“Fellow Soldiers:—As I was about to remark, when interrupted by the captain, on dress parade, this office has come to me entirely unsought. It has not been my wish to wear the gilded trappings of office and command men, but rather to fight in the ranks, a private soldier. I enlisted as a private, and my ambition has been to remain in the ranks to the end of the war. But circumstances over which I have no control has taken me and placed me on the high pinnacle of Corporal, and I must bow to the decree of fate. Of course, in my new position there must necessarily be a certain gulf between us. I have noticed that there has been a gulf between me and the officers, and I have thought it wrong. I have thought that privates and officers should mingle together freely, and share each others secrets, privations and rations. But since being promoted I can readily see that such things cannot be. The private has his position and the officer has his, and each must be separate. It is not my intention to make any radical changes in the conduct of military affairs at present, allowing things to go along about as they have, but as soon as I have a chance to look about me, certain changes will be made. All I ask is that you, my fellow soldiers, shall stand by me, follow where I shall lead and—”
At this point in my address the head of the barrel on which I stood fell in with a dull thud, and I found myself up to the neck in corned-beef brine. The boys set up a shout, some fellow kicked over the barrel, and they began to roll it around the camp with me in it.
This was a pretty position for a man just promoted to the proud position of Corporal. As they rolled me about and yelled like Indians, I could see that an official position in that regiment was to be no sinecure. All official positions have more or less care and responsibility, but this one seemed to me to have too much. Finally they spilled me out of the barrel, and I was a sight to behold. My first idea was to order the whole two hundred fellows under arrest, and have them court-martialed for conduct unbecoming soldiers; but on second thought I concluded that would seem an arbitrary use of power, so I concluded to laugh it off. One fellow said they begged pardon for any seeming disrespect to an official; but it had always been customary in the regiment to initiate a corporal who was new and too fresh with salt brine. I said that was all right, and I invited them all up to the chaplain’s tent to join me in a glass of wine. The chaplain was away, and I knew he had received a keg of wine from the sanitary commission that day, so we went up to his tent and drank it, and everything passed off pleasantly until the chaplain happened in. The boys dispersed as soon as he came, and left me to fight it out with the good man. He was the maddest truly good man I have ever seen. I tried to explain about my promotion, and that it was customary to set em up for the boys, and that there was no saloon near, and that he had always told me to help myself to anything I wanted; but he wouldn’t be calm at all. I tried to quote from Paul’s epistle about taking a little wine for the stomach-ache; but he just raved around and called me names, until I had to tell him that if he kept on I would, in my official capacity as corporal, place him under arrest. That seemed to calm him a little, for he laughed, and finally he said I smelled of stale corned-beef, and he kicked me out of his tent, and I retired to my quarters to study over the mutability of human affairs, and the unpleasant features of holding official position.
That night I dreamed that General Grant and myself were running the army in splendid shape, and that we were in-receipt of constant congratulations from a grateful country, for victories. He and I seemed to be great chums. I dreamed of engagements with the enemy, in which I led men against fearful odds, and always came out victorious. I woke up before daylight and was wondering what dangerous duty I would be detailed to lead men upon, when the orderly poked his head in my tent and told me I was detailed to take ten picked men, at daylight, for hard service, and to report at once. I felt that my time had come to achieve renown, and I dressed myself with unusual care, putting on the blouse with two rows of buttons, which I had brought from home. I borrowed a pair of Corporal’s chevrons and sewed them to the sleeves of my blouse, and was ready to die, if need be. I placed a Testament I had brought from home, inside my blouse, in a breast pocket, as I had read of many cases where a Testament had been struck with a bullet and saved a soldier’s life. I placed all my keepsakes in a package, and told my tent mate that I was going out with ten picked men, and it was possible I might never show up again, and if I fell he was to send the articles to my family. I wondered that I did not feel afraid to die. I was no professor of religion, though I had always tried to do the square thing all around, but with no consolation of religion at all, I felt a sweet peace that was indescribable. If it was my fate to fall in defence of my country, at the head of ten picked men, so be it. Somebody must die, and why not me. I was no better than thousands of others, and while life was sweet to me, and I had anticipated much pleasure in life, after the war, in shooting ducks and holding office, I was willing to give up all hope of pleasure in the future, and die like a thoroughbred. I was glad that I had been promoted, and wondered if they would put “Corporal” on my tombstone. I wondered, if I fell that day at the head of my mem, if the papers at the North, and particularly in Wisconsin, would say “The deceased had just been promoted, for gallant conduct, to the position of Corporal, and it will be hard to fill his place.” With these thoughts I sadly reported to the orderly. The ten picked men were in line. They were four of them Irishmen, two Yankees, two Germans, a Welshman and a Scotchman. The orderly gave me a paper, sealed in an envelope. I turned to my men, and said, “Boys, whatever happens today, I don’t want to see any man show the white feather. The world will read the accounts of this day’s work with feelings of awe, and the country will care for those we leave behind.” We started off, and it occurred to me to read my instructions. I opened the envelope with the air of a general who was accustomed to receive important messages. I read it, and almost fainted, It read “Report to the quartermaster, at the steamboat landing, to unload quartermaster’s stores from steamer Gazelle.” Ye gods! And this was the hard service that I was to lead ten picked men into. They had picked out ten stevedores, to carry sacks of corn, and hard-tack boxes, and barrels of pork, and that was the action I was to engage in as my first duty as corporal.
