About this time an incident occurred that was fraught with great importance to the country and to me, though the historians of the war have been silent about it in their histories, whether through jealousy or something else I do not know, and modesty has prevented me from making any inquiries as to the cause. The incident alluded to was my appointment as corporal of my company. I say the incident was "fraught" with importance. I do not know the meaning of the word fraught, but it is frequently used in history in that connection, and I throw it in, believing that it is a pretty good word. The appointment came to me like a stroke of paralysis. I was not conscious that my career as a soldier had been such as to merit promotion, I could not recall my particularly brilliant military achievement that would warrant my government selecting me from the ranks and conferring honors upon me, unless it was my lasooing that ram and dragging him into camp, when we were out of meat. But it was not my place to inquire into the cause that had led to my sudden promotion over the rank and file. I thought if I made too many inquiries it would be discovered that I was not such an all-fired great soldier after all. If the government had somehow got the impression that I was well calculated to lead hosts to victory, and it was an erroneous impression, it was the governments' place to find it out without any help on my part. I would accept the position with a certain dignity, as though I knew that it was inevitable that I must sooner or later come to the front. So when the captain informed me that he should appoint me Corporal, I told him that I thanked him, and through him, the Nation, and would try and perform the duties of the exacting and important position to the best of my ability, and hoped that I might not do anything that would bring discredit upon our distracted country. He said that would be all right, that he had no doubt the country would pull through. That evening at dress parade the appointment was read, and I felt elated. I thought it singular that the regiment did not break out into cheers, and make the welkin ring, though they may not have had any welkin to ring. However, I thought it was my duty to make a little speech, acknowledging the honor conferred upon me, as I had read that generals and colonels did when promoted. I took off my hat and said, "Fellow soldiers." That was the end of my speech, for the captain turned around and said to the orderly sergeant, "Stop that red-headed cusses mouth some way," and the orderly told me to dry up. Everybody was laughing, I supposed, at the captain. Anyway, I felt hurt, and when we got back to camp the boys of all the companies surrounded me to offer congratulations, and I was called on for a speech. Not being in the ranks, nobody could prevent me from speaking, so I got up on a barrel, and said:

"Fellow Soldiers:—As I was about to remark, when interrupted by the captain, on dress parade, this office has come to me entirely unsought. It has not been my wish to wear the gilded trappings of office and command men, but rather to fight in the ranks, a private soldier. I enlisted as a private, and my ambition has been to remain in the ranks to the end of the war. But circumstances over which I have no control has taken me and placed me on the high pinnacle of Corporal, and I must bow to the decree of fate. Of course, in my new position there must necessarily be a certain gulf between us. I have noticed that there has been a gulf between me and the officers, and I have thought it wrong. I have thought that privates and officers should mingle together freely, and share each others secrets, privations and rations. But since being promoted I can readily see that such things cannot be. The private has his position and the officer has his, and each must be separate. It is not my intention to make any radical changes in the conduct of military affairs at present, allowing things to go along about as they have, but as soon as I have a chance to look about me, certain changes will be made. All I ask is that you, my fellow soldiers, shall stand by me, follow where I shall lead and—"

At this point in my address the head of the barrel on which I stood fell in with a dull thud, and I found myself up to the neck in corned-beef brine. The boys set up a shout, some fellow kicked over the barrel, and they began to roll it around the camp with me in it.



This was a pretty position for a man just promoted to the proud position of Corporal. As they rolled me about and yelled like Indians, I could see that an official position in that regiment was to be no sinecure. All official positions have more or less care and responsibility, but this one seemed to me to have too much. Finally they spilled me out of the barrel, and I was a sight to behold. My first idea was to order the whole two hundred fellows under arrest, and have them court-martialed for conduct unbecoming soldiers; but on second thought I concluded that would seem an arbitrary use of power, so I concluded to laugh it off. One fellow said they begged pardon for any seeming disrespect to an official; but it had always been customary in the regiment to initiate a corporal who was new and too fresh with salt brine. I said that was all right, and I invited them all up to the chaplain's tent to join me in a glass of wine. The chaplain was away, and I knew he had received a keg of wine from the sanitary commission that day, so we went up to his tent and drank it, and everything passed off pleasantly until the chaplain happened in. The boys dispersed as soon as he came, and left me to fight it out with the good man. He was the maddest truly good man I have ever seen. I tried to explain about my promotion, and that it was customary to set em up for the boys, and that there was no saloon near, and that he had always told me to help myself to anything I wanted; but he wouldn't be calm at all. I tried to quote from Paul's epistle about taking a little wine for the stomach-ache; but he just raved around and called me names, until I had to tell him that if he kept on I would, in my official capacity as corporal, place him under arrest. That seemed to calm him a little, for he laughed, and finally he said I smelled of stale corned-beef, and he kicked me out of his tent, and I retired to my quarters to study over the mutability of human affairs, and the unpleasant features of holding official position.

That night I dreamed that General Grant and myself were running the army in splendid shape, and that we were in-receipt of constant congratulations from a grateful country, for victories. He and I seemed to be great chums. I dreamed of engagements with the enemy, in which I led men against fearful odds, and always came out victorious. I woke up before daylight and was wondering what dangerous duty I would be detailed to lead men upon, when the orderly poked his head in my tent and told me I was detailed to take ten picked men, at daylight, for hard service, and to report at once. I felt that my time had come to achieve renown, and I dressed myself with unusual care, putting on the blouse with two rows of buttons, which I had brought from home. I borrowed a pair of Corporal's chevrons and sewed them to the sleeves of my blouse, and was ready to die, if need be. I placed a Testament I had brought from home, inside my blouse, in a breast pocket, as I had read of many cases where a Testament had been struck with a bullet and saved a soldier's life. I placed all my keepsakes in a package, and told my tent mate that I was going out with ten picked men, and it was possible I might never show up again, and if I fell he was to send the articles to my family. I wondered that I did not feel afraid to die. I was no professor of religion, though I had always tried to do the square thing all around, but with no consolation of religion at all, I felt a sweet peace that was indescribable. If it was my fate to fall in defence of my country, at the head of ten picked men, so be it. Somebody must die, and why not me. I was no better than thousands of others, and while life was sweet to me, and I had anticipated much pleasure in life, after the war, in shooting ducks and holding office, I was willing to give up all hope of pleasure in the future, and die like a thoroughbred. I was glad that I had been promoted, and wondered if they would put "Corporal" on my tombstone. I wondered, if I fell that day at the head of my mem, if the papers at the North, and particularly in Wisconsin, would say "The deceased had just been promoted, for gallant conduct, to the position of Corporal, and it will be hard to fill his place." With these thoughts I sadly reported to the orderly. The ten picked men were in line. They were four of them Irishmen, two Yankees, two Germans, a Welshman and a Scotchman. The orderly gave me a paper, sealed in an envelope. I turned to my men, and said, "Boys, whatever happens today, I don't want to see any man show the white feather. The world will read the accounts of this day's work with feelings of awe, and the country will care for those we leave behind." We started off, and it occurred to me to read my instructions. I opened the envelope with the air of a general who was accustomed to receive important messages. I read it, and almost fainted, It read "Report to the quartermaster, at the steamboat landing, to unload quartermaster's stores from steamer Gazelle." Ye gods! And this was the hard service that I was to lead ten picked men into. They had picked out ten stevedores, to carry sacks of corn, and hard-tack boxes, and barrels of pork, and that was the action I was to engage in as my first duty as corporal.

I almost cried. We rode down to the landing, where a dozen teams were waiting to be loaded. It was all I could do to break the news to my picked men that they were expected to lug sacks of corn instead of fight, and when I did they kicked at once. One of the Irishmen said he would be teetotally d——d if he enlisted to carry corn for mules, and he would lay in the guard-house till the war was over before he would lift a sack. There was a strike on my hands to start on. I was sorry that I had permitted myself to be promoted to Corporal. Trouble from the outset. One of the Yankees suggested that we hold an indignation meeting, so we rode up in front of a cotton warehouse and dismounted. The Scotchman was appointed chairman, and for half an hour the ten picked men discussed the indignity that was attempted to be heaped upon them, by compelling them to do the work of niggers.

