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, andI was constantly getting into situations that caused, my conduct tobe talked about. When we raided the church, mentioned last week, forhorses, 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 morethan 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 sortof 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 acircus that closed up there the first year of the war, and was sold toa planter. He said the horse was considered one of the finest ever seenin the South. I felt much elated over my capture, and refused severaloffers to trade. I thought no horse was too good for me, and for two orthree days I did nothing but feed and groom my spotted horse, until hiscoat shone like satin, and he felt so kitteny that I was almost afraidto get on his back. One morning an order was issued for the regimentto turn out in a body to attend the funeral of a major of one of theregiments, 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. Theboys all dressed up in their best, and I looked about as slick as any ofthem, and with my spotted horse, I felt as though I would attract aboutas much attention as any of the officers in the procession. At theproper 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, andwalked with one fore-foot at a time, pawing as you have seen a horse ina circus, trained to walk that way. As I rode up to brigade headquartersand stopped, I must have touched my horse with my foot somewhere, forhe got down on his knees, and as I got off, the horse laid down right infront of the colonel's tent, just as he would in a circus. Even then Idid not realize that the confounded brute was a circus trick-horse. Hehad been taught to lay down, evidently, at a certain signal. And he laidthere, looking up at me with his cunning eyes, waiting for me to givethe signal for him to get up, but I "did not know the combination," andhe wouldn't get up for kicking, so I stood there like a fool waiting tosee what he would do next. The colonel commanding the brigade, the niceold man who had helped me out of my difficulty with my other horse, onthe march when he got on a tantrum, come out of his tent and said heguessed my horse was sick, and he told an orderly to go to the cookhouse and get a little red pepper and let the horse take a snuff ofit. In the meantime my horse got up on his fore feet and sat on hishaunches, like a dog, just as circus horses always do, reached up hisneck and took a nice white silk handkerchief out of the breast of thecolonel's coat, and held it in his mouth. It was a circus trick, andI knew it, but the colonel said, "Poor horse, he is sick," and as theorderly come with the red pepper the colonel held it to the horse'snose. The horse got up, and I mounted, and it must have been about thattime that the red pepper began its work, for my horse stood on hisfore 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 tothe-ground, and broke the colonel's camp cot, got tangled in the guyropes, and tore everything loose and jumped out in the street, and beganto paw and snort. I suppose there was a thousand people around by thattime, soldiers and citizens, and I sat there on that horse and wished Iwas dead, and I guess the colonel did so too.
Finally it was time to move, and the colonel sent out the brigade colorsto me, and the start started up street towards the funeral. My horsestarted with them, and seemed proud of the flag, and I guess he wouldhave gone along all right, only a band down the street began to playa waltz. Do you know, that spotted horse began to waltz around just asthough 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 theservices 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 stoppedwaltzing, but he kept up a-dancing, and snorting from the red pepper,until I could have killed him. When the colonel and his staff, includingmyself 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 awonder my horse did not act up at all. He seemed to stand and think, asthough trying to make out what kind of music it was. He had evidentlynever heard such music in the circus and did not know what to do. Whenthe body was brought out of the house, and the procession started downthe street for the grave, a drum major, with a staff in his hand, camealong by me, and I have always thought my horse took the drum major forthe ring master of a circus, for he reared up and walked on his hindfeet, and pawed the air, and made a spectacle of me that made me soashamed that I wanted to be killed. I had the brigade colors in onehand, and had only one hand and two feet to cling on the horse by, and Imust have looked like a cat climbing the roof of a whitewashed barn. Thedrum major got scared at my horse walking towards him in that way, andhe 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 kickedat the drum major with both his hind feet, until the poor assistantmusician 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 ahandkerchief that the clown had tied on, as they do in the circus. Thecolonel rode up to me, and with a good deal of indignation, asked mewhat I. meant by causing ourselves to become a spectacle for gods andmen on so solemn an occasion. He said he was tempted to have my horseshot, and me placed in the guard-house. I told him I hoped to die if Icould help it. I said the horse seemed to be possessed to do some circusbusiness wherever he went. I confided to the colonel that the horse hadbeen a circus-horse before the war, and the music and tinsel, and crowdthat he saw, had turned his head and made him think that he was againwith 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 circushorse to a funeral. Well, when the drum major got out of sight the horseacted better, and we went along all right, the solemn music of themarch to the grave seeming to take the circus out of him. He didn't doanything out of the way on the march, except to put out his fore-feetstiff, and keep time to the music, like a trained circus horse, whichattracted 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 townhe _did_ make one raw break. There was a colored drayman, with his draybacked up towards the procession, and when my circus horse saw the dray,before I could prevent him, he whirled around and put his fore feetupon the hind end of the dray, put one foot on the top of a stake on thedray, and stood there for a minute, like a horse statute, until I jerkedhim down off of there.
