Under The Stars And Bars Part 6

He hotly hurried to and fro, To find the author of his woe; The search was vain for chance was slim To fasten guilt on either Jim.

SKIRMISHING FOR PIE

Dessert was not a standing item on our army bill of fare, and when, by chance or otherwise, our menu culminated in such a course, moderation in our indulgence was one of the lost arts. One day in '63, W. J. Steed and I, with several other comrades chanced to be in Savannah at the dinner hour. Our rations for a long time had known no change from the daily round of corn bread and fat bacon, and we decided to vary this monotony by a meal at the Screven House. The first course was disposed of and dessert was laid before us. Steed finished his but his appet.i.te for pie was still unsatisfied. Calling a waiter he said, "Bring me some more pie." "We furnish only one piece," said the waiter.

The first course plates had not been removed from the table, but simply shoved aside. The waiter pa.s.sed on and Steed pushed the dessert plate from him and gently drawing the other back in his front, awaited results. Another waiter pa.s.sed and thinking Steed had not been served, brought him another piece of pie. This being disposed of the program was again repeated and still another waiter supplied dessert. The shifting process was continued until his commissary department could hold no more and he was forced to retire upon the laurels he had won in the field of gastronomic diplomacy.

STEED AND THE SUGAR

My friend's penchant for pie may have had its influence in the origin of a problem in the company, which like the squaring of the circle has never received a satisfactory solution. He held during his term of service the office of commissary sergeant for the company, a position in which it was difficult at any time and impossible when rations were scarce, to give entire satisfaction. These difficulties in his case were, perhaps, enhanced by the peculiarities of his poetic temperament, which caused him to live among the stars and gave him a distaste for the bread and meat side of life, except possibly as to pie. Try as faithfully as he would to show strict impartiality in the distribution, there was sometimes a dim suspicion that the bone in the beef fell oftener to other messes than his own and that the scanty rations of sugar issued weekly were heaped a little higher when his mess had in contemplation a pie or pudding on the following day. These suspicions finally culminated in an inquiry, which became a proverb of daily use; an inquiry, which formed the concluding argument in every camp discussion, whether on a disputed point in military tactics or on the reconciliation of geological revelation with the Mosaic cosmogony; an inquiry with which Jim McLaughlin and Jim Fleming still salute their former commissary: "What has that to do with Steed and the sugar?"

Of course there was never any foundation for such a feeling and probably never any real suspicion of favoritism in the matter. These things formed the minor key of our soldier life and served as they were intended, to enliven its sometimes dull monotony. My friend, and I am glad to have been honored so long by his friendship, will pardon, I know, in the gentleness of his heart a revival of these memories. Aside from the faithful discharge of the difficult duties of his position, it gives me pleasure to add my willing testimony to the silent witness of his armless sleeve, that on the firing line and in all the sphere of duty, to which the service called him, he was every inch a soldier.

"b.u.t.tER ON MY GREENS."

For the convenience and comfort of the soldiers going to and returning from their commands, "Wayside Homes" were established at different points in the Confederacy where free lunches were served by the fair and willing hands of patriotic young ladies living in the vicinity. A uniform of grey was the only pa.s.sport needed. One of these "Homes" was located at Millen, Ga. Detained there on one occasion, en route to my command at Thunderbolt I was glad to accept their hospitality. Seated at the table enjoying the spread they had prepared one of these fair waiting maids approached me and asked if I would take some b.u.t.ter on my "greens." My gastronomic record as a soldier had been like Joseph's coat, "of many colors." I had eaten almost everything from "cush" and "slapjacks" to raw corn and uncooked bacon. I had made up dough on the top of a stump for a tray and cooked it on a piece of split hickory for an oven. I had eaten salt meat to which the government had good t.i.tle, and fresh meat to which neither I nor the government had any t.i.tle, good or bad. But b.u.t.ter on "greens" was a combination new to my experience and as my digestive outfit had, during my school days, been troubled with a dyspeptic trend, I felt compelled to decline such an addition to a dish that had been boiled with fat bacon.

Notwithstanding the absence of my friend Steed the supply of pie that day was short, and with a degree of self-denial, for which I can not now account, I asked for none. A soldier next me at the table, however, filed his application and when our winsome waitress returned, she handed the desert to me and left my neighbor pieless. I could not recall her fair young face as one I had ever seen before, and I had always been noted for my lack of personal comeliness. I was at a loss therefore to understand why the unsolicited discrimination in my favor had been made.

A few minutes later the problem was solved. Standing on the porch after the meal had ended, this self-same maiden approached me a little timidly and asked, "When did you hear from your brother Sammie?" She and my younger brother, it seemed, had been schoolmates, and, as I learned afterwards, "sweethearts" as well, and the pie business was no longer a mystery.