They argued that a cavalry soldier's duty was exclusively to ride on horseback, and that there was no power on earth to compel them to carry sacks of corn. One of the Dutchmen said he could never look a soldier in the face again after doing such menial duty, and he would not submit to it. The Scotch chairman said if he had read the articles of war right there was no clause that said that the cavalry man should leave his horse and carry corn. I was called upon for my opinion, and said that I was a little green as to the duties of a soldier, but supposed we had to do anything we were ordered to do, but it seemed a little tough. I told them I didn't want any mutiny, and it would be a plain case of mutiny if they refused to work. One of the Irishmen asked if I would help carry sacks of corn, and I told him that as commander of the expedition it would be plainly improper for me to descend to a common day laborer. I held it to be the duty of a corporal to stand around and see the men work. They all said that was too thin, and I would have to peel on my coat and work if they did. I told them I couldn't lift a sack of corn to save me, but they said if that was the case I ought not to have come. The quartermaster was looking around for the detail that was to unload the boat, and he asked me if I had charge of the men detailed to unload. I told him that I did have charge of them when we left camp, but that they had charge of me now, and said they wouldn't lift a pound. He thought a minute, and said, "I don't like to see you boys carrying corn sacks, and rolling pork barrels. Why don't you chip in and hire some niggers." The idea seemed inspired. There were plenty of niggers around that would work for a little money. One of the Irishmen moved that the Corporal hire ten niggers to unload the quartermasters stores, and the motion was carried unanimously. I would have voted against it, but the Scotchman, who was chairman, ruled that I had no right to vote. So I went and found ten niggers that agreed to work for fifty cents each, and they were set to work, the quartermaster promising not to tell in camp about my hiring the work done. One of my Dutchmen moved that, inasmuch as we had nothing to do all day, that we take in the town, and play billiards, and whoop it up until the boat was unloaded. That seemed a reasonable proposition, and the motion carried, after an amendment had been added to the effect that the Corporal stay on the boat and watch the niggers, and see that they didn't shirk. So my first command, my ten picked men, rode off up town, and I set on a wagon and watched my hired men. It was four o clock in the afternoon before the stuff was all loaded, and after paying the niggers five dollars out of my own pocket, some of my bounty money, I went up to town to round up my picked men to take them to camp. I found the Scotchman pretty full of Scotch whisky. He had found a countryman who kept a tailor shop, who had a bag pipe, and they were having a high old time playing on the instrument, and singing Scotch songs. I got him on his horse, and we looked for the rest. The two Germans were in a saloon playing pee-nuckel, and singing German songs, and their skins were pretty full of beer and cheese. They were got into the ranks, and we found the Irishmen playing forty-five in a saloon kept by a countryman of theirs, and they had evidently had a shindig, as one of them had a black eye and a scratch on his nose, and they were full of fighting whisky. The Yankees had swelled up on some kind of benzine and had hired a hack and taken two women out riding, and when we rounded them up each one had his feet out of the window of the hack, and they were enjoying themselves immensely. The Welchman was the only one that was sober, but the boys said there was not enough liquor in the South to get him drunk. When I got them all mounted they looked as though they had been to a banquet. We started for camp, but I did not want to take them in until after dark, so we rode around the suburbs of the town until night drew her sable mantle over the scene. They insisted on singing until within half a mile of camp, and it would no doubt have been good music, only the Scotchman insisted on singing "The March of the Cameron Men," while the Irishmen sung "Lots of fun at Finnegan's Wake," and the German's sung "Wacht am Rhine." The Yankees sung the "Star Spangled Banner," and the Welchman sung something in the Welch language which was worse than all. All the songs being sung together, of course I couldn't enjoy either of them as well as a Corporal ought to enjoy the music of his command. Arriving near camp, the music was hushed, and we rode in, and up to the captain's tent, where I reported that the corn was unloaded, all right. He said that was all right. Everything would have passed off splendidly, only one of the Irishmen proposed "three cheers" for the dandy Corporal of the regiment, and those inebriated, picked men, gave three cheers that raised the roof of the colonel's tent near by, because I had hired niggers to do the work, and let the men have a holiday. I dismissed them as quick as I could, but the colonel sent for me, and I had to tell him the whole story. He said I would demoralize the whole regiment in a week more, and I better let up or he would have to discipline me. I offered to resign my commission as Corporal, but he said I better hold on till we could have a fight, and may be I would get killed.



CHAPTER X.

Yearnings for Military Fame—What I Want is a Chance—I Feel I Could Crush the Rebellion—My Chance Arrives—I am Crushed—The Rebellion Remains Pretty Well.

As I could get no one to accept my resignation as corporal, which I tendered after my first service in that capacity, unloading a steamboat, I decided to post myself as to the duties of the position, so I borrowed a copy of "Hardee's Tactics," and studied a good deal. Every place in the book that mentioned the word "corporal," had a particular and thrilling interest for me, and I soon got so it would have been easy for me to have done almost anything that a corporal would have to do. But I was not contented to study the duty of a corporal. I read about the "school of the company," and the "school of the regiment," and "battalion drills," and everything, until I could handle a regiment, or a brigade, for that matter, as well as any officer in the army, in my mind. This led me to go farther, and I borrowed a copy of a large blue book the colonel had, the name of which I do not remember now, but it was all military, and told how to conduct a battle successfully. I studied that book until I got the thing down so fine that I could have fought the battle of Gettysburg successfully, and I longed for a chance to show what I knew about military science and strategy. It seemed wonderful to me that one small red-head could contain so much knowledge about military affairs, and I felt a pity for some officers I knew who never had studied at all, and did not know anything except what they had picked up. I fought battles in my mind, day and night. Some nights I would lay awake till after midnight, planning campaigns, laying out battle-fields, and marching men against the enemy, who fought stubbornly, but I always came out victorious, and then I would go to sleep and dream that the President and secretary of war had got on to me, as it were, and had offered me high positions, and I would wake up in the morning the same red-headed corporal, and cook my breakfast. Sometimes I thought it my duty to inform the government, in some round about way, what a bonanza the country had in me, if my talent could only be utilized by placing me where I would have a chance to distinguish myself, and bring victory to our arms. I reflected that Grant, and Sherman, and Sheridan, and all of the great generals, were once corporals, and by study they had risen.

There was not one of them that could dream out a battle, and a victory any better that I could. All I wanted was a chance. Just give me men enough, and turn me loose in the Southern Confederacy, with that head of mine, and the result would be all an anxious nation could desire.

My first chance came sooner than I expected. The next day a part of the regiment went out on a scout, to be gone a couple of days, and my company was along. I was unusually absorbed in thought, and wondered if I would be given a chance to do anything. It seemed reasonable that if any corporal was sent out with a squad of men, to fight, it would be an old corporal, while if there was any duty that was menial, the new corporals would get it. The second day out we stopped at noon to let our horses rest, when little scouting parties that had been sent out on different roads during the forenoon, began to come in. Many of them had picked up straggling rebels, and brought them to damp, and they were carefully guarded, and the major, who was in command of our party, was asking them questions, and pumping them to find out all he could. I went over and looked at them, and they were quite a nice looking lot of fellows, some being officers, with plenty of gold lace on their gray suits. They were home from the Confederate army on a leave of absence, probably recruiting. After talking with a rebel officer for a time the major turned to the adjutant and said, "send me a corporal and ten men." The adjutant started, on, and I followed him. I used to know the adjutant when he taught a district school, before the war, and I asked him as a special favor to let me be the corporal. He said the detail would be from my company, and if I could fix it with the orderly sergeant of my company it was all right. I rushed to my company and found the orderly, and got him to promise if there was a detail from the company that day, I could go. Before the words were out of his mouth the detail came, and in five minutes I reported to the major with ten men. The major simply told me that a certain rebel captain, from Lee's army, was reported to be at home, and his plantation was about four miles east, and he described it to me. He told me to ride out there, surround the house, capture the captain, and bring him into camp.

