How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion Part 11

Our Party of Recruits own the Earth--We Live High, Give a Ball, and go to the Guard-House--And are Arrested by Colored Troops.

Let's see, I forget whether I have ever told about getting strung up on a bayonet, near New Orleans, when I first went south as a recruit. It was before I had joined my regiment, and I was with a gang of recruits, all looking for the regiments we had enlisted in. We had come down from St. Louis on a steamboat, our regiments being scattered all over the Department of the Gulf. We were not in any particular hurry to find our regiments, as the longer we kept away from them the less duty we would have to do. I do not think, out of the whole forty recruits, there was one who was in the least hurry to find his regiment, and none of them would have known their regiments if they had seen them, unless somebody told them. They had enlisted just as it happened, all of them hoping the war would be over before they found where they belonged. They didn't know anybody in their respective regiments, hence there were no ties binding them. But they had been together for several months, as recruits, until all had got well acquainted, and if they could have been formed into a company, for service together, they might have done pretty good fighting. The crowd was becoming smaller, as every day or two some recruit would come and bid us all good bye. He had actually stumbled on to his regiment, and when the officers of an old regiment, in examining recruits, found one a.s.signed to his regiment, he never took his eyes off the recruit until he was landed. I have seen some very affecting partings, when one of our gang would find where he belonged and had to leave us, perhaps never to meet again. The gang was rapidly dropping apart, and when we got to New Orleans there were only twenty or so left. We reported to the commanding officer, and he quartered us at Carrollton, near the city, in what had once been a beer-garden and dance-house. We slept on the floor of the dance-house, cooked our meals out in the garden, spread our food on the old beer tables, and imagined we were proprietors of the place, or guests of the government. We always ordered beer or expensive wines with our meals. Not that we ever got any beer or wine, because the beer garden was deserted, but we put on a great deal of style.

We found a lot of champagne bottles out in the back yard, and I do not think I ever took a meal there without having a champagne bottle sitting beside me on the table, and when any citizens were pa.s.sing along the street we would take up the bottles, look at the label in a scrutinizing way, as though not exactly certain in our minds whether we were getting as good wine as we were paying for. The old empty bottles gave us a standing in Carrollton society that nothing else could have given us.

Some of the boys got so they could imitate the popping of a champagne cork to perfection, by placing one finger in the mouth, prying the cheek around on one side, and letting it fly open suddenly. We would have several of the boys with ap.r.o.ns on, and when anybody was pa.s.sing on the street, one of us would call, "Waiter open a bottle of that extra dry."

The waiter would say, "Certainly, sah," take a bottle between his knees, run his finger in his mouth and make it pop, and then pretend to pour out the champagne in gla.s.ses, imitating the "fizzing" perfectly. It was the extra dryest champagne that I ever had. But all that foolishness had the desired effect. It convinced the citizens of Carrollton that we were no ordinary soldiers. We were all nicely dressed, had no guards, and apparently no officers, had plenty of money, which we spent freely at the stores, and the impression soon got out that we were on some special service, and there was, of course, much curiosity to know our business.

I learned that we were looked upon as secret service men, and I told the boys about it, and advised them not to tell that we were recruits, but to put on an air of mystery, and we would have fun while we remained.

One day an oldish gentleman who lived near, and who had a fine orange plantation, or grove, toward which we had cast longing eyes, called at the dance-house where we were quartered. We had just finished our frugal meal, and the empty bottles were being taken away. He addressed me, and said, "Good day, Colonel." I responded as best I could, and invited him to be seated. I apologized for not offering him a gla.s.s of champagne, but told him we had cracked the last bottle, and would not have any more until the next day, as I had only that morning requested my friend, the general commanding at New Orleans, to send me a fresh supply, which he would do at once, I had no doubt. Well, you ought to have seen the boys try to keep from laughing, stuffing handkerchiefs in their mouths, etc.

