JONAHS AND BEATS.
“Good people, I’ll sing you a ditty,
So bear with me all ye who can;
I make an appeal to your pity,
For I’m a most unlucky man.
’Twas under an unlucky planet
That I a poor mortal was born;
My existence since first I began it
Has been very sad and forlorn.
Then do not make sport of my troubles,
But pity me all ye who can,
For I’m an uncomfortable, horrible, terrible, inconsolable,
unlucky man.”
OLD SONG.
[Illustration]
In a former chapter I made the statement that Sibley tents furnished
quarters capacious enough for twelve men. That statement is to be taken
with some qualifications. If those men were all lying down asleep, there
did not seem much of a crowd. But if one man of the twelve happened to be
on guard at night, and, furthermore, was on what we used to know as the
Third Relief guard, which in my company was posted at 12, midnight, and
came off post at 2 A.M., when all were soundly sleeping, and, moreover,
if this man chanced to quarter in that part of the tent opposite the
entrance, and if, in seeking his blanket and board in the darkness, it
was his luck to step on the stockinged foot of a recumbent form having
a large voice, a large temper, but a small though forcible selection of
English defiled, straightway that selection was hurled at the head of the
offending even though well-meaning guard. And if, under the excitement
of his mishap, the luckless guard makes a spring thinking to clear all
other intervening slumberers and score a home run, but alights instead
amidships of the comrade who sleeps next him, expelling from him a groan
that by all known comparisons should have been his last, the poor guard
has only involved himself the more inextricably in trouble; for as soon
as his latest victim recovers consciousness sufficiently to know that it
was _not_ a twelve-pound cannon ball that has doubled him up, and that
stretcher bearers are _not_ needed to take him to the rear, he strikes
up in the same strain and pitch and force as that of the first victim,
and together they make the midnight air vocal with choice invective
against their representative of the Third Relief. By this time the rest
of the tent’s crew have been waked up, cross enough, too, at being thus
rudely disturbed, and they all come in heavily on the chorus. As the
wordy assault continues the inmates of adjoining tents who have also been
aroused take a hand in it, and “Shut up!”—“Sergeant of the Guard!”—“Go
lie down!”—“Shoot him on the spot!”—“Put him in the guard-house!” are a
few of the many impromptu orders issued within and without the tent in
question.
At last the tempest in a teapot expends itself and by the time that the
sergeant of the guard has arrived to seek out the cause of the tumult
and enforce the instructions of the officer of the day by putting the
offenders against the rules and discipline of camp under arrest, for
talking and disturbance after Taps, all are quiet, for no one would make
a complaint against the culprits. Their temporary excitement has cooled,
and the discreet sergeant is even in doubt as to which tent contains the
offenders.
[Illustration: THE JONAH SPILLING PEA-SOUP.]
Now, accidents will happen to the most careful and the best of men, but
the soldier whom I have been describing could be found in every squad in
camp—that is, a man of his kind. Such men were called “Jonahs” on account
of their ill luck. Perhaps this particular Jonah after getting his tin
plate level full of hot pea-soup was sure, on entering the tent, to spill
a part of it down somebody’s back. The higher he could hold it the better
it seemed to please him as he made his way to his accustomed place in the
tent, and in bringing it down into a latitude where he proposed to eat it
he usually managed to dispose of much of the remainder, either on his own
or somebody else’s blankets. When pea-soup failed him for a diversion,
he was a dead shot on kicking over his neighbor’s pot of coffee, which
the owner had put down for a moment while he adjusted his lap-table to
receive his supper. The profuseness of the Jonah’s apologies—and they
always were profuse, and undoubtedly sincere—was utterly inadequate as a
balm for the wounds he made. Anybody else in the tent might have kicked
the coffee to the remotest bounds of camp with malice aforethought, and
it would not have produced a tithe of the aggravation which it did to
have this constitutional blunderer do it by accident. It may be that
he wished to borrow your ink. Of course you could not refuse him. It
may have been made by you with some ink powders sent from home—perhaps
the last you had and which you should want yourself that very day. It
mattered not. He took it with complacency and fair promises, put it on
a box by his side and tipped the box over five minutes afterward by the
watch.
