Drum Taps in Dixie Part 21

The big wheels of the steamer were churning the water when our colonel, who had been attracted by the loud talking, appeared and asked what was the matter.

Burke, tall, straight and every inch a soldier, but pale and thin from the effects of a wound received in the last fighting, saluted his superior and said:

"'Tis my wife and children, colonel, that I have not seen in almost three years."

"Tie up your boat again, captain," said the colonel.

The captain ripped and tore and mentioned between oaths that he wasn't taking orders from any army officers "not even Gen. Grant himself."

Col. Hulser was furious and pulling his revolver he commanded the captain to reverse the engines and run out a gang plank.

The captain muttered between his teeth, touched the engineer's bell and the gang plank again bridged the s.p.a.ce between boat and dock. Sergt. Burke walked off, clasped his wife to his breast in a pa.s.sionate embrace, then took a child on each arm, turned and faced his comrades, who had, sympathetically, been looking on, and they sent sh.o.r.eward a mighty cheer.

"Bring your wife and little ones aboard!" shouted the colonel.

They came and went with us to Hart's Island.

Mrs. Burke explained to the colonel that they had come from Tarrytown, or some other town up the Hudson, because "Little Mac" (named after Gen.

George B. McClellan) had begged so hard to come and see his papa with the soldiers he had fought and marched with.

Mrs. Burke, Little Mac, and the sweet little blue-eyed sister saw the last dress parade of the 2d Heavy, and Sergt. Thomas Burke stood in line with his comrades.

It was certainly a grand privilege to go all through a great war and be permitted to come home with one's own comrades. To be present at the last roll call. To hear the clatter of the bayonets as the battle-scarred muskets are stacked for the last time. To see the furling of the tattered colors that one has followed for four years. To hear the last command of the officers, the last tattoo and the final "taps."

There never was such another bugler in the whole army of the Potomac as our little Gracey. Small of stature, gentle by nature, but a marvel with his trumpet. I have told in a former chapter how at Cold Harbor, after sounding the charge for Gen. Hanc.o.c.k's troops, he sat down by a tree and wept like a child when he saw the lines of mangled, bleeding men returning.

Gracey was at our last dress parade at Hart's Island, New York, and after the parade the guns were stacked for the last time, and then Gracey sounded "taps" or "lights out" as it was always called in the army. The call is one of the sweetest, yet saddest of all the army calls and on this occasion our old bugler seemed to breathe his very soul into his trumpet, for the tears were trickling down his cheeks while strong, bronzed men who had walked up to the cannon's mouth on many a famous battlefield were not without emotion as they broke the ranks for the last time and bade farewell to their old comrades.

My father and I got out of the old stage coach at Carthage two days later, and as we alighted he remarked that it was just four years to a day since he had left for the war, and I found that my services figured up over three years and a half.

CHAPTER XX.

SCATTERING REMINISCENCES.

A COMRADE'S LOVE.

James Tabor and Dennis Garrity were about the last two soldiers that would have been taken for chums. Garrity was a great thick-chested Irishman with brawny arms and a roistering sort of manner who had served through the Crimean war and knew more of tactics in the first year of the Civil war than half of our officers.

Tabor was scarce more than a boy, a slender, palefaced youth, mild of manner and gentle of speech as a girl.

Tabor's mother had given him a little pocket Bible when she kissed him good-bye, and, unmindful of the jeers of his comrades, he read it every evening and knelt and offered up a silent prayer before wrapping himself in his blanket.

When the first death occurred in our camp we had no chaplain. Tabor was called upon to read the burial service and make a prayer. After that some of the boys tried to tease him by calling him "parson."

AN OLD-FASHIONED GARDEN.

Away up in York state there was an old-fashioned flower garden with roses, hollyhocks, sweet-williams, larkspurs, marigolds, lady-slippers, pansies, violets and other emblems of purity and the simple life. The boy had loved that old garden, so when it came summer he had a little reminder of it with a box of pansies by the side of his tent.

One day a soldier who had been drinking just enough of the sutler's beer to make him think he was smart came along, and as he pa.s.sed Tabor's tent he gave the box a kick, upsetting it. Garrity saw the act, and he took the smart chap by his coat collar and shook him as a terrier would a rat.

