How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion Part 4

Certainly unless there was something of the kind my men would have come back. As we dismounted at the door; and walked up the steps, the door opened and a fine looking rebel officer appeared smiling.

"Come in, Captain, with your men, and join me in a gla.s.s of wine," said the rebel.

I had never been called "Captain" before, and it touched me in a tender spot. The rebel evidently thought I looked like a captain, and I was proud. He had probably watched my maneuvers, and the way I handled my men, and thought I was no common soldier.

"Well, I don't care if I do," said I, and we walked into a splendid old room, and were bidden to be seated.

"h.e.l.lo, Corp," said my Iron Brigade, as he took his legs down from a table, and poured out a gla.s.s of whisky from a bottle near him, "This is the divil's own place for an aisy life."

"Gorporal," said my Dutch fellow soldier, as he poured out a gla.s.s of schnapps, "Led me indroduce you mit dot repel. He is a tasy, und don'd you forgot aboud it. Mishder repel, dot ish der gorporal fun my gumpany."

The rebel smiled and said he was glad to see me, and hoped I was well, and would I take wine, or something stronger. I took a small gla.s.s of wine, but the rest of the fellows took strong drink, and my Iron Brigade was already full, and the Dutchman was getting full rapidly. Finally I told the rebel officer that I did not like to accept a man's hospitality when I had such an unpleasant duty to perform as to arrest him, but circ.u.mstances seemed to make it necessary. He said that was all right.

In times of war we must do many things that were unpleasant. We took another drink, and then I told him I was sorry to inconvenience him, but he would have to accompany me to camp. He said certainly, he had expected to be captured ever since he saw that the house was surrounded, and while at first he had made up his mind to take his rifle and kill us all from the gallery of the house, he had thought better of it, and would surrender without bloodshed. What was the use of killing any more men? The war was nearly over, and why not submit, and save carnage. I told him that was the way I felt about it. Then he said if I would wait until he retired to an adjoining room and changed his linen, he would be ready. I said of course, certainly, and he went out of a door. I waited about half an hour, until it seemed to me the rebel had had time to change all the linen in the state of Alabama. The Iron Brigade had gone to sleep on a lounge, and the German troop was full as a goat, and some of the others were beginning to feel the hospitality.

"I beg your pardon for intruding," said I, as I opened the door and walked into the room the rebel had entered. "Great Scott, he is gone!"

My army, all except the Iron Brigade and the Dutchman, followed me, and the room was empty. A window was up, through which he had escaped. We searched the house, but there was no rebel captain. On going to the front door I found that the horse belonging to the iron brigade was gone, and that the saddle girths of all the other horses had been unbuckled, so we would be delayed in following him. The Irishman was awakened, and when he found his horse was gone, he sobered up and went to the pasture and borrowed a mule to ride.

It took us half an hour to fix our saddles, so we could ride, and then we sadly started for camp. How could I face the major, and report to him that I had met the rebel captain, talked with him, drank with him, enjoyed his hospitality, and then let him escape? I felt that my military career had come to an inglorious ending. "We rode slow, because the Iron Brigade was insecurely mounted on a slippery bare-backed mule.

As we neared the corporal and one man, that I had left to guard the cross-roads, I noticed that there was a stranger with them, and on riding closer what was my surprise to find that it was the rebel captain, under arrest. So the confounded corporal, whom I had left there so he would be out of the way, and not get any of the glory of capturing the rebel, had captured him, and got _all_ the glory. I was hurt, but putting on a bold military air, like a general who has been whipped, I said:

"Ah, corporal, I see my plan has worked successfully. I arranged it so this prisoner would run right into the trap."

"Yes," said the corporal, throwing away a melon rind that he had been chewing the meat off of, "I saw his nibs coming down the road, and I thought may be he was the one you wanted, so I told him to halt or I would fill his lungs full of lead pills, and he said he guessed he would halt. He said it was a nice day, and he was only trying one of the Yankee cavalry horses, to see how he liked it." "Here, you murdherin'

divil, get down aff that ha.r.s.e," said the Iron Brigade, who had got awake enough to see that the rebel was on his horse. "Take this mule, and lave a dacent gintleman's ha.r.s.e alone."

The rebel smiled, dismounted, gave the Irishman his horse, mounted the mule, and we started for camp. I was never so elated in my life as I was when I rode into camp with that rebel captain beside me on the mule. The object of the expedition had been accomplished, a little different, it is true, from what I had expected and planned, but who knew that it was not a part of my plan to have it turn out as it did? I reflected much, and wondered if it was right for me to report the capture of the Confederate and say nothing about the part played by the other corporal.

