SOME QUEER PEOPLE.
Generals would be of small worth, indeed, if there were no lesser
folk than they in service, and the interesting people one meets in
an army do not all wear sashes, by any means. The composition of the
battery in which I served for a considerable time afforded me an
opportunity to study some rare characters, of a sort not often met
with in ordinary life, and as these men interested me beyond measure,
I have a mind to sketch a few of them here in the hope that their
oddities may prove equally entertaining to my readers.
In the late autumn of 1861, after a summer with Stuart,
circumstances, with an explanation of which it is not necessary
now to detain the reader, led me to seek a transfer to a light
battery, in which I was almost an entire stranger. When I joined
this new command, the men were in a state of partial mutiny, the
result of a failure to receive their pay and clothing allowance.
The trouble was that there was no one in the battery possessed of
sufficient clerical skill to make out a proper muster and pay roll.
Several efforts had been made, but to no purpose, and when I arrived
the camp was in a state of turmoil. The men were for the most part
illiterate mountaineers, and no explanations which the officers were
able to give served to disabuse their minds of the thought that
they were being swindled in some way. Learning what the difficulty
was, I volunteered my services for the clerical work required, and
two hours after my arrival I had the pleasure of paying off the men
and restoring peace to the camp. Straightway the captain made me
sergeant-major, and the men wanted to make me captain. The popularity
won thus in the outset served me many a good turn, not the least
of which I count the opportunity it gave me to study the characters
of the men, whose confidant and adviser I became in all matters of
difficulty. I deciphered the letters they received from home and
wrote replies from their dictation, and there were parts of this
correspondence which would make my fortune as a humorous writer, if I
could reproduce here the letters received now and then.
The men, as I have said, were for the most part illiterate
mountaineers, with just a sufficient number of educated gentlemen
among them (mostly officers and non-commissioned officers) to join
each other in a laugh at the oddity of the daily life in the camp.
The captain had been ambitious at one time of so increasing the
company as to make a battalion of it, and to that end had sought
recruits in all quarters. Among others he had enlisted seven genuine
ruffians whom he had found in a Richmond jail, and who enlisted for
the sake of a release from durance. These men formed a little clique
by themselves, a sort of miniature New York sixth ward society, which
afforded me a singularly interesting social study, of a kind rarely
met with by any but home missionaries and police authorities. There
were enough of them to form a distinct criminal class, so that I
had opportunity to study their life as a whole, and not merely the
phenomena presented by isolated specimens.
All of these seven men had seen service somewhere, and except as
regarded turbulence and utter unmanageability they were excellent
soldiers. Jack Delaney, or "one-eyed Jack Delaney," as he was
commonly called, was a tall, muscular, powerful fellow, who had
lost an eye in a street fight, and was quite prepared to sacrifice
the other in the same way at any moment. Tommy Martin was smaller
and plumper than Jack, but not one whit less muscular or less
desperately belligerent. Tim Considine was simply a beauty. He was
not more than twenty-one years of age, well-built, with a fair,
pearly, pink and white complexion, regular features, exquisite
eyes, and a singularly shapely and well-poised head. His face on
any woman's shoulders would have made her a beauty and a belle in
a Brooklyn drawing-room. I group these three together because they
are associated with each other in my mind. They messed together, and
occupied one tent. Never a day passed which brought with it no battle
royal between two or all three of them. These gentlemen,--for that
is what they uniformly called themselves, though they pronounced
the word "gints,"--were born in Baltimore. I have their word for
this, else I should never have suspected the fact. Their names were
of Hibernian mold. They spoke the English language with as pretty a
brogue as ever echoed among the hills of Galway. They were much given
to such expletives as "faith" and "be me sowl," and "be jabers," and
moreover they were always "afther" doing something; but they were
born in Baltimore, nevertheless, for they solemnly told me so.
I am wholly unable to give the reader any connected account of the
adventures and life struggles through which these men had passed, for
the reason that I was never able to win their full and unreserved
confidence; but I caught glimpses of their past, here and there, from
which I think it safe to assume that their personal histories had
been of a dramatic, not to say of a sensational sort. My battery was
sent one day to Bee's Creek, on the South Carolina coast, to meet an
anticipated advance of the enemy. No enemy came, however, and we lay
there on the sand, under a scorching sub-tropical sun, in a swarm of
sand-flies so dense that many of our horses died of their stings,
while neither sleep nor rest was possible to the men. A gun-boat
lay just out of reach beyond a point in the inlet, annoying us by
throwing at us an occasional shell of about the size and shape of a
street lamp. Having a book with me I sought a place under a caisson
for the sake of the shade, and spent an hour or two in reading. While
I was there, Jack Delaney and Tommy Martin, knowing nothing of my
presence, took seats on the ammunition chests, and fell to talking.
