by John McElroy
CHAPTER III. THE OLD CANTEEN
THE MANY AND QUEER USES TO WHICH IT WAS AT LAST PUT.
THE DIVERSE USES OF THE GOOD OLD CANTEEN 029 ]
WHEN Josiah (called "Si" for short) Klegg, of the 200th Ind., drew hiscanteen from the Quartermaster at Louisville, he did not have a veryhigh idea of its present or prospective importance. In the 22 hotSummers that he had lived through he had never found himself very farfrom a well or spring when his thirst cried out to be slacked, and hedid not suppose that it was much farther between wells down South.
"I don't see the use of carrying two or three pints o' water along allday right past springs and over cricks," he remarked to his chum, as thetwo were examining the queer, cloth-covered cans.
"We've got to take 'em, any way," answered his chum, resignedly, "It'sregulations."
On his entry into service a boy accepted everything without questionwhen assured that it was "regulations." He would have charged bayonetson a buzz-saw if authoritatively informed that it was required by themysterious "regulations."
The long march the 200th Ind. made after Bragg over the dusty turnpikesthe first week in October, 1862, taught Si the value of a canteen. Afterthat it was rarely allowed to get empty.
"What are these grooves along each side for?" he asked, pointing out thelittle hollows which give the "prod" lightness and strength.
"Why," answered the Orderly, who, having been in the three-months'service, assumed to know more about war than the Duke of Wellington,"the intention of those is to make a wound the lips of which will closeup when the bayonet is pulled out, so that the man'll be certain todie."
Naturally so diabolical an intention sent cold shivers down Si's back.
The night before Si left for "the front" he had taken his musket andcouterments home to show them to his mother and sisters--and the otherfellow's sister, whose picture and lock of hair he had safely stowedaway. They looked upon the bayonet with a dreadful awe. Tears came intoMaria's eyes as she thought of Si roaming about through the South like abandit plunging that cruel steel into people's bowels.
"This is the way it's done," said Si, as he charged about the room in animaginary duel with a rebel, winding up with a terrifying lunge. "Die,Tur-r-rraitor, gaul durn ye," he exclaimed, for he was really gettingexcited over the matter, while the girls screamed and jumped upon thechairs, and his good mother almost fainted.
The attention that the 200th Ind. had to give to the bayonet drillconfirmed Si's deep respect for the weapon, and he practiced assiduouslyall the "lunges," "parries," and "guards" in the Manual, in the hopethat proficiency so gained would save his own dearly-beloved hide frompuncture, and enable him to punch any luckless rebel that he mightencounter as full of holes as a fishing net.
WHAT THE BAYONET WAS GOOD FOR 033 ]
The 200th Ind.'s first fight was at Perryville, but though it routed therebel force in front of it, it would have taken a bayonet half-a-milelong to touch the nearest "Johnny." Si thought it odd that the rebelsdidn't let him get close enough to them to try his new bayonet, andpitch a dozen or two of them over into the next field.
If the truth must be told, the first blood that stained Si's bayonet wasnot that of a fellow-man.
Si Klegg's company was on picket one day, while Gen. Buell was trying tomake up his mind what to do with Bragg. Rations had been a little shortfor a week or so. In fact, they had been scarcely sufficient to meet thedemands of Si's appetite, and his haversack had nothing in it to speakof. Strict orders against foraging had been, issued. It was the day of"guarding rebel onion patches." Si couldn't quite get it straight in hishead why the General should be so mighty particular about a few pigs andchickens and sweet potatoes, for he was really getting hungry, andwhen a man is in this condition he is not in a fit mood to grapple withfine-spun theories of governmental policy.
So when a fat pig came wabbling and grunting toward his post, it was toSi like a vision of manna to the children of Israel in the wilderness.A wild, uncontrollable desire to taste a fresh spare-rib took possessionof him. Naturally, his first idea was to send a bullet through theanimal, but on second thought he saw that wouldn't do at all. It would"give him away" at once, and, besides, he had found that a single shoton the picket-line would keep Buell's entire army in line-of-battle fora whole day.
Si wrote to his mother that his bright new bayonet was stained withSouthern blood, and the old lady shuddered at the awful thought. "But,"added Si, "it was only a pig, and not a man, that I killed!"
"I'm so glad!" she exclaimed.
AS MARIA PICTURED SI USING HIS BAYONET 034 ]
By the time Si had been in the service a year there was less zeal in theenforcement of orders of this kind, and Si had become a very skillfuland successful forager. He had still been unable to reach with hisbayonet the body of a single one of his misguided fellow citizens,but he had stabbed a great many pigs and sheep. In fact, Si found hisbayonet a most useful auxiliary in his predatory operations. He couldnot well have gotten along without it.
Uncle Sam generally furnished Si with plenty of coffee--roasted andunground--but did not supply him with a coffee mill. Si thought at firstthat the Government had forgotten something. He saw that several of theold veterans of '61 had coffee mills, but he found on inquiry that theyhad been obtained by confiscation only. He determined to supply himselfat the first opportunity, but in the meantime he was obliged to 'use hisbayonet as a substitute, just as all the rest of the soldiers did.
We regret to say that Si, having thrown away his "Baxter's Call to theUnconverted" in his first march, and having allowed himself to forgetthe lessons he had learned but a few years before in Sunday-school, soonlearned to play poker and other sinful games. These, at night, developedanother use for the bayonet. In its capacity as a "handy" candlestick itwas "equaled by few and excelled by none." The "shank" was always readyto receive the candle, while the point could be thrust into the groundin an instant, and nothing more was necessary. This was perhaps themost general sphere of usefulness found by the bayonet during the war.Barrels of candle-grease flowed down the furrowed sides of this weaponfor every drop of human blood that dimmed its luster.