No general ever received his orders in regard to fighting a battle, with a feeling of greater pride and responsibililty than I did my orders to capture that rebel. We started out, and then for the first time I noticed that there was another corporal in the squad with, me, and at once it occurred to me that he might claim a part of the glory of capturing the rebel. I had heard of the jealousy existing between generals, and how the partisans of different generals filled the newspapers, after a battle, with accounts of the part taken by their favorites, and that the accounts got so mixed, up that the reader couldn't tell to whom the credit of success was due, and I decided to take prompt measure with this supernumerary corporal, who had evidently got in by mistake, so I told him he might go back to the regiment. He said he guessed not. He had been detailed to go on the scout, and he was going, if he knew himself, and he thought he did. He said when it come right down to rank, he was an older corporal than I was, and could take command of the squad if he wanted to. I told him he was mistaken as to his position. That if the major had wanted him to take charge of the expedition, he would have given him the instructions, but as the major had given me the instructions, in a low tone of voice, nobody but myself knew where we were going or what we were going for, and that I was responsible, and the first intimation I had from him that he wanted to mutiny, or relieve me from my command, I would have him shot at once. I told him he could go along, but he must keep his mouth shut, and obey orders. He said he would obey, if he felt like it. We moved on, and I would have given a month's pay if that corporal had not been there. In a short time we were in sight of the house, and at a cross road I told the corporal to take one man and stop there, until further orders, and if any rebel came along, to capture him. He was willing enough to stay there, because there was a patch, of musk melons just over the fence. I moved my remaining eight men to a high piece of ground near the house, and halted, to look over the field of battle. Pulling a spy glass from my pocket, which I had borrowed from the sutler, I surveyed, as near like a general as possible, the situation. On one side of the house was a ravine, which I decided must be held at all hazards, and after studying my copy of tactics a moment, I sent an Irishman over there to hold the key to the situation, and told him he might consider himself the Iron Brigade. The lay of the ground reminded me much of pictures I had seen of the battle of Bull Run, and the road on which I had left the corporal and one man, was the road to Washington, on which we would retreat, if overcome by the enemy. To the right of the ravine, which was held by the Iron Brigade, I noticed a hen-house with a gate leading back to the nigger quarters, and I called a soldier and told him to make a detour behind a piece of woods, and at a signal from me, the waving of my right arm, to charge directly to the gate of the hen-house, and hold it against any force that might attempt to carry it, and to let no guilty man escape. Fifteen years afterwards Gen. Grant used those self-same words, "Let no guilty man escape," and they became historic, but I will take my oath I was the first commander to use the words, when I sent that man to hold the gate of the hen-house. That man I denominated the First Division. Farther to the right was a field of sweet potatoes, in which was a colored man digging the potatoes. I sent a Dutchman to hold that field, with their right resting on the left of the First Division, located at the gate of the hen-house, whose right was supposed to rest on the left of the Iron Brigade, the Irishman who commanded the ravine. Then I turned my attention to the left of the battle-field, placed one man at the milk-house, with his left resting on the right of the Irishman, and a man at the smoke-house. This left three men, one of whom I appointed an aid de camp, one an orderly and the other I held as a reserve, at a cotton gin. When I had got my army into position, I sat under a tree and reflected a little, and concluded that the Iron Brigade was in rather too exposed a position, so I sent my aid de camp to order the Iron Brigade to move forward, under cover of the ravine, and take a position behind a mule-shed. The aide soon returned and reported that the Iron Brigade had taken off his shirt and kanoodled a negro woman to wash it for him, and would not be able to move until the shirt was dry.

This altered my plans a little, but I was equal to the emergency, and ordered my reserve to make a detour and take the mule-shed, and hold it until relieved by the Iron Brigade, which would be as soon as his shirt was dry, and then to report to me on the field. Then I took my aide and orderly, and galloped around the lines, to see that all was right. I found that the First Division, holding the gate of the hen-house, was well in hand, though he had killed five chickens, and had them strapped on his saddle, and was trying to cut off the head of another with his sabre. He said he thought I said to let no guilty hen escape. I found the Iron Brigade dismounted, his shirt hung on a line to dry, and the colored woman had been pressed into the Federal service, and was frying a chicken for the Brigade. I told him to get his shirt on as soon as it was dry, and move by forced marches, to relieve the force holding the mule-shed, and the Iron Brigade said he would as soon as he had his dinner. I found the Division composed of the Dutchman, stubbornly holding the sweet-potato field, and he was eating some boiled ham and corn-bread he had sent the nigger to the house after, and he had a bushel of sweet-potatoes in a sack strapped to his saddle. The force at the milk-house had a fine position, and gave me a pitcher of butter-milk, which I drank with great gusto. I do not know as there is anything in butter-milk that is stimulating, but after drinking it my head seemed clearer, and I could see the whole battle-field, and anticipate each movement I should cause to be made. I was so pleased with the butter-milk, on the eve of battle, that I ordered the second Division to fill my canteen with it, which he did. Then I rode back to my headquarters, where I started from, having ridden clear around the beleaguered plantation. Presently the reserve returned to me and reported that he had been relieved by the Iron Brigade at the mule-shed, whose shirt had become dry, and who had given the reserve a leg of fried chicken, and a corn dodger. I took the leg of chicken away from my reserve, eat it with great relish, and prepared for the onslaught, the reserve picking some persimmons off a tree and eating them for lunch. I was about to order the different divisions and brigades of my army to advance from their different positions, and close in on the enemy, when a colored man came out of the house and moved toward me, signalling that he would fain converse with me. I struck a dignified attitude, by throwing my right leg over the pommel of the saddle, like a hired girl riding a plow-horse to town after a doctor, and waited. When he came up to me, he said, "Massa wants to know what all dis darn foolishness is about. He says if you all don't go away from here he will shoot de liver outen you all." I told the negro to be calm, and not cause me to resort to extreme measures, and I asked him if his master was at home. He said he was, and he was a bad man wid a gun. He had killed plenty of men before the war, and since the war he had killed more Yankees than enough to build a rail-fence around the plantation. I did not exactly like the reports in regard to the enemy. I told the colored man to take a flag of truce to his master, and tell him I would like an interview. The colored man went to the house, and I sent for the Iron Brigade to report to me at once, in light marching order, and the Irishman came riding up without any shirt on. I caused the Brigade to put on his shirt, when I sent him to the house, to follow the nag of truce and feel of the enemy. He went to the house, and was evidently invited in, for he disappeared. I waited half an hour for him, and as he did not show up, I called the Second Division, and sent the Dutchman to the house. The Second Division went in, and did not come out. I ordered the whole right wing of my army to deploy to my support, and the fellow at the hen-house gate came, and I sent him in after the Irishman and the Dutchman. He didn't come back, and I sent an orderly after the force stationed at the milk-house, and he came, and I sent him, with the same result. It was evident I was frittering away my command, with no good result, so I looked at my tactics, and decided to hold a council of war. My aide, orderly, and reserve, three besides myself, composed the council of war. We three were in favor of ordering up the other corporal and man from the cross-roads, but I opposed it. I did not want the other corporal to have any finger in the pie. So I decided that the four of us would go in a body to the house and demand the surrender of the rebel captain. We rode down the lane where the other men had gone, and it was a question whether we ever came back alive. I thought they had a trap door in the house, which probably let the soldiers down suddenly into a dungeon. Certainly unless there was something of the kind my men would have come back. As we dismounted at the door; and walked up the steps, the door opened and a fine looking rebel officer appeared smiling.

"Come in, Captain, with your men, and join me in a glass of wine," said the rebel.

I had never been called "Captain" before, and it touched me in a tender spot. The rebel evidently thought I looked like a captain, and I was proud. He had probably watched my maneuvers, and the way I handled my men, and thought I was no common soldier.

"Well, I don't care if I do," said I, and we walked into a splendid old room, and were bidden to be seated.

"Hello, Corp," said my Iron Brigade, as he took his legs down from a table, and poured out a glass of whisky from a bottle near him, "This is the divil's own place for an aisy life."

"Gorporal," said my Dutch fellow soldier, as he poured out a glass of schnapps, "Led me indroduce you mit dot repel. He is a tasy, und don'd you forgot aboud it. Mishder repel, dot ish der gorporal fun my gumpany."

The rebel smiled and said he was glad to see me, and hoped I was well, and would I take wine, or something stronger. I took a small glass of wine, but the rest of the fellows took strong drink, and my Iron Brigade was already full, and the Dutchman was getting full rapidly. Finally I told the rebel officer that I did not like to accept a man's hospitality when I had such an unpleasant duty to perform as to arrest him, but circumstances seemed to make it necessary. He said that was all right. In times of war we must do many things that were unpleasant. We took another drink, and then I told him I was sorry to inconvenience him, but he would have to accompany me to camp. He said certainly, he had expected to be captured ever since he saw that the house was surrounded, and while at first he had made up his mind to take his rifle and kill us all from the gallery of the house, he had thought better of it, and would surrender without bloodshed. What was the use of killing any more men? The war was nearly over, and why not submit, and save carnage. I told him that was the way I felt about it. Then he said if I would wait until he retired to an adjoining room and changed his linen, he would be ready. I said of course, certainly, and he went out of a door. I waited about half an hour, until it seemed to me the rebel had had time to change all the linen in the state of Alabama. The Iron Brigade had gone to sleep on a lounge, and the German troop was full as a goat, and some of the others were beginning to feel the hospitality.

"I beg your pardon for intruding," said I, as I opened the door and walked into the room the rebel had entered. "Great Scott, he is gone!"

My army, all except the Iron Brigade and the Dutchman, followed me, and the room was empty. A window was up, through which he had escaped. We searched the house, but there was no rebel captain. On going to the front door I found that the horse belonging to the iron brigade was gone, and that the saddle girths of all the other horses had been unbuckled, so we would be delayed in following him. The Irishman was awakened, and when he found his horse was gone, he sobered up and went to the pasture and borrowed a mule to ride.