That corporal was no military strategist, like me. It was just a streak of luck, his capturing the rebel. He was leaning against the fence where I left him, eating melons, and the rebel came along, and the corporal quit chewing melon long enough to obey my orders and arrest the fellow.

By all rules of military law I was ent.i.tled to the credit, and I would take it, though it made me ashamed to do so. How-ever, generals did the same thing. If a major-general was in command, and ordered a brigadier-general to do a thing and it was a success, the major-general got the credit in the newspapers. So I rode into camp and turned my prisoner over to the major as modestly as possible, with a few words of praise of my gallant command. h.e.l.lo, Jim, said the major to the rebel.

h.e.l.lo, Maje, said the rebel.

"Better take off them togs now, and join your company, said the major.

"I guess so," said the rebel, and he took off his rebel uniform, and the major handed him a blue coat and pair of pants, and he put them on.

I was petrified. The fact was, the rebel was a sergeant in our regiment, who had been detailed as a scout, and had been making a trip into the rebel lines as a spy. I had made an a.s.s of myself in the whole business, and he would tell all the boys about it. I went back to my company crushed.

CHAPTER XI.

I am Detailed to Build a Bridge-It Was a Good Bridge, but Over the Wrong Stream--The General Appears--I am Crushed, in Fact Pulverized!--I am Attacked with Rheumatism.

After the episode, related last week, in which I foolishly organized a regular battle, to capture a supposed rebel, who turned out to be a member of my own regiment, I expected to be the laughing stock of all the soldiers, and that my commission as corporal would be taken away from me, and that I would be reduced to the ranks, and when, the next morning, the colonel sent for me to come to his tent, it was a stand-off with me whether I would take to the woods and desert, in disgrace, and never show up again, or go to the colonel, face the music, and admit that I had made an a.s.s of myself. Finally I decided to visit the colonel. On the way to his tent I noticed that our force had been augmented greatly. The road was full of wagons, the fields near us were filled with infantry and artillery, and there were fifty wagons or more loaded with pontoons, great boats, or the frame-work of boats, which were to be covered with canva.s.s, which was water-proof, and the boats were to be used for bridges across streams. The colonel had not told me anything about the expected arrival of more troops, and it worried me a good deal. May be there was a big battle coming off, and I might blunder into it unconscious of danger, and: get the liver blowed out of me by a cannon. I felt that the colonel had not treated me right in keeping me in ignorance of all this preparation. I went to the colonel's tent and there was quite a crowd of officers, some with artillery uniforms, several colonels, and one general with a star on his shoulder straps, and a crooked sword with a silver scabbard, covered with gold tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs.

I felt quite small with those big officers, but I tried to look brave, and as though I was accustomed to attending councils of war. The colonel smiled at me as I came in which braced me up a good deal.

General, this is the sergeant I spoke to you about, said the colonel, as he turned from a map they had been looking at. I felt pale when the colonel addressed me as sergeant, and was going to call his attention to the mistake, when the general said:

Sergeant, the colonel tells me that you can turn your hand to almost anything. What line of business have you worked at previous to your enlistment?

"Well, I guess there is nothing that is usually done in a country village that I have not done. I have clerked in a grocery, tended bar, drove team on a threshing machine, worked in a slaughter house, drove omnibus, worked in a-saw-mill, learned the printing trade, rode saw-logs, worked in a pinery, been brakeman on a freight train, acted as a.s.sistant chambermaid in a livery stable, clerked in a hotel, worked on a farm, been an auctioneer, edited a newspaper, took up the collection in church, canva.s.sed for books, been life-insurance agent, worked at bridge-building, took tintypes, sat on a jury, been constable, been deck-hand on a steamboat, chopped cord-wood, run a cider-mill, and drove a stallion in a four-minute race at a county fair."

"That will do," said the general. "You will be placed in charge of a pioneer corps, and you will go four miles south, on the road, where a bridge has been destroyed across a small bayou, build a new bridge strong enough to cross artillery, then move on two miles to a river you will find, and look out a good place to throw a pontoon bridge across.

The first bridge you will build under an artillery fire from the rebels, and when it is done let a squad of cavalry cross, then the pontoon train, and a regiment of infantry. Then light out for the river ahead of the pontoon train, with the cavalry. The pioneer corps will be ready in fifteen minutes."