But not a man laughed. The old citizen said it was no matter, as he would drop in the next day, and drink with us. We talked about the war, and it is my impression he was anxious for us to believe he was a loyal man. But after a while he asked me what particular duty I was on, there at Carrollton. I hesitated a moment, and finally told him that I hoped he would excuse me for not telling him, but the fact was it would be as much as my "commission" would be worth to unfold any of my plans. I told him that time alone would reveal the object of our being there, and until such time as my government thought it best to make it public, it was my duty as an officer, to keep silent. He said certainly, that was all right, and he admired me for keeping my own counsel. (I was probably the highest private and rawest recruit in the army.) He said there was a natural curiosity on the part of the people of Carrollton to know who we were, as we lived so high, and seemed such thorough gentlemen. I admitted that we were thorough gentlemen, and thanked him for the high opinion that the cultured people of Carrollton had of us. He wound up by pointing to his orange grove, and said he-would consider it a special favor if we would consider ourselves perfectly free to go there and help ourselves at any time, and particularly that evening, as a number of young people would be at his house for a quiet dance. I told him that a few of us would certainly be present, and thanked him kindly. When he was gone I told the boys, and they wanted to give three cheers, but I got them to keep still, and we talked all the afternoon of the soft snap we had struck, and cleaned up for the party. My intention was to pick out half a dozen of the best dressed, recruits, those that could make a pretty fair showing in society to go with me, but they all wanted to go, and there was no way to prevent it, so all but one Irishman, that we hired to stay and watch our camp, went. Well, we ate oranges fresh from the trees, joined in the dance, ate refreshments, and drank the old gentleman's wine, and had a good time, made a good impression on the ladies, and went back to camp at midnight. On the way over to the party I told the boys the gentleman was coming to see us the next day, and we should have to get a bottle of champagne some-where, to treat him, as I had told him we expected, some more up from the city. When we came back from the party a German recruit pulled a bottle of champagne out of his pocket, which he had stolen from the man's house in order to treat him with the next day. The gentleman came over to our quarters the next day, and we opened our bottle, and he drank to our very good health, though I thought he looked at the label on the bottle pretty close. For a week we frequented the gentleman's orange grove every day, and ate oranges to our heart's content.

Several times during the week we were invited to different houses, where we boys became quite interested in the fair girls of Louisiana. It was ten days from the time we settled in the beer garden, and we had kept our secret well. n.o.body in Carrollton knew that we were raw recruits that had never seen a day of service, but the impression was still stronger than ever that we were pets of the government. We had an old map of the United States that we had borrowed at a saloon, and during the day we would hang the map up and surround it, while I pointed out imaginary places to attack. This we would do while people were pa.s.sing.

Everything was working splendidly, and we decided to give a party.

We hired a band to play in the dance house, ordered refreshments, and invited about forty ladies and gentlemen to attend. The day we were to give the party we sent a recruit down town to draw rations, and he told everybody what a high old time we recruits were having at Carrollton.

The commanding officer heard of it, and, probably having forgotten that we were up there waiting to be sent to our regiments he sent a peremptory order for us to report at New Orleans before noon of that day. How could we report at noon, when we were going to give a party at night? It was simply impossible, and I, as a sort of breast corporal in charge, sent a man down town to tell the commanding officer that we had an engagement that night, and couldn't come before the next day. I did not know that it was improper to send regrets to a commanding officer when ordered to do anything. The man I sent down to New Orleans came back and I asked him what the general said. The man said he read the note and said, "The h.e.l.l they can't come till tomorrow. The impudence of the recruits. They will come tonight!" I did not believe we would. In my freshness I did not believe that any commander of troops would deliberately break up a ball, and humiliate brave soldiers. I thought my explanation to the commander that we had an engagement, would be sufficient, that he would see that it was impossible to hurry matters.

We had been to a good deal of expense, and it was our duty, after accepting the hospitalities of those people, to pay our indebtedness in the only way we knew how, and so, as the boys had gathered around me to see what was to be done, I said, "On with the dance. Let joy be unconfined."

