Of course it could not be expected that every man in a cavalry regiment would be a music teacher, and the calls sounded so much alike to the uncultivated ear, that it was no wonder that everybody got the calls mixed. In camp we got so we could tell “assembly,” and “surgeon’s call,” and “tattoo,” and quite a number of others, but the calls of battle were Greek to us. The bugle sounded down in the woods, and the sergeant turned to me and asked, “Fhat the divil is that I dunno?” I was satisfied it was “To horse,” but when I saw our fellows come rushing back towards the horses it looked as though the order was to fall back, and I suggested as much to the sergeant. He thought it looked reasonable, too, and he ordered us to fall back slowly toward the regiment. We didn’t go so confounded slow, and of course I was ahead with my three horses. The sergeant heard the captain yell to him to hold on, and he got the most of the “fours” to stop, and let the boys get on, but the little Irishman and myself couldn’t hold our extra horses, and they dragged us along over logs and through brush, the regiment drew sabers to “shoo” the horses back, waived their hats, my horse run his fore feet into a hole, fell down, and let me off over his head, the other horses seemed to walk on me, I became insensible, and the next thing I knew I was in an ambulance, behind the regiment, which was on the march, as though nothing had happened. I felt of myself to see if anything was broke, and finding I was all right I told the driver of the ambulance I guessed I would get out and mount my horse, but he said he guessed I wouldn t, because the colonel had told him if I died to bury me beside the road, but if I lived to bring me to headquarters for punishment. The driver said the boys whose horses I had stampeded, wanted to kill me, but the colonel had said death was too good for me. Well, nobody was hurt in the skirmish, and about noon we arrived at a camping place for the night, and the ambulance drove up, and I was placed under guard.
It seems the sergeant had laid the whole thing to me. He had admitted to the colonel that he didn’t know one bugle call from another, and he supposed I did, and when he asked me what it was, and I said it was to retreat, he supposed I knew, and retreated. The colonel asked me what I had to say, and I told him I didn’t know any bugle call except get your quinine, get your quinine. That when I enlisted there was nothing said about my ability to read notes in music, and I had never learned, and couldn’t learn, as I had no more ear for music than a mule. I told him if he would furnish a music teacher, I would study hard to try and master the difference between “forward and back,” but that it didn’t seem to me as though I ought to be held responsible for an expression of opinion, however erroneous, when asked for it by a superior officer.
I told him that when the bugle sounded, and I saw the boys coming back on a hop, skip and jump, it seemed to me the most natural thing in the world that the bugle had sounded a retreat. That seemed the only direction we could go, and as my natural inclination was to save those horses that had been placed in my charge, of course I interpreted the bugle call to mean for us to get out of there honorably, and as the only way to get out honorably was to get out quick, we got up and dusted. The colonel always gave me credit for being a good debater, and he smiled and said that as no damage had been done, he would not insist that I be shot on the spot, but he felt that an example should be made of me. He said I would be under arrest until bed time, down under a tree, half a mile or so from headquarters, in plain sight, and he would send music teachers there to teach me the bugle calls. I thanked him, in a few well chosen remarks, and the guard marched me to the tree, which was the guard-house. I found another soldier there, under arrest, who had rode out of the ranks to water his horse, while on the march, against orders, and a Confederate prisoner that had been captured in the morning skirmish, a captain of a Virginia regiment. The captain seemed real hurt at having been captured, and was inclined to be uppish and distant. I tried two or three times to get him into conversation on some subject connected with the war, but he wouldn’t have it. He evidently looked upon me as a horse-thief, a deserter, and a bad man, or else a soldier who had been sent to pump information out of him. I never was let alone quite as severely as I was by our prisoner, at first. But I went to work and built a fire, and soon had some coffee boiling, bacon frying, and sweet potatoes roasting, and when I spread the lay out on the ground, and said, “Colonel, this is on me. Won’t you join me?” I think he was the most surprised man I ever saw, He had watched every move I made, in cooking, with a yearning such as is seldom seen, and he probably had no more idea that he was going to have a mouthful of it, than that he should fly. His eyes might have been weak, but if he had been a man I knew well, I should have said there were a couple of tears gathering in his eyes, and I was quite sure of it when the flood broke over the eye-lid dam, and rolled down among the underbrush whiskers. He stopped the flood at once, by an effort of will, though there seemed a something in his throat when he said, “You don’t mean it, do you, kernel?” I told him of course I meant it, and to slide right up and help himself, and I speared a great big sweet potato, and some bacon, and placed them on a big leaf, and poured coffee out in the only cup I had. He kicked on using the cup, but I said we would both drink out of it. He said, “you are very kind, sir,” and that was all he said during the meal. But how he did eat. He tried to act as though he didn’t care much for dinner, and as though he was eating out of courtesy to me, but I could tell by the way the sweet potato went down in the depths of my Confederate friend, and by the joyous look when a swallow of coffee hit the right place, that he was having a picnic.
