How Private George W. Peck Put Down the Rebellion

by George W. Peck

  CHAPTER VIII.

  Three Days Without Food!--The Value of Hard Tack--A Silver Watch for a Pint of Meal--I Steal Corn from a Hungry Mule-- The Delirium of Hunger--I Dine on Mule--I Capture a Rebel Ram.

  After overtaking my regiment, and enjoying a feeling of safety whichI did not feel in the presence of that violent old man who laid savagehands on my horse, and the girls, I began to reflect. Of course the oldman was not armed, and I was, but how did I know but those Confederategirls had revolvers concealed about their persons, and might have killedme. To feel that I was once more safe with my regiment, where there wasno danger as long as they did not get into a fight, was bliss indeed,and I rode along in silence, wondering when the cruel war would beover, and what all this riding around the country, burning buildingsand tearing up railroad tracks amounted to, anyway. I didn't enlist asa section hand, nor a railroad wrecker, and there was nothing in myenlistment papers that said anything about my being compelled to commitarson. The recruit-officer who, by his glided picture of the beautiesof a soldier's life, induced me to enlist as a soldier, never mentionedanything that would lead me to believe that one of my duties would beto touch a match to another man's bales of cotton, or ditch a locomotivebelonging to parties who never did me any harm, and who had a right toexpect dividends from their railroad stock. If I had the money, that wasrepresented in the stuff destroyed by our troops that day, I could runa daily newspaper for years, if it didn't have a subscriber or apatent medicine advertisement. And who was benefitted by such wantondestruction of property. As we rode along I told the colonel I thoughtit was a confounded shame to do as we had done, and that such a use ofpower, because we had the power, was unworthy of American soldiers. Hesaid it was a soldier's duty to obey orders and not talk back, and ifhe heard any more moralizing on my part he would send me back to mycompany, where I would have to do duty like the rest. I told him Iwas one of the talking backest fellows he ever saw, and that one of myduties as a newspaper man was to criticise the conduct of the war. Thenhe said I might report to the captain of my company. It seemed hard togo into the ranks, after having had a soft job with the chaplain, andagain as colonel's orderly, but I thought if I got my back up and showedthe captain that I was no ordinary soldier, but one who was qualifiedfor any position, that maybe he would be afraid to monkey too much withme. I knew the captain would be a candidate for some office when the warwas over, and if he knew I was on to him, and that I should very likelypublish a paper that could warm him up quite lively, he would see toit that I wasn't compelled to do very hard work. So I rode back to mycompany and told the captain that the colonel and the chaplain had gotthrough with me, and I had come back to stay, and would be glad todo any light work he might have for me. The captain heaved a sigh, asthough he was not particularly tickled to have me back, and told me tofall in, in the rear of the company. I asked if I couldn't ride at thehead of the company. He said no, there was more room at the rear. Itried to tell him that I was accustomed to riding at the head of theregiment, but he told me to shut up my mouth and get back there, and Igot back, and fell in at the tail end of the company, with the cook andan officer's servant, and the orderly sergeant came back and wanted toknow if the company had got to have me around again. Here was promotionwith a vengeance. From the proud pinnacle from which I had soared, aschaplain's clerk, and colonel's orderly, I had dropped with one fellswoop to the rear end of my company, and nobody wanted me, because I hadkicked against stealing hens in one instance, and burning buildings andtearing up railroads in the other. We rode all day, and at night laiddown in the woods and slept, after eating the last of our rations. Islept beside a log, and before going to sleep and after waking, I sworeby the great horn spoons I would not steal anything more while I was inthe army, nor do any damage to property. In the morning the soldiers hadscarcely a mouthful to eat, and an order was read to each company thatfor three or four days it would be necessary to live off the country,foraging for what we had to eat. I asked the captain what we would dofor something to eat if we didn't find anything in the country to gobbleup. He said we would starve. That was an encouraging prospect for a manwho had taken a solemn oath not to steal any more. I told the captain Idid not intend to steal any more, as I did not think it right. Thenhe said I better begin to eat the halter off my horse, because leatherwould be the only thing I would have to stay my stomach. The first day Idid not eat a mouthful, except half of a hard-tack that I had a quarrelwith my horse to get. In throwing the saddle on my horse, one solitaryhard-tack that was in the saddle-bag, fell out upon the ground, and thehorse picked it up. I did not know the hard-tack was in the saddle, andwhen it fell upon the ground I was as astonished as I would have beenhad a clap of thunder come from the clear sky, and when the horse wentfor it, my stomach rebelled and I grabbed one side of the hard-tackwhile the horse held the other side in his teeth. Something had to give,and as the horse's teeth nor my hands would give, the hard-tack had to,and I saved half of it, and placed it in the inside pocket of my vest,as choice as though it were a thousand dollar bill.

