CHAPTER XIV.
A TALE OF A SQUIRREL AND THREE
BLIND MICE.

"Andy, what is a shade-tail?"

We were encamped in an oak-forest on the eastern bank of the Rappahannock, late in the fall of 1863. We had built no winter-quarters yet, although the nights were growing rather frosty, and had to content ourselves with our little "dog-tents," as we called our shelters, some dozen or so of which now constituted our company row. I had just come in from a trip through the woods in quest of water at a spring near an old deserted log-house about a half-mile to the south of our camp, when, throwing down my heavy canteens, I made the above interrogatory of my chum.

Andy was lazily lying at full length on his back in the tent, reclining on a soft bed of pine-branches, or "Virginia feathers," as we called them, with his hands clasped behind his head, lustily singing—

"What's that?" asked he, ceasing his song before finishing the stanza, and rising up on his elbow.

"I asked whether you could tell me what a shade-tail is?"

"A shade-tail! Never heard of it before. Don't believe there is any such thing. I know what a buck-tail is, though. There's one," said he, pulling a fine specimen out from under his knapsack. "That just came in the mail while you were gone. The old buck that chased the flies with that brush for many a year was shot up among the Buffalo mountains last winter, and my father bought his tail of the man who killed him, and has sent it to me. It cost him just one dollar."

Buck-tails were in great demand with us in those days, and happy indeed was the man who could secure so fine a specimen as Andy now proudly held in his hand.

"But isn't it rather large?" inquired I. "And it's nearly all white, and would make an excellent mark for some Johnny to shoot at, eh?"

"Never you fear for that. 'Old Trusty' up there," said he, pointing to his gun hanging along underneath the ridge-pole of the tent,—"'Old Trusty' and I will take care of Johnny Reb."

"But, Andy," continued I, "you haven't answered my question yet. What is a shade-tail?"

"A shade-tail," said he, meditatively,—"how should I know? I know precious well what a detail is, though; and I'm on one for to-morrow. We go across the river to throw up breastworks."

"I forgot," said I, "that you have not studied Greek to any extent yet. If you live to get home and go back to school again at the old Academy, and begin to dig Greek roots in earnest, you will find that a shade-tail is a—squirrel. For that is what the old Greeks called the bonny bush-tail. Because, don't you see, when a squirrel sits up on a tree with his tail turned up over his back, he makes a shade for himself with his tail, and sits, as it were, under the shadow of his own vine and fig-tree."

"Well," said Andy, "and what if he does? What's to hinder him?"

"Nothing," answered I, entering the tent and lying down beside him on the pile of Virginia feathers; "only I saw one out here in the woods as I came along, and I think I know where his nest is; and if you and I can catch him, or, what would be better still, if we can capture one of his young ones (if he has any), why we might tame him and keep him for a pet. I've often thought it would be a fine thing for us to have a pet of some kind or other. Over in the Second Division, there is one regiment that has a pet crow, and another has a kitten. They go with the men on all their marches, and they say that the kitten has actually been wounded in battle, and no doubt will be taken or sent up North some day and be a great curiosity. Now why couldn't we catch and tame a shade-tail?"

"Yes," said Andy, becoming a little interested; "he could be taught to perch on Pointer's buck-horns in camp, and could ride on your drum on the march."

Pointer, you must know, was the tallest man in the company, and therefore stood at the head of the line when the company was formed. When we enlisted, he brought with him a pair of deer-antlers as an appropriate symbol for a Buck-tail company,—no doubt with the intention of making both ends meet. Now the idea of having a live tame squirrel to perch on Pointer's buck-horns was a capital one indeed.

But as the first thing to be done in cooking a hare is to catch the hare, so we concluded that the first thing to be done in taming a squirrel was to catch the squirrel. This gave us a world of thought. It would not do to shoot him. We could not trap him. After discussing the merits of smoking him out of his hole, we determined at last to risk cutting down the tree in which he had his home, and trying to catch him in a bag.

That afternoon, when we thought he would likely be at home taking a nap, having provided ourselves with an axe, an old oat-bag, and a lot of tent rope, we cautiously proceeded to the old beech-tree on the outskirts of the camp, where our intended pet had his home.

