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 Iremained in camp, pretending to be sick. The result of that scheme on mypart was not all my fancy painted it. I stood in front of my tent witha wet towel around my head, and saw the regiment return from review, thechaplain's spotted circus horse with no rider, being led by a coloredman, the horse looking as innocent as any horse I ever saw. Where wasthe 'chaplain? Had he been killed? I noticed half the men were laughingand 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 withanger, and that they seemed as though they would like to kill somebody.Before the regiment had got fairly dismounted, a sergeant and three menmarched to my tent, and I was arrested, and was informed that I would betried at once, by court-martial, for conduct prejudicial to good orderand military discipline. I knew the sergeant, and tried to joke withhim, telling him to "go on with his old ark, as there wasn't going to bemuch of a shower," but he wouldn't have any funny business, and kindlyinformed me that I had probably got to the end of my rope, and thatI would no doubt spend the remainder of my term of enlistment in themilitary prison. I asked him what the row was about, and he said. Iwould find out soon enough. One soldier got on each side of me, and onebehind 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 chaplaincame towards us, covered with red clay, and begged the sergeant to allowhim to kill me right there. He was the maddest truly good man I eversaw. He fairly foamed at the mouth, and said, "O, sergeant, turn himloose, 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 gethurt. I don't want to have any trouble with the church, but if anyregularly ordained ministerial cannibal of a sky pilot attempts to chewme, he will find a good deal more gristle than tender loin, and I willitalicise his nose so he will look so crossed-eyed that he can't drawhis pay."
My thus showing that I was not afraid of a non-combatant, seemed to havethe desired effect, for he spit on his hands, jumped up and crackedhis heels together, said he would wipe the Southern Confederacy with myremains, and he went to his tent to change his clothes, and get readyfor the court-martial. The guard took me to the colonel's tent, and Iwalked right in where the colonel and major and several others were, andI said Hello, and smiled, and extended my hand to the colonel. None ofthem helloed, and none of them returned my smile, and the colonel didnot shake hands with me. He said, however, that I had brought disgraceon the regiment, and broken the heart of a noble man, the chaplain. Itold him I didn't think the chaplain's heart was very badly broke, as hehad just ottered to whip me in several languages, and threatened to eatme. The colonel had me sit down on a trunk and keep still, while thecourt-martial convened. It was not many minutes before the officers hadarrived, and organized, the adjutant read the charges and specificationsagainst me. Not to go into the military-form of charges andspecifications, the substance of them was that I had with maliceaforethought, procured a trick-horse from a circus, with the intentionof inducing the chaplain to trade for it, with the purpose of causingthe aforesaid chaplain to become a spectacle for laughter. When thecharges were read I was asked what I had to say, and I told the JudgeAdvocate it was a condemned lie. That made him mad, and he was goingto commence whipping me where the chaplain left off, when the colonelsmoothed matters over by asking me if I didn't mean to plead "notguilty." I said, "Certainly, not guilty. It is false. I did not securethe horse for the purpose of sawing it off on the chaplain. I jayhawkedit, and when I found it was not the kind of a horse for a modest fellowlike me, who didn't want to make any display, I thought I would trade itto some officer with gall, and the chaplain was the first man who struckme for a trade, and he got it, and from his remarks to me, and fromthese court-martial proceedings, I was satisfied the chaplain did notlike the horse." The officers laughed then, and I suppose they werethinking of something that happened to the chaplain on review. Thecolonel asked me if I wanted anybody to defend me, and I told him Ihad a printing office once next door to a lawyer's office, and I knew alittle about law, and would defend myself. The chaplain came soon, andbegan to tell his story, but I insisted, that he be sworn, and then heproceeded to tell his tale. He said that he was a God-fearing man, andmeant to do right, and was willing to take his chances in the lottery ofwar, but when a man got him to ride a circus trick-horse, and bringupon his sacred calling the ribald laughter of the wicked, he felt thatcivilization was a failure. He said he traded for the spotted horse ingood faith, and that he was particular to ask me if the horse had anytricks, 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 theaforesaid horse heard the band play, he waltzed out into the middleof the street, whirled around more than fifty times, waltzed intoan infantry regiment, breaking the ranks of the soldiers just as thereviewing officer come along, causing the reviewing officer to say, "getout 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 havestood that, but the horse carried him to a battery of artillery whichwas in position, and began to jump over the guns, and that a gunnertook a swab with which he had been cleaning a gun, and punched him, thechaplain, in the face, covering his face with burnt powder which smelledbadly.
Then the horse carried him out on the field in front of the reviewingofficers, got up on its hind feet and walked for half a block, makingthe chaplain appear as though climbing up the horse's neck, and whensome of the general's staff came out to arrest him, the horse whirledaround and kicked, in every direction at once, and broke the saber ofone of the staff-officers. That the horse seemed to be possessed of thedevil. That he finally got the horse to go back to the regiment where hebelonged, but on the way he had to pass brigade headquarters, when thehorse stopped in front of the commanding officer and sat down likea dog, on his hind parts, and tried to shake hands with the colonelcommanding, who was offended, and told the chaplain he was an ass, andto go away with his museum, or he would have the chaplain put in theguard house. That a colored man near the review ground had a gingerbread stand, with a sheet tacked up to keep the sun off, and the spottedhorse attempted to jump through the sheet, evidently thinking it was apaper hoop in a circus. And in conclusion, after making the chaplain somortified and ashamed that he wished he might die, the horse laid downin the road and rolled over the aforsaid chaplain, leaving him in theroad covered with dirt, while the horse run across the street and walkedup a pair of stairs, outside a store, went into the rooms occupied bysome milliners and scared the women so they put their heads out ofthe windows and yelled fire, and said a regiment of Yankee cavalry hadraided their homes. That the review was made a farce, the chaplain alaughing stock, and that it took ten men to get the horse down stairs,and half the regiment to console the milliners, and convince them thatno harm was intended. He said he demanded that I be sentenced to beshot.