  I have listened to music, in my time, that has been pretty bad, andwhich has sent cold chills up my back, and caused me pain, but I neverheard any bad music that seemed to grate on my nerves as did the noisemy horse made in chewing the half of my last hard-tack, and the look oftriumph the animal gave me was adding insult to injury. Several timesduring the day I took that piece of hard-tack from my pocket carefully,wiped it on my coat-sleeve, and took a small bite, and the horse wouldlook around at me wickedly, as though he would like to divide it withme again. People talk about guarding riches carefully, and of placingdiamonds in a safe place, but no riches were ever guarded as securely aswas that piece of hard-tack, and riches never took to themselves wingsand new, regretted more than did my last hard-tack. Each bite made itsmaller, and finally, the last bite was taken, with a sigh, and nothingremained for me to eat but the halter. Some of the boys went outforaging, and were moderately successful, while others did not get athing to eat. The country was pine woods, with few settlers, and thosethat lived there were so poor that it seemed murder to take what theyhad. One of the men of our company came back with about two quarts ofcorn meal, that night, and I traded him a silver watch for about a pintof it. I mixed it up in some water, and after the most of the men hadfallen asleep, I made two pancakes of the wet meal, and put them in theashes of the camp-fire to bake, but fell asleep before it was done, andwhen I woke up and reached into the ashes for the first pancake, it wasgone. Some Union soldier, whom it were base flattery to call a thief,had watched me, and stole my riches as I slept, robbed me of all Iheld dear in life. With trembling hands I raked the ashes for my otherpancake, hopelessly, because I thought that, too, was gone, but to mysurprise I found it. The villain who had pursued me as I slept, hadfailed to discover the second pancake, and I was safe, and my life wassaved. I have seen a play in a theater in which a miser hides his gold,first in one place, then in another, looking to the right and to theleft to see if anybody was watching him. I was the same kind of a miserabout my pancake. If I hid it in the woods I might fail to find theplace, in the morning, where I had hid it, and besides, some soldierthat was peacefully snoring near me, apparently, might have one eye onme, and commit burglary. If I put it in my pocket, and went to sleep, Imight have my pocket picked, so I concluded to remain awake and holdit in my hands. There appeared to be nothing between me and death bystarvation, except that cornmeal pancake, and I sat there for an hour,beside the dying embers of the campfire, trying to make up my mind whostole my other pancake, and what punishment should be meted out to himif I ever found him out. I would follow him to my dying day. I suspectedthe captain, the colonel, the chaplain, and six hundred soldiers, anyone of whom was none too good to steal a man's last pancake if he washungry. To this day I have never found out who stole my pancake, but Ihave not given up the search, and if I live to be as old as Methuselah,and I find out the fellow that put himself outside my pancake that darknight in the pine woods,
I will gallop all over that old soldier, if heis older than I am. That is the kind of avenger that is on the track ofthat pancake-eater. I sat there and nodded over my remaining pancake,clutched in my hands, and finally started to my feet in alarm. SupposeI should fall asleep, and be robbed? The thought was maddening. I haveread of Indians who would eat enough at one sitting to last them severaldays, and the thought occurred to me that if I ate the pancake myenemies could not get it away from me, and perhaps it would digestgradually, a little each day, and brace me up until we got where therewere rations plenty. So I sat there and deliberately eat every mouthfulof it, and looked around at the sleeping companions with triumph, laiddown and slept as peacefully on the ground as I ever slept in bed.

