Shortly after the battle of Fredericksburg, Captain Henry C. Weir, the
adjutant-general of the division to which General D. McM. Gregg had then
been assigned, asked an orderly who happened to be a member of my
company, and who was then engaged carrying a despatch to his
headquarters, if he could suggest a man in his regiment whom he could
detail to act as clerk to make out returns and reports, his former clerk
having gone home with the body of General Bayard. The man suggested me,
and was told to request me to report to division headquarters. I
remember being quite startled at this order, and, anxious to look as
presentable as possible, I stripped and bathed in a brook, on the edges
of which the ice had formed, before calling on Captain Weir. He
questioned me as to my occupation before entering the army, which had
been that of a clerk in my uncle's firm, T. B. Coddington & Co., metal
importers, whom he knew by reputation. He also stated that he knew of my
father's home on the Hudson River. Indeed, he manifested an interest in
me, and, after giving me a copy of a tri-monthly report to look at,
asked me if I thought I could consolidate the several regimental
reports, copies of which he showed me. I made the attempt and succeeded,
whereupon he said he would ask General Gregg to have me detailed at his
headquarters. That detail was made out in December, 1862. Though my rank
was still that of a private, my position was much improved and my
surroundings much more pleasant. I was treated with great consideration
by Captain Weir, and was thereafter busily engaged while in winter
quarters in performing the duties of an adjutant-general's clerk, which
included such writing as General Gregg required of me.
At the time of the battle of Chancellorsville, Gregg's division went on
what was known as the Stoneman raid to Richmond. On this movement and
subsequently on the march, and in all engagements as long as I was with
the General, I was sent with messages and orders the same as a
staff-officer.
[Illustration: BREVET LIEUTENANT COLONEL H. C. WEIR]
On this raid I attracted the attention of General Gregg and the
headquarters staff by my ability to sleep on horseback when on the
march. Captain Weir had given me a fine horse, which happened to be a
very fast walker. It was General Gregg's custom to ride alone at the
head of his staff, occasionally inviting Dr. Phillips, the medical
director of the division, to ride alongside of him. As soon as I would
fall asleep, the bridle reins would naturally slacken and the horse
begin to forge ahead. My position in the column was in rear of the
officers of the staff, and with the General's orderly and bugler.
Instead of restraining the horse, my comrades and the staff officers
would open the way and urge him along while I, sitting upright but fast
asleep, would ride alongside of our dignified General and sometimes
ahead of him before he noticed me, when invariably he would wake me up,
grabbing me by the arm and saying, "Meyer, wake up." Chagrined I would
return to my place, the staff officers and orderlies greatly amused.
This incident occurred so frequently on this Stoneman raid that it
evidently made an impression on the General, because, meeting him some
twenty years after the war at a reunion in Philadelphia he, on greeting
me, introduced me to a group of officers and immediately recalled the
fact of my so often being asleep on horseback. One day my horse strayed
from the road and followed a fence up a bank until he came to a point
where the slope reached the fence and he could go no farther, when the
General called out, "Wake him up, he will break his neck." The jolt of
the horse, however, sliding down the slope into the road awakened me,
though I did not fall off. The only penalty I suffered from sleeping on
horseback was the occasional loss of a cap and the scratching of my face
by the branches of trees, but it undoubtedly had much to do with my
being able to withstand the fatigue incident to our campaigns, since
the fact is that I never was off duty for a single hour, by reason of
sickness, during my whole term of service.