"Now, you see, Andy," said I, pointing up to a crotch in the tree, "up there is his front door; there he goes out and comes in. My plan is this: one of us must climb the tree and tie the mouth of the bag over that hole somehow, and come down. Then we will cut the tree down, and when it falls, if old shade-tail is at home, like as not he'll run into the bag; and then, if we can be quick enough, we can tie a string around the bag, and there he is!"

Andy climbed the tree and tied the bag. After he had descended, we set vigorously to work at cutting down the beech. It took us about half an hour to make any serious inroad upon the tough trunk. But by and by we had the satisfaction of seeing the tree apparently shiver under our blows, and at last down it came with a crash.

We both ran toward the bag as fast as we could, ready to secure our prize; but we found, alas! that squirrels sometimes have two doors to their houses, and that while we had hoped to bag our bush-tail at the front door, he had merrily skipped out the back way. For scarcely had the tree reached the ground, when we both beheld our intended pet leaping out of the branches and running up a neighboring tree as fast as his legs could carry him.

"Plague take it!" said Andy, wiping the perspiration from his face, "what shall we do now? I guess you'd better run to camp and get a little salt to throw on his tail."

"Never mind," said I, "we'11 get him yet, see if we don't. I see him up there behind that old dry limb peeping out at us—there he goes!"

Sure enough, there he did go, from tree-top to tree-top, "lickerty-skoot," as Andy afterward expressed it, and we after him, quite losing our heads, and shouting like Indians.

As ill luck would have it, our shade-tail was making straight for the camp, on the outskirts of which he was discovered by one of the men, who instantly gave the alarm—"A squirrel! a squirrel!" In a moment all the boys in camp not on duty came running pell-mell, Sergeant Kensill's black-and-tan terrier, Little Jim (of whom more anon), leading the way. I suppose there must have been about a hundred men together, and all yelling and shouting too, so that the poor squirrel checked his headlong course high up on the dead limb of a great old oak-tree. Then, forming a circle around the tree, with "Little Jim" in the midst, the boys began to shout and yell as when on the charge,—

"Yi-yi-yi! Yi-yi-yi!"

Whereat the poor squirrel was so terrified, that, leaping straight up and out from his perch into open space, in sheer affright and despair, down he came tumbling tail over head into the midst of the circle, which rapidly closed about him as he neared the ground. With yells and cheers that made the wood ring, a hundred hands were stretched out as if to catch him as he came down. But Little Jim beat them all. True to his terrier blood and training, he suddenly leaped up like a shot, seized the squirrel by the nape of the neck, gave him a few angry shakes, which ended his agony, and carried him off triumphantly in his mouth to the tent of his owner, Sergeant Kensill, of Company F.

That evening, as we sat in our tent eating our fried hard-tack, Andy remarked, while sipping his coffee from his black tin cup, that if buck-tails were as hard to catch as shade-tails, they were well worth a dollar apiece any day; and that he believed a crow, or one of those young pigs we found running wild in the woods when we came to that camp, or something of that sort, would make a better pet than a squirrel.

"Well," said I, "we caught those pigs, anyhow, didn't we? But didn't they squeal! Fortunately they were so much like oysters that they couldn't get away from us, and all found their way into our frying-pans at last."

"I fail to apprehend your meaning," said Andy, with mock gravity, setting down his black tin cup on the gum-blanket. "By what right or authority, sir, do you presume to tell me that a pig is like an oyster?"

"Why, don't you see? A pig is like an oyster because he can't climb a tree! And that's the reason why we caught him."

"Bah!" exclaimed Andy; "that's a miserable joke, that is."

"Yet you must admit that it is a most happy circumstance that a pig cannot climb a tree, or we should have missed more than one good meal of fresh pork. Yet although we failed to make a pet of the squirrel because he could climb a tree, and of the pig because he could not, we shall make a pet of something or other yet. Of that I am certain."

It was some months later, and not until we were safely established in winter-quarters, that we finally succeeded in our purpose of having something to pet. I was over at Brigade headquarters one day, visiting a friend who had charge of several supply-wagons. Being present while he was engaged in overhauling his stores, I found in the bottom of a large box, in which blankets had been packed away, a whole family of mice. The father of the family promptly made his escape; the mother was killed in the capture, and one little fellow was so injured that he soon died; but the rest, three in number, I took out unhurt. As I laid them in the palm of my hand, they at once struck me as perfect little beauties. They were very young and quite small, being no larger than the end of my finger, with scarcely any fur on them, and their eyes quite shut. Putting them into my pocket and covering them with some cotton which my friend gave me, I started home with my prize. Stopping at the surgeon's quarters on reaching camp, I begged a large empty bottle (which I afterward found had been lately filled with pulverized gum arabic), and somewhere secured an old tin can of the same diameter as the bottle. Then I got a strong twine, went down to my tent, and asked Andy to help me make a cage for my pets, which with pride I took out of my pocket and set to crawling and nosing about on the warm blankets on the bunk.