It took us half an hour to fix our saddles, so we could ride, and then we sadly started for camp. How could I face the major, and report to him that I had met the rebel captain, talked with him, drank with him, enjoyed his hospitality, and then let him escape? I felt that my military career had come to an inglorious ending. "We rode slow, because the Iron Brigade was insecurely mounted on a slippery bare-backed mule. As we neared the corporal and one man, that I had left to guard the cross-roads, I noticed that there was a stranger with them, and on riding closer what was my surprise to find that it was the rebel captain, under arrest. So the confounded corporal, whom I had left there so he would be out of the way, and not get any of the glory of capturing the rebel, had captured him, and got all the glory. I was hurt, but putting on a bold military air, like a general who has been whipped, I said:

"Ah, corporal, I see my plan has worked successfully. I arranged it so this prisoner would run right into the trap."

"Yes," said the corporal, throwing away a melon rind that he had been chewing the meat off of, "I saw his nibs coming down the road, and I thought may be he was the one you wanted, so I told him to halt or I would fill his lungs full of lead pills, and he said he guessed he would halt. He said it was a nice day, and he was only trying one of the Yankee cavalry horses, to see how he liked it." "Here, you murdherin' divil, get down aff that harse," said the Iron Brigade, who had got awake enough to see that the rebel was on his horse. "Take this mule, and lave a dacent gintleman's harse alone."

The rebel smiled, dismounted, gave the Irishman his horse, mounted the mule, and we started for camp. I was never so elated in my life as I was when I rode into camp with that rebel captain beside me on the mule. The object of the expedition had been accomplished, a little different, it is true, from what I had expected and planned, but who knew that it was not a part of my plan to have it turn out as it did? I reflected much, and wondered if it was right for me to report the capture of the Confederate and say nothing about the part played by the other corporal. That corporal was no military strategist, like me. It was just a streak of luck, his capturing the rebel. He was leaning against the fence where I left him, eating melons, and the rebel came along, and the corporal quit chewing melon long enough to obey my orders and arrest the fellow. By all rules of military law I was entitled to the credit, and I would take it, though it made me ashamed to do so. How-ever, generals did the same thing. If a major-general was in command, and ordered a brigadier-general to do a thing and it was a success, the major-general got the credit in the newspapers. So I rode into camp and turned my prisoner over to the major as modestly as possible, with a few words of praise of my gallant command. Hello, Jim, said the major to the rebel.

Hello, Maje, said the rebel.

"Better take off them togs now, and join your company, said the major.

"I guess so," said the rebel, and he took off his rebel uniform, and the major handed him a blue coat and pair of pants, and he put them on.

I was petrified. The fact was, the rebel was a sergeant in our regiment, who had been detailed as a scout, and had been making a trip into the rebel lines as a spy. I had made an ass of myself in the whole business, and he would tell all the boys about it. I went back to my company crushed.



CHAPTER XI.

I am Detailed to Build a Bridge-It Was a Good Bridge, but Over the Wrong Stream—The General Appears—I am Crushed, in Fact Pulverized!—I am Attacked with Rheumatism.

After the episode, related last week, in which I foolishly organized a regular battle, to capture a supposed rebel, who turned out to be a member of my own regiment, I expected to be the laughing stock of all the soldiers, and that my commission as corporal would be taken away from me, and that I would be reduced to the ranks, and when, the next morning, the colonel sent for me to come to his tent, it was a stand-off with me whether I would take to the woods and desert, in disgrace, and never show up again, or go to the colonel, face the music, and admit that I had made an ass of myself. Finally I decided to visit the colonel. On the way to his tent I noticed that our force had been augmented greatly. The road was full of wagons, the fields near us were filled with infantry and artillery, and there were fifty wagons or more loaded with pontoons, great boats, or the frame-work of boats, which were to be covered with canvass, which was water-proof, and the boats were to be used for bridges across streams. The colonel had not told me anything about the expected arrival of more troops, and it worried me a good deal. May be there was a big battle coming off, and I might blunder into it unconscious of danger, and: get the liver blowed out of me by a cannon. I felt that the colonel had not treated me right in keeping me in ignorance of all this preparation. I went to the colonel's tent and there was quite a crowd of officers, some with artillery uniforms, several colonels, and one general with a star on his shoulder straps, and a crooked sword with a silver scabbard, covered with gold trimmings. I felt quite small with those big officers, but I tried to look brave, and as though I was accustomed to attending councils of war. The colonel smiled at me as I came in which braced me up a good deal.

General, this is the sergeant I spoke to you about, said the colonel, as he turned from a map they had been looking at. I felt pale when the colonel addressed me as sergeant, and was going to call his attention to the mistake, when the general said:

Sergeant, the colonel tells me that you can turn your hand to almost anything. What line of business have you worked at previous to your enlistment?

"Well, I guess there is nothing that is usually done in a country village that I have not done. I have clerked in a grocery, tended bar, drove team on a threshing machine, worked in a slaughter house, drove omnibus, worked in a-saw-mill, learned the printing trade, rode saw-logs, worked in a pinery, been brakeman on a freight train, acted as assistant chambermaid in a livery stable, clerked in a hotel, worked on a farm, been an auctioneer, edited a newspaper, took up the collection in church, canvassed for books, been life-insurance agent, worked at bridge-building, took tintypes, sat on a jury, been constable, been deck-hand on a steamboat, chopped cord-wood, run a cider-mill, and drove a stallion in a four-minute race at a county fair."

"That will do," said the general. "You will be placed in charge of a pioneer corps, and you will go four miles south, on the road, where a bridge has been destroyed across a small bayou, build a new bridge strong enough to cross artillery, then move on two miles to a river you will find, and look out a good place to throw a pontoon bridge across. The first bridge you will build under an artillery fire from the rebels, and when it is done let a squad of cavalry cross, then the pontoon train, and a regiment of infantry. Then light out for the river ahead of the pontoon train, with the cavalry. The pioneer corps will be ready in fifteen minutes."

The colonel told me to hurry up, but I called him out of his tent and asked him if I was really a sergeant, or if it was a mirage. He said if I made a success of that bridge, and the command got across, and I was not killed I would be appointed sergeant. He said the general would try me as a bridge-builder, and if I was a success he would try me, no doubt, in other capacities, such as driving team on a threshing machine, and editing a newspaper.

When, I went on after my horse, being pretty proud. The idea of being picked out of so many non-commissioned officers, and placed in charge of a pioneer corps, and sent ahead of the army to rebuild a bridge that had been destroyed, with a prospect of being promoted or killed, was glory enough for one day, and I rode back to headquarters feeling that the success of the whole expedition rested on me. If I built a corduroy bridge that would pass that whole army safely over, artillery and all, would anybody enquire who built the bridge. Of course, if I built a bridge that would break down, and drown somebody, everybody would know who built it. The twenty men were mounted, and ready, and the general told me to go to the quartermaster and get all the tools I wanted, and I took twenty axes, ten shovels, two log chains, and was riding away, when the general said:

"When you get there, and look the ground over, make up your mind exactly at what hour and minute you can have the bridge completed, and send a courier back to inform me, and at that hour the head of the column will be there, and the bridge must be ready to cross on."

I said that would be all right, and we started out. In about forty minutes we had arrived, at the bayou, and I called a private soldier who used to do logging in the woods, and we looked the thing over. The timber necessary was right on the bank of the stream.

"Jim," I said to the private, "I have got to build a bridge across this stream strong enough to cross artillery. I shall report to the general that he can send, along his artillery at seventeen minutes after eight o clock this evening. Am I right?"

"Well," said Jim, as he looked at the standing timber, at the stream, and spit some black tobacco juice down on the red ground, "I should make it thirty-seven minutes after eight. You see, a shell may drop in here and kill a mule, or something, and delay us. Make it thirty-seven, and I will go you."

We finally compromised by splitting the difference, and I sent a courier back to the general, with my compliments, and with the information that at precisely eight o clock and twenty-seven minutes he could start across. Then we fell to work. Large, long trees were cut for stringers, and hewn square, posts were made to prop up the stringers, though the stringers would have held any weight. Then small trees were cut and flattened on two sides, for the road-bed, holes bored in them and pegs made to drive through them into the stringers. A lot of cavalry soldiers never worked as those men did. Though there was only twenty of them, it seemed as though the woods were full of men. Trees were falling, and axes resounding, and men yelling at mules that were hauling logs, and the scene reminded me of logging in the Wisconsin pineries, only these were men in uniform doing the work. About the middle of the afternoon we had the stringers across, when there was a half dozen shots heard down the stream, and bullets began "zipping" all around the bridge, and we knew the rebels were onto the scheme, and wanted it stopped. I got behind a tree when the bullets began to come, to think it over. My first impulse was to leave the bridge and go back and tell the general that I couldn't build no bridge unless everything was quiet. That I had never built bridges where people objected to it. I asked the private what we had better do. He said his idea was to knock off work on the bridge for just fifteen minutes, cross the stream on the stringers, and go down there in the woods and scare the life out of those rebels, drive them away, and make them think the whole army was after them, then cross back and finish the bridge. That seemed feasible enough, so about a dozen of us squirreled across the stringers with our carbines, and the rest went down the stream on our side, and all of us fired a dozen rounds from our Spencer repeaters, right into the woods where the rebels seemed to be. When we did so, the rebels must have thought there was a million of us, for they scattered too quick, and we had a quiet life for two hours. We had got the bridge nearly completed, when there was a hissing sound in the air, a streak of smoke, and a powder magazine seemed to explode right over us. I suppose I turned pale, for I had never heard anything like it. Says I, "Jim, excuse me, but what kind of a thing is that?"



