How Private George W. Peck Put Down the Rebellion

by George W. Peck

  CHAPTER XIV.

  Military Attire--My Suit of Government Clothes--The Memory of Them Saddens Me Still--The Dreadful March--The Adjutant Appoints Me to Make Out a Monthly Report--The Report Is an Astonishing One.

  About this time I received the greatest shock of the whole war. I hadprided myself upon my uniform that I brought from home, which was madeby a tailor, and fit me first rate. It was of as good cloth and as wellmade as the uniforms of any of the officers, and I was not ashamed to goout with a party of officers on a little evening tear, because there wasnothing about my uniform to distinguish me from an officer, except theshoulder-straps, and many officers did not wear shoulder-straps at all,except on dress parade or inspection. I took great pleasure in ridingaround town, wherever the regiment was located, looking wise, and posingas an officer. But the time came when my uniform, which came with me asa recruit, became seedy, and badly worn, and it was necessary to discardit, and draw some clothing of the quartermaster. That is a trying timefor a recruit. One day it was announced that the quartermaster sergeanthad received a quantity of clothing, and the men were ordered to go anddraw coats, pants, hats, shoes, overcoats, and underclothing, aswinter was coming on, and the regiment was liable to move at any time.Something happened that I was unable to be present the firstforenoon that clothing was issued, and, when I did call upon thequartermaster-sergeant, there was only two or three suits left, and theyhad been tumbled over till they looked bad. I can remember now how myheart sank within me, as I picked up a pair of pants that was left. Theywere evidently cut out with a buzz-saw, and were made for a man thatweighed three hundred. I held them up in installments, and looked atthem. Holding them by the top, as high as I could, and the bottom of thelegs of the pants laid on the ground. The sergeant charged the pants tomy account, and then handed me a jacket, a small one, evidently madefor a hump-backed dwarf. The jacket was covered with yellow braid. O, soyellow, that it made me sick. The jacket was charged to me, also. Thenhe handed me some undershirts and drawers, so coarse and rough thatit seemed to me they must have been made of rope, and lined withsand-paper. Then came an overcoat, big enough for an equestrian statueof George Washington, with a cape on it as big as a wall tent. The hat Idrew was a stiff, cheap, shoddy hat, as high as a tin camp kettle, whichwas to take the place of my nobby, soft felt hat that I had paid fivedollars of my bounty money for. The hat was four sizes too large for me.Then I took the last pair of army shoes there was, and they weighed asmuch as a pair of anvils, and had raw-hide strings to fasten them with.Has any old soldier of the army ever forgotten the clothing that he drewfrom the quartermaster? These inverted pots for hats, the same size allthe way up, and the shoes that seemed to be made of sole leather, andwhich scraped the skin off the ankles. O, if this government ever doesgo to Gehenna, as some people contend it will, sometime, it will be asa penalty for issuing such ill-fitting shoddy clothing to its bravesoldiers, who never did the government any harm. I carried the lot ofclothing to my tent, feeling sick and faint. The idea of wearing themamong folks was almost more than I could bear to think of. I laid themon my bunk, and looked at them, and "died right there." That hat wasof a style older than Methuselah. O, I could have stood it, all but thehat, and pants, and shoes, but they killed me. While I was looking atthe lay-out, and trying to make myself believe that my old clothes thatI brought with me were good enough to last till the war was over, thoughthe seat of the pants, and the knees, and the sleeves of the coat werenearly gone, an orderly came through the company and said the regimentwould have a dismounted dress parade at sundown, and every man must wearhis new clothes. Ye gods! that was too much! If I could have had a weekor ten days to get used to those new clothes, one article at a time, Icould have stood it, but to be compelled to put the pants, and jacket,shoes and hat on all at once, was horrible to think of, and if I hadnot known that a deserter was always caught, and punished, I would havedeserted. But the clothes must be put on, and I must go out into theworld a spectacle to behold. Believing that it is better to face theworst, and have it over, I put on the pants first. If I could ever meetthe army contractor who furnished those pants to a government almost inthe throes of dissolution, I would kill him as I would an enemy of thehuman race. There was room enough in those pants for a man and a horse.Yes, and a bale of hay. There were no suspenders furnished to the men,and how to keep the pants from falling from grace was a question, but Igot a piece of tent rope, cut a hole in the waist band, and run the ropearound inside, and tied it around my waist, puckering the top of thepants at proper intervals.

