How Private George W. Peck Put Down the Rebellion / or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887

CHAPTER III.

The last chapter of this history left me facing my regiment, which had started out to hunt me up, after my terrible fight with that Confederate. The colonel rode up to me and shook me by the hand, and congratulated me, and the major and adjutant said they had never expected to see me alive, and the soldiers looked at me as one returned from the grave, and from what I could gather by the looks of the boys, I was something of a hero, even before I had told my story. The colonel asked me what had become of all the baggage I had on my saddle when I went away, and I told him that I had thrown ballast over-board all over the Southern Confederacy, when I was charging the enemy, because I found my horse drew too much water for a long run. He said something about my being a Horse-Marine, and sent me back to my company, telling me that when we got into camp that night he would send for me and I could tell the story of my capture and escape. I rode back into my company, and you never saw such a change of sentiment towards a raw recruit, as there was towards me, and they asked me questions about my first fight. The corporal who had placed me on picket, and stampeded at the first fire, was unusually gracious to me, and said when he saw a hundred and fifty rebels come charging down the road, yelling and firing, he knew it was no place for his small command, so he lit out. He said he supposed of course I was shot all to pieces. I didn't tell him that it was me that did all the yelling, and that there was only one rebel, and that he was perfectly harmless, but I told him that he miscalculated the number of the enemy, as there were, all told, at least five hundred, and that I had killed fourteen that I knew of, besides a number had been taken away in ambulances, wounded. The boys opened their eyes, and nothing was too good for me during that march. We went into camp in the pine woods late in the afternoon, and after supper the colonel sent for me, and I went to his tent. All the officers were there, and as many soldiers as dared crowd around. The colonel said the corporal had reported where he left me, and how the enemy had charged in force, and he supposed that I had been promptly killed. That he felt that he could not hold his position against such immense odds, so he had fallen back slowly, firing as he did so, until the place was too hot for him, and now he wanted to hear my story. I told the colonel that I was new at the business, and may be I did not use the best judgment in the world, by remaining to fight against such odds, but I meant well. I told him I did not wish to complain of the corporal, who no doubt was an able fighter, but it did seem to me that he ought at least to have waited till the battle had actually commenced. I said that the first charge, which stampeded the corporal and his men, was not a marker to what took place afterwards. I said when the enemy first appeared, I dismounted, got behind a tree, and poured a murderous fire into the ranks of the rebels, and that they fell all around. I could not tell how many were killed, but probably ten, as I fired eleven shots from, my carbine, and I usually calculated on missing one out of ten, when shooting at a mark. Then they fell back and I mounted my horse and rode to their right flank and poured it into them red hot from my revolver, and that I saw several fall from their horses, when they stampeded, and I drew my saber and charged them, and after cutting down several, I was surrounded by the whole rebel army and captured. They tied me to the wheel of a gun carriage, and after trying to pump me as to the number of men I had fighting against them, they left me to hold a council of war, when I untied myself, mounted my horse, and cut my way out, and took to the woods. I apologized to the colonel for running away from the enemy, but told him it seemed to me, after the number I had killed, and the length of time I had held them at bay, it was no more than right to save my own life, as I had use for it in my business. During my recital of the lie I had made up, the officers and soldiers stood around with mouths open, and when I had concluded my story, there was silence for a moment, when the colonel stepped forward and took me by the hand, and in a few well chosen remarks congratulated me on my escape, and thanked me for so valiantly standing my ground against such fearful odds, and he said I had reflected credit upon my regiment, and that hereafter I would be classed as a veteran instead of a recruit. He said he had never known a man to come right from the paths of peace, and develop into a warrior with a big “W” so short a time. The other officers congratulated me, and the soldiers said I was a bully boy. The colonel treated to some commissary whisky, and