"When our foraging party got back to camp, and I
unloaded the corn fodder from my horse, I was about as disgusted with war as a
man could be. The faces of those people I had met at the plantation rose up
before me, and I could imagine how they would look when they heard that the
Confederate soldier, who was there all, was dead. I hoped they would never hear
of it.
"While I was thinking the matter over and grooming my horse, the
chaplain came along and took nearly all the fodder I had brought in, and fed it
to his horse, and asked me where the chickens and hams, and sweet potatoes
were. I told him I didn't get any. Then he spoke very plainly to me, plainer
than he had ever spoken before, and told me that fodder for horses was not all
that soldiers got when they went out foraging. He said I wanted to snatch
anything that was lying around loose, that could be eaten. I asked him if the
government did not furnish rations enough for him to live comfortably, in
addition to the sanitary stores. He said sometimes he yearned for chickens.
Then I told him his salary was sufficient to buy such luxuries. He was hot, and
talked back to me, and told me he didn't propose to be lectured by no
red-headed private as to his duties, or his conduct, and he wanted me to
understand that I was expected to forage for him as well as myself, and not to
let another soldier come into camp with a better assortment of the luxuries
afforded by the country, than I did. He said that he picked out a man that
would fill the bill, and do his duty. I told him if he had selected me from all
the men in the regiment as being the most expert sneak thief, he had made a
mistake, and I would be teetotally d---d if I would go through the country
stealing hens and chickens for any chaplain that ever lived, and he could put
that in his pipe and smoke it. It was pretty sassy talk for a private soldier
to indulge in towards a chaplain, but I was so disgusted to hear a man who
should discountenance anything unsoldierly, talk so flippantly about taking
from the women and children of the country what little that had to live on,
because we had the power, their men folks being away in the army, that I got on
my ear, as it were. I told him that I was not much mashed on war, and hoped I
would never have to fire a gun at a human being, but now that I was into
business, I would fight if I had to, or do any duty of a soldier, but I would
be cussed if I would rob hen roosts, and he didn't weigh enough to compel me
to. Then he said I could go back to my company, as he didn't want a man around
him that hadn't sand enough to do his duty. I asked him if I hadn't better wait
till after supper, it being after dark, but he said I could go right away, and
he would have another man detailed to take my place. I was discharged, because I
struck against stealing hens.
"I saddled my horse, took my share of the fodder, and started for my
company to return to duty as a soldier. On the way to my company I saw a half a
dozen soldiers, covered with mud, and their horses covered with foam, ride up
to the colonel's tent, and I stopped to see what was the matter. A sergeant
gave the colonel a dispatch, which he tore open, read it, looked excited, and
then he turned to me and said, 'Ride to every commanding officer of a company
and say with my compliments, that "Boots and Saddles" will be sounded
in ten minutes, and every man must be in line, mounted, within five minutes
after the call is sounded, then come back here.'
“Well, I was about as excited as the colonel, and I rode to every
captain’s tent and gave the command.
Some of the captain’s, who were just sitting down to supper, asked,
‘What you giving us,’ thinking it was some foolishness on my part. One captain said if I came around with
any more such orders he would run a saber through me and turn it around a few
times; another said to his lieutenant,’ That is the chaplain’s idiot, that the
boys play jokes on; some corporal has probably told him to carry that message.’
“I got all around the companies, and went back to the colonel, and told
him that I had delivered his invitation, but the most of the captains sent
regrets in one way and another, and one was going to jab me with a saber. He called the bugler, and told him to
blow ‘Boots and Saddles,’ and in five minutes to sound, ‘ To Horse;’ then he
turned to me and said, ‘You will be my orderly tonight, and you will have the
liveliest ride you ever experienced.
Buckle up your saddle girth and lead my horse out here.’
“I told the colonel I should have to buckle up my own belt a few holes,
as I hadn’t had any supper, when he told his servant to bring me out what was
left of his supper, which he did, one small hard tack. I eat pretty hearty, and let my horse
fill himself all he could on corn stalks, and in a short time the bugle calls
were echoing through the woods, men were saddling up and mounting, and picking
up camp utensils in the dark, and swearing some at being ordered out in that
unceremonious manner when they had all got around to have a night’s rest. There was not near as much swearing as
I had supposed there would be, but there was enough. The chaplain came rushing up to where I was with his coat
off, and asked me what was the matter, and the colonel having gone to the
major’s tent, I answered him that we were going to have the liveliest ride he
had ever experienced, and not to forget it, and that probably before morning we
would have the biggest fight of the season.
“ ‘Come and help me catch my horse,’ said the chaplain, ‘I turned him
loose so he could roll over, and he has stampeded.’
“ ‘Go catch your own horse,’ said I with lofty dignity, ‘ and steal your
own chickens. I am serving on the
staff of the commanding officer, sir.
I am the colonel’s orderly!’
“I thought that would break the chaplain all up, but it didn’t. ‘The devil you say,’ remarked the
chaplain, as he went off in the darkness, whistling for his horse. Gentle reader, did you ever ride on
horseback fifty miles in one night, on an empty stomach, after having ridden
thirty miles during the day? If
you never have accomplished such a feat, you don’t know anything about
suffering. O, to this day I can
feel my stomach freeze itself to my backbone.
