I Strike Another Soft-Snap, Which is Harder Than Any Snap
Heretofore--I Begin Taking Music Lessons, and Fill Up a
Confederate Prisoner With Yankee Food.
The last two chapters of this stuff has related to early experiences,
but now that it is probable the chaplain has got over being mad at my
trading him the circus-horse, I will resume the march with the regiment.
For a month or more I had been waiting for my commission to arrive, so
that I could serve as an officer, but it did not arrive while we were at
Montgomery, and we started away from that city towards Vicksburg, Miss.,
with a fair prospect of having hot work with strolling bands of the
enemy. I was much depressed. It had got so they didn't seem to want me
anywhere. It seemed that I was a sort of a Jonah, and wherever I was,
something went wrong. The chaplain wouldn't have me, because he had a
suspicion that I was giddy, and full of the devil, and I have thought he
had an idea I would sacrifice the whole army to perpetrate a practical
joke, and he also maintained that I would lie, if a lie would help me
out of a scrape. I never knew how such an impression could have been
created. The colonel said he would try and get along without me, the
adjutant didn't want any more of my mathematics in his reports and the
brigade commander said he would carry the brigade colors himself rather
than have me around, as I would bring headquarters into disgrace some
way. So I had to serve as a private in my own company, which was very
hard on a man who had tasted the sweets of official position. O, if my
commission did not come soon I was lost. After we had marched a couple
of days it began to look as though we were liable to have a fight on our
hands. Every little while there would be firing in advance, or on the
flanks, and things looked blue for one who did not want to have any
trouble with anybody. One morning when we were cooking our breakfast
beside a pitch pine log, a little Irishman, who was a friend of mine,
as I always lent him my tobacco, said: “There will be a fight today, and
some wan of the byes will sleep cold tonight.”
A cold chill came over me, and I wondered which of of the “by's” would
draw the ticket of death. The Irishman noticed that I was not feeling
perfectly easy, and he said, “Sorrel top, wud yez take a bit of advice
from the loikes of me?” I did not like to be called sorrel top, but if
there was any danger I would take advice from anybody, so I told him to
fire away. He told me that when we fell in, for the march of the day,
to arrange to be No. 4, as in case we were dismounted, to fight on foot,
number four would remain on his horse, and hold three other horses, and
keep in the rear, behind the trees, while the dismounted men went into
the fight. Great heavens, and that had never occurred to me before. Of
course number four would hold the horses, in case of a dismounted fight,
and I had never thought what a soft thing it was. It can be surmised by
the reader of profane history, that when our company formed that morning
I was number four. We marched a long for a couple of hours, when there
was some firing on the flanks, and a couple of companies were wheeled
into line and marched off into the woods for half a mile, and the order
was given to “prepare to fight on foot.” It was a momentous occasion for
me, and when the three men of our four dismounted and handed the bridle
reins to me, I was about the happiest man in the army. I did not want
the boys to think I was anxious to keep away from the front, so I said,
“Say, cap, don't I go too?” He said I could if I wanted to, as one of
the other boys would hold the horses if I was spoiling to be a corpse,
but I told him I guessed, seeing that I was already on the horse, I
would stay, and the boys went off laughing, leaving about twenty-five of
us “number fours” holding horses. Now, you may talk all you please about
safe places in a fight, but sitting on a horse in plain sight, holding
three other prancing, kicking, squalling horses, while the rest of the
boys are behind trees, or behind logs, popping at the enemy, is no soft
thing. The bullets seemed to pass right over our fellows on foot, and
came right among the horses, who twisted around and got tangled up, and
made things unpleasant. I was trying to get a stallion I was holding to
quit biting my legs, when I saw my little Irishman, who had steered me
on to the soft snap, dodge down behind his horse's head, to escape a
bullet that killed one of the horses he was holding, and I said, “This
is a fine arrangement you have got me into. This is worse than being in
front.” He said he believed it was, as he backed his other horses away
from the dying horse, but he said as long as they killed horses we
had no cause to complain. There was a sergeant in charge of us “number
fours,” and he was as cool as any fellow I ever saw. The sergeant was a
nice man, but he was no musician. He was an Irishman, also, and when any
bugle-call and when any bugle-call sounded he had to ask some one what
it was. There was a great deal of uncertainty about bugle-calls, I
noticed, among officers as well as men.