[Illustration: THE CAMP-FIRE BEFORE THE JONAH APPEARS.]
[Illustration: THE CAMP-FIRE AFTER THE JONAH APPEARS.]
Cooking was the forte of this Jonah. He could be found most any time of
day—or night, if he was a guardsman—around the camp-fire with his little
mess of something in his tomato can or tin dipper, which he would throw
an air of mystery around every now and then by drawing a small package
from the depths of his pocket or haversack and scattering some of its
contents into the brew. But there was a time in the history of his
culinary pursuits when he rose to a supreme height as a blunderer. It was
when he appeared at the camp-fire which, by the way, he never kindled
himself, ready to occupy the choice places with his dishes; and after the
two rails, between which fires were usually built, had been well burdened
by the coffee-pots of his comrades it presented an opportunity which his
evil genius was likely to take advantage of; for then he was suddenly
seized with a thought of something else that he had forgotten to borrow.
Turning in his haste to go to the tent for this purpose he was sure to
stumble over the end of one or both of the rails, when the downfall of
the coffee-pots and the quenching of the fire followed as a matter of
course. At just this point in his career it would be to the credit of
his associates to drop the curtain on the picture; but the sequel must
be told. The average soldier was not an especially devout man, and while
in times of imminent danger he had serious thoughts, yet at other times
his many trials, his privations, and the rigors of a necessary discipline
all conduced to make him a highly explosive creature on demand. Moreover,
coffee and sugar were staple articles with the soldier, and the least
waste of them was not to be tolerated under ordinary circumstances;
but to have a whole line of coffee-pots with their precious contents
upset by the Jonah of the tent in his recklessness was the last ounce
of pressure removed from the safety valve of his tent-mates’ wrath; and
such a discharge of hard names and oaths, “long, loud, and deep,” as many
of these sufferers would deliver themselves of, if it could have been
utilized against the enemy, might have demolished a regiment. And the
others who did not give vent to their passions by blows or the use of
strong language seemed to sympathize very keenly with those who did. Two
chaplains apiece to some of the men would have been none too many to hold
them in check.
I remember one man who seemed always to have hard luck in spite of
himself. He was a good soldier and meant well, but would blunder badly
now and then. His last act in the service was to plunge an axe through
his boot while he was cutting wood. Unfortunately for him as it happened
his foot was in it at the time. On pulling it out of the boot and looking
it over he found that several of his toes had “got left”; so he took
up his boot, turned it upside down, and shook out a shower of toes as
complacently as if that was what he enlisted for. This casualty closed
his career in active service.
[Illustration: THE UNLUCKY MAN.]
There were divers other directions in which the Jonah distinguished
himself; but I must leave him for the present to direct attention to
the other class of men of whom I wish to say something. These were the
_beats_ of the service—a name given them by their comrades-in-arms. There
were all grades of beats. The original idea of beat was that of a lazy
man or a shirk, who would by hook or by crook get rid of all military
or fatigue duty that he could; but the term grew to have a broader
significance.
One of the milder forms of beat was the man who sat over the fire in
the tent piling on wood all the time, and roasting out the rest of the
tent’s crew, who seemed to have no rights that this fireman felt bound to
respect. He was always cold. He wore overcoat, dress-coat, blouse, and
flannels the full government allowance all at once, but never complained
of being too warm. He never took off any of these garments night or day
unless compelled to on inspection. He was most at home on fatigue duty,
for he seemed fatigued from the start and moved like real estate. A
sprinkling of this class seemed necessary to the success of the Union
arms, for they were certainly to be found in every organization.
[Illustration: GOING AFTER WATER.]