  There may be truth in the story about Indians eating enough to last thema week, but it did not work in my case, for in the morning I was hungryas a she wolf. The pancake had gone to work and digested itself rightat once, as though there was no end of food, and my stomach yearned forsomething. I walked down by the quartermaster's wagons, about daylight,and there was a four-mule team, each with a nose bag on, with corn init. The mules were eating corn, unconscious of a robber being near. Athome, where I had lived on good fresh meat, bread, pie, everything thatwas good, nobody could have made me believe that I would steal corn froma government mule, but when I heard the mules eating that corn a demonpossessed me, and I meditated robbery. I did not want to take all thecorn I wanted from one mule, so I decided to take toll from all of them.I went up to the first one, and reached my hand down into the nose bagbeside the mule's mouth and rescued a handful of corn, then went toanother to do the same, but that mule kicked at the scheme. I went totwo others, and they laid their ears back and began to kick at the tracechains, so I went back to my first love, the patient mule, and tookevery last kernel of corn in the bag, and as I went away with a pocketfull of corn the mule looked at me with tears in its eyes, but Icouldn't be moved by no mule tears, with hunger gnawing at my vitals, soI hurried away like a guilty thing. While I was parching the corn stolenfrom the mule, in a half of a tin canteen, over the fire, the chaplaincame along and wanted to sample it. He was pretty hungry, but I wasn'trunning a free boarding house for chaplains any more, and I told him hemust go forage for himself. He said he would give his birthright for apocket full of corn. I told him I didn't want any birthright, unless abirthright would stay a man's stomach, but if he would promise to alwayslove, honor and obey me, I would tell him where he could get some corn.He swore by the great bald headed Elijah that if I would steer him ontosome corn he would remember me the longest day he lived, and pray forme. I never was very much, mashed on the chaplain's influence at thethrone, but I didn't want to see him starve, while government muleswere living on the fat of the land, so I told him to go down to thequartermaster's corral and rob the mules as I had done. He bit likea bass, and started for the mules. Honestly, I had no designs on thechaplain, but he traded me a kicking mule once, and got a good horseof me, because I thought he wanted to do me a favor. As he was familiarwith mules, I supposed he would know how to steal a little corn. Prettysoon I heard a great commotion down there, and presently the chaplaincame out with a mule chasing him, its ears laid back, and blood in itseyes. The chaplain was white as a sheet, and yelling for help. BeforeI could knock the mule down with a neck-yoke, the animal had grabbed thechaplain by the coat tail, with its mouth, taking some of his pants,also, and perhaps a little skin, raised him up into the air, about sevenfeet, let go of him, and tried to turn around and kick the good man onthe fly as he came down. We drove the mule away, rescued the chaplain,tied his pants together with a piece of string, cut off the tail of hiscoat which the mule had not torn off, so it was the same length as theother one, and made him look quite presentable, though he said he _knew_he could never ride a horse again. It seems that instead of reachinginto the nose bag, and taking a little corn, he had unbuckled the nosebag and taken it off. I told him he was a hog, and ought to haveknown better than take the nose bag off, thus leaving the mule's mouthunmuzzled, while the animal was irritated. He accused me of knowing thatthe mule was vicious, and deliberately sending him there to be killed,so rather than have any hard feelings I gave him a handful of my parchedcorn.

