IT IS USED FOR NEARLY EVERYTHING ELSE THAN FOR PRODDING MEN.
IN COMMON with every other young man who enlisted to defend the
glorious Stars and Stripes, Si Klegg, of the 200th Ind., had a profound
superstition concerning the bayonet. All the war literature he had
ever read abounded in bloodcurdling descriptions of bayonet charges and
hand-to-hand conflicts, in which bayonets were repeatedly thrust up to
the shanks in the combatants' bodies just as he had put a pitch-fork
into a bundle of hay. He had seen pictures of English regiments
bristling with bayonets like a porcupine with quills, rushing toward
French regiments which looked as prickly as a chestnut-bur, and in his
ignorance he supposed that was the way fighting was done. Occasionally
he would have qualms at the thought of how little his system was suited
to have cold steel thrust through it promiscuous-like, but he comforted
himself with the supposition that he would probably get used to it in
time--"soldiers get used to almost anything, you know."
When the 200th Ind. drew its guns at Indianapolis he examined all the
strange accouterments with interest, but gave most to the triangular bit
of steel which writers who have never seen a battle make so important a
weapon in deciding contests.
It had milk, molasses, or even applejack, for Si then was not a member
of the Independent Order of Good Templars, of which society he is now an
honored officer. Nothing could be nicer, when he was on picket, to bring
buttermilk in from the neighboring farm-house to his chum Shorty, who
stood post while he was gone.
[Illustration: SI's CHUM, "SHORTY" ELLIOTT 026 ]
Later in the service Si learned the inestimable value of coffee to
the soldier on the march. Then he stript the cloth from his canteen,
fastened the strand with bits of wire and made a fine coffee-pot of
it. In the morning he would half fill it with the splendid coffee ihe
Government furnished, fill it up with water and hang it from a bush
or a stake over the fire, while he went ahead with his other culinary
preparations. By the time these were finished he would have at least a
quart of magnificent coffee that the cook of the Fifth Avenue could
not surpass, and which would last him until the regiment halted in the
afternoon.
The bully of the 200th took it into his thick head one day to try to
"run over" Si. The latter had just filled his canteen, and the bully
found that the momentum of three pints of water swung at arm's length
by an angry boy was about equal to a mule's kick.
Just as he was beginning to properly appreciate his canteen, he learned
a sharp lesson, that comes to all of us, as to how much "cussedness"
there can be in the simplest things when they happen to go wrong. He
went out one day and got a canteen of nice sweet milk, which he
and "Shorty" Elliott heartily enjoyed. He hung the canteen upon the
ridge-pole of the tent, and thought no more about it until the next day,
when he came in from drill, and found the tent filled with an odor so
vile that it made him cough.
"Why in thunder don't the Colonel send out a detail to find and bury
that dead mule? It'll pizen the hull camp."
He had been in service just long enough to believe that the Colonel
ought to look out for and attend to everything.
"'Taint no dead mule," said Shorty, whose nose had come close to the
source of the odor. "It's this blamed canteen. What on earth have you
been putting in it. Si?"
"Ha'int had nothin' in but that sweet milk yesterday."
"That's just what's the matter," said the Orderly, who, having been in
the three-months' service, knew all about war. He had come in to detail
Si and Shorty to help unload Quartermaster's stores. "You must always
scald 'out your canteens when you've had milk in 'em. Don't you remember
how careful your mother is to scald her milk pans?"
After the company wagon had run over and hopelessly ruined the neat
little frying-pan which Si had brought from Posey County, he was in
despair as to how he should fry his meat and cook his "lobscouse."
Necessity is the mother of invention. He melted in two a canteen he
picked up, and found its halves made two deep tin pans, very light and
very handy. A split stick made a handle, and he had as good a frying-pan
as the one he had lost, and much more convenient, for when done using
the handle was thrown away, and the pan slipt into the haversack, where
it lay snug and close, instead of clattering about as the frying-pan did
when the regiment moved at the double-quick.
The other half of the canteen was useful to brown coffee, bake hoe-cake,
and serve for toilet purposes.
One day on the Atlanta campaign the regiment moved up in line to the
top of a bald hill. As it rose above the crest it was saluted with a
terrific volley, and saw that another crest across the narrow valley was
occupied by at least a brigade of rebels.
"We'll stay right here, boys," said the plucky little Colonel, who had
only worn Sergeant's stripes when the regiment crossed the Ohio River.
"We've preempted this bit of real estate, and we'll hold it against the
whole Southern Confederacy. Break for that fence there, boys, and every
fellow come back with a couple of rails."
It seemed as if he hardly ceased speaking when the boys came running
back with the rails which they laid down along the crest, and dropped
flat behind them, began throwing the gravelly soil over them with their
useful half-canteens. In vain the shower of rebel bullets struck and
sang about them. Not one could penetrate that little ridge of earth and
rails, which in an hour grew into a strong rifle-pit against which the
whole rebel brigade charged, only to sustain a bloody repulse.
The war would have lasted a good deal longer had it not been for the
daily help of the ever-useful half-canteen.