then the business of the evening commenced, which I found to be draw poker. I sat around for some time watching the officers play poker, when the chaplain, who was a nice little pious man, asked me to step outside the tent, as he wished to converse with me. I went out into the moonlight with him, and he took me away from the tents, under a tree, and told me he had been much interested in my story. I thanked him, and said I had been as brief as possible. He said, “I was interested, because I used to be something of a liar myself, before I reformed, and studied for the ministry.” It occurred to me that possibly the chaplain did not believe my simple tale, and I asked him if he doubted my story. “That is about the size of it,” says he. I told him I was sorry I had not told the story in such a manner that he would believe it, because I valued the opinion of the chaplain above all others. He said he had known a good many star liars in his time, some that had national reputations, but he had never seen one that could hold a candle to me in telling a colossal lie, or aggregation of lies, and tell them so easy. I thanked him for his good opinion, and told him that I flattered myself that for a recruit, right fresh from the people, who had never had any experience as a military liar, I had done pretty well. He said I certainly had, and he was glad to make my acquaintance. I asked him to promise not to give it away to the other officers, which he did, and then I told him the whole story, as it was, and that I was probably the biggest coward that ever lived, and that I was only afraid that my story of blood-letting would encourage the officers to be constantly putting me into places of danger, which I did not want to be in. I told him I believed this war could be ended without killing any more men, and cited the fact that I had been a soldier nearly forty-eight hours, and nobody had been killed, and the enemy was on the run. I told the chaplain that if there was one thing I didn't want to see, it was blood. Others might have an insatiable appetite for gore, but I didn't want any at all. I was willing to do anything for this government but fight; and if he could recommend to me any line of action by which I could pull through without being sent out to do battle with strangers who could shoot well, I should consider it a favor. What I wanted was a soft job, where there was no danger. The chaplain looked thoughtful a moment, and then took me over to his tent, where he opened a bottle of blackberry brandy. He took a small dose, after placing his hand on his stomach and groaning a little. He asked me if I did not sometimes have a pain under my vest. I told him I never had a pain anywhere. Then he said I couldn't have any brandy. He said the brandy came from the sanitary commsssion, and was controlled entirely by the chaplains of the different regiments, and the instructions were to only use it in case of sickness. He said a great many of the boys had pains regularly, and came to him for relief. He smacked his lips and said if I felt any pain coming on, to help myself to the brandy. It is singular how a pain will sometimes come on when you least expect it. It was not a minute before I began to feel a small pain, not bigger than a man's hand, and as I looked at the bottle the pain increased, and I had to tell the chaplain that I must have relief before it was everlastingly too late, so he poured out a dose of brandy for me. I could see that I was becoming a veteran very fast, as I could work the chaplain for sanitary stores pretty early in the game. Well, the chaplain and me had pains off and on, for an hour or two, and became good friends. He told me of quite a number of methods of shirking active duty, such as being detailed to take care of baggage, acting as orderly, and going to surgeon's call. He said if a man went to surgeon's call, the doctor would report him sick, and he could not be sent out on duty. The next day we went back to our post, where the regiment was stationed, and where they had barracks, that they wintered in, and remained there several weeks, drilling. I was drilled in mounting and dismounting, and soon got so I could mount a horse without climbing on to him from a fence. But the drill became irksome, and I decided to try the chaplain's suggestion about going to surgeon's call. I got in line with about twenty other soldiers, and we marched over to the surgeon's quarters. I supposed the doctor would take each soldier into a private room, feel of his pulse, look at his tongue, and say that what he needed was rest, and give him some powders to be taken in wafers, or in sugar. But all he did was to say “What's the matter?” and the sick man would tell him, when the doctor would tell his assistant to give the man something, and pass on to the next. I was the last one to be served, and the interview was about as follows:

Doc.—What's the matter?

Me—Bilious.

Doc.—Run out your tongue. Take a swallow out of the black bottle.

That seems very simple, indeed, but it nearly killed me. When he told me to run out my tongue, I run out perhaps six inches of the lower end of it, the doctor glanced at it as though it was nothing to him anyway, and then he told me to take a swallow out of the bottle. In all my life I had never taken four doses of medicine, and when I did the medicine was disguised in preserves or something. The hospital steward handed me the bottle that a dozen other sick soldiers had drank out of, and it was sticky all around the top, and contained something that looked like castor oil, for greasing a buggy. He told me to take a good big swallow, and I tried to do so. Talk about the suffering brought on by the war, it seems to me nobody ever suffered as I did, trying to drink a swallow of that castor oil out of a two quart bottle, that was dirty. It run so slow that it seemed, an age before I got enough to swallow, and then it seemed another age before the oil could pass a given point in my neck. And great Caesar's ghost how it did taste. I think it went down my neck, and I just had strength enough to ask the steward to give me something to take the taste out of my mouth. He handed me a blue pill. O, I could have killed him. I rushed to the chaplain's tent and took a drink of blackberry brandy, and my life was saved, but for three years after that I was never sick enough to get farther than the chaplain's quarters.

I suppose the meanest trick that was ever played on a raw recruit, was played on me while we were in camp at that place. It seemed to me that some of the boys got jealous of me, because I had become a hero, accidentally. May be some of them did not believe I had killed as many of the enemy as I had owned up to having killed. Anyway every little while some soldier would say that he thought it was a mean man that would go out and kill a lot of rebels and not bury them. He said a man that would do that was a regular pot-hunter, who killed game and left it on the ground to spoil. They made lots of such uncharitable remarks, but I did not pay much attention to to them. I had a tent-mate who took a great interest in me, and he said no soldier's life was safe who did not wear a breast-plate, and he asked me if I did not bring any breast-plate with me. I told him I never heard of a breastplate, and asked him what it was. He said it was a vest made of the finest spring steel, that could be worn under the clothes, which was so strong that a bullet could not penetrate it. He supposed of course I had one, when he heard of the fight I had, and said none of the old boys would go into a fight without one, as it covered the vital parts, and saved many a life. I bit like a bass. If there was anything I wanted more than a discharge, it was a breast-plate. If the chaplain should succeed in getting me a soft job, where there was no danger, I could get along without my breast-plate, but there was no sure thing about the chaplain, so I asked the soldier where I could get a breastplate. He said the quartermaster used to issue them, but he didn't have any on hand now, but he said he knew where there was one that once belonged to a soldier who was killed, and he thought he could get it for me. I asked him how it happened that the soldier was killed, when he had a breast-plate, and he told me the man was killed by eating green peaches. Of course I couldn't expect a breastplate to save me from the effects of eating unripe fruit, and I felt that if it would save me from bullets it would be worth all it cost, so I told the soldier to get it for me. That evening he brought it around, and he helped me put it on. I learned afterwards that it was an old breast-plate that an officer had brought to the regiment when the war broke out, and that it had been played on raw recruits for two years. After I had got it on, the soldier suggested that we go out with several other dare devils, and run the guard and go down town and play billiards, and have a jolly time. I asked him if the guard would not shoot at us, and he said the guards would be all right, and if they did shoot they would shoot at the breast-plates, as all the boys had them on. So about six of us sneaked through the guards, went to town and had a big time, and came back along towards morning, each with a canteen of whisky. It was not easy getting back inside the lines, as the moon was shining, but we got by the guards, and then my friends suggested that we take our breast-plates off and put them on behind us, as the guards, if they shot at all, would be firing in our rear. I took mine off and put it on behind my pants, and just then somebody fired a gun, and the boys said “run,” and I started ahead, and the firing continued, and about every jump I could hear and feel something striking my breast-plate behind, which seemed to me to be bullets, and I was glad I had the breast-plate on, though afterwards I found that the boys behind me were firing off their revolvers in the air, and throwing small stones at my breast-plate. Presently a bullet, as I supposed, struck me in the back above the breast-plate, and I could feel blood trickling down my back, and I knew I was wounded. O, I hankered for gore, before enlisting, and while editing a paper, and now I had got it, got gore till I couldn't rest. The blood run down my side, down my leg, into my boot, and I could feel I was wading in my own blood. And great heaven's, how it did smell. I had never smelled blood before, that I knew of, and I thought it had the most peculiar, pungent, intoxicating odor. I ran towards my quarters as fast as possible, fainting almost, from imaginary loss of blood, and finally rushed into my tent, threw myself on my bunk and called loudly for the doctor and chaplain, and then I fainted. When I came to I was surrounded by the doctor, and a lot of the boys, all laughing, and the chaplain was trying to say something pious, while trying to keep a straight face. “Have you succeeded in staunching the blood, doc?” I asked, in a trembling voice. He said the blood was quite staunch, but the whisky could never be saved. I did not know what he meant, and I turned to the chaplain and asked him if he wouldn't be kind enough to say something appropriate to the occasion. I told him I had been a bad man, had lied some, as he well knew, and had been guilty of things that would bar me out of the angel choir, but that if he had any influence at the throne of grace, and could manage to sneak me in under the canvass anyway, he could have the balance of my bounty, and all the pay that might be coming to me. The chaplain held up the breast-plate that had been removed by kind hands, from the back portion of my person, and said I had better take that along with me, as it would be handy to wear when I wanted to stand with my back to the fire in hades. I could not understand why the good man should joke me, on my death bed, and I rolled over with my back to the wall, to weep, unobserved, and I felt the blood sticking to my clothes and person, and I asked the doctor why he did not dress my wound. He said he should have to send the wound to the tin-shop to be dressed, and then they all laughed. This made me indignant, and I turned over and faced the crowd, and asked them if they had no hearts, that they could thus mock at a dying man. The doctor held up my canteen with a hole in it, made by a stone thrown by one of my companions, and said, “You d——d fool, you are not wounded. Somebody busted your canteen, and the whiskey run down your leg and into your boot, and you, like an idiot, thought it was your life blood ebbing away. Couldn't you tell that it was whiskey by the smell?” I felt of myself, where I thought I was wounded, and couldn't find any hole, and then I took off my boot, and emptied the whisky out, and felt stronger, and finally I got up, and the boys went away laughing at me, leaving the chaplain, who was kind enough to tell me that of all the raw recruits that had ever come to the regiment, he thought I was the biggest idiot of the lot, to let the boys play that ancient breast-plate and canteen joke on me. I asked him if the boys didn't all wear breast-plates, and he said “naw!” He told me that was the only breast-plate in the whole Department of the Gulf, and it was kept to play on recruits, and that I must keep it until a new recruit came that was green enough to allow the boys to do him up. So I hid the breast-plate under my bunk, and went to bed and tried to dream out some method of getting even with my persecutors, while the chaplain went out, after offering to hold himself in readiness, day or night, to come and pray for me, if I was wounded in the canteen any more.