If she still lives as maid or matron and this sketch should meet her eye, it gives me pleasure to a.s.sure her that the fragrance of her kindly deed though based upon no merit of my own, still lingers lovingly in my memory, like the echo of "faint, fairy footfalls down blossoming ways."

OUR CAMP POET.

"Dropping into poetry" has not been a peculiarity confined to that singular creation of d.i.c.kens' fancy, "Silag Wegg." While not a contagious disease, it is said that a majority of men suffer from it at some period in life. Like measles and whooping cough it usually comes early, is rarely fatal and complete recovery, as a rule, furnishes exemption from further attacks, without vaccination. Under these conditions it is but natural that the Oglethorpes should have had a poet in their ranks. In fact we had two, James E. Wilson and W. J. Steed, who has already figured somewhat in these memories, and who was called Phunie, for short. The latter was, however, only an ex-poet, not ex-officio, nor ex-cathedra, but ex-post facto. His attack had been light, very light, a sort of poetical varioloid. He had recovered and so far as the record shows, there had been no relapse. On the first appearance of the symptoms he had mounted his "Pegasus," which consisted of a stack of barrels in rear of his father's barn, and after an hour's mental labor, he rose and reported progress, but did not ask leave to sit again. The results are summed up in the following poetic gem:

"Here sits Phunie on a barrel, With his feet on another barrel."

He has always claimed that while the superficial reader might find in these lines an apparent lack of artistic finish, with some possible defects as to metre and an unfortunate blending of anapestic and iambic verse, the rhyme was absolutely perfect. I have been unable to discover in them the rhythmic and liquid cadence that marks Buchannan Reade's "Drifting," or the perfection in measure attributed by Poe to Byron's "Ode" to his sister, yet my tender regard for my old comrade disinclines me to take issue with him as to the merits of this, the sole offspring of his poetic genius. My inability to find it in any collection of poetical quotations has induced me to insert it here with the hope of rescuing it from a fate of possibly undeserved oblivion.

Jim Wilson's case was different. His was a chronic attack. "He lisped in numbers for the numbers came." As a poet he was not only a daisy, but, as Tom Pilcher would say, he was a regular geranium. I regret that my memory has retained, with a single exception, only fragments of his many wooings of the muse.

A young lady friend, Miss Eve, of Nashville, asked from Jim a christening contribution to an alb.u.m she had just purchased. He was equal to the occasion. The man and the hour had met. He was in it from start to finish. He filled every page in the book with original verse. I recall now only the following stanza:

"Newton, the man of meditation, The searcher after hidden cause, Who first discovered gravitation And ciphered out attractions laws, Could not, with all his cogitation, Find rules to govern woman's jaws."

But his special forte was parody. A compet.i.tive examination was ordered at Thunderbolt in '63 to fill the position of second sergeant in the company. After studying Hardee's Tactics for a week Jim relieved his feelings in the following impromptu effort:

Tell me not the mournful numbers From a "shoulder" to a "prime,"

For I murmur in my slumbers Make two "motions in one time."

The Oglethorpes, though serving as infantry had clung tenaciously to their artillery organization and to the red stripes and chevrons which marked the heavier arm of the service. On our a.s.signment to Gordon's regiment, the Colonel had made a very strong appeal to us to divide the company and to discard our artillery tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs. At the next Sunday morning inspection Jim's tent bore a placard with this inscription, intended for the Colonel's eye:

"You may cheat or bamboozle us as much as you will, But the sign of artillery will hang round us still."

Probably his masterpiece was a parody on "Maryland," written at Jacksonboro, Tenn., on the eve of our transfer from the 12th Ga.

Battalion. That the reader may understand the personal allusion in the verses it is necessary to say that Edgar Derry, Jim Russell, Ed Clayton and Alph Rogers had been detailed by Col. Capers to fill certain staff positions with the battalion; that Miles Turpin was company drummer and Stowe--whose camp sobriquet was "Calline," was fifer; that in the skirmish at Huntsville, Tenn., W. W. Bussey, who was known in camp as "Busky," had been shot in the temple; that before the final charge on the fort, Col. Capers in crossing a ditch had mired in its bottom and had found some difficulty in extricating himself; that the war horse of the male persuasion ridden by Col. Gracie had been killed in the skirmish and that Randolph was Secretary of War. When the transfer had been effected it was uncertain whether the detailed men would retain their position or would return to the company, and the following verses were written by Jim as an appeal to them to go with us:

Come 'tis the red dawn of the day, Here's your mule, Come, details, join our proud array, Here's your mule.

With Clayton panting for the fray, With Rogers urging on that bay, With Derry bold and Russell gay, Here's your mule. Oh! Here's your mule.

Come for your limbs are stout and strong, Here's your mule, Come for your loafing does you wrong, Here's your mule, Come with your muskets light and long, Rejoin the crowd where you belong, And help us sing this merry song, Here's your mule, Oh! Here's your mule.