"An' faith, Tommy," said Jack, "an' it isn't this sort of foightin'
I'm afther loikin' at all, bad luck to it."
"An' will ye tell me, Jack," said his companion, "what sort of
foightin' it is, ye loikes?"
"Ah, Tommy, it's mesilf that loikes the raal foightin'. Give me an
open sea, an' _close quarthers_, an' a _black flag_, Tommy, an'
that's the sort of foightin' I'm afther 'oikin', sure."
"A-an' I believe it's a poirate ye are, Jack."
"You're roight, Tommy; it's a poirate I am, ivery inch o' me!"
Here was a glimpse of the man's character which proved also a hint of
his life story, as I afterwards learned. He had been a pirate, and
an English court, discovering the fact, had "ordered his funeral,"
as he phrased it, but by some means or other he had secured a pardon
on condition of his enlistment in the British navy, from which he
had deserted at the first opportunity. Jack was very much devoted to
his friends, and especially to those above him in social or military
rank; and a more loyal fellow I never knew. The captain of the
battery and I were tent mates and mess mates, and although we kept
a competent negro servant, Jack insisted upon blacking our boots,
stretching our tent, brushing our clothes, looking after our fire,
and doing a hundred other services of the sort, for which he could
never be persuaded to accept compensation of any kind.
When we arrived in Charleston for the first time, on our way to the
post assigned us at Coosawhatchie, we were obliged to remain a whole
day in the city, awaiting transportation. Knowing the temper of our
"criminal class," we were obliged to confine all the men strictly
within camp boundaries, lest our Baltimore Irishmen and their fellows
should get drunk and give us trouble. We peremptorily refused to let
any of the men pass the line of sentinels, but Jack Delaney, being
in sad need of a pair of boots, was permitted to go into the city in
company with the captain. That officer guarded him carefully, and as
they were returning to camp the captain, thinking that there could
be no danger in allowing the man one dram, invited him to drink at a
hotel counter.
"Give us your very best whisky," he said to the man behind the bar;
whereupon that functionary placed a decanter and two glasses before
them.
Jack's one eye flashed fire instantly, and jumping upon the counter
he screamed, "What d'ye mean, ye bloody spalpeen, by insultin' me
captain in that way? I'll teach ye your manners, ye haythen." The
captain could not guess the meaning of the Irishman's wrath, but he
interfered for the protection of the frightened servitor, and asked
Jack what he meant.
"What do I mean? An' sure an' I mean to break his bit of a head,
savin' your presence, captain. I'll teach him not to insult me
captain before me very eyes, by givin' him the same bottle he gives
Jack Delaney to drink out of. An' sure an' me moother learnt me
betther manners nor to presume to drink from the same bottle with me
betthers."
The captain saved the bar-tender from the effects of Jack's wrath,
but failed utterly to convince that well-bred Irish gentleman that no
offense against good manners had been committed. He refused to drink
from the "captain's bottle," and a separate decanter was provided
for him.
On another occasion Jack went with one of the officers to a tailor's
shop, and, without apparent cause, knocked the knight of the shears
down and was proceeding to beat him, when the officer commanded him
to desist.
"An' sure if your honor says he's had enough, I'll quit, but I'd
loike to murdher him."
Upon being questioned as to the cause of his singular behavior, he
explained that the tailor had shown unpardonably bad manners by
keeping his hat on his head while taking the lieutenant's measure.
These men were afraid of nothing and respected nothing but rank; but
their regard for that was sufficiently exaggerated perhaps to atone
for their short-comings in other respects. A single chevron on a
man's sleeve made them at once his obedient servants, and never once,
even in their cups, did they resist constituted authority, directly
asserted. For general rules they had no respect whatever. Anything
which assumed the form of law they violated as a matter of course, if
not, as I suspect, as a matter of conscience; but the direct command
of even a corporal was held binding always. Jack Delaney, who never
disobeyed any order delivered to him in person, used to swim the
Ashley River every night, at imminent risk of being eaten by sharks,
chiefly because it was a positive violation of orders to cross at all
from our camp on Wappoo Creek to Charleston.