CHAPTER IV.

I had now been fighting the battles of my country for two weeks, and felt that I needed rest, and one day I became so homesick that it did seem as though it would kill me. Including the week it had taken me to get from home to my regiment, three weeks had elapsed since I bid good-bye to my friends, and I wanted to go home. I would lay awake nights and think of people at home and wonder what they were doing, and if they were laying awake nights thinking of me, or caring whether I was alive, or buried in the swamps of the South. It was about the time of year when at home we always went off shooting, and I thought how much better it was to go off shooting ducks and geese, and chickens, that could not shoot back, than to be hunting bloodthirsty Confederates that were just as liable to hunt us, and who could kill, with great ease. I thought of a pup I had at home that was just the right age to train, and that he would be spoiled if he was not trained that season. O, how I did want to train that pup. The news that one of my comrades had been granted a furlough, after three years' service, and that he was going home, made me desperate, and I dreamed that I had waylaid and murdered the fortunate soldier, and gone home on his furlough. The idea of getting a furlough was the one idea in my mind, and the next morning as I took my horse to the veterinary surgeon for treatment,{*} I had a talk with the horse doctor about the possibilities of getting a furlough. I had known him before the war, when he kept a livery stable, and as I owed him a small livery bill, I thought he would give it to me straight. The horse doctor had his sleeves rolled up, and was holding a horse's tongue in one hand while he poured some medicine down the animal's throat out of a bottle with the other hand, which made me sorry for the horse, as I remembered my experience at surgeon's call, in drinking a dose of castor oil out of a bottle, and I was mean-enough to be glad they played it on horses as well as the soldiers. The horse doctor returned the horse's tongue to it's mouth, kicked the animal in the ribs, turned and wiped his hands on a bale of hay, and said:

“Well, George, to get a furlough a man has got to have plenty of gall, especially a man who has only been to the front a couple of weeks. There is no use making an application in the regular way, to your captain, have him endorse it and send it to regimental headquarters, and so on to brigade headquarters, because you would never hear of it again. My idea would be for you to go right to the general commanding the division, and tell him you have got to go home. But you mustn't go crawling to him, and whining. He is a quick-tempered man, and he hates a coward. Go to him and talk familiar with him, and act as though you had always associated with him, and slap him on the shoulder, and make yourself at home. Just make up a good, plausible story, and give it to him, and if he seems irritated, give him to understand that he can t frighten you, and just as likely as not he will give you a furlough. I don't say he will, mind you, but it would be just like him. But he does like to be treated familiar like, by the boys.”

I thanked the horse doctor and went away with my horse, resolved to have a furlough or know the reason why. The general's headquarters were about half a mile from our camp, and after drill that morning I went to see him. I had seen him several times, at the colonel's headquarters, and he always seemed mad about something, and I had thought he was about the crossest looking man I ever saw, but if there was any truth in what the horse doctor had told me, he was easily reached if a man went at him right, and I resolved that if pure, unadulterated cheek and monumental gall would accomplish anything, I would have a furlough before night, for a homesicker man never lived than I was. I went up to the general's tent and a guard halted me and asked me what I wanted, and I said I wanted to see “his nibs,” and I walked right by the guard, who seemed stunned by my cheek. I saw the general in his tent, with his coat off, writing, and he did look savage. Without taking off my hat, or saluting him, I went right up to him and sat down on the end of a trunk that was in the tent, and with a tremendous effort to look familiar, I said:

“Hello, Boss, writing to your girl?”

I have seen a good many men in my time who were pretty mad, but I have never seen a man who appeared to be as mad as the general did. He was a regular army officer, I found afterwards, and hated a volunteer as he did poison. He turned red in the face and pale, and I thought he frothed at the mouth, but may be he didn't. He seemed to try to control himself, and said through his clenched teeth, in a sarcastic manner, I thought, in imitation of a ring master in a circus:

“What will the little lady have next?”

I had been in circuses myself, and when the general said that I answered the same as a clown always does, and I said:

“The banners, my lord.”

I thought he would be pleased at my joking with him, but he looked around as though he was seeking a revolver or a saber with which to kill me finnally he said:

“What do you want, man?”