  When I think of those pants now, after twenty-two years, I wonder that Iwas not irretrievably lost in them. I would have been lost if I had notstuck out of the top. But when I looked at the bottoms of the pants Ifound at least a foot too much. If I had tied the rope around under myarms, or buttoned them to my collar button, they would have been toolong at the bottom. I finally rolled them up at the bottom, and theyrolled clear up above my knees. But how they did bag around my body.There was cloth enough to spare to have made a whole uniform for thelargest man in the regiment. At that time I was a slim fellow, thatweighed less than 125 pounds, and there is no doubt I got the largestpair of pants that was issued in the whole Union army. I only hada-small round mirror in my tent, so I could not see how awfully Ilooked, only in installments, but to a sensitive young man who hadalways dressed well, any one can see how a pair of such pants wouldharrow up his soul. If the pants were too large, you ought to haveseen the jacket. The contractor who made the clothes evidently took themeasure of a monkey to make that jacket. It was so small that I couldhardly get it on. The sleeves were so tight that the vaccination markson my arm must have shown plainly. The sleeves were too short, and myhands and half of my forearm riding outside. The body was so tight thatI had to use a monkey-wrench to button it, and then I couldn't breathewithout unbuttoning one button. It was so tight that my ribs showed soplain they could be counted.

  I stuffed some pieces of grain sack in the shoes, and got them on, andtied them, put on that awful hat, the bugle sounded to fall in, and Ifell out of my tent towards the place of assembly, with my carbine. Ifwe had been going out mounted, I could have managed to hide some of thepants around the saddle, if I could have got my shoe over the horse'sback, but to walk out among men, stubbing my shoes against each other,and interfering and knocking my ankles off, was pretty hard. The companywas about formed when I fell out of my tent, and when the men saw methey snickered right out. I have heard a great many noises in my timethat took the life out of me.

  The first shell that I heard whistle through the air, and shriek, andexplode, caused my hair to raise, and I was cold all up and down myspine. The first flock of minnie bullets that sang about my vicinitycaused my flesh to creep and my heart's blood to stand still. Once I wasnear a saw mill when the boiler exploded, and as the pieces of boilerbegan to rain around me, I felt how weak and insignificant a small,red-headed, freckled-faced man is. Once I heard a girl say "no," when Ihad asked her a civil question, and I was so pale and weak that I couldhardly reply that I didn't care a continental whether she married meor not, but I never felt quite so weak, and powerless, and ashamed, anddesperate as I did when I came out, falling over myself and the men ofmy company snickered at my appearance. The captain held his hand overhis face and laughed. I fell in at the left of my company, and thecaptain went to the right and looked down the line, and seeing my pantsout in front about a foot, he ordered me to stand back. I stood back,and he looked at the rear of the line, and I stuck out worse behind, andhe made me move up. Finally he came down to where I was and told me tothrow out my chest. I tried to throw it out, and busted a button off,but the pressure was too great, and my chest went back. Finally thecaptain told me I could go to the right of the company and act asorderly sergeant on dress parade. He said as our company was on theright of the regiment, they could dress on my pants, and I wouldn't benoticed.

  What I ought to have done, was to have committed suicide right there,but I
went to the right, trying to look innocent, and we moved off tothe field for dress parade. Everything went on well enough, except thatin coming to a "carry arms," with my carbine, from a present, the muzzleof the carbine knocked off my stiff hat, and the stock of the carbinewent into the pocket of my pants and run clear down my leg, before Icould rescue it. A file closer behind me picked up my hat and put it onme, with the yellow cord tassels in front, and before I could fix it,the order came, "First sergeants to the front and center, march." Thosewho are familiar with military matters, know that at dress parade thefirst sergeants march a few paces to the front, then turn and march tothe center of the regiment, turn and face the adjutant, and each salutesthat officer in turn, and reports, "Co. ----, all present or accountedfor." That was the hardest march I ever had in all of my armyexperience. I knew that every eye of every soldier in the six companiesat the right of the regiment, would be on my pants, and the officerswould laugh at me, and the several hundred ladies and gentlemen fromtown, who were back of the colonel, witnessing the dress parade, wouldlaugh, too. A man can face death, in the discharge of his duty, betterthan he can face the laughter of a thousand people. I seemed to be theonly soldier in the whole regiment who had not got a pretty good fitin drawing his new clothes, but I was a spectacle. As I marched to thefront, with the other eleven first sergeants, and stood still for themto dress on me, I felt as though the piece of tent rope with which Ihad fastened my large pants up, was becoming untied, and I began toperspire. What would become of me if that rope _should_ become untied?If that rope gave way, it seemed to me it would break up the whole army,stampede the visitors, and cause me to be court-martialed for conductunbecoming any white man. I made up my mind if the worst came, I woulddrop my carbine and grab the pants with both hands, and save the day. Atthe command, right and left face, I turned to the left, and I could feelthe pants begin to droop, as it were, so I took hold of the top of themwith my left hand, and at the command, march, I started for the center.