Tommy Martin and Tim Considine were bosom friends, and inseparable
companions. They fought each other frequently, but these little
episodes worked no ill to their friendship. One day they quarreled
about something, and Considine, drawing a huge knife from his belt,
rushed upon Martin with evident murderous intent. Martin, planting
himself firmly, dealt his antagonist a blow exactly between the
eyes, which laid him at full length on the ground. I ran at once to
command the peace, but before I got to the scene of action I heard
Considine call out, from his supine position,--
"Bully for you, Tommy! I niver knew a blow better delivered in me
loife!" And that ended the dispute.
One night, after taps, a fearful hubbub arose in the Irish quarter of
the camp, and running to the place, the captain, a corporal, and I
managed to separate the combatants; but as Jack Delaney had a great
butcher knife in his hands with which it appeared he had already
severely cut another Irishman, Dan Gorman by name, we thought it best
to bind him with a prolonge. He submitted readily, lying down on the
ground to be tied. While we were drawing the rope around him, Gorman,
a giant in size and strength, leaned over us and dashed a brick with
all his force into the prostrate man's face. Had it struck his skull
it must have killed him instantly, as indeed we supposed for a time
that it had.
"What do you mean by that, sir?" asked the captain, seizing Gorman by
the collar.
Pointing to a fearful gash in his own neck, the man replied,--
"Don't ye see I'm a dead man, captain? An' sure an' _do ye think I'm
goin' to hell widout me pardner_?"
The tone of voice in which the question was asked clearly indicated
that in his view nothing could possibly be more utterly preposterous
than such a supposition.
Charley Lear belonged to this party, though he was not a Celt, but
an Englishman. Charley was a tailor by trade and a desperado in
practice. He had kept a bar in Vicksburg, had dug gold in California,
and had "roughed it" in various other parts of the world. His was
a scarred breast, showing seven knife thrusts and the marks of two
bullets, one of which had passed entirely through him. And yet he
was in perfect health and strength. He was a man of considerable
intelligence and fair education, whose association with ruffians
was altogether a matter of choice. He was in no sense a criminal, I
think, and while I knew him, at least, was perfectly peaceful. But he
liked rough company and sought it diligently, taking the consequences
when they came. He professed great regard and even affection for me,
because I had done him a rather important service once.
Finding it impossible to govern these men without subjecting the
rest of the company to a much severer discipline than was otherwise
necessary or desirable, we secured the transfer of our ruffians to
another command in the fall of 1862, and I saw no more of any of
them until after the close of the war. I went into a tailor's shop
in Memphis one day, during the winter of 1865-66, to order a suit of
clothing. After selecting the goods I was asked to step up-stairs
to be measured. While the cutter was using his tape upon me, one of
the journeymen on the great bench at the end of the room suddenly
dropped his work, and, bounding forward, literally clasped me in his
arms, giving me a hug which a grizzly bear might be proud of. It was
Charley Lear, of course, and I had the utmost difficulty in refusing
his offer to pay for the goods and make my clothes himself without
charge.
Our assortment of queer people was a varied one, and among the
rest there were two ex-circus actors, Jack Hawkins and Colonel
Denton, to wit. Hawkins was an inoffensive and even a timid fellow,
whose delight it was to sing bold robber songs in the metallic
voice peculiar to vocalists of the circus. There was something
inexpressibly ludicrous in the contrast between the bloody-mindedness
of his songs and the gentle shyness and timidity of the man who
sang them. Everybody domineered over him, and he was especially
oppressed in the presence of our other ex-clown, whose assumption
of superior wisdom and experience often overpowered stronger men
than poor John Hawkins ever was. Denton was one of those men who
are sure, in one way or another, to become either "colonel" or
"judge." He was sixty-five years old when I first knew him, and had
been "the colonel" longer than anybody could remember. He was of
good parentage, and until he ran away with a circus at the age of
eleven had lived among genteel people. His appearance and manner
were imposing always, and never more so than when he was drunk. He
buttoned his coat with the air of a man who is about to ride over
broad ancestral acres, and ate his dinner, whatever it might consist
of, with all the dignity of a host who does his guests great honor
in entertaining them. He was an epicure in his tastes, of course,
and delighted to describe peculiarly well-prepared dinners which he
said he had eaten in company with especially distinguished gentlemen.
He was an expert, too, he claimed, in the preparation of salads and
the other arts of a like nature in which fine gentlemen like to
excel even professional cooks. When rations happened to be more than
ordinarily limited in quantity or worse than usual in quality, Denton
was sure to visit various messes while they were at dinner, and
regale them with a highly wrought description of an imaginary feast
from which he would profess to have risen ten minutes before.
