I am Detailed to Drive a Six-Mule Team--I am Covered with
Red Mud--I am Sent on an Expedition of Cold-Blooded Murder--
I Make a Dozen ex-Confederate Soldiers Happy by Setting Them
Up in Business.
After the battle alluded to in my last chapter, it took us a week or
more to get brushed up, the dead buried, and everything ready to go to
living again. A battle to a regiment in the field is a good deal like
a funeral in a family at home. When a member of a family is sick unto
death, all looks dark, and when the sick person dies it seems as though
the world could never look bright again. Every time the relatives and
friends look at any article belonging to a deceased friend, the agony
comes back, and it is quite a while before there is any brightness
anywhere, but in time the tear-stained faces become smiling, the lost
friend is thought of only occasionally, and the world moves along just
the same. So in the army. For a few days the thought of comrades being
gone forever, was painful, and no man wanted to ride the horse whose
owner had been killed, but within a week the feeling was all gone, and
if a horse was a good one he didn't stay in the corral very long on
account of some good fellow having been shot off his back. The boys
who couldn't remember what was trumps on the day of the battle---(and
a soldier has got to be greatly interested in something else to forget
what is trumps) returned to their card-playing, and no one would know,
to look at them, that they had passed through a pretty serious scare,
and seen their comrades fall all around. We told stories of our
experience in the army and at home, and entertained each other. I
couldn't tell much, except what a good shot I was with a shotgun and
rifle, and I told some marvelous stories about hitting the bull's eye.
It got to be tiresome waiting around for my commission to arrive, and I
did not quite enjoy being a commissioned high private. Everybody knew
I had been recommended for a commsssion, and they all called me
“Lieutenant,” but all the same I was doing duty as a private. For two
or three clays I was detailed to drive mules for the quartermaster, and
that was the worst service I ever did perform. It seemed as though
the colonel wanted to prepare me for any service that in the nature of
things I was liable to be called upon to perform. I kicked some at being
detailed to drive a six-mule team, but the colonel said I might see the
time when I could save the government a million dol-lars by being able
to jump on to a wheel mule and drive a wagon loaded with ammunition,
or paymaster's cash, out of danger of being captured by the enemy. So I
went to work and learned to gee-haw a six-mule team of the stubbornest
mules in the world, hauling bacon, but there was no romance in taking
care of six mules that would kick so you had to put the harness on them
with a pitchfork, for fear of having your head kicked off. If I ever
get a pension it will be for my loss of character and temper in driving
those mules. I have been in some dangerous places, but I was never in
so dangerous a place, in battle, as I was one day while driving those
mules. One of the lead mules got his forward foot over the bridle some
way, and I went to fix it, and the team started and “straddled” me. As
soon as I saw that I was between the two lead mules, and that the team
had started, I knew my only-safety was in laying down and taking the
chances of the three pairs of mules and wagon going straight over me.
To attempt to get out would mix them all up, so I fell right down in
the mud, which was about a foot deep, and just like soft mortar. As the
mules passed on each side of me, every last one of them kicked at me,
and I was under the impression that each wheel of the wagon kicked at
me, but I escaped everything except the mud, and when I got up on my
feet behind the wagon, the quartermaster, who was ahead on horseback,
had stopped the team. He called a colored man to drive, and told me I
could go back to the regiment. I tried to sneak in the back way, and not
see anybody, but when I passed the chaplain's tent a lot of officers,
who had been sampling his sanitary stores, come out, and one of them
recognized me, and they insisted on my stopping and talking something
with them. Honestly, there was not an inch of my clothing but was
covered with, red mud, that every soldier remembers who has been through
Alabama. They had fun with me for half an hour and then let me go. I
have never been able to look at a mule since, without a desire to kill
it.
I had said so much about my marksmanship with a rifle, that one day I
was sent for by the colonel. He said he had heard I was a crack shot
with the rifle, and I admitted that I was a pretty good shot. He asked
me if I could hit a man's eye every time at ten paces. I told him I was
almost sure I could. He said he had a duty that must be performed by
some man that was an excellent shot, and I might report at once with
forty rounds of ammunition. I don't know when I had been any more
startled than I was at the colonel's questions, and his manner. Could it
be that he had some secret expedition of murder that he wanted to send
me on. I had never deliberately aimed at a man's eye, and if there
was anybody to be killed I would be no hand to do it in cold blood. It
seemed as though I had rather give anything than to kill a man, but that
was evidently the business the colonel had in his mind. Was it a lot of
prisoners that were to be killed in retaliation for some of our men who
had been treated badly by the enemy. I reported shortly, with my carbine
and forty cartridges, and the colonel told me to go to a certain place
on the bank of the river, a mile away, and report to the chaplain, who
would be there to see that everything was done properly. Then when I
started off I heard the colonel say to the adjutant that there were
about forty to be killed, and while it seemed cruel, it had to be done,
and he hoped they would suffer as little as possible. If I could have
had my way, I wouldn't have gone a step. I reflected on the pained look
on the colonel's face, and wondered why I was picked out for all these
sad events, but I thought if the chaplain was there everything would
be all right. Arriving at the placed I found the chaplain sitting on a
stump, on a big bluff overlooking the river. He sighed as I came up and
said:
“Death is always a sad thing.”