  A few Sundays afterwards I heard him preach a sermon on the sin ofcovetousness, and I thought how beautifully he could have illustratedhis sermon if he had turned around and showed his soldier audience wherethe mule eat his coat tail. Soon we saddled up and marched another daywithout food. Reader, were you ever so hungry that you could see, asplain as though it was before you, a dinner-table set with a full meal,roast beef, mashed potatoes, pie, all steaming hot, ready to sit downto? If you have not been very hungry in your life, you can not believethat one can be in a condition to see things. The man with deliriumtremens can see snakes, while the hungry man, in his delirium, can seethings he would like to eat. Many times during that day's ride throughthe deserted pine-woods, with my eyes wide open, I could see no trees,no ground, no horses and men around me, but there seemed a film overthe eyes, and through it I could see all of the good things I ever hadeaten. One moment there would be a steaming roast turkey, on a platter,ready to be carved. Again I could see a kettle over a cook-stove, with apigeon pot-pie cooking, the dumpings, light as a feather, bobbing up anddown with the steam, and I could actually smell the odor of the cookingpot-pie. It seems strange, and unbelievable to those who have neverexperienced extreme hunger or thirst, that the imagination can pictureeatables and streams of running water, so plain that one will almostreach for the eatables, or rush for the imaginary stream, to plunge inand quench thirst, but I have experienced both of those sensations forthirteen dollars a month, and nary a pension yet. It is such experiencesthat bring gray hairs to the temples of young soldiers, and cause eyesto become hollow and sunken in the head. Today, your Uncle Samuel hasnot got silver dollars enough in his treasury to hire me to suffer oneday of such hunger as to make me see things that were not there, buttwenty-two years ago it was easy to have fun over it, and to laughit off the next day. When we stopped that day, at noon, to rest, thecompany commissary sergeant came up to the company, with two mencarrying the hind quarter of an animal that had been slaughtered, and hebegan to cut it up and issue it out to the men. It was peculiar lookingmeat, but it was meat, and every fellow took his ration, and it wasnot long before the smell of broiled fresh meat could be "heard" allaround. When I took my meat I asked the sergeant what it was, and wherehe got it. I shall always remember his answer. It was this:

  "Young man, when you are starving, and the means of sustaining lifeare given you, take your rations and go away, and don't ask any foolquestions. If you don't want it, leave it."

  Leave it? Egad, I would have eaten it if it had been a Newfoundland dog,and I took it, and cooked it, and ate it. I do not know, and never did,what it was, but when the quartermaster's mule teams pulled out afterdinner, there were two "spike teams;"--that is, two wheel mules and asingle leader, instead of four-mule teams. After I saw the teams moveout, each mule looking mournful, as though each one thought his timemight come next, I didn't want to ask any questions about that meat,though I know there wasn't a beef critter within fifty miles of us. Ihave had my children ask me, many times, if I ever eat any mule in thearmy, and I have always said that I did not know. And I don't. But I ama great hand to mistrust.

  It was on this hungry day, when filled with meat such as I had never metbefore that I did a thing I shall always regret. The captain came downto the rear of the company and said, so we could all hear it. "I wanttwo men to volunteer for a perilous mission. I want two as brave men asever lived. Who will volunteer? Don't all speak at once. Take plenty oftime, for your lives may pay the penalty!" I had been feeling for somedays as though there was not the utmost confidence in my bravery, amongthe men, and I had been studying as to whether I would desert, andbecome a wanderer on the face of the earth, or do some desperate deedthat would make me solid with the boys, and when the captain called forvolunteers, I swallowed
a large lump in my throat, and said, "Captain,_here is your mule_. I will go!" Whether it was that confounded meat Ihad eaten that had put a seeming bravery into me, or desperation atthe hunger of the past few days, I do not know, but I volunteered fora perilous mission. A little Irishman named McCarty spoke up, and said,"Captain, I will go anywhere that red headed recruit will go."

