ONE of our fellow townsmen, Mr. Nathan W. Crooks by name, now a resident
of Washington C. H., Ohio, was in camp at Corinth at this time. Escorted
by him, my mother and I made the tour of the battle-field. Mr. Crooks
carried my little sister in his arms, and to this day, upon occasion,
introduces her to friends as the little girl he carried all over the
battle-field of Corinth, with the accent on the _inth_. We visited the
R. R. cut where my father held his emergency hospital, with shot and
shell screaming and bursting all around him; we stood within the
enclosure of Fort Robinet, where brave Col. Rogers of the Texas Brigade
fell, and was buried with his colors. And little I reck’d the day would
come when I would thrill with patriotic pride at the recollection of
having stood on the parapet of this historic fort, with “Old Glory”
floating proudly in the breeze above me, while at my feet, in the trench
surrounding the fort, lay friend and foe, buried in one common grave. As
one has fittingly written of them, “They sleep, and glory is their
sentinel.”
I have wandered all over this field of battle. My playground was that
portion occupied by the 14th Wisconsin during the fight, and of the many
minnie balls, grape and cannister I picked up on this memorable spot,
but one battered minnie ball remains.
Mr. Crooks had been my Sunday school teacher at home, and the morning he
and some of the other “boys” left for the war, I heard my teacher in the
public school offer up prayer in behalf of the “brave boys who had gone
forth to defend their country’s honor.” As her words fell upon my ears I
little dreamed that in a few short months I would follow, and meet with
these same “boys.”
After we had been in the hospital some little time my mother invited Mr.
Crooks to dinner, and Oh, what a dinner that was! at least Mr. Crooks
said it was the first white man’s meal he had eaten since he left home.
My mother cooked a portion of it by the fireplace, Mother Bickerdyke
made a generous contribution, and the cook of the officers’ mess donated
a very fine pudding. The butter—but the less said about it the better—at
least in regard to its age and strength. It was of the canned variety,
but Mr. Crooks thought it better than no butter at all, and promising to
come again another day, jovially walked off with a can of it under his
arm. He kept his word and visited us a number of times at the college
hospital. Years after the war was over he told us that the mere mention
of our father’s name called up visions of an old gray army blanket given
him by our father as they were parting on one occasion, when but for it
his bed would have been the cold, bare earth, his covering the canopy of
heaven.