The colonel asked me if I had anything to say, and I asked permissionto cross-examine the witness. Permission being granted, I asked thechaplain what his business was. He said he was a minister. I asked himif he didn't consider trading horses one of the noblest professionsextant. He said he didn't know about that. Then I asked him if he didn'ttake 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 heremembered that he traded me a mule. I asked him if he didn't knowthe mule was balky, vicious, and spavined, that it would kick its bestfriend, bite anybody, that it was so ugly that he had to put the saddleon with a long pole, that he warranted the mule sound when he knew ithad all the diseases that were going.
He said he objected to being asked such questions, bu
t thejudge-advocate said I had a right to bring out any previous transactionsin the horse-trade line, as it would have some effect in this case. ThenI 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. Headmitted that he knew the animal was not a desirable animal, but hethought a recruit could get along with a kicking mule better than achaplain. I had saved my best shot for the last, and I said, "knowingthe mule was unsound, a vicious animal, and that my horse was sound anddesirable, and worth more than a dozen such mules, did you considerthat you was pursuing your calling as a minister when you gained myconfidence, and not only sawed the mule off on to me, bereaved me of afine horse, but took twenty dollars of my hard-earned bounty money asboot in the trade? In doing that to an innocent and fresh recruit whohad confidence in you, did you not pave the way for me to get even withyou on a horse trade, and haven't I got even, and do you blame me fordoing it?" The chaplain was perspiring while I was asking the questions,and all the officers were looking at him as though he had caught atartar, but he blushed, choked, and finally answered that perhaps he didwrong in trading me that mule, and he asked to be forgiven.
Then I turned to the officers and said, "Gentlemen, I admit that Itraded the spotted circus-horse to the chaplain. I did it on purposeto 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 mewhenever they got a chance, and I took it like a little man. In turningto the chaplain for comfort, I did not expect that he would salt meworse than all of the boys combined, but when I found that he had gonethrough me, and taken advantage of my guileless innocence, and laughedat my woe when I found the confounded mule was not all his fancy hadpainted it, and that it laid awake nights to devise ways to kick my headon, I took a blooded oath that before the cruel war was over I wouldsalt that chaplain on a horse trade, until he would own up the corn. Ileave it to you, gentlemen, if I have done it or not. When that spottedhorse fell to me, by the fortunes of war, I was not long in learningthat it was the relic of a circus. I rode the horse one day last week ata funeral, and it acted in such a manner as to almost wake up the latelamented. I was made the laughing stock of the brigade, and of thetown. It was government property, and I could not kill the horse, and Ithought the time had arrived for me to get even with my old friend. Hewas mashed on my spotted horse, and bantered me for a trade. Finally wetraded, and I got ten dollars to boot. The result has been all that Icould desire. I have had the satisfaction of demonstrating to thistruly good man that all is not gold that glitters. I have shown him thathowever spotted a man may be, if he rides a spotted circus horse, hewill get there. I will leave it to the chaplain, now, if I was notjustified in trading him that horse, after what he had done to me, andwill ask him if he was not served perfectly right, and if in trading methat mule he did not do to others as he would have others do to him, andif so, if he does not think the others did it to him in great shape. Iam done. I leave my life in your hands."
When I quit they were all laughing except the chaplain, and there wasa quiet smile around his mouth, as he thought of his experience on thespotted horse. The colonel asked the chaplain, if he had anything tosay, and he said he had just been thinking that he could go over to aNew Jersey regiment and trade that spotted horse to the chaplain of thatregiment, and if he could, he would be willing to drop the case. Hesaid that chaplain played a mean trick on him once, and he wanted toget even. The court martial acquitted me, and while we were all takinga drink with the colonel, the chaplain went out, and pretty soon we sawhis servant leading the spotted horse over towards the camp of the NewJersey regiment, and later the chaplain sauntered off in that directionon foot, as though there was some weighty subject on his mind. Theweighty subject was the spotted circus-horse.
I do not suppose any incident ever caused so much talk as did thechaplain's circus. The boys were talking and laughing about it in everycompany all that afternoon, and when it was found that I had not beenpunished, for trading the horse to him, the boys were wild. They wantedto show their appreciation of the fun I had given them, so a lot of themgot together to give me a sort of reception. They sent for me to comeover to Co. D., and when I got over there they grabbed me and carried meoff 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, andcaught me in the blanket as I came down. Of all the sensations I everexperienced, that of being tossed up in a blanket was the worst. I triedto laugh, at first, but it became serious, as I went into the airtwenty feet, let loose of the air and came down, expecting to be crushedmaimed, killed. My breath forsook me, I was dizzy, but I struck theblanket easy, and after being sent up a dozen times they let me go, andmy reception was over.
How Private George W. Peck Put Down the Rebellion Page 23