my eye caught the headline, "Thanksgiving Dinner for the Army." I had
shared that feast. The words brought me a vision of a cavalry brigade
in winter quarters before Petersburg; of the three-miles-distant and
dim steeples of the besieged city; of rows and rows of canvas-covered
huts sheltering the infantry corps that stretched interminably away
toward the Army of the James. I fancied I could hear again the great
guns of "Fort Hell" infrequently punctuating the far-away
picket-firing.
Rain, rain, and rain! How it fell on red Virginia that November of
'64! How it wore away alertness! The infantry-men--whom we used to
call "doughboys," for there was always a pretended feud between the
riders and the trudgers--often seemed going to sleep in the night in
their rain-filled holes far beyond the breastworks, each with its
little mound of earth thrown up toward the beleaguered town. Their
night-firing would slacken almost to cessation for many minutes
together. But after the b-o-o-oom of a great gun it became brisker
usually; often so much so as to suggest that some of Lee's ragged
brigades, their march silenced by the rain, had pierced our fore-front
again, and were "gobbling up" our boys on picket, and flinging up new
rifle-pits on the acres reclaimed for a night and a day for the
tottering Confederacy.
Sometimes the _crack-a-rac-a-rack_ would die down to a slow fire of
dropping shots, and the forts seemed sleeping; and patter, patter,
patter on the veteran canvas we heard the rain, rain, rain, not unlike
the roll of steady musketry very far away.
I think I sit again beside Charley Wilson, my sick "buddy," and hear
his uneven breathing through all the stamping of the rows of wet
horses on their corduroy floor roofed with leaky pine brush.
That _squ-ush, squ-ush_ is the sound of the stable-guard's boots as he
paces slowly through the mud, to and fro, with the rain rattling on
his glazed poncho and streaming corded hat. Sometimes he stops to
listen to a frantic brawling of the wagon-train mules, sometimes to
the reviving picket-firing. It crackles up to animation for causes
that we can but guess; then dies down, never to silence, but warns,
warns, as the distant glow of the sky above a volcano warns of the
huge waiting forces that give it forth.
I think I hear Barney Donahoe pulling our latch-string that November
night when we first heard of the great Thanksgiving dinner that was
being collected in New York for the army.
"Byes, did yez hear phwat Sergeant Cunningham was tellin' av the
Thanksgivin' turkeys that's comin'?"
"Come in out of the rain, Barney," says Charley, feebly.
"Faith, I wish I dar', but it's meself is on shtable-guard. Bedad,
it's a rale fire ye've got. Divil a better has ould Jimmy himself (our
colonel). Ye've heard tell of the turkeys, then, and the pois?"
"Yes. Bully for the folks at home!" says Charley. "The notion of
turkey next Thursday has done me good already. I was thinking I'd go
to hospital to-morrow, but now I guess I won't."
"Hoshpital! Kape clear av the hoshpital, Char-les, dear. Sure, they'd
cut a man's leg off behind the ears av him for to cure him av
indigestion."
"Is it going to rain all night, Barney?"
"It is, bad 'cess to it; and to-morrow and the day afther, I'm
thinkin'. The blackness av night is outside; be jabers! you could cut
it like turf with a shpade! If it wasn't for the ould fort flamin' out
wanst in a whoile, I'd be thinkin' I'd never an oi in my head, barrin'
the fires in the tints far an' near gives a bit of dimness to the
dark. Phwat time is it?"
"Quarter to twelve, Barney."
"Troth, then, the relief will be soon coming. I must be thramping the
mud av Virginia to save the Union. Good-night, byes. I come to give
yez the good word. Kape your heart light an' aisy, Char-les, dear.
D'ye moind the turkeys and the pois? Faith, it's meself that has the
taste for thim dainties!"
"I don't believe I'll be able to eat a mite of the Thanksgiving," says
Charley, as we hear Barney _squ-ush_ away; "but just to see the brown
on a real old brown home turkey will do me a heap of good."
