THE GREAT MILITARY TRUTH
THAT IN THE ARMY THE MOST LIKELY THING TO HAPPEN IS SOMETHING ENTIRELY
UNLIKELY.
COL. TERRENCE P. McTARNAGHAN, as his name would indicate, had first
opened his eyes where the blue heavens bend over the evergreen sod of
Ireland. Naturally, therefore, he thought himself a born soldier,
and this conviction had been confirmed by a year's service as Second
Lieutenant of Volunteers in the Mexican War, and subsequent connection
with the Indiana Militia. Being an Irishman, when he went in for
anything, and especially soldiering, he went in with all his might.
He had associated with Regular Army officers whenever there was an
opportunity, and he looked up to them with the reverence and emulation
that an amateur gives to a professional. Naturally he shared their
idea that an inspection and parade was the summit of military art.
Consequently, the main thing to make the 200th Ind. the regiment it
should be were frequent and rigid inspections.
Fine weather, two days of idleness, and the prospect that the regiment
would remain there some time watching the crossing of the Cumberland
were enough and more than enough to set the Colonel going. The Adjutant
published the following order:
Headquarters 200th Indiana,
In the Field, on the Cumberland,
Nov. 25, 1862.
I. The Regiment will be paraded for inspection tomorrow
afternoon at 4 o'clock.
II. Captains will be expected to parade the full strength of
their companies.
III. A half hour before the parade. Captains will form their
companies in the company streets and inspect every man.
IV. The men will be required to have their clothes neatly
brushed, blouses buttoned up, clean underclothes, shoes
blacked, letters and numbers polished, and arms and
accouterments in best condition. They will wear white
gloves.
V. The man who has his clothes, arms and accouterments in
the best order will be selected for the Colonel's Orderly.
By command of
Attest: COL. TERRENCE P. McTARNAGHAN, Colonel.
B. B. LAUGHLIN, Adjutant.
When Capt. McGillicuddy marched Co. Q back to its street, he called
attention to the order with a few terse admonitions as to what it meant
to every one.
"Get at this as soon as you break ranks, boys," urged the Captain. "You
can do a whole lot between now and tattoo. The others will, and you must
not let them get ahead of you. No straw in knapsacks this time."
Company spirit was high, and it would be little short of a calamity to
have Co. Q beaten in anything.
There was a rush to the Sutler for white gloves, blacking, needles,
thread, paper collars, sweet oil and rotten stone for the guns.
That genial bird of prey added 50 per cent to his prices, because it
was the first business he had done for some weeks; 50 per cent more for
keeping open in the evening, another 50 per cent for giving credit till
pay day, and still another for good will.
The Government had just offered some very tempting gold-interest bonds,
of which he wanted a swad.
"'Tain't right to let them green boys have their hull $13 a month to
waste in foolishness," he said. "Some good man should gather it up and
make a right use of it."
Like Indiana farmer boys of his class. Si Klegg was cleanly but not
neat. Thanks to his mother and sisters, his Sunday clothes were always
"respectable," and he put on a few extra touches when he expected to
meet Annabel. He took his first bath for the year in the Wabash a week
or two after the suckers began to run, and his last just before the
water got so cold as to make the fish bite freely.
Such a thing as a "dandy" was particularly distasteful to him.
"Shorty," said Si, as he watched some of the boys laboring with
sandpaper, rotten stone and oil to make the gunbarrels shine like
silver, "what's the cense o' bein' so partickler about the outside of a
gun? The business part's inside. Making them screw heads look like beads
don't make it no surer of gitting Mr. Butternut."
"Trouble about you folks on the Wabash," answered Shorty, as he twisted
a screw head against some emery paper, "is that you don't pay enough
attention to style. Style goes a long ways in this vain and wicked world,"
(and his eyes became as if meditating on worlds he had known which were
not so vain and wicked), "and when I see them Kokomo persimmon knockers
of Co. B hustling to put on frills, I'm going to beat 'em if I don't lay
up a cent."
"Same here," said Si, falling to work on his gunbarrel. "Just as' nice
people moved into Posey County as squatted in Kokomo. Gang o' hoss
thieves first settled Howard County."
"Recollect that big two fister from Kokomo who said he'd knock your
head off if you ever throwed that up to him again?" grinned Shorty.