Of course it could not be expected that every man in a cavalry regiment
would be a music teacher, and the calls sounded so much alike to the
uncultivated ear, that it was no wonder that everybody got the calls
mixed. In camp we got so we could tell “assembly,” and “surgeon's call,”
and “tattoo,” and quite a number of others, but the calls of battle
were Greek to us. The bugle sounded down in the woods, and the sergeant
turned to me and asked, “Fhat the divil is that I dunno?” I was
satisfied it was “To horse,” but when I saw our fellows come rushing
back towards the horses it looked as though the order was to fall
back, and I suggested as much to the sergeant. He thought it looked
reasonable, too, and he ordered us to fall back slowly toward the
regiment. We didn't go so confounded slow, and of course I was ahead
with my three horses. The sergeant heard the captain yell to him to hold
on, and he got the most of the “fours” to stop, and let the boys get on,
but the little Irishman and myself couldn't hold our extra horses, and
they dragged us along over logs and through brush, the regiment drew
sabers to “shoo” the horses back, waived their hats, my horse run his
fore feet into a hole, fell down, and let me off over his head, the
other horses seemed to walk on me, I became insensible, and the next
thing I knew I was in an ambulance, behind the regiment, which was on
the march, as though nothing had happened. I felt of myself to see if
anything was broke, and finding I was all right I told the driver of the
ambulance I guessed I would get out and mount my horse, but he said he
guessed I wouldn t, because the colonel had told him if I died to bury
me beside the road, but if I lived to bring me to headquarters for
punishment. The driver said the boys whose horses I had stampeded,
wanted to kill me, but the colonel had said death was too good for me.
Well, nobody was hurt in the skirmish, and about noon we arrived at
a camping place for the night, and the ambulance drove up, and I was
placed under guard.
It seems the sergeant had laid the whole thing to me. He had admitted
to the colonel that he didn't know one bugle call from another, and he
supposed I did, and when he asked me what it was, and I said it was to
retreat, he supposed I knew, and retreated. The colonel asked me what I
had to say, and I told him I didn't know any bugle call except get your
quinine, get your quinine. That when I enlisted there was nothing said
about my ability to read notes in music, and I had never learned, and
couldn't learn, as I had no more ear for music than a mule. I told
him if he would furnish a music teacher, I would study hard to try and
master the difference between “forward and back,” but that it didn't
seem to me as though I ought to be held responsible for an expression of
opinion, however erroneous, when asked for it by a superior officer.