I almost cried. We rode down to the landing, where a dozen teams were waiting to be loaded. It was all I could do to break the news to my picked men that they were expected to lug sacks of corn instead of fight, and when I did they kicked at once. One of the Irishmen said he would be teetotally damned if he enlisted to carry corn for mules, and he would lay in the guard-house till the war was over before he would lift a sack. There was a strike on my hands to start on. I was sorry that I had permitted myself to be promoted to Corporal. Trouble from the outset. One of the Yankees suggested that we hold an indignation meeting, so we rode up in front of a cotton warehouse and dismounted. The Scotchman was appointed chairman, and for half an hour the ten picked men discussed the indignity that was attempted to be heaped upon them, by compelling them to do the work of negroes.
They argued that a cavalry soldier’s duty was exclusively to ride on horseback, and that there was no power on earth to compel them to carry sacks of corn. One of the Dutchmen said he could never look a soldier in the face again after doing such menial duty, and he would not submit to it. The Scotch chairman said if he had read the articles of war right there was no clause that said that the cavalry man should leave his horse and carry corn. I was called upon for my opinion, and said that I was a little green as to the duties of a soldier, but supposed we had to do anything we were ordered to do, but it seemed a little tough. I told them I didn’t want any mutiny, and it would be a plain case of mutiny if they refused to work. One of the Irishmen asked if I would help carry sacks of corn, and I told him that as commander of the expedition it would be plainly improper for me to descend to a common day laborer. I held it to be the duty of a corporal to stand around and see the men work. They all said that was too thin, and I would have to peel on my coat and work if they did. I to
ld them I couldn’t lift a sack of corn to save me, but they said if that was the case I ought not to have come. The quartermaster was looking around for the detail that was to unload the boat, and he asked me if I had charge of the men detailed to unload. I told him that I did have charge of them when we left camp, but that they had charge of me now, and said they wouldn’t lift a pound. He thought a minute, and said, “I don’t like to see you boys carrying corn sacks, and rolling pork barrels. Why don’t you chip in and hire some negroes.” The idea seemed inspired. There were plenty of negroes around that would work for a little money. One of the Irishmen moved that the Corporal hire ten negroes to unload the quartermasters stores, and the motion was carried unanimously. I would have voted against it, but the Scotchman, who was chairman, ruled that I had no right to vote. So I went and found ten negroes that agreed to work for fifty cents each, and they were set to work, the quartermaster promising not to tell in camp about my hiring the work done. One of my Dutchmen moved that, inasmuch as we had nothing to do all day, that we take in the town, and play billiards, and whoop it up until the boat was unloaded. That seemed a reasonable proposition, and the motion carried, after an amendment had been added to the effect that the Corporal stay on the boat and watch the negroes, and see that they didn’t shirk. So my first command, my ten picked men, rode off up town, and I set on a wagon and watched my hired men. It was four o clock in the afternoon before the stuff was all loaded, and after paying the negroes five dollars out of my own pocket, some of my bounty money, I went up to town to round up my picked men to take them to camp. I found the Scotchman pretty full of Scotch whisky. He had found a countryman who kept a tailor shop, who had a bag pipe, and they were having a high old time playing on the instrument, and singing Scotch songs. I got him on his horse, and we looked for the rest. The two Germans were in a saloon playing pee-nuckel, and singing German songs, and their skins were pretty full of beer and cheese. They were got into the ranks, and we found the Irishmen playing forty-five in a saloon kept by a countryman of theirs, and they had evidently had a shindig, as one of them had a black eye and a scratch on his nose, and they were full of fighting whisky. The Yankees had swelled up on some kind of benzine and had hired a hack and taken two women out riding, and when we rounded them up each one had his feet out of the window of the hack, and they were enjoying themselves immensely. The Welchman was the only one that was sober, but the boys said there was not enough liquor in the South to get him drunk. When I got them all mounted they looked as though they had been to a banquet. We started for camp, but I did not want to take them in until after dark, so we rode around the suburbs of the town until night drew her sable mantle over the scene. They insisted on singing until within half a mile of camp, and it would no doubt have been good music, only the Scotchman insisted on singing “The March of the Cameron Men,” while the Irishmen sung “Lots of fun at Finnegan’s Wake,” and the German’s sung “Wacht am Rhine.” The Yankees sung the “Star Spangled Banner,” and the Welchman sung something in the Welch language which was worse than all. All the songs being sung together, of course I couldn’t enjoy either of them as well as a Corporal ought to enjoy the music of his command. Arriving near camp, the music was hushed, and we rode in, and up to the captain’s tent, where I reported that the corn was unloaded, all right. He said that was all right. Everything would have passed off splendidly, only one of the Irishmen proposed “three cheers” for the dandy Corporal of the regiment, and those inebriated, picked men, gave three cheers that raised the roof of the colonel’s tent near by, because I had hired negroes to do the work, and let the men have a holiday. I dismissed them as quick as I could, but the colonel sent for me, and I had to tell him the whole story. He said I would demoralize the whole regiment in a week more, and I better let up or he would have to discipline me. I offered to resign my commission as Corporal, but he said I better hold on till we could have a fight, and may be I would get killed.