Another and more positive type of beat were the men who never had any
water in their canteens. Even when the army was in settled camp, water
was not always to be had without going some distance for it; but these
men were never known to go after any. They always managed to hang their
canteen on some one else who was bound for the spring. If, when the army
was on the move, a rush was made during a temporary halt, for a spring or
stream some distance away, these men never rushed. They were satisfied
to lie down and drink a supply which they took their chances of begging,
from some recruit, perhaps, who did not know their propensities. If it
happened to any man to be so straitened in his cooking operations as to
be under the necessity of borrowing from one of these, he was sure of
being called upon to requite the favor fully as many times as his temper
would endure it.
Then, as to rations, their hardtack never held out, and they were ever
on the alert to borrow. It mattered not how great the scarcity, real
or anticipated, they could not provide for a contingency, and their
neighbors in the same squad were mean and avaricious—so the beats said—if
they would not give of their husbanded resources to these profligate,
improvident comrades. But this class did not stop at borrowing hardtack.
They were not all of them particular, and when hardtack could not be
spared they would get along with coffee or sugar or salt pork; or, if
they could borrow a _dollar_, “just for a day or two,” they would then
repay it surely, because several letters from their friends at home,
each one containing money, were already overdue. People in civil life
think they know all about the imperfections of the United States postal
service, and tell of their letters and papers lost, miscarried, or in
some way delayed, with much pedantry; but they have yet to learn the A
B C of its imperfections, and no one that I know of is so competent to
teach them as certain of the Union soldiers. I could have produced men
in 1862-5, yes—I can now—who lost more letters in one year, three out
of every four of which contained considerable sums of money, than any
postmaster-general yet appointed is willing to admit have been lost since
the establishment of a mail service. This, remember, the loss of one man;
and when it is multiplied by the number of men just like him that were
to be found, not in one army alone but in all the armies of the Union,
a special reason is obvious why the government should be liberal in its
dealings with the old soldier.
In this connection I am reminded of another interesting feature of army
experience, which is of some historical value. It was this: whenever
the troops were paid off a very large majority of them wished to send
the most of their pay home to their families or their friends for safe
keeping. Of course there was some risk attending the sending of it in
the mails. To obviate this risk an “allotment” plan was adopted by means
of which when the troops were visited by the paymaster, on signing a
roll prepared for that purpose, so much of their pay as they wished was
allotted or assigned by the soldiers to whomsoever they designated at the
North. To illustrate: John Smith had four months’ pay due him at the rate
of $13 a month. He decided to allot $10 per month of this to his wife at
Plymouth, Mass.; so the paymaster pays him $12, and the remaining $40 is
paid to his wife by check in Plymouth, without any further action on the
part of John.
This plan was a great convenience to both the soldiers and their
families. In this division of his income the calculation of the soldier
was to save out enough for himself to pay all incidental expenses of camp
life, such as washing, tobacco, newspapers, pies and biscuits, bought of
“Aunty,” and cheese and cakes of the sutler. But in spite of his nice
calculations the rule was that the larger part of the money allotted home
was returned, by request of the sender, in small amounts of a dollar
or the fraction of a dollar. I have previously stated that at that
time silver had gone out of use, it being only to be had by paying the
premium on it, just as on gold, and so to take its place the government
issued what was generally known as scrip, being paper currency of the
denominations of fifty, twenty-five, ten, five, and, later, fifteen and
three-cent pieces, some of which are still in circulation. They were a
great convenience to the soldiers and their friends. But to resume:—
If the statements made by these beats as to the amount of money they had
sent for and were expecting were to be believed they must not only have
sent for their full allotment, but have drawn liberally on their home
credit or the charity of their friends besides. In truth, however, the
genuine beat never intended to return borrowed money. It is currently
believed by outsiders that the soldiers who stood shoulder to shoulder
battling for the Union, sharing the same exposures, the same shelter,
the same mess would ever afterwards be likely to stand steadfastly by
one another. The organization of the Grand Army of the Republic seems
to strengthen such an opinion, yet human nature remains pretty much the
same in all situations. If a man was a shirk or a thief or a beat or a
coward or a worthless scoundrel generally in the army, it was because
he had been educated to it before he enlisted. The leopard cannot
change his spots nor the Ethiopian his skin. It will therefore create no
great surprise when I remark that a large amount of money borrowed by
one soldier of another has never been repaid; and such is the lack of
honesty and manliness on the part of these men that they can meet the old
comrades of whom in those trying war days they borrowed one, two, five,
or ten dollars, and in some cases more, without so much as a blush or
betraying in any manner the slightest recognition of their long standing
obligation. Some are so worthless and brazen-faced even as to ask the
same victims for more at this late day.
