the most beautiful I ever seen. Jeb Smith, our company clerk, thinks
that he can sFlink ink to beat old Spencerian System hisself, but he
ain't once with you. Ide ruther see one line ov your beautiful ritin'
than all that he ever writ."
("That's so," said Shorty, after judicially scanning the sentence. "Jeb
kin do some awful fancy kurlys, and draw a bird without takin' his pen
from the paper, but he never writ my name a thousandth part as purty as
Maria kin.")
"And how purty you spel. Ime something ov a speler myself, and can nock
out most ov the boys in the company on Webster's Primary, but I aint to
be menshuned in the saim day with you.
"With best respecks to your family, and hoapin soon to here from you, I
am very respeckfully, your friend,
W. L. Elliot.
Corpril, Company Q, 2 Hundsrdth Injiamiy Volintear Infantry."
By the time he had his letter finished, and was wiping the sweat of
intense labor from his brow, he heard the bugle sounding the first call
for dress parade. "I must go and begin my fatherly dooties to little
Pete Skidmore," he said, carefully sealing his letter and sticking a
stamp on it, to mail at the Chaplain's tent as he went by. "It's goin'
to be extry fatigue to be daddy to a little cuss as lively as a
schoolhouse flea, and Corpril of Co. Q, at the same time, but I'm going
to do it, if it breaks a leg."
He was passing a clump of barberry bushes when he overheard Pete
Skidmore's voice inside:
"I'll bet $10 I kin pick it out every time. I'll bet $25 I kin pick it
out this time. Don't tech the cards."
"I don't want to lose no more money on baby bets," replied a tantalizing
voice. "I'll make it $40 or nothin'. Now, youngster, if y're a man—"
Shorty softly parted the bushes and looked in. Two of the well-known
sharpers who hung around the camps had enticed little Pete in there, and
to a game of three-card monte. They had inflamed his boyish conceit by
allowing him to pick out two cards in succession, and with small bets.
"I hain't got but $40 left o' my bounty and first month's pay," said
little Pete irresolutely, "and I wanted to send $35 of it home to
mother, but I'll—"
"You'll do nothin' o' the kind," shouted Shorty, bursting through the
bushes. "You measly whelps, hain't you a grain o' manhood left? Ain't
you ashamed to swindle a green little kid out o' the money that he wants
to send to his widowed mother?"
"Go off and 'tend to your own business, if you know what's good for
you," said the larger of the men threateningly. "Keep your spoon out o'
other folks' soup. This young man knows what he's about. He kin take
care o' himself. He ain't no chicken. You ain't his guardeen."
"No he ain't," said Pete Skidmore, whose vanity was touched as well as
his cupidity aroused. "Mind your own business, Mister Elliott. You're
only a Corpril anyway. You hain't nothin' to do with me outside the
company. I kin take care o' myself. I've beat these men twice, and kin
do it again."
"Clear out, now, if you don't want to git hurt," said the larger man,'
moving his hand toward his hip.
Shorty's response was to kick over the board on which the cards were
lying, and knock the man sprawling with a back-handed blow. He made a
long pass at the other man, who avoided it, and ran away. Shorty took
Pete by the collar and drew him out of the bushes, in spite of that
youngster's kicks and protestations.
He halted there, pulled out his pocket-knife, and judicially selected a
hickory limb, which he cut and carefully pruned.
"What're you goin' to do?" asked Pete apprehensively.
"I'm goin' to give you a lesson on the evils of gamblin', Pete,
especially when you don't know how."
"But I did know how," persisted Pete. "I beat them fellers twice, and
could beat them every time. I could see quicker'n they could move their
hands."
"You little fool, you knowed about as much about them cards as they know
of ice-water in the place where Jeff Davis is goin'. Pete, I'm goin' to
be a second father to you."
"Dod dum you, who asked you to be a daddy to me? I've had one already.
When I want another, I'll pick one out to suit myself," and Pete looked
around for a stone or a club with which to defend himself.
"Pete," said Shorty solemnly as he finished trimming the switch, and
replaced the knife in his pocket, "nobody's allowed to pick out his own
daddy in this world. He just gits him. It's one o' the mysterious ways
o' Providence. You've got me through one o' them mysterious ways o'
Providence, and you can't git shet o' me. I'm goin' to lick you still
harder for swearin' before your father, and sayin' disrespeckful words
to him. And I'm goin' to lick you till you promise never to tech another
card until I learn you you how to play, which'll be never. Come here, my
son."
The yells that soon rose from that thicket would have indicated that
either a boy was being skinned alive or was having his face washed by
his mother.
CHAPTER IX. SI TAKES HIS BOYS FOR A LITTLE MARCH INTO THE COUNTRY.
"SI," said the Orderly-Sergeant, "here's a chance to give them pin-
feather roosters o' yours a little taste of active service, that'll be
good seasoning for 'em, and help develop their hackles and spurs."
"Good idee. What is it?" responded Si with alacrity.
"An order's come down from Headquarters to detail a Sergeant and eight
men from the company to go out about eight or 10 miles in the country,
and take a turn guarding a little mill they're running out there,
grinding meal. There's a gang of bushwhackers around there, that
occasionally pester the men at work and they've tried once to burn the
mill. I don't think you'll have much trouble, but you've got to keep
your eye peeled, and not let any of your boys go to sleep on post."
"I'll look out for that."
"I know you will. You'll take Shorty along, and your seven kids,
which'll make up the number. You'll draw three days' rations, at the end
of which time you'll be relieved."
"Now, boys," said Si, returning to his squad, "we won't drill today, but
are going out on some real soldierin'. The Kurnel has given us a very
important detail."
The boys swelled up visibly at the news.
"I want you to all act like soldiers, now," continued Si, "and be a
credit to the company and the rijiment. We're goin' to be all by
ourselves, and everybody's eyes 'll be on us."
"Yes," echoed Shorty, "we'll be the only part o' the rijiment at the
front, and we want to git a good stiff brace on ourselves, because if we
don't some o' these other rijiments may git the grand laugh on us."
Shorty's tone was that this was a calamity to which death was
preferable, and the boys were correspondingly impressed. They were
rapidly learning the lesson that the regiment and its reputation were
the most important things in the whole world.
"Come along, and le's draw our rations," said Si. "And you boys want to
keep in mind that this's all you'll git for three days, and govern
yourselves accordingly. The 'Leventh Commandment is to take all that you
kin git, and take mighty good care of it after you git it—"
"For sich is the Kingdom of Heaven," interjected Shorty, imitating the
Chaplain's tone.
"No," said Si, who was irritated by his partner's irreverence: "but it's
the way a good soldier does. His first dooty's to take care o' his grub,
because that's takin' care o' himself, and keepin' himself in good shape
to do the dooty the Government expects o' him. 'Tain't servin' the
Government right for him to be careless about himself. Now here's 27
rations o' bread, meat, coffee, sugar, salt and beans—three apiece for
each of us. Harry Joslyn, you and Gid Mack divide them up into nine
equal piles."
Si and Shorty turned to give directions about packing up the shelter-
tents and blankets for carrying.
"Now, Gid Mackall," said Harry, "play fair, if you ever did in your
life. I won't have none o' your shenanniging."
"Don't talk to me about shenanniging, you little imp," responded Gid
cordially. "You can't do a straight thing if you try, and you never try.
You never fisted-up with me on a ball-bat that you didn't slip your hand
so's to come out ahead."
"Now, there's three loaves o' bread for the Sargint," said Harry, laying
them down on a newspaper. "There's three for the Corpril; there's three
for me; there's three for you."
"Here, what're you givin' me that broken loaf for?" demanded Gid,
stopping in his distribution of meat. "Give that to Pete Skidmore. He's
the littlest."
"Ain't goin' to do nothin' o' the kind," responded Harry. "You've got to
take things as they come. That loaf fell to you, and you've got to keep
it."
"If you don't take that nubbin loaf away and put a full one in its
place, not a speck o' lean meat 'll you get—nothin' but fat six inches
thick."
"You'll cut that meat straight across, and give me my right share o'
lean, you puddin'-headed, sandhill crane," shouted Harry.
"Who're you a-calling names, you bow-legged little shrimp?" shouted Gid,
slapping Harry across the face with a piece of fat pork.
An angry mix-up, school boy rules, followed, to the great detriment of
the rations. Si and Shorty rushed up, separated the combatants, and
administered shakes, cuffs, and sharp reprimands.
"Now, you quarrelsome little whelps," said Si, after quiet had been
restored, "you've got to take them rations that you've spiled for
yourselves. You shan't have no other. Put that bread and that meat
you've kicked around into your own haversacks. Then go back there and
roll up your blankets—same as the other boys. Alf Russell, you and Jim
Humphreys come here and divide the rest o' these rations into seven
parts, if you kin do it without fightin'."
The division of the rations proceeded, with some jars between Russell
and Humphreys over the apportionment of fat and lean meat, and angry
protests from little Pete Skidmore because they made his share smaller
than anybody else's.
"Yit," said he, "I've got to march just as far as any of you, carry just
as big a gun, and do just as much shootin'."
"You're wrong," said the medical-minded Alf Russell. "You ought to have
less than the others, because you're smaller. The littler and younger
the person the smaller the dose, always."
"No," acceded the farmer Jim Humphreys. "Tain't natural, nor right. You
don't give a colt as much feed as you do a grown horse. Anybody knows
that."
"Pete's plea is sound," contraverted the legal-minded Monty Scruggs.
"All men are equal before the law, though they mayn't be a foot high.
Rations are a matter of law, and the law's no respecter of persons."
"Rations is intended," persisted Alf, "to give a man what he needs to
eat—nothing more, nothing less. Pete don't need as much as a man; why
give it to him? There'd be just as much sense in giving him the clothes
for a six-footer."
"All o' you are always imposin' on me 'cause I'm little," whimpered
Pete. "And that stuck-up Alf Russell's the worst of all. Just because
he's goin' to be a doctor, and leads in singin' at church, he thinks he
knows more'n the man what writ the arithmetic, and he's down on me
because I won't take all he says for law and gospel, in spite of his
airs. Jim Humphreys is down on me, because I writ home that I'd shot a
man back there at the burnt bridge, and Jim got skeered at a coon-
huntin' nigger."
"Never mind, Pete," said Monty consolingly, "none o' them shall impose
on you while I'm around. Now, Alf, you and Jim give Pete just as much as
the rest, or I'll make you."
"Who'll you make, you brindle steer?" said Alf, laying down his bread
and bristling up.
"Stand back, Alf; he meant me," said Jim, disposing his meat, and
approaching Monty with doubled fists. "Now, Mister Scruggs, le's see you
do some makin', since you're so brash."
"Here, stop that, you little scamps," shouted Si, whose attention had
been so far devoted to quieting Harry and Gid, and showing them how to
prepare their traps for marching. "Great Scott, can't you git along
without fightin'? I'm goin' to take you where you'll git real fightin'
enough to satisfy you.
"Go ahead, there, and divide them rations, as I ordered you, and be
quick about it, for we must hurry off."
The mention of real fighting immediately sobered up the boys, and made
them forget their squabbles. They hurried about their work with
quickened zeal.
"Now," said Si, "pack your rations carefully in your haversacks, just as
you see me and Corpril Elliott doin'. First, keep your sugar, coffee and
salt separate. Put 'em in little tin boxes, like these, and see that the
lids are on tight. Hurry up, now. Shorty, you'd better look over the
boxes, and go up and draw as many cartridges as you think we'll need."
The mention of need for cartridges was an electric impulse which set the
boys keenly alive. They bundled their rations into their haversacks, and
flung their blanket rolls over their shoulders, and were standing in a
state of palpitating expectancy, when Shorty came back with his hands
full of cartridges, which he proceeded to distribute.
"Take arms," commanded Si. "Forward!—March!"
Si and Shorty started off with their long, easy campaign stride, which,
in some incomprehensible way that the veteran only learns by practice,
brought their feet down every time in exactly the right place, avoiding
all stumbling-blocks, and covering without apparent effort a long
distance in the course of an hour. The boys pattered industriously
after, doing their best to keep up, but stumbling over roots and stones,
and slipping on steep places, and dropping to the rear in spite of
themselves.
When Si made the customary halt at the end of the first hour, his little
command was strung back for a quarter of a mile, and little Pete
Skidmore was out of sight.
"Better go back and look for little Pete, Shorty," said Si. "We seem to
be losin' him."
Pete was soon brought up, panting and tired.
"Dod durn it, what're you all runnin' away from me for?" he gasped.
"Want to lose me? Want to git into the fight all by yourselves, and
leave me out? Think because I'm little I can't help? I kin shoot as well
as anybody in the crowd, dod durn you."
"There, you see the nonsense o' giving you as much rations as the
others," suggested Alf Russell. "You can't pack 'em, and you wouldn't
need 'em if you did pack 'em."
"What business is it of yours. Mister Russell, I'd like to know," asked
Monty Scruggs, "what he does with his rations. His rations are his
rights, and he's entitled to 'em. It's nobody's business what use a man
makes of his rights."
"Where are these rebels that we're goin' to fight?" asked Harry Joslyn,
eagerly scanning the horizon. "I've been looking for 'em all along, but
couldn't see none. Was you in such a hurry for fear they'd get away, and
have they got away?"
"I wasn't in no hurry," answered Si. "That was only regler marchin'
gait."
