"None of your sniveling around me," said the vile man. "Get down off that horse."

"Sir," I said, with well feigned indignation, "you would not molest a poor girl who has no one to defend her. Let me go I prithe."

I had read that, "Let me go I prithe," in a novel, and it seemed to me to be the proper thing to say, though I couldn't hardly keep from laughing.

"Prithe nothing," said the corporal. "What you got in that bustle?" said the corporal.

"Bustle," I said, blushing so you could have touched a match to my face. "Why speak of such a thing in the presence of a lady. I want you to let me go or I shall think you are real mean, so now. Please, Mr. Soldier, let me go," and I smiled at him and winked with my left eye in a manner that ought to have paralyzed a marble statue. "O, what you giving us," said the vile man. "Get down off that horse and let me go through you for quinine. Do you hear?"

I was afraid if he helped me down he would see my boots or pants, which would be a give-away. So I gathered my dress in my hands and jumped down in pretty good shape. I had sparred with the corporal several times in camp, and I knew I could knock him out easy, and I made up my mind that the first indignity he offered me I would just "lam him one. It was all I could do to keep from pasting him in the nose, when I first landed on the ground, but I had a part to play, and it would not do to go off half cocked. So I looked sad, pouted my lips, and wondered if he would kiss me, and feel the beard where I had been shaved.

"Now, shuck yourself," said he.

"Do what? I asked, with apparent alarm.

"Peel," said he, as he put his hand on my back,

"Sir," I said with my eyes flashing fire, and my heart throbbing, and almost bursting with suppressed laughter, "you are insolent. I am a poor orphan, unused to contact with coarse men. I have been raised a pet, and no vile hand has ever been laid upon me until you just touched me. If you touch me I shall scream. I shall call for help. What would you do, you wicked, naughty man."

"Unbutton," said he as he pointed to my dress in front. "Call for help and be darned. You are a smuggler, and I know it."

"O, my God," said I, with a stage accent, "has it come to this? Am I to be robbed of all I hold dear, by a common Yankee corporal. Has a woman no rights which are to be respected? Am I to be murdered in cold bel-lud, with all my sins upon my head. O, Mr. Man, give me a moment to utter a silent prayer."

"O, hush," said he, "and hold up your hands. There ain't going to be any bel-lud. All I want is to go through you for quinine."

"Spare me, I beseech you," I said, as I held up my hands, and got in position to knock him silly the first move he made. "I am no walking drug store, I am a good girl." Around my awful form I draw an imaginary circle. "Step but one foot within that sacred circle, and on thy head I launch the cu-r-r-r-se of Rome, Georgia."



"Let up on this Shakespeare, and get to busiess, said the corporal, as he reached up to my neck to unbutton the top button of my dress. He was looking at my dress, and wondering what he would find concealed within, when I brought down both fists and took him with one in each eye, with a force that would have knocked a mule down. He fell backwards, and gave a yell that could have been heard a mile. Then one of his men started for me and I knocked him in the ear, and he fell beside the corporal. The other man was going to come for his share, when the officer who had been stationed outside the lines rode up with his men and asked what was the matter. The soldier-who was not hit said I had assassinated the corporal. The officer said that was wrong, and women who would go around killing off the Union army with their fists ought to be arrested. Just then the corporal raised up on his elbow and tried to open two of the blackest eyes that ever were seen. Turning to the officer, he said:

"That woman is a smuggler, and she struck me with a brick house!

"Ancient female," said the officer, looking at me and laughing, "why do you go around like a besum of destruction, wiping out armies, one man at a time. You ought to be ashamed of myself, and you should be muzzled.

"Don't call me a female," said I, in my natural hoarse voice. "That is something that I will not submit to."

The corporal looked up at me with one eye, the other being almost closed from the effects of the fall of the brick house. He looked as though he smelled woolen burning, as the old saying is. The officer said he guessed he would take us all to headquarters, and inquire into the affair. The corporal said that there was nothing to inquire into. That this female came along and insisted on going outside of the lines, and when he asked her, in a polite manner, to show her pass, she struck him down with a billy, or some weapon she had concealed about her person.

"You are not much of a liar, either," said I, jumping on to my horse astraddle, like a man.

The corporal looked at me as though he would sink, but he maintained that he had done nothing that should offend the most fastidious female. The corporal and his men mounted, and we all started for headquarters. I rode beside the officer, and the corporal was right behind me. After we had got started I pulled out my pipe, filled it, lit a match as soldiers usually do, though it was quite unhandy, and began to smoke. As the tobacco smoke rolled out under my veil, from the alleged rosebud mouth, the scene was one that the corporal and the most of the men had never thought of, though the officer was "on" all right enough. The corporal could hardly believe his eyes, or one eye, for the other one had gone closed. I was a fine enough looking female as we rode through the regiment, except the pipe, which I puffed along just as though I had no dress on. As we rode up to the colonel's tent, it was noised around that a scout had captured a daring female rebel, and she had almost killed a corporal, and the whole regiment gathered around the colonel's tent.

"What is the trouble, corporal?" asked the colonel of my black-eyed friend.

"Well this woman wanted to go outside, and when I objected, she knocked me down with a rail off a fence."

"And you offered her no indignity?" the colonel asked.

"Not in the least," said the corporal.

Then the colonel asked me to tell my story, which I did. The corporal said it was a lie, but the other man, whom I did not hit, said I was right.

"Can you disrobe, before these soldiers, without getting off your horse?" asked the colonel, looking at me.

I told him I could and he told me to proceed. I pulled the hat and hair off first and appeared with my red hair clipped short. I then I threw the dress over my head, and appeared in my cavalry pants, all dressed, except my jacket and cap, which the colonel handed me, having brought it from the house where I put on the dress. I put on the jacket, wiped the powder off my face, and the corporal said:

"It's that condemned raw recruit."

All the boys took in the transformation scene, and then the colonel told them that he wanted this to be a lesson to all of them, to let all women who came to the picket posts, or anywhere, who had passes, alone, and not think because one woman had been caught smuggling, that all women were smugglers. In fact he wanted every soldier to mind his own business. Then he dismissed us, and we went to our quarters. On the way, the one-eyed corporal touched me on the arm, and he said:

"Old man, you played it fine on me, but I will get even with you yet."



CHAPTER XIV.

Military Attire—My Suit of Government Clothes—The Memory of Them Saddens Me Still—The Dreadful March—The Adjutant Appoints Me to Make Out a Monthly Report—The Report Is an Astonishing One.

About this time I received the greatest shock of the whole war. I had prided myself upon my uniform that I brought from home, which was made by a tailor, and fit me first rate. It was of as good cloth and as well made as the uniforms of any of the officers, and I was not ashamed to go out with a party of officers on a little evening tear, because there was nothing about my uniform to distinguish me from an officer, except the shoulder-straps, and many officers did not wear shoulder-straps at all, except on dress parade or inspection. I took great pleasure in riding around town, wherever the regiment was located, looking wise, and posing as an officer. But the time came when my uniform, which came with me as a recruit, became seedy, and badly worn, and it was necessary to discard it, and draw some clothing of the quartermaster. That is a trying time for a recruit. One day it was announced that the quartermaster sergeant had received a quantity of clothing, and the men were ordered to go and draw coats, pants, hats, shoes, overcoats, and underclothing, as winter was coming on, and the regiment was liable to move at any time. Something happened that I was unable to be present the first forenoon that clothing was issued, and, when I did call upon the quartermaster-sergeant, there was only two or three suits left, and they had been tumbled over till they looked bad. I can remember now how my heart sank within me, as I picked up a pair of pants that was left. They were evidently cut out with a buzz-saw, and were made for a man that weighed three hundred. I held them up in installments, and looked at them. Holding them by the top, as high as I could, and the bottom of the legs of the pants laid on the ground. The sergeant charged the pants to my account, and then handed me a jacket, a small one, evidently made for a hump-backed dwarf. The jacket was covered with yellow braid. O, so yellow, that it made me sick. The jacket was charged to me, also. Then he handed me some undershirts and drawers, so coarse and rough that it seemed to me they must have been made of rope, and lined with sand-paper. Then came an overcoat, big enough for an equestrian statue of George Washington, with a cape on it as big as a wall tent. The hat I drew was a stiff, cheap, shoddy hat, as high as a tin camp kettle, which was to take the place of my nobby, soft felt hat that I had paid five dollars of my bounty money for. The hat was four sizes too large for me. Then I took the last pair of army shoes there was, and they weighed as much as a pair of anvils, and had raw-hide strings to fasten them with. Has any old soldier of the army ever forgotten the clothing that he drew from the quartermaster? These inverted pots for hats, the same size all the way up, and the shoes that seemed to be made of sole leather, and which scraped the skin off the ankles. O, if this government ever does go to Gehenna, as some people contend it will, sometime, it will be as a penalty for issuing such ill-fitting shoddy clothing to its brave soldiers, who never did the government any harm. I carried the lot of clothing to my tent, feeling sick and faint. The idea of wearing them among folks was almost more than I could bear to think of. I laid them on my bunk, and looked at them, and "died right there." That hat was of a style older than Methuselah. O, I could have stood it, all but the hat, and pants, and shoes, but they killed me. While I was looking at the lay-out, and trying to make myself believe that my old clothes that I brought with me were good enough to last till the war was over, though the seat of the pants, and the knees, and the sleeves of the coat were nearly gone, an orderly came through the company and said the regiment would have a dismounted dress parade at sundown, and every man must wear his new clothes. Ye gods! that was too much! If I could have had a week or ten days to get used to those new clothes, one article at a time, I could have stood it, but to be compelled to put the pants, and jacket, shoes and hat on all at once, was horrible to think of, and if I had not known that a deserter was always caught, and punished, I would have deserted. But the clothes must be put on, and I must go out into the world a spectacle to behold. Believing that it is better to face the worst, and have it over, I put on the pants first. If I could ever meet the army contractor who furnished those pants to a government almost in the throes of dissolution, I would kill him as I would an enemy of the human race. There was room enough in those pants for a man and a horse. Yes, and a bale of hay. There were no suspenders furnished to the men, and how to keep the pants from falling from grace was a question, but I got a piece of tent rope, cut a hole in the waist band, and run the rope around inside, and tied it around my waist, puckering the top of the pants at proper intervals.