"What are you going to do with that bottle?" inquired Andy.

"Going to cut it in two with this string," said I, holding up my piece of twine.

"Can't be done!" asserted he.

"Wait and see," answered I.

Procuring a mess-pan full of cold water, and placing it on the floor of the tent near the bunk on which we were sitting, I wound the twine once around the bottle a few inches from the bottom, in such a way that Andy could hold one end of the bottle and pull one end of the twine one way, while I held the other end of the bottle and pulled the other end of the twine the other way, thus causing the twine, by means of its rapid friction, to heat the bottle in a narrow, straight line all around. After sawing away in this style for several minutes, I suddenly plunged the bottle into the pan of cold water, when it at once snapped in two along the line where the twine had passed around it, and as clean and clear as if it had been cut by a diamond. Then, melting off the top of the old tin can by holding it in the fire, I fastened the body of the can on the lower end of the bottle. When finished, the whole arrangement looked like a large long bottle, the upper part of which was glass and the lower tin. In this way I accomplished the double purpose of providing my pets with a dark chamber and a well-lighted apartment, at the same time preventing them from running away. Placing some cotton on the inside of both can and bottle for a bed, and thrusting a small sponge moistened with sweetened water into the neck of the bottle, I then put my pets into their new home. Of course they could not see, for their eyes were not yet open; neither did they at first seem to know how to eat; but as necessity is the mother of invention with mice as well as with men, they soon learned to toddle forward to the neck of the bottle and suck their sweet sponge. In a short time they learned also to nibble at a bit of apple, and by and by could crunch their hard-tack like veritable veterans.

The bottle, as has already been said, had been filled with pulverized gum arabic. Some of this still adhering to the inside of the bottle, was gradually brushed off by their growing fur; and it was amusing to see the little things sit on their haunches and clean themselves of the sticky substance. Sometimes they would all three be busy at the same time, each at himself; and again two of them would take to licking the third, rubbing their little red noses all over him from head to tail in the most amusing way imaginable.

Gradually they grew very lively, and became quite tame, so that we could take them out of their house into our hands, and let them hunt about in our pockets for apple-seeds or pieces of hard-tack. We called them Jack, Jill, and Jenny, and they seemed to know their names. When let out of their cage occasionally for a romp on the blankets, they would climb over everything, running along the inner edge of the eave-boards and the ridge-pole, but never succeeded in getting away from us. It was a comical sight to see Little Jim come in to look at them. A mouse was almost the highest possible excitement to Jim; for a mouse was second cousin to a rat, no doubt, as Jim looked at matters; and just say "rats!" to Jim, if you wanted to see him jump! He would come in and look at our pets, turn his head from one side to the other, and wrinkle his brow, and whine and bark; but we were determined he should not kill our mousies as he had killed our shade-tail a few months before.

What to do with our pets when spring came on and winter-quarters were nearly at an end, we knew not. We could not take them along on the march, neither did we like to leave them behind; for it seemed cruel to leave Jack, Jill, and Jenny in the deserted and dismantled camp to go back to the barbarous habits of their ancestors. On consideration, therefore, we concluded to take them back to the wagon train and leave them with the wagoner, who, though at first he demurred to our proposal, at last consented to let us turn them loose among his oat-bags, where I doubt not they had a merry time indeed.

CHAPTER XV.
"THE PRIDE OF THE REGIMENT."

The pet-making disposition which had led Andy and me to take so much trouble with our mice was not confined to ourselves alone. The disposition was quite natural, and therefore very general among the men of all commands. Pets of any and all kinds, whether chosen from the wild or the domestic animals, were everywhere in great esteem, and happy was the regiment which possessed a tame crow, squirrel, coon, or even a kitten.