  I had got almost past my own company, and there had been no generallaugh, but when I passed an Irishman, named Mulcahy, I heard him whisperout loud to the man next to him, "Howly Jasus, luk at the pants." Thenthere was a snicker all through the company, which was taken up by thenext, and by the time I got to the center, and "front faced," a half ofthe regiment were laughing, and the officers were scolding the men andwhispering to them to shut up. Just then I felt that the one hand thatwas trying to hold the pants up, was never going to do the work in theworld, so I dropped my carbine behind me, said, "Co. E, all present oraccounted for," and stood there like a stoughton bottle, holding thewaist-band of those pants with both hands, as pale as a ghost. I couldsee that the adjutant and the colonel and two majors, were laughing, andmany of the visitors were trying to keep from laughing. I think I livedseventy years in five minutes, while the other eleven orderlies werereporting, and when the order came to return to our posts, I whisperedto the next orderly to me, and told him if he would pick up my carbineand bring it along, I would die for him, and he picked it up. The dressparade was soon finished, but instead of marching the companies back totheir quarters, they were ordered to break ranks on the parade ground,and for an hour I was surrounded with officers and men, who laughed atme till I thought I would die.

  The colonel and adjutant finally told me that it was a put up job on me,to make a little fun for the boys. They said I had often had fun at theexpense of the other boys, and they wanted to see if I could stand ajoke on myself, and they admitted that I had done it well. If I hadknown it was a joke, I could have lived through it better. The adjutantsaid he had got a little work for me that evening, and the next morningI could take my clothes down town to the post quartermaster, andexchange them for a suit that would fit me. I went to his tent, andhe showed me a lot of company reports, and wanted me to make out aconsolidated monthly report, for the assistant adjutant general of thebrigade. I had done some work for him before, and he left a blank signedby himself and colonel, and told me to make out a report and send itto the brigade headquarters, as he was going down town with a party ofofficers. I made up my mind that I would get even with the adjutant andthe colonel, so I took a pen and filled out the blank. My idea was toput all the figures in the wrong column, which I did, and send it tothe brigade headquarters. The next morning I went down town with thequartermaster, and got a suit of clothes to fit me, and on the way backto camp I passed brigade headquarters, when I saw our adjutant lookingquite dejected. He called to me and said he had been summoned to brigadeheadquarters to explain some inaccuracies in the monthly report sent inthe night before, and he wanted me to stay and see what was the trouble,but I acted as though if there was a mistake, it was an error of thehead rather than of the feet. Pretty soon the old brigade adjutant, whowas a strict diciplinarian, and a man who never heard of a joke, camein from the general's tent, with his brow corrugated. They had evidentlybeen brooding over the report.

  "I beg your pardon, adjutant," said he, with a preoccupied look, "but inyour report I observe that your regiment contains forty-three enlistedmen, and nine hundred and twenty-six company cooks. This seems to meimprobable, and the general cannot seem to understand it."

  The adjutant turned red in the face, and was about to stammer outsomething, when the adjutant general continued:

  "Again, we observe that your quartermaster has on hand nine hundredbales of condition powders, which is placed in your report as rationsfor the men, that you only have eleven horses in your regiment fitfor duty, that you have the same number of men, while the commissionedofficers foot up at nine hundred and twenty-six. Of your sick menthere seems to be plenty, some eight hundred, which would indicate anepidemic, of which these headquarters had not been informed previously.In the column headed "officers detailed on other duty" I find four"six-mule teams," and one "spike team of five mules." In the column"officers absent without leave" I find the entry "all gone off on adrunk." This, sir, is the most incongruous report that has ever beenreceived at these head-quarters, from a reputably sober officer. Canthis affair be satisfactorily explained, at once, or would you prefer toexplain it to a court-martial?"

  "Captain," said the adjutant in distress, and perspiring freely, "myclerk has made a mistake, and placed a piece of waste paper that hasbeen scribbled on, in the envelope, instead of the regular report. Letme take it, and I will send the proper report to you in ten minutes."

  The adjutant general handed over my report, after asking how it happenedthat the signature of the colonel and adjutant was on the ridiculousreport, and the adjutant and the red-headed recruit went out, mountedand rode away. On the way the adjutant said, "I ought to kill you on thespot. But I wont. You have only retaliated on us for playing them pantson you. I hate a man that can't take a joke."

  Then we made out a new report, and I took it to headquarters, and allwas well. But the adjutant was not as kitteny with his jokes on theother fellows for many moons.