When I think of those pants now, after twenty-two years, I wonder that I was not irretrievably lost in them. I would have been lost if I had not stuck out of the top. But when I looked at the bottoms of the pants I found at least a foot too much. If I had tied the rope around under my arms, or buttoned them to my collar button, they would have been too long at the bottom. I finally rolled them up at the bottom, and they rolled clear up above my knees. But how they did bag around my body. There was cloth enough to spare to have made a whole uniform for the largest man in the regiment. At that time I was a slim fellow, that weighed less than 125 pounds, and there is no doubt I got the largest pair of pants that was issued in the whole Union army. I only had a-small round mirror in my tent, so I could not see how awfully I looked, only in installments, but to a sensitive young man who had always dressed well, any one can see how a pair of such pants would harrow up his soul. If the pants were too large, you ought to have seen the jacket. The contractor who made the clothes evidently took the measure of a monkey to make that jacket. It was so small that I could hardly get it on. The sleeves were so tight that the vaccination marks on my arm must have shown plainly. The sleeves were too short, and my hands and half of my forearm riding outside. The body was so tight that I had to use a monkey-wrench to button it, and then I couldn't breathe without unbuttoning one button. It was so tight that my ribs showed so plain they could be counted.

I stuffed some pieces of grain sack in the shoes, and got them on, and tied them, put on that awful hat, the bugle sounded to fall in, and I fell out of my tent towards the place of assembly, with my carbine. If we had been going out mounted, I could have managed to hide some of the pants around the saddle, if I could have got my shoe over the horse's back, but to walk out among men, stubbing my shoes against each other, and interfering and knocking my ankles off, was pretty hard. The company was about formed when I fell out of my tent, and when the men saw me they snickered right out. I have heard a great many noises in my time that took the life out of me.

The first shell that I heard whistle through the air, and shriek, and explode, caused my hair to raise, and I was cold all up and down my spine. The first flock of minnie bullets that sang about my vicinity caused my flesh to creep and my heart's blood to stand still. Once I was near a saw mill when the boiler exploded, and as the pieces of boiler began to rain around me, I felt how weak and insignificant a small, red-headed, freckled-faced man is. Once I heard a girl say "no," when I had asked her a civil question, and I was so pale and weak that I could hardly reply that I didn't care a continental whether she married me or not, but I never felt quite so weak, and powerless, and ashamed, and desperate as I did when I came out, falling over myself and the men of my company snickered at my appearance. The captain held his hand over his face and laughed. I fell in at the left of my company, and the captain went to the right and looked down the line, and seeing my pants out in front about a foot, he ordered me to stand back. I stood back, and he looked at the rear of the line, and I stuck out worse behind, and he made me move up. Finally he came down to where I was and told me to throw out my chest. I tried to throw it out, and busted a button off, but the pressure was too great, and my chest went back. Finally the captain told me I could go to the right of the company and act as orderly sergeant on dress parade. He said as our company was on the right of the regiment, they could dress on my pants, and I wouldn't be noticed.

What I ought to have done, was to have committed suicide right there, but I went to the right, trying to look innocent, and we moved off to the field for dress parade. Everything went on well enough, except that in coming to a "carry arms," with my carbine, from a present, the muzzle of the carbine knocked off my stiff hat, and the stock of the carbine went into the pocket of my pants and run clear down my leg, before I could rescue it. A file closer behind me picked up my hat and put it on me, with the yellow cord tassels in front, and before I could fix it, the order came, "First sergeants to the front and center, march." Those who are familiar with military matters, know that at dress parade the first sergeants march a few paces to the front, then turn and march to the center of the regiment, turn and face the adjutant, and each salutes that officer in turn, and reports, "Co. ——, all present or accounted for." That was the hardest march I ever had in all of my army experience. I knew that every eye of every soldier in the six companies at the right of the regiment, would be on my pants, and the officers would laugh at me, and the several hundred ladies and gentlemen from town, who were back of the colonel, witnessing the dress parade, would laugh, too. A man can face death, in the discharge of his duty, better than he can face the laughter of a thousand people. I seemed to be the only soldier in the whole regiment who had not got a pretty good fit in drawing his new clothes, but I was a spectacle. As I marched to the front, with the other eleven first sergeants, and stood still for them to dress on me, I felt as though the piece of tent rope with which I had fastened my large pants up, was becoming untied, and I began to perspire. What would become of me if that rope should become untied? If that rope gave way, it seemed to me it would break up the whole army, stampede the visitors, and cause me to be court-martialed for conduct unbecoming any white man. I made up my mind if the worst came, I would drop my carbine and grab the pants with both hands, and save the day. At the command, right and left face, I turned to the left, and I could feel the pants begin to droop, as it were, so I took hold of the top of them with my left hand, and at the command, march, I started for the center.

I had got almost past my own company, and there had been no general laugh, but when I passed an Irishman, named Mulcahy, I heard him whisper out loud to the man next to him, "Howly Jasus, luk at the pants." Then there was a snicker all through the company, which was taken up by the next, and by the time I got to the center, and "front faced," a half of the regiment were laughing, and the officers were scolding the men and whispering to them to shut up. Just then I felt that the one hand that was trying to hold the pants up, was never going to do the work in the world, so I dropped my carbine behind me, said, "Co. E, all present or accounted for," and stood there like a stoughton bottle, holding the waist-band of those pants with both hands, as pale as a ghost. I could see that the adjutant and the colonel and two majors, were laughing, and many of the visitors were trying to keep from laughing. I think I lived seventy years in five minutes, while the other eleven orderlies were reporting, and when the order came to return to our posts, I whispered to the next orderly to me, and told him if he would pick up my carbine and bring it along, I would die for him, and he picked it up. The dress parade was soon finished, but instead of marching the companies back to their quarters, they were ordered to break ranks on the parade ground, and for an hour I was surrounded with officers and men, who laughed at me till I thought I would die.

The colonel and adjutant finally told me that it was a put up job on me, to make a little fun for the boys. They said I had often had fun at the expense of the other boys, and they wanted to see if I could stand a joke on myself, and they admitted that I had done it well. If I had known it was a joke, I could have lived through it better. The adjutant said he had got a little work for me that evening, and the next morning I could take my clothes down town to the post quartermaster, and exchange them for a suit that would fit me. I went to his tent, and he showed me a lot of company reports, and wanted me to make out a consolidated monthly report, for the assistant adjutant general of the brigade. I had done some work for him before, and he left a blank signed by himself and colonel, and told me to make out a report and send it to the brigade headquarters, as he was going down town with a party of officers. I made up my mind that I would get even with the adjutant and the colonel, so I took a pen and filled out the blank. My idea was to put all the figures in the wrong column, which I did, and send it to the brigade headquarters. The next morning I went down town with the quartermaster, and got a suit of clothes to fit me, and on the way back to camp I passed brigade headquarters, when I saw our adjutant looking quite dejected. He called to me and said he had been summoned to brigade headquarters to explain some inaccuracies in the monthly report sent in the night before, and he wanted me to stay and see what was the trouble, but I acted as though if there was a mistake, it was an error of the head rather than of the feet. Pretty soon the old brigade adjutant, who was a strict diciplinarian, and a man who never heard of a joke, came in from the general's tent, with his brow corrugated. They had evidently been brooding over the report.

"I beg your pardon, adjutant," said he, with a preoccupied look, "but in your report I observe that your regiment contains forty-three enlisted men, and nine hundred and twenty-six company cooks. This seems to me improbable, and the general cannot seem to understand it."

The adjutant turned red in the face, and was about to stammer out something, when the adjutant general continued:

"Again, we observe that your quartermaster has on hand nine hundred bales of condition powders, which is placed in your report as rations for the men, that you only have eleven horses in your regiment fit for duty, that you have the same number of men, while the commissioned officers foot up at nine hundred and twenty-six. Of your sick men there seems to be plenty, some eight hundred, which would indicate an epidemic, of which these headquarters had not been informed previously. In the column headed "officers detailed on other duty" I find four "six-mule teams," and one "spike team of five mules." In the column "officers absent without leave" I find the entry "all gone off on a drunk." This, sir, is the most incongruous report that has ever been received at these head-quarters, from a reputably sober officer. Can this affair be satisfactorily explained, at once, or would you prefer to explain it to a court-martial?"