Our guests arrived on time, and shortly after it became dark, the Dutch band we had hired from, a beer hall down town, struck up some sort of foreign music, and "there was a sound of revelry by night." We danced half a dozen times, smiled sweetly on our guests, walked around the paths of the old garden, flirted a little perhaps, and talked big with the male guests, and convinced them anew that we were regular old battle-scarred vets, on detached duty of great importance. Near midnight we all set down to lunch, around the beer tables, and everything was going along smooth. The old gentleman who had been first to make our acquaintance, and who had been the means of getting us into society, proposed as a toast, "Our brave and generous hosts," and the boys called upon me to respond. I got up on a bench and was making a speech that, if I had been allowed to continue, would have been handed down in history as one of the ablest of our time. It was conciliatory in tone, calculated to cement a friendship between the army and the citizens of the south, and show that while we were engaged in war, there was nothing mean about us, and that we loved our neighbors as ourselves. I was just getting warmed up, and our guests had spatted their hands at some of my remarks, when I heard a tramp, tramp, tramp on the sidewalk outside, and before I could breathe a squad of infantry soldiers had filed into the garden, surrounded the dance-house, a dozen had formed in line before the door, and a sergeant had walked in and ordered the citizens to disperse, and said the recruits were under arrest. Well, I have been in some tight places in my life, but that was the closest place I ever struck. The old gentleman, the leader of our guests, turned to me and asked what this all meant, and I told him to be calm, and I would fix everything. I got down off the bench and approached the sergeant, to argue the thing. I found that he was, a colored man, and that his soldiers were also colored troops. This was the unkindest cut of all.

I could stand it to be arrested by white soldiers, but the sending of a lot of "n.i.g.g.e.rs" after us white fellows was more than human nature could bear. We had most of us been Democrats before enlisting, and had never looked upon the colored man with that respect that we learned to do, later. I went up to the sergeant, as brave as I could, and said, "Look-a-here, boss, you have made a dreadful mistake. We are gentlemen, enjoying ourselves, and this interruption on your part will cost you dear. Now go away with your men, quietly, and I promise you, on the honor of a gentleman, that I will not report you, and have you punished," and I looked at him in a tone of voice that I thought would convince him that I was a friend if he should go away, but if he remained it would be at his peril.

He said he didn't want any foolishness, or some of us would get hurt, and just then one of the Irish recruits, who had tried to skin out the back way, got jabbed in the pants by a bayonet, and he began to howl and cuss the "n.i.g.g.e.rs." The sergeant called up half a dozen of his sable guard, and they surrounded me and some of the boys. Our guests were becoming frightened, ladies had put on-their wraps, and there was a good deal of confusion, when I shouted, "Boys, are we going to submit to this insult on the part of a lot of n.i.g.g.e.r field hands? Never! To the rescue!" Well, they didn't "to the rescue" worth a cent. A colored man with a bayonet had every recruit's breast at the point of his weapon, three soldiers surrounded me, and one run his bayonet through the breast of my coat and out under my arm, and held me on my tip-toes, and I was powerless, except with my mouth. The old gentleman, our most distinguished guest, came up to me, and I said to him, in confidence, so our guests could hear, however, with a smile, "This may seem to you a singular proceeding. I cannot explain it to you now, as I am pledged to secrecy by my government, but I will say that the duty we are on here is part of a well-laid plan of our commander, and this seeming arrest is a part of the plan. This colored sergeant is innocent. He is simply obeying orders, and is a humble instrument in carrying out our plan. I expected to be arrested before morning, but hoped it would be after our party. However, we soldiers have to go where ordered. We shall be thrown into prison for a time, but when this detective or secret service work on which we are engaged is done, we will take pleasure in calling upon you again, wearing such laurels as we may win. We bid you good-night, and wish you much happiness." They all shook hands with us, evidently believing what I had said, and even the sergeant seemed to take it in, for, after the crowd had gone, the sergeant said, "You will excuse me, kernel, for what I have done. I didn't know about any 'plan.' All I knew was dat the provost-marshal told me to go up to Carrollton and pull dem recruits dat was camping at de beer garden, and fotch 'em to de guard-house." I told him he did perfectly right, and then we recruits packed up our things and marched with the colored soldiers to New Orleans, about six miles, and we slept in the guard-house. The next morning the provost-marshal called upon us, d.a.m.ned us a little for not insisting on being sent to our regiments, found out that my regiment was up the river two hundred miles, and seemed mad because I pa.s.sed it when I come from St. Louis. I told him I was not expected to go hunting around for my regiment, like a lost calf. What I wanted was for my regiment to hunt me up. That afternoon he put me on an up-river boat with a tag on my baggage telling where I belonged, and I bid good-bye to the recruits, after having had three months of fun at the expense of Uncle Sam.

CHAPTER XXVI.

I Strike Another Soft-Snap, Which is Harder Than Any Snap Heretofore--I Begin Taking Music Lessons, and Fill Up a Confederate Prisoner With Yankee Food.