"You'll be all right by Thursday, Charley, I guess; won't you? It's
only Sunday night now."
Of course I cannot remember the very words of that talk in the night,
so many years ago. But the coming of Barney I recollect well, and the
general drift of what was said.
Charley turned on his bed of hay-covered poles, and I put my hand
under his gray blanket to feel if his legs were well covered by the
long overcoat he lay in. Then I tucked the blanket well in about his
feet and shoulders, pulled his poncho again to its full length over
him, and sat on a cracker-box looking at our fire for a long time,
while the rain spattered through the canvas in spray.
My "buddy" Charley, the most popular boy of Company I, was of my own
age,--seventeen,--though the rolls gave us a year more each, by way of
compliance with the law of enlistment. From a Pennsylvania farm in the
hills he came forth to the field early in that black fall of '64,
strong, tall, and merry, fit to ride for the nation's life,--a mighty
wielder of an axe, "bold, cautious, true, and my loving comrade."
We were "the kids" to Company I. To "buddy" with Charley I gave up my
share of the hut I had helped to build as old Bader's "pard." Then the
"kids" set about the construction of a new residence, which stood
farther from the parade ground than any hut in the row except the big
cabin of "old Brownie," the "greasy cook," who called us to
"bean--oh!" with so resonant a shout, and majestically served out our
rations of pork, "salt horse," coffee long-boiled and sickeningly
sweet, hardtack, and the daily loaf of a singularly despondent-looking
bread.
My "buddy" and I slept on opposite sides of our winter residence. The
bedsteads were made of poles laid lengthwise and lifted about two feet
from the ground. These were covered thinly with hay from the bales
that were regularly delivered for horse-fodder. There was a space of
about two feet between bedsteads, and under them we kept our saddles
and saddlecloths.
Our floor was of earth, with a few flour-barrel staves and cracker-box
sides laid down for rugs. We had each an easy-chair in the form of a
cracker-box, besides a stout soap-box for guests. Our carbines and
sabres hung crossed on pegs over the mantel-piece, above our Bibles
and the precious daguerreotypes of the dear folks at home. When we
happened to have enough wood for a bright fire, we felt much snugger
than you might suppose.
Before ever that dark November began, Charley had been suffering from
one of those wasting diseases that so often clung to and carried off
the strongest men of both armies. Sharing the soldiers' inveterate
prejudice against hospitals attended by young doctors, who, the men
believed, were addicted to much surgery for the sake of practice, my
poor "buddy" strove to do his regular duties. He paraded with the sick
before the regimental doctor as seldom as possible. He was favored by
the sergeants and helped in every way by the men, and so continued to
stay with the company at that wet season when drill and parades were
impracticable.
The idea of a Thanksgiving dinner for half a million men by sea and
land fascinated Charley's imagination, and cheered him mightily. But I
could not see that his strength increased, as he often alleged.
"Ned, you bet I'll be on hand when them turkeys are served out," he
would say. "You won't need to carry my Thanksgiving dinner up from
Brownie's. Say, ain't it bully for the folks at home to be giving us a
Thanksgiving like this? Turkeys, sausages, mince-pies! They say
there's going to be apples and celery for all hands!"
"S'pose you'll be able to eat, Charley?"
"Able! Of course I'll be able! I'll be just as spry as you be on
Thanksgiving. See if I don't carry my own turkey all right. Yes, by
gum, if it weighs twenty pounds!"
"There won't be a turkey apiece."
"No, eh? Well, that's what I figure on. Half a turkey, anyhow. Got to
be; besides chickens, hams, sausages, and all that kind of fixin's.
You heard what Bill Sylvester's girl wrote from Philamadink-a-daisy-oh?