"Captain," said the adjutant in distress, and perspiring freely, "my clerk has made a mistake, and placed a piece of waste paper that has been scribbled on, in the envelope, instead of the regular report. Let me take it, and I will send the proper report to you in ten minutes."

The adjutant general handed over my report, after asking how it happened that the signature of the colonel and adjutant was on the ridiculous report, and the adjutant and the red-headed recruit went out, mounted and rode away. On the way the adjutant said, "I ought to kill you on the spot. But I wont. You have only retaliated on us for playing them pants on you. I hate a man that can't take a joke."

Then we made out a new report, and I took it to headquarters, and all was well. But the adjutant was not as kitteny with his jokes on the other fellows for many moons.



CHAPTER XV.

My Experience as a Sick Man—Jim Thinks I Have Yellow Fever— What I Suffered—A Rebel Angel—I am Sent to the Hospital.

Up to this time I had never been sick a day in my life, that is, sick enough to ache and groan and grunt, and lay in bed. At home I had occasionally had a cold, and I was put to bed at night, after drinking a quart of ginger tea, and covered up with blankets in a warm room, and I was fussed over by loving hands until I got to sleep, and in the morning I would wake up as fresh as a daisy, with my cold all gone. Once or twice at home I had a bilious attack that lasted me almost twenty-four hours; but the old family doctor fired blue pills down me, and I came under the wire an easy winner. I did have the mumps and the measles, of course before enlisting, but the loving care I was given brought me out all right, and I looked upon those little sicknesses as a sort of luxury. The people at home would do everything to make sick experiences far from bitter memories. It was getting along towards Christmas of my first year in the army, and though it was the Sunny South we were in, I noticed that it was pretty all-fired cold. The night rides were full of fog and malaria; and one morning I came in from an all-night ride through the woods and swamps, feeling pretty blue. The mud around my tent was frozen, and there was a little snow around in spots. As I laid down in my bunk to take a snooze before breakfast, I noticed how awfully thin an army blanket was. It was good enough for summer, but when winter came the blanket seemed to have lost its cunning. I was again doing duty as a private soldier, having learned that my promotion to the position of corporal was only temporary. I had been what is called a "lance corpora," or a brevet corporal. It seemed hard, after tasting of the sweets of official position, to be returned to the ranks, but I had to take the bitter with the sweet, and a soldier must not kick. I had never laid down to sleep before without dropping off into the land of dreams right away, but now, though I was tired enough, my eyes were wide open and I felt strange. At times I would be so hot that I would throw the blanket off, and then I would be so cold that it seemed as though I would freeze. I had taken a severe cold which had settled everywhere, and there was not a bone in my body but what ached; my lungs seemed of no use; I could not take a long breath without a hacking cough, and I felt as though I should die. It was then that I thought of the warm little room at home and the ginger tea, and the soaking of my feet in mustard water and wrapping my body in a soft flannel blanket, and the kindly faces of my parents, my sister, my wife—everybody that had been kind to me. I would close my eyes and imagine I could see them all, and open my eyes and see my cold little tent and shiver as I thought of being sick away from home. I laid for an hour wishing I was home again; and while alone there I made up my mind I would write home and warn all the boys I knew against enlisting. The thought that I should die there alone was too much, and I was about to yell for help when my tent mate, who had been on a scout, came in. He was a big green Yankee, who had a heart in him as big as a water pail, but he wasn't much, of a nurse. He came in nearly frozen, threw his saddle down in a corner, took out a hard tack and began to chew it, occasionally taking a drink of water out of a canteen. That was his breakfast.

"Well, I've got just about enough of war," said he, as he picked his teeth with a splinter off his bunk, and filled his pipe and lit it. "They can't wind up this business any too soon to suit the old man. War in the summer is a picnic, but in winter it is wearin on the soldier."

Heretofore I had enjoyed tobacco smoke very much, both from my own pipe and Jim's, but when he blew out the first whiff of smoke it went to my head and stomach and all up and down me, and I yelled, in a hoarse, pneumonia sort of voice:

"Jim, for God's sake don't smoke. I am at death's door, and I don't want to smell of tobacco smoke when St. Peter opens the gate."

"What, pard, you ain't sick," said Jim, putting his pipe outside of the tent, and coming to me and putting his great big hand on my forehead, as tender as a woman.

"Great heavens! you have got the yellow fever. You won't live an hour."

That was where Jim failed as a nurse. He made things out worse than they were. He, poor old fellow, thought it was sympathy, and if I had let him go on he would have had me dead before night. I told him I was all right. All I had was a severe cold, on my lungs, and pneumonia, and rheumatism, and chills and fever, and a few such things, but I would be all right in a day or two. I wanted to encourage Jim to think I was not very bad off, but he wouldn't have it. He insisted that I had typhoid fever, and glanders, and cholera. He went right out of the tent and called in the first man he met, who proved to be the horse doctor. The horse doctor was a friend of mine, and a mighty good fellow, but I had never meditated having him called in to doctor me. However, he felt of my fore leg, looked at my eyes, rubbed the hair the wrong way on my head, and told Jim to bleed me in the mouth, and blanket me, and give me a bran mash, and rub some mustang liniment on my chest and back. I didn't want to hurt the horse doctor's feelings by going back on his directions, but I told him I only wanted to soak my feet in mustard water, and take some ginger tea. He said all right, if I knew more about it than he did, and that he said he would skirmish around for some ginger, while Jim raised the mustard, and they both went out and left me alone. It seemed an age before anybody come, and I thought of home all the time, and of the folks who would know just what to do if I was there. Pretty soon Jim came in with a camp kettle half full of hot water, and a bottle of French mixed mustard which he had bought of the sutler. I told him I wanted plain ground mustard, but he said there wasn't any to be found, and French mustard was the best he could do. We tried to dissolve it in the water, but it wouldn't work, and finally Jim suggested that he take a mustard spoon and plaster the French mustard all over my feet, and then put them to soak that way. He said that prepared mustard was the finest kind for pigs feet and sausage, and he didn't know why it was not all right to soak feet in. So he plastered it on and I proceeded to soak my feet. I presume it was the most unsuccessful case of soaking feet on record. The old camp kettle was greasy, and when the hot water and French mustard began to get in their work on the kettle, the odor was sickening, and I do not think I was improved at all in my condition. I told Jim I guessed I would lay down and wait for the ginger tea. Pretty soon the horse doctor came in with a tin cup full of hot ginger tea. I took one swallow of it and I thought I had swallowed a blacksmith's forge, with a coal fire in it. I gasped and tried to yell murder. The horse doctor explained that he couldn't get any ginger, so he had taken cayenne pepper, which, he added, could knock the socks off of ginger any day in the week. I felt like murdering the horse doctor, and I felt a little hard at Jim for playing French mustard on me, but when I come to reflect, I could see that they had done the best they could, and I thanked them, and told them to leave me alone and I would go to sleep. They went out of the tent and I could hear them speculating on my case. Jim said he knew I had diabetis, and lung fever combined, with sciatic rheumatism, and brain fever, and if I lived till morning the horse doctor could take it out of his wages. The horse doctor admitted that my case had a hopeless look, but he once had a patient, a bay horse, sixteen hands high, and as fine a saddle horse as a man ever threw a leg over, that was troubled exactly the same as I was. He blistered his chest, gave him a table-spoonful of condition powders three times a day in a bran mash, took off his shoes and turned him out to grass, and in a week he sold him for two hundred and fifty dollar. I laid there and tried to go to sleep listening to that talk. Then, some of the boys who had heard that I was sick, came along and inquired how I was, and I listened to the remarks they made. One of them wanted to go and get some burdock leaves, and pound them into a pulp, and bind them on me for a poultice. He said he had an aunt in Wisconsin who had a milk sickness, and her left leg swelled up as big as a post, and the doctors tried everything, and charged her over two hundred dollars, and never did her any good, and one day an Indian doctor came along and picked some burdock leaves and fixed a poultice for her, and in a week she went to a hop-picker's dance, and was as kitteny as anybody, and the Indian doctor only charged her a quarter. Jim was for going out for burdock leaves at once, for me, but the horse doctor told him I didn't have no milk sickness. He said all the milk soldiers got was condensed milk, and mighty little of that, and he would defy the world to show that a man could get milk sickness on condensed milk. That seemed to settle the burdock remedy, and they went to inquiring of Jim if he knew where my folks lived, so he could notify them, in case I was not there in the morning. Jim couldn't remember whether it was Atchison, Kan., or Fort Atkinson, Wis., but he said he would go and ask me, while I was alive, so there would be no mistake, and the poor fellow, meaning as well as any man ever did, came in and asked for the address of my father, saying it was of no account, particularly, only he wanted to know. I gave him the address, and then he asked me if he shouldn't get me something to eat. I told him I couldn't eat anything to save me. He offered to fry me some bacon, and make me a cup of coffee, but the thought of bacon and coffee made me wild. I told him if he could make me a nice cup of green tea, and some milk toast, or poach me an egg and place it on a piece of nice buttered toast, and give me a little currant jelly, I thought I could swallow a mouthful. Jim's eyes stuck out when I gave my order, which I had done while thinking of home, and a tear rolled down his cheek, and he went out of the tent, saying, "All right, pard." I saw him tap his forehead with his finger, point his thumb toward the tent, and say to the boys outside:

"He's got 'em! Head all wrong! Wants me to make him milk toast, poached eggs, green tea, and currant jelly. And I offered him bacon. Sow belly for a sick man! There isn't a loaf of bread in camp. Not an egg within five miles. And milk! currant jelly! Why, he might as well ask for Delmonico's bill of fare, but we have got to get 'em. I told him he should have em, and, by mighty! he shall. Here, Mr. Horse-doctor, you stay and watch him, and I and Company D here will saddle up and go out on the road to a plantation, and raid it for delicacies.

