CHAPTER XIX.

I am Detailed to Drive a Six-Mule Team—I am Covered with Red Mud—I am Sent on an Expedition of Cold-Blooded Murder— I Make a Dozen ex-Confederate Soldiers Happy by Setting Them Up in Business.

After the battle alluded to in my last chapter, it took us a week or more to get brushed up, the dead buried, and everything ready to go to living again. A battle to a regiment in the field is a good deal like a funeral in a family at home. When a member of a family is sick unto death, all looks dark, and when the sick person dies it seems as though the world could never look bright again. Every time the relatives and friends look at any article belonging to a deceased friend, the agony comes back, and it is quite a while before there is any brightness anywhere, but in time the tear-stained faces become smiling, the lost friend is thought of only occasionally, and the world moves along just the same. So in the army. For a few days the thought of comrades being gone forever, was painful, and no man wanted to ride the horse whose owner had been killed, but within a week the feeling was all gone, and if a horse was a good one he didn't stay in the corral very long on account of some good fellow having been shot off his back. The boys who couldn't remember what was trumps on the day of the battle—-(and a soldier has got to be greatly interested in something else to forget what is trumps) returned to their card-playing, and no one would know, to look at them, that they had passed through a pretty serious scare, and seen their comrades fall all around. We told stories of our experience in the army and at home, and entertained each other. I couldn't tell much, except what a good shot I was with a shotgun and rifle, and I told some marvelous stories about hitting the bull's eye. It got to be tiresome waiting around for my commission to arrive, and I did not quite enjoy being a commissioned high private. Everybody knew I had been recommended for a commsssion, and they all called me "Lieutenant," but all the same I was doing duty as a private. For two or three clays I was detailed to drive mules for the quartermaster, and that was the worst service I ever did perform. It seemed as though the colonel wanted to prepare me for any service that in the nature of things I was liable to be called upon to perform. I kicked some at being detailed to drive a six-mule team, but the colonel said I might see the time when I could save the government a million dol-lars by being able to jump on to a wheel mule and drive a wagon loaded with ammunition, or paymaster's cash, out of danger of being captured by the enemy. So I went to work and learned to gee-haw a six-mule team of the stubbornest mules in the world, hauling bacon, but there was no romance in taking care of six mules that would kick so you had to put the harness on them with a pitchfork, for fear of having your head kicked off. If I ever get a pension it will be for my loss of character and temper in driving those mules. I have been in some dangerous places, but I was never in so dangerous a place, in battle, as I was one day while driving those mules. One of the lead mules got his forward foot over the bridle some way, and I went to fix it, and the team started and "straddled" me. As soon as I saw that I was between the two lead mules, and that the team had started, I knew my only-safety was in laying down and taking the chances of the three pairs of mules and wagon going straight over me. To attempt to get out would mix them all up, so I fell right down in the mud, which was about a foot deep, and just like soft mortar. As the mules passed on each side of me, every last one of them kicked at me, and I was under the impression that each wheel of the wagon kicked at me, but I escaped everything except the mud, and when I got up on my feet behind the wagon, the quartermaster, who was ahead on horseback, had stopped the team. He called a colored man to drive, and told me I could go back to the regiment. I tried to sneak in the back way, and not see anybody, but when I passed the chaplain's tent a lot of officers, who had been sampling his sanitary stores, come out, and one of them recognized me, and they insisted on my stopping and talking something with them. Honestly, there was not an inch of my clothing but was covered with, red mud, that every soldier remembers who has been through Alabama. They had fun with me for half an hour and then let me go. I have never been able to look at a mule since, without a desire to kill it.

I had said so much about my marksmanship with a rifle, that one day I was sent for by the colonel. He said he had heard I was a crack shot with the rifle, and I admitted that I was a pretty good shot. He asked me if I could hit a man's eye every time at ten paces. I told him I was almost sure I could. He said he had a duty that must be performed by some man that was an excellent shot, and I might report at once with forty rounds of ammunition. I don't know when I had been any more startled than I was at the colonel's questions, and his manner. Could it be that he had some secret expedition of murder that he wanted to send me on. I had never deliberately aimed at a man's eye, and if there was anybody to be killed I would be no hand to do it in cold blood. It seemed as though I had rather give anything than to kill a man, but that was evidently the business the colonel had in his mind. Was it a lot of prisoners that were to be killed in retaliation for some of our men who had been treated badly by the enemy. I reported shortly, with my carbine and forty cartridges, and the colonel told me to go to a certain place on the bank of the river, a mile away, and report to the chaplain, who would be there to see that everything was done properly. Then when I started off I heard the colonel say to the adjutant that there were about forty to be killed, and while it seemed cruel, it had to be done, and he hoped they would suffer as little as possible. If I could have had my way, I wouldn't have gone a step. I reflected on the pained look on the colonel's face, and wondered why I was picked out for all these sad events, but I thought if the chaplain was there everything would be all right. Arriving at the placed I found the chaplain sitting on a stump, on a big bluff overlooking the river. He sighed as I came up and said:

"Death is always a sad thing."

I told him that no one appreciated it more than I did, and I sighed also.

"But," said he, as he took a chew of navy plug tobacco, "when death is necessary, we should make it as painless as possible, I have been studying this matter over a good deal, and trying to figure out how to make the death the least painful to these poor victims, and it has occurred to me that if we place them on the edge of the precipice, and you shoot them through the brain, while at the same time I push them, they will fall down a hundred feet into the river, and if they are not killed instantly by having the brain blown out, they will certainly drown. How does that strike you?"

I thought the chaplain was about the most heartless cuss I ever heard talk about killing people, but I said that seemed to me to be the best way, but a cold chill went over me as I thought of shooting anybody through the head and the chaplain pushing him down the cliff into the water. I was just going to ask him what the men had done, when he said:

"Ah, there they come."

I looked, and a lot of colored men were leading about forty old back-number horses and mules, afflicted with glanders and other diseases.

"Are the niggers to be killed?" I asked.

"Naw," said the chaplain. "The horses and mules."

I was never so relieved in all my life as I was when I found that my excellent marksmanship was to be expended on animals instead of human beings. But I did feel hurt, the idea of a brevet officer, a man qualified to do deeds of daring, being detailed one day to drive mules and the next-to shoot sick horses. But I decided to do whatever I had to do, well, and so preparations were made for the executions. The glandered horses were brought out first, and then the ones with sore backs. Many of them were first-rate horses, their only fault being sores made from the saddles, and as it would take months to cure them up, and as the army was going to move soon, it had been decided to kill them rather than leave them to fall into the enemy's hands, or take them along to be cured on the march. I shot about a dozen glandered horses, that being the largest game I had ever killed, and the bodies fell down into the river. Then there was a mule that was ugly, and it occurred to me I would have some fun with the chaplain.

We were outside the lines, and quite a number of men had gathered from the plantations, on hearing the firing, to see what was up. I suggested to the chaplain that it was a shame to kill so many good horses, when they might be of use to some of the planters, but he said they were all rebels, and it was not the policy of the government to set them up in business, by giving them horses to use tilling crops. I argued that the men had come home from the confederate army—this was in 1864—either discharged for wounds or disability, or paroled prisoners, and they were anxious to go to work, but that they hadn't a dollar, and our army had skinned every horse and mule on their places, and the niggers had gone, so that a horse would be a God-send to them. But the chaplain wouldn't hear to it. The men, who had collected, were mostly too proud to ask for a horse from a Yankee, but I could see that they did not like to see the animals killed. I thought if I could get the chaplain, who had been sent out to the execution as a sort of humane society, to see that the animals were killed easy, to go back to camp and leave me alone with the horses, I could kill them or not, as I chose. They brought out the ugly mule next, and my idea was to shoot the mule through the tip of the ear, while the chaplain stood near with a rail to push it over the bank, and maybe the mule would flax around and kick the chaplain up a tree, or scare him so he would leave. I took deliberate aim at the mule's ear, told the chaplain to push hard with the rail so the corpse would be sure to go over the cliff, and fired. Well, I have never seen such a scene in all my life. The mule seemed to squat down, when the bullet hit the top of his ear, then he brayed so loud that it would raise your hat right off your head, then he jumped into the air and whirled around and kicked in every direction with all four feet at once, fell down and rolled over towards the chaplain, and got up, and seeming to think the chaplain was the author of the misery, started for him, and that good man dodged behind trees until he got a chance to climb up one, which he did, and sat on a limb and shook his fist at the mule and me. He used quite strong language at me for not killing the animal dead. Finally the niggers caught the mule and the chaplain dismounted from the limb, and came to me. I told him my carbine was out of order, and I should have to take it apart and fix it, and that there was no knowing whether it would shoot where I aimed it or not, after it was fixed, and I might have trouble with the rest of the horses. It would take an hour at least to fix the gun. He said he guessed he would go back to camp, and leave me to finish up the slaughter, and that was what I wanted. The colored men were anxious to go back too, so I let them tie the horses to trees, and all go back except one, whom I knew. After they had all gone I went up to the dozen southern men who had been watching the proceedings, and asked one who was called colonel by the rest, if he didn't think it was wrong to kill the horses when by a little care they could be of much use in tilling crops. "Well, sah," said he with dignity. "If it is not disloyalty, sah, for a southern gentleman to criticize anything that a yankee does, I should say, sah, that it was a d——d shame, sah, to steal our horses, and after using them up, sah, kill them in cold blood, sah. Each one of those animals sah, would be a gold mine, sah, at this time, to us who have come from the wah, sah, destitute, with nothing but our bare hands to make a crop, to keep our families from want, sah."

The other gentlemen nodded at what the colonel had said, as though that was about their sentiments. I told him that I felt about that way myself, but there was an objection. If I gave the horses away, for use on the plantations, and the animals should be used hereafter in the confederate army, it would not only be wrong, but I would be liable to be dismissed from the army.

The colonel said he should want to be dismissed from the Yankee army if he was in it, but I might feel different about it. But he said he would pledge me his word as a Southern gentleman, that if the animals could be lent to them, they should never be used for war purposes. He said he was poor, and his friends there were poor, but they would not take a horse as a gift from a stranger, but if I would lend them the horses for a year, they would use them, and return them to the proper officer a year hence, if the army was yet in existence, or they would take them in exchange for horses that had previously been stolen from them by our army. He said there was not a gentleman present but had lost from two to a dozen horses since the army had been in their vicinity. I admired the dignity and honesty of the old gentleman, and I knew mighty well that we had picked up every horse we could find, and I said:

"Colonel, here are about thirty horses I have been ordered to kill. If I do not kill them I take a certain responsibility. I feel under obligations to many Southern people for courtesies, and I feel that the nursing I received during a recent sickness, from one of your Southern ladies, about the same as saved my life. I believe the war is very near over, and that neither you nor our men will have occasion for much more active service. You have come home to your desolate plantations, and found everything gone. This is the fate of war, but it is unpleasant all the same. If you can use these animals for your work, in raising crops, you may take them in welcome, and if there is any cussing, I will stand it. My advice would be to take them to some isolated place on your plantation, and keep them out of sight for a time. Our army will move within a week, and perhaps never come back here. The animals are branded 'U. S.' which will always remain. If the horses are found in your possession, later, you may have to say that they were given to you by an agent of the quartermaster. If they are taken from you, grin and bear it. If you are permitted to keep them, and they do you any good, I shall be very glad. If I get hauled over the coals for giving aid and comfort to the enemy, I will lie out of it some way, or stand my punishment like a little man. The horses are yours, as far as I am concerned."

"Well, sah, you are a perfect gentleman, sah," said the colonel, as he took my hand and shook it cordially. "And I should be proud to entertain you at my place, sah. We have got little left, sah, but you are welcome to our home at any time. I am an old man, with a bullet in my leg. Two of my boys are dead, in Virginia, sah, and I have one boy who is a prisoner at the north. If he comes home alive, we will be able to make a living and have a home again. The war has been a terrible blow to us all, sah. I reckon both sides, sah, have got about enough, and both sides have made cussed, fools of themselves. When this affair is settled, sah, the north and south will be better friends than ever, sah. I wish you a long life, sah."

The other gentlemen expressed thanks, and they picked out two or three horses apiece and led them away, it seemed to me as happy a lot of gentlemen as I ever saw. I called the colored man, and we started for camp. For a five dollar bill, and a promise to always take a deep interest in the colored man's welfare, I got his promise that he would never tell anybody about my giving the horses away, and for nearly a year he kept his promise. I went back to headquarters and reported that the animals had been disposed of, and that evening I was invited to set into a poker game with some of the officers, and when we got up I had won over a hundred dollars. I looked upon the streak of luck as a premium for my kindness to the gentlemen who took the horses, but some of the officers seemed to have a suspicion that I concealed cards up my sleeve. It is thus that the best of us are misunderstood.



CHAPTER XX.

I Demonstrate that Gambling Does Not Pay—I Cause a General Stampede—Christmas in the Pine Woods of Alabama—Millions of Dollars, but no Christmas Dinner.

When I went away from the party of officers, where we had been playing draw-poker, with a hundred dollars in my pocket, which I had won from men who thought they were pretty good poker players, I felt as though I owned the earth. I had my hand in my pocket, hold of the roll of greenbacks, and in that way constantly realized that I was no common pauper. I had never thought that I was an expert at cards, but this triumph convinced me that there was more money to be made playing poker than in any other way. I figured up in my mind that if I could win a hundred dollars a night, and only played five nights a week, I could lay up two thousand dollars a month. To keep it up a year would make me rich, and if the war lasted a couple of years I could go home with money enough to buy out the best newspaper in Wisconsin. It is wonderful what a train of thought a young man's first success in gambling, or speculation, brings to him. I went to bed with my hundred dollars buttoned inside my flannel shirt, and dreamed all night about holding four aces, full hands, and three of a kind. All that night, in my sleep, I never failed to "fill" when I drew to a hand. I made up my mind to break every officer in the regiment, at poker, and then turn my attention to other regiments, and win all the money the paymaster should bring to the brigade. I got up in the morning with a headache, and thought how long it would be before night, when we could play poker again, and I wondered why we couldn't play during the day, as there was nothing else going on. It got rumored around the regiment that I had cleaned the officers out at poker the night before, and the boys seemed glad that a private had made them pay attention. I had not yet got my commsssion, and so any victory I might achieve was considered a victory for a private soldier. Several of the boys congratulated me. The nearest I ever come to quarreling with my old partner, Jim, was over this poker business. I showed him my roll, and told him how I had cleaned the officers out, and instead of feeling good over it, Jim said I was a confounded fool. I tried to argue the matter with Jim, but he couldn't be convinced, and insisted that they had made a fool of me, and had let me win on purpose, and that they would win it all back, and all I had besides. He said I had better let the chaplain take the hundred dollars to keep for me, and stay away from that poker game, and I would be a hundred ahead, but I didn't want any second-class chaplain to be a guardian over me, and I told Jim I was of age, and could take care of myself. Jim said he thought I had some sense before I was commsssioned, but it had spoiled me. He said in less than a week I would be borrowing money of him. I knew better, and went around camp with my thumbs stuck in my armholes, and felt big. It was an awful long day, but I put in the time thinking how I would draw cards, and bet judiciously, and finally night came, and I went over to the major's tent, where the officers usually congregated. I was early, and had to wait half an hour before the crowd showed up. As they came in each had something to say to me. "Here's the man who walked off with our wealth last night," said one. "Here's our victim," said another. "We will send him to his tent tonight without a dollar." They chaffed me a good deal, but I made up my mind that I could play as well as they could, and some of them were old fellows that had played poker before I was born. Well, we went to work, and the first hand I got I lost ten dollars. It was the history of all smart Aleck's, and there is no use of going into details. In less than an hour they had won the hundred dollars, and fifty that I had sewed inside my shirt to keep for a rainy day, and they had joked me every time I bet until I was exasperated to such an extent that I could have killed them. Winning or losing money with them was a mere pastime, and they seemed to enjoy losing about as much as winning. I was too proud, or too big a fool to leave the game when I had lost all I had, and I borrowed a little of each of them, and lost it, and then I said I was tired and I guessed I would go to bed, and I went out, dizzy and sick at heart, and the officers laughed so I could hear them clear to my tent. On the way to my tent, and as I walked around for half an hour before going there, I thought over what a fool I was, how I had forgotten all the good advice ever given me by my friends. Knowing that I was not intended by nature for a gambler, I had gone in with my eyes open, made a temporary success, got the big head, as all boys do, and gone back and laid down my bundle, and become the laughing stock of the whole crowd. I figured up that I was just an even hundred dollars out of pocket, and decided that I would never try to get it back. I would simply swear off gambling right there, forget that I knew one card from another, pay up my gambling debts when I got my first pay, and never touch a card again.

That was the wisest conclusion that I ever come to. After I had walked around until my head cleared off a little, I went in the tent sly and still, to go to bed without letting Jim hear me. I was ashamed, and didn't want to talk. I heard Jim roll over on his bunk, and he said:

"Bet ten dollars, pard, that you lost all you had."

"Jim, I won't bet with you. I have sworn off betting intirely."

"Help yourself," said Jim, as he reached over his greasy old pocketbook to me. "Take all you want, now that you have come to your senses. But you must admit that what I said about your being a fool, was true."

"Yes, and an idiot, and an ass," I said, as I handed back Jim's money. "But that settles it. I will never gamble another cent's worth as long as I live, and if I see a friend of mine gambling, I will try and break him of the habit. There is nothing in it, and I went to sleep, and didn't dream any more about winning all the money in camp."

Two days before Christmas our cavalry, consisting of a full brigade, started on a raid, or a march through the enemy's country, and as I could not act as an officer very well, before my commission arrived, and as the colonel seemed to hate to see me in the ranks when I was looked upon as an officer, he sent me to brigade headquarters on a detail to carry the brigade colors. The brigade colors consisted of a blue guidon, on a pole. The butt end of the pole, or staff, was inserted in a socket of leather fastened to my stirrup, and I held on to the staff with my right hand when on the march, guiding my horse with my left hand, When the command halted the colors were planted in the ground in front of the place which the brigade commander had selected. On the march I rode right behind the brigade commander and his staff, with the body guard to protect the precious colors. I was glad of this position, because it took me among high officials, and if there was anything I doted, on it was high officers. The colonel had told me that I must be on my good behavior, and salute the officers of the staff, whenever they came near me. He said the brigade commander was a strict disciplinarian, and wouldn't put up with any monkey business. The first hour of my service as color bearer came near breaking up the brigade. I was perhaps forty feet behind the brigade commander and his staff, riding as stiff as though I was a part of the horse, and feeling as proud as though I owned the army. Suddenly the colonel and staff turned out of the road, and faced to the rear, and started to ride back to one of the regiments in the rear. I saw them coming, and felt that I must salute them. How to do it was a puzzle to me. If I saluted with my left hand, it would be wrong, besides I would have to drop the reins, and my horse might start to run, as he was prancing and putting on as much style as I was. If I saluted with my right hand, I should have to let go the flag staff. The salute must be sudden, so I could grasp the staff very quick, before it toppled over. It took a great head to decide what to do, and I had to decide quick. Just as the brigade commander got opposite me I let go the flag stair, brought my right hand quickly to the right eye, as nice a salute as a man ever saw, and returned it to grab the flag stall. But it was too late. As soon as my right hand let go of the staff, it fell over and the gilt dart on the end of the staff struck the general's horse in the flank, he jumped sideways against the adjutant-general's horse, and his horse fell over the brigade surgeon's horse, the general's horse run under a tree, and brushed the general off, and the whole staff was wild trying to hold their horses, and jumping to catch the general's horse, and pick the general off the ground. In the meantime my horse had got frightened at the staff and flag that was dragging on the ground, with one end in the socket in the stirrup, the pole tickling him in the ribs, and he began to dance around, and whirl, and knock members of the color-guard off their horses, and they stampeded to the woods leaving me in the road, on a frightened horse, whirliing around, unmanageable, the start striking trees and horses, until the staff was broken.

The regiment in the rear of us saw the commotion, saw the general dismounted, and the colors on the ground, and a general stampede in front, and, thinking the general and staff had been ambushed by the rebels, and many killed, the colonel ordered his men forward on a charge, and, in less time than it takes to write it, the woods were full of charging soldiers, looking for an imaginary enemy, a surgeon had opened up a lot of remedies, and all was confusion, and I was the innocent cause of it all. I had seen my mistake as soon as the flag staff knocked the general off his horse, and when I dismounted and picked up the flag, and the pieces of the staff, and found myself surrounded by excited troops, I wondered if the general would pull his revolver and shoot me himself, or order some of the soldiers to kill me. For choice I had rather have been killed by a volley from a platoon of soldiers, but I recognized the fact that the general had a perfect right to kill me. In fact I wanted him to shoot me. I was trimming the limbs off a sapling for a makeshift flag staff, when I saw the crowd open, and the general walked towards me. His face was a trifle pale, except where the red clay from the road covered it, and I felt that the next moment or two would decide in what manner I was to meet my doom. I remembered what the colonel had told me, about the general being a strict disciplinarian, and wondered if it wouldn't help matters if I should fall on my knees and say a little prayer, or ask him to spare my life. I wondered if I would be justified in drawing my revolver and trying to get the drop on the general. But I had no time to think it over, for he come right up to me, and said:

"I beg your pardon, my young friend, for the trouble and annoyance I have caused you. I should have known better than to ride so near you, and frighten your horse, when you had only one hand to guide the animal. Are you hurt? No; well, I am very glad. Ah, the flag staff is broken! Let me help you tack the flag on the sapling. Orderly, bring me some nails. Let me whittle the bark off the sapling, so it will not hurt your hands. When we get into camp tonight, and the wagons come up, I will see that you have another staff. There, don't feel bad about it. There is no damage."

Bless his soul! I could, have hugged him for his kindness. When he came towards me, I was mad and desperate, and when he spoke kind words to me, my chin trembled, and I felt like a baby. He stopped the brigade for half an hour, to help fix up my flag, and all the time talked so kindly to me, that when the thing was fixed, I felt remorse of conscience, and said: "General, I am entirely to blame myself. I tried to perform the impossible feat of saluting you and holding the colors at the same time, which I am satisfied now cannot be done successfully. Lay it all to me."

"I knew it," said the good old general, "and I was going to tell you that you are not expected to salute anybody when you have the colors. You are a part of the flag, then. You will learn it all by and by," and he mounted his horse and rode away about his business, as cool as though nothing had happened, and left me feeling that he was the best man on earth. Further acquaintance with the old man taught me that he was one of nature's noblemen. He was an Illinois farmer, who had enlisted as a private, and had in time become colonel of his regiment, and had been placed in command of this brigade. Every evening he would take an axe and cut up fire-wood enough for headquarters, and he was not above cleaning off his horse if his servant was sick, or did not do it to suit, and frequently I have seen him greasing his own boots.

Two days out, and we were in the pine woods of Alabama, with no habitation within ten miles. After a day's march we went into camp in the woods, and it was the afternoon before Christmas. The young pines, growing among the larger ones, were just such little trees as were used at home for Christmas trees, and within an hour after getting the camp made, every man thought of Christmas at home. The boys went off into the woods and got holly, and mistletoe, and every pup tent of the whole brigade was decorated, and they hung nose bags, grain sacks, army socks and pants on the trees. Around the fires stakes had been driven to hang clothes on to dry, and as night came and the pitch pine fires blazed up to the tops of the great pines, it actually looked like Christmas, though there was not a Christmas present anywhere. After supper the brigade band began to play patriotic airs, with occasionally an old fashioned tune, like "Old Hundred," the woods rung with music from the boys who could sing, and everybody was as happy as I ever saw a crowd of people, and when it came time to retire the band played "Home, Sweet Home," and three thousand rough soldiers went to bed with tears in their eyes, and every man dreamed of the dear ones at home, and many prayed that the home ones might be happy, and in the morning they all got up, stripped the empty Christmas stockings off the evergreen trees, put them on, and went on down the red road, and at noon the army entered Montgomery, Alabama, the first capital of the confederate states, took possession of the capital building in which were millions of dollars of confederate money and bonds. Every soldier filled his pockets and saddle bags with bonds and bills of large denominations. It was a poor soldier that could not count up his half a million dollars, but with all the money no man could buy a Christmas dinner. A dollar in greenbacks would buy more than all of the wagon loads of confederate currency captured that day. And yet the people of Montgomery looked upon the arrival of the Yankees much as they would the arrival of a pestilence. However, it was not many days before a better understanding was arrived at, and Yankee blue and Confederate gray got mixed up, and acquaintances were made that ripened into mutual respect and in some cases love.



CHAPTER XXI.

I Go on a Scouting Expedition—My Horse Dies of Poison— I Turn Horse-Thief—I Capture a Church, Congregation, and Ministers, but I Spare the Communion Wine.

Let's see, the last chapter left me with a million dollars, more or less, of confederate money in my possession, and yet I had not enough to buy a square meal. I think there was no one thing that caused, the people of the confederate states, outside of their army, to realize the hopelessness of their cause, along in '64, as much as the relative value of confederate money and greenbacks. Of course the confederate soldiers, poor fellows, realized the difference some, when they could get hold of greenbacks, but the people of the south who did not have rations furnished them, and who had to skirmish around and buy something to live upon, early learned that a greenback was worth "two in the bush," as it were. No community in the south was more loyal to the confederacy than the people of Montgomery, Alabama. They tried to use confederate currency as long as there was any hope, and they tried hard to despise the greenbacks; but when it got so that a market basket full of their own currency was looked upon with suspicion by their own dealers in eatables, and a greenback was sought after by the dealer, and its possessor was greeted with a smile while the overloaded possessor of confederate currency was frowned upon, more in sorrow than in anger, however, a wild desire took possession of the people to get hold of the hated greenbacks; and a soldier or army follower who had a good supply of greenbacks was met more than half way in reconciliation; and little jobs were put up to get the money that made many ashamed, but they had to have greenbacks. Many would have given their lives if confederate money could have been as good as the money of the invaders, but it was not and never could be, and it was not an hour after the enemy was in Montgomery before people who had been loyal to the south up to that hour and believed in its currency, went back on it completely, and they cherished the greenback and hugged it to their bosoms like an old friend. They had rather had gold, but good green paper would buy so much more than any currency they had known for years, that they snatched it greedily. And many of them enjoyed the first real respect for the Union that they had had for four years, when they met the well-fed and well-clothed Union soldiers, who did not seem as bad as they had been painted, the poorest one of which had more money in his pockets than the richest citizen of supposed wealth. The people seemed surprised to meet well-dressed private soldiers who could converse on any subject, and who seemed capable of doing any kind of business. Fires broke out in many places in the city, and Union soldiers went to work with the primitive fire apparatus at hand and put out the fires. Locomotives had been thrown from the track of the railroad in an attempt to destroy them, and private soldiers were detailed to put the locomotives together and run them, which they did, to the surprise of the people. An officer would take charge of a quantity of captured property, and he would detail the first half-dozen soldiers he met to go and make out an invoice of the property, and the boys would do it as well as the oldest southern merchant. A planter that could not speak anything but French would come to the captain, of a company to complain of something, and the captain after vainly trying to understand the man, would turn to some soldier in his company and say, "Here Frenchy, talk to this man, and see what he wants," and the soldier would address the planter in French, politely, and in a moment the difficulty would be settled, and the planter would go away bowing and smiling. Any language could be spoken by the soldiers, and any business that ever was transacted could be done by them. A soldier printer visited the office of a city paper, and in a conversation with the editor informed him that there were editors enough in his regiment to edit the New York Herald. At first the better class of citizens, the old fathers in Israel, of the confederacy, stood aloof from the new soldiers in blue, expecting them to be insolent, as conquerors are sometimes supposed to be; but soon they saw that the boys were as mild a mannered and friendly and jolly a lot as they ever saw, not the least inclined to gloat over their fallen enemy, and at times acting as though they were sorry to make any trouble; and it was not long before boys in blue and citizens in gray were playing billiards together, with old gentlemen keeping count for them, old fellows, who a week before would have been insulted if any one had told them they would ever speak to a Yankee soldier. The second day the southern ladies, who had kept indoors, came out and promenaded the beautiful streets, and seemed to enjoy the sight of the bright uniforms, and before night acquaintances had been made, and it did not cause any remark to see Union officers and soldiers waiting with ladies, talking with animation, and laughing pleasantly. It almost seemed, as though the war was over.

It was about this time that I stole my first horse. I had ridden horses that had been "captured" from the enemy, in fair fights, and that had been accumulated in divers ways by the quartermaster, and issued to the men, but I never deliberately stole a horse. Two or three companies of my regiment had gone off on a scout, to be gone a couple of days, leaving the command at Montgomery, and one day we were encamped on an old abandoned field, taking dinner. The horses and mules were grazing near us, and there was no indication that any epidemic was about to break out. We were about sixty miles from Montgomery, and were cooking our last meal, expecting to make a forced march and be back before morning. I had got the midday meal for Jim and myself cooked, the bacon, sweet potatoes, coffee and so forth, and spread upon a horse blanket on the ground, and we were just about to sit down to eat, when a mule that had been browsing near us, and snooping into our affairs, attracted our attention. All of a sudden the animal became rigid, and stood up as stiff as possible, then its muscles relaxed, and it became limber, and whirled around and brayed, backed up towards us, and as we rushed away to keep from being kicked, the mule fell over in a fit directly on our beautifully cooked dinner, rolled over on the bacon and potatoes and coffee, and trembled and brayed, and died right there. I looked at Jim and Jim looked at me. "Well, condam a mule, anyway," said Jim. "That animal has been ready to die for two hours, and just to show its cussedness, it waited until we had our dinner cooked, the last morsel we had, and then it fell in a fit, and expired on our dining table." I made some remark not complimentary to the mule as a member of society and we went to the corpse and pulled it around to see if we couldn't save a mouthful or two that could be eaten. We could not, as everything was crushed into the ground. I suggested that we cut a steak out of the mule, and broil it, but Jim said he was not going to be a cannibal, if he knew his own heart. While we were looking at the remains of our meal, my horse, the rebel horse that I had rode so many months, and loved so, which was hitched near, lay down, began to groan and kick, and in two minutes he was dead. Then Jim's horse went through the same performance and died, and by that time there was a commotion all around camp, horses and mules dying suddenly, until within half an hour there were only a dozen animals alive, and forty cavalrymen, at least, were horseless. The camp looked like a battle field. Nobody knew what was the matter of the animals, until an old negro, who lived near, came out and said, "You uns ought to know better than to let you horses eat dat sneeze weed. Dat is poison. Kills animals, just like rat poison." And then he showed us a weed, with a square stem, that grew there, and which was called sneeze weed. He said native animals would not touch it, but strange animals eat it because it was nice and green. Well, we were in a fix. The men were called together, and the major told them there was nothing to do but to take their saddles and bridles on their backs and walk to Montgomery, unless they could steal a horse. He advised us to scatter into parties of two or three, enough to protect ourselves from possible attack, go on cross roads, and to plantations, forage for something to eat, and take the first horse or mule we could find, and report to Montgomery as soon as possible. Jim and I, of course, decided to stand by each, other, and after the men who had not lost their horses, had rode away, the forty dismounted men shouldered their saddles, and started in different directions, seeking some other men's horses. I never had realized that a cavalry saddle was so heavy, before. Mine seemed to weigh a ton. We struck a cross road, and followed it for two or three miles, when I called a council of war, with Jim. I told him that it was all foolishness to lug those heavy saddles all over the Southern Confederacy. If we succeeded in stealing horses, we could probably steal saddles, also, or if not we could get a sheepskin. I told Jim I would receipt to him for his saddle, and then I would leave them in a fence corner, and if we ever got back to the regiment I would report the saddle lost in action.

Jim said I had a great head, and he consented, and we left our saddles and moved on. Jim said that now we had only a bridle and a pair of spurs, we were more like regularly ordained horse-thieves. He said the most successful horse-thief he ever knew in Wisconsin never had anything but a halter as his stock in trade. He would go out with a halter, with a rope on the end, pick up a horse, put the rope in the horse's mouth, and ride away, and nobody could catch him. I asked Jim if he didn't feel humiliated, a loyal soldier, to class himself with horse-thieves. He said when he enlisted he made up his mind to do nothing but shoot rebels through the heart or the left lung. It was his idea to be a sharpshooter, and aim at the button on the left breast of the enemy, but when he found that lots of the rebels didn't have any buttons on their coats and that he might shoot all day at a single rebel and not hit him, and that shooting into them in flocks didn't seem to diminish the enemy the least bit, he had made up his mind to turn his hand to anything; and if the rebellion could be put down easier by his stealing horses at thirteen dollars a month, he would do it if ordered. He said we were only putting in time, promenading around, and we should get our salary all the same. And so we wandered on, talking the thing over. When we came to a plantation we would walk all around it, and examine the woods and swamps adjacent, because the people of the South had learned that a horse or a mule was not safe anywhere out of the most impenetrable swamp. It was dark when Jim and I decided to camp for the night, and we went into a deserted cotton gin and prepared for a sleep. It was almost dark, and Jim said he had just seen a chicken, near a cabin, fly up in a peach tree to roost, and he was going to have the chicken as soon as it was dark. I laid down on some refuse cotton, and Jim went out after the chicken. I had fallen asleep when Jim returned, and he had the chicken, and a skillet, and a couple of canteens of water. I crawled out of my nest and built a fire, while Jim dressed the chicken, and got the water to boiling, and the chicken was put in. For three hours we boiled the chicken, but each hour made it tougher. I told Jim he might be a success as a horse-thief, but when it come to stealing tender poultry he was a lamentable failure, but he said it was the only hen on the place, and if I didn't want to eat it I could retire to my couch and he would set up with the hen. I was so hungry, and the smell of the boiling hen was so Savory, that I remained awake, and at about midnight Jim announced that he had succeeded in prying off a piece of the breast, so we speared the hen out of the water, laid it on the frame of a grindstone in the gin-house, and sat down to the festive board. "Will you have the light or the dark meat," asked Jim, with a politeness that would have done credit to a dancing-master. I told, him I preferred the dark meat, so he took hold of one leg and I the other, and we pulled the hen apart. The hen seemed to be copper-rivetted, for when I got a chunk of it down, and it chinked up a vacant place in the stomach, it did seem as though there was nothing like hen to save life. We eat sparingly that night, because we were weak, and the hen was strong, and we laid down and slept peacefully, and awoke in the morning hungry. When the hen became cold, in the morning it was tough. "Will you have some of the cold chicken," said Jim, and I told him I would try a little. It was better than India rubber, and we made a breakfast and started on. It was Sunday. As we came out to the main road, we saw people dressed up, that is, with clean shirts. As ten o clock approached we could see colored people and white, wending their way to a little church in the pine woods. We kept out of sight, and waited, several parties passed us on horseback, some in carriages, and many on foot. Presently three soldiers of our scattered party came along carrying saddles, and we called them into the woods, where we were. I unfolded to them my scheme, which was to surround that church, hold the worshippers as prisoners inside, while we stole the horses that would be hitched to the fence. Jim kicked on it. He said he had rather walk than to interfere with people who were enjoying their religion. He said he was never very pious himself, but his parents were, and he should always hate himself if he helped to raid that church. The other fellows were for going for the horses. Pretty soon four more of our boys came along, and we called them in. They had got on to the church services, and had their eyes on the horses. That made nine of us, and as we were armed, we believed we could capture those old men and women and negroes, and get the horses.

Being a brevet officer I was placed in command of the party, and a plan was agreed upon. We were to scatter and surround the church, and ask the people outside to step inside, and then lock the door, and place a guard on three sides of the little old church where there were windows, but not to fire a gun unless attacked, and not to speak disrespectfully to any person. If there was any argument with anybody, I was to do the talking. We decided to take about fifteen horses, if there were that number there, because we would be sure to find some of our scattered boys dismounted before we got far toward Montgomery, and it was a good idea to take horses when we had a chance. Well, it was a job I did not like, but what was a fellow to do. We were sixty miles from headquarters, on foot and out of meat. I had never been in a church row before. It seemed as though religious worshippers ought to be exempt from war, with its wide desolation. But business was business. We surrounded the church, walking up quietly from different directions, and as we closed up on the sacred edifice half a dozen men, white and colored, were standing in front, and two men were talking over a horse trade. The minister was expounding the gospel, talking loud, and all else was still. We invited the outsiders to go in, which they did with some reluctance, the door was fastened on the outside, guards were placed, and the preaching stopped. The minister had been informed that the yankees had captured the place. There were only two sides of the church with windows, so two guards were sufficient, and the rest of us went to work skinning the harnesses off the horses. A window was raised and an old man stuck his head out and said, as one of the boys was mounting an old mare belonging to him, "I forbid you touching that mare." A carbine was pointed at the window, and the old man drew in his head, and the window was slammed down.



We had got sixteen pretty good horses, when a window on the other side opened, and the minister's head was put out, and he said, "In the name of the church I command you to desist." He looked so fierce that Jim, who was on guard on that side, and who had objected to the scheme on account of its being a church, cocked his carbine and pointed it at the minister and said, "gol darn you, dry up!" He dried up, the window closed and except for the heads at the windows, and faces looking very mad, all was quit. When we had got the horses strung out, and the men were mounted, I looked in a carriage, accidentally, and saw a basket, covered over with a paper. The paper was a religious one, published at Savannah, and being a newspaper man, I looked at the leading editorial, which was headed, "The Lord will provide." I never took much stock in regular stereotyped editorials, but when I turned my eye from the editorial to the basket, I realized than an editorial in a religious newspaper, was liable to contain much truth, for the basket was filled with as fine a lunch as a man ever saw. It seemed that the people came quite a long distance to church, and brought their dinner, remaining to the afternoon services. O, but I was hungry. I looked in several other carriages, and found baskets in each. Every man in my party was as hungry as a she wolf, and I knew they would not leave a mouthful if they once got to going on the lunches, and as it wasn't the policy of my government to take the bread from the mouths of Sunday-school children, I decided to divide the lunches. So I appointed Jim and an Irishman to help me, and we opened all the baskets and took half. Jim came to one basket with two loaves of bread and two bottles of wine, and he stopped.

He said, "Pard, that lay-out in the big basket, with the silver pitcher, is for the communion. I'm a bold buccaneer of the Spanish main, but I'll be cussed if I touch that."

The Irishman said no power on earth could get him to touch it, and he crossed himself reverently, and we left the communion lay-out, and passed the half we had taken from the baskets around among the boys, and they eat as though a special providence had provided them with appetites and means of satisfying them. After enjoying the meal the boys said we ought to return thanks for the good things the pious people had provided for us, so I went to the door of the church, opened it, and faced the congregation. There were old and young, and some of them looked mad, and I didn't blame them. In a few well chosen remarks I addressed the minister, telling him I regretted the circumstances, but it was necessary to do what we had done. We had tried to do it as pleasantly as possible, but no doubt it seemed hard to them. I said we had got to go to Montgomery, and that if any of them who had lost their horses, would come there within a few days, I had no doubt the proper authorities would return them their horses, but that they must stand the loss of a half of their lunch, as we had divided it up as square as we knew how. One young Confederate soldier, with an empty sleeve, who had come to church with his mother, and who could, no doubt, realize the situation better than the rest, said, "That is all right, Mr. Yankee. I would do the same thing, under the circumstances, if I was in your country, horseless and hungry." There were some murmurs of dissatisfaction, some smiled at the situation, and we mounted and rode away. Before we were out of sight the whole congregation was out of the church, under the pine trees, taking an account of stock, or lost stock, and no doubt saying hard things of the Yankees. We traveled all day and nearly all night, picked up some of our dismounted men, and arrived in Montgomery the next day before noon. In a few days my one-armed confederate soldier, who was home from the army in Virginia, having been discharged for disability, came to Montgomery with the people who had lost their horses at the church, and I had the satisfaction of seeing many of them either receive their animals back, or vouchers from the quartermaster, by which they got pay from the government for the animals. And I entertained the one-armed confederate for two days, and we became great friends. Two years ago I met him in Georgia, grown gray, and found him connected with a Georgia railroad, and we had a great laugh over my capture of the congregation.



CHAPTER XXII.

The Spotted Horse—His Shameful Behaviour at a Funeral—I was Tempted to Have My Horse Shot—But I Traded Him to the Chaplain.

It seemed to me that my luck was the worst of any man's in the army, and I was constantly getting into situations that caused, my conduct to be talked about. When we raided the church, mentioned last week, for horses, I saw a nice white horse with red spots on him, with a saddle, and being the commander of the squad of horse-thieves, it was no more than right for me to take my choice first, so I chose the spotted horse, and thought I had the showiest horse in the army. The animal was a sort of Arabian, and before I had rode him a mile I was in love with him. then I got to Montgomery a man told me that horse used to belong to a circus that closed up there the first year of the war, and was sold to a planter. He said the horse was considered one of the finest ever seen in the South. I felt much elated over my capture, and refused several offers to trade. I thought no horse was too good for me, and for two or three days I did nothing but feed and groom my spotted horse, until his coat shone like satin, and he felt so kitteny that I was almost afraid to get on his back. One morning an order was issued for the regiment to turn out in a body to attend the funeral of a major of one of the regiments, who had died, and I was sent for to carry the brigade colors, a position I had been relieved from after we arrived at Montgomery. The boys all dressed up in their best, and I looked about as slick as any of them, and with my spotted horse, I felt as though I would attract about as much attention as any of the officers in the procession. At the proper time I mounted my horse and rode over to brigade headquarters, not without some difficulty, for my horse saw the crowd on the streets, and evidently thought it was circus day, for he pranced and snorted, and walked with one fore-foot at a time, pawing as you have seen a horse in a circus, trained to walk that way. As I rode up to brigade headquarters and stopped, I must have touched my horse with my foot somewhere, for he got down on his knees, and as I got off, the horse laid down right in front of the colonel's tent, just as he would in a circus. Even then I did not realize that the confounded brute was a circus trick-horse. He had been taught to lay down, evidently, at a certain signal. And he laid there, looking up at me with his cunning eyes, waiting for me to give the signal for him to get up, but I "did not know the combination," and he wouldn't get up for kicking, so I stood there like a fool waiting to see what he would do next. The colonel commanding the brigade, the nice old man who had helped me out of my difficulty with my other horse, on the march when he got on a tantrum, come out of his tent and said he guessed my horse was sick, and he told an orderly to go to the cook house and get a little red pepper and let the horse take a snuff of it. In the meantime my horse got up on his fore feet and sat on his haunches, like a dog, just as circus horses always do, reached up his neck and took a nice white silk handkerchief out of the breast of the colonel's coat, and held it in his mouth. It was a circus trick, and I knew it, but the colonel said, "Poor horse, he is sick," and as the orderly come with the red pepper the colonel held it to the horse's nose. The horse got up, and I mounted, and it must have been about that time that the red pepper began its work, for my horse stood on his fore feet and kicked up, then got on his hind feet and reared up, and snorted, and come down on the colonel's tent, and crushed it to the-ground, and broke the colonel's camp cot, got tangled in the guy ropes, and tore everything loose and jumped out in the street, and began to paw and snort. I suppose there was a thousand people around by that time, soldiers and citizens, and I sat there on that horse and wished I was dead, and I guess the colonel did so too.

Finally it was time to move, and the colonel sent out the brigade colors to me, and the start started up street towards the funeral. My horse started with them, and seemed proud of the flag, and I guess he would have gone along all right, only a band down the street began to play a waltz. Do you know, that spotted horse began to waltz around just as though he was in a circus, and I couldn't keep him straight to save me. The colonel seemed mortified, as we were approaching the place where the services were to be held, and it was necessary to appear solemn. Finally we began to get out of hearing of the band, and my horse stopped waltzing, but he kept up a-dancing, and snorting from the red pepper, until I could have killed him. When the colonel and his staff, including myself and the circus-horse, arrived at the place where the funeral was, another band was playing a very solemn sort of a funeral tune, and for a wonder my horse did not act up at all. He seemed to stand and think, as though trying to make out what kind of music it was. He had evidently never heard such music in the circus and did not know what to do. When the body was brought out of the house, and the procession started down the street for the grave, a drum major, with a staff in his hand, came along by me, and I have always thought my horse took the drum major for the ring master of a circus, for he reared up and walked on his hind feet, and pawed the air, and made a spectacle of me that made me so ashamed that I wanted to be killed. I had the brigade colors in one hand, and had only one hand and two feet to cling on the horse by, and I must have looked like a cat climbing the roof of a whitewashed barn. The drum major got scared at my horse walking towards him in that way, and he lost his bear-skin cap off and fell over it, and rolled in the sand, and the horse, thinking that was a part of the circus turned and kicked at the drum major with both his hind feet, until the poor assistant musician got up and climbed over a fence. The horse got quiet then, only he began to nibble his fore leg, as though trying to untie a handkerchief that the clown had tied on, as they do in the circus. The colonel rode up to me, and with a good deal of indignation, asked me what I. meant by causing ourselves to become a spectacle for gods and men on so solemn an occasion. He said he was tempted to have my horse shot, and me placed in the guard-house. I told him I hoped to die if I could help it. I said the horse seemed to be possessed to do some circus business wherever he went. I confided to the colonel that the horse had been a circus-horse before the war, and the music and tinsel, and crowd that he saw, had turned his head and made him think that he was again with his beloved circus, where he had spent the best years of his life. The colonel said I ought to have known better than to bring a circus horse to a funeral. Well, when the drum major got out of sight the horse acted better, and we went along all right, the solemn music of the march to the grave seeming to take the circus out of him. He didn't do anything out of the way on the march, except to put out his fore-feet stiff, and keep time to the music, like a trained circus horse, which attracted a good deal of attention among the citizens on the street, who seemed to know the horse. Just as we got out at che edge of town he did make one raw break. There was a colored drayman, with his dray backed up towards the procession, and when my circus horse saw the dray, before I could prevent him, he whirled around and put his fore feet upon the hind end of the dray, put one foot on the top of a stake on the dray, and stood there for a minute, like a horse statute, until I jerked him down off of there.



O, I was so mortified that my teeth fairly ached, and the perspiration stood out on me in great beads. A staff officer of the general commanding, came along to the colonel, presented the compliments of the general, and asked if he could not do something to prevent that redheaded clown on the spotted horse from doing any more circus acts until after the last sad rites had been performed. The colonel said it should be stopped, and told the start officer to present his compliments to the general and say that he was humiliated beyond endurance by the performance of the horse, but that the young man riding the horse was not to blame, as he had done all in his power to keep the circus tendencies of the horse down, but he added that he would have the horse shot if there was any more of it.

The horse kept quiet until we had got to the cemetery, and returned to town. As we got into a wide street there was an old circus ring, partly grown up with weeds, near where the division quartermaster had a large tent inside a picket fence, filled with quartermaster stores. If I had known anything, I would have kept the horse's head turned away from the circus ring, and the tent, but I thought there would be no more trouble. Just as we got opposite the ring, the band, which had heretofore played dead marches, struck up a regular ripety-rap-rap-boom-boom circus tune, and I felt the horse tremble all over. Before I could think twice, the confounded horse had tried to jump through the bass drum, had knocked the drummer down, and jumped into the circus ring. I sawed on the bit and tried to stop him, and dug into his ribs with the spurs, but he galloped around the circus ring three or four times, and stopped still, as though expecting a clown would come up and say, "What will the little lady have now?" O, if I could have had one more hand to use, I would have drawn my revolver and put a bullet through the brain of the wretched horse, who was making me the laughing stock of the whole army, and the citizens.

The procession moved on towards camp, the colonel seeming relieved to have me out of sight, with my spotted horse, and a crowd of citizens, boys and niggers collected around the ring, yelling and laughing. I made one desperate effort and reined the horse out of the ring, and just then he caught sight of the quartermaster's tent across the road, and evidently thinking it was the dressing-room of the circus, he started for it on a run, jumped the picket fence as though it was a circus hurdle, and rushed in the door of the tent where a dozen clerks were weighing out commissary stores, stopped suddenly, and I went over his head, into a barrel of ground, coffee. The clerks picked me out of the coffee, and laid me on a pile of corn sacks, and then the horse began to lay back his ears and chase the clerks out of the tent, and it was awful the way the animal acted. After I had recovered from the effects of my fall into the coffee barrel, I got up and took the horse by the bridle, and led him out of the gate, and up the street to headquarters, with the brigade flag in my hand. I finally got to headquarters and left the flag, and the colonel told me he never wanted me around brigade headquarters again. He said I was a regular Jonah, that brought bad luck. I apologized the best I could, told him I would never bother him again, and led my horse back to my regiment. The chaplain of my regiment, who had not been to the funeral with us, and knew nothing about the circus, met me, and, as usual, bantered me to trade horses. I felt as though if I could saw that horse off on to the chaplain, and fix him so he could engage in the circus business, life would yet have some charms for me, so after some bantering we got down to business. The chaplain asked me if I thought it would cause any remark if he should ride a spotted horse, and I told him I did not know why it should, if the chaplain behaved himself. He said he didn't know but the boys might think that a spotted horse was too gay for a chaplain. I told him I didn't know why a spotted horse couldn't be just as solemn as any horse. He asked me if the horse had any tricks, and if he was sound. I told him I had not had him long, but it seemed to me if the horse had any tricks I should have found it out by this time, and I knew he was sound, because I jumped a fence with him not an hour ago, and he took the fence just as though he had jumped fences all his life. I asked ten dollars to boot, and the chaplain said if I would warrant the horse not to have any tricks he would take him. I told him I couldn't warrant the horse not to have any tricks, but that the colonel commanding the brigade wanted my horse, and he certainly would not want a horse that had tricks. What the colonel wanted was a horse noted for its strict attention to business. Then the chaplain said he would trade, and we changed saddles, and the chaplain led the spotted horse away, and I was revenged for many things the chaplain had done me. When the chaplain led the spotted horse to his tent, and all the boys in the regiment saw that I had traded the brute off, and they thought what a pic-nic they would have the first time the chaplain rode the horse down town, there was a laugh all through the regiment, but nobody squealed, or told the chaplain what a prize package he had secured. I cannot account for it, how I could have coolly traded that dastardly horse off on to the chaplain, but I was young then. Now, after arriving at a ripe old age, I would not play such a trick on a chaplain. The next day there was to be a review, and when the regiment was notified, I got sick and could not go. I felt as though I did not want to be a witness of the chaplain's attempt to exhibit a solemn demeanor, on that circus horse. I thought I should probably die right in my tracks if the horse acted with him as he did with me, so I remained in my tent with a wet towel on my head, and saw the regiment ride out to review, the chaplain on the spotted horse beside the colonel, not dreaming that it was going to be the most eventful day of his life.



CHAPTER XXIII.

Tells How the Chaplain was Paralyzed by the Spotted Circus- Horse—I am Court Martialed—I Plead my own Case, and am Acquitted.

In the last chapter I told of trading my circus-horse to the chaplain, and how the chaplain had rode away with the regiment for review, and I remained in camp, pretending to be sick. The result of that scheme on my part was not all my fancy painted it. I stood in front of my tent with a wet towel around my head, and saw the regiment return from review, the chaplain's spotted circus horse with no rider, being led by a colored man, the horse looking as innocent as any horse I ever saw. Where was the 'chaplain? Had he been killed? I noticed half the men were laughing and it seemed to me they wouldn't laugh if the good chaplain was dead. I also noticed that the colonel and his staff wore faces clouded with anger, and that they seemed as though they would like to kill somebody. Before the regiment had got fairly dismounted, a sergeant and three men marched to my tent, and I was arrested, and was informed that I would be tried at once, by court-martial, for conduct prejudicial to good order and military discipline. I knew the sergeant, and tried to joke with him, telling him to "go on with his old ark, as there wasn't going to be much of a shower," but he wouldn't have any funny business, and kindly informed me that I had probably got to the end of my rope, and that I would no doubt spend the remainder of my term of enlistment in the military prison. I asked him what the row was about, and he said. I would find out soon enough. One soldier got on each side of me, and one behind with sabers drawn, to stick me with if I attempted to get away, and we started for the colonel's tent. On the way there, the chaplain came towards us, covered with red clay, and begged the sergeant to allow him to kill me right there. He was the maddest truly good man I ever saw. He fairly foamed at the mouth, and said, "O, sergeant, turn him loose, and let me chew him up." I said to the sergeant:

"Now, look-a-here, don't you let that savage get at me, or he will get hurt. I don't want to have any trouble with the church, but if any regularly ordained ministerial cannibal of a sky pilot attempts to chew me, he will find a good deal more gristle than tender loin, and I will italicise his nose so he will look so crossed-eyed that he can't draw his pay."

My thus showing that I was not afraid of a non-combatant, seemed to have the desired effect, for he spit on his hands, jumped up and cracked his heels together, said he would wipe the Southern Confederacy with my remains, and he went to his tent to change his clothes, and get ready for the court-martial. The guard took me to the colonel's tent, and I walked right in where the colonel and major and several others were, and I said Hello, and smiled, and extended my hand to the colonel. None of them helloed, and none of them returned my smile, and the colonel did not shake hands with me. He said, however, that I had brought disgrace on the regiment, and broken the heart of a noble man, the chaplain. I told him I didn't think the chaplain's heart was very badly broke, as he had just ottered to whip me in several languages, and threatened to eat me. The colonel had me sit down on a trunk and keep still, while the court-martial convened. It was not many minutes before the officers had arrived, and organized, the adjutant read the charges and specifications against me. Not to go into the military-form of charges and specifications, the substance of them was that I had with malice aforethought, procured a trick-horse from a circus, with the intention of inducing the chaplain to trade for it, with the purpose of causing the aforesaid chaplain to become a spectacle for laughter. When the charges were read I was asked what I had to say, and I told the Judge Advocate it was a condemned lie. That made him mad, and he was going to commence whipping me where the chaplain left off, when the colonel smoothed matters over by asking me if I didn't mean to plead "not guilty." I said, "Certainly, not guilty. It is false. I did not secure the horse for the purpose of sawing it off on the chaplain. I jayhawked it, and when I found it was not the kind of a horse for a modest fellow like me, who didn't want to make any display, I thought I would trade it to some officer with gall, and the chaplain was the first man who struck me for a trade, and he got it, and from his remarks to me, and from these court-martial proceedings, I was satisfied the chaplain did not like the horse." The officers laughed then, and I suppose they were thinking of something that happened to the chaplain on review. The colonel asked me if I wanted anybody to defend me, and I told him I had a printing office once next door to a lawyer's office, and I knew a little about law, and would defend myself. The chaplain came soon, and began to tell his story, but I insisted, that he be sworn, and then he proceeded to tell his tale. He said that he was a God-fearing man, and meant to do right, and was willing to take his chances in the lottery of war, but when a man got him to ride a circus trick-horse, and bring upon his sacred calling the ribald laughter of the wicked, he felt that civilization was a failure. He said he traded for the spotted horse in good faith, and that he was particular to ask me if the horse had any tricks, and I said he had none, and he traded on that understanding, that he rode the afore—said horse to the review, and as soon as the aforesaid horse heard the band play, he waltzed out into the middle of the street, whirled around more than fifty times, waltzed into an infantry regiment, breaking the ranks of the soldiers just as the reviewing officer come along, causing the reviewing officer to say, "get out of the ranks, you d-d fool, and take that horse back to the circus," thus causing him, the chaplain, to be scandalized. He said he would have stood that, but the horse carried him to a battery of artillery which was in position, and began to jump over the guns, and that a gunner took a swab with which he had been cleaning a gun, and punched him, the chaplain, in the face, covering his face with burnt powder which smelled badly.

Then the horse carried him out on the field in front of the reviewing officers, got up on its hind feet and walked for half a block, making the chaplain appear as though climbing up the horse's neck, and when some of the general's staff came out to arrest him, the horse whirled around and kicked, in every direction at once, and broke the saber of one of the staff-officers. That the horse seemed to be possessed of the devil. That he finally got the horse to go back to the regiment where he belonged, but on the way he had to pass brigade headquarters, when the horse stopped in front of the commanding officer and sat down like a dog, on his hind parts, and tried to shake hands with the colonel commanding, who was offended, and told the chaplain he was an ass, and to go away with his museum, or he would have the chaplain put in the guard house. That a colored man near the review ground had a ginger bread stand, with a sheet tacked up to keep the sun off, and the spotted horse attempted to jump through the sheet, evidently thinking it was a paper hoop in a circus. And in conclusion, after making the chaplain so mortified and ashamed that he wished he might die, the horse laid down in the road and rolled over the aforsaid chaplain, leaving him in the road covered with dirt, while the horse run across the street and walked up a pair of stairs, outside a store, went into the rooms occupied by some milliners and scared the women so they put their heads out of the windows and yelled fire, and said a regiment of Yankee cavalry had raided their homes. That the review was made a farce, the chaplain a laughing stock, and that it took ten men to get the horse down stairs, and half the regiment to console the milliners, and convince them that no harm was intended. He said he demanded that I be sentenced to be shot.

The colonel asked me if I had anything to say, and I asked permission to cross-examine the witness. Permission being granted, I asked the chaplain what his business was. He said he was a minister. I asked him if he didn't consider trading horses one of the noblest professions extant. He said he didn't know about that. Then I asked him if he didn't take advantage of me when I came to the regiment, as a raw recruit, and trade me a kicking mule, that made my life a burden. He said he remembered that he traded me a mule. I asked him if he didn't know the mule was balky, vicious, and spavined, that it would kick its best friend, bite anybody, that it was so ugly that he had to put the saddle on with a long pole, that he warranted the mule sound when he knew it had all the diseases that were going.

He said he objected to being asked such questions, but the judge-advocate said I had a right to bring out any previous transactions in the horse-trade line, as it would have some effect in this case. Then I asked him if he didn't know the horse he beat me out of was sound, a splendid rider, and that the mule was the worst one in the army. He admitted that he knew the animal was not a desirable animal, but he thought a recruit could get along with a kicking mule better than a chaplain. I had saved my best shot for the last, and I said, "knowing the mule was unsound, a vicious animal, and that my horse was sound and desirable, and worth more than a dozen such mules, did you consider that you was pursuing your calling as a minister when you gained my confidence, and not only sawed the mule off on to me, bereaved me of a fine horse, but took twenty dollars of my hard-earned bounty money as boot in the trade? In doing that to an innocent and fresh recruit who had confidence in you, did you not pave the way for me to get even with you on a horse trade, and haven't I got even, and do you blame me for doing it?" The chaplain was perspiring while I was asking the questions, and all the officers were looking at him as though he had caught a tartar, but he blushed, choked, and finally answered that perhaps he did wrong in trading me that mule, and he asked to be forgiven.

Then I turned to the officers and said, "Gentlemen, I admit that I traded the spotted circus-horse to the chaplain. I did it on purpose to show him that there is a God in Israel. When I came to the regiment, right fresh from the people, I needed salting. The boys all salted me whenever they got a chance, and I took it like a little man. In turning to the chaplain for comfort, I did not expect that he would salt me worse than all of the boys combined, but when I found that he had gone through me, and taken advantage of my guileless innocence, and laughed at my woe when I found the confounded mule was not all his fancy had painted it, and that it laid awake nights to devise ways to kick my head on, I took a blooded oath that before the cruel war was over I would salt that chaplain on a horse trade, until he would own up the corn. I leave it to you, gentlemen, if I have done it or not. When that spotted horse fell to me, by the fortunes of war, I was not long in learning that it was the relic of a circus. I rode the horse one day last week at a funeral, and it acted in such a manner as to almost wake up the late lamented. I was made the laughing stock of the brigade, and of the town. It was government property, and I could not kill the horse, and I thought the time had arrived for me to get even with my old friend. He was mashed on my spotted horse, and bantered me for a trade. Finally we traded, and I got ten dollars to boot. The result has been all that I could desire. I have had the satisfaction of demonstrating to this truly good man that all is not gold that glitters. I have shown him that however spotted a man may be, if he rides a spotted circus horse, he will get there. I will leave it to the chaplain, now, if I was not justified in trading him that horse, after what he had done to me, and will ask him if he was not served perfectly right, and if in trading me that mule he did not do to others as he would have others do to him, and if so, if he does not think the others did it to him in great shape. I am done. I leave my life in your hands."

When I quit they were all laughing except the chaplain, and there was a quiet smile around his mouth, as he thought of his experience on the spotted horse. The colonel asked the chaplain, if he had anything to say, and he said he had just been thinking that he could go over to a New Jersey regiment and trade that spotted horse to the chaplain of that regiment, and if he could, he would be willing to drop the case. He said that chaplain played a mean trick on him once, and he wanted to get even. The court martial acquitted me, and while we were all taking a drink with the colonel, the chaplain went out, and pretty soon we saw his servant leading the spotted horse over towards the camp of the New Jersey regiment, and later the chaplain sauntered off in that direction on foot, as though there was some weighty subject on his mind. The weighty subject was the spotted circus-horse.

I do not suppose any incident ever caused so much talk as did the chaplain's circus. The boys were talking and laughing about it in every company all that afternoon, and when it was found that I had not been punished, for trading the horse to him, the boys were wild. They wanted to show their appreciation of the fun I had given them, so a lot of them got together to give me a sort of reception. They sent for me to come over to Co. D., and when I got over there they grabbed me and carried me off on their shoulders. I felt proud to see them so joyous and friendly, until they put me in a blanket and tossed me up into the trees, and caught me in the blanket as I came down. Of all the sensations I ever experienced, that of being tossed up in a blanket was the worst. I tried to laugh, at first, but it became serious, as I went into the air twenty feet, let loose of the air and came down, expecting to be crushed maimed, killed. My breath forsook me, I was dizzy, but I struck the blanket easy, and after being sent up a dozen times they let me go, and my reception was over.



CHAPTER XXIV.

Mingled Reminiscences-I Relate a Mississippi River Steamboat Experience.

Long before this I should have related a little experience I had on my first journey south, when I was a fresh recruit. After leaving Wisconsin, in the winter, a lot of us recruits were corralled at Benton Barracks, St. Louis, and for six weeks we had a picnic. There were about fifty of us, that belonged to the cavalry, our regiments being down the Mississippi river, and the commanding officer of the barracks seemed to be waiting for a chance to send us to our regiments. I have often wondered what he waited six weeks for, when we were not doing any duty in camp, and were making him trouble enough every day and every night to turn his hair gray. He was a Colonel Bonneville, if I remember right, a regular army officer of French extraction. Anyway, he always swore at us in French. The camp was run in a slack sort of a way, and it was easy for us to get out and go down town, or wander off into the country, and, as we had plenty of money, and were dressed better than soldiers in active service, we were welcome to all the saloons, and painted old St. Louis all the colors of the rainbow, returned to the barracks at unseasonable hours, crawled through the fence and went to our quarters howling, waking up the old general, who invariably ordered the provost-guard to arrest us, which the provost-guard invariably didn't do, for some reason or other. The old colonel was fast aging, in trying to lead a quiet life in the vicinity of "dose d——-d cavalry regruits," and he said he "would order them all shot if they didn't behave." Benton Barracks was the greatest place for the breeding of rats that I ever saw. In every house there were millions of them, and at night they were out in full force. One night our crowd of recruits, about forty in number, had been down to St. Louis on a painting expedition, and it was midnight when camp was reached. Every recruit had a revolver, and it was decided that if the rats insulted us, as they had often done before, we would shoot them. It was a beautiful moonlight night, as still as death, and we could almost hear the snoring of the excitable colonel in his house across the parade ground. As we came near our barrack, a few thousand rats crossed our path, and I drew my revolver and fired at a large one that seemed unusually impudent, and the rest of the crowd opened fire, and there was a battle in no time. A bugler got out and blowed some call that I did not know, a drum sounded a continuous roll, men rushed out and formed in line, and before we had fired the six charges from our revolvers, the Invalid Corps came hobbling across the parade ground, the colonel behind them with his shirt on, his pants in his hand, and swearing in French, and ordering the troops to arrest the whole crowd of recruits. We went right in the barrack, and retired, as soon as the troops showed up, and were snoring, with smoking revolvers under our pillows, when the guard entered.