Jim kept on at work, remarking, O, nothing only they are a shellin on us. And so that was a shell. I had read of shells and seen pictures of them in Harper's Weekly, but I never supposed I would hear one. Presently another came, and I wanted to pack up and go away. I looked at my pioneers, and they did not pay any more attention to the shells than they would, to the braying of mules. I asked Jim if there wasn't more or less danger attached to the building of bridges, in the South, and he, the old veteran, said:

"Corp, don't worry as long as they hain't got our range. Them 'ere shell are going half a mile beyond us, and we don't need to worry. Just let em think they are killing us off by the dozen, and they will keep on sending shells right over us. If we had a battery here to shell back, they would get our range, and make it pretty warm for us. But now it is all guess work with them, and we are as safe as we would be in Oshkosh. Let's keep right on with the bridge."

I never can explain what a comfort Jim's remarks were to me. After listening to him, I could work right along, driving pegs in the bridge, and pay no attention to the shells that were going over us. In fact, I lit my pipe and smoked, and began to figure how much it was going to cost the Confederacy to "celebrate" that way. It was costing them at the rate of fourteen dollars a minute, and I actually found myself laughing at the good joke on the rebels. Pretty soon a courier rode up, from the general, asking if the shelling was delaying the bridge. I sent word back that it was not delaying us in the least; in fact, it was hurrying us a little, if anything, and he could send along his command twenty-seven minutes sooner than I had calculated, as the bridge would be ready to cross on at eight o'clock sharp. At a quarter to eight, just as the daylight was fading, and we had lighted pine torches to see to eat our supper, an orderly rode up and said the general and staff had been looking for me for an hour, and were down at the forks of the road. I told the orderly to bring the general and staff right up to the headquarters, and we would entertain them to the best of our ability, and he rode off. Then we sat down under a tree and smoked and played seven up by the light of pine torches, and waited. I was never so proud of anything in my life, as I was of that bridge, and it did not seem to me as though a promotion to the position of sergeant was going to be sufficient recompense for that great feat of engineering. It was as smooth as though sawed plank had covered it, and logs were laid on each side to keep wagons from running off. I could see, in my mind, hundreds of wagons, and thousands of soldiers, crossing safely, and I would be a hero. My breast swelled so my coat was too tight. Presently I heard some one swearing down the road, the clanking of sabres, and in a few moments the general rode into the glare of the torch-light. I had struck an attitude at the approach of the bridge, and thought that I would give a good deal if an artist could take a picture of my bridge, with me, the great engineer, standing upon it, and the head of the column just ready to cross. I was just getting ready to make a little speech to the general, presenting the bridge to him, as trustee of the nation, for the use of the army, when I got a sight of his face, as a torch flared up and lit the surroundings. It was pale, and if he was not a madman, I never saw one. He fairly frothed at the mouth, as he said, addressing a soldier who had fallen in the stream, during the afternoon, and who was putting on his shirt, which he had dried by a fire:

"Where is the corporal, the star idiot, who built that bridge?"

I couldn't have been more surprised if he had killed me. This was a nice way to inquire for a gentleman who had done as much for the country as I had, in so short a time. I felt hurt, but, summoning to my aid all the gall I possessed, I stepped forward, and, in as sarcastic a manner as I could assume, I said:

"I am the sergeant, sir, who has wrought this work, made a highway in twelve hours, across a torrent, and made is possible for your army to cross."

"Well, what do you suppose my army wants to cross this confounded ditch for? What business has the army got in that swamp over there? You have gone off the main road, where I wanted a bridge built, and built one on a private road to a plantation, where nobody wants to cross. This bridge is of no more use to me than a bridge across the Mississippi river at its source. You, sir, have just simply raised hell, that's what you have done."

Talk about being crushed! I was pulverized. I felt like jumping into the stream and drowning myself. For a moment I could not speak, because I hadn't anything to say. Then I thought that it would be pretty tough to go off and leave that bridge without the general's seeing what a good job it was, so I said:

"Well, general, I am sorry you did not give me more explicit instructions, but I wish you would get down and examine this bridge. It is a daisy, and if it is not in the right place we can move it anywhere you want it."

That seemed to give the general an idea, and he dismounted and examined it. He said it was as good a job as he ever saw, and if it was a mile down the road, across another bayou, where he wanted to cross, he would give a fortune. I told him if he would give me men enough and wagons enough, I would move it to where he wanted it, and have it ready by daylight the next morning. He agreed, and that was the hardest nights work I ever did. Every stick of timber in my pet bridge had to be taken off separately, and moved over a mile, but it was done, and at daylight the next morning I had the pleasure of calling the general and telling him that the bridge was ready. I thought he was a little mean when he woke up and rubbed his eyes, and said:

"Now, you are sure you have got it in the right place this time, for if that bridge has strayed away onto anybody's plantation this time, you die."

The army crossed all right, and I had the proud pleasure of standing by the bridge until the last man was across, when I rode up to my regiment and reported to the colonel, pretty tired.{*} He was superintending the laying of a pontoon bridge across a large river, a few miles from my bridge, and he said:

"George, the general was pretty hot last night, but he was to blame about the mistake in the location, and he says he is going to try and get you a commission as lieutenant."

* A few weeks ago I met a member of my old regiment, who is traveling through the South as agent for a beer bottling establishment in the North. He was with me when we built the corduroy bridge twenty-two years ago. As we were talking over old-times he asked me if I remembered that bridge we built one day in Alabama, in the wrong place, and moved it during the night. I told him I wished I had as many dollars as I remembered that bridge. "Well," said my comrade, "on my last trip through Alabama I crossed that bridge, and paid two bits for the privilege of crossing. A man has established a toll-gate at the bridge, and they say he has made a fortune. I asked him how much his bridge cost him, and he said it didn't cost him a cent, as the Yankees built it during the war. He said they cut the timber on his land, and when he got out of the Confederate army he was busted, and he claimed the bridge, and got a charter to keep a toll- gate." My comrade added that the bridge was as sound as it was when it was built. He said he asked the toll-gate keeper if he knew the bridge was first built a mile away, and he said he knew the timber was cut up there, and he wondered what the confounded Yankees went away off there to cut the timber for, when they could get it right on the bank. Then my comrade told the toll-gate keeper that he helped build the bridge, the rebel thanked him, and wanted to pay back the two bits. Some day I am going down to Alabama and cross on that bridge again, the bridge that almost caused me to commit suicide, and if that old rebel-for he must be an old rebel now—charges me two bits toll, I shall very likely pull off my coat and let him whip me, and then as likely as not there will be another war.

I felt faint, but I said, "How can he recommend a star idiot for a commissioned office?"

"O, that is all right," said, the colonel, "some of the greatest idiots in the army have received commisssions." As he spoke the rebels began to shell the place where the pontoon bridge was being built, and I went hunting for a place to borrow an umbrella to hold over me, to ward off the pieces of shell. Then a battery of our own opened on the rebels, so near me that every time a gun was discharged I could, feel the roof of my head raise up like the cover to a band box. It was the wildest time I ever saw. Cavalry was swimming the river to charge the rebel battery, shells were exploding all around, and it seemed to me as though if I was to lay a pontoon bridge I would go off somewhere out of the way, where it would be quiet. Finally my regiment was ordered to swim the river, and we rode in. The first lunge my horse made he went under water about a mile, and when we came up I was not on him, but catching hold of his tail I was dragged across the river nearly drowned, and landed on the bank like a dog that has been after a duck I shook myself, we mounted and without waiting to dry out our clothes we went into the fight, before I could realize it, or back out. Scared! I was so scared it is a wonder I did not die. That was more excitement than a county fair. Bullets whizzing, shells shrieking, smoke stifling, yelling that was deafening. It seemed as though I was crazy. I must have been or I could never, as a raw recruit, with no experience, have ridden right toward those guns that were belching forth sulphur and pieces of blacksmith shop. I didn't dare look anywhere except right ahead. All thought of being hit by bullets or anything was completely out of my mind. Occasionally something would go over me that sounded as though a buzz saw had been fired from a saw mill explosion. Presently the firing on the rebel side ceased, and it was seen they were in retreat. I was never so glad of anything in my life. We stopped, and I examined my clothes, and they were perfectly dry. The excitement and warmth of the body had acted like a drying-room in a laundry. Then I laid down under a fence and went to sleep, and dreamed I was in hades, building a corduroy bridge across the Styx, and that the devil repremanded me for building it in the wrong place. When I awoke I was so stiff with rheumatism that I had to be helped up from under the fence, and they put me in an ambulance with a soldier who had his jaw shot off. He was not good company, because I had to do all the talking. And in that way we moved towards the enemy.