"You bet your life," says the Company "D" man, and pretty soon I heard a couple of saddles thrown on two horses, and then there was a clatter of horses feet on the frozen ground. I have thought of it since a good many times, and have concluded that I must have dropped asleep. Any way, it didn't seem more than five minutes before the tent nap opened and Jim came in.

"Come, straighten out here, now, you red-headed corpse, and try that toast," said he, as he came in with a piece of hard-tack box for a tray, and on it was a nice china plate, and a cup and saucer, an egg on toast, and a little pitcher of milk, and some jelly.

"Jim," I said, tasting of the tea, which was not much like army tea, "you never made this tea. A woman made that tea, or I'm a goat. And that toast was toasted by a woman, and that egg was poached by a woman. Where am I?" I asked, imagining that I was home again.

"You guessed it the first time, pard," said Jim, as he threw the blanket over my shoulders, as I sat up on the bunk to try and eat. "The whole thing was done by the rebel angel."

"Rebel angel, Jim; what are you talking about? There ain't any rebel angels," and I became weak and laid down again.

"Yes, there is a rebel angel, and she is a dandy," said Jim, as he covered me up. "She is out by the fire making milk toast for you. You see, I went out to the Brown plantation, to try and steal an egg, and some bread, and milk, but I thought, on the way out, as it was a case of life and death, the stealing of it might rest heavy on your soul when you come to pass in your chips, so I concluded to go to the house and ask for it. There was a young woman there, and I told her the red-headed corporal that captured the female smuggler, was dying, and couldn't eat any hard-tack and bacon, and I wanted to fill him up on white folks food before he died, so he could go to heaven or elsewhere, as the case might be, on a full stomach, and she flew around like a kernel of pop-corn on a hot griddle, and picked up a basket of stuff, and had the nigger saddle a mule for her, and she came right to the camp with me, and said she would attend to everything. She's a thoroughbred, and don't you make no mistake about it."

I must have gone to sleep when Jim was talking about the girl, for I dreamed that there was a million angels in rebel uniforms, poaching eggs for me. Pretty soon I heard a rustle of female clothes, and a soft, cool hand was placed on my forehead, my hair was brushed back, a perfumed handkerchief wiped the cold perspiration from my face, and I heard the rebel angel ask Jim what the doctor said about me. Jim told her what the horse doctor had said about curing a horse that had been sick the same as I was, and then she asked if we had not sent for the regular doc-doctor. Jim said we had not thought of that. She asked what had been done for me, and Jim told her about the French mustard episode, and the cayenne pepper tea. I thought she laughed, but it had become dark in the tent, and I couldn't see her face, but she told Jim to go after the regimental surgeon at once, and Jim went out. The angel asked me how I felt, and I told her I was all right, but she said I was all wrong. I thanked her for the trouble she had taken to come so far, and she said not to mention it. She said she had a brother who was a prisoner at the-North, and if somebody would only be kind to him if he was sick, she would be well repaid. She said the last she heard of him he was a prisoner of war at Madison, Wis., and she wondered what kind of people lived there, away off on the frontier, and if they could be kind to their enemies. That touched me where I lived, and I raised up on my elbow, and said:

"Why bless your heart, Miss, if your brother is a prisoner in old Camp Randlll, in Madison, he has got a pic nic. That town was my home before I came down here on this fool job. The people there are the finest in the world. All of them, from old Grovernor Lewis, to the poorest man in town, would set up nights with a sick person, whether he was a rebel or not. Your brother couldn't be better fixed if he was at home. The idea of a man suffering for food, clothing, or human sympathy in Madison, would be ridiculous. There is not a family in that town," I said, becoming excited from the feeling that any one doubted the humanity of the people of Wisconsin, "but would divide their breakfast, and their clothes, and their money, with your brother, egad, I wish I was there myself. I will be responsible for your brother, Miss."

She told me to lay down and be quiet, and not talk any more, as I was becoming wild. She said she was glad to know what kind of people lived there, as she had supposed it was a wilderness. In a few minutes Jim came back and said the doctor was playing poker with some other officers, in a captain's tent, and he didn't dare go in and break up the game, but he spoke to the doctor's orderly, and he said I ought to take castor oil. That didn't please the little woman at all, and she told Jim to go to the poker tent and tell the doctor to come at once, or she would come after him. It was not long before the doctor came stooping in to my pup tent. His idea was to have all sick men attend surgeon's call in the morning, and not go around visiting the sick in tents. He asked me what was the matter, and I told him nothing much. Then he asked me why I wasn't at surgeon's call in the morning. I told him the reason was that I was wading in a swamp, after the rebels that ambushed some of our boys the day before. "Then you've got malaria," said he. "Take some quinine tonight, and come to surgeon's call in the morning."



The little woman, the rebel angel, got her back up at the coolness of the doctor; and she gave him a piece of her mind, and then he called for a candle, and he examined me carefully. When he got through, he said:

"He is going to have a run of fever. He must be sent to the hospital. Jim, go tell the driver to send the ambulance here at once, and you, Jim, go along and see that this fellow gets to the hospital all right. He can't live here in a tent, and I doubt if he will in the hospital."

That settled it. In a short time the ambulance came, and I got in and sat on a seat, and the rebel angel got in with me, and we rode seven miles to the hospital, over the roughest road a sick man ever jolted over, and I would have died, if I could have had my own way about it, but the little woman talked so cheerfully that when we arrived at the great building, I should have considered myself well, only that my mind was wandering. All I remember of my entrance to the hospital was that when we got out of the ambulance Jim was there on his horse, leading the mule belonging to the angel. Some attendants helped me up stairs, and down a corridor, where we met two stretchers being carried out to the dead house with bodies on them, and I had to sit in a chair and wait till clean sheets could be put on one of the cots where a man had just died. The little woman told me to keep up my courage, and she would come and see me often, Jim cried and said he would come everyday, a man said, "your bed is ready, No. 197," and I laid down as No. 197, and didn't care whether I ever got up again or not. I just had breath enough left to bid the angel good bye, and tell Jim to see her safe home. Jim said, "You bet your life I will," and the world seemed blotted out, and for all I cared, I was dead.



CHAPTER XVI.

My Varied Experiences in the Hospital—The Doctor Seems Sure of My Death—I Suggest the Postponement of My Funeral—I Get Very Sick of Gruel—I Go Back to my Regiment.

Let's see, last week I wound up in the hospital. When Jim, my old comrade, and the rebel angel, left me, I to all intents and purposes. I supposed I was going to sleep, but after I got well enough to know what was going on, I found that for about ten days I had been out of my head. It was not much of a head to get out of, but however small and insignificant a man's head is, he had rather have it with him, keeping good time, than to have it wandering around out of his reach. When I "come to," as the saying is, it only seemed as though I had been asleep over night, but I dreamed more than any able-bodied man could have done in one night. I was what they call un-. conscious, but I did a great deal of work during that period of unconsciousness. One thing I did, which I was proud of, was to wind up the war. I arranged it so that all of the bullets that were fired on each side, were made of India-rubber, like those little toy balloons, and war was just fun. The boys on both sides would fire at each other and watch the rubber balloons hit the mark, and explode, and nobody was hurt, and everybody laughed. There was no more blood. Everything was rubber and wind. There was no one killed, no legs shot off, and the men on each side; when not fighting with the harmless missiles, were gathered together, blue and gray, having a regular picnic, and every evening there was a dance, the rebels furnishing the girls. In my delirium I could see that my rebel angel was dancing a good deal with the boys, and frequently with my comrade, Jim, and I was pretty jealous. I made up my mind that I wouldn't speak to either of them again. I would watch my balloon battles with a good deal of interest, and think how much better and safer it was to fight that way. Every day, when the battle was over, and the two sides would get together for fun, I noticed when the bugle sounded for battle again, that on each side the boys were terribly mixed, there being about as many blue-coated Yankees among the gray rebels as there were rebels among the Yankees, and after awhile it seemed as though all were dressed alike, in a sort of "blue-gray," and then they disappeared, and I recovered my senses. Frequently, during my delerium and unconsciousness, I would feel my mouth pulled open, and hear a spoon chink against my teeth, and I would taste something bad going down my neck, and then my head would buzz as though a swarm of bees had taken up their abode where my brain used to be. Sometimes I would hear the clanking of a saber and a pair of Mexican spurs, and feel a great big hand on my head, and I knew that was Jim, but I couldn't move a muscle, or say a word. "I guess he's dead, ain't he doc?" I would hear in Jim's voice, and the doc would say there was a little life left, but not enough, to swear by. Then the doc would say, "You better come in about 10:30 tomorrow, as we bury them all at that hour, and I guess he'll croak by that time." I tried to speak and tell them that I was alive, and that I was going to get well, but it, wasn't any use. I was tongue-tied. Again I would hear the sweet rustle of a dress, and feel a warm hand on my head, and I knew that the rebel angel had rode her mule to town to see me. Then I would try hard to tell her that I was going to write a letter to the governor of Wisconsin, and ask him to look out particularly for her brother, who was a rebel prisoner at Madison, and take care of him if he was sick, but I couldn't say a word, and after smoothing my hair a little while, she would give my cheek three or four pats, just as a mother pats her child, and she would go away.