No, eh? Well, he come in a-purpose to read me the letter. Says there's
going to be three or four hundred thousand turkeys, besides them
fixin's! Sherman's boys can't get any; they're marched too far away,
out of reach. The Shenandoah boys'll get some, and Butler's crowd, and
us chaps, and the blockading squadrons. Bill's girl says so. We'll get
the whole lot between us. Four hundred thousand turkeys! Of course
there'll be a turkey apiece; there's got to be, if there's any sense
in arithmetic. Oh, I'll be choosin' between breast-meat and hind-legs
on Thanksgiving,--you bet your sweet life on that!"
This expectation that there would be a turkey a-piece was not shared
by Company I; but no one denied it in Charley's hearing. The boy held
it as sick people often do fantastic notions, and all fell into the
humor of strengthening the reasoning on which he went.
It was clear that no appetite for turkey moved my poor "buddy," but
that his brain was busy with the "whole-turkey-a-piece" idea as one
significant of the immense liberality of the folks at home, and their
absorbing interest in the army.
"Where's there any nation that ever was that would get to work and fix
up four hundred thousand turkeys for the boys?" he often remarked,
with ecstatic patriotism.
I have often wondered why "Bill Sylvester's girl" gave that
flourishing account of the preparations for our Thanksgiving dinner.
It was only on searching the newspaper files recently that I surmised
her sources of information. Newspapers seldom reached our regiment
until they were several weeks old, and then they were not much read,
at least by me. Now I know how enthusiastic the papers of November,
'64, were on the great feast for the army.
For instance, on the morning of that Thanksgiving day, the 24th of
November, the New York Tribune said editorially:--
"Forty thousand turkeys, eighty thousand turkeys, one
hundred and sixty thousand turkeys, nobody knows how many
turkeys have been sent to our soldiers. Such masses of
breast-meat and such mountains of stuffing; drumsticks
enough to fit out three or four Grand Armies, a perfect
promontory of pope's noses, a mighty aggregate of wings. The
gifts of their lordships to the supper which Grangousier
spread to welcome Gargantua were nothing to those which our
good people at home send to their friends in the field; and
no doubt every soldier, if his dinner does not set him
thinking too intently of that home, will prove himself a
valiant trencherman."
Across the vast encampment before Petersburg a biting wind blew that
Thanksgiving day. It came through every cranny of our hut; it bellied
the canvas on one side and tightened it on the other; it pressed flat
down the smoke from a hundred thousand mud chimneys, and swept away so
quickly the little coals which fell on the canvas that they had not
time to burn through.
When I went out towards noon, for perhaps the twentieth time that day,
to learn whether our commissary wagons had returned from City Point
with the turkeys, the muddy parade ground was dotted with groups of
shivering men, all looking anxiously for the feast's arrival. Officers
frequently came out, to exchange a few cheery words with their men,
from the tall, close hedge of withering pines stuck on end that
enclosed the officers' quarters on the opposite side of the parade
ground.
No turkeys at twelve o'clock! None at one! Two, three, four, five
o'clock passed by, and still nothing had been heard of our absent
wagons. Charley was too weak to get out that day, but he cheerfully
scouted the idea that a turkey for each man would not arrive sooner or
later.
The rest of us dined and supped on "commissary." It was not good
commissary either, for Brownie, the "greasy cook," had gone on leave
to visit a "doughboy" cousin of the Sixth Corps.
"You'll have turkey for dinner, boys," he had said, on serving out
breakfast. "If you're wanting coffee, Tom can make it." Thus we had to
dine and sup on the amateur productions of the cook's mate.
A multitude of woful rumors concerning the absent turkeys flew round
that evening. The "Johnnies," we heard, had raided round the army, and
captured the fowls! Butler's colored troops had got all the turkeys,
and had been feeding on fowl for two days! The officers had "gobbled"
the whole consignment for their own use! The whole story of the
Thanksgiving dinner was a newspaper hoax! Nothing was too incredible
for men so bitterly disappointed.