The colonel told me to hurry up, but I called him out of his tent and asked him if I was really a sergeant, or if it was a mirage. He said if I made a success of that bridge, and the command got across, and I was not killed I would be appointed sergeant. He said the general would try me as a bridge-builder, and if I was a success he would try me, no doubt, in other capacities, such as driving team on a threshing machine, and editing a newspaper.

When, I went on after my horse, being pretty proud. The idea of being picked out of so many non-commissioned officers, and placed in charge of a pioneer corps, and sent ahead of the army to rebuild a bridge that had been destroyed, with a prospect of being promoted or killed, was glory enough for one day, and I rode back to headquarters feeling that the success of the whole expedition rested on me. If I built a corduroy bridge that would pa.s.s that whole army safely over, artillery and all, would anybody enquire who built the bridge. Of course, if I built a bridge that would break down, and drown somebody, everybody would know who built it. The twenty men were mounted, and ready, and the general told me to go to the quartermaster and get all the tools I wanted, and I took twenty axes, ten shovels, two log chains, and was riding away, when the general said:

"When you get there, and look the ground over, make up your mind exactly at what hour and minute you can have the bridge completed, and send a courier back to inform me, and at that hour the head of the column will be there, and the bridge must be ready to cross on."

I said that would be all right, and we started out. In about forty minutes we had arrived, at the bayou, and I called a private soldier who used to do logging in the woods, and we looked the thing over. The timber necessary was right on the bank of the stream.

"Jim," I said to the private, "I have got to build a bridge across this stream strong enough to cross artillery. I shall report to the general that he can send, along his artillery at seventeen minutes after eight o clock this evening. Am I right?"

"Well," said Jim, as he looked at the standing timber, at the stream, and spit some black tobacco juice down on the red ground, "I should make it thirty-seven minutes after eight. You see, a sh.e.l.l may drop in here and kill a mule, or something, and delay us. Make it thirty-seven, and I will go you."

We finally compromised by splitting the difference, and I sent a courier back to the general, with my compliments, and with the information that at precisely eight o clock and twenty-seven minutes he could start across. Then we fell to work. Large, long trees were cut for stringers, and hewn square, posts were made to prop up the stringers, though the stringers would have held any weight. Then small trees were cut and flattened on two sides, for the road-bed, holes bored in them and pegs made to drive through them into the stringers. A lot of cavalry soldiers never worked as those men did. Though there was only twenty of them, it seemed as though the woods were full of men. Trees were falling, and axes resounding, and men yelling at mules that were hauling logs, and the scene reminded me of logging in the Wisconsin pineries, only these were men in uniform doing the work. About the middle of the afternoon we had the stringers across, when there was a half dozen shots heard down the stream, and bullets began "zipping" all around the bridge, and we knew the rebels were onto the scheme, and wanted it stopped. I got behind a tree when the bullets began to come, to think it over. My first impulse was to leave the bridge and go back and tell the general that I couldn't build no bridge unless everything was quiet. That I had never built bridges where people objected to it. I asked the private what we had better do. He said his idea was to knock off work on the bridge for just fifteen minutes, cross the stream on the stringers, and go down there in the woods and scare the life out of those rebels, drive them away, and make them think the whole army was after them, then cross back and finish the bridge. That seemed feasible enough, so about a dozen of us squirreled across the stringers with our carbines, and the rest went down the stream on our side, and all of us fired a dozen rounds from our Spencer repeaters, right into the woods where the rebels seemed to be.

When we did so, the rebels must have thought there was a million of us, for they scattered too quick, and we had a quiet life for two hours. We had got the bridge nearly completed, when there was a hissing sound in the air, a streak of smoke, and a powder magazine seemed to explode right over us. I suppose I turned pale, for I had never heard anything like it. Says I, "Jim, excuse me, but what kind of a thing is that?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: Xcuse me, but what kind of a thing is that? 175]

Jim kept on at work, remarking, O, nothing only they are a sh.e.l.lin on us. And so that was a sh.e.l.l. I had read of sh.e.l.ls and seen pictures of them in _Harper's Weekly_, but I never supposed I would hear one.

Presently another came, and I wanted to pack up and go away. I looked at my pioneers, and they did not pay any more attention to the sh.e.l.ls than they would, to the braying of mules. I asked Jim if there wasn't more or less danger attached to the building of bridges, in the South, and he, the old veteran, said:

"Corp, don't worry as long as they hain't got our range. Them 'ere sh.e.l.l are going half a mile beyond us, and we don't need to worry. Just let em think they are killing us off by the dozen, and they will keep on sending sh.e.l.ls right over us. If we had a battery here to sh.e.l.l back, they would get our range, and make it pretty warm for us. But now it is all guess work with them, and we are as safe as we would be in Oshkosh.