I told him that no one appreciated it more than I did, and I sighed
also.
“But,” said he, as he took a chew of navy plug tobacco, “when death
is necessary, we should make it as painless as possible, I have been
studying this matter over a good deal, and trying to figure out how
to make the death the least painful to these poor victims, and it has
occurred to me that if we place them on the edge of the precipice, and
you shoot them through the brain, while at the same time I push them,
they will fall down a hundred feet into the river, and if they are not
killed instantly by having the brain blown out, they will certainly
drown. How does that strike you?”
I thought the chaplain was about the most heartless cuss I ever heard
talk about killing people, but I said that seemed to me to be the best
way, but a cold chill went over me as I thought of shooting anybody
through the head and the chaplain pushing him down the cliff into the
water. I was just going to ask him what the men had done, when he said:
“Ah, there they come.”
I looked, and a lot of colored men were leading about forty old
back-number horses and mules, afflicted with glanders and other
diseases.
“Are the niggers to be killed?” I asked.
“Naw,” said the chaplain. “The horses and mules.”
I was never so relieved in all my life as I was when I found that my
excellent marksmanship was to be expended on animals instead of human
beings. But I did feel hurt, the idea of a brevet officer, a man
qualified to do deeds of daring, being detailed one day to drive mules
and the next-to shoot sick horses. But I decided to do whatever I had
to do, well, and so preparations were made for the executions. The
glandered horses were brought out first, and then the ones with sore
backs. Many of them were first-rate horses, their only fault being sores
made from the saddles, and as it would take months to cure them up, and
as the army was going to move soon, it had been decided to kill them
rather than leave them to fall into the enemy's hands, or take them
along to be cured on the march. I shot about a dozen glandered horses,
that being the largest game I had ever killed, and the bodies fell down
into the river. Then there was a mule that was ugly, and it occurred to
me I would have some fun with the chaplain.
We were outside the lines, and quite a number of men had gathered from
the plantations, on hearing the firing, to see what was up. I suggested
to the chaplain that it was a shame to kill so many good horses, when
they might be of use to some of the planters, but he said they were all
rebels, and it was not the policy of the government to set them up in
business, by giving them horses to use tilling crops. I argued that the
men had come home from the confederate army--this was in 1864--either
discharged for wounds or disability, or paroled prisoners, and they were
anxious to go to work, but that they hadn't a dollar, and our army had
skinned every horse and mule on their places, and the niggers had gone,
so that a horse would be a God-send to them. But the chaplain wouldn't
hear to it. The men, who had collected, were mostly too proud to ask for
a horse from a Yankee, but I could see that they did not like to see the
animals killed. I thought if I could get the chaplain, who had been
sent out to the execution as a sort of humane society, to see that the
animals were killed easy, to go back to camp and leave me alone with the
horses, I could kill them or not, as I chose. They brought out the ugly
mule next, and my idea was to shoot the mule through the tip of the ear,
while the chaplain stood near with a rail to push it over the bank, and
maybe the mule would flax around and kick the chaplain up a tree, or
scare him so he would leave. I took deliberate aim at the mule's ear,
told the chaplain to push hard with the rail so the corpse would be sure
to go over the cliff, and fired. Well, I have never seen such a scene in
all my life. The mule seemed to squat down, when the bullet hit the top
of his ear, then he brayed so loud that it would raise your hat right
off your head, then he jumped into the air and whirled around and kicked
in every direction with all four feet at once, fell down and rolled over
towards the chaplain, and got up, and seeming to think the chaplain
was the author of the misery, started for him, and that good man dodged
behind trees until he got a chance to climb up one, which he did, and
sat on a limb and shook his fist at the mule and me. He used quite
strong language at me for not killing the animal dead. Finally the
niggers caught the mule and the chaplain dismounted from the limb, and
came to me. I told him my carbine was out of order, and I should have to
take it apart and fix it, and that there was no knowing whether it would
shoot where I aimed it or not, after it was fixed, and I might have
trouble with the rest of the horses. It would take an hour at least to
fix the gun. He said he guessed he would go back to camp, and leave me
to finish up the slaughter, and that was what I wanted. The colored men
were anxious to go back too, so I let them tie the horses to trees, and
all go back except one, whom I knew. After they had all gone I went up
to the dozen southern men who had been watching the proceedings, and
asked one who was called colonel by the rest, if he didn't think it was
wrong to kill the horses when by a little care they could be of much
use in tilling crops. “Well, sah,” said he with dignity. “If it is not
disloyalty, sah, for a southern gentleman to criticize anything that
a yankee does, I should say, sah, that it was a d----d shame, sah, to
steal our horses, and after using them up, sah, kill them in cold blood,
sah. Each one of those animals sah, would be a gold mine, sah, at this
time, to us who have come from the wah, sah, destitute, with nothing but
our bare hands to make a crop, to keep our families from want, sah.”