Our own regiment possessed a pet of great value and high esteem in Little Jim, of whom some incidental mention has already been made. As Little Jim enlisted with the regiment, and was honorably mustered out of the service with it at the close of the war, after three years of as faithful service as so little a creature as he could render the flag of his country, some brief account of him here may not be out of place.

Little Jim, then, was a small rat-terrier, of fine-blooded stock, his immediate maternal ancestor having won a silver collar in a celebrated rat-pit in Philadelphia. Late in 1859, while yet a pup, he was given by a sailor friend to John C. Kensill, with whom he was mustered into the United States service "for three years or during the war," on Market Street, Philadelphia, Pa., late in August, 1862. Around his neck was a silver collar with the inscription,—"Jim Kensill, Co. F., 150th Regt. P. V."

He soon came to be a great favorite with the boys, not only of his own company, but of the entire regiment as well, the men of the different companies thinking quite as much of him as if he belonged to each of them individually, and not to Sergeant Kensill, of Company F., alone. On the march he would be caught up from the roadside where he was doggedly trotting along, and given a ride on the arms of the men, who would pet him and talk to him as if he were a child, and not a dog. In winter-quarters, however, he would not sleep anywhere except on Kensill's arm and underneath the blankets; nor was he ever known to spend a night away from home. On first taking the field, rations were scarce with us, and for several days fresh meat could not be had for poor Jim, and he nearly starved. Gradually, however, his master taught him to take a hard-tack between his fore-paws, and, holding it there, to munch and crunch at it till he had consumed it. He soon learned to like hard-tack, and grew fat on it too. On the march to Chancellorsville he was lost for two whole days, to the great grief of the men. When his master learned that he had been seen with a neighboring regiment, he had no difficulty in finding volunteers to accompany him when he announced that he was about to set out for the recapture of Jim. They soon found where he was. Another regiment had possession of him, and laid loud and angry claim to him; but Kensill and his men were not to be frightened, for he knew the Buck-tails were at his back, and that sooner than give up Little Jim there would be some rough work. As soon as Jim heard his master's sharp whistle, he came bounding and barking to his side, overjoyed to be at home again, albeit he had lost his silver collar, which his thievish captors had cut from his neck, in order the better to lay claim to him.

He was a good soldier too, being no coward, and caring not a wag of his tail for the biggest shells the Johnnies could toss over at us. He was with us under our first shell fire at "Clarke's Mills," a few miles below Fredericksburg, in May, 1863, and ran barking after the very first shell that came screaming over our heads. When the shell had buried itself in the ground, Jim went up close to it, crouching down on all fours, while the boys cried "Rats! rats! Shake him, Jim! Shake him, Jim!" Fortunately that first shell did not explode, and when others came that did explode, Jim, with true military instinct, soon learned to run after them and bark, but to keep a respectful distance from them.

On the march to Gettysburg he was with us all the way, but when we came near the enemy, his master sent him back to William Wiggins, the wagoner; for he thought too much of Jim to run the risk of losing him in battle. It was a pity Jim was not with us out in front of the Seminary the morning of the first day, when the fight opened; for as soon as the cannon began to boom, the rabbits began to run in all directions, as if scared quite out of their poor little wits; and there would have been fine sport for Jim with the cotton-tails, had he only been there to give them chase.

In the first day's fight Jim's owner, Sergeant John C. Kensill, while bravely leading the charge for the recapture of the 149th Pennsylvania Regiment's battle-flags (of which some brief account has been elsewhere given), was wounded and left for dead on the field, with a bullet through his head. He, however, so far recovered from his wound that in the following October he rejoined the regiment, which was then lying down along the Rappahannock somewhere. In looking for the regiment, on his return from a Northern hospital, Sergeant Kensill chanced to pass the supply train, and saw Jim busy at a bone under a wagon. Hearing the old familiar whistle, Jim at once looked up, saw his master, left his bone, and came leaping and barking in greatest delight to his owner's arm.

On the march he was sometimes sent back to the wagon. Once he came near being killed. To keep him from following the regiment or from straying and getting lost in search of it, the wagoner had tied him to the rear axle of his wagon with a strong twine. In crossing a stream, in his anxiety to get his team over safely, the wagoner forgot all about poor little Jim, who was dragged and slashed through the waters in a most unmerciful way. After getting safely over the stream, the teamster, looking back, found poor Jim under the rear of the wagon, being dragged along by the neck, more dead than alive. He was then put on the sick-list for a few days; but with this single exception he had never a mishap of any kind, and was always ready for duty.