"Holy smoke," murmured the rest, wiping their foreheads; "we thought you
was trying to run the rebels down."
"Don't be discouraged, boys," said Si. "You'll soon git used to marchin'
that way right along, and never thinking of it. It may seem a little
hard now, but it won't last long. I guess you're rested enough.
Attention! Forward!—March!"
Si and Shorty had mercifully intended to slow down a little, and not
push the boys. But as they pulled out they forgot themselves, and fell
again into their long, swinging stride, that soon strung the boys out
worse than ever, especially as they were not now buoyed up by an
expectation of meeting the enemy.
"We must march slower. Si," said Shorty, glancing ruefully back, "or
we'll lose every blamed one o' them boys. They're too green yit."
"That's so," accorded Si. "It's like tryin' to make a grass-bellied
horse run a quarter-stretch."
"Might I inquire," asked Monty Scruggs, as he came up, wiped his face
and sat down on a rock, "whether this is what you'd call a forced march,
or merely a free-will trial trot for a record."
"Neither," answered Si. "It's only a common, straight, every-day march
out into the country. You kin count upon one a day like this for the
rest o' your natural lives—I mean your service. It's part o' what you
enlisted for. And this's only a beginnin'. Some days you'll have to keep
this up 15 or 18 hours at a stretch."
There was a general groan of dismay.
"Gracious, I wish I'd wings, or that I'd enlisted in the cavalry,"
sighed Harry.
"Brace up! Brace up!" said Shorty. "You'll soon git used to it, and make
your 40 miles a day like the rest of us, carrying your bed-clothes and
family groceries with you. It's all in gittin' used to it, as the man
said who'd bin skinnin' eels for 40 years, and that now they didn't mind
it a bit."
"Well, le's jog along," said Si. "We ought to git there in another hour.
There's a big rain comin' up, and we want to git under cover before it
strikes us. Forward!—March!"
But the rain was nearer that Si thought. It came, as the Spring rains
come in the North Georgia mountains—as if Niagara had been shifted into
the clouds overhead. The boys were literally washed off the road, and
clung to saplings to avoid being carried away into the brush.
"I'll fall back and keep the boys together," said Shorty, as soon as an
intermission allowed them to speak.
"Alright," said Si. "Look out for little Pete." And Si began to forge
stolidly ahead.
"Goodness, Sarjint, you're not going to travel in such a storm as this,"
gasped Gid Mackall.
"Certainly," Si called back. "Come on. We've got to reach that mill
tonight, no matter what happens. You'd might as well be drowned marchin'
as standin' still. 'Tain't rainin' no worse further ahead than here.
Forward!"
Close Up, Boys. 111
"Close up, boys," said Shorty, taking little Pete's gun and the
youngster's hand. "This's only a Spring shower. 'Tain't nothin' to what
we had on the Tullyhomy Campaign. There the drops was as big as punkins,
and come as thick as the grains on a ear o' corn. Close up, there; dodge
the big drops, and go ahead."
"Hold on to me tight! Hold on to me!" clamored little Pete. "If you
don't I'll be washed away and lost for sure."
"Come along, Peter, my son," Shorty assured him.
"I hain't never lost no children yit, and I hain't goin' to begin with
you."
The storm grew more violent every minute, limbs were torn from the
trees, and fell with a crash, and torrents rushed down from the mountain
side, across the road. Si strode on resolutely, as if the disturbance
were nothing more than a Summer zephyr. He waded squarely through the
raging streams, turning at times to help the next boy to him, strode
over the fallen limbs, and took the dashing downpour with stolid
indifference.
"Close up, boys! Close up!" shouted Shorty from time to time, "Don't
mind a little sprinkle like this. It'll lay the dust, and make marchin'
easier. Come along, Peter, my son. I'm not goin' to lose you."
Night suddenly came, with pitchy darkness, but Si steadily forged
onward. Then the rain ceased as suddenly as it began, but the road was
encumbered with fallen timber and swirling races of muddy water. They
seemed more uncomfortable even than when the rain was falling. They were
now nearing the mill, and the sound of a fitful musketry fire came to
their ears.
"They've sneaked up in the storm to attack the mill," Si called out to
Shorty. "Close up and prepare for action."
"Goodness," gasped Gid Mackall, much of whose vim had been soaked out of
him by the fearful downpour, and who was oppressed by fatigue, hunger,
and the dense blackness of the night in the strange woods. "You don't
have to fight when you're wetter'n a drowned rat, and so tired you're
ready to drop, do you?"
"That's what you do," said Shorty, wiping off his musket. "That's the
way you'll have to do most o' your fightin'. The miserabler you feel the
miserabler you want to make the other fellers feel. Boys, turn your guns
upside down and let the water run out. Then half-cock 'em, and blow into
'em to clean the water out o' the tubes. Then find a dry rag somewhere
about you, and wipe off the nipples. We want every gun to go off when
the order is given. Don't anybody load till Si gives the order."
The drenched but excited boys followed his directions with nervous
haste. Shorty took one gun after another and examined it, while Si went
forward a little ways to reconnoiter. The calm deliberation of the
partners steadied the nervous boys.
"Load," called back Si, from the vantage ground of a little knoll, upon
which he was standing, trying to see into the darkness beyond. A volley
from out in front responded to the sound of his voice, and bullets
knocked bark off the big chestnut behind which he had shrewdly taken
refuge.
"Jest as I expected, Si," Shorty called back to him. "The rebels have
throwed back a squad to watch for us."
"Yes," said Si, coolly, as he stepped back to meet the boys. "There
ain't but 10 o' them, though. I counted every flash and located 'em.
They're all in a bunch right over there by a dead tree to the left. Move
up there quick, aim a little to the left. Aim low, and fire just as we
reach the rise. I'll fire first, and the rest of you foller. Try to hit
something, every one of you."
CHAPTER X. THE BOYS HAVE A COUPLE OF LITTLE SKIRMISHES BUT FINALLY GET
TO THE MILL.
THE time and the surroundings were such as to bring the spirits of the
boys to their lowest ebb.
The gloomy, mysterious woods seemed a world's distance away from their
homes, friends and assistance.
The long, tiresome tramp, the violent rainstorm, which had soaked them
to their skins, and apparently found its way to their hearts; the muddy,
slippery road, with torrents rushing across it, the splashing, searching
rivulets from the boughs overhead, were all deeply depressing.
The boys huddled together, as if to gain courage by closer contact.
"Gracious, I never supposed they'd pull off a fight at night, when
everybody was tired to death and soaked to a gruel," said Alf Russell in
a shivery whisper.
"They fought at Hohenlinden at night, and on the snow," answered Monty
Scruggs. "But snow's not so bad as rain, and, then, they didn't have
these awful woods. I'd feel much better if we was out in a clearing
somewhere."
"Come into line to the left, there," commanded Si, in a low tone.
"Deploy, one pace apart. Shorty, take the left out there in the bushes.
Don't make no noise, step carefully, and don't shoot till I do."
"Keep near me, Pete, and you won't git lost," said Shorty, as he stepped
off into the brush.
—"Must I shoot the same time you do, or wait till you shoot?" asked
Pete, who seemed less depressed by his surroundings than the others, and
mainly eager to get a chance to shoot.
"Don't watch me," cautioned Shorty. "Watch the fellers you are shootin'
at, and try to hit 'em. Fire just as soon as you want to after you hear
the others."
"I'll bet I'll hit a rebel if anybody does," said Pete with hopeful
animation.
They tramped forward a few steps over the spongy ground, and through the
dripping bushes.
The musketry fire continued fitfully around the mill in the distance.
They came to the summit of the little rise.
"Hist—halt; lay down, quick," called the watchful Si, in a penetrating
voice. "They've loaded agin', and are about to shoot."
He and Shorty were down on their faces as he spoke. The others obeyed
more slowly and clumsily. The rebel volley cut the limbs and bushes over
their heads, and whistled viciously through the damp air and the
darkness.
As little Pete dropped to the ground, his nervous finger touched the
trigger and his gun went off up in the air. The others took this as a
cue, and banged away as rapidly as they could get their muskets off.
Only Si and Shorty, in dropping, had kept the lay of the ground in view,
and without rising they deliberately aimed their pieces whither the
volley had come and fired. A suppressed yell of pain came from the other
side.
"We salted one of 'em, anyway," chuckled Shorty, as he raised on his
knee to reload his gun.
"Gosh all Chrismus," said Si, using his most formidable swear-word, for
he was very angry. "What was you brats shootin' at? Squirrels or angels?
A rebel'd had to be 80 cubits high, like old Haman, for one o' you to've
hit him. Lots o' good o' your packin' around guns and cartridges, if
you're goin' to waste your ammynition on the malaria in the clouds. Load
agin, now, carefully, and when you shoot agin be sure to fetch
something. I'll take my ramrod to the next boy that I ketch shootin'
higher'n a man's head. This ain't no Fourth-o'-July business. Our job's
te kill them whangdoodles over there, and I want you to 'tend strictly
to that."
The threat of a real boyish thrashing and the cool, matter-of-fact way
that Si and Shorty conducted themselves—precisely as if chopping trees
or mowing a field—steadied the boys wonderfully.
"They're about ready to shoot agin," Si spoke down the line, in a
penetrating whisper. "Everybody hug the ground, and watch the flashes.
Each feller git a good line on the flash straight in front of him, and
let the hound have a chunk o' lead just below his belt. If you're all
real good, and shoot just right, I'll take you on a rush right at them
fellers, and we'll scatter what's left like a flock o' quail. Lay low.
There it comes agin. Lay low."
An irregular volley burnt out in the blackness beyond. The bullets sang
around much closer than before, and several of them struck near Si, one
landing in the leaves and moss directly in front of him, and throwing a
wet sprinkle in his face.
"Like the parrot, I was talkin' too much and too loud," thought Si.
"They wuz all reachin' for me, and one feller made a mighty good line
shot. Le's see if I can't better him."
He drew down in his sights as carefully as he could in the darkness, and
pulled the trigger. As the smoke thinned out a little he thought he saw
something beyond which indicated a man staggering and falling.
This time the boys seemed to be firing effectively. There was a
commotion in the woods beyond, and the sound of groans on the damp air.
"Raise up!" shouted Si. "Forward! Forward! Jump 'em. Jump 'em before
they kin load agin!"
Loading his gun with the practiced ease of a veteran as he rushed
forward, Si led his squad directly against the position of the rebels.
Part of the rebels had promptly run away, as they heard Si order the
charge, but part boldly stood their ground, and were nervously
reloading, or fixing bayonets, as the squad came crashing through the
brush. One of the rebels fired a hasty, ineffectual shot, and by its
light Shorty saw the nervous little Pete, who had torn off his cumbering
haversack, letting his hat go with it, slip between him and Si, and gain
a pace in advance.
"Git back, you little rat," said Shorty, reaching out a long arm,
catching the boy by the collar, and yanking him back. "Git behind me and
stay there."
The flash revealed another rebel fumbling for a cap. Shorty's gun came
down, and the rebel fell, shot through the shoulder. The rebel leader, a
long haired, lathy man, with the quickness of a wildcat, sprang at Si
with his bayonet fixed. Heavy-footed and deliberate as Si usually was,
when the electricity of a fight was in him there was no lack of
celerity. He caught the rebel's bayonet on his musket-barrel and warded
it off so completely that the rebel shot by him in the impetus of his
own rush. As he passed Si delivered a stunning blow on the back of his
head with his gun-barrel.
"That zouave drill was a mighty good thing, after all," thought Si, as
he turned from his prostrate foe to the others.
While this was going on, the boys were imitating Shorty's example,
getting their guns loaded, and banging away as fast as they did so into
the rebels, who went down under the shots, or ran off, leaving one of
their number, a tall, lank mountaineer, who seemed beside himself with
rage. He had grasped his empty gun by the stock, and was swinging it
around his head, yelling fierce insults and defiance to the whole race
o' Yankees.
"Come on, you infernal pack o' white-livered, nigger-stealin', house-
robbin', hell-desarvin' hypocrites," he shouted. "I kin lick the hull
bilin' o' yo'uns. This is my wounded pardner here, and yo'uns can't have
neither me nor him till yo'uns down me, which y' can't do. Come on, y'
pigeon-livered cowards."
The boys who had pressed lip near him, shrank back a little, out of
possible range of that violently brandished musket, and began loading
their guns.
Shorty had stopped for an instant to turn over into an easier position
the rebel he had shot.
Si paced up. His gun was loaded, and he could have easily brought the
rebel down. But the rebel's devotion to his partner touched him.
Don't Anybody Shoot. 119
"Don't shoot, boys," he commanded; "leave me to 'tend to him. Say,
Johnny," he addressed the rebel, in a placatory way, "don't make a fool
o' yourself. Come down, we've got you, dead. Drop that gun."
"Go to brimstone blazes," shouted the rebel. "If yo'uns have got me, why
don't y' take me. I kin lick the hull caboodle o' y' sneakin' mulatters.
Come on, why don't y'?"
"Give him a wad, Si," said Shorty, reloading his own gun. "We haint no
time to lose. They need us over there."
"No, don't anybody shoot," commanded Si; "he's just crazy about his
partner. He's too brave a man to kill. Say, Johnny, have a little sense.
We haint goin' to hurt your partner, nor you, if you'll behave. Drop
that gun at once, and surrender."