A crowd gathered and then Garrity proceeded to read the riot act to those a.s.sembled.

"Look a'here, my hearties," said he, "I'm going to give you young devils some advice, an' you'll be doin' well to mind what I be sayin'. I want you young blackguards to be very careful how you thrate this lad hereafter. No more pokin' fun at his religion, 'twould be better if all of you had some of the same.

"I'm none too good meself an' ought to be counting me beads oftener than I do, but I likes fair play, and be that same token I'll see that James Tabor has it or me name is not Dennis.

"So now, me laddy bucks, if you don't like what I'm sayin' you can put it in your pipes an' smoke it."

This little episode was the beginning of a strange and tender attachment between Tabor and Garrity that lasted to the close of the war. They tented together, slept under the same blanket and drank from the same canteen--except when Garrity's had some of Uncle Sam's commissary in it, for Dennis, like many an old campaigner, liked a little whisky.

The boys called Tabor "Jim" or "Jimmie," but it was always James when Garrity spoke of him. When Tabor wanted his comrade it was: "Have you seen Mr. Garrity?"

BIG INJUNS FROM ONONDAGA.

Among the recruits that came to our regiment in the winter of 1862 was a squad of 25 or 30 Indians from the Onondaga reservation. Among them was a fairly good bra.s.s band. The officers had no business to enlist them, and they were all discharged in a few months.

They were with us one pay day, however, and managed to get some firewater.

Then they went on the war path and there was "blood on the moon" and they indulged in war dances that were the real thing. One "big Injun" was discovered crawling under the back of the colonel's tent. He was armed with a sabre bayonet which had been sharpened for the express purpose of lifting the hair of that officer.

They dared all the white men to fight them, and, finally, a young buck rubbed up against Garrity, who gave him a slap on the side of his head that sent him spinning. This led to a challenge to fight and the affair was arranged to take place in the fort late in the afternoon.

GARRITY WAS STRENUOUS.

A ring was formed, and the men stripped to the waist and turned their pants pockets inside out to show that they carried no concealed weapons.

Garrity whipped the Indian in less than two minutes. Then another red man pulled his shirt over his head and strode up in front of Garrity, who gave him his medicine in short order. Then another wanted to try his hand and was given a chance and was quickly vanquished.

Perhaps you will think me yarning, but it is the truth that our Dennis whipped four strapping Onondagas and was ready for more when his little guardian angel slid into the ring, and, taking Garrity by the arm, led him away as though he had been a child.

It was a wonderful influence this little boy had over his great, strong comrade.

Garrity loved a strenuous life and wanted something doing all the time if it was nothing more than tossing the colonel's darkey up in a blanket or tipping over the cart of a pie peddler.

He could play cards behind the breastworks with the sh.e.l.ls screeching over his head or joke a comrade on the firing line.

In this connection I am reminded of an incident at the opening of the second Bull Run battle. The regiment was in line of battle nearly two hours in the morning without firing a shot. The artillery on both sides were pounding away at each other, and the strain on the men's nerves was something intense. A certain lieutenant who had incurred the dislike of his men by his pompousness in camp duties thought that before going into battle he would make peace with the boys, so he walked along in front of the company and said: "Now, my men, we are about to meet the enemy for the first time and it is more than likely that some of us will never see the sun rise again. In my position it has become my duty on various occasions to criticise and reprove, but I hope you will understand that I meant it for your good. I can a.s.sure you, that I have a warm place in my heart for every one of you, and if any man in the ranks feels the least ill will towards me I beg of him to put it away out of his heart as we stand here facing our foes.

"I have a further request to make and that is, if I fall in this fight, and it is possible for you to do so, that you will have my body embalmed and sent home."

There was not a response for a minute or two and then Garrity spoke up: "The boys don't mind forgivin' you, leftenant, but if I may be pardoned the observation, the facilities for embalming the dead on a battlefield are devilish poor."

That same lieutenant covered the distance between Bull Run bridge and the outposts near Alexandria before taps were sounded that night, and being a large man, he stripped for the race and those who saw him at the finish claimed that a shirt, trousers and a pair of socks were all that were left of his former showy uniform and equipment.