FUN AND FROLIC.
In what way to account for it I know not, but so it is, that
soldiers always have been, and I suppose always will be,
merry-hearted fellows and full of good spirits. One would naturally
suppose that, having so much to do with hardship and danger every
day, they would be sober and serious above the generality of men.
But such was by no means the case with our Boys in Blue. In camp,
on the march, nay even in the solemn hour of battle, there was
ever and anon a laugh passing down the line or some sport going
on amongst the tents. Seldom was there wanting some one noted for
his powers of storytelling, to beguile the weary hours about the
camp-fire at the lower end of the company street, or out among
the pines on picket. Few companies could be found without some
native-born wag or wit, whose comical songs or quaint remarks
kept the boys in good humor, while at the same time each and all,
according to the measure of their several capacities, were given
to playing practical jokes of one kind or other for the general
enlivenment of the camp.
There was Corporal Harter, for example, of my own company. I do not
single him out as a remarkable wit, or in any sense as a shining
light in our little galaxy of Boys in Blue; but choose him rather
as an average specimen. More than one was the trick which Harter
played on Andy and myself--though I cannot help but remember, also,
that he sometimes had good ground for so doing, as the following
will show.
It was while we were yet lying around Washington during the winter
of 1863, that Harter and I one day secured a "pass" and went into
the city. In passing the Treasury Department we found a twenty-five
cent note. We had at first a mind to call on the Secretary of the
Treasury and ask whether he had lost it, as we had found it in
front of his establishment; but thinking that it would not go
very far toward paying the expenses of the war, and reflecting
that even if it did belong to Uncle Sam, we belonged to Uncle
Sam too, and so where could be the harm of our keeping it and
laying it out on ourselves?--we finally concluded to spend it at
a certain print-shop on Pennsylvania Avenue, where were exposed
for sale great numbers of colored pictures of different generals
and statesmen, a prize of cheap gilt jewelry being given with each
picture. For the jewelry we cared not a whit; but the pictures
each of us was anxious to possess, for they would make very nice
decorations for our tents, we thought. Having, then, purchased
a number of these with our treasure-trove, and having received
from the shopkeeper a handful of brass earrings, which neither of
us wanted (for what in the world did a soldier want with brass
earrings, or even with gold ones, for the matter of that?), we took
our way to the park, west of the Capitol buildings, and sat down on
a bench.
"Now, Harry," said the corporal, as he sat wistfully looking at a
picture of a general dressed in the bluest of blue uniforms, who,
with sword drawn and horse at full gallop, dismounted cannon in
the rear and clouds of blue smoke in front, was apparently leading
his men on to the desperate charge. The men had not come on the
field yet, but it was of course understood by the general's looks
that they were coming somewhere in the background. A person can't
have _everything_ in a picture, at the rate of four for a quarter,
with a handful of earrings thrown in to clinch the bargain,--all of
which, no doubt, passed rapidly through the corporal's mind as he
examined the pictures,--"Now, Harry, how will we divide 'em?"
"Well, corporal," answered I, "suppose we do it this way: we'll
toss up a penny for it. 'Heads I win, tails you lose,' you know.
If it comes head I'll take the pictures and you'll take the
jewelry; if it comes tail you'll take the jewelry and I'll take the
pictures. That's fair and square, isn't it?"
The corporal's head could not have been very clear that morning,
or he would have seen through this nicely laid little scheme as
clearly as one can see through a grindstone with a hole in the
middle. But the proposition was so rapidly announced, and set
forth with such an appearance of candor and exact justice, that,
not seeing the trap laid for him, he promptly got out a penny
from his pocket, and balancing it on his thumb-nail, while he
thoughtfully squinted up toward a tree-top near by, said,--
"I guess that's fair. Here goes--but, hold on. How is it, now? Say
it over again."
"Why, it's as plain as the nose on your face, man. Don't you
see? If it comes head, then I take the pictures and you take the
jewelry. If it comes tail, then you take the jewelry and I take
the pictures. Nothing could be plainer than that; so, flop her up,
corporal."
"All right, Harry. Here she go--. But hold on!" said he, as a
new light seemed to dawn on his mind, while he raised his cap
and thoughtfully scratched his head. "Let me see. Ah! you young
rascal! You're sharp, you are! Going to gobble up the whole grist
of illuminated generals and statesmen, and leave me this handful
of brass earrings and breastpins to send home to the girl I left
behind me--eh?"
But every dog has his day, and whether or not Harter bided his
time for retaliation, or had quite forgotten about 'heads I win,
tails you lose,' by the time we got down into Virginia, yet so it
was that in more than one camp he gave Andy and myself a world of
trouble. More than one evening in winter-quarters, as we sat about
our fire, cartridges were dropped down our chimney by some unseen
hand, driving us out of our tent in a jiffy; and it was not seldom
that our pan of frying hard-tack was sent a flying by a sudden
explosion. It was wasted breath to ask who did it.
We were lying in camp near the Rappahannock some time along in the
fall of 1863, when Andy said one day,--
"Look here, Harry, let's have some _roast_ beef once. I'm tired of
this everlasting frying and frizzling, and my mouth just waters
for a good roast. And I've just learned how to do it, too, for I
saw a fellow over here in another camp at it, and I tell you it's
just fine. You see, you take your chunk of beef and wrap it up in a
cloth or newspaper, and then you get some clay and cover it thick
all over with the clay, until it looks like a big forty-pound
cannon-ball, and then you put it in among the red-hot coals, and
it bakes hard like a brick; and when it's done, you just crack the
shell off, and out comes your roast fit for the table of a king."
We at once set to work, and all went well enough till Harter came
along that way. While Andy was off for more clay, and I was looking
after more paper, Harter fumbled around our beef, saying he didn't
believe we could roast it that way.
"Just you wait, now," said Andy, coming in with the clay; "we'll
show you."
So we covered our beef thick with stiff clay, and rolled the great
ball into the camp-fire, burying it among the hot ashes and coals,
and sat down to watch it, while the rest of the boys were boiling
their coffee and frying their steaks for dinner. The fire was a
good one, and there were about a dozen black tin cups dangling on
as many long sticks, their several owners squatting about in a
circle,--when all of a sudden, with a terrific bang, amid a shower
of sparks and hot ashes, the coffee-boilers were scattered, right
and left, and a dozen quarts of coffee sent hissing and sizzling
into the fire. Our poor roast beef was a sorry looking mess indeed
when we picked it out of the general wreck.
We always believed that Harter had somehow smuggled a cartridge
into that beef of ours while our backs were turned, and we
determined to pay him back in his own coin on the very first
favorable opportunity. It was a long time, however, before the
coveted opportunity came; in fact it was quite a year afterward,
and happened in this wise.
We were lying in front of Petersburg, some little while after the
celebrated Petersburg mine explosion, of which my readers have no
doubt often heard. We were playing a game of chess one day, Andy
and I, behind the high breastworks. Our chessmen we had whittled
out of soft white pine with our jack-knives. I remember we were at
first puzzled to know how to distinguish our men; for, all being
whittled out of white pine, both sides were of course alike white,
and it was impossible to keep them from getting sadly confused
during the progress of the game. At length, however, we hit on the
expedient of staining one half of our men with tincture of iodine,
which we begged of the surgeon, and then they did quite well. Our
kings we called generals,--one Grant, the other Lee,--the knights
were cavalry, the castles forts, the bishops chaplains, and the
pawns Yanks and Johnny Rebs. We were deep in a game of chess with
these our men one day, when Andy suddenly broke a long silence by
saying:
"Harry, do you remember how Harter blew up our beef-roast last year
down there along the Rappahannock? And don't you think it's pretty
nearly time we should pay him back? Because if you do, I've got a
plan for doing it."
"Yes, Andy, I remember it quite well; but then, you know, we are
not quite sure he did it. Besides, he was corporal then, and he's
captain now, and he might play the mischief with us if he catches
us at any nice little game of that sort."
"Oh, pshaw!" exclaimed Andy, as he threw out his cavalry on my
right flank. "He won't find out; and if he does, 'all's fair in
love, war, and controversy,' you know, and I'm sure we can rely on
his good nature, even if he does get a little riled."
On examining into matters at the conclusion of the game, we found
that the captain was on duty somewhere, and that, so far, the coast
was clear. Entering his tent, we found a narrow bunk of poles on
either side, with an open space of several feet between the two.
Here, while Andy set out in search of ammunition, I was set to
digging a six-inch square hole in the ground, into which we emptied
the powder of a dozen cartridges, covering all carefully with
earth, and laying a long train, or running fuse, out of the rear of
the tent.
When Harter came in for dinner, and was comfortably seated on his
bunk with his cup of bean-soup on his knee, suddenly there was
a fiz-z-z and a boom! and Harter came dashing out of his tent,
covered with gravel and bespattered with bean soup, to the great
merriment of the men, who instantly set up shouts of--
"Fall in your pits!"
"Petersburg mine explosion!"
"'Nother great Union victory!"
Did he get cross? Well, it was natural he should feel a little
vexed when the fur was so rudely brushed the wrong way; but he
tried not to show it, and laughed along with the rest; for in war,
as in peace, a man must learn to join in a laugh at his own expense
sometimes, as well as to make merry over the mishaps of others.
* * * * *
A famous and favorite kind of sport, especially when we had been
long lying in camp in summer, or were in quarters in winter, was
what was commonly known as "raiding the sutler."
We heard a great deal in those days about "raids." We read in the
newspapers which occasionally fell into our hands, or heard on the
picket-line, of raids into Maryland and raids into Pennsylvania,
sometimes by Mosby's men, and sometimes by Stuart's cavalry; and
it was quite natural, when growing weary of the dull monotony of
camp life, to look around for some one to raid. Very often the
sutler was the chosen victim. He was selected, not because he
was a civilian and wore citizen's clothes, but chiefly because
of what seemed to the boys the questionable character of his
pursuit,--making money out of the soldiers. "Here we are,"--for so
the men would reason--"here we are,--left home and took our lives
in our hands--in for 'three years or sooner shot'--get thirteen
dollars a month and live on hard-tack; and over there is that
sutler, at whose shop a man may spend a whole month's pay and
hardly get enough to make a single good meal--it's a confounded
mean business!"
The sutler seldom enjoyed much respect, as how could he when he
flourished and fattened on our hungry stomachs? Of course, if a man
spent the whole of his month's pay for ginger-cakes and sardines,
why it was his own fault. He did not need to spend his money if he
did not choose to do so. But it was hardly in human nature to live
on pork, bean-soup, and hard-tack day after day, and not feel the
mouth water at the sight of the sutler's counter, with its array of
delicacies, poor and common though they were. Besides, the sutler
usually charged most exorbitant prices--two ginger-cakes for five
cents, four apples for a quarter, eighty cents for a small can
of condensed milk, and ninety for a pound of butter, which Andy
usually denounced in vigorous Biblical terms as being as strong as
Samson and as old as Methuselah. Maybe the sutler's charges were
none too high, when his many risks were duly considered; for he
was usually obliged to transport his goods a great distance, over
almost impassable roads, and was often liable to capture by the
enemy's foraging parties, besides being exposed to numerous other
fortunes of war, whereby he might lose his all in an hour. But
soldiers in search of sport were not much disposed to take a just
and fair view of all his circumstances. What they saw was only
this--that they wanted somebody to raid, and who could be a fitter
subject than the sutler?
The sutler's establishment was a large wall tent, usually pitched
on the side of the camp farthest away from the colonel's quarters.
It was therefore in a somewhat exposed and tempting position.
Whenever it was thought well to raid him, the men of his own
regiment would usually enter into a contract with those of some
neighboring regiment--
"You fellows come over here some night and raid our sutler, and
then we'll come over to your camp some night and raid your sutler.
Will you do it?"