"Go to blazes," retorted the rebel, swinging his gun more wildly than
ever. "Yo'uns is all liars. No dependence kin be placed on y'. If y'
want me, come and git me."'
Shorty had begun to think the thing somewhat humorous. "Look here,
Johnny," said he, "wouldn't you like a big chaw o' navy terbacker—bright
plug. Genuine Yankee plug? Swingin' that ere gun that way is awful
tiresome."
"Eh—What's that?" said the rebel, startled by the new proposition and
its coolness.
"I say, don't you want a big chaw o' terbacker? You must need it. I
always do after I've bin workin' hard. Drop your gun, and have one with
me. We're Injiannians, and we don't mean no harm to your partner, nor to
you. We'll take care o' him, if he's hurt. Here, cut your own chaw."
"Air yo'uns from Injianny?" said the rebel, bringing his gun down to a
less menacing attitude. "I've done got two brothers in Injianny, and I
hear they'uns 've done inlisted in Yankee rijiments. Mebbe yo'uns know
'em."
"Mebbe we do," said Shorty, handing him a long plug and his knife. "But
we hain't time to talk it over now. We'll do that in the mornin', when
business ain't so pressin'. Le' me hold your gun while you cut your
terbacker."
"Now, look here," said Si, "time's jumpin', and we must talk quick. If
we parole you, will you stay here, and take care o' your partner and the
others, and be here in the mornin', when we send for you?"
"You won't send for me, if yo'uns is a-gwine on ter fout we'uns up at
the mill. We'uns chaw yo'uns up, or run y' outen the country."
"We'll take care o' that," said Si sharply. "Will you promise on your
honor to stay with these men, and take care o' them till daylight, if we
don't come sooner?"
"Sartin,—'pon honor," answered the rebel, with his mouth full of
tobacco.
"All right, then. Load at will. Load! Forward!—March!" commanded Si.
Si moved on cautiously, for he feared that the runaways had told those
attacking the mill about his advance, and would bring them all down upon
him. The dying down of the firing about the mill confirmed this opinion.
He warned his boys to make as little noise as possible, and went ahead
of them some distance, to reconnoiter, slipping along the side of the
road, under the shadow of the trees. He arranged a system of signals
with Shorty, by which one click of his gunlock meant halt, and two to
come ahead. Presently he came in sight of the broad race which ran to
the mill. The starlight was sufficient to show its width and its banks,
with the logs lying along, which had been cut when it was dug. A bridge
crossed the race for the road to the mill. Beyond the ground rose
sharply, and looking at the crest against the sky, he could see the
rebels, one by one, file over, and come down to where they could crouch
behind the logs and ambuscade the bridge.
Si clicked his gunlock, and waited till he had counted 25 rebels
gathered there, which seemed to be all, as no more appeared. Then he
slipped back to Shorty, and hurriedly explained the situation.
The boys listened with sinking hearts. More than three times as many
rebels as they themselves numbered, and perhaps fiercer and stronger
than those they had already encountered.
The elation of their recent victory subsided. Again the woods became
ominously dark and gloomy, the soaking dampness very depressing. They
huddled together to brace each other up.
"Si," said Shorty, "didn't you say that it was a squad o' the Maumee
Muskrats in the mill, and that we wuz goin' to relieve 'em."
"Yes, and the Orderly said that railroad 'Mick'—Hennessey—was the
Sarjint in command."
"O, that bog-trottin' old section boss, that hairy-handed artist with
the long shovel, is there, is he with his crucifix and his prayers to
the Saints. That's all right. He's bin stormin' and swearin' ever since
the fight begun; because he's bin obliged to stay inside and shoot, and
instid of making a grand rush and settling things, according to
Donnybrook Fair rules. I tell you what you do. You work the boys
carefully down through the brush toward the race, and git 'em into
position in easy range of the rebels, covering 'em behind logs. I'll
take a circuit around to the left, and git over to the hill, behind the
rebels, and near enough the mill for Hennessey to hear me. Then I'll
fire a shot and yell for Hennessey. He knows my voice, and he'll bring
his men out like a pack o' hornets. Then you let into the rebels from
your side. They can't git across the race at you, and we'll have 'em
where we kin whipsaw 'em."
"Shorty," said Si admiringly, "Gen. Grant 'll hear o' you some day, and
then Co. Q will lose its brightest star, but the army'll gain a great
General."
"I know it; I know it," said Shorty, modestly; "but don't stop to talk
about it now. I think I've got the lay o' the mill in mind. I'll just
cut around that way. Don't shoot till you hear me."
Si quietly deployed his boys to the left of the road, and worked them
through the brush until they came to the crest overlooking the mill-
race. They took readily to this sort of work. They had all hunted
rabbits over the hills of southern Indiana, and they came into position
so softly that the rebels beyond did not suspect their presence.
Then came a long wait for the signal from Shorty. The rebels seemed to
get tired first. Presently they could be seen moving around, and Si had
hard work restraining his squad from shooting at the tempting marks.
Then the rebels began talking, at first in murmurs, and then louder.
There seemed to be a division of opinion among them. Those who had been
run back were sure that the Yankee were coming on to the relief of their
comrades in the mill. The others thought that their comrades had run the
other away just as fast.
"I tell you, hit's no use to wait for they'uns no longer," said one
strong voice. "Them Yankees is runnin' back to their camps as fast as
they'uns's legs 'll carry they'uns. If yo'uns 'd had any sand, and stood
yer ground, you'd 'a seed 'em. But yo' yaller hammers allers git the
ager when ever a cap's busted, and run yer rabbit-gizzards out."
"Y're a liar," hotly responded another voice. "Thar was more'n 50 o'
them Yankees, if thar was a man. We fit 'em awful, before we give away,
and they'd killed Burt Dolson and Bob Whittyker, and I don't know how
many more. They come bulgin' right on toward the mill, arter they'd
reformed. I know hit, bekase Eph and me staid and watched 'em, and shot
at 'em, till we thought hit best to run back and warn ye."
"Ye wuz in a powerful hurry to warn us," sneered the other. "Well,
thar's no Yankees over thar, and none haint a-comin' till daylight. I've
ketched all the ager and rhematiz here that I'm a-gwine ter. Le's go
back and salivate them fellers in the mill, and set fire to it."
This seemed to be the prevailing sentiment, and Si began to fear that
they would all go, and might intercept Shorty. He was on the point of
ordering the boys to fire, and attract their attention, when Shorty's
rifle rang out, and the next instant came a roar from Shorty's powerful
lungs, with each word clear and distinct:
"Hennessy—you—red—mouthed—Mick—come out. The 200th Injianny is—here.
Come out—with a rush—you—imported spalpeen—and jump—'em—in—the—rear!"
"Now, boys," commanded Si, "keep cool, pick your man, and fire low. I'm
goin' to take the feller that's bin doin' the big talkin'."
Each of the boys had already picked his man, and was eagerly waiting the
word. Their fire threw their enemies into confusion, and as their guns
rattled, the barricaded doors of the mill were thrown open, and
Hennessey rushed out with a wild Irish "hurroo." The rebels
incontinently fled, without an attempt at resistance.
After it was ascertained that every unhurt rebel was running for dear
life to get away, after Hennessey and his squad had gathered up the
wounded and carried them into the mill, and after the boys had yelled
themselves hoarse over their victory gained with such unexpected ease,
they suddenly remembered that they were so tired that they could
scarcely drag one foot after another, and hungrier than young wolves at
the end of a hard Winter.
"Gewhillikins," murmured Jim Humphreys, "I wonder when we're going to
have supper. I'm as holler as a stovepipe."
"You've got your suppers in your haversacks," said Si. "We'll go into
the mill and build a fire and make some coffee and fry some meat."
"In my haversack," said Jim ruefully, after they had entered the mill,
and he had run his hand into his forgotten haversack, and withdrawn it
covered with a viscid greasy mush. "My haversack's full o' water, that's
soaked everything else in it to a gruel."
"So's mine; so's mine," echoed the rest, as they examined.
"Confound it," said Si' wrathfully, as he looked into one after another.
"Didn't none o' you have sense enough to fasten down the covers
carefully, so's to keep the water out? Here it is—salt and sugar and
coffee, bread and greasy pork all in one nasty mess. I declare, you
don't seem to have the sense you wuz born with. You've bin breakin'
yourselves down luggin' around 10 or 15 pounds o' water, besides spilin'
your rations."
"Probably Sarjint Hennessey has some rations that he kin give us,"
suggested Shorty, who was genuinely sorry for the poor boys.
"Dade I haint—not a smidgeon," answered Hennessey. "We ixpicted ye's to
git here this forenoon and relieve us, and we et up ivery spoonful of
our grub for breakfast, so's to lighten us for a quick march back to
camp. They've not bin runnin' in the mill for several days, and've
carted off ivery bit of the male they ground. We're nigh starved
oursilves, but we've had a lovely little foight, and we forgive ye's for
not coming airlier. Oi wouldn't 've missed that last rush on thim
divil's for a month's double rations."
"Well," said Si, encouragingly, "we'll have to make mine and Shorty's
rations go around as well as they kin, among all of you. Fish the meat
out o' your haversacks, boys, and wash the dope off it. It ain't spiled,
anyway. We kin each of us have a little to eat tonight, and we'll trust
to Providence for termorrer."
CHAPTER XI. SHORTY GIVES THE BOYS THEIR FIRST LESSON IN FORAGING.
WITH the elasticity of youth the boys slept away their fatigue during
the night, but woke up the next morning ravenously hungry.
"What in the world are we goin' to do for grub, Si?" asked Shorty, as
soon as he got his eyes fairly open.
"Oi know what Oi'm goin' to do," said Hennessey. "Oi'm goin to show the
foinest pace av shprinting back to camp that has been sane in these
parts since our roight bruk that day at Chickamaugy. No grass'll grow
under me fate, Oi tell yez. And as I pass through your camp Oi'll foind
yer Captain, and tell the fix you're in, and to sind out some rations."
"But even if he does send them at once, they can't git here till
evenin', and I hate powerfully to let him and the rest know that we
didn't have sense enough to take care o' our victuals after we'd drawed
'em," said Si.
"If it was only one, or even two days, I'd let the boys starve it out,
as a good lesson to 'em," said Shorty. "But three seems like cruelty to
dumb beasts."
"But what'll they say about us in camp?" groaned Si. "They'll have the
grand laugh on me and you, and every one o' the boys. I'd ruther go on
quarter rations for a month than stand the riggin' they'll give us, and
have Capt. McGillicuddy give me one look when he asks the question about
how we come to lose all our rations so soon? He'll think me a purty
Sarjint to send out into the country in charge o' men, and you a fine
Corpril."
"Say," said Shorty, his face illuminated with a bright idea. "We might
report the rations 'lost in action.' That'd fix it fine. We had two good
fights, and come out ahead. That'll tickle the Captain so that he won't
be partickler what we report."
"Hurroo!" echoed Hennessey; "that's the ticket."
"But we didn't lose 'em in action, and to say so'd be a lie," answered
Si, whose conscience had none of the easy elasticity of his partner's.
"We could report 'em burnt up by lightnin','but we won't. They was lost
by sheer, dumbed carelessness, that me and you and the boys should
knowed better than to've allowed. That's all there is of it, and that's
what I'm goin' to report, if I have to."
"Great Jehosephat," exploded Shorty; "you kin certainly be the
stubbornest mule over nothin', Si Klegg, that I ever seen. We've done
fightin' enough to excuse sich a report, or any that we've a mind to
make."
"Nothin' kin justify a lie," persisted the obdurate Si.
"Holy smoke! bigger men than you—lots bigger—have squared up their
accounts that way. Didn't all the Captains in the rijiment, and the
Quartermaster and Commissary, and, for what I know, the Chaplain and the
Colonel, git clean bills o' health after the battle o' Stone River, by
reportin' everything that they couldn't find 'lost in action?'"
"Yis," added Hennessey, "and didn't my Captain, after Chickamaugy, git
us all new uniforms and complete kits, by reportin' iverything 'lost in
action?' Smart man, my Captain, Oi tell yez."
"Well, I don't think any the more o' them for it. We spiled our rations
before the fightin' begun, they'd bin spiled if there'd bin no fightin',
and I haint going to send no other words, if I've got to send any word."
"Who the divil's goin' to carry this word, Oi'd like to know, Misther
Klegg?" broke in Hennessey. "Are you goin' to put words into my mouth,
Misther Klegg? Oi'll tell your Captain just fwhat Oi plaze, about you
and your foight and your rations. Oi want no more worrids wid ye.
Attintion, min! Shoulder, a-r-m-s! Roight face! Forward, foile left!—M-
a-r-c-h!"
"I s'pose I ain't responsible for any o' the fairy tales with which that
wild Mick'll fill up the Captain," said Si, self-consolingly, as
Hennessey and his squad marched away in quick time. "He'll put a rich,
red, County Connaught color on everything that's happened out here, and
the Captain'll believe as much as suits him. Anyhow, Hennessey'll not
say anything to our disadvantage, and probably the Captain'll send out
some rations by fast mule express."
"Yes," accorded Shorty; "we'll git some rations from camp by this
evenin'. Cap will look out for that. Meanwhile, I'll take out two or
three o' the boys on a scout into the country, to see if we can't pick
up something to eat."