One favorite dodge of the beat was to have the corporal arouse him twice
or three times before he would finally get out of his bunk; and then he
would prepare to go out at a snail’s pace. Once on his beat, his next
dodge was to manœuvre so as to have the corporal of his relief do the
most of his duty for him; for hardly would he have been posted before the
corporal must be summoned, the beat having been seized with a desire to
go to the company sink. That is good for half an hour out of the corporal
at least. At last the dodger reappears moving at a slow pace, and wearing
the appearance of a man suffering for his discharge from service. He
retails his woes to the corporal, as he resumes his equipments, in a most
doleful strain. But the corporal is in no mood to listen after his long
wait, and hastily directs his steps towards the guard-tent.
He is not allowed to remain there long, however, ere a summons reaches
him from the same post, to which he responds with excusable ill-humor and
mutterings at the duplicity of the guardsman in question. This time the
patient has happened to think of some medicine at his tent which will be
of benefit to him. Of course the corporal is anxious enough to have him
healed, and so he again assumes the duties of the post for the shirk,
who does not reappear until his last hour of duty is well on its second
quarter, feigning in excuse that he could not find his own panacea and
so was obliged to go elsewhere. Thus in one way and another, by using the
kind offices of his messmates together with those of the corporal, he
would manage to get out of at least two-thirds of his guard duty.
[Illustration: THE RHEUMATIC DODGER.]
After the battle of Fredericksburg a soldier belonging to a gallant
regiment in Burnside’s corps, whose courage had evidently been put to a
sore test in the above engagement, resorted to the _rheumatic dodge_ to
secure his discharge. He responded daily to sick call, pitifully warped
out of shape, was prescribed for, but all to no avail. One leg was drawn
up so that, apparently, he could not use it, and groans indicative of
excruciating agony escaped him at studied intervals and on suitable
occasions. So his case went on for six weeks, till at last the surgeon
recommended his discharge. It was approved at regimental, brigade, and
division headquarters, and had reached corps headquarters when the corps
was ordered to Kentucky. At Covington the party having the supposed
invalid in charge gained access in some manner to a barrel of whiskey.
Not being a temperance man, the dodger was thrown off his guard by this
_spirit_ual bonanza, and, taking his turn at the straw, for which entry
had been made into the barrel, he was soon as sprightly on both legs as
ever. In this condition his colonel found him. Of course his discharge
was recalled from corps headquarters, and the way of this transgressor
was made hard for months afterwards.
There was another field in which the beat played an interesting part.
I use _played_ with a double significance, for he never _worked_ if he
could avoid it. It was when a detail of men was made to do some line of
_fatigue duty_, by which is meant all the labors of the service distinct
from strict military duty, such as the “policing” or clearing up of camp,
procuring wood and water for the company, digging and fitting up of sinks
(the water-closets of the army), and, in addition to these duties, in
cavalry and artillery, procuring grain and forage for the horses. It
was a sad fate to befall a good duty soldier to get on to a detail to
procure wood where every second or third man was a shirk or beat; for
while they must needs bear the appearance of doing something, they were
really in the way of those who could work and were willing to. Many of
these shirkers would waste a great deal of time and breath maligning
the government or their officers for requiring them to do such work,
indignantly declaring that “they enlisted to fight and not to chop wood
or dig sinks.” But it was noticeable that when the fight came on, if any
of these heroes got into it, they then appeared just as willing to bind
themselves by contract to cut all the wood in Virginia, if they could
only be let go just that once. These were the men who were “invincible
in peace and invisible in war,” as the late Senator Hill, of Georgia,
once said. I may add here that, coming as the soldiers did from all
avocations and stations in life, these details for fatigue often brought
together men few of whom had any practical knowledge of the work in hand;
so that aside from the shirks, who _could_ work but _would_ not, there
were others who _would_ but _could_ not, at least intelligently. Still,
the army was a great educator in many ways to men who cared to learn, and
some of the most ignorant became by force of circumstances quite expert,
in time, in channels hitherto untraversed by them.