  So it was settled that McCarty and myself should go, and with somemisgivings on my part we rode up to the front and reported. I thoughtwhat a fool I was to volunteer, when I was liable to be killed, but Iwas in for it, and there was no use squealing now. We came to a crossroad, and the captain whispered to us that we should camp there, andthat he had been told by a reliable contraband that up the cross roadabout two miles was a house at which there was a sheep, and he wanted usto go and take it. He said there might be rebels anywhere, and we wereliable to be ambushed and killed, but we must never come back alivewithout sheep meat. Well, we started off. McCarty said I better ride alittle in advance so if we were ambushed, I would be killed first, andhe would rush back and inform the captain. I tried to argue with McCartythat I being a recruit, and he a veteran, it would look better for himto lead, but he said I volunteered first, and he would waive his rightsof precedence, and ride behind me. So we rode along, and I reflected onmy changed condition. A few short weeks ago I was a respected editor ofa country newspaper in Wisconsin, looked up to, to a certain extent, bymy neighbors, and now I had become a sheep thief. At home the occupationof stealing sheep was considered pretty low down, and no man whofollowed the business was countenanced by the best society. A sheepthief, or one who was suspected of having a fondness for mutton notbelonging to him, was talked about. And for thirteen dollars a month,and an insignificant bounty, I had become a sheep thief. If I ever runanother newspaper, after the war, how did I know but a vile contemporaryacross the street would charge me with being a sheep thief, and proveit by McCarty. May be this was a conspiracy on the part of the captain,whom I suspected of a desire to run for office when we got home, to getme in his power, so that if I went for him in my paper, he could chargeme with stealing sheep. It worked me up considerable, but we were out ofmeat, and if there was a sheep in the vicinity, and I got it, there wasone thing sure, they couldn't get any more mule down me. So we rode upto the plantation, which was apparently deserted. There was a lamb abouttwo-thirds grown, in the front yard, and McCarty and myself dismountedand proceeded to surround the young sheep. As we walked up to it, thelamb came up to me bleating, licked my hand, and then I noticed therewas a little sleigh-bell tied to its neck with a blue ribbon. The lamblooked up at us with almost human eyes, and I was going to suggest thatwe let it alone, when McCarty grabbed it by the hind legs and was goingto strap it to his saddle, when it set up a bleating, and a little boycome rushing out of the house, a bright little fellow about three yearsold, who could hardly talk plain. I wanted to hug him, he looked so muchlike a little black-eyed baby at home, that was too awfully small to say"good bye, papa" when I left. The little fellow, with the dignity of anemperor, said, "Here, sir, you must not hurt my little pet lamb. Puthim down, sir, or I will call the servants and have you put off thepremises." McCarty laughed, and said the lamb would be fine 'atin forthe boy's, and was pulling the little thing up, when the tears came intothe boy's eyes, and that settled it. I said, "Mac, for heaven's sake,drop that lamb. I wouldn't break that little boy's heart for all thesheep-meat on earth. I will eat mule, or dog, but I draw the line atchildren's household pets. Let the lamb go." "Begorra, yer right,"said McCarty, as he let the lamb down. "Luk at how the shep runs tothe little bye. Ah, me little mon, yer pet shall not be taken away fromyez," and a big tear ran down McCarty's face. The boy said there was agreat big sheep in the back yard we could have, if we were hungry, andwe went around the house to see. There was an old black ram that lookedas though he could whip a regiment of soldiers, but we decided that hewas our meat. McCarty suggested that I throw a lariet rope around hishorns, and lead him, whiles, he would go behind and drive the animal.That looked feasible, and taking a horse-hair picket rope off my saddle,with a slip noose in the end, I tossed it over the horns of the ram,tied the rope to the saddle, and started. The ram went along all righttill we got out to the road, when he held back a little. Mac jabbedthe ram in the rear with his saber, and he came along all right, onlya little too sudden. That was one of the mistakes of the war, Mac'spricking that ram, and it has been the source of much study on my part,for twenty-two years, as to whether the Irishman did it on purpose,knowing the ram would charge on my horse, and butt my steed in the hindlegs. If that was the plan of the Irishman, it worked well, for thefirst thing I knew my horse jumped about eighteen feet, and started downthe road towards camp, on a run, dragging the ram, which was bellowingfor all that was out. I tried to hold the horse in a little, but everytime he slackened up the ram would gather himself and run his head fulltilt against the horse, and away he would go again. Sometimes the ramwas flying through the air, at the end of the rope, then it would bedragged in the sand, and again it would strike on its feet, and allthe time the ram was blatting, and the confounded Irishman was yellingand laughing.

  We went into the camp that way 131]

  We went into the camp that way, and the whole regiment, hearing thenoise, turned out to see us come in. As my horse stopped, and theram was caught by a colored man, who tied its legs, I realized theridiculousness of the scene, and would have gone off somewhere alone andhated myself, or killed the Irishman, but just then I saw the captain,and I said, "Captain, I have to report that the perilous expedition wasa success. There's your sheep," and I rode away, resolved that that wasthe last time I should ever volunteer for perilous duty. The Irishmanwas telling a crowd of boys the particulars, and they were having agreat laugh, when I said:

  "McCarty, you are a villain. I believe you set that ram on to me onpurpose. Henceforth we are strangers."

  "Be gob," said the Irishman, as he held his sides with laughter, "yeztowld me to drive the shape, and didn't I obey?"