Brownie returned before "lights out" sounded, and reported facetiously
that the "doughboys" he had visited were feeding full of turkey and
all manner of fixings. There were so many wagons waiting at City Point
that the roads round there were blocked for miles. We could not fail
to get our turkeys to-morrow. With this expectation we went, pretty
happy, to bed.
"There'll be a turkey apiece, you'll see, Ned," said Charley, in a
confident, weak voice, as I turned in. "We'll all have a bully
Thanksgiving to-morrow."
The morrow broke as bleak as the preceding day, and without a sign of
turkey for our brigade. But about twelve o'clock a great shouting came
from the parade ground.
"The turkeys have come!" cried Charley, trying to rise. "Never mind
picking out a big one for me; any one will do. I don't believe I can
eat a bite, but I want to see it. My! ain't it kind of the folks at
home!"
I ran out and found his surmise as to the return of the wagons
correct. They were filing into the enclosure around the
quartermaster's tent. Nothing but an order that the men should keep
to company quarters prevented the whole regiment helping to unload the
delicacies of the season.
Soon foraging parties went from each company to the quartermaster's
enclosure. Company I sent six men. They returned, grinning, in about
half an hour, with one box on one man's shoulders.
It was carried to Sergeant Cunningham's cabin, the nearest to the
parade ground, the most distant from that of "the kids," in which
Charley lay waiting. We crowded round the hut with some sinking of
enthusiasm. There was no cover on the box except a bit of cotton in
which some of the consignment had probably been wrapped. Brownie
whisked this off, and those nearest Cunningham's door saw
disclosed--two small turkeys, a chicken, four rather disorganized
pies, two handsome bologna sausages, and six very red apples.
We were nearly seventy men. The comical side of the case struck the
boys instantly. Their disappointment was so extreme as to be absurd.
There might be two ounces of feast to each, if the whole were equally
shared.
All hands laughed; not a man swore. The idea of an equal distribution
seemed to have no place in that company. One proposed that all should
toss up for the lot. Another suggested drawing lots; a third that we
should set the Thanksgiving dinner at one end of the parade ground and
run a race for it, "grab who can."
At this Barney Donahoe spoke up.
"Begorra, yez can race for wan turkey av yez loike. But the other wan
is goin' to Char-les Wilson!"
There was not a dissenting voice. Charley was altogether the most
popular member of Company I, and every man knew how he had clung to
the turkey apiece idea.
"Never let on a word," said Sergeant Cunningham. "He'll think there's
a turkey for every man!"
The biggest bird, the least demoralized pie, a bologna sausage, and
the whole six apples were placed in the cloth that had covered the
box. I was told to carry the display to my poor "buddy."
As I marched down the row of tents a tremendous yelling arose from the
crowd round Cunningham's tent. I turned to look behind. Some man with
a riotous impulse had seized the box and flung its contents in the air
over the thickest of the crowd. Next moment the turkey was seized by
half a dozen hands. As many more helped to tear it to pieces. Barney
Donahoe ran past me with a leg, and two laughing men after him. Those
who secured larger portions took a bite as quickly as possible, and
yielded the rest to clutching hands. The bologna sausage was shared in
like fashion, but I never heard of any one who got a taste of the
pies.
"Here's your turkey, Charley," said I, entering with my burden.
"Where's yours, Ned?"
"I've got my turkey all right enough at Cunningham's tent."
"Didn't I tell you there'd be a turkey apiece?" he cried gleefully, as
I unrolled the lot. "And sausages, apples, a whole pie--oh, _say_,
ain't they bully folks up home!"
"They are," said I. "I believe we'd have had a bigger Thanksgiving yet
if it wasn't such a trouble getting it distributed."
"You'd better believe it! They'd do anything in the world for the
army," he said, lying back.
"Can't you eat a bite, buddy?"
"No; I'm not a mite hungry. But I'll look at it. It won't spoil before
to-morrow. Then you can share it all out among the boys."