CHAPTER X.
Yearnings for Military Fame—What I Want is a Chance—I Feel I Could Crush the Rebellion—My Chance Arrives—I am Crushed—The Rebellion Remains Pretty Well.
As I could get no one to accept my resignation as corporal, which I tendered after my first service in that capacity, unloading a steamboat, I decided to post myself as to the duties of the position, so I borrowed a copy of “Hardee’s Tactics,” and studied a good deal. Every place in the book that mentioned the word “corporal,” had a particular and thrilling interest for me, and I soon got so it would have been easy for me to have done almost anything that a corporal would have to do. But I was not contented to study the duty of a corporal. I read about the “school of the company,” and the “school of the regiment,” and “battalion drills,” and everything, until I could handle a regiment, or a brigade, for that matter, as well as any officer in the army, in my mind. This led me to go farther, and I borrowed a copy of a large blue book the colonel had, the name of which I do not remember now, but it was all military, and told how to conduct a battle successfully. I studied that book until I got the thing down so fine that I could have fought the battle of Gettysburg successfully, and I longed for a chance to show what I knew about military science and strategy. It seemed wonderful to me that one small red-head could contain so much knowledge about military affairs, and I felt a pity for some officers I knew who never had studied at all, and did not know anything except what they had picked up. I fought battles in my mind, day and night. Some nights I would lay awake till after midnight, planning campaigns, laying out battle-fields, and marching men against the enemy, who fought stubbornly, but I always came out victorious, and then I would go to sleep and dream that the President and secretary of war had got on to me, as it were, and had offered me high positions, and I would wake up in the morning the same red-headed corporal, and cook my breakfast. Sometimes I thought it my duty to inform the government, in some round about way, what a bonanza the country had in me, if my talent could only be utilized by placing me where I would have a chance to distinguish myself, and bring victory to our arms. I reflected that Grant, and Sherman, and Sheridan, and all of the great generals, were once corporals, and by study they had risen.
There was not one of them that could dream out a battle, and a victory any better that I could. All I wanted was a chance. Just give me men enough, and turn me loose in the Southern Confederacy, with that head of mine, and the result would be all an anxious nation could desire.
My first chance came sooner than I expected. The next day a part of the regiment went out on a scout, to be gone a couple of days, and my company was along. I was unusually absorbed in thought, and wondered if I would be given a chance to do anything. It seemed reasonable that if any corporal was sent out with a squad of men, to fight, it would be an old corporal, while if there was any duty that was menial, the new corporals would get it. The second day out we stopped at noon to let our horses rest, when little scouting parties that had been sent out on different roads during the forenoon, began to come in. Many of them had picked up straggling rebels, and brought them to damp, and they were carefully guarded, and the major, who was in command of our party, was asking them questions, and pumping them to find out all he could. I went over and looked at them, and they were quite a nice looking lot of fellows, some being officers, with plenty of gold lace on their gray suits. They were home from the Confederate army on a leave of absence, probably recruiting. After talking with a rebel officer for a time the major turned to the adjutant and said, “send me a corporal and ten men.” The adjutant started, on, and I followed him. I used to know the adjutant when he taught a district school, before the war, and I asked him as a special favor to let me be the corporal. He said the detail would be from my company, and if I could fix it with the orderly sergeant of my company it was all right. I rushed to my company and found the orderly, and got him to promise if there was a detail from the company that day, I could go. Before the words were out of his mouth the detail came, and in five minutes I reported to the ma
jor with ten men. The major simply told me that a certain rebel captain, from Lee’s army, was reported to be at home, and his plantation was about four miles east, and he described it to me. He told me to ride out there, surround the house, capture the captain, and bring him into camp.
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