"You ought to have dined with me to-day," he would say. "I had a
deviled leg of turkey, and some beautiful broiled oysters with
Spanish olives. I never eat broiled oysters without olives. You try
it sometime, and you'll never regret it. Then I had a stuffed wild
goose's liver. Did you ever eat one? Well, you don't know what a
real titbit is, then. Not stuffed in the ordinary way, but stuffed
scientifically and cooked in a way you never saw it done before."
And thus he would go on, naming impossible viands and describing
preposterous processes of cookery, until "cooked in a way you never
saw it done before" became a proverb in the camp. The old sinner
would do all this on an empty stomach too, and I sometimes fancied he
found in the delights of his imaginary banquets some compensation for
the short rations and hard fare of his actual experience.
He was in his glory, however, only when he was away from camp and
among strangers. He always managed to impress people who didn't know
him with his great wealth and prominence. I overheard him once, in
the office of the Charleston Hotel, inviting some gentlemen to visit
and dine with him.
"Come out this evening," he said, "to my place in Charleston Neck,
and take a bachelor dinner with me. I've just got some duck from
Virginia,--canvas-back, you know,--and my steward will be sure to
have something else good on hand. I've got some good madeira too,
that I imported myself. Now you'll not disappoint me, will you? And
after dinner we'll have a turn at billiards: I've just had my tables
overhauled. But you'll have to excuse me long enough now for me to
ride down and tell the major to take care of things in camp till
morning."
And with that he gave them an address in the aristocratic quarter
of Charleston, leaving them to meditate upon the good luck they had
fallen upon in meeting this wealthy and hospitable "colonel."
Denton was an inveterate gambler, and was in the habit of winning a
good deal of money from the men after pay-day. One day he gave some
sound advice to a young man from whom he had just taken a watch in
settlement of a score.
"Now let me give you some advice, Bill," he said. "I've seen a good
deal of this kind of thing, and I know what I'm talking about. You
play fair now, and you always lose. You'll win after a while if you
keep on, but I tell you, Bill, nobody ever can win at cards without
cheating. You'll cheat a little after a while, and you'll cheat a
good deal before you've done with it. You'd better quit now, while
you're honest, because you'll cheat if you keep on, and when a man
cheats at cards he'll steal, Bill. _I speak from experience._" All
of which impressed me as a singularly frank confession under the
circumstances.
Among other odd specimens we had in our battery the most ingenious
malingerer I ever heard of. He was in service four years, drew his
pay regularly, was of robust frame and in perfect health always,
and yet during the whole time he was never off the sick-list for a
single day. His capacity to endure contempt was wholly unlimited,
else he would have been shamed by the gibes of the men, the sneers
of the surgeons, and the denunciations of the officers, into some
show, at least, of a disposition to do duty. He spent the greater
part of his time in hospital, never staying in camp a moment longer
than he was obliged to do. When discharged, as a well man, from one
hospital, he would start toward his command, and continue in that
direction till he came to another infirmary, when he would have a
relapse at once, and gain admission there. Discharged again he would
repeat the process at the next hospital, and one day near the end
of the war he counted up something like a hundred different post
and general hospitals of which he had been an inmate, while he had
been admitted to some of them more than half a dozen times each. The
surgeons resorted to a variety of expedients by which to get rid
of him. They burned his back with hot coppers; gave him the most
nauseous mixtures; put him on the lowest possible diet; treated him
to cold shower-baths four or five times daily; and did everything
else they could think of to drive him from the hospitals, but all to
no purpose. In camp it was much the same. On the morning after his
arrival from hospital he would wake up with some totally new ache,
and report himself upon the sick-list. There was no way by which to
conquer his obstinacy, and, as I have said, he escaped duty to the
last.
Another curious case, and one which is less easily explained, was
that of a much more intelligent man, who for more than a year feigned
every conceivable disease, in the hope that he might be discharged
the service. One or two of us amused ourselves with his case, by
mentioning in his presence the symptoms of some disease of which he
had never heard, the surgeon furnishing us the necessary information,
and in every case he had the disease within less than twenty-four
hours. Finally, and this was the oddest part of the matter, he gave
up the attempt, recovered his health suddenly, and became one of
the very best soldiers in the battery, a man always ready for duty,
and always faithful in its discharge. He was made a corporal and
afterwards a sergeant, and there was no better in the battery.