Looking at the turkey, the sick lad fell asleep. Barney Donahoe softly
opened our door, stooped his head under the lintel, and gazed a few
moments at the quiet face turned to the Thanksgiving turkey. Man after
man followed to gaze on the company's favorite, and on the fowl
which, they knew, tangibly symbolized to him the immense love of the
nation for the flower of its manhood in the field. Indeed, the people
had forwarded an enormous Thanksgiving feast; but it was impossible to
distribute it evenly, and we were one of the regiments that came
short.
Grotesque, that scene was? Group after group of hungry, dirty
soldiers, gazing solemnly, lovingly, at a lone brown turkey and a
pallid sleeping boy! Yes, very grotesque. But Charley had his
Thanksgiving dinner, and the men of Company I, perhaps, enjoyed a
profounder satisfaction than if they had feasted more materially.
I never saw Charley after that Thanksgiving day. Before the afternoon
was half gone the doctor sent an ambulance for him, and insisted that
he should go to City Point. By Christmas his wasted body had lain for
three weeks in the red Virginia soil.
GRANDPAPA'S WOLF STORY.
"Tell us a story, grandpapa."
"One that will last all the evening, chickens?"
"Yes, grandpapa, darling," said Jenny, while Jimmy clapped hands.
"What about?" said the old lumber king.
"About when you were a boy."
"When I was a boy," said the old gentleman, taking Jenny on his knee
and putting his arm round Jimmy, "the boys and girls were as fond of
stories as they are now. Once when I was a boy I said to my
grandfather, 'Tell me a story, grandpa,' and he replied, 'When I was a
boy the boys were as fond of stories as they are now; for once when I
was a boy I said to my grandfather, "Tell me a story, grandpa,--"'".
"Why, it seems to go on just the same story, grandpapa," said Jenny.
"That's not the end of it, Jenny, dear," said grandpapa.
"No-o?" said Jenny, dubiously.
Jimmy said nothing. He lived with his grandfather, and knew his ways.
Jenny came on visits only, and was not well enough acquainted with the
old gentleman to know that he would soon tire of the old joke, and
reward patient children by a good story.
"Shall I go on with the story, Jenny?" said grandpapa.
"Oh, yes, grandpapa!"
"Well, then, when _that_ grandpa was a boy, he said to _his_
grandfather, 'Tell me a story, grandpapa,' and his grandfather
replied--"
Jenny soon listened with a demure smile of attention.
"Do you like this story, dear?" said grandpapa, after pursuing the
repetition for some minutes longer.
"I shall, grandpapa, darling. It must be very good when you come to
the grandfather that told it. I like to think of all my grandfathers,
and great, great, great, greater, greatest, great, great-grandpapas
all telling the same story."
"Yes, it's a genuine family story, Jenny, and you're a little witch."
The old gentleman kissed her. "Well, where was I? Oh, now I remember!
And _that_ grandpapa said to his grandfather, 'Tell me a story,
grandpapa,' and his grandpapa replied, 'When I was a young fellow--'"
"Now it's beginning!" cried Jimmy, clapping his hands, and shifting to
an easier attitude by the old man's easy-chair.
Grandpapa looked comically at Jimmy, and said, "His grandfather
replied, 'When I was a young fellow--'"
The faces of the children became woful again.
"'One rainy day I took my revolver--'"
"Revolver! Grandpapa!" cried Jenny.
"Yes, dear."
"An American revolver, grandpapa?"
"Certainly, dear."
"And did he tell the story in English?"
"Yes, pet."
"But, grandpapa, _darling_, that grandpapa was seventy-three
grandpapas back!"
"About that, my dear."
"I kept count, grandpapa."
"And don't you like good old-fashioned stories, Jenny?"
"Oh, yes, grandpapa, but _revolvers_--and _Americans_--and the
_English_ language! Why, it was more than twenty-two hundred years
ago, grandpapa, darling!"
