimer, which was done, and I thought that would settle it, but he insisted on having cash. I told the boys, and they said he was a rebel. I told Oppenheimer, and he got out a wooden bung-starter, and said he could clean out the whole party.

Finally we compromised, in this way. We had given two rounds of cheer, one for the Union and one for Oppenheimer, which were a total loss, so it was agreed that if Oppenheimer would give three cheers for the Union and three for us we would pay him for the beer, if he would agree to set 'em up for us, at his own expense. He agreed, and then we tried to get him to onset the beer he was going to give us, for the beer we had drank, and not pay him for that we had consumed. That, to any business man, we thought, would seem fair, but he wouldn't have it. So, after he had returned our cheers to us, we paid him, and then he treated.

I mention this to show the hards.h.i.+ps of a soldier's life, and the difficulties of inculcating business methods into the minds of the saloon-keepers. Oppenheimer meant well, but he did not appreciate cheers for the Union. He got so, after that when we came in his saloon, in a gang, he would say, "Poys, of you dondt gif any jeers fun dot Union, I set'em oop," and we would swallow our cheers for the Union, and his beer.

The next day after the battle of the rats, an order was issued for the recruits to board the steamer "City of Memphis," and go down the river to join our several regiments, in the vicinity of New Orleans. In a few hours we had drawn rations to last a week, and were on board the steamer, and had started down stream. I think every soldier that is now alive will remember that when he took his first trip on a transport, as a recruit, during the war, he labored under the impression that he owned the boat, or at least a controlling interest in it. That was a very natural feeling. The opinions of the steamboat officials, it will be remembered, were different. I had never been on a large steamboat before, and after tying my knapsack and other baggage to a wood-pile on the lower deck, after I had vainly attempted to induce the proper official to give me checks for my baggage, I began to climb up stairs, and soon found myself on top of the Texas, beside the smoke stack, viewing the ever changing scenery of the grand old Mississippi. I was drinking in the scenery, and the fresh air, and wondering if it could be possible that there could be war, and killing, anywhere in this broad land, when all was so peace-ful and beautiful on the river, when I felt something strike me on the pantaloons most powerfully, and I looked around and a gentleman was just removing a large sized boot from my person. I was about to reprove him for kicking me, a total stranger, who had not even presented letters of introduction to me, when he said, in a voice that was deep down in his chest, "get down below." I did not feel like arguing with a man of so violent a nature, and I went down the narrow stairs, after he had said he would throw me overboard if I did not hurry. I learned afterwards that he was the mate of the steamboat.

I could see that he had mistaken me for a common soldier, which I would not admit was the case, but I went down stairs, probably looking hurt.

I was hurt. I went into the cabin and sat down on one of the sofas, to think, when a colored person told me to get off the sofa. As he seemed to know what he was talking about I got on. I saw a bar, where officers of the army and pa.s.sengers were drinking, and I went up and asked for a whisky sour, thinking that would relieve the pain and cause my injured feelings to improve. The bar tender told me to go out on deck and I could get plain whisky through a window where the negro deck hands got their drinks, but I could not drink with gentlemen. That was the first day that I realized that in becoming a soldier I had descended to a level with negro deck hands and roustabouts, and could not be allowed to a.s.sociate with gentlemen. Soon the gong rung for supper, and I went into the cabin and sat down to the table for a square meal, the other seats being filled with army officers and pa.s.sengers. I was going to give my order to a waiter, when he called an officer of the boat, who told me to get up from the table and go below, as the cabin was intended for gentlemen and not soldiers. My idea was to kick against being turned out, but I thought of the mate's boot, and I went out, went down on the lower deck with the recruits, and eat some bread and meat. I was rapidly becoming crushed. I talked my experience over with the boys, and they all agreed with me that the way we were treated was an outrage on American soldiers, which we would not stand. We began to wonder where we were going to sleep, when I remembered seeing state-rooms on the deck above, with berths, and it seemed to me they must be intended for us, so we agreed to go up and go into the state-rooms from the doors that opened out on deck, believing that those who got in first would be allowed to occupy them. About fifty of us got into state-rooms, while the officers and pa.s.sengers were playing poker in the cabin. I was asleep, when I heard a noise out on deck, and raising up in my berth I looked over the transom and saw about twenty of the recruits being driven along by officers of the boat, kicks and cuffs, and loud talking being the order. "I'll teach you brutes to steal the beds of pa.s.sengers on this boat. You dirty whelps, to presume to sleep in beds. Get down stairs and sleep on the wood-pile with the n.i.g.g.e.rs," shouted the captain.