The last two chapters of this stuff has related to early experiences, but now that it is probable the chaplain has got over being mad at my trading him the circus-horse, I will resume the march with the regiment.

For a month or more I had been waiting for my commission to arrive, so that I could serve as an officer, but it did not arrive while we were at Montgomery, and we started away from that city towards Vicksburg, Miss., with a fair prospect of having hot work with strolling bands of the enemy. I was much depressed. It had got so they didn't seem to want me anywhere. It seemed that I was a sort of a Jonah, and wherever I was, something went wrong. The chaplain wouldn't have me, because he had a suspicion that I was giddy, and full of the devil, and I have thought he had an idea I would sacrifice the whole army to perpetrate a practical joke, and he also maintained that I would lie, if a lie would help me out of a sc.r.a.pe. I never knew how such an impression could have been created. The colonel said he would try and get along without me, the adjutant didn't want any more of my mathematics in his reports and the brigade commander said he would carry the brigade colors himself rather than have me around, as I would bring headquarters into disgrace some way. So I had to serve as a private in my own company, which was very hard on a man who had tasted the sweets of official position. O, if my commission did not come soon I was lost. After we had marched a couple of days it began to look as though we were liable to have a fight on our hands. Every little while there would be firing in advance, or on the flanks, and things looked blue for one who did not want to have any trouble with anybody. One morning when we were cooking our breakfast beside a pitch pine log, a little Irishman, who was a friend of mine, as I always lent him my tobacco, said: "There will be a fight today, and some wan of the byes will sleep cold tonight."

A cold chill came over me, and I wondered which of of the "by's" would draw the ticket of death. The Irishman noticed that I was not feeling perfectly easy, and he said, "Sorrel top, wud yez take a bit of advice from the loikes of me?" I did not like to be called sorrel top, but if there was any danger I would take advice from anybody, so I told him to fire away. He told me that when we fell in, for the march of the day, to arrange to be No. 4, as in case we were dismounted, to fight on foot, number four would remain on his horse, and hold three other horses, and keep in the rear, behind the trees, while the dismounted men went into the fight. Great heavens, and that had never occurred to me before. Of course number four would hold the horses, in case of a dismounted fight, and I had never thought what a soft thing it was. It can be surmised by the reader of profane history, that when our company formed that morning I was number four. We marched a long for a couple of hours, when there was some firing on the flanks, and a couple of companies were wheeled into line and marched off into the woods for half a mile, and the order was given to "prepare to fight on foot." It was a momentous occasion for me, and when the three men of our four dismounted and handed the bridle reins to me, I was about the happiest man in the army. I did not want the boys to think I was anxious to keep away from the front, so I said, "Say, cap, don't I go too?" He said I could if I wanted to, as one of the other boys would hold the horses if I was spoiling to be a corpse, but I told him I guessed, seeing that I was already on the horse, I would stay, and the boys went off laughing, leaving about twenty-five of us "number fours" holding horses. Now, you may talk all you please about safe places in a fight, but sitting on a horse in plain sight, holding three other prancing, kicking, squalling horses, while the rest of the boys are behind trees, or behind logs, popping at the enemy, is no soft thing. The bullets seemed to pa.s.s right over our fellows on foot, and came right among the horses, who twisted around and got tangled up, and made things unpleasant. I was trying to get a stallion I was holding to quit biting my legs, when I saw my little Irishman, who had steered me on to the soft snap, dodge down behind his horse's head, to escape a bullet that killed one of the horses he was holding, and I said, "This is a fine arrangement you have got me into. This is worse than being in front." He said he believed it was, as he backed his other horses away from the dying horse, but he said as long as they killed horses we had no cause to complain. There was a sergeant in charge of us "number fours," and he was as cool as any fellow I ever saw. The sergeant was a nice man, but he was no musician. He was an Irishman, also, and when any bugle-call and when any bugle-call sounded he had to ask some one what it was. There was a great deal of uncertainty about bugle-calls, I noticed, among officers as well as men.