"Ha! ha! You never thought of that, Jimmy! Oh, you've been at school,
Miss Bright-eyes! Kiss me, you little rogue. Now listen!
"When _I_ was a young fellow--"
"You yourself, grandpapa?"
"Yes, Jenny."
"I'm so glad it was you yourself! I like my _own_ grandpapa's stories
best of all."
"Thank you, my dear. After that I must be _very_ entertaining. Yes,
I'll tell my best story of all--and Jimmy has never heard it. Well,
when I was a young fellow of seventeen I was clerk in a lumber shanty
on the Sheboiobonzhe-gunpashageshickawigamog River."
"How did you _ever_ learn that name, grandpapa, darling?" cried Jenny.
"Oh, I could learn things in those days. Remembering it is the
difficulty, dear--see if it isn't. I'll give you a nice new ten-dollar
bill if you tell me that name to-morrow."
Jenny bent her brows and tried so hard to recall the syllables that
she almost lost part of the story. Grandpapa went steadily on:--
"One day in February, when it was too rainy for the men to work, and
just rainy enough to go deer-shooting if you hadn't had fresh meat for
five months, I took to the woods with my gun, revolver, hatchet, and
dinner. All the fore part of the day I failed to get a shot, though I
saw many deer on the hemlock ridges of Sheboi--that's the way it
begins, Jenny, and Sheboi we called it.
"But late in the afternoon I killed a buck. I cut off a haunch, lifted
the carcass into the low boughs of a spruce, and started for camp, six
miles away, across snowy hills and frozen lakes. The snow-shoeing was
heavy, and I feared I should not get in before dark. The Sheboi
country was infested with wolves--"
"Bully! It's a wolf story!" said Jimmy. Jenny shuddered with delight.
"As I went along you may be sure I never thought my grandchildren
would be pleased to have me in danger of being eaten up by wolves."
Jenny looked shocked at the imputation. Grandpapa watched her with
twinkling eyes. When she saw he was joking, she cried: "But you
weren't eaten, grandpapa. You were too brave."
"Ah, I hadn't thought of that. Perhaps I'd better not tell the story.
You'll have a worse opinion of my courage, my dear."
"Of course you _had_ to run from _wolves_, grandpapa!" said the little
girl.
"I'll bet grandpapa didn't run then, miss," said Jimmy. "I'll bet he
shot them with his gun."
"He couldn't--could you, grandpapa? There were too many. Of course
grandpapa _had_ to run. That wasn't being cowardly. It was
just--just--_running_."
"No, Jenny, I didn't run a yard."
"Didn't I tell you?" cried Jimmy. "Grandpapa shot them with his gun."
"You're mistaken, Jimmy."
"Then you must--No, for you're here--you weren't eaten up?" said
wondering Jenny.
"No, dear, I wasn't eaten up."
"Oh, I know! The wolves didn't come!" cried Jimmy, who remembered one
of his grandpapa's stories as having ended in that unhappy way.
"Oh, but they did, Jimmy!"
"Why, grandpapa, what _did_ you do?"
"I climbed into a hollow tree."
"_Of course!_" said both children.
"Now I'm going to tell you a true wolf story, and that's what few
grandpapas can do out of their own experience.
"I was resting on the shore of a lake, with my snow-shoes off to ease
my sore toes, when I saw a pack of wolves trotting lazily toward me on
the snow that covered the ice. I was sure they had not seen me. Right
at my elbow was a big hollow pine. It had an opening down to the
ground, a good deal like the door of a sentry-box.
"There was a smaller opening about thirty feet higher up. I had looked
up and seen this before I saw the wolves. Then I rose, stood for a
moment in the hollow, and climbed up by my feet, knees, hands, and
elbows till I thought my feet were well above the top of the opening.
Dead wood and dust fell as I ascended, but I hoped the wolves had not
heard me."
"Did they, grandpapa?"