Let's keep right on with the bridge."

I never can explain what a comfort Jim's remarks were to me. After listening to him, I could work right along, driving pegs in the bridge, and pay no attention to the sh.e.l.ls that were going over us. In fact, I lit my pipe and smoked, and began to figure how much it was going to cost the Confederacy to "celebrate" that way. It was costing them at the rate of fourteen dollars a minute, and I actually found myself laughing at the good joke on the rebels. Pretty soon a courier rode up, from the general, asking if the sh.e.l.ling was delaying the bridge. I sent word back that it was not delaying us in the least; in fact, it was hurrying us a little, if anything, and he could send along his command twenty-seven minutes sooner than I had calculated, as the bridge would be ready to cross on at eight o'clock sharp. At a quarter to eight, just as the daylight was fading, and we had lighted pine torches to see to eat our supper, an orderly rode up and said the general and staff had been looking for me for an hour, and were down at the forks of the road. I told the orderly to bring the general and staff right up to the headquarters, and we would entertain them to the best of our ability, and he rode off. Then we sat down under a tree and smoked and played seven up by the light of pine torches, and waited. I was never so proud of anything in my life, as I was of that bridge, and it did not seem to me as though a promotion to the position of sergeant was going to be sufficient recompense for that great feat of engineering. It was as smooth as though sawed plank had covered it, and logs were laid on each side to keep wagons from running off. I could see, in my mind, hundreds of wagons, and thousands of soldiers, crossing safely, and I would be a hero. My breast swelled so my coat was too tight. Presently I heard some one swearing down the road, the clanking of sabres, and in a few moments the general rode into the glare of the torch-light. I had struck an att.i.tude at the approach of the bridge, and thought that I would give a good deal if an artist could take a picture of my bridge, with me, the great engineer, standing upon it, and the head of the column just ready to cross. I was just getting ready to make a little speech to the general, presenting the bridge to him, as trustee of the nation, for the use of the army, when I got a sight of his face, as a torch flared up and lit the surroundings. It was pale, and if he was not a madman, I never saw one. He fairly frothed at the mouth, as he said, addressing a soldier who had fallen in the stream, during the afternoon, and who was putting on his shirt, which he had dried by a fire:

"Where is the corporal, the star idiot, who built that bridge?"

I couldn't have been more surprised if he had killed me. This was a nice way to inquire for a gentleman who had done as much for the country as I had, in so short a time. I felt hurt, but, summoning to my aid all the gall I possessed, I stepped forward, and, in as sarcastic a manner as I could a.s.sume, I said:

"I am the sergeant, sir, who has wrought this work, made a highway in twelve hours, across a torrent, and made is possible for your army to cross."

"Well, what do you suppose my army wants to cross this confounded ditch for? What business has the army got in that swamp over there? You have gone off the main road, where I wanted a bridge built, and built one on a private road to a plantation, where n.o.body wants to cross. This bridge is of no more use to me than a bridge across the Mississippi river at its source. You, sir, have just simply raised h.e.l.l, that's what you have done."

Talk about being crushed! I was pulverized. I felt like jumping into the stream and drowning myself. For a moment I could not speak, because I hadn't anything to say. Then I thought that it would be pretty tough to go off and leave that bridge without the general's seeing what a good job it was, so I said:

"Well, general, I am sorry you did not give me more explicit instructions, but I wish you would get down and examine this bridge. It is a daisy, and if it is not in the right place we can move it anywhere you want it."

That seemed to give the general an idea, and he dismounted and examined it. He said it was as good a job as he ever saw, and if it was a mile down the road, across another bayou, where he wanted to cross, he would give a fortune. I told him if he would give me men enough and wagons enough, I would move it to where he wanted it, and have it ready by daylight the next morning. He agreed, and that was the hardest nights work I ever did. Every stick of timber in my pet bridge had to be taken off separately, and moved over a mile, but it was done, and at daylight the next morning I had the pleasure of calling the general and telling him that the bridge was ready. I thought he was a little mean when he woke up and rubbed his eyes, and said:

"Now, you are sure you have got it in the right place this time, for if that bridge has strayed away onto anybody's plantation this time, you die."

The army crossed all right, and I had the proud pleasure of standing by the bridge until the last man was across, when I rode up to my regiment and reported to the colonel, pretty tired.{*} He was superintending the laying of a pontoon bridge across a large river, a few miles from my bridge, and he said: