THE SOLDIER'S PAY. RATIONS; ALLUSIONS TO SOME OF THE USEFUL LESSONS
LEARNED BY SERVICE IN THE ARMY IN TIME OF WAR. COURAGE IN BATTLE.
This story is now drawing to a close, so I will here speak of some
things of a general nature, and which have not been heretofore
mentioned, except perhaps casually.
One important feature in the life of a soldier was the matter of his
pay, and a few words on that subject may not be out of place. When I
enlisted in January, 1862, the monthly pay of the enlisted men of a
regiment of infantry was as follows: First sergeant, $20; duty
sergeants, $17; corporals and privates, $13. By act of Congress of May
1st, 1864, the monthly pay of the enlisted men was increased, and from
that date was as follows: First sergeant, $24; duty sergeants, $20;
corporals, $18; privates, $16. That rate existed as long, at least, as
we remained in the service. The first payment made to our regiment was
on May 1st, 1862, while we were in camp at Owl Creek, Tennessee. The
amount I received was $49.40, and of this I sent $45 home to my father
at the first opportunity. For a poor man, he was heavily in debt at the
time of my enlistment, and was left without any boys to help him do the
work upon the farm, so I regarded it as my duty to send him every
dollar of my pay that possibly could be spared, and did so as long as I
was in the service. But he finally got out of debt during the war. He
had good crops, and all manner of farm products brought high prices, so
the war period was financially a prosperous one for him. And, to be
fair about it, I will say that he later repaid me, when I was pursuing
my law studies at the Albany, New York, Law School, almost all the
money I had sent him while in the army. So the result really was that
the money received by me, as a soldier, was what later enabled me to
qualify as a lawyer.
I have heretofore said in these reminiscences that the great
"stand-bys" in the way of the food of the soldiers of the western
armies were coffee, sow-belly, Yankee beans, and hardtack. But other
articles of diet were also issued to us, some of which we liked, while
others were flat failures. I have previously said something about the
antipathy I had for rice. The French General, Baron Gourgaud, in his
"Talks of Napoleon at St. Helena" (p. 240), records Napoleon as having
said, "Rice is the best food for the soldier." Napoleon, in my opinion,
was the greatest soldier that mankind ever produced,--but all the same,
I emphatically dissent from his rice proposition. His remark may have
been correct when applied to European soldiers of his time and
place,--but I know it wouldn't fit western American boys of 1861-65.
There were a few occasions when an article of diet was issued called
"desiccated potatoes." For "desiccated" the boys promptly substituted
"desecrated," and "desecrated potatoes" was its name among the rank and
file from start to finish. It consisted of Irish potatoes cut up fine
and thoroughly dried. In appearance it much resembled the modern
preparation called "grape nuts." We would mix it in water, grease, and
salt, and make it up into little cakes, which we would fry, and they
were first rate. There was a while when we were at Bolivar, Tennessee,
that some stuff called "compressed vegetables" was issued to us, which
the boys, almost unanimously, considered an awful fraud. It was
composed of all sorts of vegetables, pressed into small bales, in a
solid mass, and as dry as threshed straw. The conglomeration contained
turnip-tops, cabbage leaves, string-beans (pod and all), onion blades,
and possibly some of every other kind of a vegetable that ever grew in
a garden. It came to the army in small boxes, about the size of the
Chinese tea-boxes that were frequently seen in this country about fifty
years ago. In the process of cooking, it would swell up
prodigiously,--a great deal more so than rice. The Germans in the
regiment would make big dishes of soup out of this "baled hay," as we
called it, and they liked it, but the native Americans, after one
trial, wouldn't touch it. I think about the last box of it that was
issued to our company was pitched into a ditch in the rear of the camp,
and it soon got thoroughly soaked and loomed up about as big as a
fair-sized hay-cock. "Split-peas" were issued to us, more or less,
during all the time we were in the service. My understanding was that
they were the ordinary garden peas. They were split in two, dried, and
about as hard as gravel. But they yielded to cooking, made excellent
food, and we were all fond of them. In our opinion, when properly
cooked, they were almost as good as Yankee beans.
When our forces captured Little Rock in September, 1863, we obtained
possession, among other plunder, of quite a quantity of Confederate
commissary stores. Among these was a copious supply of "jerked beef."
It consisted of narrow, thin strips of beef, which had been dried on
scaffolds in the sun, and it is no exaggeration to say that it was
almost as hard and dry as a cottonwood chip. Our manner of eating it
was simply to cut off a chunk about as big as one of our elongated
musket balls, and proceed to "chaw." It was rather a comical sight to
see us in our cabins of a cold winter night, sitting by the fire, and
all solemnly "chawing" away, in profound silence, on the Johnnies'
jerked beef. But, if sufficiently masticated, it was nutritious and
healthful, and we all liked it. I often thought it would have been a
good thing if the government had made this kind of beef a permanent and
regular addition to our rations. As long as kept in the dry, it would
apparently keep indefinitely, and a piece big enough to last a soldier
two or three days would take up but little space in a haversack.
Passing from the topic of army rations, I will now take leave to say
here, with sincerity and emphasis, that the best school to fit me for
the practical affairs of life that I ever attended was in the old 61st
Illinois during the Civil War. It would be too long a story to
undertake to tell all the benefits derived from that experience, but a
few will be alluded to. In the first place, when I was a boy at home, I
was, to some extent, a "spoiled child." I was exceedingly particular
and "finicky" about my food. Fat meat I abhorred, and wouldn't touch
it, and on the other hand, when we had chicken to eat, the gizzard was
claimed by me as my sole and exclusive tid-bit, and "Leander" always
got it. Let it be known that in the regiment those habits were gotten
over so soon that I was astonished myself. The army in time of war is
no place for a "sissy-boy;" it will make a man of him quicker, in my
opinion, than any other sort of experience he could undergo. And
suffice it to say, on the food question, that my life as a soldier
forever cured me of being fastidious or fault-finding about what I had
to eat. I have gone hungry too many times to give way to such weakness
when sitting down in a comfortable room to a table provided with plenty
that was good enough for any reasonable man. I have no patience with a
person who is addicted to complaining or growling about his food. Some
years ago there was an occasion when I took breakfast at a decent
little hotel at a country way-station on a railroad out in Kansas. It
was an early breakfast, for the accommodation of guests who would leave
on an early morning train, and there were only two at the table,--a
young traveling commercial man and myself. The drummer ordered (with
other things) a couple of fried eggs, and that fellow sent the poor
little dining room girl back with those eggs three times before he got
them fitted to the exact shade of taste to suit his exquisite palate.
And he did this, too, in a manner and words that were offensive and
almost brutal. It was none of my business, so I kept my mouth shut and
said nothing, but I would have given a reasonable sum to have been the
proprietor of that hotel about five minutes. That fool would then have
been ordered to get his grip and leave the house,--and he would have
left, too.
I do not know how it may have been with other regiments in the matter
now to be mentioned, but I presume it was substantially the same as in
ours. And the course pursued with us had a direct tendency to make one
indifferent as to the precise cut of his clothes. It is true that
attention was paid to shoes, to that extent, at least, that the
quartermaster tried to give each man a pair that approximated to the
number he wore. But coats, trousers, and the other clothes were piled
up in separate heaps, and each man was just thrown the first garment on
the top of the heap; he took it and walked away. If it was an
outrageous fit, he would swap with some one if possible, otherwise he
got along as best he could. Now, in civil life, I have frequently been
amused in noting some dudish young fellow in a little country store
trying to fit himself out with a light summer coat, or something
similar. He would put on the garment, stand in front of a big looking
glass, twist himself into all sorts of shapes so as to get a view from
every possible angle, then remove that one, and call for another.
Finally, after trying on about every coat in the house, he would leave
without making a purchase, having found nothing that suited the exact
contour of his delicately moulded form. A very brief experience in a
regiment that had a gruff old quartermaster would take that tuck out of
that Beau Brummell, in short order.
Sometimes I have been, at a late hour on a stormy night, at a
way-station on some "jerk-water" railroad, waiting for a belated train,
with others in the same predicament. And it was comical to note the
irritation of some of these fellows and the fuss they made about the
train being late. The railroad, and all the officers, would be
condemned and abused in the most savage terms on account of this little
delay. And yet we were in a warm room, with benches to sit on, with
full stomachs, and physically just as comfortable as we possibly could
be. The thought would always occur to me, on such episodes, that if
those kickers had to sit down in a dirt road, in the mud, with a cold
rain pelting down on them, and just endure all this until a broken
bridge in front was fixed up so that the artillery and wagon train
could get along,--then a few incidents of that kind would be a benefit
to them. And instances like the foregoing might be multiplied
indefinitely. On the whole, life in the army in a time of war tended to
develop patience, contentment with the surroundings, and equanimity of
temper and mind in general. And, from the highest to the lowest,
differing only in degree, it would bring out energy, prompt decision,
intelligent action, and all the latent force of character a man
possessed.
I suppose, in reminiscences of this nature, one should give his
impressions, or views, in relation to that much talked about
subject,--"Courage in battle." Now, in what I have to say on that head,
I can speak advisedly mainly for myself only. I think that the
principal thing that held me to the work was simply pride; and am of
the opinion that it was the same thing with most of the common
soldiers. A prominent American functionary some years ago said
something about our people being "too proud to fight." With the
soldiers of the Civil War it was exactly the reverse,--they were "too
proud to run";--unless it was manifest that the situation was hopeless,
and that for the time being nothing else could be done. And, in the
latter case, when the whole line goes back, there is no personal odium
attaching to any one individual; they are all in the same boat. The
idea of the influence of pride is well illustrated by an old-time war
story, as follows: A soldier on the firing line happened to notice a
terribly affrighted rabbit running to the rear at the top of its speed.
"Go it, cotton-tail!" yelled the soldier. "I'd run too if I had no more
reputation to lose than you have."
It is true that in the first stages of the war the fighting qualities
of American soldiers did not appear in altogether a favorable light.
But at that time the fact is that the volunteer armies on both sides
were not much better than mere armed mobs, and without discipline or
cohesion. But those conditions didn't last long,--and there was never
but one Bull Run.
Enoch Wallace was home on recruiting service some weeks in the fall of
1862, and when he rejoined the regiment he told me something my father
said in a conversation that occurred between the two. They were talking
about the war, battles, and topics of that sort, and in the course of
their talk Enoch told me that my father said that while he hoped his
boy would come through the war all right, yet he would rather "Leander
should be killed dead, while standing up and fighting like a man, than
that he should run, and disgrace the family." I have no thought from
the nature of the conversation as told to me by Enoch that my father
made this remark with any intention of its being repeated to me. It was
sudden and spontaneous, and just the way the old backwoodsman felt. But
I never forgot it, and it helped me several times. For, to be perfectly
frank about it, and tell the plain truth, I will set it down here that,
so far as I was concerned, away down in the bottom of my heart I just
secretly dreaded a battle. But we were soldiers, and it was our
business to fight when the time came, so the only thing to then do was
to summon up our pride and resolution, and face the ordeal with all the
fortitude we could command. And while I admit the existence of this
feeling of dread before the fight, yet it is also true that when it was
on, and one was in the thick of it, with the smell of gun-powder
permeating his whole system, then a signal change comes over a man. He
is seized with a furious desire to kill. There are his foes, right in
plain view, give it to 'em, d---- 'em!--and for the time being he
becomes almost oblivious to the sense of danger.
And while it was only human nature to dread a battle,--and I think it
would be mere affectation to deny it, yet I also know that we common
soldiers strongly felt that when fighting did break loose close at
hand, or within the general scope of our operations, then we ought to
be in it, with the others, and doing our part. That was what we were
there for, and somehow a soldier didn't feel just right for fighting to
be going on all round him, or in his vicinity, and he doing nothing but
lying back somewhere, eating government rations.
But, all things considered, the best definition of true courage I have
ever read is that given by Gen. Sherman in his Memoirs, as follows:
"I would define true courage," (he says,) "to be a perfect sensibility
of the measure of danger, and a mental willingness to endure it."
(Sherman's Memoirs, revised edition, Vol. 2, p. 395.) But, I will
further say, in this connection, that, in my opinion, much depends,
sometimes, especially at a critical moment, on the commander of the men
who is right on the ground, or close at hand. This is shown by the
result attained by Gen. Milroy in the incident I have previously
mentioned. And, on a larger scale, the inspiring conduct of Gen.
Sheridan at the battle of Cedar Creek, Virginia, is probably the most
striking example in modern history of what a brave and resolute leader
of men can accomplish under circumstances when apparently all is lost.
And, on the other hand, I think there is no doubt that the battle of
Wilson's Creek, Missouri, on August 10, 1861, was a Union victory up to
the time of the death of Gen. Lyon, and would have remained such if the
officer who succeeded Lyon had possessed the nerve of his fallen chief.
But he didn't, and so he marched our troops off the field, retreated
from a beaten enemy, and hence Wilson's Creek figures in history as a
Confederate victory. (See "The Lyon Campaign," by Eugene F. Ware, pp.
324-339.) I have read somewhere this saying of Bonaparte's: "An army of
deer commanded by a lion is better than an army of lions commanded by a
deer." While that statement is only figurative in its nature, it is,
however, a strong epigrammatic expression of the fact that the
commander of soldiers in battle should be, above all other things, a
forcible, determined, and brave man.