His master having been honorably discharged before the close of the war because of wounds, Jim was left with the regiment in care of Wiggins, the wagoner. When the regiment was mustered out of service at the end of the war, Little Jim was mustered out too. He stood up in rank with the boys and wagged his tail for joy that peace had come, and that we were all going home. I understand that his discharge-papers were regularly made out, the same as those of the men, and that they read somewhat as follows,—

Before parting with him, the boys bought him a silver collar, which they had suitably inscribed with his name, regiment, and the principal engagements in which he had participated. This collar, which he had honorably earned in the service of his country in war, he proudly wore in peace to the day of his death.

Although not pertaining to the writer's own personal recollections, there yet may be appropriately introduced here some brief mention of another pet, who, from being "the pride of his regiment," gradually arose to the dignity of national fame. I mean Old Abe, the war eagle of the Eighth Wisconsin Volunteers.

Whoever it may have been that first conceived the idea, it was certainly a happy thought to make a pet of an eagle. For the eagle is our national bird, and to carry an eagle along with the colors of a regiment on the march, and in battle, and all through the whole war, was surely very appropriate indeed.

Old Abe's perch was on a shield, which was carried by a soldier, to whom, and to whom alone, he looked as to a master. He would not allow any one to carry or even to handle him except this soldier, nor would he ever receive his food from any other person's hands. He seemed to have sense enough to know that he was sometimes a burden to his master on the march, however, and as if to relieve him, would occasionally spread his wings and soar aloft to a great height, the men of all regiments along the line of march cheering him as he went up. He regularly received his rations from the commissary, the same as any enlisted man. Whenever fresh meat was scarce and none could be found for him by foraging parties, he would take things into his own claws, as it were, and go out on a foraging expedition himself. On some such occasions he would be gone two or three days at a time, during which nothing whatever was seen of him; but he would invariably return, and seldom came back without a young lamb or a chicken in his talons. His long absences occasioned his regiment not the slightest concern, for the men knew that though he might fly many miles away in quest of food, he would be quite sure to find them again.

In what way he distinguished the two hostile armies so accurately that he was never once known to mistake the gray for the blue, no one can tell. But so it was that he was never known to alight save in his own camp and amongst his own men.

At Jackson, Mississippi, during the hottest part of the battle before that city, Old Abe soared up into the air and remained there from early morning till the fight closed at night, having, no doubt, greatly enjoyed his bird's-eye view of the battle. He did the same at Mission Ridge. He was, I believe, struck by the enemy's bullets two or three times; but his feathers were so thick, that his body was not much hurt. The shield on which he was carried, however, showed so many marks of the enemy's balls, that it looked on top as if a groove-plane had been run over it.

At the Centennial celebration held in Philadelphia in 1876, Old Abe occupied a prominent place on his perch on the west side of the nave in the Agricultural building. He was still alive, though evidently growing old, and was the observed of all observers. Thousands of visitors from all sections of the country paid their respects to the grand old bird, who, apparently conscious of the honors conferred upon him, overlooked the sale of his biography and photographs going on beneath his perch with entire satisfaction.

As was but just and right, the soldier who had carried him during the war continued to have charge of him after the war was over, until the day of his death, which occurred at the Capitol of Michigan some two or three years ago.

Proud as the Wisconsin boys justly were of Old Abe, the Twelfth Indiana Regiment possessed a pet of whom it may be truly said that he enjoyed a renown scarcely second to that of the wide-famed war eagle. This was "Little Tommy," as he was familiarly called in those days,—the youngest drummer-boy, and so far as the writer's knowledge goes, the youngest enlisted man, in the Union Army. The writer well remembers having seen him on several occasions. His diminutive size and childlike appearance, as well as his remarkable skill and grace in handling the drum-sticks, never failed to make an impression on the beholder. Some brief and honorable mention of Little Tommy, the pride of the Twelfth Indiana Regiment, may with propriety find a place in these "Recollections of a Drummer-Boy."

Thomas Hubler was born in Fort Wayne, Allen County, Indiana, October 9th, 1851. When two years of age, the family removed to Warsaw, Indiana. On the outbreak of the war, his father, who had been a German soldier of the truest type, raised a company of men, in response to President Lincoln's first call for seventy-five thousand troops. Little Tommy was among the first to enlist in his father's company, the date of enrolment being April 19th, 1861. He was then nine years and six months old.