"Humph," said Si, skeptically, "you'll find mighty poor pickin', after
them Ohio boys 's bin out here three days. What they haint taken has
been rooted in the ground."
"Yes; they're awful foragers and thieves," assented Shorty. "All Ohio
boys is. I'm glad I'm from Injianny. Still, I've generally bin able to
find something, even after the Ohio boys had bin there."
"Well, I think we'd better first go back and see about them rebels that
we wounded last night. They may be sufferin' awfully, and we oughtn't to
think about something to eat, before doin' what we kin for them."
"That's so," assented Shorty. "I'd a-gone back last night, but we was
all so dead tired."
"Well, I'll take two o' the boys and go back. You stay here with the
rest, and hold the mill. I'll git back as soon's I kin, and then you kin
take a couple o' the boys and go out foragin'."
Calling Alf Russell and Monty Scruggs to follow him, Si started back to
the scene of the skirmish of the night before. The woods looked totally
different, under the bright Spring sunshine, from what they had seemed
in the chill, wet blackness of the previous night. Buds were bursting
and birds singing, and all nature seemed very blithe and inspiring.
"Gracious, what a difference daylight makes in the woods," murmured
Monty Scruggs. "Tain't a bit like Hohenlinden.
"'Tis morn, but scarce yon lurid sun Can pierce the war-clouds rolling
dun, Where furious Frank and fiery Hun Shout 'mid their sulphurous
canopy."
"You'd think, from the way the bird 's singing, and the flowers
blooming, that there'd never been a gun fired within a hundred miles o'
here."
"Seems like we only dreamed all that happened last night," accorded Alf
Russell. "There's nothing in the woods or the ground that looks as it
did then, and I can't hardly make myself believe that this is the way we
come."
"Well, here's something that'll convince you it wasn't a dream," said
Si, as they made their way through the broken and trampled brush, and
came to a little knoll, on which the final fight had been made, and
where were gathered the wounded rebels. There were three of these; the
man whom Shorty had shot in the shoulder, the one whom Si knocked down
by a stunning blow on the head, and the one who had been hit in the
thigh by a shot from the boys, and who was the "pardner" of the
recalcitrant man of the previous evening. He was still there, caring for
his comrades. The men who had been shot were so faint from loss of blood
that they could scarcely move, and the man whom Si had struck was only
slowly recovering consciousness.
The unhurt rebel was standing there with his gun in hand, and had
apparently been watching their approach for some time.
"My parole was out at daylight," he said, as they came up. "The sun's
now nearly an hour high. I ain't obleeged to be good no more, and I
could' 've drapped one o' yo'uns when y' fust turned offen the road, and
got away. I s'pose I'd orter've done hit, and I'd a great mind ter, but
suthin' sorter held me back. Onderstand that?"
"You'd a' bin a nice man to've shot at us when we wuz comin' to help
your comrades," said Si, walking up coolly toward him, and getting near
enough to prevent his leveling his gun, while he held his own ready for
a quick blow with the barrel. "We needn't've come back here at all,
except that we felt it right to take care o' the men that got hurt."
"Come back to take keer o' the men that yo'uns swatted last night?" said
the rebel incredulously. "That haint natural. 'Taint Yankee-like. What'd
yo'uns keer for 'em, 'cept to see if they'uns's dead yit, and mebbe gin
'em a prod with the bayonit to help 'em along? But they'uns's mouty nigh
dead, now. They'uns can't last much longer. But I'll kill the fust one
o' yo'uns that tries to prod one o' they'uns with a bayonit. Let
they'uns alone. They'll soon be gone."
"What're you talkin' about, you dumbed fool?" said Si, irritably. "We
haint no Injuns nor heathens, to kill wounded men. We're Injiannians and
Christians, what read the Bible, and foller what it says about lovin'
your enemies, and carin' for them what despitefully use you—that is,
after you've downed 'em good and hard."
"Does your Bible say that ere?" asked the rebel.
"Yes, indeed."
"Well, hit must be a new-fangled kind of a Yankee Bible. The only Bible
I ever seed was a piece o' one that used t' be in dad's house, and I've
done heared strangers read hit aloud hundreds o' times, and hit said
nothin' like that. Hit had lots in it 'bout killin' every man and man-
child, and hewin' 'em to pieces afore the Lord, but nothin' 'bout lovin'
and takin' keer o' them that wuz fernest ye."
"Well, it's in there, all the same," said Si impatiently, "and you must
mind it, same's we do. Come, drop that gun, and help us take care o'
these men. They ain't goin' to die. We won't let 'em. They're all right.
Just faint from loss o' blood. We kin fix 'em up. Set your gun agin'
that beech there, and go to the branch and git some water to wash their
wounds, and we'll bring 'em around all right."
There was something so masterful in Si's way, that the rebel obeyed. Si
set his own gun down against a hickory, in easy reach, and had the boys
do the same. He had naturally gained a good deal of knowledge of rough
surgery in the army, and he proceeded to put it to use. He washed the
wounds, stayed the flow of blood, and to take the rising fever out of
the hurts, he bound on them fresh, green dockleaves, wet with water.
After the man he had struck had had his face washed, and his head
thoroughly doused with cold water, he recovered rapidly and was soon
able to sit up, and then rise weakly to his feet.
The rebel looked on wonderingly.
"Well, yo'uns is as good doctrin' hurts as ole Sary Whittleton, and
she's a natural bone-setter," he said.
"Well, don't stand around and gawk,", said Si snappishly. "Help. What's
your name?"
"Gabe Brimster."
"Well, Gabe, go down to the branch and git some more water, quick as you
kin move them stumps o' your'n. Give the men all they want to drink, and
then pour some on their wounds. Then go there and cut some o' them
pawpaws, and peel their bark, to make a litter to carry your pardner
back to the mill. Boys, look around for guns. Smash all you kin find on
that rock there, so they won't be of no more use. Bust the locks good,
and bend the barrels. Save two to make the handles of the litter."
Si proceeded to deftly construct a litter out of the two guns, with some
sticks that he cut with a knife, and bound with pawpaw strips.
A few days before, Si, while passing near the hospital, saw a weak
convalescent faint and fall. He rushed to the Surgeon's tent, and that
officer being busy, handed him a small bottle with a metal top, and
filled with strong ammonia, telling him to unscrew the top and hold the
bottle under the man's nose. He did so, with the effect of reviving him.
Si thrust the bottle into his pocket, to help the man back to the
hospital, and forgot all about it, until one after another of his
present patients overdid himself, had a relapse, and fainted away. Si
happened to feel his bottle, drew it out, unscrewed the top, thrust it
under their noses, and revived them.
Gabs's eyes opened wider at each performance. He had never seen a bottle
with a metal top, or one that unscrewed, or anything that seemed to
effect such wonderful changes by merely pointing it at a man. His
mountaineer intellect, prone to "spells" and "charms," saw in it at once
an instrument of morta: witchcraft. With a paling face, he began edging
toward his gun. Busy as Si had been, he had kept constantly in mind the
possibility of Gabe's attempting some mischief, and did not let himself
lose sight of the rebel's gun. He quickly rose, and with a few strides,
placed himself between Gabe and his gun.
Mr. Yank, Don't Conjure Me. 135
"Where are you goin'?" he said sternly.
"I'm a-gwine away," replied the man, in terror-stricken accents. "I'm a-
gwine away mouty quick. I don't want to stay here no longer."
"Indeed you're not goin' away. You'll stay right with us, and help us
take care o' your comrades."
"I'm a-gwine away, I tell y'," shrieked Gabe. "I'm gwine right away. I'm
skeered o' yo'uns. Yo'uns is no doctor, nor no sojer. Yo'uns is a
conjure-man, and a Yankee conjure-man, too—wust kind. Yo'uns 've bin
puttin' spells on them men, and yo'uns'll put a spell on me. I've felt
hit from the fust. I'm a-gwine away. Le'me go, quick."
Si caught the man roughly by the shoulder with his left hand, and raised
his right threateningly. It still had the bottle in it. "You're not
goin' a step, except with us," he said. "Go back there, and 'tend to
your business as I told you, or I'll break you in two."
The sight of the dreadful bottle pointed at him completely unnerved the
rebel. He fell on his knees.
"O, Mister Yank—Mister Conjure-man! don't put no spell on me. Pray to
God, don't! I had one on me wunst, when I was little, and liked to've
died from hit. I haint no real rebel. I wuz conscripted into the army,
or I wouldn't be foutin' yo'uns. I won't fout no more, if yo'uns'll not
put a spell on me. 'Deed I won't! I swar to God I wont!"
And he raised his right hand in testimony.
"Put a spell on you? Conjure you? What dumbed nonsense!" ejaculated Si,
and then his eyes caught the rebel's fastened on the bottle in his hand,
and a gleam of the meaning entered his mind. He had no conception of the
dread the mountaineers have of being "conjured," but he saw that
something about the bottle was operating terrifically on the rebel's
mind and took advantage of it. He was in too much of a hurry to inquire
critically what it was, but said: "Well, I won't do nothin' to you, so
long's you're good, but mind that you're mighty good, and do just as I
say, or I'll fix you. Git up, now, and take hold o' your pardner's feet,
and help me lift him on the litter. Then you take hold o' the front
handles. Monty, throw your gun-sling over your shoulder, and take hold
o' the rear handles. The two o' you carry this man back. Alf, throw your
gun-sling over your shoulder, put your arm under this man's, and help
him along. I'll help this man."
They slowly made their way back toward the mill. As they came on the
crest of the last rise, they saw Shorty and the rest eagerly watching
for them. Shorty and the others ran forward and helped them bring the
men in. Shorty was particularly helpful to the man he had shot. He
almost carried him in to the mill, handling him as tenderly as if a
child, fixed a comfortable place for him on the floor with his own
blankets, and took the last grains of his coffee to make him a cup. This
done, he said:
"I'm goin' out into the country to try and find some chickens to make
some broth for you men. Come along, Harry Joslyn, Gid Mackall and little
Pete."
The country roundabout was discouragingly poor, and had been thoroughly
foraged over. But Shorty had a scent for cabins that were hidden away
from the common roads, and so escaped the visitations of ordinary
foragers. These were always miserably poor, but generally had a half-
dozen chickens running about, and a small store of cornmeal and
sidemeat. Ordinarily he would have passed one of these in scorn, because
to take any of their little store would starve the brood of unkempt
children that always abounded. But now, they were his hope. He had been
playing poker recently with his usual success, and as the bets were in
Confederate money, he had accumulated quite a wad of promises to "Pay in
gold, six months after the ratification of a Treaty of Peace between the
Confederate States and the United States." He would make some
mountaineer family supremely happy by giving them more money than they
had ever seen in their lives, in exchange for their stock of meal,
chickens and sidemeat. They would know where to get more, and so the
transaction would be a pleasant one all around.
In the meanwhile, little Pete had visions of killing big game in the
mountain woods. The interminable forest suggested to him dreams of bear,
deer, buffalo, elk, and all the animals he had read about. It would be a
great thing to bring down an elk or a deer with his Springfield rifle,
and then be escorted back' to camp in triumph, with the other boys
carrying his game. He kept circling through the woods, in sight or
hearing of the others, expecting every minute to come upon some animal
that would fill his youthful sanguine hopes.
Shorty at last found a poor little cabin such as he had been looking
for. It was hidden away in a little cove, and had never been visited by
the men of either army. It had the usual occupants—a weak-eyed, ague-
smitten man, who was so physically worthless that even the rebel
conscripters rejected him; a tall, gaunt woman, with a vicious
shrillness in her voice and a pipe in her mouth; a half score of mangy
yellow dogs, and an equal number of wild, long-haired, staring children.
They had a little "jag" of meal in a bag, a piece of sidemeat, and a
half-dozen chickens. The man had that morning shot an opossum, lean from
its Winter fasting. Shorty rejected this contemptuously.
"I've bin mighty hungry in my time," said he, "but I never got quite so
low down as to eat anything with a tail like a rat. That'd turn my
stummick if I was famishin'."
The man looked on Shorty's display of wealth with lack-luster eyes, but
his wife was fascinated, and quickly closed up a deal which conveyed to
Shorty all the food that they had. Just as Shorty had completed payment,
there came a shot from little Pete's rifle, and the next instant that
youth appeared at the edge of the cornpatch extending up hill from the
cabin, hatless, and yelling at the top of his voice. Shorty and the
others picked up their guns and took position behind the trees.
"What's the matter, Pete?" asked Shorty, as the boy came up, breathless
from his long run. "Rebels out there?"
"No," gasped Pete. "I was hunting out there for a deer, or a elk, or a
bear, when suddenly I come acrost the queerest kind of an animal. It
looked more like a hog than anything else, yet it wasn't a hog, for it
was thinner'n a cat. It had long white tusks, longer'n your hand, that
curled up from its mouth, little eyes that flashed fire, and great long
bristles on his back, that stood straight up. I shot at it and missed
it, and then it run straight at me. I made for the fence as hard as I
could, but it outrun me and was gaining on me every jump. Just as I clim
the fence it a-most ketched me, and made a nip not six inches from my
leg. I could hear him gnash them awful tusks o' his'n."
"Humph," said the woman. "He's run acrost Stevenson's old boar, that
runs in them woods up thar, and is mouty savage this time o' year. He'd
take a laig offen a youngster quicker'n scat, if he ketched him. He done
well to run."