[Illustration: WATER FOR THE COOK-HOUSE.]
But there was one detail upon which our shirks, beats, and men unskilled
in manual labor, such as the handling of the spade and pickaxe, appeared
in all the glory of their artful dodging and ignorance. If a man did not
take hold of the work lively, whether because he preferred to shirk it
or because he did not understand it, the worse for him. The detail in
question was one made to administer the last rites to a batch of deceased
horses. It happened to the artillery and cavalry to lose a large number
of these animals in winter, which, owing to the freezing of the ground,
could not be buried until the disappearance of the frost in spring;
but by that time, through the action of rain and sun and the frequent
depredations of dogs, buzzards, and crows, the remains were not always in
the most inviting condition for the administrations of the sexton. Then,
again, during the summer season, when the army made a halt for rest and
recruiting, another sacrifice of glanders-infected and generally used-up
horses was made to the god of war. But as they were not always promptly
committed to mother earth, either from a desire to show a decent respect
for the memory of the deceased or for some other reason best known to the
red-tape of military rule, the odors that were wafted from them on the
breezes were wont to become far more “spicy” than agreeable, so that a
speedy interment was generally ordered by the military Board of Health.
As soon as the nature of the business for which such a detail was ordered
became generally known, the fun began, for a lively protest was wont to
go up from the men against being selected to participate in the impending
equine obsequies. Perhaps the first objection heard from a victim who has
drawn a prize in the business is that “he was on guard the day before,
and is not yet physically competent for such a detail.” The sergeant is
charged with unfairness, and with having pets that he gives all the “soft
jobs” to, etc. But the warrior of the triple _chevron_ is inexorable, and
his muttering, much injured subordinate finally reports to the corporal
in charge of the detail in front of the camp, betraying in his every word
and movement a heart-felt desire for his term of service or this cruel
war to be over.
Another one whom his sergeant has booked for the enterprise has got wind
of what is to be done, so that when found he is tucked up in his bunk. He
stoutly insists that he is an invalid, and is only waiting for the next
sounding of “Sick call” to respond to it. But his attack is so sudden,
and his language and lungs so strong for a sick man, that he finds it
difficult to establish his claim. He calls on his tent-mates to swear
that he is telling the truth, but finds them strangely devout and totally
ignorant of his ailments, for they are chuckling internally at their own
good fortune in not being selected, which, if he proves his case, one of
them _may_ be; so, unless his plea is a pitiful and deserving one, they
keep mum.
A third victim does not claim to have been selected out of turn, but
nevertheless alleges that “the deal is unfair, because he was on the last
detail but one made for this horse-burying business, and he does not
think that he ought to be the chief mourner for his detachment, for a
paltry thirteen dollars a month. Besides, there may be others who would
_like_ to go on this detail.” But as he is unable to name or find the man
or men having this highly refined ambition he finally goes off grumbling
and joins the squad.
[Illustration: THE HIGH-TEMPERED MAN.]
A fourth victim is the constitutionally high-tempered and profane man. He
finds no fault with the justice of the sergeant in assigning to him a
participation in the ceremonies of the hour; but he had got comfortably
seated to write a letter when the summons came, and, pausing only long
enough to inquire the nature of the detail, he pitches his half-written
letter and materials in one direction, his lap-board in another, gets
up, kicks over the box or stool on which he was sitting, pulls on his
cap with a vehement jerk, and then opens his battery. He directs none
of his unmilitary English at the sergeant—that would hardly do; but he
lays his furious lash upon the poor innocent back of the government,
though just what _branch_ of it is responsible he does not pause between
his oaths long enough to state. He pursues it with the most terrible of
curses uphill, and then with like violent language follows it down. He
blank blanks the whole blank blank war, and hopes that the South may
win. He wishes that all the blank horses were in blank, and adds by way
of self-reproach that it serves any one, who is such a blank blank fool
as to enlist, _right_ to have this blank, filthy, disgusting work to do.