It was a little tough to be called plain “man,” but I swallowed it. I made up my mind it was time to act, so I stood up, put my hand on the shoulder of the general familiarly, and said:

“The fact is, old man, I want a furlough to go home. I have got business that demands my attention; I am sick of this inactivity in camp, and besides the shooting season is just coming on at home, and I have got a setter pup that will be spoiled if he is not trained this season. I came down here two weeks ago, to help put down the rebellion; but all we have done since I got here is to monkey around drilling and cleaning off horses, while the officers play poker for red chips. Let me go home till the poker season is over, and I will be back in time for the fall fighting. What do you say, old apoplexy. Can I go?”

I do not now, and never did know, how I got out of the general's tent, whether he kicked me out, or threw his trunk at me, or whether there was an explosion, but when I got outside there were two soldiers trying to untangle me from the guy ropes of the general's tent, his wash basin and pail of water were tipped over, and a cord that was strung outside with a lot of uniforms, shirts, sabers, etc., had fallen down, and the general was walking up and down his tent in an excited manner, calling me an escaped lunatic, and telling the guards to tie me up by the thumbs, and buck and gag me. They led me away, and from their conversation I concluded I had committed an unpardonable offense, and would probably be hung, though I couldn't see as I had done much more than the horse doctor told me to. Finally the officer of the day came along and told the guards to get a rail and make me carry it. So they got a rail and put it on my shoulder, and I carried it up and down the camp, as a punishment for insulting the general. I thought they picked out a pretty heavy rail, but I carried it the best I could for an hour, when I threw it down and told the guards I didn't enlist to carry rails. If the putting down of this rebellion depended on carrying fence rails around the Southern Confederacy, and I had to carry the rails, the aforesaid rebellion never would be put down. I said I would fight if I had to, and be a hostler, and cook my own food, and sleep on the ground, and try to earn my thirteen dollars a month, but there must be a line drawn somewhere, and I drew it at transporting fences around the sunny South. The guards were inclined to laugh at my determination, but they said I could carry the rail or be tied up by the thumbs; and I said they could go ahead, but if they hurt me I would bring suit against the government. They were fixing to tie me up when the colonel of my regiment rode up to see the general, and he got the guards to let up on me till he could see the general. The general sent for me after the colonel had talked with him, and they called me in and asked me how I happened to be so fresh with the general; and I told them about the horse doctors' advice as to how to get a furlough; and then they both laughed, and said I owed the horse doctor one, and I must get even with him. The colonel told the general who I was, that he had known me before the war, and that I was all right only a little green, and that the boys were having fun with me. The colonel told the general about my first fight the first day of my service, and how I had, single-handed, put to flight a large number of rebels, and the general got up and shook hands with me, and said he forgave me for my impertinence, and gave me some advice about letting the boys play it on me, and said I might go back to my company. He was all smiles, and insisted on my taking a drink with himself and the colonel. When I was about leaving his tent, I turned to him and said: “Then I don't get any furlough?” “Not till the cruel war is over,” said the general, with a laugh, and I went away.

The guards treated me like a gentleman when they saw me taking a drink with the general, and I went back to my regiment, resolved not to go home, and to get even with the horse doctor for causing me to make a fool of myself. However, I was glad I visited the general, for, after getting acquainted with him, he seemed a real nice man, and he kept a better article of liquor than the chaplain.