One morning, a little after daylight, I woke up and looked around the ward of the hospital. My eyes were weak, and I was hungry as a bear. I had to try two or three times before I could raise my hand to my head, and when I felt of my head it seemed awfully small. I could feel my cheek bones stick out so that you could hang your hat on them. My cheeks were sunken, and my fingers were like pipe-stems. I wondered how a man could change so in one night. I saw two or three fellows over at the other end of the room, and I thought I would get up and go over there and have some fun with them. I wanted to know where my horse was, and where I was. I tried to raise up and couldn't get any further than on my elbow. From that position I looked around to see what was going on, and tried to attract the attention of some attendant. Finally, I saw four fellows bringing a stretcher along towards my cot. They had evidently been told by the doctor that I would be dead in the morning, and having confidence in the word of the professional man, had come to take me to the dead house, before the other sick man was awake. As they came up to the foot of my cot and sat the stretcher down, I thought I would play a joke on them. I pulled the sheet over my face, and laid still. One of the men said, "Two of us can lift it, as it is thinner than a lathe." To be considered dead, when I was alive, was bad enough, but to be called "it" was too much. I felt one of the men take hold of my feet, and then I threw the sheet off my face and in a hoarse voice I said, "Say, Mr. Body-snotcher, you can postpone the funeral and bring me a porter-house steak and some fried potatoes." Well, nobody ever saw a couple of men fall over themselves and turn pale, as those fellows did. Before I had given my order for breakfast, the two men had fallen back over the stretcher and the two others were backing on as though a ghost had appeared. But finally they came toward me and I convinced them that I was not dead. They seemed hurt to know that I was still alive, and one of them went off after the doctor, to enter a complaint, I supposed. The doctor soon came and he was the only one that seemed pleased at my recovery. He ordered some sort of gruel for me, but wouldn't let me have meat and things. I took the gruel under protest but it did strengthen me. I told the doctor I wanted him to send for my horse, because I wanted to go out with the boys, but he said he guessed I wouldn't go out with the boys very soon. He said I might sit up in bed a little while, and when I did so I found that I did not have my clothes on, but was clothed in a hospital night-gown, which was also used for a shroud for burial when a fellow died. He said Jim and the girl would be in about 10 o clock, as he had sent for them, and some of my comrades. I told him if I was going to entertain company, and give a reception, I wanted my pants on, as I was sure no gentleman could give a reception successfully without pants. The doctor seemed sort of glad to see me taking an interest in human affairs again, and so he let me put my pants and jacket on. I got a butcher to shave me, and when ten o clock came I looked quite presentable for a skeleton. I was sitting up in bed, with a little round zinc frame looking-glass, noting the changes in my personal appearance, when a door opened and Jim entered, dressed up in his best, with the rebel angel on his arm, and followed by six boys from the regiment. They came in as solemn as any party I ever saw. The angel looked as sad as I ever saw anybody, and I thought she had probably heard that her brother was dead. It did not occur to me that they had come to attend my funeral. They stood there by the door, in that helpless manner that people always stand around at a funeral, waiting for the master of ceremonies to tell them that they can now pass in the other room and view the remains. I finally caught Jim looking my way, and I waved a handkerchief at him. He gave me one look, and jumped over two cots and came up to me with tears in his eyes, and a package in his hand, and said, "Pard, you ain't dead worth a cent," and then he hugged me, and added, "but there ain't enough left of you for a full size funeral." Then he unrolled the package he had in his hand, and dropped on the bed four silver-plated coffin handles. By that time the girl, and the six boys had seen me, and they came over, and we had a regular visit. They were all surprised to find me alive, as they had been notified that I was on my last legs, and would be buried in the morning, and the captain had detailed the six boys to act as pall-bearers and fire a salute over the grave, while Jim and the girl were to act as mourners.

"Well, it saves ammunition," said Jim. "But how be I going to get these coffin handles off my hands. There is no dependence to be placed on doctors, anyway. When that doctor appointed this funeral, we thought he knew his business, and I told the angel, say I, 'My pard ain't going to be buried without any style, in one of those pine boxes that ain't planed, and has got slivers on.' So I hired the hospital coffin-maker to sand-paper the inside and outside of a box, and black it with shoe-blacking, and I went to a store down town and bought these handles. Of course, pard, I am glad you pulled through, and all that, but I want to say to you, if you had croaked in the night, and been ready to bury this A. m., you would have had a more stylish outfit than anybody, except officers, usually get in this army, and the angel and I would have been a pair of mourners that would have slung grief so your folks to home would have felt proud of you."

The angel was tickled to see me alive, and suggested to Jim and the boys, that it was easy to talk a fellow to death after he had been so sick, and told them to go back to camp, and she would stay with me all day. So the boys shook hands with me, and Jim had an attendant to roll my cot up to a window, so I could see my horse when they rode away. The boys got on their horses and Jim led my horse, and I could see that my pet had been fixed up for the occasion. He had the saddle on, and it was draped with black, a pair of boots were fastened in the stirrups, and my carbine was in the socket. The idea was to have my horse, with empty boot and saddle tied behind the wagon that took me to the cemetery where soldiers wind up their career. It was not a cheerful thing to look at, and to think of, but it did me good to see the old horse, and the boys ride away in good health, and happy at my escape, and it encouraged me to make every effort to get well, so I could ride with the gang. The rebel angel re-mained with me till almost night, and superintended my eating. No person who has never had a fever, can appreciate the appetite of a person when the fever "turns." I wanted everything that was ever eaten, and roast beef or turkey was constantly in my mind. As anything of that kind would have made use for Jim's coffin-handles, I had to put up with soups and gruels. The doctor thought that this thin gruel was good enough, but it didn't seem to hit the spot, and so the girl asked the doctor if he thought nice gumbo soup and a weak milk punch wouldn't be pretty good for me. He said it would, but nobody in the hospital could make gumbo soup, or milk punch. She said she could, and she told me not to eat a thing until she came back, and she would bring me a dish fit for the gods. She said she knew an old colored woman in town, who cooked for a lady friend of hers, who had some gumbo, and the lady had a little brandy that was seventy years old, but she said the lady was a rebel, and I must overlook that. I told her I didn't care, as I had got considerably mashed on all the rebels I had met personally. She went out with a smile that would have knocked a stronger man than I was silly, and I turned over and took a nap, the first real sleep I had had in a week. I woke up finally smelling something that was not gruel. O, I had got so sick of gruel. The angel handed me a glass of milk punch, and told me to drink a swallow and a half. I have drank a great many beverages in my lifetime, but I never swallowed anything that was as good as the milk punch that rebel girl made for me. It seemed to go clear to my toes, and I felt strong. Then she gave me a small soup plate and told me to taste of the gumbo. I had never tasted gumbo soup before, but I had no difficulty in mastering it. No description can do gumbo soup justice, or explain to a person who has never tasted it the rich odor, and palatable taste. The little that I ate seemed to make a man of me again, instead of the weak invalid. Since then I have been loyal to southern gumbo soup, and have always eaten it wherever it could be obtained, and I never put a spoonful of it to my lips without thinking of the rebel girl in the hospital, who prepared that dish for me. If I ever become a glutton, it will be on gumbo soup, and if I am ever a drunkard, it will be a milk-punch drunkard, and the soup and the punch must be prepared in the South.