It was generally agreed to, this courteous offer of friendly
offices; and great, though indescribable, was the sport which often
resulted. For when all had been duly arranged and made ready, some
dark night when the sutler was sleeping soundly in his tent, a
skirmish line from the neighboring regiment would cautiously pick
its way down the hill and through the brush, and silently surround
the tent. One party, creeping close in by the wall of the tent,
would loosen the ropes and remove them from the stakes on the one
side, while another party on the other side, at a given signal,
would pull the whole concern down over the sutler's head. And
then would arise yells and cheers for a few moments, followed by
immediate silence as the raiding party would steal quietly away.
Did they steal his goods? Very seldom; for soldiers are not
thieves, and plunder was not the object, but only fun. Why did
not the officers punish the men for doing this? Well, sometimes
they did. But sometimes the officers believed the sutler to be
exorbitant in his charges and oppressive to the men, and cared
little how soon he was cleared out and sent a-packing; and
therefore they enjoyed the sport quite as well as the men, and
often did as Nelson did when he put his blind eye to the telescope
and declared he did not see the signal to recall the fleet. They
winked at the frolic and came on the scene usually in ample time to
condole with the sutler, but quite too late to do him any service.
Thus, once when the sutler was being raided he hastily sent for
the "officer of the day," whose business it was to keep order in
the camp. But he was so long in coming, that the boys were in the
height of their sport when he arrived; and not wishing to spoil
their fun, he gave his orders in two quite different ways,--one in
a very loud voice, intended for the sutler to hear, and the other
in a whisper, designed for the boys:--
(_Loud._) "Get out of this! Put you all in the guard-house!"
(_Whisper._) "Pitch in, boys! Pitch in, boys!"
The sutler's tent was often a favorite lounging place with the
officers. One evening early a party of about a dozen officers were
seated on boxes and barrels in the sutler's establishment. All of
them wanted cigars, but no one liked to call for them, for cigars
were so dear that no one cared about footing the bill for the
whole party, and yet could not be so impolite as to call for one
for himself alone. As they sat there with the flaps of the tent
thrown back, they could see quite across the camp to the colonel's
quarters beyond.
"Now, boys," said Captain K----, "I see the chaplain coming down
Company C street, and I think he is coming here; and if he does
come here we'll have some fun at his expense. We all want cigars,
and we might as well confess what is an open secret, that none of
us dares to call for a cigar for himself alone, nor feels like
footing the bill for the whole party. Well, let the sutler set out
a few boxes of cigars on the counter, so as to have them handy when
they are needed, and you follow my lead, and we'll see whether we
can't somehow or other make the chaplain yonder pay the reckoning."
The chaplain in question, be it remembered, made some pretension
to literature, and considered himself quite an authority in camp
on all questions pertaining to orthography, etymology, syntax, and
prosody; and presumed to be an umpire in all matters which might
from time to time come into discussion in the realm of letters.
So, when he came into the sutler's tent, Captain K---- saluted him
with,--
"Good evening, Chaplain; you're just the very man we want to see.
We've been having a little discussion here, and as we saw you
coming we thought we'd submit the question to you for decision."
"Well, gentlemen," said the chaplain, with a smile of
gratification, "I shall be only too happy to render you what poor
assistance I can. May I inquire what may be the question under
discussion?"
"It is but a small thing," replied the captain; "you might, I
suppose, call it more a _matter of taste_ than anything else. It
concerns a question of emphasis, or rather, perhaps, of inflection,
and it is this: Would you say, 'Gentlemen, will you have a cigár?'
or 'Gentlemen, will you have a cigàr?'"
Pushing his hat forward as he thoughtfully scratched his head, the
chaplain, after a pause, responded,--
"Well, there don't seem to be much difference between the two. But,
on consideration, I believe I would say, 'Gentlemen, will you have
a cigár?'"
"_Certainly!_" exclaimed they all, in full and hearty chorus, as
they rushed up to the counter in a body and each took a handful
of cigars with a "Thank you, Chaplain," leaving their bewildered
literary umpire to pay the bill,--which, for the credit of his
cloth, I believe he did.