The regiment to which the company was assigned was with the Army of the Potomac throughout all its campaigns in Maryland and Virginia. At the expiration of its term of service in August, 1862, Little Tommy re-enlisted, and served to the end of the war, having been present in some twenty-six battles in all. He was greatly beloved by all the men of his regiment, and was a constant favorite amongst them. It is thought that he beat the first "long roll" of the great Civil War. He is still living in Warsaw, Indiana, and bids fair to be the latest survivor of the great and grand army of which he was the youngest member. With the swift advancing years the ranks of the soldiers of the late war are being rapidly thinned out, and those who yet remain are showing signs of age. The "Boys in Blue" are thus, as the years go by, almost imperceptibly turning into the "Boys in Gray;" and as Little Tommy, the youngest of them all, sounded their first reveille, so may he yet live to beat their last tattoo.

CHAPTER XVI.
AROUND THE CAMP-FIRE.

What glorious camp-fires we used to have in the fall of the year 1863! It makes one rub his hands together yet, just to think of them. The nights were getting cold and frosty, so that it was impossible to sleep under our little shelters with comfort; and so half the night was spent around the blazing fires at the ends of the company streets.

I always took care that there should be a blazing good fire for our little company, anyhow. My duties were light, and left me time, which I found I could spend with pleasure in swinging an axe. Hickory and white-oak saplings were my favorites; and with these cut into lengths of ten feet, and piled up as high as my head on wooden fire-dogs, what a glorious crackle we would have by midnight! Go out there what time of night you might please,—and you were pretty sure to go out to the fire three or four times a night, for it was too bitterly cold to sleep in the tent more than an hour at a stretch,—you would always find a half-dozen of the boys sitting about the fire on logs, smoking their pipes, telling yarns, or singing odd catches of song. As I recall those weird night-scenes of army life,—the blazing fire, the groups of swarthy men gathered about, the thick darkness of the forest, where the lights and shadows danced and played all night long, and the rows of little white tents covered with frost—it looks quite poetical in the retrospect; but I fear it was sometimes prosy enough in the reality.

"If you fellows would stop your everlasting arguing there, and go out and bring in some wood, it would be a good deal better; for if we don't have a big camp-fire to-night we'll freeze in this snow-storm."

So saying, Pointer threw down the butt-end of a pine-sapling he had been half-dragging, half-carrying out of the woods in the edge of which we were to camp, and, axe in hand, fell to work at it with a will.

There was, indeed, some need of following Pointer's good advice, for it was snowing fast, and was bitterly cold. It was Christmas Eve, 1863, and here we were, with no protection but our little shelters, pitched on the hard, frozen ground.

Why did we not build winter-quarters, do you ask? Well, we had already built two sets of winter-quarters, and had been ordered out of them in both instances, to take part in some expedition or other; and it was a little hard to be houseless and homeless at this merry season of the year, when folks up North were having such happy times, wasn't it? But it is wonderful how elastic the spirits of a soldier are, and how jolly he can be under the most adverse circumstances.

"Say, boys! I move we organize ourselves into a court, and try this case," said Sergeant Cummings. "They've been arguing and arguing about this thing the whole day, and it's time to take it up and put an end to it. The case is—let's see; what'll we call it? I'm not a very good hand at the legal lingo, but I suppose if we call it a 'motion to quash a writ of ejectment,' or something of that sort, we'll be within the lines of the law. Let me now state the case: Shell versus Diehl and Hottenstein. These three, all members of Company D, after having lived, messed, and sojourned together peaceably for a year or more, have had of late some disagreement, quarrel, squabble, fracas, or general tearing out, the result of which said disagreement, quarrel, squabble, et cetery, et cetery, has been that the hereinbeforementioned Shell has been thrown out of the mess and left to the cold charities of the camp; and he, the said Shell, now lodges a due and formal complaint before this honorable court, presently sitting on this pile of pine-brush, and humbly prays and petitions reinstatement in his just rights and claims, sine qua non, e pluribus unum, pro bono publico!"

"Silence in the court!"