Well, my experience after that, in the hospital, was about the same as a hundred thousand other boys in blue, only few of the boys had such care, and such food. The girl kept me supplied with gumbo soup and milk punch until I could eat heartier food, and in a couple of days I got so I could walk around the hospital. At home I had never been much of a hand to be around with the sick, but experience had been a good teacher, and I found that going around among the boys, and talking cheerfully did them good and me too. I found men from my own regiment, that I did not know had been sick. The custom was to make just as little show about sending sick men to the hospital, as possible, hence they were often packed off in the night, and the first their comrades would know of their illness would be a detail to bury them, or a boy would suddenly appear in his company, looking pale and sick, having been discharged from the hospital. If the men had known how many of their comrades were sent to the hospital, it would have demoralized the well ones. For ten days I visited around among the sick men, telling a funny story to a group here and and cheering them up, and writing letters home for fellows that were too weak to write. I learned to lie a little bit in writing letters for the boys. One young fellow who had his leg taken off, wanted me to write to his intended, and tell her all about it, how the leg was taken off, and how he was sick and discouraged, and would always be a cripple and a burden on his friends, etc. I wrote the letter entirely different from the way he told me. I spoke of his being wounded in the leg but that the care he received had made him all right, and that he would probably soon have a discharge, and be home, and make them all happy. I thought to myself that if she loved him as a girl ought to, that a leg or two short wouldn't make any difference to her, and there was no use of harrowing up her feelings in advance, and that he could buy a cork leg before he got home, and may be she would never find it out. I might have been wrong, but when he got an answer from that letter he was the happiest fellow I ever saw in this world, and he arranged at my suggestion, to stop over in New York and get a cork leg before he went home. I have never learned whether the girl ever found out that he had a cork leg, but if she did, and blames anybody, she can lay it to me. Lots of the boys that wrote letters for wanted to detail all of their calamities to their mothers and sisters and sweet-hearts, but I worded the letters in a funny sort of way, so that the friends at home would not be worried, and the answers the boys got would please them very much. The hardest work I had was a couple of days writing letters for a doctor, to relatives of boys who had died, detailing the sickness, death and burial, and notifying friends that they could obtain the personal effects of the deceased, clothing, money, pipes, knives, etc., by sending express charges. It always seemed to me that if I had been running the government I would have paid the express charges on the clothing of the boys who had died, if I didn't lay up a cent. Finally I got well enough to go back to my regiment, and one day I showed up at my company, and the first man I met saluted me and said, "Hello, Lieutenant." I told him he did wrong to joke a sick man that way, and I went on to find Jim. He was in our tent, greasing his shoes, and he looked up with a queer expression on his face and said, "Hello, Lieutenant."

"Look a here." I said, as I grasped his greasy hand, "what do you fellows mean by calling me names, I have never done anything to deserve to be made a fool of. Pard, what ails you anyway?"

"Didn't they tell you," said Jim, as he scraped the mud on his other shoe with a stick. "The colonel has sent your name to the governor of Wisconsin to be commissioned as second Lieutenant of the company. All the boys are tickled to death, and they are going to whoop it up for you when your commission comes. But this pup tent will not be good enough for you then, and old Jim will have to pick up another pard. You won't have to cook your bacon on a stick when you get your commsssion, and you can drink out of a leather covered flask instead of a flannel covered canteen. But by the great horn spoons I shall love you if you get to be a Jigadier Brindle," and the old pard looked as though he wanted to cry like a baby.

"Jim," I said, "I think the fellows are giving us taffy, and that there is nothing in this Lieutenant business. But if there is, you will be my pard till this cruel war is over, and don't you forget it," and I went along the company street towards the colonel's tent, leaning on a cane, and all the boys congratulated me, and I felt like a fool.

"Lieutenant, I am glad to see you back," said the Colonel, as I entered his tent, and he showed it in his face. "What is the foolishness, colonel? I asked. The boys are all guying me. Can't I stay a private?"



CHAPTER XVII.

Thanksgiving Dinner with the "Rebel Angel"—She Gives Me a World of Good Advice—Can an Officer be Detailed To Go And Shovel Dirt?—My First Day As A Commissioned Officer.

The last chapter of this history wound up in my interview with the colonel, in which he told me that what the boys had said was true, and that I had a right to to be called "Lieutenant." He said there was a vacancy in the commissioned officers of my company, caused, by some discrepancy in regard to the ownership of a horse which an officer had sold as belonging to him, when investigation showed that there was "U. S." branded on the horse. The colonel said he had looked over the company pretty thoroughly, and while I was not all that he could desire in an officer, there were less objections to me than to many others, and he had recommended the governor of our state to commission me. He said he didn't want me to run away with the idea that my promotion from private to a commissioned office was for any particular gallantry, or that I was particularly entitled to promotion, but I seemed the most available. It was true, he said, that I had done everything I had been told to do, in a cheerful manner, and had not displayed any cowardice, that he knew of, though I had often admitted to him that I was a coward. He said he thought few men knew whether they were cowards or not, until they got in a tight place, and that most men honestly believed they were cowards, but they didn't want others to know it, and they took pains to conceal the fact. He said he had rather be considered a coward than a dare-devil of bravery, for if he flunked when a chance come to show his metal, it wouldn't be thought much of, and if he pulled through, and made a decent record for bravery, he would get a heap of credit. He said he believed it took a man with more nerve to do some things he had ordered me to do, than it did to get behind a tree and shoot at the enemy, and he was willing to take his chances on me. He congratulated me, and some of the other officers did the same.

I was invited to sit into a game of draw poker with some of the officers. I pleaded that I was not sufficiently recovered from my sickness to play poker, and I went back to my tent to talk with Jim. I was thinking over the new responsibilities that were about to come to me, and figuring on the salary. A hundred and fifty dollars a month! It is cruel to raise the salary of a poor devil from thirteen dollars a month to a hundred and fifty. I wondered how in the world the government was ever going to get that much out of me. Certainly I couldn't do any more than I had been doing towards crushing the rebellion for thirteen dollars. And what would I do with so much money? In my wildest dreams of promotion I had never hoped to be a commissioned officer. I had thought sometimes, a week or two after I enlisted, that if I was a general I could put down the rebellion so quick the government would have lots of nations left on its hands to spoil, but a few months active service had taken all that sort of nonsense out of me, and I had been contented as a private. But here I was jumped over everybody, and made an officer unbeknown to me, It made me dizzy. I was not very strong anyway, and this thing had come upon me suddenly I was thinking of the magnificent uniform I would have, and the fancy saddle and bridle, and the regular officer's tent, with bottles of whiskey and glasses, when Jim asked me if I wouldn't just hold that frying-pan of bacon over the fire, while he cooked some coffee. He said we would just eat a little to settle our stomachs, and then go out to Thanksgiving dinner.

"Thanksgiving dinner," I said. "What are you talking about?"

"Don't you know," said Jim, "to-day is Thanksgiving? The 'angel' told me last night to bring you out to the plantation to-day, and I was going after you at the hospital if you hadn't showed up. She has received a letter from her brother, who is a rebel prisoner at Madison, and he says a Yankee hotel-keeper at Madison, that you had written to, had called at the pen where they were kept, and had brought him a lot of turkey and fixings, and offered to send him a lot for Thanksgiving, so the rebel boys could have a big feed, and he says he is well and happy, and going to be exchanged soon. And she wants us to come out and eat turkey and 'possum. I had rather eat gray tom-cat than possum, but I told her we would come. So we will eat a little bacon and bread, and ride out."

"Well, all right Jim," I said. "We will go, but in my weak state I can't be expected to eat possum. If there is anything of that kind to be eat, Jim, you will have to eat it. However, I will do anything the rebel angel asks me to do," I added, remembering her kindness to me when I was sick.

The ride to the plantation, after several weeks confinement, was better than medicine, and I enjoyed every step my proud horse took. The animal acted as though he had been told of my promotion, but it was plain to me that he acted proud, because he had been resting during my sickness. It was all I could do to keep Jim alongside of me. He would fall back every little while and try to act like an orderly riding behind an officer. I had to discipline him before he would come up alongside like a "partner." I mention this Thanksgiving dinner in the army, in order to bring in a little advice the rebel girl gave me, which I shall always remember. We arrived at the old plantation house where the girl and her mother and some servants were living, waiting for the war to close, so the men folks could come back. The old lady welcomed us cordially, the girl warmly and the servants effusively. The dinner was good, though not elaborate, except the possum. That was elaborate, and next to gumbo soup, the finest dish I ever tasted. After we had got seated at the table, the old lady asked a blessing, and it was more like a prayer. She asked for a blessing upon all of the men in both armies, and made us feel as though there was no bitterness in her heart towards the enemies of her people. During the dinner Jim told of my promotion, and the circumstance was commented on by all, and after dinner the rebel angel took me one side, and said she had got a few words of advice to give me. She commenced by saying:

"Now that you are to be a commissioned officer, don't get the big head. During this war, we have had soldiers near us all the time, and I have seen some splendid soldiers spoiled by being commsssioned. Nine out of ten men that have received commissions in this locality, have been spoiled. I am a few years older than you, and have seen much of the world. You are a kind hearted man, and desire to treat everybody well, whether rich or poor, yankee or confederate. If you let this commission spoil you, you are not worthy of it. You will naturally feel as though you should associate with officers entirely, but you will find in them no better companions than you have found in the private soldiers, and I doubt if you will find as true friends. Do not, under any circumstances, draw away from your old friends, and let a barrier raise up between you and them. My observation teaches me that the only difference between the officers and men in the Union army, is that officers get more pay for doing less duty; they become dissipated and fast because they can better afford it, they drink more, put on style, play cards for money, and think the world revolves around them, and that they are indispensible to success, and yet when they die, or are discharged for cause, private soldiers take their place and become better officers than they did, until they in turn become spoiled. I can think of no position better calculated to ruin a young man than to commission him in a cavalry regiment. Now take my advice. Do not run in debt for a new uniform and a silver mounted sword, and don't put a stock of whisky and cigars into your tent, and keep open house, because when your whisky and cigars are gone, those who drank and smoked them will not think as much of you as before, and you will have formed habits that will illy prepare you for your work. You will not make any friends among good officers, and you will lose the respect of the men who have known you when you were one of them, but who will laugh at you for getting the big head and going back on those who are just as good as you are, but who have not yet attained the dignity of wearing shoulder straps. I meet officers every day, who were good soldiers before they were raised from privates, and they show signs of dissipation, and have a hard look, leering at women, and trying to look blase. They try to act as near like foreign noblemen who are officers, as they can, from reading of their antics, but Americans just from farms, workshops, commercial pursuits, and the back woods and country villages of the north, are not of the material that foreign officials are made of, and in trying to imitate them they only show their shallowness. Do not, I beg of you, change one particle from what you have been as a private soldier, unless it is to have your pants fit better, and wear a collar. Of course, you will be thrown among officers more than you have before. Imitate their better qualities, and do not compete with them in vices. Always remember that when a volunteer army is mustered out, all are alike. The private, who has business ability, will become rich and respected, after the war, while the officer, who has been promoted through favoritism, and who acquires bad habits, will keep going down hill, and will be glad to drive a delivery wagon for the successful private, whom he commanded and snubbed when he held a proud position and got the big head. Now, my convalescent red-headed yankee, you have the best advice, I know how to give a young man who has struck a streak of luck. Go back to your friends, and may God bless you."