Of course it could not be expected that every man in a cavalry regiment would be a music teacher, and the calls sounded so much alike to the uncultivated ear, that it was no wonder that everybody got the calls mixed. In camp we got so we could tell "a.s.sembly," and "surgeon's call,"

and "tattoo," and quite a number of others, but the calls of battle were Greek to us. The bugle sounded down in the woods, and the sergeant turned to me and asked, "Fhat the divil is that I dunno?" I was satisfied it was "To horse," but when I saw our fellows come rushing back towards the horses it looked as though the order was to fall back, and I suggested as much to the sergeant. He thought it looked reasonable, too, and he ordered us to fall back slowly toward the regiment. We didn't go so confounded slow, and of course I was ahead with my three horses. The sergeant heard the captain yell to him to hold on, and he got the most of the "fours" to stop, and let the boys get on, but the little Irishman and myself couldn't hold our extra horses, and they dragged us along over logs and through brush, the regiment drew sabers to "shoo" the horses back, waived their hats, my horse run his fore feet into a hole, fell down, and let me off over his head, the other horses seemed to walk on me, I became insensible, and the next thing I knew I was in an ambulance, behind the regiment, which was on the march, as though nothing had happened. I felt of myself to see if anything was broke, and finding I was all right I told the driver of the ambulance I guessed I would get out and mount my horse, but he said he guessed I wouldn t, because the colonel had told him if I died to bury me beside the road, but if I lived to bring me to headquarters for punishment. The driver said the boys whose horses I had stampeded, wanted to kill me, but the colonel had said death was too good for me.

Well, n.o.body was hurt in the skirmish, and about noon we arrived at a camping place for the night, and the ambulance drove up, and I was placed under guard.

It seems the sergeant had laid the whole thing to me. He had admitted to the colonel that he didn't know one bugle call from another, and he supposed I did, and when he asked me what it was, and I said it was to retreat, he supposed I knew, and retreated. The colonel asked me what I had to say, and I told him I didn't know any bugle call except get your quinine, get your quinine. That when I enlisted there was nothing said about my ability to read notes in music, and I had never learned, and couldn't learn, as I had no more ear for music than a mule. I told him if he would furnish a music teacher, I would study hard to try and master the difference between "forward and back," but that it didn't seem to me as though I ought to be held responsible for an expression of opinion, however erroneous, when asked for it by a superior officer.

I told him that when the bugle sounded, and I saw the boys coming back on a hop, skip and jump, it seemed to me the most natural thing in the world that the bugle had sounded a retreat. That seemed the only direction we could go, and as my natural inclination was to save those horses that had been placed in my charge, of course I interpreted the bugle call to mean for us to get out of there honorably, and as the only way to get out honorably was to get out quick, we got up and dusted. The colonel always gave me credit for being a good debater, and he smiled and said that as no damage had been done, he would not insist that I be shot on the spot, but he felt that an example should be made of me. He said I would be under arrest until bed time, down under a tree, half a mile or so from headquarters, in plain sight, and he would send music teachers there to teach me the bugle calls. I thanked him, in a few well chosen remarks, and the guard marched me to the tree, which was the guard-house. I found another soldier there, under arrest, who had rode out of the ranks to water his horse, while on the march, against orders, and a Confederate prisoner that had been captured in the morning skirmish, a captain of a Virginia regiment. The captain seemed real hurt at having been captured, and was inclined to be uppish and distant. I tried two or three times to get him into conversation on some subject connected with the war, but he wouldn't have it. He evidently looked upon me as a horse-thief, a deserter, and a bad man, or else a soldier who had been sent to pump information out of him. I never was let alone quite as severely as I was by our prisoner, at first. But I went to work and built a fire, and soon had some coffee boiling, bacon frying, and sweet potatoes roasting, and when I spread the lay out on the ground, and said, "Colonel, this is on me. Won't you join me?" I think he was the most surprised man I ever saw, He had watched every move I made, in cooking, with a yearning such as is seldom seen, and he probably had no more idea that he was going to have a mouthful of it, than that he should fly. His eyes might have been weak, but if he had been a man I knew well, I should have said there were a couple of tears gathering in his eyes, and I was quite sure of it when the flood broke over the eye-lid dam, and rolled down among the underbrush whiskers. He stopped the flood at once, by an effort of will, though there seemed a something in his throat when he said, "You don't mean it, do you, kernel?" I told him of course I meant it, and to slide right up and help himself, and I speared a great big sweet potato, and some bacon, and placed them on a big leaf, and poured coffee out in the only cup I had. He kicked on using the cup, but I said we would both drink out of it. He said, "you are very kind, sir," and that was all he said during the meal. But how he _did_ eat. He tried to act as though he didn't care much for dinner, and as though he was eating out of courtesy to me, but I could tell by the way the sweet potato went down in the depths of my Confederate friend, and by the joyous look when a swallow of coffee hit the right place, that he was having a picnic.