The other gentlemen nodded at what the colonel had said, as though
that was about their sentiments. I told him that I felt about that way
myself, but there was an objection. If I gave the horses away, for use
on the plantations, and the animals should be used hereafter in the
confederate army, it would not only be wrong, but I would be liable to
be dismissed from the army.
The colonel said he should want to be dismissed from the Yankee army if
he was in it, but I might feel different about it. But he said he would
pledge me his word as a Southern gentleman, that if the animals could be
lent to them, they should never be used for war purposes. He said he was
poor, and his friends there were poor, but they would not take a horse
as a gift from a stranger, but if I would lend them the horses for a
year, they would use them, and return them to the proper officer a year
hence, if the army was yet in existence, or they would take them in
exchange for horses that had previously been stolen from them by our
army. He said there was not a gentleman present but had lost from two to
a dozen horses since the army had been in their vicinity. I admired the
dignity and honesty of the old gentleman, and I knew mighty well that we
had picked up every horse we could find, and I said:
“Colonel, here are about thirty horses I have been ordered to kill. If
I do not kill them I take a certain responsibility. I feel under
obligations to many Southern people for courtesies, and I feel that the
nursing I received during a recent sickness, from one of your Southern
ladies, about the same as saved my life. I believe the war is very near
over, and that neither you nor our men will have occasion for much more
active service. You have come home to your desolate plantations, and
found everything gone. This is the fate of war, but it is unpleasant all
the same. If you can use these animals for your work, in raising crops,
you may take them in welcome, and if there is any cussing, I will stand
it. My advice would be to take them to some isolated place on your
plantation, and keep them out of sight for a time. Our army will move
within a week, and perhaps never come back here. The animals are
branded 'U. S.' which will always remain. If the horses are found in your
possession, later, you may have to say that they were given to you by
an agent of the quartermaster. If they are taken from you, grin and bear
it. If you are permitted to keep them, and they do you any good, I shall
be very glad. If I get hauled over the coals for giving aid and comfort
to the enemy, I will lie out of it some way, or stand my punishment like
a little man. The horses are yours, as far as I am concerned.”
“Well, sah, you are a perfect gentleman, sah,” said the colonel, as he
took my hand and shook it cordially. “And I should be proud to entertain
you at my place, sah. We have got little left, sah, but you are welcome
to our home at any time. I am an old man, with a bullet in my leg.
Two of my boys are dead, in Virginia, sah, and I have one boy who is a
prisoner at the north. If he comes home alive, we will be able to make
a living and have a home again. The war has been a terrible blow to
us all, sah. I reckon both sides, sah, have got about enough, and
both sides have made cussed, fools of themselves. When this affair is
settled, sah, the north and south will be better friends than ever, sah.
I wish you a long life, sah.”
The other gentlemen expressed thanks, and they picked out two or three
horses apiece and led them away, it seemed to me as happy a lot of
gentlemen as I ever saw. I called the colored man, and we started
for camp. For a five dollar bill, and a promise to always take a deep
interest in the colored man's welfare, I got his promise that he would
never tell anybody about my giving the horses away, and for nearly a
year he kept his promise. I went back to headquarters and reported that
the animals had been disposed of, and that evening I was invited to set
into a poker game with some of the officers, and when we got up I
had won over a hundred dollars. I looked upon the streak of luck as a
premium for my kindness to the gentlemen who took the horses, but some
of the officers seemed to have a suspicion that I concealed cards up my
sleeve. It is thus that the best of us are misunderstood.