For several days nothing occurred that was worthy of note, except that the chaplain took a liking to my horse, and wanted to trade a mule for him. I never did like a mule, and didn't really want to trade, but the chaplain argued his case so eloquently that I was half persuaded. He said the horse I rode, from its friskiness, and natural desire to “get there, Eli!” would eventually get me killed, for if I ever got in sight of the enemy the horse would rush to the front, and I couldn't hold him. He said he didn't want to have me killed, and with the mule there would be no danger, as the mule knew enough to keep away from a fight. The chaplain said he had always rode a mule, because he thought the natural solemnity of a mule was in better keeping with a pious man, but lately he had begun to go into society some, in the town near where we were camped, and sometimes had to preach to different regiments, so he thought he ought to have a horse that put on a little more style, and as he knew I wanted an animal that would keep as far from the foe as possible, and not lose its head and go chasing around after rebels, and running me into danger, as my spiritual adviser he would recommend the mule to me. He warranted the mule sound in every particular, and as a mule was worth more than a horse he would trade with me for ten dollars to boot. He said there was not another man in the regiment he would trade with on such terms, but he had taken a liking to me, and would part with his mule to me, though it broke his heart. At home there was a sentiment against trading horses with a minister, as men who did so always got beat, but I thought it would be an insult to the chaplain to refuse to trade, when he seemed to be working for my interests, to prevent me from being killed in a fight by the actions of my horse, so I concluded to trade, though it seemed to me that if I couldn't shoot off a horse without hitting its ears, I would fill a mule's ears full of bullets. I spoke to the chaplain about that, and he said there was no danger, because whenever fighting commenced the mule always wore his ears lopped down below the line of fire. He said the mule had been trained to that, and I would find him a great comfort in time of trial, and a sympathizing companion always, one that I would become attached to. I told him there was one thing I wanted to know, and that was if the mule would kick. I had always been prejudiced against mules because they kicked. He said he knew mules had been traduced, and that their reputations were not good, but he believed this mule was as free from the habit of kicking as any mule he had ever met. He said he would not deny that this mule could kick, and in fact he had kicked a little, but he would warrant the mule not to kick unless something unusual happened. He said I wouldn't want a mule that had no individuality at all, one that hadn't sand enough to protect itself. What I wanted, the chaplain said, was a mule that would treat everybody right, but that would, if imposed upon, stand up for its rights and kick. I told the chaplain that was about the kind of mule I wanted, if I had any mule at all, and we traded. The chaplain rode off to town on my horse, on a canter, as proud as a peacock, while I climbed on to the solemn, lop-eared mule and went out to drill with my company. I do not know what it was that went wrong with the mule while we were drilling, but as we were wheeling in company front, the mule began to “assert his individuality,” as the chaplain said he probably would, and he whirled around sideways and kicked three soldiers off their horses; then he backed up the other way and broke up the second platoon, kicked four horses in the ribs, stampeded the company, and stood there alone kicking at the air. The major rode down to where I was and began to swear at me, but I told him I couldn't help it. He told me to dismount and lead the mule away, but I couldn't dismount until the mule stopped kicking, and he seemed to be wound up for all day. The major got too near and the mule kicked him on the shin, and then started for the company again, which had got into ranks, kicking all the way, and the company broke ranks and started for camp, the mule following, kicking and braying all the way. I never was so helpless in all my life. The more I spurred the mule, the more it kicked, and if I stopped spurring it, it kicked worse. When we got to camp, I fell off some way, and rushed into the chaplain's tent, and the mule kicked the tent down, and some boys drove the mule away, and while I was fixing up the tent the chaplain came back looking happy, and asked me how I liked the mule. I never was a hypocrite, anyway, and I was mad, so I said: “Oh, dam that mule!”

Of course it is wrong to use such language, especially in the presence of a minister, but I couldn't help it. I could see it hurt the chaplain, for he sighed and said he was sorry to hear such words from me, inasmuch as he had just got me detailed as his clerk, where I would have a soft thing, and no drilling or fighting. He said he had wanted a clerk, one who was a good-hearted, true man, and he had picked me out, but if I used such language, that settled it. He said he didn't expect to find a private soldier that was as pious as he was, but he did think I would be the best man he could find. I wanted a soft job, with no fighting, as bad as any man ever did, and I told the chaplain that he need not fear as to my swearing again, as it was foreign to my nature, but I told him if he had been on the hurricane deck of a kicking mule for an hour, and seen comrades fall one by one, and bite the dust, and be carried on with marks of mule shoes all over their persons, he would swear, and I would bet on it. So it was arranged that I was to be the chaplain's clerk, and I moved my outfit over to his tent, and for the first time since I had been a soldier, I was perfectly happy. There was no danger of being detached for guard duty, police duty, drilling, or fighting, and the only boss I had was the chaplain. The chaplain and myself sat that evening in his tent, and ate sanitary stores, drank wine for sickess, and smoked pipes, and didn't care whether school kept or not, and that night I slept on a cot, and had the first good night's rest, and in the morning I awoke refreshed, and with no fear of orderly sergeants, or anybody. I had a soft snap.

The next morning I asked the chaplain what my duties were to be, and he said I was to take care of the tent, write letters for him, issue sanitary stores to deserving soldiers who might need them, ride with him sometimes when he went to town, or to preach, go to funerals with him occasionally, set a good example to the other soldiers, and make myself generally useful. He said I would have to attend to the burial of the colored people who died, and any such little simple details. He went out and left me pondering over my duties. I liked it all except the nigger funerals. I had always been a Democrat, at home, and not very much mashed on our colored brothers, and one thing that prevented me from enlisting before I did was the idea of making the colored men free. I had nothing against a colored man, and got to think a great deal of them afterwards, but the idea of acting as an undertaker for the colored race never occurred to me. I made up my mind to kick on that part of the duties, when the chaplain came in and said the colored cook of one of the companies was dead, and would be buried that afternoon, and as he had to go to a meeting of chaplains down town, I would have to go and conduct the services, and I better prepare myself with a little speech. I was in a fix. I told the chaplain that it might not have occurred to him, but honestly, I couldn't pray. He said that didn't make any difference. I told him I couldn't preach hardly at all. He said I didn't need to. All I had to do was to go and find out something about the life of the deceased, what kind of a man he was, and say a few words at the grave complimentary of him, console the mourners, if there were any, and counsel them to try to lead a different life, that they might eventually enter into the glory of the New Jerusalem, or words to that effect. Well, this made me perspire. This was a tighter place than I was in when I met the rebel. The idea of my conducting the funeral exercises of such a black-burying party, made me tired. The chaplain said a good deal depended on how I got through this first case, as if I succeeded well, it would be a great feather in my cap. His idea, he said, was to try me first on a nigger, and if I was up to snuff, and carried myself like a thoroughbred, there would be nothing too good for me in that regiment.