“We started soon after orders were given on a gallop, and if we walked
our horse a minute during the whole night, I did not know it. We marched by ‘fours,’ but I had the
whole road to myself, as I rode behind the colonel. I wanted to know where we were going and what for, and once,
when the colonel fell back to where I was, while he was taking a drink out of a
canteen, I said, ‘This is a little sudden, ain’t it?’ My idea was to draw him out, and get him to tell me al about
the destination of the expedition, and its object. The colonel got through drinking, and as he knocked the cork
into the canteen, he said, ‘ Yes, this IS a little spry.’ That was all he said, and evidently he
wanted me to draw my own inference, which I did.
“Pretty soon the orderly sergeant of the company that was on the advance,
directly behind the colonel, rode up to me and asked me if I had any idea where
we were going. He said he had seen
me talking with the colonel, and thought maybe he had told me the
programme. He added that he
thought it was a shame that men couldn’t be allowed a little rest. I told him that I had just been talking
with the colonel about it, but that I had no authority to communicate what he
said. However, I would assure the
orderly that we were going to have the liveliest ride he ever experienced. I knew I was safe in saying that, and
the orderly remarked that he had come to that conclusion himself, and he left
me. I had never expected to rise,
on pure merit, to that proud position of colonel’s orderly, and I made up my
mind if that night’s ride did not founder me, or drive my spine up into the top
of my hat, or glue the two sides of my empty stomach together, so they would
never come apart, that I would try to conduct myself so that the commanding
officers would all cry for me and want me on their staffs.
“I argued, to myself, as we rode along, that the position of colonel’s
orderly could not be more unsafe. As it did not stand to reason that a colonel
would go into any place that was particularly dangerous, as long as he could
send other officers. I knew that
colonels in action should ride behind their regiments, and wondered if this
colonel knew his place, or would he be fool enough to go right ahead of his
men? I was going to speak to him
about it, if we ever stopped galloping long enough, but everything was jarred
out of my head.
“A fellow can think of a good many things, riding on a gallop all night,
and I guess I thought of about everything that night. There were few interruptions of the march. There were about four stops, two being
caused by horses falling down and being run over by those behind them, and two
carbines going off accidentally.
One man was dismounted and run over by half the horses in the regiment
and when he was pulled out from under the horses he asked for a chew of
tobacco, and saying he was marked for life by horse shoes, he kicked his horse
in the ribs for falling down, climbed on and said the procession might move
on. He was all cut to pieces by
horse’s hoofs, but he was full of fight the next morning. Another soldier had his big toe shot
off by the accidental discharge of a carbine, and when the regiment stopped,
and the colonel asked him if he wanted to stop there and wait for an ambulance
to overtake him, he said,’ Not if there is going to be a fight. I don’t use a big toe much, anyway, and
if there is a fight ahead, I want to be there, if I haven’t got a toe left on
my feet.’ The colonel smiled and
said,’ All right, boy.’ I never
saw fellows who were so anxious to fight, and I wondered how much money it
would take to induce me to go into a fight when I was crippled up enough to be
excused.
“Along toward morning everybody felt that we were so far into the enemy’s
lines that there must be some object in the long ride, and the probabilities of
a fight seemed to be settled in every man’s mind. Up hill and down we galloped, until it seemed to me I should
fall off my horse and die. About
half an hour before daylight the command was halted, and the officers of each
company were sent for, and they surrounded the colonel, separated from the men,
and he said:’ There is a town ahead, about four miles, garrisoned by
confederate troops. We are to
charge it at daylight, drive the enemy out the other side of town, kill as many
as possible, and when they go out they will be attacked by another Union
regiment that has been sent around to the rear. There is a railroad there, and a bridge across a river,
Confederate stores of ammunition, provisions, cotton, etc. The stores are to be burned, the
railroad bridge destroyed, the track torn up, engines, if there are any, are to
be ditched, and everything destroyed except private residences. You understand?’
“The officers said they did, and they went back to their companies and
ordered the men to get a bite to eat.
When the officers had gone I was pretty scared, and I said, ‘Colonel,
suppose the rebels do not get out of that town.’ The colonel was chewing a hard-tack when he answered. Daylight was just streaking up from the
East, and he held a piece of the hard-tack up to the light to pick a worm out
of it, after which he answered: ‘If they don’t get out, we will, those who are
not killed. I always like to eat
hard-tack in the dark, then I can’t see the worms.’ To say that I was reassured would be untrue. I admired a man who could mingle
business with pleasure, as he did when talking of possible death and worms in
hard-tack, but death was never an interesting subject to me. I wanted to talk with the colonel more,
and asked him if colonels often get killed, and if an orderly was exactly safe
in his immediate vicinity, but he leaned against a tree and went to sleep, and
I stood near, as wide awake as any man ever was. I wondered whose idea it was to send us fifty miles into the
Confederacy to destroy provisions and railroads. Did they suppose the Confederates didn’t want anything to
eat? I thought it was a mean man
or government that would burn up good wholesome provisions because they
couldn’t eat them themselves. And
who owned this railroad that was going to be torn up? Why burn a bridge that probably cost several hundred
thousand dollars.
“As I was thinking these things over and finding fault with the persons
responsible for such foolishness, the chaplain, who had not showed up during
the night, came up to where I was, without a hat, leading his horse, which was
lame. The first thing he asked me
how I would trade horse. They all
wanted my Jeff, but he was not in the market. The chaplain said he had caught up with the regiment about
midnight, and had rode at the rear, with the horse doctor. He said this expedition was foolish,
and had no object except to try the endurance of the horses and men. I told him that we were going to have a
fight in less than an hour, and burn a town, an probably we would all be
killed. The chaplain turned pale
and looked faint.”
END PART TEN
PART ELEVEN: I am Wounded By a Locomotive and a Piece of Coal-I Nearly Kill and Old Man