When we were through with dinner and the guard and the other prisoner were cooking theirs, he said, "My friend, I do not mind telling you now that I was much in need of food. I had not eaten since yesterday morning, as we have been riding hard to intercept you gentlemen, sir.

I trust I shall live long enough to repay, you sir." I told him not to mention it, as all our boys made it a point to divide when we captured a prisoner. He said he believed his people felt the same way, but G.o.d knew they had little to divide. He said he trembled when he thought that some of our men who were prisoners in the south were faring very poorly, but it could not be helped. "Suppose I had captured you," he said, with a smile that was forced, "I could not have given you a mouthful of bread, until we had found a southern family that 'had bread to spare.'" I told him it was pretty tough, but it would all be over before long, and then we would all have plenty to eat. I got out a pack of cards, and the confederate captain played seven-up with me, while we smoked. Presently nine buglers came down to where we were, formed in line, and began to sound cavalry calls in concert. I knew that they were the music teachers the colonel had sent to teach me the calls. The confederate looked on in astonishment, while they sounded a call, and when it was done I asked the chief bugler what it was, and he told me, and I asked him to sound something else, which he did. My idea was to convince the prisoner that this was a part of daily routine. He got nervous and couldn't remember which was trumps; and finally said we might talk all we pleased about the horrors of Andersonville, but to be blowed to death with cavalry bugles was a fate that only the most hardened criminals should suffer.

The confederate evidently had no ear for music more than I had, and he soon got enough. However the buglers kept up their noise till about supper time, when they were called on. I got another meal for the confederate, and he seemed to be actually getting fat. The colonel of my regiment came down to where we were, and said, "You fellows seem to be doing pretty well," and then he had a long talk with the rebel prisoner, invited him up to his tent to pa.s.s the night, apologized for the concert he had been giving us, explained what it was for, told me I could go to my company if I thought I could remember a bugle call in the future; the captain shook hands with me and thanked me cordially, and we separated.

He was exchanged, the next day, and I never saw him for twenty-two years, when I found him at the head of a manufacturing enterprise in his loved Virginia, and he furnished me a more expensive meal than I did him years before, but it didn't taste half as good as the bacon dinner in Alabama under the guard-house tree.

CHAPTER XXVII.

A Short Story About a Pair of Boots, Showing the Monumental Gall of their Owner.

When I enlisted in the cavalry I bought a pair of top boots, of the Wellington pattern, st.i.tched with silk up and down the legs, which were of shiny morocco. They came clear above my knees, and from the pictures I had seen of cavalry soldiers, it struck me those boots would be a pa.s.s-port to any society in the army. The first few months of my service, it seemed to me, the boots gave me more tone than any one thing. I learned afterwards that all new recruits came to the regiment with such boots, and that they were the laughing stock of all the old veterans. I did not know that I was being guyed by the boys, and I loved those boots above all things I had. To be sure, when we struck an unusually muddy country, some idiot of an officer seemed to be inspired to order us to dismount. The boys who had common army boots would dismount anywhere, in mud or water, but it seemed to me cruel for officers to order a dismount, when they knew I would have to step in the mud half way up to my knees, with those morocco boots on. Several times when ordered to dismount in the mud, I have ridden out of the road, where it was not muddy, to dismount, but the boys would laugh so loud, and the officers would swear so wickedly, that I got so I would dismount wherever they told me, suppress my emotions, as I felt my beautiful, shiny boots sink into the red clay, and when we got into camp I would spend half the night cleaning my boots. The captain said if I would spend half the time cleaning my carbine and saber that I did cleaning my boots, I would have been a model soldier.