CHAPTER XII.

I am Instructed to Capture and Search a Female Smuggler— I Protest in Vain—The Terrible Ordeal—Beauty Behind the Pulpit—Pills, Plasters, Quinine—The Pathetic Letter— We Meet Under Happier Stars.

It was at this time that the hardest duty that it was my lot to perform during my service, fell to me, and the only wonder to me is that I am alive today to tell of it. If I ever get a pension it will be on account of night sweats, caused by the terrible and trying work that was assigned to me. One day the colonel sent for me, and I knew at once that there was something unusual in the wind. After seating myself in his tent he opened the subject by asking me if I wasn't something of a hand to be agreeable to the ladies. I told him, with many blushes, that if there was one thing on this earth that I thought was nicer than everything else, it was a lady, and that a good woman was the noblest work of God. He said he was on to all of that, but it wasn't a good woman that he was after. That startled me a little. I had heard the officers had a habit of fooling around a good deal with certain females, and I told the colonel that any duty that I was assigned to I would perform to the best of my poor ability, but I could not go around with the girls as officers did, because I couldn't afford it, and it was against my principles, anyway. He showed me a picture of a beautiful woman, and asked me if I would know her if I saw her again. I told him I could pick her out of a thousand. He said she was a smuggler. She had a pass from a general, who seemed to be under her influence to a certain extent, for some reason, and went in and out of the lines freely. The general didn't want to order her arrest, because she would squeal on him, but he wanted her arrested all the same, and the idea was to have some corporal in charge of a picket post take the responsibility of arresting her without orders, refuse to recognize her pass, take the quinine and other medicines, and money away from her, and then be arrested himself for exceeding his authority. He said they wanted a corporal who had every appearance of being a big-headed idiot, and yet who knew what he was about, who knew something about women, and who could do such a job up in shape, and never let the woman know that the general or anybody had anything to do with her arrest. The idea was to catch her in the act of smuggling quinine through the lines to the rebels, by the act of a fresh corporal who took the matter into his own hands, and who claimed that the pass she had from the general was a forgery. When the general could, when the woman was brought before him, be indignant at the corporal for insulting a woman, and order him arrested, and he could also go back on the woman, and have her sent away, after which he would release the corporal, and perhaps promote him, and all would be well. It was as pretty a scheme as I ever listened to, and I consented to do the duty, though I wouldn't do it again for a million dollars. The colonel told me to take four men and go to a particular place on an unfrequented road, near a school house, and put out a picket. The female would be along during the afternoon, on horseback, and when she showed her pass, one of the men must take hold of her horse and hold him, while I kicked about the pass, made her dismount, and searched her for quinine. I turned ashy pale when the colonel said that, and I said to him:

"Colonel, for heaven's sake don't compel me to search a woman. I have a family at home, and they will hear of it. My political enemies will use it against me at home when I run for office, after the war. Let me bring her here to your tent, and you search her."

"No, that would spoil all," said the colonel. "We want her searched right there at the little school house, by a corporal without apparent authority, and every last quinine pill taken off of her. If she was brought here she would cry, and rave, and we should weaken, because we know her, and have been entertained at her house. You are supposed to be a heartless corporal, with no sentiment, no mercy, no nothing, just a delver after smuggled quinine. Besides, I too, have a family, and I don't want to search no females. By the way, one of the general's start saw her last night, and drew the cartridges from her revolver, and put in some blank cartridges. If the worst comes, she will draw her revolver on you, and perhaps fire at you, but there are no balls in her revolver, so you needn't be afraid."

"But suppose she has two revolvers," I asked, "and one is loaded with bullets?"

"I don't think she has," said the colonel. "But we have to take some chances, you know. Now go right along. Treat her like a lady, disbelieve everything she says and insist on searching her. The general says she wears an enormous bustle, and probably that is full of quinine. Use your judgement, but get it all. Pretend to be an ignorant sort of a corporal who feels that the success of the war depends on him, act as though you outranked the general, and tell her you would not let her pass with that quinine if the general himself was present. Just display plenty gall and when you have go the quinine, bring the girl here, and I will abuse you, and you take it like a little man, and all will be well. If she bites and scratches, some of you will have to hold her, but the best way will be to argue with her, and persuade her by honied words, to come down with the quinine. Go!"

"One word, colonel, before I go," I said. "About how many men should you think it would take to hold this woman? You suggested three, but if one holds her horse, it seems to me, from my knowledge of female kicking, biting and scratching, that I would need one man for each arm and foot, one to hold her head and choke her, if necessary, and one with a roving commission to work around where he would be apt to make himself useful. What do you say if I take five men!"

"All right, take six," said the colonel. "One may be disabled, or have his jaw kicked off, or something. But don't detail anybody to search her. Do that yourself, and do it like a gentleman. And above all things, do not let her kanoodle you with soft words and looks of love, because she is full of em. If she can't scare you, with her indignation at the outrage of arresting and searching her, she will try to capture you and make you love her. You must be as firm as adamant. Now hurry up."

I picked out six men, four of whom were young Americans, rather handsome, and very polite, regular mashers.

Then I had an Irishman named Duffy, and a German named Holzmeyer, who was a butcher. We went out on the road, to the school house, and I put the Irishman on picket, and instructed the German about taking the horse by the bridle at the proper time. Then the rest of us got behind the school house and waited. For two hours we waited, and I had a chance to think over the situation. Here I was, putting down the rebellion, laying for a woman, who was loaded. At home, I was a polite man, and full of fun, a person any lady might be proud to meet and talk with, but here I was expected to do something, for thirteen dollars a month, to put down the rebellion, which there was not money enough in the whole state of Wisconsin to hire me to do. Was it such a crime to carry a little quinine to a sick friend? Suppose a rebel was sick with ague, and I had quinine, would I see him shake himself out of his boots and not give him medicine? No, I would divide my last quinine powder with him. So would any soldier. If it was not treason to give one rebel a quinine powder, when he was sick, why should it be treason to take along enough for a whole lot of sick rebels? Did our government want to put down the rebellion by keeping medicines away from a sick enemy? Were we to gloat over the number of rebels who died of disease, that we could save by sending them medicines? It seemed to me, if I was in command of the army, instead of arresting women for carrying medicine to their sick brothers, I would load up a wagon with medicine and send it to them, and say, "Here, you fellows, fire this quinine down your necks, and get well, and then if you want to fight any more, come out on the field and we will give you the best turn in the wheel-house." It seemed to me that would be the way to win the enemy over, and that they would be thankful, take the medicine, get well, and then say, "Boys, these Yankees are pretty good fellows after all. Let's quit fighting, and call it quits." But I was not running the war, and had got to obey orders, if I broke heartstrings and corset strings. I would have given anything to have got out of the job. The idea of arresting a woman and searching her, and seeing her cry, and have her think me a hard-hearted wretch, was revolting, and I found myself wishing she would take some other road. May be she looked like somebody that I knew at home, and may be she had a big brother in the Confederate army who would look me up after the war and everlastingly maul the life out of me for insulting his sister. I made up my mind if anything of that kind happened I would tell on the general and the colonel, and get them whipped, too.

"Phat the divil is it coming," said the Irishman. "Corporal of the guaod, the quane of all the South is coming down the road, riding a high stepper. Phat will I do, I dunno?"

"Stop her," I yelled with my teeth chattering.

"Halt right fhere yez are," said the Irishman, with a look on his face that showed he was—well, that he was an Irishman, and had an eye for beauty. The German had taken the horse by the bit, and I stepped out from behind the school house.

Great heavens, but she was a beautiful woman, and she sat on her horse like a statue. I had never seen a more beautiful woman. She was a brunette, with large black eyes, and her face was flushed with the exercise of riding.