And he leaves the stockade shutting the door behind him “with a wooden
damn,” as Holmes says, and goes off to report, making the air blue with
his cursing. Let me say for this man, before leaving him, that he is not
so hardened and bad at heart as he makes himself appear; and in the shock
of battle he will be found standing manfully at his post minus his temper
and profanity.
[Illustration: THE PAPER-COLLAR YOUNG MAN.]
There is one more man whom I will describe here, representing another
class than either mentioned, whose unlucky star has fated _him_ to take
a part in these obsequies; but he is not a shirk nor a beat. He is
the _paper-collar young man_, just from the recruiting station, with
enamelled long-legged boots and custom-made clothes, who yet looks with
some measure of disdain on government clothing, and yet eats in a most
gingerly way of the stern, unpoetical government rations. He is an only
son, and was a dry-goods clerk in the city at home, where no reasonable
want went ungratified; and now, when he is summoned forth to join the
burial party, he responds at once. True, his heart and stomach both
revolt at the work ahead, but he wants to be—not an angel—but a veteran
among veterans, and his pride prevents his entering any remonstrance in
the presence of the older soldiers. As he clutches the spade pointed
out to him with one hand he shoves the other vacantly to the bottom of
his breeches pocket, his mouth drawn down codfish-like at the corners.
He attempts to appear indifferent as he approaches the detail, and as
they congratulate him on his good-fortune a sickly smile plays over his
countenance; but it is Mark Tapley feigning a jollity which he does not
feel and which soon subsides into a pale melancholy. His fellow-victims
feel their ill-luck made more endurable by seeing him also drafted for
the loathsome task; but their glow of satisfaction is only superficial
and speedily wanes as the officer of the day, who is to superintend the
job, appears and orders them forward.
And now the fitness of the selection becomes apparent as the squad moves
off, for a more genuine body of mourners, to the eye, could not have
been chosen. Their faces, with, it may be, a hardened or indifferent
exception, wear the most solemn of expressions, and their step is as
slow as if they were following a muffled drum beating the requiem of a
deceased comrade.
[Illustration: THE MOURNERS.]
Having arrived at the place of sepulture, the first business is to dig
a grave close to each body, so that it may be easily rolled in. But if
there has been no fun before, it commences when the rolling in begins.
The Hardened Exception, who has occupied much of his time while digging
in sketching distasteful pictures for the Profane Man to swear at,
now makes a change of base, and calls upon the Paper-Collar Young Man
to “take hold and help roll in,” which the young man reluctantly and
gingerly does; but when the noxious gases begin to make their presence
manifest, and the Hardened Wretch hands him an axe to break the legs
that would otherwise protrude from the grave, it is the last straw to
an already overburdened sentimental soul; his emotions overpower him,
and, turning his back on the deceased, he utters something which sounds
like “hurrah! without the h,” as Mark Twain puts it, repeating it with
increasing emphasis. But he is not to express his enthusiasm on this
question alone a great while. There are more sympathizers in the party
than he had anticipated, and not recruits either; and in less time
than I have taken to relate it more than half the detail, gallantly
led off by the officer of the day, are standing about, leaning over at
various angles like the tomb-stones in an old cemetery, disposing of
their hardtack and coffee, and looking as if ready to throw up even the
contract. The profane man is among them, and just as often as he can
catch his breath long enough he blank blanks the government and then
dives again. The rest of the detail stand not far away holding on to
their sides and roaring with laughter. But I must drop the curtain on
this picture. It has been said that one touch of nature makes the whole
world kin. Be that as it may, certain it is that the officer, the good
duty soldier, the recruit, and the beat, after an occasion of this kind,
had a common bond of sympathy, which went far towards levelling military
distinctions between them.
[Illustration: “HURRAH WITHOUT THE H.”]