When we were through with dinner and the guard and the other prisoner were cooking theirs, he said, “My friend, I do not mind telling you now that I was much in need of food. I had not eaten since yesterday morning, as we have been riding hard to intercept you gentlemen, sir. I trust I shall live long enough to repay, you sir.” I told him not to mention it, as all our boys made it a point to divide when we captured a prisoner. He said he believed his people felt the same way, but God knew they had little to divide. He said he trembled when he thought that some of our men who were prisoners in the south were faring very poorly, but it could not be helped. “Suppose I had captured you,” he said, with a smile that was forced, “I could not have given you a mouthful of bread, until we had found a southern family that ‘had bread to spare.’” I told him it was pretty tough, but it would all be over before long, and then we would all have plenty to eat. I got out a pack of cards, and the confederate captain played seven-up with me, while we smoked. Presently nine buglers came down to where we were, formed in line, and began to sound cavalry calls in concert. I knew that they were the music teachers the colonel had sent to teach me the calls. The confederate looked on in astonishment, while they sounded a call, and when it was done I asked the chief bugler what it was, and he told me, and I asked him to sound something else, which he did. My idea was to convince the prisoner that this was a part of daily routine. He got nervous and couldn’t remember which was trumps; and finally said we might talk all we pleased about the horrors of Andersonville, but to be blowed to death with cavalry bugles was a fate that only the most hardened criminals should suffer. The confederate evidently had no ear for music more than I had, and he soon got enough. However the buglers kept up their noise till about supper time, when they were called on. I got another meal for the confederate, and he seemed to be actually getting fat. The colonel of my regiment came down to where we were, and said, “You fellows seem to be doing pretty well,” and then he had a long talk with the rebel prisoner, invited him up to his tent to pass the night, apologized for the concert he had been giving us, explained what it was for, told me I could go to my company if I thought I could remember a bugle call in the future; the captain shook hands with me and thanked me cordially, and we separated. He was exchanged, the next day, and I never saw him for twenty-two years, when I found him at the head of a manufacturing enterprise in his loved Virginia, and he furnished me a more expensive meal than I did him years before, but it didn’t taste half as g
ood as the bacon dinner in Alabama under the guard-house tree.
CHAPTER XXVII.
A Short Story About a Pair of Boots, Showing the Monumental Gall of their Owner.
When I enlisted in the cavalry I bought a pair of top boots, of the Wellington pattern, stitched with silk up and down the legs, which were of shiny morocco. They came clear above my knees, and from the pictures I had seen of cavalry soldiers, it struck me those boots would be a pass-port to any society in the army. The first few months of my service, it seemed to me, the boots gave me more tone than any one thing. I learned afterwards that all new recruits came to the regiment with such boots, and that they were the laughing stock of all the old veterans. I did not know that I was being guyed by the boys, and I loved those boots above all things I had. To be sure, when we struck an unusually muddy country, some idiot of an officer seemed to be inspired to order us to dismount. The boys who had common army boots would dismount anywhere, in mud or water, but it seemed to me cruel for officers to order a dismount, when they knew I would have to step in the mud half way up to my knees, with those morocco boots on. Several times when ordered to dismount in the mud, I have ridden out of the road, where it was not muddy, to dismount, but the boys would laugh so loud, and the officers would swear so wickedly, that I got so I would dismount wherever they told me, suppress my emotions, as I felt my beautiful, shiny boots sink into the red clay, and when we got into camp I would spend half the night cleaning my boots. The captain said if I would spend half the time cleaning my carbine and saber that I did cleaning my boots, I would have been a model soldier.
I think that for the first year of my service I had as elegant a pair of boots as could be found in the army. But it was the hardest work to keep track of them. The first three months it was all I could do to keep the chaplain from trading me a pair of old army shoes for my boots. The arguments he used to convince me that morocco boots were far above my station, and that they were intended for a chaplain, were labored. If he had used the same number of words in the right direction, he could have converted the whole army. I had to sleep with my boots under my head every night, to prevent them from being stolen and twice they were stolen from my tent, but in each case recovered at the sutler’s, where they had been pawned for a bottle of brandy peaches, which I had to pay for to redeem the boots. The boots had become almost a burden to me, in keeping them, but I enjoyed them so much that money could not have bought them. When we were in a town for a few days, and I rode around, it did not make any difference whether I had any other clothes on, of any account, the morocco boots captured the town. The natives could not see how a man who wore such boots could be anything but a high-up thoroughbred. The last time I lost my boots will always be remembered by those who were in the same command. We were on the march with a Michigan and a New Jersey regiment, through the dustiest country that ever was. The dust was eight inches deep in the road, and just like fine ashes. Every time a horse put his foot down the dust would raise above the trees, and as there were two thousand horses, with four feet apiece, and each foot in constant motion, it can be imagined that the troops were dusty. And it was so hot that the perspiration oozed out of us, but the dust covered it.