If there was going to be any fuss about it, I didn't want to stay in the state-room. I didn't want to be broke of my rest, of course, but if it was not customary for common soldiers to indulge in such luxuries, I would go out. Just then there was a knock at the door leading into the cabin, and I heard a female voice say, "Powtaw, I am afraid one of those dirty soljaws has got into my state-room," and then I heard the mate's voice say, "Wait till I get at him." Of course, under those circ.u.mstances I could not remain. No gentleman would occupy a lady's birth, and cause her to sit up all night. To be sure there were two berths, and I could remain in the upper one, and she could turn in below, and I would turn my face to the wall and not look, but I doubted if a lady, who was a perfect stranger, and whose opinion of soldiers was so p.r.o.nounced, could compromise on such a basis, so when the mate knocked at the door I took my pants and shoes and went out the door leading on deck, and went below, without being discovered. I found my companions, who had been routed out of their beds, dressing themselves as best they could by the light from the furnace, when the stokers would put in wood, and they were about as mad as I was. The treatment we had received was not what we had a right to expect when we enlisted. We decided to set up all night, and growl and discuss the situation.

Several of the recruits made remarks that were very scathing, and the officials of the boat were held up to scorn, and charged with inhumanity. We sat there till daylight, and then organized an indignation meeting, and appointed a committee to draft resolutions indicative of the sense of the meeting. I had been lightning on resolutions before I enlisted, having attended several county conventions, and I was appointed to draft the resolutions. As near as I can remember the following were the words:

"_Whereas_, The undersigned, members of the army of the union, in the course of our duty as soldiers, have been ordered to proceed to our several regiments down the Mississippi river, on board of the 'City of Memphis,' and,

"_Whereas_, We have been treated by the officers of the aforesaid boat more like animals than human beings, in being deprived of luxuries to which we have been accustomed, have been driven from the public dining-table, driven from our beds at the dead hour of night, that shoulder-strapped officers might be made comfortable, and kicked down stairs, therefore, be it

"_Resolved_, That we demand of the captain of the steamer 'City of Memphis,' that we be allowed the same privileges on this boat that others enjoy. 'We hold these truths to be self-evident,' that one man is just as good as another, no matter what his rank. We demand that we be allowed to eat at the table in the cabin, to sleep in the state-rooms, to drink at the bar if we so elect, and to go to any place on the boat that other pa.s.sengers are allowed, and that we be treated like white men, which we, have not up to the adoption of these resolutions.

"_Resolved_, That a copy of these resolutions be presented to the captain of the boat, that a copy be sent to the secretary of war, and that the resolutions be published in the newspapers."

When I read the resolutions to the boys they were pa.s.sed unanimously, after a few amendments had been voted down. One of the boys wanted a resolution pa.s.sed demanding that the mate be discharged, and one moved the captain be requested to apologize. I argued that if the captain received the resolutions in the proper spirit, and acceded to our demand, that would be an apology in itself, and in that case the mate would probably resign. I was appointed one of a committee of three to wait on the captain, and read the resolutions to him, after the boys had all signed them. I had rather some one else had been appointed, as I had been kicked once already, but the boys said it needed somebody that was equal to making a little speech, as it would be necessary to say something before reading the resolutions. They also said, it needed a man with plenty of gall, one that was not afraid to stand up be-fore the world and ask for our rights. I felt flattered at being selected, but I took the precaution to place a gunny-sack, nicely folded up, in the seat of my pants, because I didn't know what might happen. After breakfast, I took the committee and the resolutions, and went up into the cabin, and told a colored man that he might tell the captain that a committee wished an audience with him. He was playing poker in the ladies' cabin, and I have always thought he had an idea there was a committee of pa.s.sengers who wanted to present him with a gold headed cane, a thing that was often done on the boats. Any way he came along smiling, and when the n.i.g.g.e.r pointed me out, and the captain noticed that I had a large paper in my hand, he said, "What is it, gentlemen?" This was the first time I had been alluded to in that manner since I enlisted. I asked him to be seated, and he sat down on a lounge, and I proceeded. I forgot to make any speech, but went right at the _whereases_ at once.

I say the captain smiled when he came up. Of course, reading the resolutions, as I was, I could not see his face change, but afterwards one of the committee told me about it. I could not tell that a storm was coming. I noticed that quite a number of people had collected around the captain, from curiosity, I supposed. I had just got to the last resolution where it spoke of sending a copy to the secretary of war, when there was a howl. The captain got up and grabbed me by the throat, while somebody else took me by the hind legs. As we went towards the door, I noticed other men were carrying the rest of the committee. My idea was that they would throw us overboard, and as I could not swim, I closed my eyes and said, "Now I lay me." The stairs leading to the lower deck were covered with bra.s.s. I remember that distinctly, because I rode down the stairs on the small of my back, and we had a committee meeting at the foot of the stairs. I brought up on top of the rest of the committee. We sat there a moment, and decided, unanimously, that we had been unceremoniously chucked down stairs, resolutions and all, and we picked ourselves up and limped back to where our companions were, and so reported. The expedition was a total failure, for in a short time a notice was tacked on the foot of the stairs, stating that all enlisted men were forbidden from occupying any portion of the boat except the lower deck, and if one was found above that deck, he would be turned over to the first army post, a prisoner. So we remained on the lower deck, and took it out abusing the officers, and hoping the boat would blow up. But the scenery was just as nice from the lower deck.

CHAPTER XXV.