Well, I had never had any such advice as that before, and as Jim and me rode back to camp that Thanksgiving evening, her words seemed to burn into my alleged brain. I could see how easy it would be for a fellow to make a spectacle of himself. What did a commission amount to, anyway, that a fellow should feel above anybody. When we arrived in camp, and went into our tent to have a smoke, the chaplain came in. I had not seen much of him lately. When I was sick I felt the need of a chaplain considerably. Not that I cared particularly to have him come and set up a howl over me, as though I was going to die, and he was expected to steer me the right way. But I felt as though it was his duty to look after the boys when they were sick, and talk to them about something cheerful. But he did not show up when I needed him, and when he called at our tent after I was well, there wasn't that cordiality on my part that there ought to have been. He had a package which he unrolled, after congratulating me on my recovery, and it proved to be a new saber, with silver mounted scabbard and gold sword handle. The chaplain said he had heard that I was to be commissioned, and he had found that saber at a store down town, and thought I might want to buy it. He said of course I would not want to wear a common government saber, as it would look too rude..He said he could get that saber for forty dollars, dirt cheap, and I could pay for it when I got my first pay as an officer. I could see through the chaplain in a minute. He had thought I would jump at the chance to put on style, and that he could make ten or fifteen dollars selling me a gilt-edged saber. I thanked him warmly, and a little sarcastically, for his great interest in the welfare of my soul, in sickness and in health, but told him that I was going to try and pull through with a common private's saber. I told him that the few people I should kill with a saber, would enjoy it just as well to be run through with a common saber. My only object was to help put down the rebellion, and I could do it with ordinary plain cutlery, as well as silver-mounted trappings. I said that to smear a silver-mounted saber all over with gore, would spoil the looks of it. The chaplain went out, when a drummer for a tailor shop came in with some samples, and wanted to make up a new uniform for me, regardless of expense. I stood him off, and went to bed, tired, and thought I had rather be a private than a general. The next morning it was my turn to cook our breakfast, and I turned out and built a fire, cut off some salt pork, and was frying it, when the orderly sergeant came along and detailed Jim and me, with ten or a dozen others to go to work on the fortifications. The rebels-were preparing to attack our position, and the commanding officer had deemed it advisable to throw up some earthworks. I told the orderly that he couldn't detail me to work with a shovel, digging trenches, when I was an officer, but he said he could, until I received my commission and was mustered in. I left my cooking and went to the colonel's tent. He was just rolling out of his bunk, and I said:

"How is it, Colonel? Can an officer be detailed to go and shovel dirt? I have been detailed by the orderly, with a lot of privates, to report to the engineer, to throw up fortifications. That does not strike me as proper work for a commissioned officer."

"You will have to go," said the colonel, as he stood on one leg while he tried to lasso his other foot with a pants leg. "It may be three months before your commission will arrive, and then you will have to go to New Orleans to be mustered out as a private and mustered in as an officer. Until that time you will have to do duty as a private."

"Then what the devil did you say anything about my being commissioned for, until the commission got here," said I, and I went back and finished cooking breakfast for myself and Jim.

Our detail went down to the river, at the left of the line, and reported to the engineer, and were set to work cutting down trees, throwing up dirt, and doing about the dirtiest and hardest work that I had ever done. As a private I could have done anything that was asked of me, but the thought of doing such work, while all the boys were calling me "Lieutenant," was too much. I never was so crushed in my life. How glad I was that I did not buy that gilt-edged saber of the chaplain. We had to wear our side arms while at work, fearing an attack at any minute, and I thought how ridiculous I would have looked with that silver-mounted saber hanging to me, while I was handling a shovel like a railroad laborer. If that detail was made to humiliate me, and reduce my proud flesh, that had appeared on me by my sudden promotion, it had the desired effect, for before night I was as humble an amateur officer as ever lived. I had chopped down trees until my hands were blistered, and had shoveled dirt until my back was broke, and at night returned to my tent too tired to eat supper, and went to bed too weary and disgusted to sleep. And that was my first day as a commissioned officer.



CHAPTER XVIII.

My Sickness and Hospital Experiences Have Spoiled Me for a Soldier—I Am Full of Charity, and Hope the War Will Cease— We Have a Grand Attack—The Battle Lasted Ten Minutes—The Rebel Angel's Brother is Captured.

I became satisfied, more each day, that my sickness, and experience in the hospital, had spoiled me for a soldier. Being attended to so kindly by a rebel girl and getting acquainted with her people, and hearing her mother pray earnestly that the bloodshed might cease, sort of knocked what little fight there was in me, out, and I didn't hanker any more for blood. It seemed to me as though I could meet any rebel on top of earth, and shake hands with him, and ask him to share my tent, and help eat my rations.

The fact of being promoted to a commissioned office, didn't make me feel half as good as I thought it was going to, and I found myself wishing I could be a he sister of charity, or something that did not have to shoot a gun, or go into any fight. I got so I didn't care whether my commission ever arrived or not. The idea of respectable men going out to hunt each other, like game, became ridiculous to me, and I wondered why the statesmen of the North and South did not get together and agree on some sort of a compromise, and have the fighting stop. I would have agreed to anything, only, of course, whatever arrangement was made, it must be understood that the South had no right to secede. Then I would think, Why, that is all the South is fighting for, and if they concede that they are wrong it is the same as though they were whipped, and of course they could not agree to that. I tried to think out lots of ways to wind the business up without fighting any more, but all the plans I made, maintained that our side was right, and I concluded to give up worrying about it. But I made up my mind that I would not fight any more. I was still weak from sickness, and there was no fight in me. I thought this over a good deal, and concluded that if I was called upon to go into another fight, where there was any chance of anybody being killed, I would just have a relapse, and go to the hospital again till it was over. I had heard of fellows being taken suddenly ill when a fight was in prospect, and I knew they were always laughed at, but I made up my mind that I had rather be laughed at than to hurt anybody. There was no thought of sneaking out of a fight because of the danger of being killed myself, but I just didn't want to shoot any friends of that girl who had nursed me when I was sick. These thoughts kept coming to me for a week or more, and one evening it was rumored around that we were liable to be attacked the next day. Some of our regiments had been out all day, and they reported the enemy marching on our position, in force. The rebels that lived in town could not conceal their joy at the idea that we were to be cleaned out. They would hint that there were enough Confederates concentrating at that point to drive every Yankee into the river, and they were actually preparing bandages and lint, to take care of the Confederates who might be wounded. If we had taken their word for it there wouldn't be a Yankee left in town, when the Confederate boys begun to get in their work. I went to bed that night resolved that I should not be so well in the morning, and would go to surgeon's call, and be sent to the hospital. But I didn't like the way those rebels talked about the coming fight. Egad, if they were so sure our fellows were going to be whipped, may be I would stay and see about it. If they thought any of our fellows were going to slink out, when they made their brags about whipping us, they would find their mistake. However, if I didn't feel very well in the morning, I would go to surgeon's call, but I wouldn't go to the hospital. In the meantime, I would just see if I had cartridges enough for much of a row, and rub up the old carbine a little, for luck. Not that. I wanted to shoot anybody dead, but I could shoot their horses, and make the blasted rebels walk, anyway. And so all that evening I was part of the time trying to see my way clear to get out of a regular fight, where anybody would be liable to get hurt, and again I was wondering if my sickness had injured my eyesight so I couldn't take good aim at the buttons on a rebel's coat. I was about half and half. If the rebels would let us alone, and not bring on a disturbance, I was for peace at any price, but gol-blast them, if they come fooling around trying to scare anybody, I wouldn't go to a hospital, not much. I talked with Jim about it, and he felt about as I did. He didn't want any more fighting, and while he couldn't go to the hospital, he was going to try and get detailed to drive a six mule team for the quartermaster, but he cleaned up his gun all the same, and looked over his cartridges to see if they were all right. We got up next morning, got our breakfast, and Jim asked me if I was going to the hospital and I told him I would wait till afternoon. I asked him if he was going to drive mules, and he said not a condemned mule, not until the fight was over. There was a good deal of riding around, orderlies, staff officers, etc. Artillery was moving around, and about eight o clock some of our boys who had been on picket all night, came in looking tired and nervous, saying they had been shot at all night, and that the rebels had got artillery and infantry till you couldn't rest, and they would make it mighty warm for us before night. Orders come to each company, that no soldier was to leave camp under any circumstances, to go to town or anywhere. I told Jim if he was going to drive mules, he better be seeing the quartermaster sergeant, but he said he never was much gone on mule driving, anyhow. But he said if he looked as sick as I did he would go to the hospital too quick. I told him there wasn't anything the matter with me. Pretty soon, over to the right, near the river, there was a cannon discharged. It was not long before another went off around to the left, and then a dozen, twenty, a hundred, all along the line. They were rebel cannon, and pretty soon they were answered by our batteries. Then there was a rattling of infantry, and the noise was deafening. I expected at the first fire that our bugler would come out in front of headquarters and blow for heaven's sake, for us to saddle up, but for three hours we loafed around camp and no move was made. It was tiresome. We started to play cards several times, but nobody could remember what was trumps, and we gave that up. Some of our boys would sneak up on to a hill for a few minutes, against orders, and come back and say that they could see the fight, and it was which and tother. Then a few more would sneak off, and after awhile the whole regiment was up on the hill, looking off to the hills and valleys, watching rebel shells strike our earth works and throw up the dust, and watching our shells go over to the woods where the rebels were. Then I found myself hoping our shells were just paralyzing the Johnnies. Presently the ambulances began to come by us, loaded with wounded, and that settled it. When there was no fighting, and I was half sick, and felt under obligations to a Confederate girl for taking care of me, I didn't want any of her friends hurt, but when her friends forgot them-selves, and come to a peaceable place, and began to kill off our boys, friendship ceased, and I wondered why we didn't get orders to saddle up and go in. We were all on the hill watching things, when the colonel, who had been riding off somewhere, came along. We thought he would order us all under arrest for disobeying orders, but he rode up to us, and pointing to a place off to the right a mile or so, where there was a sharp infantry fight, he said, "Boys, we shall probably go in right there about 3 p.m., unless the rebels are reinforced," and he rode down to his tent. Well, after about twenty ambulances had gone by us with wounded soldiers, we didn't care how soon we went in there. We watched the infantry and artillery for another hour, as pretty a sight as one often sees. It was so far away we could not see men fall, and it was more like a celebration, until one got near enough to see the dead. Presently the regimental bugle sounded "Boots and saddles," and in a minute every man on the hill had rushed down to his tent, even before the notes had died away from the bugle. Nothing was out of place. Every soldier had known that the bugle would sound sooner or later, and we had everything ready. It did not seem five minutes before every company was mounted, in its street, waiting for orders. Jim leaned over towards me and said, "Hospital?" and I answered, "Not if I know myself," and I patted my carbine on the stock. I said to him, "Six mule team?" and he whispered back, "Nary six mule team for the old man." Then the bugle sounded the "Assembly," and each company rode up on to the hill and formed in regimental front facing the battle. Every eye was on the place where the colonel had said we would probably "go in." There never was a more beautiful sight, and every man in the cavalry regiment looked at it till his eyes ached. Then came an order to dismount and every man was ordered to tighten up his saddle girth as tight as the horse would bear it, and be sure his stirrup straps were too short rather than too long. To a cavalry man these orders mean business.

Then we mounted again, and a few noticed a flag off to the right signaling. The colonel noticed it and coolly gave the order, "fours right, march." We went off towards the fighting, then right down by our own cannon and formed in line behind the infantry, that was at work with the enemy, the artillery firing over our heads at the confederates in the woods. The noise was so loud that one could not hear his neighbor speak; but above it all came a buggle note, and glancing to the left, another cavalry regiment, and another, formed on our left. Another bugle note, and to the right another cavalry regiment formed, and for half a mile there was a line of horsemen, deafened by the waiting the command of some man, through a bugle. If the rebels had time to notice those four regiments of cavalry, fresh and ready for a gallop, they must have known that it was a good time to get away. Finally, our artillery ceased firing and it seemed still as death, except for the rattling of infantry in front of us. The rebel artillery had ceased firing also, and a great dust beyond the woods showed that they were getting away. The bugle sounded "forward" and that line of cavalry started on a walk. The infantry in front ceased firing, and went to the right of us at a double-quick, and the field was clear of our men. While our cavalry was walking, they kept a pretty good line, each man glancing to the right for a guide. As we neared the place where our infantry had been stationed, it was necessary to break up a little to pass dead and wounded without riding over them, and when falling back to keep from hurting a wounded comrade, a look at the line up and down showed that it was almost a mob, with no shape, but after get-ing forty rods, we passed the field where men had fallen, and the order to "close up, guide right," was given, and in an instant the line was perfect. Then came the order to trot, and we went a short distance, until the rebels could be plainly seen behind trees, logs, and in line, firing. We halted and fired a few rounds from carbines, and then dropped the carbines, on orders. For a moment nothing was done, when officers ordered every man to draw his revolver, and when the six charges had been fired, after near-ing the enemy, to drop the revolver in the holster, and draw sabers, and every man for himself, but to rally on the colors, at the sound of the bugle, and not to go too far. Talk about being sick, and going to the hospital, or driving mules! Coward as I was, and I knew it, there was something about the air that made me feel that I wouldn't be in the hospital that day for all the money in the world. All idea of being sorry for the enemy, all charity, all hope that the war might close before any more men were killed, was gone. After looking in the upturned faces of our dead and wounded on the field, the more of the enemy that were killed the better. It is thus that war makes men brutal, while in active service. They think of things and do things that they regret immediately after the firing ceases. The next ten minutes was the nearest thing to hell that I ever experienced, and it seemed as though my face must look like that of a fiend. I felt like one. The bugle sounded "forward," and then there was an order to trot, and the revolver firing began, with the enemy so near that you could see their countenances, their eyes. Some of them were mounted, others were on foot, some on artillery caissons, and all full of fight. It did not take long to exhaust the revolvers, and then the sabers began to come out, and the horrible word "charge," came from a thousand throats, and every soldier yelled like a Comanche Indian, the line spread out like a fan, and every soldier on his own hook. Sabers whacked, horses run, everybody yelled. Men said "I surrender," "What you jabbing at me for when I ain't fighting no moah," "Drop that gun, you Johnnie, and go to the rear." Ones of pain and anguish, and awful sounds that a man ought never to hear but once. The business was all done in ten minutes.

Many of our men were killed and wounded, and many of theirs were treated the same way. Those who could get away, got, and those we passed without happening to hit them, were prisoners, because the infantry followed and took them back to the rear. Jim and me stayed as near together as possible, and we noticed one young Confederate on a mule. His left arm was hanging limp by his side, and as Jim passed on one side of him and I on the other, he said, as he held up his right hand, "I dun got enough, and I surrender." The thing was about over, the bugle having sounded the "recall," and we turned and went back with this Confederate. He was as handsome a boy as ever fired a gun, and while he was pale from his shattered left arm, and weak, he said, "You gentlemen are all fine riders, sir. You fought as well as Southern men, sir." That was a compliment that Jim and me acknowledged on behalf of the northern army. He couldn't have paid our regiment a higher compliment if he had studied a week. Then he said: "I was a fool to be in this fight. I was a prisoner and was only exchanged last week. I might have remained at home on a furlough, but when our army came along yesterday, and the boys said there was going to be a fight, I took my sisters mule, the only animal on the place, and came along, and now I am a cripple." I looked at the mule, and I said to Jim, in a whisper, "I hope to die if it isn't the angel's mule. That must be her brother." Jim was going to ask him what his name was, when we neared the place, where our regiment was forming and the surgeon of our regiment came along, and I said, "Doc, I wish you would take this young fellow and fix up his arm nice. He is a friend of mine. Take him to our regimental hospital." Then we went back to the regiment, the prisoners were taken away, and after marching around through the woods for an hour we rode back to our camp, and the battle was over. Two or three hours later I went over to the regimental hospital and found the black-eyed confederate with his arm dressed, and he was talking with our boys as though he belonged there. Some one asked how he happened to be there, and the old doctor said he believed he was a relative of one of our officers. Anyway he was going to stay there. I gave him a bunch of sutler cigars, and left him, and an hour later the "angel" showed up, pale as death, and wanted some one to go with her to the battle held to help find the body of her dead brother. She said he had arrived home from the North the morning before, and had gone into the fight, and when the Confederates came back, defeated, past their plantation, her brother was not among them, and she knew he was dead. I have done a great many things in my life that have given me pleasure, but no one that I remember of that made me quite so happy as I was to escort the girl who had been so kind to me, to the hospital where her brother was. His wound was not serious, and he sat on a box, smoking a cigar, telling the boys the news from Wisconsin. He had just come from there, where he was a prisoner, and he couldn't talk enough about the kindness of the "people of the nowth." His sister almost fainted when she found him alive, then hugged him until I was afraid she would disturb his arm, and then she sat by him and heard him tell of his visit to Wisconsin. Before night he was allowed to go home with his sister on parole, and Jim and I were detailed to go and help bury the dead of the regiment.