To organize ourselves into a court of justice was a matter of a few moments. Cummings was declared judge, Ruhl and Ransom his assistants. A jury of twelve men, good and true, was speedily impanelled. Attorneys and tipstaves, sheriff and clerk were appointed, and in less time than it takes to narrate it, there we were, seated on piles of pine-brush around a roaring camp-fire, with the snow falling fast, and getting deeper every hour, trying the celebrated case of "Shell versus Diehl and Hottenstein." And a world of merriment we had out of it, you may well believe. When the jury, after having retired for a few moments behind a pine-tree, brought in a verdict for the plaintiff, it was full one o'clock on Christmas morning, and we began to drop off to sleep, some rolling themselves up in their blankets and overcoats, and lying down, Indian fashion, feet to the fire; while others crept off to their cold shelters under the snow-laden pine-trees for what poor rest they could find, jocularly wishing one another a "Merry Christmas!"

Time wore away monotonously in the camp we established there, near Culpeper Court-house. All the more weary a winter was it for me, because I was so sick that I could scarcely drag myself about. So miserable did I look, that one day a Company B boy said, as I was passing his tent:

"Young mon, an' if ye don't be afther pickin' up a bit, it's my opinion ye'll be gathered home to your fathers purty soon."

I was sick with the same disease which slew more men than fell in actual battle. We had had a late fall campaign, and had suffered much from exposure, of which one instance may suffice:

We had been sent into Thoroughfare Gap to hold that mountain pass. Breaking camp there at daylight in a drenching rain, we marched all day long, through mud up to our knees, and soaked to the skin by the cold rain; at night we forded a creek waist-deep, and marched on with clothes frozen almost stiff; at one o'clock the next morning we lay down utterly exhausted, shivering helplessly, in wet clothes, without fire, and exposed to the north-west wind that swept the vast plain keen and cold as a razor. Whoever visits the Soldiers' Cemetery near Culpeper will there find a part of the sequel of that night-march; the remainder is scattered far and wide over the hills of Virginia, and in forgotten places among the pines.

Could we have had home care and home diet, many would have recovered. But what is to be done for a sick man whose only choice of diet must be made from pork, beans, sugar, and hard-tack? Home? Ah yes, if we only could get home for a month! Homesick? Well, no, not exactly. Still we were not entire strangers to the feelings of that poor recruit who was one day found by his lieutenant sitting on a fallen pine-tree in the woods, crying as if his heart would break.

"Why," said the lieutenant, "what are you crying for, you big baby, you?"

"I wish I was in my daddy's barn, boo, hoo!"

"And what would you do if you were?"

The poor fellow replied, between his sobs: "Why, if I was in my daddy's barn, I'd go into the house mighty quick!"

CHAPTER XVII.
OUR FIRST DAY IN "THE WILDERNESS."

At last the long winter, with its deep snows and intense cold, was gone, and on May 4, 1864, at four o'clock in the morning, we broke camp. In what direction we should march, whether north, south, east, or west, none of us had the remotest idea; for the pickets reported the Rapidan River so well fortified by the enemy on the farther bank, that it was plainly impossible for us to break their lines at any point there. But in those days we had a general who had no such word as "impossible" in his dictionary, and under his leadership we marched that May morning straight for and straight across the Rapidan, in solid column. All day we plodded on, the road strewn with blankets and overcoats, of which the army lightened itself now that the campaign was opening; and at night we halted, and camped in a beautiful green meadow.

Not the slightest suspicion had we, as we slept quietly there that night, of the great battle, or rather series of great battles, about to open on the following day. Even on that morrow, when we took up the line of march and moved leisurely along for an hour or two, we saw so few indications of the coming struggle, that, when we suddenly came upon a battery of artillery in position for action by the side of the road, some one exclaimed:

"Why, hello, fellows! that looks like business!"

Only a few moments later, a staff-officer rode up to our regiment and delivered his orders:

"Major, you will throw forward your command as skirmishers for the brigade."

The regiment at once moved into the thick pine-woods, and was lost to sight in a moment, although we could hear the bugle clanging out its orders, "deploy to right and left," as the line forced its way through the tangled and interminable "Wilderness."

Ordered back by the major into the main line of battle, we drummer-boys found the troops massed in columns along a road, and we lay down with them among the bushes. How many men were there we could not tell. Wherever we looked, whether up or down the road, and as far as the eye could reach, were masses of men in blue. Among them was a company of Indians, dark, swarthy, stolid-looking fellows, dressed in our uniform, and serving with some Iowa regiment, under the command of one of their chiefs as captain.