I think that for the first year of my service I had as elegant a pair of boots as could be found in the army. But it was the hardest work to keep track of them. The first three months it was all I could do to keep the chaplain from trading me a pair of old army shoes for my boots. The arguments he used to convince me that mo-. rocco boots were far above my station, and that they were intended for a chaplain, were labored. If he had used the same number of words in the right direction, he could have converted the whole army. I had to sleep with my boots under my head every night, to prevent them from being stolen and twice they were stolen from my tent, but in each case recovered at the sutler's, where they had been p.a.w.ned for a bottle of brandy peaches, which I had to pay for to redeem the boots. The boots had become almost a burden to me, in keeping them, but I enjoyed them so much that money could not have bought them. When we were in a town for a few days, and I rode around, it did not make any difference whether I had any other clothes on, of any account, the morocco boots captured the town. The natives could not see how a man who wore such boots could be anything but a high-up thoroughbred. The last time I lost my boots will always be remembered by those who were in the same command. We were on the march with a Michigan and a New Jersey regiment, through the dustiest country that ever was.

The dust was eight inches deep in the road, and just like fine ashes.

Every time a horse put his foot down the dust would raise above the trees, and as there were two thousand horses, with four feet apiece, and each foot in constant motion, it can be imagined that the troops were dusty. And it was so hot that the perspiration oozed out of us, but the dust covered it.

The three regiments took turns in acting as rear guard, to pick up stragglers, and on this hot and dusty day the New Jersey regiment was in the rear. It was composed of Germans entirely, with a German colonel, a man who had seen service in Europe, and he looked upon a soldier as a machine, with no soul, fit only to obey orders. That was not the kind of a soldier I was. During the day's march the boys stripped off everything they could. I know all I had on was a shirt and pants, and a handkerchief around my head. I took off my boots and coat and let the colored cook of the company strap them on to his saddle with the camp kettles. He usually rode right behind the company, and I thought I could get my things any time if I wanted to dress up. It was the hardest day's march that I ever experienced, lungs full of dust, and every man so covered with dust that you could not recognize your nearest neighbor.

Afternoon the command halted beside a stream, and it was announced that we would go into camp for the night. The colored cook came along soon after, and he was perfectly pale, whether from dust or fright I could not tell, but he announced to me, in a manner that showed that he appreciated the calamity which had befallen the command, that he had lost my boots. I was going to kill him, but my carbine was full of dust, and I made it a point never to kill a man with a dirty gun, so I let him explain. He said:

"I fell back to de rear, by dat plantation where de cotton gin was burning, to see if I couldn't get a canteen of b.u.t.termilk to wash de dust outen my froat, when dat Dutch Noo Jersey gang come along, and de boss he said, 'nicker, you got back ahead fere you pelong, or I gick you in de pack mit a saber, aind't it,' and when I get on my mule to come along he grab de boots and he say, 'nicker, dot boots is better for me,'

and when I was going to take dem away from him he stick me in de pants wid a saber. Den I come away."

I could have stood up under having an arm shot off, but to lose my boots was more than I could bear. It never did take me long to decide on any important matter, and in a moment I decided to invade the camp of that New Jersey regiment, recapture my boots or annihilate every last foreigner on our soil, so I started off, barefooted, without a coat, and covered with dust, for the headquarters of the New Jersey fellows. They had been in camp but a few minutes, but every last one of them had taken a bath in the river, brushed the dust off his clothes, and looked ready for dress parade. That was one fault of those foreigners, they were always clean, if they had half a chance. I went right to the colonel's tent, and he was surrounded with officers, and they were opening bottles of beer, and how cool it looked. There was something peculiar about those foreigners, no matter if they were doing duty in the most inaccessible place in the south, and were short of transportation, you could always find beer at their headquarters. I walked right in, and the colonel was just blowing the foam off a gla.s.s of beer. He looked at me in astonishment, and I said in a voice husky from dust down my neck:

"Colonel this is an important epoch in the history of our beloved country. Events have transpired within the past hour, which leaves it an open question whether, as a nation, we are afoot or on horseback."

"Great hefens," said the colonel, stopping with his gla.s.s of beer half drank, "you vrighten me. Vot has habbened. But vait, und dake a gla.s.s of beer, as you seem exhausted, und proke up. Captain Ouskaspiel, hand the shendleman some peer. Mine Gott, bud you look hard, strancher."