She smiled and showed two rows of the prettiest teeth that ever were put into a female mouth, and one ungloved hand, with which she handed me the pass had a dimple at every knuckle, and was as white as paper, and soft as silk. I know it was soft, because it touched my red, freckled hand when I took the pass. I did not blame the general for being in love with her, or for wanting to saw off the unpleasant duty of breaking up her smuggling, on to a poor orphan like me. She said:

"Captain, I have a pass from the general, to go through the lines at any time, unmollested."

"It is no good," I said, examining it. "This pass is evidently a forgery."

"But, my dear captain," she said, with a smile that I would give ten dollars for a picture of, "The pass is not a forgery. I have used it for months."

"I am not a dear captain, only a cheap corporal," I said, with an attempt to be at my ease, which I wasn't.

"There has been at least a wagon load of quinine smuggled through the lines on this pass, and it has got to stop; you cannot go."

"The dickens you say," said she as she drew her revolver, and sung out, "let go that horse," and firing at the German.

"Kritz-dunnerwetter," said the German, as he got down by the horse's fore feet, and held on to the bridle, "vot vor you choot a man ven he holt your horse?"

"Madame," I said, "your revolver is loaded with blank cartridges, and you can do no harm. Try another one on the Irishman."

"Hold on," said the Irishman, "and don't experiment on a poor man who has a wife and six children. Shoot the corporal."

But I had reached up and taken the revolver from her, and she was weak as a kitten. Her nerve had forsaken her, and when I told her to dismount she was like a rag, and had to be helped down. If she was beautiful before, now that she had started her tear mill, she was ravishingly radiant, and I felt like a villain. She leaned on my shoulder, and it was the loveliest burden a soldier ever held. I seated her on the steps of the schoolhouse, and I thought she would faint, but she didn't. She was evidently taken by surprise, and wanted a little time to think it over, and form a plan. So did I. As I looked her over, and thought what I was expected to do, I wondered where it would be best to commence. She began to recover, smiled at me and asked me to have the other soldiers go away, so she could talk with me. I wished she wouldn't smile like that, because it unnerved me. She asked me what I was going to do with her, what caused me to suspect her, if I would not believe her if she told me she was not a smuggler, if I had orders to arrest her, and all that. I said, "Madame, my orders are to arrest all quinine smugglers, and you are one. I am Hawkshaw, the detective. For months I have shadowed you, and I know you have concealed about your person a whole drug store. In that innocent looking bustle I feel that there is quinine for the million. Your heaving bosom contains, besides love for your friends and hatred of your enemies, a storehouse of useful medicines, contraband of war. In your stockings there is much that would interest the seeker after the truth, your corset that fits you so beautifully is liable to be full of revolver cartridges, while in your shoes there may be messages to the rebels. I shall search you from Genesis to Revelations, and may the Lord have mercy on both of us. To begin, please let me examine the hat you have on."

With some reluctance she took off a sort of half-stovepipe hat, and covered her face with her handkerchief while I looked into it. I found a package of newly printed confederate bonds, and a quantity of court plaster. That settled it. She cried a little, and wanted to go into the schoolhouse. I went in with her, and two of my soldiers.

I told her that it was a duty that was pretty tough, but it was necessary for her to disrobe, as I must have every article she had. She cried, and said if I searched her, or molested her, I would do it at my peril, and that I wouldn't know how to go to work to take off her clothes, anyway, and that I ought to be ashamed of myself. I told her I felt as ashamed as any gentleman could, and though I knew little about the details of the female apparel, I had some general ideas about bustles, polonaise, socks, skirts, and so forth, and while I might be awkward, and uncouth, and nervous, as long as there were buttons to unbutton, hooks to unhook, and safety-pins to unpin, I thought I could eventually get to the quinine, if she would give me time, and I did not faint by the wayside, but my idea was that it would save all trouble, her modesty would not receive a shock, nor mine either, if she would go behind the little pulpit in the schoolhouse, out of sight of us, take off her clothes, and hand them over the pulpit to us to examine. She said she would die first, besides, she knew we would peek around the pulpit at her. I was getting very nervous, and perspiring a good deal, and wishing it was over, and I swore, upon my honor, that if she would go behind the pulpit and disrobe, she should be as safe from intrusion as though she was in her own room. She swore she would not, and I went up to her to commence unraveling the mystery. Her dress hooked up in the back, which I always did think a great nuisance, and I began to unhook it. I wondered that she stood so quietly and let me unhook it, but after it was unhooked from the neck to the small of her back, and I was wishing I was dead, she said:

"There, now that you have got my dress unhooked, a feat I never could accomplish myself, I will go behind the pulpit and take off my dress, if you will promise not to look, and that you will help me hook up my dress when this cruel quinine war is over."

I told her by the great Jehosephat, and the continental congress, I would help her, and that I would kill anybody who looked, and she went behind the schoolhouse pulpit, where a country preacher, very likely, preached on Sundays, and bent over out of sight, and it wasn't half a minute before she handed the dress over to me. In the pockets I found several papers of some kind of medicine, and a few small bottles, sealed up with red sealing-wax.

"Now, the bustle, please, I said, in a voice trembling with emotion.

"Take your old bustle," she said, as she whacked it on the top of the pulpit.

Well, if anybody had told me that a bustle could be made to hold stuff enough to fill a bushel-basket, I would not have believed it. We filled three nose-bags, such as cavalrymen feed horses in, with paper packages and bottles of quinine. There were thirty bottles of pills, and salves and ointments, and plasters.

"This is panning out first rate," I said, with less emotion. The emotion was somehow getting out of me, and the affair was becoming more of a mercantile transaction. It was like a young druggist going from the side of his beloved, to the drug store, to take an inventory. "Now hand out that other lot."

She evidently knew what I referred to, for she handed out over the pulpit a package just exactly the shape of what I had supposed, in my guileless innocence, was a portion of the female form. That is, I had suspected it was not all human form, but didn't know. That was also full of medicines, of which quinine was the larger part, though there was about a pint of gun caps.

"Speaking about stockings," I said, "please take them off and hand them over."



She kicked about taking off her shoes and stockings, and said no gentleman would compel a lady to do that. I said I would wait about two minutes, and then, if it was too much trouble for her to take them off, I would come around the pulpit and help. Bless you, I wouldn't have gone for the world, as I was already more than satisfied with what I had found. She said I needn't trouble myself, as she guessed she could take off her shoes without my help. I heard her unlacing her shoes, and pretty soon two dainty shoes and two very long stockings, came over the pulpit, the heel of one shoe hitting me in the ear. As I picked up the shoes I heard the crumpling of a letter behind the pulpit, and I told her I must have all the messages she had. She said it was only a letter to one she loved. I told her I must have it, and she handed it over. I read, "My darling husband," and handed it back, saying I would not pry into her family secrets. She began to cry, and insisted on my reading it, which I did. It was to her husband, an officer in the Confederate army, and was about as follows:

"My Darling Husband:—This life of deception is killing me. I want to do all in my power to help our cause, but I am each day more nervous, and liable to detection. The Yankee officers are frequently at our house, and I have to treat them kindly, but it is all I can do to keep from crying, and I am expected to laugh. I fear that I am suspected of smuggling, as the subject is frequently brought up in conversation, and I feel my face burn, though I try hard not to show it. I think of you, away off in Virginia, with your armless sleeve, our children in New Orleans, and I wonder if we will ever be united again. O, God, when will this all end. I have no fault to find with the Federal troops. The officers are very kind and through one fatherly general I am allowed to pass into our lines. I feel that I am betraying his kindness every trip I make, and only the urgent need that our dear boys have for medicines could induce me to do as I do. After this trip I shall go to New Orleans,{*} where I fear Madge is sick, as shew as not at all well the last I heard from her. Pray earnestly, my dear husband, every day, as I do, that this trouble may end soon, some way, and I beg of you not to have a feeling of revenge in your heart towards your enemies, on account of the loss of your arm, as there are thousands of federals similarly afflicted. I shall love you more, and I will wrap your empty sleeve about my neck, and try never to miss the strong arm that was my support. Adieu.

"Your loving wife."

That letter knocked me out in one round. I had begun to enjoy the unpacking of the smuggled goods, and the discomfiture of my female smuggler, but when I read that loving letter, breathing such a Christian spirit, and thought of the poor wife-mother behind the pulpit unravelling herself, I was ashamed, and I said to myself, "she shall not take off another rag. So I handed back the letter and the dress, and all of the things she had taken off, and I said:

"Put everything right back onto yourself, and come out at your leisure, and we took the medicines and went out of the schoolhouse. Presently She came out, and I told her it was my duty to take her back to headquarters, but if she had no objections to my taking the letter to the general, with the medicines, she could go back to the house where she boarded, and I thought if she took the first boat for New Orleans, it would be all right, and I would see that the letter was sent through the lines to her husband. I helped her on her horse, and I said:

"You can escape. Your horse is better than ours, and though you are a prisoner, we would not shoot at you if you tried to escape. I hope your prayers will have the effect you desire, and that the trouble will soon be over. I hope you will and the children well, and that the husband will be spared to be a comfort to you."

She bowed her head, as she sat in the saddle, and the look of defiance which she had shown, was gone, and one of thankfulness, peace, hope, purity, took its place. She handed me the letter, and asked:

"Can I go?"

I told, her she was free to go. She turned her horse; towards town, touched him with the whip, and he was; away like the wind. I stood for two minutes, watching her, when I was recalled to my senses by the Irishman, who said:

"Fhat are we to do wid the quinane and the gun caps?" We packed the smuggled goods in our saddle-bags and elsewhere, and rode back to headquarters. The colonel and the general were in the colonel's tent, and I took the "stuff" in and reported all the occurrences.

"But where is the lady?" inquired the general, after reading the letter and wiping his eyes.

"As we were about to start back," said I, "after taking the smuggled goods from her, she gave her horse the whip, and rode away. I had no orders to shoot a woman, and I let her go."

"Thank God," said the general. "That's the best way," said the colonel. "She will quit smuggling and go to her children."

*Eighteen months after the lady rode away from me, "leaving" her quinine, I was in New Orleans, to be mustered in as Second Lieutenant, having received a commsssion. I had bought me a fine uniform, and thought I was about as cunning a looking officer as ever was. I was walking on Canal street, looking in the windows, and finally went into a store to buy some collars. A gentleman came in with a gray uniform on, and one sleeve empty. He was evidently a Confederate officer. He asked me if I did not belong to a certain cavalry regiment, and if my name was not so and so. I told him he was correct. He told me there was a lady in an adjoining store that wanted to see me. I did not know a soul, that is, a female soul, in New Orleans, but I went with him. Any lady that wanted to see me, in my new uniform, could see me. As we entered the store a lady left two little girls and rushed up to me, threw her arms around my neck and —(say, does a fellow have to tell everything, when he writes a war history?) Well, she was awfully tickled to see me, and she was my smuggler, the Confederate was her husband, and the children were hers. The officer was as tickled as she was, and they compelled me to go to their house to dinner, and I enjoyed it very much. We talked over the arrest of the "female smuggler," and she said to her husband, "Pa, it was an awfully embarrassing situation for me and this Yankee, but he treated me like a lady, and the only thing I have to find fault about, is that he forgot to help me hook up my dress, and I rode clear to town with it unhooked." The Confederate had been discharged at the surrender, and I was on my way to Texas, to serve another year, hunting Indians. I left them very happy, and as I went out of their door she wrapped his empty sleeve around her waist, drew the children up to her, and said, "Mr. Yankee, may you always be very happy."



CHAPTER XIII.

The Female Smuggler Episode Makes Me Famous—I am Sent Forth in Women's Clothes—My Interview with the Bad Corporal—A Fist Fight—The Rebellion is Put Down Once More—I Reveal My Identity.

It was not twenty-four hours before the news spread all over my regiment, as well as several other regiments, that a certain corporal had captured a female smuggler, while on picket, had searched her on the spot and found a large quantity of quinine and other articles contraband of war, and there was a general desire to look upon the features of a man, not a commissioned officer who had gall enough to search a female rebel, from top to toe, without orders from the commanding officer, and I was constantly being visited by curiosity-seekers, who wanted to know all about it. Of course it was not known that I had been ordered to do as I did, and they all wondered why I was not made an example of; and many privates, corporals and sergeants wondered if they would get out of it so easily if they should do as I did. There were a great many women passing through the lines, and I am sure many soldiers decided that the first woman who attempted to pass through would get searched. It was talked among the men, and for a day or two a lady would certainly have stood a poor show to have rode up to a picket post with a pass to go outside. The soldiers had so long been away from female society that it would have been a picnic for them to have captured a suspicious looking woman who was pretty. I was pointed out, down town, as the man who captured the woman loaded with quinine, and women with rebel tendencies would look at me as though I was a bold, bad man that ought to be killed, and they acted as though they would like to eat me. But I tried to appear modest, and not as though I had done anything I was particularly proud of. The next evening the colonel sent for me and said he had got something for me to do that required nerve. I told him that my experience in putting down the rebellion had shown me that the whole thing required nerve. That I had been on my nerve until my nerves were pretty near used up, and I asked him if he couldn't let some of the other boys do a little of the nervous work. He said he had one more woman job that he would like to have me undertake.

I was sick of the whole woman business, and told him I did not want to be aggravated any more; that arresting women and searching them, was nothing but an aggravation, and I wanted to be let out. He said in this case I would not have to arrest anybody of the female persuasion, but that I would have to be arrested, and that it would be the greatest joke that ever was. I told him if there was any joke about it he could count me in. Then he went on to say that my success with the female smuggler had excited all the boys to emulate my deeds, and they were all laying for a female smuggler, and that he feared it wouldn't be safe for a woman to be caught on the picket line. There had got to be a stop put to it, and he and the general had thought of a scheme. He said there was a corporal in one of the companies who had made his brags that he would arrest the first female that came to his picket post, and search her for smuggled goods, and they wanted to make an example of him. He asked me if I wasn't something of a boxer, and I told him for a light weight I was considered pretty good. Then he asked me if I could ride on a side saddle. I told him I could ride anything, from a hobby to an elephant. He said that was all right, and I would fill the bill. Then he went into details. I was to go to the town with him, and be fitted out with a riding habit of the female persuasion, false hair, side saddle, and a bustle as big as a bushel basket. That I was to ride out on a certain road, where the corporal would be on picket with two men. He would stop me, and search me, I was to cry, and beg, and all that, but finally submit to be searched, and after the corporal had got started to search me, I was to haul off and give him one "biff" in the nose, another if it was necessary to knock him down, paste one of the men in the ear, if he showed any impudence, jump on my horse and come back to town, and leave the corporal to find his mistake.

I didn't half like the idea of dressing up in such a masquering costume, but of course if I could help put down the rebellion that way, it was my duty to do it, and besides, I had a grudge against that corporal, anyway, because he called me a "jay" and a "substitute," and a "drafted man," when I came to the regiment. The colonel took me to the residence of a lady friend who rode on horseback a good deal, and as he let her into the secret, she helped fix me up. All I had to do was to remove my cavalry jacket, and she put the dress on over my head. I always supposed they put on these dresses the same as men put on pants, by walking into them feet first, but she said they went over the head. I felt as though my pants were going to show, but she gave me some instructions about keeping the dress down, and I began to feel a good deal like a woman. The dress fit me around the waist as though it was made for me, and when it was all buttoned up in front I felt stunning. She and the colonel made a bustle out of newspapers, and a small sofa cushion of eider down was placed where it would do the most good. After the dress was all fixed, she got a wig and put it on my head, and a hat, with a feather in it, and then pinned a veil on the hair, so it reached down to my rose-bud mouth. Then she took a powder arrangement and powdered my face, put on a pair of long gauntlets which she usually wore, and told me to look in the glass. When I looked into the glass I almost fainted. The deception was so good that it would have fooled the oldest man in the world.

The colonel said he was almost inclined to fall in love with me himself, and he did put his arm around me and squeeze me, but I didn't notice any particular feeling, such as I did when his lady friend was fooling around me. That was different. Well, I was an inveterate smoker at that time, so I took my pipe and a bag of tobacco, and put it in a pocket of the dress, and some matches, and we went out doors. The colonel took my tiny number eight boot in his hand and tossed me lightly into the saddle, then he mounted his own horse and we rode around the suburbs of the town, so I could get used to the side-saddle. I got him to stop behind a fence and let me have a smoke out of my pipe, and then I told him I was ready. He gave me a pass, and told me to go out on the road the corporal was on, and if he let me pass out of the lines to go on to a turn in the road, where a squad of our men were on a scout, and to report to the officer in charge, who would bring me in all right, by another road, but if the corporal attempted to search me, to do as I had been told to do. After I had knocked the corporal down, if I would give a yell, the officer who was outside would come and arrest us all and bring us to headquarters, where the colonel could reprimand the corporal, etc. I threw a kiss to the colonel and started out on the road. It was about a mile to the picket post, and I had time to reflect on my position. This was putting down the rebellion at a great rate. I was an ostensible female, liable to be insulted at any moment, but I would maintain the dignity of my alleged sex if I didn't lay up a cent. I put on a proud, haughty look, full of purity and all that, and as I neared the picket post, I saw the corporal step out into the road, and as I came up he told me to halt. I halted, and handed him my pass, but he said it was a forgery, and ordered me to dismount. I turned on the water, from my eyes, and began to cry, but it run off the bad corporal like water off a duck.