The three regiments took turns in acting as rear guard, to pick up stragglers, and on this hot and dusty day the New Jersey regiment was in the rear. It was composed of Germans entirely, with a German colonel, a man who had seen service in Europe, and he looked upon a soldier as a machine, with no soul, fit only to obey orders. That was not the kind of a soldier I was. During the day’s march the boys stripped off everything they could. I know all I had on was a shirt and pants, and a handkerchief around my head. I took off my boots and coat and let the colored cook of the company strap them on to his saddle with the camp kettles. He usually rode right behind the company, and I thought I could get my things any time if I wanted to dress up. It was the hardest day’s march that I ever experienced, lungs full of dust, and every man so covered with dust that you could not recognize your nearest neighbor. Afternoon the command halted beside a stream, and it was announced that we would go into camp for the night. The colored cook came along soon after, and he was perfectly pale, whether from dust or fright I could not tell, but he announced to me, in a manner that showed that he appreciated the calamity which had befallen the command, that he had lost my boots. I was going to kill him, but my carbine was full of dust, and I made it a point never to kill a man with a dirty gun, so I let him explain. He said:
“I fell back to de rear, by dat plantation where de cotton gin was burning, to see if I couldn’t get a canteen of buttermilk to wash de dust outen my froat, when dat Dutch Noo Jersey gang come along, and de boss he said, ‘nicker, you got back ahead fere you pelong, or I gick you in de pack mit a saber, aind’t it,’ and when I get on my mule to come along he grab de boots and he say, ‘nicker, dot boots is better for me,’ and when I was going to take dem away from him he stick me in de pants wid a saber. Den I come away.”
I could have stood up under having an arm shot off, but to lose my boots was more than I could bear. It never did take me long to decide on any important matter, and in a moment I decided to invade the camp of that New Jersey regiment, recapture my boots or annihilate every last foreigner on our soil, so I started off, barefooted, without a coat, and covered with dust, for the headquarters of the New Jersey fellows. They had been in camp but a few minutes, but every last one of them had taken a bath in the river, brushed the dust off his clothes, and looked ready for dress parade. That was one fault of those foreigners, they were always clean, if they had half a chance. I went right to the colonel’s tent, and he was surrounded with officers, and they were opening bottles of beer, and how cool it looked. There was something peculiar about those foreigners, no matter if they were doing duty in the most inaccessible place in the south, and were short of transportation, you could always find beer at their headquarters. I walked right in, and the colonel was just blowing the foam off a glass of beer. He looked at me in astonishment, and I said in a voice husky from dust down my neck:
“Colonel this is an important epoch in the history of our beloved country. Events have transpired within the past hour, which leaves it an open question whether, as a nation, we are afoot or on horseback.”
“Great hefens,” said the colonel, stopping with his glass of beer half drank, “you vrighten me. Vot has habbened. But vait, und dake a glass of beer, as you seem exhausted, und proke up. Captain Ouskaspiel, hand the shendleman some peer. Mine Gott, bud you look hard, strancher.”
I do not believe that I ever drank anything that seemed to go right to the spot, the way that beer did. It seemed to start a freshet of dust down my neck, clear my throat, and brace me up. While I was drinking it I noticed that the German colonel and his officers eyed me closely, my bare feet, my flannel shirt full of dust, and my hair that looked as though I had stood on my head in the road. They waited for me to continue, and after draining the last drop in the glass, I said:
“Colonel, it was no ordinary circumstance that induced you brave foreigners, holding allegiance to European sovereigns, to fly to arms to defend this new nation from an internecine foe. While we natives, and to the manor born, left our plows in the furrow, to spring to-arms, you left your shoemaker shops, the spigots of your beer saloons, the marts of commerce in which you were engaged, and stood shoulder to shoulder. Where the bullets of the enemy whistled, there could be found the brave Dutchmen of New Jersey. It brings tears to eyes unused to weeping, to think of the German fathers and mothers of our land, who are waiting and watching for the return of sons who will never come back, and this is, indeed, harder for them to bear, when we reflect that these boys were not obliged to fight for our country, holding allegiance, as I said before to—”
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