Dear fellows break your office chains, Here's your mule, The "Web-feet" should not call in vain, Here's your mule, But if it goes against the grain, "Sick furlough" is the proud refrain, By which you may get off again, Here's your mule. Oh! Here's your mule.

We trust you will not from us scud, Here's your mule, And nip your glory in the bud, Here's your mule, Remember "Busky" bathed in blood, Remember Capers stuck in mud, And gallant Gracie's dying stud, Here's your mule, Oh! Here's your mule.

Ah, though you may awhile stay mum, Here's your mule, To "Calline's" fife and Turpin's drum, Here's your mule, When orders come from Randolph grum, You will not then be deaf nor dumb, Ah, then we know you'll come, you'll come, Here's your mule, Oh! Here's your mule.

And now in conclusion, I am unwilling that my friend, Jim Wilson should be judged solely by these rhymes. If any allusion in them sounds harshly to ears polite, it must be remembered that they were intended, only for soldiers eyes and ears. The son of a Presbyterian missionary to India, he was an educated Christian gentleman, one of the brightest and wittiest men I have ever known, as brave as Julius Caesar and as true to the flag for which he fought as any man who wore the grey.

CHAPTER V.

THE DALTON AND ATLANTA CAMPAIGN.

Our service on the coast ended April 28, 1864. On April 23 orders were received transferring our regiment to Gen. A. R. Wright's Brigade, Army of Northern Virginia. Gen. H. W. Mercer in command, had been ordered to report for duty to Gen. Johnston at Dalton, Ga. As Gordon and Mercer were both Savannah men and their war service to that date had thrown them together, they succeeded in inducing the War Department to change our orders and a.s.sign us to Johnston's Army. April 28 we left Savannah, reaching Dalton at 3 a. m. April 30, and on May 4 were attached to Gen.

W. H. T. Walker's division, three miles east of Dalton. On May 7 Sherman opened his Atlanta campaign and for one hundred days the rattle of musketry, the roar of cannon, the shrieking of sh.e.l.ls and the zip of minies, grew very familiar to us, if not very amusing. Our first sight of the enemy was at Rocky Face Ridge, May 9. Our pickets were driven in and our trenches sh.e.l.led, causing some casualties in the regiment, but none in the Oglethorpes. Lieut. Redd.i.c.k of Co. B, while reading a newspaper in rear of the trenches was killed by a Federal sharpshooter.

No a.s.sault was made on our position, but at three other points in Johnston's line efforts were made to carry the trenches, though the attacks were all repulsed. On the same day Sherman, probably antic.i.p.ating such a result, began his flanking plan of campaign by sending McPherson through Snake Creek Gap to threaten Johnston's line of communications at Resaca. The Federal superiority in numbers at a ratio of nearly two to one, enabled Sherman to cover Johnston's entire front and gave him besides a large force with which to conduct his flanking operations, a policy he pursued persistently and successfully to the end of the campaign. As it is not my purpose to give the general features of this campaign, but simply to record the share borne in it by the 63rd Ga. regiment, I can, perhaps best subserve that purpose by furnishing the following condensed extracts from my "War Diary" for that period, elaborating afterward any special features or incidents that may seem to merit more extended notice.

May 10. Left trenches 1 a. m., marched to a point 3 miles from Resaca.

(11). Marched to Resaca and returned. (12). Marched to a position one mile above Calhoun. (13). Quiet. Being unwell, on invitation of Lieut.

Daniel spent the night with Rev. I. S. Hopkins and himself at the house of his mother in Calhoun.

14. Battle of Resaca. Rejoined command on its way to the front. Walker's division held in reserve until 12 p. m. Then ordered up to reinforce Stewart's division. Exposed to heavy artillery fire while crossing pontoon bridge at Resaca. Heavy fighting in our front. Enemy repulsed.

10 p. m., marched back through Calhoun to Tanner's Ferry.

15. In line of battle. Jackson's brigade charged enemy's line at the Ferry but were repulsed. 10 p. m., returned to Calhoun.

16. Marched to Tanner's Ferry. Heavy skirmishing between Steven's brigade and the enemy. Junius T. Steed of the Oglethorpes, wounded.

Slept on our arms.

17. At 1 a. m. aroused and ordered to fall back to Adairsville. Remained in line of battle until 12 p. m.

18. Fell back four miles below Kingston.

19. Advanced and took position 2 miles from Kingston. Under fire from sharpshooters and skirmishers H. L. Hill killed and T. F. Burbanks wounded. 12 or 15 casualties in regiment. Retired to Ca.s.s station and formed line of battle. Johnston's battle order issued.

20. At 1 a. m. crossed the Etowah and fell back to within two miles of Altoona.

21-22. Quiet. (23). Marched five miles in the direction of Dallas.