I do not believe that I ever drank anything that seemed to go right to the spot, the way that beer did. It seemed to start a freshet of dust down my neck, clear my throat, and brace me up. While I was drinking it I noticed that the German colonel and his officers eyed me closely, my bare feet, my flannel shirt full of dust, and my hair that looked as though I had stood on my head in the road. They waited for me to continue, and after draining the last drop in the gla.s.s, I said:

"Colonel, it was no ordinary circ.u.mstance that induced you brave foreigners, holding allegiance to European sovereigns, to fly to arms to defend this new nation from an internecine foe. While we natives, and to the manor born, left our plows in the furrow, to spring to-arms, you left your shoemaker shops, the spigots of your beer saloons, the marts of commerce in which you were engaged, and stood shoulder to shoulder.

Where the bullets of the enemy whistled, there could be found the brave Dutchmen of New Jersey. It brings tears to eyes unused to weeping, to think of the German fathers and mothers of our land, who are waiting and watching for the return of sons who will never come back, and this is, indeed, harder for them to bear, when we reflect that these boys were not obliged to fight for our country, holding allegiance, as I said before to----"

"Waid a minute, of you blease," said the colonel. "Dake von more drink, and dell me, of you please, vot de h.e.l.l you vos drying to get at. Capt.

Hemrech, gif der shendleman a gla.s.s of beer."

A second gla.s.s of beer was given me, and I drank it. There was evidently a suspicion on the part of the New Jersey officers that the importance of my visit had been over-rated by them, and they seemed anxious to have me come to the point.

"On the march today," said I, wiping the foam off my moustache on my shirt-sleeve, "one of your thieving soldiers stole my boots from our n.i.g.g.e.r cook, who was conveying them for me. A cavalry soldier without boots, is no good. I came after my boots, and I will have them or blood.

Return my boots, or by the eternal, the Wisconsin cavalry regiment will come over here and everlastingly gallop over your fellows. The const.i.tution of the United States and the Declaration of Independence, are on my side. In civil life a man's house is his castle. In the army a man's boots is his castle. Give me my boots, sir, or the blood of the slain will rest on your heads."

The colonel was half mad and half pleased. He tapped his forehead with his fore-finger, and looked at his officers in a manner that showed he believed my head was wrong, but he said kindly:

"My man, you go oud and sit under a tree, in the shade, and I vill hafe your poots found if they are in my rechiment," and I went out. I heard the colonel say to one of his officers, "It vas too pad dot two good gla.s.ses of beer should be spoiled, giving them to dot grazy solcher. Ve must be more careful mit de beer."

Pretty soon an officer came out and asked me how the boots were taken, and I gave him all the information I had, and he sent men all around the regiment, and in an hour or so the boots were brought to me, the man who stole them was arrested, the officers apologized to me, and I went back to my regiment in triumph, with my boots under my arms. The incident got noised around among the other regiments, and for months after that, when the colonel of the New Jersey cavalry rode by another regiment, the boys would yell out, "Boots, boots," or when a company or squad of the New Jersey fellows would pa.s.s along, it was "Look out for your boots! The shoemakers are coming." For stealing that one pair of boots, by one man, a whole regiment got a reputation for stealing that hung to it a long time. Ten years afterward I was connected with a New York daily paper, and one evening I was detailed to go to a New Jersey city to report the commencement exercises of a college. In the programme of exercises I noticed that a man of the same name of that of the New Jersey colonel, was one of the college professors, and I wondered if he was the same man. During the evening he put in an appearance on the stage, and I could see that he was the colonel who had given me the beer, and caused my boots to be returned to me. After the exercises of the evening, the New York newspaper men were invited to partake of a collation in the apartments of the college officials, and the professors were introduced to the newspaper men. When my turn came to be introduced, and the old colonel stood before me, I said:

"General, you were in the army, were you not?"

"Yezzer!" said the old man. "I am broud to say dot I fought for my adopted country. But vy do you ask?"

"We have met before. I, too, was a soldier. I was at your headquarters once, on a very important mission. I was entertained, sir, in your tent, permitted, to partake of the good, things you had, and sent away happy.

"Vell, you dond't say so," said the old man, as he pressed my hand warmly. "Vere vas dis dat you were my guest, and vot vas de important message?" and he smiled all over his face at the prospect of hearing something about old times.

"It was in Mississippi, between Montgomery, Ala., and Vicksburg. Do you remember the hottest and dustiest day that ever was, when we camped on a little stream?" said I.