I told him that when the bugle sounded, and I saw the boys coming back
on a hop, skip and jump, it seemed to me the most natural thing in
the world that the bugle had sounded a retreat. That seemed the only
direction we could go, and as my natural inclination was to save those
horses that had been placed in my charge, of course I interpreted the
bugle call to mean for us to get out of there honorably, and as the only
way to get out honorably was to get out quick, we got up and dusted. The
colonel always gave me credit for being a good debater, and he smiled
and said that as no damage had been done, he would not insist that I be
shot on the spot, but he felt that an example should be made of me. He
said I would be under arrest until bed time, down under a tree, half a
mile or so from headquarters, in plain sight, and he would send music
teachers there to teach me the bugle calls. I thanked him, in a few
well chosen remarks, and the guard marched me to the tree, which was the
guard-house. I found another soldier there, under arrest, who had rode
out of the ranks to water his horse, while on the march, against
orders, and a Confederate prisoner that had been captured in the morning
skirmish, a captain of a Virginia regiment. The captain seemed real hurt
at having been captured, and was inclined to be uppish and distant. I
tried two or three times to get him into conversation on some subject
connected with the war, but he wouldn't have it. He evidently looked
upon me as a horse-thief, a deserter, and a bad man, or else a soldier
who had been sent to pump information out of him. I never was let alone
quite as severely as I was by our prisoner, at first. But I went to work
and built a fire, and soon had some coffee boiling, bacon frying, and
sweet potatoes roasting, and when I spread the lay out on the ground,
and said, “Colonel, this is on me. Won't you join me?” I think he was
the most surprised man I ever saw, He had watched every move I made, in
cooking, with a yearning such as is seldom seen, and he probably had
no more idea that he was going to have a mouthful of it, than that he
should fly. His eyes might have been weak, but if he had been a man I
knew well, I should have said there were a couple of tears gathering
in his eyes, and I was quite sure of it when the flood broke over the
eye-lid dam, and rolled down among the underbrush whiskers. He stopped
the flood at once, by an effort of will, though there seemed a something
in his throat when he said, “You don't mean it, do you, kernel?” I told
him of course I meant it, and to slide right up and help himself, and I
speared a great big sweet potato, and some bacon, and placed them on
a big leaf, and poured coffee out in the only cup I had. He kicked on
using the cup, but I said we would both drink out of it. He said, “you
are very kind, sir,” and that was all he said during the meal. But how he
_did_ eat. He tried to act as though he didn't care much for dinner, and
as though he was eating out of courtesy to me, but I could tell by the
way the sweet potato went down in the depths of my Confederate friend,
and by the joyous look when a swallow of coffee hit the right place,
that he was having a picnic.
When we were through with dinner and the guard and the other prisoner
were cooking theirs, he said, “My friend, I do not mind telling you
now that I was much in need of food. I had not eaten since yesterday
morning, as we have been riding hard to intercept you gentlemen, sir.
I trust I shall live long enough to repay, you sir.” I told him not to
mention it, as all our boys made it a point to divide when we captured a
prisoner. He said he believed his people felt the same way, but God knew
they had little to divide. He said he trembled when he thought that some
of our men who were prisoners in the south were faring very poorly, but
it could not be helped. “Suppose I had captured you,” he said, with a
smile that was forced, “I could not have given you a mouthful of bread,
until we had found a southern family that 'had bread to spare.'” I told
him it was pretty tough, but it would all be over before long, and then
we would all have plenty to eat. I got out a pack of cards, and the
confederate captain played seven-up with me, while we smoked. Presently
nine buglers came down to where we were, formed in line, and began to
sound cavalry calls in concert. I knew that they were the music teachers
the colonel had sent to teach me the calls. The confederate looked on
in astonishment, while they sounded a call, and when it was done I asked
the chief bugler what it was, and he told me, and I asked him to sound
something else, which he did. My idea was to convince the prisoner that
this was a part of daily routine. He got nervous and couldn't remember
which was trumps; and finally said we might talk all we pleased about
the horrors of Andersonville, but to be blowed to death with cavalry
bugles was a fate that only the most hardened criminals should suffer.
The confederate evidently had no ear for music more than I had, and
he soon got enough. However the buglers kept up their noise till about
supper time, when they were called on. I got another meal for the
confederate, and he seemed to be actually getting fat. The colonel of my
regiment came down to where we were, and said, “You fellows seem to be
doing pretty well,” and then he had a long talk with the rebel prisoner,
invited him up to his tent to pass the night, apologized for the concert
he had been giving us, explained what it was for, told me I could go to
my company if I thought I could remember a bugle call in the future; the
captain shook hands with me and thanked me cordially, and we separated.
He was exchanged, the next day, and I never saw him for twenty-two
years, when I found him at the head of a manufacturing enterprise in his
loved Virginia, and he furnished me a more expensive meal than I did him
years before, but it didn't taste half as good as the bacon dinner in
Alabama under the guard-house tree.