I went to the orderly sergeant of the company where the man died, to get some points as to his career, in order to work in a few remarks appropriate to the occasion, and I said to the orderly:

“I understand your company cook has gone to that bourne from whence no traveler returns. I thought that was pretty good for a green hand, for a starter.”

“Yes,” said the orderly, as he looked solemn, “The old son-of-a-gun has passed in his chips, and is now walking in green pastures, beside still waters, but he will not drink any of the aforesaid still waters, if he can steal any whisky to drink.”

“You astonish, me,” said I to the orderly. “The fact is, the chaplain has sawed off on to me the duty of seeing to the burial of our deceased friend, and I called to gather some few facts as to his characteristics as a man and a brother. Can you tell me of anything that would interest those who may attend?”

“O, I don't know,” said the orderly. “The deceased was a liar, a thief, and a drunkard. He would steal anything that was not chained down. He would murder a man for a dollar. He was the worst nigger that ever was. If there was a medical college here that wanted bodies, it would be a waste of money to bury him. But when he was sober he could bake beans for all that was out, and there was no man that could boil corned mule so as to take the taste of the saltpetre out, as he could.”

This was not a very good send off for my first funeral, but I clung to the good qualities possessed by the late lamented. Though he might have been a bad man, all was not lost if he could bake beans well, and boil the salt horse or corned mule that soldiers had to eat, so they were appetizing. Many truly good men of national reputation, could not have excelled him in his chosen specialties, and I made a memorandum of that for future use. I made further inquiries in the company, and found that the deceased had a bad reputation, owed everybody, had five wives living that he had deserted, and was suspected of having murdered two or three colored men for their money. His death was caused by delirium tremens. He had stole a jug of whisky from the major's tent, laid drunk a week, and when the whisky was gone he had tremens, and had gone to the horse doctor for something to quiet his nerves, and the horse doctor had given him a condition powder to take, to be followed with a swallow of mustang liniment, and the man died.

This was the information I got to use in my remarks at the grave of the deceased, and I went back to my tent to think it over. I thought perhaps I had better work in the horse doctor for mal-practice, in my discourse, and thus get even with him for sending me to the general after a furlough. While I was thinking over the things I would say, and trying to forget the bad things about the man, the orderly sent word that the funeral cortege was ready to proceed to the bone yard. I looked down the company street and saw the remains being lifted into a cart, and I went out and put the saddle on my mule, and with a mental prayer that the confounded mule wouldn't get to kicking till the funeral was over, started to do the honors at the grave of the late company cook.

CHAPTER V.

This last chapter of these celebrated war papers closed with me saddling my mule to ride to the funeral of the colored cook, at which I was to act as chaplain. The mule evidently knew that it was a solemn occasion, for there was a mournful look on its otherwise placid face, the ears drooped more than usual, and there seemed a sweet peace stealing over the animal, which well became a funeral, until I began to buckle up the saddle, when the long-eared brute began to paw and kick and bite, and it took six men to get me into the saddle. I rode down the company street where the cart stood with the remains, and a colored driver sitting on the foot of the plain pine box, asleep. I woke the driver up with the point of my saber, when another colored man came out of a tent with a shovel in one hand, and a hardtack with a piece of bacon in the other. He climbed into the cart, sat down on the coffin and began to eat his dinner. This was my funeral. All that seemed necessary for a funeral was a corpse, a driver of a cart, and a man with a shovel. I rode up to the orderly's tent and asked him where the mourners were, and he laughed at me. The idea of mourners seemed to be ridiculous. I had never, in all my life, seen so slim a funeral, and it hurt me. In the meantime the nigger with the shovel had woke up the driver of the cart, and he had followed me, with the remains. I told them to halt the funeral right there, until I could skirmish around and pick up mourners enough for a mess, and a choir, and some bearers. As I rode away to the colonel's tent, the driver of the cart and the man with the shovel were playing “mumbleypeg,” with a jack-knife, on the coffin, which shocked me very much, as I was accustomed to living where more respect was paid to the dead. I went to the colonel's tent and yelled “Say! The colonel, who was changing his shirt, came to the door with his eyes full of soap, rubbing his neck with a towel, and asked what was the row. I told him I would like to have him detail me six bearers, seven or eight mourners, a few singers, and fifteen or twenty men for a congregation. He asked me what on earth I was talking about, and just then the cart with the corpse in was driven up to where I was, the orderly having told the driver to follow me with the late lamented. I pointed to the outfit, and said:

“Colonel, in that box lie the remains of a colored cook. The chaplain has appointed me to conduct the funeral service, and I find that the two colored men on the cart are the only ones to accompany the remains to their last resting place. No man can successfully run a funeral on three niggers, one of whom is dead, one liable to go to sleep any minute, and the other with an abnormal appetite for hardtack. It is a disgrace to civilization to give a dead man such a send off, and I want you to detail me some men to see me through. I have loaded myself with some interesting remarks befitting the occasion, and I do not want to fire them off into space, with no audience except these two coons. Give me some mourners and things, or I drop this funeral right where it is.”

While I was speaking the general rode up to visit with the colonel, with his staff, and the colonel came out with his undershirt on, and his suspenders hanging down, and he and the general consulted for a minute, and laughed a little, which I thought was disgraceful. Then the colonel sent for the sergeant-major and told, him to detail all the company cooks and officer's servants, to attend the funeral with me, and he said I could divide them off into reliefs, letting a few be mourners at a time. In the meantime, he said, I could move my procession off down by the horse-doctor's quarter's, as he did not want it in front of his tent. That reminded me that the horse-doctor had prescribed for the deceased, and had given him condition powders, and I asked the colonel to compel the horse-doctor to go with me. It had always seemed to me at home that the attending physician, under whose auspices the person died, should attend the funeral of his patient, and when I told the colonel about it, he called the horse-doctor and told him he would have to go. It took half an hour or so to get the colored cooks and servants together, but when all was ready to move, it was quite a respectable funeral, except that I could not help noticing a spirit of levity on the part of the mourners. All the followers were mounted, the officer's servant's on officer's horses, and the cooks on mules, and it required all the presence of mind I possessed to keep the coons from turning the sad occasion into a horse race, as they would drop back, in squads, a quarter of a mile or so, and then come whooping up to the cart containing the remains, and each vowing that his horse could clean out the others. I rode in front of the remains with the horse-doctor, and tried to conduct myself in as solemn a manner as befitted the occasion, and tried to reason with the horse-doctor against his unseemly jokes, which he was constantly getting on. He told several stories, better calculated for a gathering where bacchanalian revelry was the custom, and I told him that while I respected his calling, he must respect mine. He said something about calling a man on a full hand, against a flush, but I did not pretend to know what he meant. We had to go out of town about two miles, to the cemetery. Unfortunately we were in the watermelon growing section, and the horse-doctor called my attention to the fact that my procession was becoming scarce, when I looked around, and every blessed one of the cooks and servants, and the man with the shovel, had gone on into the field after melons, and I stopped the cart and yelled to them to come back to the funeral. Pretty soon they all rode back, each with a melon under his arm, and every face looked as though there was no funeral that could prevent a nigger from stealing a watermelon. After several stops, to round up my mourners, from corn fields and horse racing, we arrived at the cemetery, and while the grave was being dug the niggers went for the melons, and if it had been a picnic there couldn't have been much more enjoyment. The horse-doctor took out a big knife that he used to bleed horses, and cut a melon, and offered me a slice, and while I did not feel that it was just the place to indulge in melon, it looked so good that I ate some, with a mental reservation, however. It was all a new experience to me. I had never believed that in the presence of death, or at a funeral, people could be anything but decorous and solemn. I had never attended a funeral before, except where all present were friends of the deceased, and sorry, but here all seemed different. They all seemed to look upon the thing as a good joke. I had read that in New York and other large cities, those who attended funerals had a horse race on the way back, and stopped at beer saloons and filled up, but I never believed that people could be so depraved. I tried to talk to the coons, and get them to show proper respect for the occasion, but they laughed and threw melon rinds at each other. Finnally the colonel and the general, with quite a lot of soldiers, who were out reconnoitering, rode to where we were, and the coons acted a little better, but I could see that the officers were not particularly solemn. They seemed to expect something rich. They evidently looked upon me as a star idiot, who would make some blunder, or say something to make them laugh: I made up my mind that in my new position I would act just as decorous, and speak as kindly as though the deceased was the president. During all my life I had made it a practice never to speak ill of any person on earth, and if I could not say a good word for a person I would say nothing, a practice which I have kept up until this writing, with much success, and I decided that the words spoken on that occasion should not reflect against the poor man who had passed in his checks, and laid down the burden of life. The grave was completed, and with a couple of picket ropes the body was let down, and there was for a moment a sort of solemnity. I arose, and as near as I can remember at this late day, spoke about as follows: