THE HARD AND SOLID STAFF OF MILITARY LIFE.
"APPETITE'S a queer thing," said Si to Shorty one day, when both were
in a philosophical mood. "It's an awful bother when you haven't it, and
it's a great deal worse when you have it, and can't get anything for
it." "Same as money," returned sage Shorty. During the first few months
of Si Klegg's service in the army the one thing that bothered him more
than anything else was his appetite. It was a very robust, healthy one
that Si had, for he had grown up on his father's farm in Indiana, and
had never known what it was to be hungry without abundant means at hand
for appeasing his desires in that direction. His mother's cupboard was
never known to be in the condition of Old Mother Hubbard's, described
in the nursery rhyme. The Kleggs might not have much tapestry and
bric-a-brac in their home, but their smoke-house was always full, and
Mrs. Klegg's kitchen could have fed a camp-meeting any time without
warning. So it was that when Si enlisted his full, rosy face and his
roundness of limb showed that he had been well fed, and that nature
had made good use of the ample daily supplies that were provided. His
digestive organs were kept in perfect condition by constant exercise.
After Si had put down his name on the roll of Co. Q of the 200th Ind.
he had but a few days to remain at home before his regiment was to start
for Louisville. During this time his mother and sisters kept him filled
up with "goodies" of every sort. In fact, it was the biggest thing in
the way of a protracted picnic that Si had ever struck.
"You must enjoy these things while you can, Si," said his mother, "for
goodness knows what you'll do when you really git into the army. I've
heerd 'em tell awful things about how the poor sogers don't have half
enough to eat, and what they do git goes agin' any Christian stomach.
Here, take another piece of this pie. A little while, and it'll be a
long time, I reckon, till ye git any more."
"Don't keer if I do!" said Si, for there was scarcely any limit to his
capacity.
And so during those days and nights the old lady and the girls cooked
and cooked, and Si ate and ate, until it seemed as if he wouldn't want
any more till the war was over.
Si was full, and as soon as Co. Q was, it was ordered to camp, and Si
had to go. They loaded him down with good things enough to last him
a week. The pretty Annabel--the neighbor's daughter who had solemnly
promised Si that she wouldn't go with any other fellow while he was
away--came around to see Si off and brought him a rich fruit cake.
"I made that for you," she said.
"Bully for you!" said Si, for he felt that he must begin to talk like a
soldier.
The first day or two after reaching Louisville the 200th received
rations of "soft bread." But that didn't last long. It was only a way
they had of letting the fresh soldier down easy. Orders came to get
ready to pull out after Bragg, and then Si'a regiment had its first
issue of army rations. As the Orderly pried open a box of hardtack and
began to distribute them to the boys, exclaimed:
"Them's nice-looking soda crackers. I don't believe the grub is going to
be so bad, after all."
Si had never seen a hardtack before.
"Better taste one and see how you like it!" said one of Buell's ragged
Indiana veterans, who had come over to see the boys of the 200th and
hear the latest news from "God's country."
It happened that this lot was one of extra quality as to hardness. The
baker's watch had stopped, or he had gone to sleep, and they had been
left in the oven or dry-kiln too long. Si took one of them and carried
it to his mouth. He first tried on it the bite which made such havoc
with a quarter section of custard pie, but his incisors made no more
impression upon it than if it had been a shingle.
"You have to bear on hard," said the veteran, with a grim smile.
"Je-ru-sa-lem!" exclaimed Si after he had made two or three attempts
equally barren of results.
Then he tried his "back teeth." His molars were in prime order, and his
jaw power was sufficient to crack a hickory nut every time. Si crowded
one corner of the hardtack as far as he could between his "grinders,"
where he could get a good "purchase" on it, shut his eyes and turned
on a full head of steam. His teeth and jaws fairly cracked under the
strain, but he couldn't even "phase" it.
"If that ain't old pizen!" said Si. "It beats anything I ever seen up in
the Wabash country."
But his blood was up, and laying the cracker upon a log, he brought the
butt of his gun down upon it like a pile-driver.
[Illustration: HE TRIES THE BUTT OF HIS GUN ON IT 041 ]
"I thought I'd fix ye," he said, as he picked up the fragments, and
tried his teeth upon the smaller ones. "Have I got to eat such stuff as
that?" with a despairing look at his veteran friend. "I'd just as
soon be a billy-goat and live on circus-posters, fruit-cans and old
hoop-skirts."
"You'll get used to it after a while, same's we did. You'll see the time
when you'll be mighty glad to get even as hard a tack as that!"
Si's heart sank almost into his shoes at the prospect, for the taste of
his mother's pie and Annabel's fruit cake were yet fresh in his mouth.
But Si was fully bent on being a loyal, obedient soldier, determined
to make the best of everything without any more "kicking" than was the
inalienable right of every man who wore a uniform.
For the first time in his life Si went to bed hungry that night.
Impelled by the gnawings of his appetite he made repeated assaults upon
the hardtack, but the result was wholly insufficient to satisfy the
longings of his stomach. His supper wasn't anything to speak of. Before
going to bed he began to exercise his ingenuity on various schemes to
reduce the hardtack to a condition in which it would be more gratifying
to his taste and better suited to the means with which nature had
provided him for disposing of his rations. Naturally Si thought that
soaking in water would have a beneficial effect. So he laid five or six
of them in the bottom of a camp-kettle, anchored them down with a
stone, and covered them with water. He thought that with the aid of a
frying-pan he would get up a breakfast that he could eat, anyway.
Si felt a little blue as he lay curled up under his blanket with his
head pillowed on his knapsack. He thought some about his mother, and
sister Maria, and pretty Annabel, but he thought a good deal more
about the beef and potatoes, the pies and the puddings, that were so
plentifully spread upon the table at home.
It was a long time before he got to sleep. As he lay there, thinking and
thinking, there came to his mind some ether uses to which it seemed to
him the hardtack might be put, which would be much more consistent
with its nature than to palm it off on the soldiers as alleged food. He
thought he could now understand why, when he enlisted, they examined his
teeth so carefully, as if they were going to buy him for a mule. They
said it was necessary to have good teeth in order to bite "cartridges"
successfully, but now he knew it was with reference to his ability to
eat hardtack.
Si didn't want to be killed if he could help it.
While he was lying there he determined to line one of his shirts with
hardtacks, and he would put that on whenever there was going to be a
fight. He didn't believe the bullets would go through them. He wanted to
do all he could toward paralyzing the rebels, and with such a protection
he could be very brave, while his comrades were being mowed down around
him. The idea of having such' a shirt struck Si as being a brilliant
one.
Then, he thought hardtack would be excellent for half-soling his shoes.
He didn't think they would ever wear out.
If he ran short of ammunition he could ram pieces of hardtack into his
gun and he had no doubt they would do terrible execution in the ranks of
the enemy.
All these things and many more Si thought of until finally he was lost
in sleep. Then he dreamed that somebody was trying to cram stones down
his throat.
The company was called out at daylight, and immediately after roll-call
Si went to look after the hardtacks he had put to soak the night before.
He thought he had never felt so hungry in his life. He fished out
the hardtack and carefully inspected them, to note the result of the
submerging and to figure out the chances on his much-needed breakfast.
To any old soldier it would be unnecessary to describe the condition in
which Si found those hardtacks, and the effect of the soaking. For the
information of any who never soaked a hardtack it may be said that Si
found them transformed, to all appearances, into sole-leather. They were
flexible, but as tough as the hide that was "found in the vat when the
tanner died."
Si tried to bite a piece off one of them to see what it was like, but he
couldn't get his teeth through it. In sheer desperation he laid it on a
log, seized a hatchet, and chopped off a corner. He put it in his mouth
and chewed on it a while, but found it as tasteless as cold codfish.
Si thought he would try the frying-pan. He chopped the hardtacks into
bits, put in equal parts of water and grease, sifted over the mixture a
little salt and pepper, and then gave it a thorough frying. Si's spirits
rose during the gradual development of this scheme, as it seemed to
offer a good prospect for his morning meal. And when it came to the
eating. Si found it really good, comparatively speaking, even though
it was very much like a dish compounded of the sweepings from around a
shoemaker's bench. A good appetite was indispensable to a real enjoyment
of this--which the soldiers called by a name that cannot be given
here--but Si had the appetite, and he ate and was thankful.
"I thought I'd get the bulge on them things some way or other," said Si,
as he drank the last of his coffee and arose from his meal, feeling like
a giant refreshed with new wine.
For the next two or three months Si largely devoted his surplus energies
to further experimenting with the hardtack. He applied every conceivable
process of cookery he could think of that was possible with the meager
outfit at his command in the way of utensils and materials. Nearly all
of his patient and persevering efforts resulted only in vexation of
spirit.
He continued to eat hardtack from day to day, in these various forms,
but it was only because he had to do it. He didn't hanker after it,
but it was a military necessity--hardtack or starvation. It was a hard
choice, but Si's love of life--and Annabel--induced him to choose the
hardtack.
[Illustration: THE BEST WAY AFTER ALL 045 ]
But for a long-time Si's stomach was in a state of chronic rebellion,
and on the whole he had a hard time of it getting used to this staple
article of army diet. He did not become reconciled to it until after his
regiment had rations of flour for a week, when the "cracker-line" had
been cut by the guerillas and the supply of that substantial edible was
exhausted. Si's experience with the flour swept away all his objections
to the hardtack. Those slapjacks, so fearfully and wonderfully made,
and those lumps of dough, mixed with cold water and dried on flat stones
before the fire, as hard as cannon balls, played sad havoc with his
internal arrangements. For the first time he was obliged to fall into
the cadaverous squad at sick-call and wabble up to the doctor's shop,
where he was dosed with castor-oil and blue-mass. Si was glad enough to
see hardtack again. Most of the grumbling he did thereafter concerning
the hardtack was because he often couldn't get enough.
About six months taught Si what all the soldiers learned by experience,
that the best way to eat the average hardtack was to take it
"straight"--just as it came out of the box, without any soaking or
frying or stewing. At meal-time he would make a quart or so of coffee,
stab the end of a ramrod through three or four slices of sowbelly, and
cook them over the coals, allowing some of the drippings to fall upon
the hardtack for lubricating purposes, and these constituted his frugal
repast.