But hark!

"Pop! Pop! Pop-pop-pop!" The pickets are beginning to fire, the "ball is going to open," and things will soon be getting lively.

A venturesome fellow climbs up a tall tree to see what he can see, and presently comes scrambling down, reporting nothing in sight but signal-flags flying over the tree-tops, and beyond them nothing but woods and woods for miles.

Orderlies are galloping about, and staff-officers are dashing up and down the line, or forcing their way through the tangled bushes, while out on the skirmish line is the ever-increasing rattle of the musketry,—

"Pop-pop! Pop-pop-pop!"

"Fall in, men! Forward, guide right!"

There is something grand in the promptitude with which the order is obeyed. Every man is at his post. Forcing its way as best it can through the tangled undergrowth of briers and bushes, across ravines and through swamps, our whole magnificent line advances, until, after a half-hour's steady work, we reach the skirmish line, which, hardly pressed, falls back into the advancing column of blue as it reaches a little clearing in the forest. Now we see the lines of gray in the edge of the woods on the other side of the little field; first their pickets behind clumps of bushes, then the solid column appearing behind the fence, coming on yelling like demons, and firing a volley that fills the air with smoke and cuts it with whistling lead. Sheltered behind the trees, our line reserves its fire, for it is likely that the enemy will come out on a charge, and then we'll mow them down!

With bayonets fixed, and yells that make the woods ring, here they come, boys, through the clearing, on a dead run! And now, as you love the flag that waves yonder in the breeze, up, boys, and let them have it! Out from our Enfields flashes a sheet of flame, before which the lines of gray stagger for a moment; but they recover and push on, then reel again and quail, and at length fly before the second leaden tempest, which sweeps the field clear to the opposite side.

With cheers and shouts of "Victory!" our line, now advancing swiftly from behind its covert of the trees, sweeps into and across the clearing, driving back the enemy into the woods from which they had so confidently ventured.

The little clearing over which the lines of blue are advancing is covered with dead and dying and wounded men, among whom I find Lieutenant Stannard, of my acquaintance.

"Harry, help me, quick! I'm bleeding fast. Tear off my suspender, or take my handkerchief and tie it as tight as you can draw it around my thigh, and help me off the field."

Ripping up the leg of his trousers with my knife, I soon check the flow of blood with a hard knot,—and none too soon, for the main artery has been severed. Calling a comrade to my assistance, we succeed in reaching the woods, and make our way slowly to the rear in search of the division-hospital.

Whoever wishes to know something of the terrible realities of war should visit a field-hospital during some great engagement. No doubt my young readers imagine war to be a great and glorious thing, and so, indeed, in many regards it is. It would be idle to deny that there is something stirring in the sound of martial music, something strangely uplifting and intensely fascinating in the roll of musketry and the loud thunder of artillery. Besides, the march and the battle afford opportunities for the unfolding of manly virtue, and as things go in this disjointed world, human progress seems to be almost impossible without war.

Yet still, war is a terrible, a horrible thing. If my young readers could have been with us as we helped poor Stannard off the field that first day in "the Wilderness;" if they could have seen the surgeons of the first division of our corps as we saw them, when passing by with the lieutenant on a stretcher,—they would, I think, agree with me that if war is a necessity, it is a dreadful necessity. There were the surgeons, busy at work, while dozens of poor fellows were lying all around on stretchers awaiting their turns.

"Hurry on, boys, hurry on! Don't stop here; I can't stand it!" groaned our charge.

So we pushed on with our burden, until we saw our division-colors over in a clearing among the pines, and on reaching this we came upon a scene that I can never adequately describe.

There were hundreds of the wounded already there; other hundreds, perhaps thousands, were yet to come. On all sides, within and just without the hastily erected hospital-tents, were the severely and dangerously wounded, while great numbers of slightly wounded men, with hands or feet bandaged or heads tied up, were lying about the sides of the tents or out among the bushes. The surgeons were everywhere busy,—here dressing wounds; there, alas! stooping down to tell some poor fellow, over whose countenance the pallor of death was already spreading, that there was no longer any hope for him; and down yonder, about a row of tables, each under a fly,[2] stood groups of them, ready for their dreadful and yet helpful work.