"You invited him to try it on, an' he said your stripes stopped him. You
pulled off your blouse, and you said you had no stripes on your shirt
sleeves. But I wouldn't say it again until those Co. B fellers try again
to buck us out of our place in the ration line. It's too good a slam to
waste."
Tattoo sounded before they had finished their guns and accouterments.
These were laid aside to be completed in the full light of day.
The next morning work was resumed with industry stimulated by reports of
the unusual things being done by the other companies.
"This Tennessee mud sticks closer'n a $500 mortgage to a 40-acre tract,"
sighed Si, as he stopped beating and brushing his blouse and pantaloons.
"Or,
"'Aunt Jemima's plaster,
"The more you try to pull it off the more it sticks
the faster."
hummed Shorty, with what breath he had left from his violent exercise.
So well did they work that by dinner time they felt ready for
inspection, careful reconnoissances of the other companies showing them
to have no advantages.
Next to the Sutler's for the prescribed white gloves.
Si' had never worn anything on his hands but warm, woolen mittens knit
for him by his mother, but the order said white gloves, and gloves
they must have. The accommodating sutler made another stoppage in their
month's pay of $1 for a pair of cheap, white cotton gloves. By this time
the sutler had accumulated enough from the 200th Ind. to secure quite a
handful of gold interest-bearing bonds.
"Well, what do you think of them. Si?" said Shorty, as he worked his
generous hands into a pair of the largest sized gloves and held them up
to view.
"If they were only painted yaller and had a label on them," said Si,
"they could be issued for Cincinnati canvas covered hams."
Shorty's retort was checked by hearing the bugle sound the officers'
call. The Colonel announced to them that owing to the threatening look
of the skies the parade and inspection would take place in an hour.
There was feverish haste to finish undone things, but when Capt.
McGillicuddy looked over his men in the company street, he declared
himself proud to stack up Co. Q against any other in the regiment. Gun
barrels and bayonets shone like silver, rammers rang clear, and came out
without a stain to the Captain's white gloves.
The band on the parade ground struck up the rollicking
"O, ain't I glad to git out of the wilderness,
Out of the wilderness-Out of the wilderness,"
and Capt. McGillicuddy marched proudly out at the head of 75
broad-shouldered, well-thewed young Indianians, fit and fine as any
south of the Ohio.
The guides, holding their muskets butts up, indicated where the line was
to form, the trim little Adjutant, glorious as the day in a new uniform
and full breasted as a pouter-pigeon, was strutting over toward the
band, and the towering red-headed Colonel, martial from his waving plume
to his jangling spurs, stood before his tent in massive dignity, waiting
for the color company to come up and receive the precious regimental
standard.
This scene of orderly pomp and pageantry was rudely disturbed by an
Aid dashing in on a sweating horse, and calling out to the statuesque
commander:
"Colonel, a train is stalled in the creek about three miles from here,
and is threatened with capture by Morgan's cavalry. The General
presents his compliments, and directs that you take your regiment on the
double-quick to the assistance of the train. You v'e not a moment lose."
"Tare and 'ounds!" swore the Colonel in the classic he used when excited,
"am I niver to have a dacint inspection? Orderly, bring me me harse.
Stop that band's ijiotic blatting. Get into line there, quick as love
will let you, you unblessed Indiana spalpeans. Without doubling; right
face! Forward, M-a-r-c-h!"
Col. McTarnaghan, still wearing his parade grandeur, was soon at the
head of the column, on that long-striding horse which always set such a
hot pace for the regiment; especially over such a rough, gullied road as
they were now traveling.
Still, the progress was not fast enough to suit the impatient Colonel,
who had an eye to the report he would have to make to the Brigadier
General, who was a Regular.
"Capt. McGillicuddy," commanded he, turning in his saddle, "send forward
a Corporal and five men for an advance guard."
"Corporal Klegg, take five men and go to the front," commanded the
Captain.
"Now you b'yes, get ahead as fast as you can. Get a move on them durty
spalpanes of tamesters. We must get back to camp before this storm
strikes us. Shove out, now, as if the divil or Jahn Morgan was after
yez."
It was awful double-quicking over that rocky, rutty road, but taking
Shorty and four others. Si went on the keen jump to arrive hot and
breathless on the banks of the creek. There he found a large bearded
man wearing an officer's slouched hat sitting on a log, smoking a
black pipe, and gazing calmly on the ruck of wagons piled up behind one
stalled in the creek, which all the mules they could hitch to it had
failed to pull out.
It was the Wagon Master, and his calmness was that of exhaustion. He had
yelled and sworn himself dry, and was collecting another fund of abuse
to spout at men and animals.
"Here, why don't you git a move on them wagons?" said Si hotly, for he
was angered at the man's apparent indifference.
"'Tend to your own business and I'll tend to mine," said the Wagon
Master, sullenly, without removing his pipe or looking at Si.
"Look here, I'm a Corporal, commanding the advance guard," said Si. "I
order you!"
This seemed to open the fountains of the man's soul.
"You order me?" he yelled, "you splay-footed, knock-kneed,
chuckled-headed paper-collared, whitegloved sprat from a milk-sick
prairie. Corporal! I outrank all the Corporals from here to Christmas of
next year."
"The gentleman seems to have something on his mind," grinned Shorty.
"Mebbe his dinner didn't set well."
"Shorty?" inquired Si, "how does a Wagon Master rank? Seems to me nobody
lower'n a Brigadier-General should dare talk to me that way."
"Dunno," answered Shorty, doubtfully. "Seems as if I'd heard some of
them Wagon Masters rank as Kurnels. He swears like one."
"Corporal!" shouted the Wagon Master with infinite scorn. "Measly
$2-a-month water toter for the camp-guard, order me!" and he went off
into a rolling stream of choice "army language."
"He must certainly be a Kurnel," said Shorty.
"Here," continued the Wagon Master, "if you don't want them two
shoat-brands jerked offen you, jump in and get them wagons acrost.
That's what you were sent to do. Hump yourself, if you know what's good
for you. I've done all I can. Now it's your turn."
Dazed and awed by the man's authoritativeness the boys ran down to the
water to see what was the trouble.
They found the usual difficulty in Southern crossings. The stupid
tinkerers with the road had sought to prevent it running down into the
stream by laying a log at the edge of the water. This was an enormous
one two feet in diameter, with a chuckhole before it, formed by the
efforts of the teams to mount the log. The heavily laden ammunition
wagon had its hub below the top of the log, whence no amount of
mule-power could extricate it.
Si, with Indiana commonsense, saw that the only help was to push the
wagon back and lay a pile of poles to make a gradual ascent. He and the
rest laid their carefully polished muskets on dry leaves at the side,
pulled off their white gloves, and sending two men to hunt thru the
wagons for axes to cut the poles. Si and Shorty roused up the stupid
teamsters to unhitch the mules and get them behind the wagon to pull
it back. Alas for their carefully brushed pantaloons and well-blackened
shoes, which did not last a minute in the splashing mud.
The Wagon Master had in the meanwhile laid in a fresh supply of epithets
and had a fresh batch to swear at. He stood up on the bank and yelled
profane injunctions at the soldiers like a Mississippi River Mate at a
boat landing. They would not work fast enough for him, nor do the right
thing.
The storm at last burst. November storms in Tennessee are like the
charge of a pack of wolves upon a herd of buffalo. There are wild,
furious rushes, alternating with calmer intervals. The rain came down
for a few minutes as if it would beat the face off the earth, and the
stream swelled into a muddy torrent. Si's paper collar and cuffs at once
became pulpy paste, and his boiled shirt a clammy rag. In spite of this
his temper rose to the boiling point as he struggled thru the sweeping
rush of muddy water to get the other wagons out of the road and the
ammunition wagon pulled back a little ways to allow the poles to be
piled in front of it.
The dashing downpour did not check the Wagon Master's flow of profanity.
He only yelled the louder to make himself heard above the roar. The
rain stopped for a few minutes as suddenly as it had begun and Col.
McTarnaghan came up with all his parade finery drenched and dripping
like the feathers of a prize rooster in a rainy barnyard. His Irish
temper was at the steaming point, and he was in search of something to
vent it on.
"You blab-mouthed son of a thief," he shouted at the Wagon Master, "what
are you ordering my men around for? They are sent here to order you, not
you to order them. Shut that ugly potato trap of yours and get down to
work, or I'll wear my saber out on you. Get down there and put your own
shoulders to the wheels, you misbegotten villain. Get down there into
the water, I tell you. Corporal, see that he does his juty!"
The Wagon Master slunk down the hill, where Shorty grabbed him by the
collar and yanked him over to help push one of the wagons back. The
other boys had meanwhile found axes, cut down and trimmed up some pine
poles and were piling them into the chuckhole under Si's practical
guidance. A double team was put on the ammunition wagon, and the rest of
Co. Q came up wet, mad and panting. A rope was found and stretched ahead
of the mules, on which the company lined itself, the Colonel took his
place on the bank and gave the word, and with a mighty effort the wagon
was dragged up the hill. Some other heavily loaded ammunition wagons
followed. The whole regiment was now up, and the bigger part of it lined
on the rope so that these wagons came up more easily, even tho the rain
resumed its wicked pounding upon the clay soil.
Wading around thru the whirling water. Si had discovered, to his
discomfiture, that there was a narrow, crooked reef that had to be kept
to. There were deep overturning holes on either side. Into one of these
Si had gone, to come again floundering and spurting muddy water from his
mouth.
Shorty noted the place and took the first opportunity to crowd the Wagon
Master into it.
A wagon loaded with crackers and pork missed the reef and went over
hopelessly on its side, to the rage of Col. McTamaghan.
"Lave it there; lave it there, ye blithering numbskulls," he yelled,
"Unhitch those mules and get 'em out. The pork and wagon we can get when
the water goes down. If another wagon goes over Oi'll rejuce it every
mother's son of yez, and tie yez up by the thumbs besides."
Si and Shorty waded around to unhitch the struggling mules, and then,
taking poles in hand to steady themselves, took their stations in the
stream where they could head the mules right.
Thru the beating storm and the growing darkness, the wagons were, one by
one, laboriously worked over until, as midnight approached, only three
or four remained on the other side. Chilled to the bone, and almost
dropping with fatigue from hours of standing in the deep water running
like a mill race. Si called Al Klapp, Sib Ball and Jesse Langley to take
their poles and act as guides.
Al Klapp had it in for the sutlers. He was a worm that was ready to
turn. He had seen some previous service, and had never gone to the
Paymaster's table but to see the most of his $13 a month swept away
by the sutler's remorseless hand. He and Jesse got the remaining army
wagons over all right. The last wagon was a four-horse team belonging to
a sutler.
The fire of long-watched-for vengeance gleamed in Al's eye as he made
out its character in the dim light. It reached the center of the stream,
when over it went in the rushing current of muddy water.
Al and Jesse busied themselves unhooking the struggling mules.
The Colonel raged. "Lave it there! Lave it there!" he yelled after
exhausting his plentiful stock of Irish expletives. "But we must lave a
guard with it. Capt. Sidney Hyde, your company has been doing less
than any other. Detail a Sergeant and 10 men to stand guard here until
tomorrow, and put them two thick-headed oudmahouns in the creek on guard
with them. Make them stand double tricks.
"All right. It was worth it," said Al Klapp, as the Sergeant put him on
post, with the water running in rivulets from his clothes. "It'll take
a whole lot of skinning for the sutlers to get even for the dose I've
given one of them."
"B'yes, yoi've done just splendid," said the Colonel, coming over to
where Si and Shorty were sitting wringing the water and mud from their
pantaloons and blouses. "You're hayroes, both of yez. Take a wee drap
from my canteen. It'll kape yez from catching cold."
"No, thankee, Kurnel," said Si, blushing with delight, and forgetting
his fatigue and discomfort, in this condescension and praise from his
commanding officer. "I'm a Good Templar."
"Sinsible b'y," said the Colonel approvingly, and handing his canteen to
Shorty.
"I'm mightily afraid of catching cold," said Shorty, reaching eagerly
for the canteen, and modestly turning his back on the Colonel that he
might not see how deep his draft.
"Should think you were," mused the Colonel, hefting the lightened
vessel. "Bugler, sound the assembly and let's get back to camp."
The next day the number of rusty muskets, dilapidated accouterments
and quantity of soiled clothes in the camp of the 200th Ind. was only
equaled by the number of unutterably weary and disgusted boys.