Stood there for a minute, like a horse statute 297]
O, I was so mortified that my teeth fairly ached, and the perspirationstood out on me in great beads. A staff officer of the generalcommanding, came along to the colonel, presented the compliments ofthe general, and asked if he could not do something to prevent thatredheaded clown on the spotted horse from doing any more circus actsuntil after the last sad rites had been performed. The colonel said itshould be stopped, and told the start officer to present his complimentsto the general and say that he was humiliated beyond endurance by theperformance of the horse, but that the young man riding the horsewas not to blame, as he had done all in his power to keep the circustendencies of the horse down, but he added that he would have the horseshot if there was any more of it.
The horse kept quiet until we had got to the cemetery, and returned totown. As we got into a wide street there was an old circus ring, partlygrown up with weeds, near where the division quartermaster had a largetent inside a picket fence, filled with quartermaster stores. If I hadknown anything, I would have kept the horse's head turned away from thecircu
s 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 playeddead 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, theconfounded horse had tried to jump through the bass drum, had knockedthe drummer down, and jumped into the circus ring. I sawed on the bitand tried to stop him, and dug into his ribs with the spurs, but hegalloped around the circus ring three or four times, and stopped still,as though expecting a clown would come up and say, "What will the littlelady have now?" O, if I could have had one more hand to use, I wouldhave drawn my revolver and put a bullet through the brain of thewretched 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 tohave me out of sight, with my spotted horse, and a crowd of citizens,boys and niggers collected around the ring, yelling and laughing. I madeone desperate effort and reined the horse out of the ring, and justthen he caught sight of the quartermaster's tent across the road, andevidently thinking it was the dressing-room of the circus, he startedfor it on a run, jumped the picket fence as though it was a circushurdle, and rushed in the door of the tent where a dozen clerks wereweighing out commissary stores, stopped suddenly, and I went over hishead, into a barrel of ground, coffee. The clerks picked me out of thecoffee, and laid me on a pile of corn sacks, and then the horse began tolay back his ears and chase the clerks out of the tent, and it was awfulthe way the animal acted. After I had recovered from the effects of myfall 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, withthe brigade flag in my hand. I finally got to headquarters and leftthe flag, and the colonel told me he never wanted me around brigadeheadquarters again. He said I was a regular Jonah, that brought badluck. I apologized the best I could, told him I would never botherhim again, and led my horse back to my regiment. The chaplain of myregiment, who had not been to the funeral with us, and knew nothingabout the circus, met me, and, as usual, bantered me to trade horses. Ifelt as though if I could saw that horse off on to the chaplain, and fixhim so he could engage in the circus business, life would yet have somecharms for me, so after some bantering we got down to business. Thechaplain asked me if I thought it would cause any remark if he shouldride a spotted horse, and I told him I did not know why it should, ifthe chaplain behaved himself. He said he didn't know but the boys mightthink that a spotted horse was too gay for a chaplain. I told him Ididn'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 himI had not had him long, but it seemed to me if the horse had any tricksI 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 fencejust as though he had jumped fences all his life. I asked ten dollars toboot, and the chaplain said if I would warrant the horse not to have anytricks he would take him. I told him I couldn't warrant the horse not tohave any tricks, but that the colonel commanding the brigade wanted myhorse, and he certainly would not want a horse that had tricks. What thecolonel wanted was a horse noted for its strict attention to business.Then the chaplain said he would trade, and we changed saddles, and thechaplain led the spotted horse away, and I was revenged for many thingsthe chaplain had done me. When the chaplain led the spotted horse to histent, and all the boys in the regiment saw that I had traded the bruteoff, and they thought what a pic-nic they would have the first time thechaplain rode the horse down town, there was a laugh all through theregiment, but nobody squealed, or told the chaplain what a prize packagehe had secured. I cannot account for it, how I could have coolly tradedthat 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 achaplain. The next day there was to be a review, and when the regimentwas notified, I got sick and could not go. I felt as though I did notwant to be a witness of the chaplain's attempt to exhibit a solemndemeanor, on that circus horse. I thought I should probably die right inmy tracks if the horse acted with him as he did with me, so I remainedin my tent with a wet towel on my head, and saw the regiment ride outto review, the chaplain on the spotted horse beside the colonel, notdreaming that it was going to be the most eventful day of his life.
How Private George W. Peck Put Down the Rebellion Page 22