Shorty and the others walked up to the fence and looked over. There was
the old razor-back King of the woods still raging around sniffing the
air of combat.
"Why, it's only a hog, Pete!" said Shorty.
"Only a hog!" murmured Pete with shamed heart.
"That a hog?" echoed the others. "Well, that's the queerest looking hog
I ever saw."
"It's a hog all the same," Shorty assured them. "A genuine razor-back
hog. But he's got the secession devil in him like the people, and you
want to be careful of him. He ain't fit to eat or I'd kill him. Let's
git back to the mill."
CHAPTER XII. THE OPENING OF THE ATLANTA CAMPAIGN.
WHAT an ineffably imposing spectacle of military power was presented to
the May sun, shining on the picturesque mountains and lovely valleys
around Chattanooga in the busy days of the Spring of 1864.
Never before, in all his countless millions of journeys around the
globe, had he seen a human force of such tremendous aggressive power
concentrated on such a narrow space. He may have seen larger
armies—though not many—but he had never seen 100,000 such veterans as
those—originally of as fine raw material as ever gathered under a
banner, and trained to war by nearly three years of as arduous schooling
as men ever knew, which sifted out the weaklings, the incompetents, the
feeblewilled by the boisterous winnowing of bitter war.
Thither had been gathered 35,000 of the Army of the Tennessee, who had
"Fort Donelson," "Shiloh," "Corinth," "Chickasaw Bayou," "Big Black,"
"Jackson," and "Vicksburg" in letters of gold on their tattered
regimental banners, and whom Sherman proudly boasted were "the best
soldiers on earth." The courtly, idolized McPherson was their leader,
with such men as John A. Logan, T. E. G. Ransom, Frank P. Blair and P.
J. Osterhaus as lieutenants and subordinates.
There was the Army of the Cumberland, 60,000 strong, from which all
dross had been burned by the fierce fires of Shiloh, Perryville, Stone
River and Chickamauga; and the campaigns across two States. "The noblest
Roman of them all," grand old "Pap" Thomas, was in command, with Howard,
Stanley, Newton, Wood, Palmer, Davis, Joe Hooker, Williams and Geary as
his principal lieutenants.
And thither came—15,000 strong—all of the Army of the Ohio who could be
spared from garrisoning dearly-won Kentucky and East Tennessee. They
were men who had become inured to hunting their enemies down in mountain
fastnesses, and fighting them wherever they could be found. At their
head was Gen. J. M. Schofield, whom the Nation had come to know from his
administration of the troublous State of Missouri. Gens. Hovey, Hascall
and Cox were division commanders.
With what an air of conscious power; of evident mastery of all that
might confront them; of calm, unflinching determination for the
conflict, those men moved and acted. They felt themselves part of a
mighty machine, that had its work before it, and would move with
resistless force to perform the appointed task.
The men fell instinctively into their ranks in the companies. Without an
apparent effort the companies became regiments, the regiments quietly,
but with swift certainty, swung into their places in the brigade, and
the brigades massed up noiselessly into divisions and corps.
And while the 100,000 veterans were drilling, organizing and manuvering
the railroad was straining every one of its iron and steel tendons to
bring in food and ammunition to supply the mighty host, and provide a
store from which it could draw when it went forth upon its great errand.
There were 35,000 horses to be fed, in addition to the 100,000 veterans,
and so the baled hay made heaps that rivalled in size the foothills of
the mountains. The limitless cornfields of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois
heaped up their golden harvests in other hillocks. Every mountain pass
was filled with interminable droves of slow-footed cattle, bringing
forward "army beef on the hoof." Boxes of ammunition and crackers, and
barrels of pork covered acres, and the railroad brought them in faster
than the hundreds of regimental teams could haul them out.
There is no place in the world where the assembling of such a mighty
host could be seen to such an advantage as at Chattanooga. The mountains
that tower straight up into the clouds around the undulating plain on
which the town stands form a glorious natural amphitheater about an
arena for gigantic dramas.
Naturally, the boys were big-eyed all the time with the sights that
filled the landscape near and far. Wherever they looked they were
astonished, and when in a march they came out on a crest that commanded
a wide view, they could not help halting, to drink all its wonders in.
Even the experienced Si and Shorty were as full of amazement as they,
and watched with fascination the spectacle of mighty preparation and
concentrated power.
One day they got a pass and took the boys over to Lookout Mountain, for
a comprehensive survey of the whole scene. They trudged over the steep,
rough, winding road up the mountainside, and mads their way to Pulpit
Rock, on the "nose" of the mountain, which commands a view that is
hardly equalled in any country. From it they overlooked, as upon a map,
the wide plain around Chattanooga, teeming with soldiers and horses, and
piled-up war material, the towering line of Mission Ridge, the fort-
crowned hills, the endless square miles of white camps.
"'The King sat on the rocky brow That looks o'er sea-born Salamis,
And ships by thousands lay below, And men and Nations, all were his,'
murmured Monty Scruggs. "I didn't suppose there was as many soldiers in
all the world before."
"Si," said Shorty, "we thought old Rosecrans had heaped up the measure
when we started out from Nashville for Stone River. But that was only
the beginning for the gang he got together for the Tullyhomy campaign,
and 'taint more than onct to what old Sherman's goin' to begin business
with. I like it. I like to see any man start into a game with a full
hand and a big stack o' chips."
"Well, from the talk that comes down from headquarters," said Si, "he
may need every man. We've never had enough men so far. The rebels have
always had more men than we did, and had the advantage of position. We
only won by main strength and bull-headedness, and Rosecrans's good
management. The rebels are straining every nerve to put up the fight o'
their lives, and they say old Jo Johnston's got nearly as many men over
there at Buzzard Roost as we have, and works that beat them we hustled
Bragg out of around Tullyhomy."
"Well, let's have it as soon as possible," said Shorty. "I'm anxious to
see if we can't make another Mission Ridge over there at Buzzard Roost,
and run them fellers clean back to the Gulf of Mexico. But, great
Jehosephat, won't there be a Spring freshet when all them men and horses
and cattle break camp and start out over the country."
"Goodness, what kin I do to keep from gitting lost in all that crowd?"
wailed Pete Skidmore, and the others looked as if his fears also struck
their hearts.
"Just stick closs to the 200th Injianny and to me, and you won't git
lost, Pete," said Shorty. "The 200th Injianny's your home, and all real
nice boys stay around home."
They made a little fire on the broad, flat surface of Pulpit Rock,
boiled some coffee, and ate their dinner there, that they might watch
the wonderful panorama without interruption. As the afternoon, advanced,
they saw an unusual commotion in the camps, and the sound of
enthusiastic cheering floated faintly up to their lofty perch.
"I'll bet a big red apple orders to move has come," said Si. "Le's git
back to camp as quick as possible."
They hurried down the mountain-side, and turned sharply to the right
into the road to Rossville Gap.
"Yes, the orders to move has come," said Shorty. "See them big fires,
and the boys burnin' up things."
In every camp the cheering men were making bonfires of the furnishings
of their Winter camps. Chairs, benches, tables, checker-boards,
cupboards, what-nots, etc., which had cost them considerable pains to
procure, and upon which they had lavished no little mechanical skill,
and sometimes artistic ornamentation, were ruthlessly thrown to feed the
joyful fires which blazed in each camp which had been lucky enough to
receive orders. The bands were playing, to emphasize and give utterance
to the rejoicings of the men.
Shorty took little Pete by the hand to assist him in keeping up with the
rapid pace Si and he set up to get back to their own camp, and
participate in its demonstrations.
"Of course, our rijimint's goin' too—goin' to have the advance," Si said
to Shorty, more than anything else to quiet a little disturbing fear
that would creep in. "They wouldn't leave it behind to guard one o'
these mud-piles they call forts, would they?"
"They never have yit," answered Shorty, hopefully. "They say old Sherman
is as smart as they make 'em. He knows a good rijimint when he sees it,
and he's certain to want the 200th Injianny in the very foremost place.
Hustle along, boys."
As they neared their camp they were delighted to find it in a similar
uproar to the others, with the men cheering, the brigade band playing,
and the men throwing everything they could find on the brightly blazing
bonfires. Ordinarily, such a long march as they had made to the top of
the Lookout Mountain and back again would have been very tiresome, but
in the enthusiasm of the occasion they forgot their fatigue—almost
forgot their hunger.
"The orders are," the Orderly-Sergeant explained to Si, as they were
cooking supper, "that we're to move out tomorrow morning in light
marching order, three days' rations, 80 rounds of cartridges, only
blankets, no tents, but one wagon to a regiment, and one mule to a
company to carry ammunition and rations. O, we're stripped down to the
skin for a fight, I tell you. It's to be business from the first jump,
and we'll be right in it. We're to have the advance, and clear away the
rebel cavalry and pickets, to open up the road for the rest of the
division. You'll find your rations and ammunition in front of my tent.
Draw 'em and get everything ready, and go to sleep as soon as possible,
for we'll skin out of here at the first peep of day. There's a whole
passel of sassy rebel cavalry out in front, that's been entirely too
familiar and free, and we want to get a good whack at them before they
know what's up."
And the busy Orderly passed on to superintend other preparations in the
company.
After drawing and dividing the rations and cartridges. Si gave the boys
the necessary instruction about having their things ready so that they
could get them in the dark the next morning, and ordered them to
disregard the bonfires and mirth-making, and lie down to get all the
sleep they could, in preparation for the hard work of the next day.
Then, like the rest of the experienced men, who saw that the campaign
was at length really on, and this would be the last opportunity for an
indefinite while to write, he sat down to write short letters to his
mother and to Annabel.
Influenced by the example, Shorty thought he ought to write to Maria. He
had received a second letter from her the day that he had gone out to
the mill, and its words had filled his soul with a gladness that passed
speech. The dispassionate reader would not have seen anything in it to
justify this. He would have found it very commonplace, and full of
errors of spelling and of grammar. But Shorty saw none of these.
Shakspere could have written nothing so divinely perfect to him. He had
not replied to it sooner, because he had been industriously thinking of
fitting things to say in reply. Now he must answer at once, or postpone
it indefinitely, and that meant so much longer in hearing again from
her. He got out his stationery, his gold pen, his wooden inkstand,
secured a piece of a cracker box for a desk, and seated himself far from
Si as possible among the men who were writing by the light of the pitch-
pine in the bonfires. Then he pulled from his breast the silk bandana,
and carefully developed from its folds the pocket-book and Maria's last
letter, which he spread out and re-read several times.
Commonplace and formal as the letter was, there was an intangible
something in it that made him feel a little nearer the writer than ever
before. Therefor, he began his reply:
Dere Miss Maria Klegg:
"I talk mi pen in hand to inform you that our walkin'-papers has at last
come, and we start termorrer mornin' for Buzzard Roost to settle jest
whose to rool that roost. Our ideas and Mister Jo Johnston's differ on
that subjeck. When we git through with him hele no more, though he
probably won't be so purty as he is now."
Little Pete's Awful Rebels. 149
He stopped to rest after this prodigious literary effort, and wipe the
beaded sweat from his brow. He saw little Pete Skidmore looking at him
with troubled face.
"What're you doin' up, Pete? Lay down and go to sleep."
"Say, Corpril, the Orderly said we wuz goin' to fight a whole passel of
rebel cavalry, didn't he?"
"Um-hum!" assented Shorty, cudgeling his brain as to what he should next
write.
"Them's them awful kind o' rebels, ain't they—the John Morgan kind—that
ride big horses that snort fire, and they have long swords, with which
they chop men's heads off?"
"A lot o' yellin', gallopin' riff-raff," said Shorty, with the usual
contempt of an infantryman for cavalry. "Ain't worth the fodder their
bosses eat."
"Ain't they terribler than any other kind o' rebels?" asked Pete,
anxiously.
"Naah," said Shorty, sharply. "Go to sleep, Pete, and don't bother me
with no more questions. I'm writin' a letter." He proceeded with his
literary effort:
"I was gladder than I kin tell you to git yore letter. You do write the
best letters of any woman in the whole world."
He looked up, and there was little Pete's face before him.
"What do you do when one o' them wild rebels comes cavorting and tearing
toward you, on a big hoss, with a long sword, and yelling like a
catamount?" he asked.
"Paste him with a bullet and settle him," said Shorty testily, for he
wanted to go on with his letter.
"But s'pose he comes on you when your gun ain't loaded, and his sword
is, or you've missed him, as I did that hog?"
"Put on your bayonet and prod his hoss in the breast, and then give him
18 inches o' cold steel. That'll settle him. Go and lay down, Pete, I
tell you. Don't disturb me. Don't you see I'm writing?"
Shorty went on with his letter.
"How I wish you wood rite offener. Ide like to get a letter from you
every—"
"Say, Corpril," broke in little Pete, "they say that them rebel cavalry
kin reach much further with their swords when they're up on a hoss than
you kin with your gun and bayonit, especially when you're a little
feller like me, and they're quicker'n wildcats, and there's just
millions of 'em, and—"
"Who says?" said Shorty savagely. "You little open-mouthed squab, are
you lettin' them lyin', gassin, galoots back there fill you up with
roorbacks about them triflin', howlin', gallopin', rebel cavalry? Go
back there, and tell 'em that if I ketch another man breathin' a word to
you about the rebel cavalry I'll come and mash his head as flat as a
pancake. Don't you be scared about rebel cavalry. You're in much more
danger o' bein' struck by lightnin' than of bein' hit by a rebel on
hossback. Go off and go to sleep, now, and don't ask me no more
questions."
"Can't I ask you just one?" pleaded Pete.
"Yes, just one."
"If we form a holler square agin cavalry will I be in the holler, or up
on the banks?"
For the first time in his life, Shorty restrained the merciless jeer
that would come to his lips at any exhibition of weakness by those
around him. The thought of Maria softened him and made him more
sympathetic. He had promised her to be a second father to little Pete.
He saw that the poor boy was being frightened as he had never been
before by the malicious fun of the veterans in pouring into his ears
stories of the awful character of the rebel cavalry. Shorty sucked the
ink off his pen, put his hand soothingly on Pete, and said in a
paternally comforting way:
"My boy, don't let them blowhards back there stuff you with sich
nonsense about the rebel cavalry. They won't git near enough you to hit
you with a sword half a mile long. They're like yaller dogs—their bark's
the wust thing about 'em. I'll look out for you. You'll stay right by
me, all the time, and you won't git hurt. You go back there to my
blankits and crawl into 'em and go to sleep. I'll be there as soon's I
finish this letter, Forgit all about the rebel cavalry, and go to sleep.
Ter-morrer you'll see every mother's son o' them rebels breakin' their
hoss' necks to git out o' range o' our Springfields."
Then Shorty finished his letter:
"Ime doin' my best to be a second father to little Pete. Heze as good a
little soul as ever lived, but when I talk another boy to raise it'll be
sumwhair else than in the army.
"Yores, till deth."
Just then the silver-voiced bugles in hundreds of camps on mountain-
sides, in glens, in the valleys, and on the plains began ringing out
sweetly mournful "Taps," and the echoes reverberated from the towering
palisades of Lookout to the rocky cliffs of the Pigeon Mountains.
It was the last general "Taps" that mighty army would hear for 100 days
of stormy battling.
The cheering ceased, the bonfires burned out. Shorty put his letter in
an envelope, directed it, and added it to the heap at the Chaplain's
tent.
Then he went back and arranged his things so that he could lay his hands
unfailingly on them in the darkness of the morning, straightened little
Pete out so that he would lie easier, and crawled in beside him.
CHAPTER XIII. THE FIRST DAY OF THE ATLANTA CAMPAIGN.
AS usual, it seemed to the boys of the 200th Ind. that they had only
lain down when the bugle blew the reveille on the morning of May 3,
1864.
The vigilant Orderly-Sergeant was at once on his feet, rousing the other
"non-coms" to get the men up.
Si and Shorty rose promptly, and, experienced campaigners as they were,
were in a moment ready to march anywhere or do anything as long as their
rations and their cartridges held out.
The supply of rations and cartridges were the only limitations Sherman's
veterans knew. Their courage, their willingness, their ability to go any
distance, fight and whip anything that breathed had no limitations. They
had the supremest confidence in themselves and their leaders, and no
more doubt of their final success than they had that the sun would rise
in the morning.
Vigorous, self-reliant manhood never reached a higher plane than in the
rank and file of Sherman's army in the Spring of 1864.
Si and Shorty had only partially undressed when they lay down. Their
shoes, hats and blouses were with their haversacks under their heads.
Instinctively, as their eyes opened, they reached for them and put them
on.
That was a little trick only learned by hard service.
The partners started in to rouse their boys. As soon as these were
fairly awake they became greatly excited. They had gone to sleep
bubbling over with the momentousness of the coming day, and now that day
had opened.
There was a frantic scrambling for clothing, which it was impossible for
them to find in the pitchy darkness. There were exclamations of boyish
ill-temper at their failure. They thought the enemy were right upon
them, and every instant was vital. Monty Scruggs and Alf Russell could
not wait to dress, but rushed for their guns the first thing, and
buckled on their cartridge-boxes.
"Gid Mackall, you've got on my shoes," screamed Harry Josyln. "I can't
find 'em nowhere, and I laid 'em right beside me. Take 'em off this
minute."
"Hain't got your shoes on; can't find but one o' my own," snorted Gid in
reply. "You helter-skelter little fly-up-the-crick, you never know where
your own things are, and you lose everybody else's."
"There's my shoe," exclaimed Harry, as he stumbled over one.
"No; that's mine. Let it alone—give it to me," yelled Gid, and in an
instant the two were locked together in one of their usual fights.
Si snatched them apart, cuffed them, and lighted a bit of candle, which
he kept for emergencies, to help them and the rest find their things. He
improved the occasion to lecture them as to the way they should do in
the future.
After awakening him, Shorty had calmed down the excited little Pete,
found his shoes and other clothes for him, and seen that he put them on
properly.
"Have everything all right at startin', Pete," said he, "and you'll be
all right for the day. You'll have plenty o' time. The rebels'll wait
for us."
"Aint them them, right out there?" asked Pete nervously, pointing to the
banks of blackness out in front.
"No; them's the same old cedar thickets they wuz when you went to bed.
They hain't changed a mite durin' the night, except that they've got
some dew on 'em. You must git over seein' bouggers wherever it's dark.
We'll build a fire and cook some breakfast, and git a good ready for
startin'. You must eat all you kin, for you'll need all you kin hold
before the day's over."
Si was employed the same way in quieting down the rest, seeing that
every one was properly clothed and had all his equipments, and then he
gathered them around a little fire to boil their coffee and broil a
piece of fresh beef for their breakfast. He had the hardest work getting
them to pay attention to this, and eat all they could. They were so
wrought up over the idea that the battle would begin at any minute that
the sound of a distant bugle or any noise near would bring them up
standing, to the utter disregard of their meal.
"Take it cool, boys, and eat all you kin," he admonished them. "It's
generally a long time between meals sich times as these, and the more
you eat now the longer you kin go without."
But the boys could not calm themselves.
"There, ain't that rebel cavalry galloping and yelling?" one exclaimed;
and they all sprang to their feet and stared into the darkness.
"No," said Shorty, with as much scorn as he could express with his
mouthful of the last issue of soft bread that he was to get. "Set down.
That's only the Double Canister Battery goin' to water. Their Dutch
bugler can't speak good English, his bugle only come to this country at
the beginning o' the war, and he's got a bad cold in his head besides.
Nobody kin understand his calls but the battery boys, and they won't
have no other. They swear they've the best bugler in the army."'
"Set down! Set down, I tell you," Si repeated sternly, "and swaller all
the grub you kin hold. That's your first business, and it's just as much
your business as it is to shoot when you're ordered to. You've got to
lay in enough now to run you all day. And all that you've got to listen
for is our own bugle soundin' 'Fall in!' Don't mind no other noise."
They tried to obey, but an instant later all leaped to their feet, as a
volley of mule screechers mixed with human oaths and imprecations came
up from a neighboring ravine.
"There! There's the rebels, sure enough," they ejaculated, dropping
their coffee and meat and rushing for their guns.
"Come back and set down, and finish your breakfast," shouted Si. "That
ain't no rebels. That's only the usual family row over the breakfast
table between the mules and the teamsters."
"Mules is kickin' because the teamsters don't wash their hands and put
on white aprons when they come to wait on 'em," suggested Shorty.
The boys looked at him in amazement, that he should jest at such a
momentous time.
"There's the 'assembly' now," said Si, as the first streak of dawn on
the mountain-top was greeted by the bugler at the 200th Ind.'s
Headquarters, filling the chill air with stirring notes.
"Put on your things. Don't be in a hurry. Put on everything just right,
so's it won't fret or chafe you during the march. You'll save time by
takin' time now."
He inspected the boys carefully as it grew lighter, showed them how to
adjust their blanket-rolls and canteens and heavy haversacks so as to
carry to the best advantage, examined their guns, and saw that each had
his full allowance of cartridges.
"Here comes meat for the rebel cavalry," shouted one of the older
members of the company, as Si brought his squad up to take its place on
the left of Co. Q.
"I wouldn't say much about rebel cavalry, if I was you, Wolf Greenleaf,"
Si admonished the joker. "Who was it down in Kentucky that was afraid to
shoot at a rebel cavalryman, for fear it would make him mad, and he
might do something?"
The laugh, that followed this old-time "grind" on one of the teasers of
new recruits silenced him, and encouraged the boys.
As the light broadened, and revealed the familiar hills and woods,
unpeopled by masses of enemies, the shivery "2 o'clock-in-the-morning-
feeling" vanished from the boys' hearts, and was succeeded by eagerness
to see the redoubtable rebels, of whom so much had been said.
The companies formed up into the regiment on the parade ground, the
Colonel mounted his horse, took his position on the right flank, and
gave the momentous order:
"Attention, battalion—Right face—Forward—file left—March!"
The first wave rolled forward in the mighty avalanche of men, which was
not to be stayed until, four months later, Sherman telegraphed North the
glad message:
"Atlanta is ours, and fairly won."
As they wound around and over the hills in front, they saw the
"reserves," the "grand guard," and finally the pickets with their
reserves drawn in, packed up ready for marching, and waiting for their
regiments to come up, when they would fall-in.
"There's a h—l's mint of deviling, tormenting rebel cavalry out there
beyond the hills," they called out to the regiment. "Drop onto 'em, and
mash 'em. We'll be out there to help, if you need it."
"The 200th Injianny don't need no help to mash all the rebel cavalry
this side o' the brimstone lakes," Si answered proudly. "Much obliged to
you, all the same."
"Capt. McGillicuddy," commanded the Colonel, as they advanced beyond
where the picket-line had been, "deploy your company on both sides of
the road, and take the advance. Keep a couple hundred yards ahead of the
regiment."
"Hooray," said Si, "we're in the lead again, and we'll keep it till the
end o' the chapter. Co. Q, to the front and center."
They advanced noiselessly over the crest of a ridge, and the squad,
which gained a little on the rest, saw a rebel videt sitting on his
horse in the road some 200 or 300 yards away. The guns of the nervous
boys were up instantly, but Si restrained them with a motion of his
hand.
"What's the matter with him?" he asked Shorty, indicating the rebel.
"Him and his hors's wore out and asleep," answered Shorty, after a
minute's study. "Look at his head and his hoss's."
"Kin we sneak up on him and git him?" asked Si.
"Scarcely," answered Shorty. "Look over there."
A squad of rebels were riding swiftly up the road toward the videt.
"Shan't I shoot him?" asked the nervous little Pete, lifting his gun to
his face.
"No, no; give him a show for his life," answered Shorty, laying his hand
on Pete's gun.
"It'd be murder to shoot him now. Gi' me your gun, Pete. Run down the
road there apiece, and hit him or his horse with a stone and wake him
up."
The boys, to whom a rebel was a savage wolf, to be killed any way that
he could be caught, looked wonderingly at Si, who responded by a nod of
approval.
"Won't he chop me with his sword?" asked Pete, still full of the terrors
of that weapon.
"We'll look out for that. Go ahead, quick, Pete," said Si.
Poor little Pete, looking as if he was being sent to lead a forlorn
hope, rushed frantically forward, picking up a stone as he ran, and
hurled it with a true aim squarely against the rebel's breast, who woke
with a start, clutched his carbine, and stared around, while little Pete
dashed into the brush to avoid his dreaded saber.
"Look out for yourself, reb. We're a-coming," shouted Si.
The rebel whirled his horse about, fired his carbine into the air, and
sped back to his friends, while the squad rushed forward and took
position behind trees. The rebels came plunging on.
"Fire!" shouted Si.
The guns of the squad crashed almost together. The bullets seemed to
strike near, but without taking effect on any one of the rebels, who
seemed to catch sight of the rest of Co. Q coming over the crest. They
whirled their horses around, and started back on a sharp trot, while the
boys were reloading.
"Go ahead. Sergeant," shouted Capt. McGillicuddy, from the rear. "Follow
them up. We're right behind you. Push them back on their reserves."
"All right, Cap. Back they go," shouted Si, leading forward his squad in
a heavy-footed run down the road. They soon came to an opening of
somewhat level ground, made by the clearing around a cabin.
The rebel squad halted beyond the cornfields, turned about, and opened
fire.
"Holy smoke, look there," gasped Monty Scruggs, as a company of rebel
cavalry came tearing over the hill in front, to the assistance of their
comrades.
"Them ain't many for cavalry," said Shorty, as he and Si deployed the
boys behind fence-corners, and instructed them to shoot carefully and
low.
"Sargint, see there, and there," shouted Alf Russell, as other companies
of rebels came galloping through over the crest, while the first
arrivals began throwing down the fences, preparatory to a charge.
"Yes, there's about a rijimint," Si answered coolly. "We'll need the
most o' Co. Q to 'tend to them. Here they come."
"Sergeant, what's all this disturbance you're kicking up in camp?" said
Capt. McGillicuddy playfully, as he deployed Co. Q. "Can't you take a
quiet walk out into the country, without stirring up the whole
neighborhood?"
"They seem to've bin at home and expectin' us, Capt," grinned Si, as he
pointed to the augmenting swarm of horsemen.
"There does seem to be a tolerably full house," answered the Captain
with a shrug. "Well, the more the merrier. Boys, shoot down those
fellows who're tearing down the fences. That'll stop any rush on us, and
we'll develop their force."
"It's developing itself purty fast, seems to me. There comes another
rijimint," remarked Si.
The firing grew pretty noisy.
Si was delighted to see how naturally his boys took to their work. After
the first flurry of excitement at confronting the yelling, galloping
horde, they crouched down behind their fence-corners, and loaded and
fired as deliberately as the older men.
"What sort of a breach of the peace is this you are committing, Capt.
McGillicuddy?" asked Col. McBiddle, coming up at the head of the 200th
Ind. "And do you want some accomplices?"
"I believe if you'll give me another company I can make a rush across
there and scatter those fellows," answered the Captain.
"All right. Take Co. A. Push them as far as you can, for the orders are
to develop their strength at once. I'll follow close behind and help you
develop, if you need me."
An instant later the two companies rushed across the field, making a
bewildering transformation in the rebels' minds from charging to being
charged. The rebels were caught before they could complete their
formation. There was a brief tumult of rushes and shots and yells, and
they were pushed back through the woods, with some losses In killed and
wounded and stampeded horses.
Si had led his squad straight across the field, against a group engaged
in pulling down the fence. They were caught without their arms, and two
were run down and captured. Palpitating with success, the boys rushed
over to where the regiment was gathering itself together at the edge of
the woods on the brow of the ridge.
"Why don't they go ahead? What're they stoppin' for? The whole
rijimint's up," Si asked, with a premonition of something wrong.
"Well, I should say there was something to stop for," answered Shorty,
as they arrived where they could see, and found the whole country in
front swarming with rebel cavalry as far as their eyes could reach.
"Great Scott," muttered Si, with troubled face, for the sight was
appalling. "Is the whole Confederacy out there on hossback?"
"O, my, do we have to fight all them?" whimpered little Pete, scared as
much by the look on Shorty's face as at the array.
"Shut up, Pete," said Shorty petulantly, as a shell from a rebel battery
shrieked through the woods with a frightful noise. "Git behind this
stump here, and lay your gun across it. I'll stand beside you. Don't
shoot till you've a bead on a man. Keep quiet and listen to orders."
A rebel brigade was rapidly preparing to charge. It stretched out far
beyond the flanks of the regiment.
"Steady, men! Keep cool!" rang out the clear, calm voice of the Colonel.
"Don't fire till they come to that little run in the field, and then
blow out the center of that gang."
The brigade swept forward with a terrific yell. Si walked behind his
squad, and saw that every muzzle was depressed to the proper level.
The brigade came on grandly, until they reached the rivulet, and then a
scorching blast broke out from the muzzles of the 200th Ind., which made
them reel and halt.
Yells of "Close up, Alabamians!" "This way, Tennesseeans!" "Form on your
colors, Georgians!" came from the rebels as the boys reloaded. Then all
sounds were drowned in the rattling musketry, as the rebels began a hot
fire from their saddles, in answer to the Union musketry.
"Captain, they are moving out a brigade on either flank to take us in
the rear," said Col. McBiddle calmly to Capt. McGillicuddy. "We'll have
to fall back to the brigade. Pass the word along to retire slowly,
firing as we go. The brigade must be near. You had better move your
company over toward the right, to meet any attack that may come from
that direction. I'll send Co. A toward the other flank."
It was a perilous movement to make in front of such overwhelming force.
But the smoke curtained the manuver and the rebels only discovered it by
the diminution of the fire in their front. Then they and the flanking
brigades came on with ringing yells, and it seemed that the regiment was
to be swept off the face of the earth. The 200th Ind. was not to be
scared by yells, however, and sent such a galling fire from front and
flanks, that the rebel advance lost its rushing impetus. The regiment
was reaching the edge of the woods. The clear fields would give the
rebel cavalry its chance.
The whole command advanced, the moment the rebels began to break under
the fire, across the fields and through the woods to the crest where the
200th Ind. had first tried to stop the swarming rebel horsemen. From
there they could see the broad plain rapidly vacated by their enemies,
hurrying away from the pursuing shells.
The Colonel's clear, penetrating tones rang above the tumult:
"Attention, 200th Ind.! Every man for himself across the fields. Rally
on the fence beyond."
Shorty, whose face had been scratched by a bullet, took little Pete by
the hand. "Now, run for it, my boy, as you never run before in your
life. Hold on to your gun."
There was a wild rush, through a torrent of bullets, across the cleared
space, and as he jumped the fence, Si was rejoiced to see his squad all
following him, with Shorty dragging little Pete in the rear.
They had scarcely struck the ground beyond, when it shook with the crash
of artillery on the knoll above, and six charges of double canister tore
wickedly into the surging mass of rebel cavalry.
"The Double Canister Battery got up jest in the nick o' time," gasped
Shorty, as he shoved little Pete down behind a big log. "It generally
does, though."
"I'm glad the brigade wasn't a mile off," puffed Si, listening with
satisfaction to the long line of rifles singing tenor to the heavy bass
of the cannon.
"Capt. McGillicuddy," said the Colonel, "I ordered you to develop the
enemy's strength. Has it occurred to you that you somewhat overdid the
thing?"
CHAPTER XIV. THE EVENING AFTER THE BATTLE.
"GREAT Jehosephat, how hungry I am," suddenly ejaculated Shorty,
stopping his cheering, as the thunder of the guns died away into an
occasional shot after the rebels galloping back to the distant woods on
the ridge from which they had emerged.
"I must make some coffee. Wonder where I put my matches?"
"Here, Pete," continued Shorty, as he broke off some splinters from the
rails and started a little fire, "take my canteen and Si's and yours,
and run down there and find a spring, and fill 'em, before the others
make a rush. Be spry about it, for there'll be a rush there in a minute,
and you won't have no chance."
The excited boy had to be spoken to a second time before he would come
back to earth, much less comprehend the want of water and food. Like the
rest of his companions, the terrific drama which had just been enacted
had wrought him to a delirium, in which he could think of nothing but a
world full of bellowing cannon, and a nightmare of careering, plunging
horses, with savagely-yelling riders.
They could not realize that the battlecloud had rolled away just as
suddenly as it had burst upon them, and they stood there tightly
grasping their reloaded guns, and staring fixedly into the distance for
the next horrid development.
"I think you'll find a spring right over there where you see that bunch
o' young willers, Pete," said Si, handing him his canteen. "Break for
it, before anybody else gets there and muddies the water."
But Pete still stood rigid and unhearing, clutching his gun with a
desperate grip, and glaring with bulging, unmoving eyes across the
plain.
"Come, wake up, Pete," said Shorty, giving him a sharp shake. "Do as I
tell you, and on the jump. The fight's over."
"The fight's over?" stammered the boy. "Ain't they coming back again?"
"Not on their butternut-dyed lives they ain't," said Shorty scornfully.
"They've got their dirty hides as full o' lickin' as they kin hold for
one day. They'll set around for a while, and rub their hurts, and try to
think out jest how it all happened."
"Skip out, Pete," Si reminded the boy. "The rest o' you boys stack your
guns and foller Pete."
"Hadn't we batter take our guns along?" suggested Monty, holding on to
his with grim fearfulness.
"No. Stack 'em; stack 'em, I tell you," said Si impatiently. "And be
quick about it. They'll all git ahead o' you. Don't you see the rest
stackin' arms?"
The boys obeyed as if dazed, and started to follow little Pete's lead
toward the clump of willows.
The boy, full of the old nick, found an Orderly's horse nipping the
grass close by the path to the spring and, boy like, jumped on its back.
The clatter of the canteens frightened the horse, and he broke into a
dead run.
Little Pete's Horse Bolts. 169
"Do ye s'pose the fight's really over?" whispered Pete to Alf Russell,
who was just behind him. "Don't you think the rebels just let go to get
a fresh hold?"
"Seems so to me," answered Alf. "Seems to me there was just millions of
'em, and we only got away with a little passel, in spite of all that
shootin'. Why, when we come out on the ridge the valley down there
seemed fuller of 'em than it was at first."
"We oughtn't to get too far away from our guns," said Monty Scruggs.
"Them woods right over there may be full o' rebels watching to jump us
when we get far enough away."
"I don't like the looks of that hill to the left," said Gid Mackall,
nervously. "An awful lot o' them went behind it, and I didn't see any
come out."
"There, them bushes over there are shaking—they're coming out again,"
said Harry Joslyn, turning to run back for his gun.
"No, not there," nervously interjected Humphrey's, turning with him;
"ain't there something stirring down there by the crick?"
"No, no," said Sandy Baker, desperately. "It's just that blame fool
Pete. Come on! Come on! We've got to. We were ordered to. Le's make a
rush for it, like the men in the Indian stories done when they was sent
for water."
They acted on the suggestion with such vim that when Pete's horse
tripped at the edge of the little run, and sent Pete over its head with
a splash into the mud and water, the rest tumbled and piled on top of
him.
The men on the hill, who had noticed it, set up a yell of laughter,
which scared the boys worse than ever, for they thought it meant the
rebels were on them again.
"Now, what new conniption's struck them dumbed little colts?" said Si,
irritably, as he strode down to them, pulled them out, and set them on
their feet, with a shaking and some strong words.
"Is the rebels coming again?" gasped Pete, rubbing the mud and water out
of his eyes.
"No, you little fool," said Si. "The rebels ain't comin'. They're goin'
as fast as their horses kin carry 'em. They've got through comin' for
today.
"There ain't one of 'em within cannon-shot, and won't be till we go out
and hunt 'em up again. You've come near spilin' the spring with your
tormented foolishness. What on earth possessed you to climb that boss?
You need half killin', you do. Go up higher there and fill your canteens
from where the water's clear. Be slow and careful, and don't rile the
water. Say, I see some nice sassafras over there. I always drink
sassafras tea this time o' year. It cleans the blood. I'm goin' over and
see if I can't git a good root while you're fillin' your canteens."
Si walked out some distance in front of them, pulling as he walked some
of the tender, fragrant, spicy young leaves of the sassafras, and
chewing them with gusto. Arriving at the top of a rise he selected a
young shrub, pulled it up, carefully loosed its root from the mulchy
soil, and cut it off with his knife. His careless deliberation calmed
the overwrought nerves of the boys, and when he returned they had their
canteens filled, and walked back composedly to the fires, when they
suddenly remembered that they were as hungry as Si and Shorty, and fell
to work cooking their suppers.
"Is that the way with the rebel cavalry?" asked Monty Scruggs, with his
mouthful of crackers and meat. "Do they come like a hurricane, and
disappear again like an April shower?"
"That's about it," answered Shorty disdainfully. "That's the way with
all cavalry, dad-burn 'em. They're like a passel o' fice pups. They're
all yelp and bark, and howl and showin' o' teeth. They're jest goin' to
tear you to pieces. But when you pick up a stone or a club, or git ready
to give 'em a good kick they're gone, the devil knows where. They're
only an aggravation. You never kin do nothin' with 'em, and they kin do
nothin' with you. I never kin understand why God Almighty wasted his
time in makin' cavalry of any kind, Yank or rebel. All our own cavalry's
good for is to steal whisky and chickens from honest soldiers of the
infantry. The infantry's the only thing. It's like the big dog that
comes up without any special remarks, and sets his teeth in the other
dog. The thing only ends when one dog or the other is badly whipped and
somethin's bin accomplished."
"Will we have to fight them cavalry again tomorrow jest the same way?"
asked little Pete, still somewhat nervously.
"Lord only knows," answered Shorty indifferently, feeling around for his
pipe. "A feller never knows when he's goin' to have to fight rebel
cavalry any more'n he knows when he's goin' to have the toothache. The
thing just happens, and that's all there is of it."
Si and Shorty, having finished their suppers, lighted their pipes, and
strolled up through the regiment to talk over with the others the events
of the day and the probabilities of the morrow.
Left alone, the tongues of the excited boys became loosened, and ran
like the vibrations of a cicada's rattle.
"Wasn't it just wonderful?" said Monty Scruggs. "It looked as if a
million circuses had suddenly let out over there.
"'The Assyrians came down like a wolf on the fold, And their cohorts
were gleaming with purple and gold.'
"Only there didn't seem much purple and gold about them. Seemed mostly
brown rags and slouch hats and long swords. Gracious, did you ever see
anything as long and wicked as them swords! Seemed that every one was
pointing directly at me, and they'd reach me the very next jump."
"Of course, you thought they were all looking at you," said Alf Russell.
"That's your idea, always, wherever you are. You think you're spouting
on the platform, and the center of attraction. But I knew that they were
all looking at me, as folks generally do."
"More self-conceit," sneered Harry Joslyn. "Just because you're so good
looking, Alf. I knew that they weren't bothering about any boy orator,
who does most of his shooting with his mouth, nor any young pill-
peddler, who sings in the choir, and goes home with the prettiest girl.
They were making a dead set on the best shot in the crowd, the young
feller who'd come into the war for business, and told his folks at home
before he started that he was going to shoot Jeff Davis with his own
hand before he got back. That was me, I saw the Colonel of one o' the
regiments point his sword straight at me as they came across the run,
and tell his men to be sure and get me of all others."
"Why didn't you shoot him, if you're such a deadshot?" asked Gid
Mackall.
"Why, I was just loading my gun, when I saw him, and as I went to put on
the cap you were shaking so that it jarred the cap out of my hand, and
before I could get another, the smoke became so thick I couldn't see
anything."
"I shaking?" said Gib, with deep anger. "Now, Harry Josyn—"
"Come, boys; don't have a scrap, now," pleaded the serious-minded Alf.
"Just think how many dead men are lying around. It looks like raising a
disturbance at a funeral."
"That's so," said Jake Humphreys. "I don't think any of us is in shape
to throw up anything to another about shaking. I own up that I was never
so scared in all my life, and I feel now as if I ought to get down on my
knees before everybody, and thank God Almighty that my life was spared.
I ain't ashamed to say so."
"Bully for you, Jake," said Monty Scruggs, heartily. "We all feel that
way, but hain't the nerve to say so. I wish the Chaplain would come
around and open a meeting of thanksgiving and prayer."
"I tell you what's the next best thing," suggested Jake Humphreys. "Let
Alf Russell sing one of those good old hymns they used to sing in the
meetings back at home."
"Home!" How many thousands of miles away—how many years of time
away—seemed to those flushed, overwrought boys, bivouacking on the
deadstrewn battlefield, the pleasant cornfields, the blooming orchards,
the drowsy hum of bees, the dear homes, sheltering fathers, mothers, and
sisters; the plain white churches, with their faithful, grayhaired
pastors, of the fertile plains of Indiana.
Alf Russell lifted up his clear, far-reaching boyish tenor, that they
had heard a thousand times at devout gatherings, at joyful weddings, at
sorrowing funerals, in that grandest and sweetest of hymns:
"All hail the power of Jesus' name; Let angels prostrate fall. Bring
forth the royal-diadem. And crown Him Lord of All."
As far as his voice could reach, the rough soldiers, officers and men,
stopped to listen to him—listened to him with emotions far too deep for
the cheers that usually fly to the lips of soldiers at anything that
stirs them. The higher officers quit talking of the plans of the morrow;
the minor ones stopped, pen in hand, over their reports and
requisitions; the busy Surgeons stayed their keen knives; the fussy
Orderly-Sergeants quit bothering about rations and details; the men
paused, looked up from their cards and cooking until the hymn was sung
through.
The voice was so pure, so fresh, so redolent of all that had graced and
sweetened their far-off past, that it brought to each swarming emotions
for which there was no tongue.
"Bully for you, Alf; you're a sweet singer in Israel," said Si, brushing
away a suspicion of a tear. "Spread out your blankets, boys, and lay
down. Git all the sleep you kin, for there's lots o' work for us
tomorrow. There goes tattoo!"
CHAPTER XV THE FIGHTING AROUND BUZZARD ROOST AND CAPTURE OF THE REBEL
STRONGHOLD.
FOR the next few days there was a puzzling maze of movements, which must
have completely mystified the rebel Generals—as was intended—for it
certainly passed the comprehension of our own keen-eyed and shrewdly-
guessing rank-and-file and lower oflficers.
Regiments, brigades and divisions marched hither-and-yon, wound around
and over the hills and mountains, started out at a great rate in the
morning, marched some distance, halted apparently halfway, and then
perhaps went back. Skirmishing, that sometimes rose to the proportions
of a real battle, broke out at unexpected times and places, and as
unexpectedly ended. Batteries galloped into position, without much
apparent warning or reason, viciously shelled some distant point, and
then, as the infantry were girding up themselves for something real to
follow all the noise, stopped as abruptly as they had begun, and nothing
followed.
This went on so long, and apparently so purposelessly, that even the
constant Si and Shorty were shaken a little by it.
"It can't be," said Shorty to Si, one evening after they had gone into
bivouac, and the two had drawn away from the boys a little, to talk over
things by themselves, "that old Sherman's got one o' his crazy fits
again, can it? They say that sometimes he gits crazier 'n a March hare,
and nobody kin tell just when the fit'll come on him. I never did see so
much criss cross work as we've bin doin' for the last few days. I can't
make head nor tail of it, and can't find anybody else that kin."
"I can't make it out no more than you kin," assented Si. "And I've
thought o' that crazy idee, too. You know them boys over there in
Rousseau's old division was under Sherman once before, when he was in
command at Louisville, and they say that he got crazier'n a locoed
steer—actually looney, so's they had to relieve him and send him back
home to git cured. They'd be really scared about things, but their
officers heard old Pap Thomas say that things wuz goin' along all right,
and that satisfied 'em. I ain't goin' to worry so long's old Thomas is
in command o' the Army o' the Cumberland, and we're in it. He'll take
care that things come out straight."
"You bet," heartily agreed Shorty. "The Army o' the Cumberland'll be all
right as long as he's on deck, and he kin take care o' the other armies,
too, if they git into trouble. I struck some o' the Army o' the
Tennessee when I went back with them prisoners today, and got talkin'
with 'em. I asked 'em if Sherman wasn't subject to crazy fits, and they
said yes, he had 'em, but when he did he made the rebels a mighty sight
crazier'n he was. They went on to say that we'd git used to Sherman
after awhile, and he'd show us some kinks in soljerin' that we never
dreamed of."
"Sich plaguey conceit," muttered Si.
"I should say so. But I never seen anybody so stuck on theirselves as
them Army o' the Tennessee fellers. Just because they took Vicksburg—"
"With all the navy to help 'em," interjected Si.
"Yes, with more gunboats than we have army wagons. They think they know
more about soljerin than anybody else in the world, and ackchelly want
to give us p'ints as to how to git away with the rebels."
"The idee," said Si scornfully. "Talkin' that way to the best soljers in
the world—the Army o' the Cumberland. I hate conceit, above all things.
I'm glad I hain't none of it in me. 'Tain't that we say it, but
everybody knows it that the Army o' the Cumberland's the best army in
the world, and the 200th Injianny—"
"I told 'em that the Army o' the Cumberland was the best army, because
it had the 200th Injianny in it, and, would you believe me, they said
they'd never even heard o' the 200th Injianny?"
"Sich ignorance," groaned Si. "Can't they read? Don't they git the
papers?"
"There'd bin a fight right, there, if it hadn't bin for the officers. I
wanted awfully to take a fall out of a big Sergeant who said that Thomas
might be a good enough man for Chairman of a convention o' farmers, but
when he went to war he wanted to have sich leaders as Sherman,
McPherson, and Logan, and Osterhaus. But he'll keep. We agreed to see
each other later, when we'll have a private discussion, and if he has
any head left on him he'll freely acknowledge that nobody in the Army o'
the Tennessee is fit to be named in the same day with Pap Thomas."
"Better turn him over to me, Shorty," said Si, meditatively. "I think
I'm in better shape for an argument just now than you are. You've bin
doing a good deal in the last few days, and I'm afraid you're a little
run down."
"No; he's my meat. I found him, and I'll take care o' him. But there's
just one thing that reconciles me to this business. In spite o' all this
sashayin' and monkeying we seem to be continually edgin' up closter to
them big cliffs where the rebels are, and something's got to bust purty
soon. It's jist like it was at Tullyhomy, but old Rosecrans ain't
runnin' things now."
"But Thomas is in the center, as he was then, and we're with him," said
Si hopefully. "There's tattoo, Le's crawl in."
The other boys had been affected according to their various temperaments
by the intricate and bewildering events of the past few days. The first
day or two they were all on the tenter-hooks of expectation and anxiety.
Every bugle-call seemed to be a notice for them to rush into the great
battle. Every time they saw a regiment moving, they expected to follow
and fall into line with it. They wondered why they were not sent in
after every skirmish-line they saw advancing. When a rebel battery
opened out in the distance they girded themselves in expectation of an
order to charge it. But Si and Shorty kept admonishing them that it
would be time enough for them to get excited when the 200th Ind. was
called on by name for something; that they were not expected to fight
the whole campaign, but only to do a limited part of it, and they had
better take things easy, and save themselves for their share when it
should come to them.
It was astonishing how soon they recognized this, and settled down to
more or less indifference to things that did not directly concern their
own regiment. They were just at the age to be imitative, and the example
of the veterans around them had a strongly-repressive effect.
So, after the second or third day of the turmoil of the opening
campaign, they ceased to bother themselves openly, at least, as to why
their regiment did not move when others did, as to why they did not go
to the help of others that were fighting, and as to when they were to be
summoned to make a desperate assault upon the frowning palisades of rock
which were literally alive with rebels and belching cannon.
When the regiment was lying still they occupied and amused themselves,
as did the others, according to their several bents. The medical-minded
Alf Russell watched the movements and deportment of the Surgeons at
every opportunity, and was especially interested in everything that he
could catch a glimpse of, from feeling a man's pulse to extracting a
bullet. The lathy Gid Mackall, whose appetite did not need the
sharpening it got from the free mountain air, put in much of his time
cooking, all possible variations of his rations with anything else that
he could get hold of, and devouring the product with eagerness. In spite
of Si's strict prohibition against card-playing, the sleepy headed Jim
Humphreys was rapidly, but secretly, mastering all the tricks and
mysteries of camp gambling, and becoming an object of anxiety to the
older gamesters whenever he pitted himself against them. Sandy Baker,
whose tastes ran to mechanics, "tinkered" constantly with his rifle and
equipments, studying the nature and inner workings of every part, and
considering possible improvements. Sprightly Harry Joslyn was fascinated
with the details of soldiering, and devoted himself to becoming perfect
in the manual of arms and the facings. Little Pete Skidmore was keenly
alive to all that was going on, and wanted to know everything. When he
could trust himself not to get lost from his regiment, he would scurry
over to the nearest one, to find out who they were, where they had come
from, what they had been doing, and whither they were likely to go. But
Monty Scruggs was constantly in the public eye, as he loved to be. His
passion for declamation pleased officers and men. He really declaimed
very well, and it was a reminder to them of home and the long-ago school
days to hear him "spout" the oldtime Friday afternoon favorites.
Therefore he was always called upon whenever there was nothing else to
engage the men's attention, and his self-confidence and vanity grew
rapidly upon the liberal applause bestowed on him. He was a capital
mimic, too, and daring as well, and it was not long before he began to
"take off" those around him, which his comrades enjoyed even more than
his declamations.
The llth of May, 1864, saw all the clouds of battle which had been
whirling for days in such apparently diverse directions, gathering about
the deep gorge in Rocky Face Ridge through which the railroad passed.
"Buzzard Roost," as this was named, was the impregnable citadel behind
which the rebel army had taken refuge after its rout at Mission Ridge
the previous November, and the rebel engineers had since exhausted every
effort to make it still more unassailable. The lofty mountain rose
precipitously for hundreds of feet on either side the narrow gorge, and
the last hundred feet was a sheer wall of perpendicular rock. The creek
which ran through the gorge had been dammed, so that its waters formed a
broad, deep moat before the mouth of the gorge. The top of the ridge
swarmed with men, and to the rear of the gorge guns were massed in
emplacements to sweep every foot of the passage.
It seemed madness to even think of forcing such a pass. A thousand men
in the shelters of that fastness could beat back myriads, and it was
known that Joe Johnston had at least 50,000 behind the Ridge. Yet
Sherman was converging great rivers of men from the north, the northwest
and west down upon that narrow gap, as if he meant to move the eternal
rocks by a freshet of human force.
The rebels thrown out in advance of the gorge, on outlying hills, rocks
and cliffs, were swept backward and into the gap by the resistless wave
of blue rolling forward, fiery and thundering, gathering force and
vehemence as it converged into a shortening semi-circle about the rugged
stronghold.
The 200th Ind. moved forward and took its place in the line on a hill
commanding a view of the entrance to the gorge, and there waited its
orders for the general advance, which seemed imminent any instant.
For miles to the right and left the woods were crackling with musketry,
interspersed with the booming of fieldpieces.
The regiment had stacked arms and broken ranks.
For an hour or two the men had studied with intense eagerness the
bristling fortifications of the gap and the swarming foemen at the foot
of and on the summit of the high walls of rock. They had listened
anxiously to the firing to the right and left, and tried to make out
what success their comrades on other parts of the long crescent were
having. They had watched the faces of the officers to read there how the
battle was going.
But one after another found this tiresome after awhile and set himself
to his usual camp employments and diversions. Some got out needles and
thread, and began repairing their clothes. Some gathered in groups and
smoked and talked. Many produced the eternal cards, folded up a blanket
for a table, and resumed their endless sevenup and euchre or poker for
buttons and grains of corn. Jim Humphreys found his way into one of
these games, which was played behind a clump of bushes, and the buttons
represented dimes. He was accumulating fractional currency. Gid Mackall
embraced the opportunity to cook for himself a savory stew with some
onions distributed by the Sanitary Commission. Sandy Baker went over his
gun, saw that every screw was properly tight, and dropped the tiniest
amount of oil on the trigger and the hammer, to ease their working. Pete
Skidmore wandered down to the flank of the next regiment to find out if
anything new had occurred. Harry Joslyn got himself into the exact
"position of a soldier," with his heels together, his toes pointed at an
angle of 45 degrees, and went through the manual of the piece endlessly.
Si and the Orderly-Sergeant communed together about the rations for the
company, and the various troubles there was always on the Orderly's mind
about the company's management. Shorty got off by himself, produced from
his breast his mementoes of Maria, and read over her last letter for the
thousandth time, though he knew every word in it. But he seemed to get a
new and deeper meaning every time he read it.
Groups of officers would come up to a little rise in front, study the
distant ridge with their glasses for awhile, and then ride away.