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How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion, a fiction by George W. Peck |
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Chapter 6 |
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_ CHAPTER VI I Capture "Jeff"--I Get Back at the Chaplain--The Chaplain Arrested--Off on a Raid--I Meet the Relatives of the Dead Confederate--My Powers of Lying are Brought into Play. The winding up of the last chapter of this history, with its sad incidents, deaths and burials, was unavoidable, but it shall not occur again. The true historian has got to get in all the particulars. I think I never felt quite as downhearted as I did the day or two after the skirmish, when our boys were killed. It had seemed as though there was no danger of anybody getting hurt, as long as they looked out for themselves, but now there was a feeling that anybody was liable to be killed, any time, and why not me? Of course the old veterans of the regiment were the ones who would naturally be expected to take the brunt of the battle, but there was a habit of sending raw recruits into places of danger that struck me as being mighty careless, as well as very bad judgment. Then there were great preparations being made for an advance movement, or a retreat, or something, and my mind was constantly occupied in trying to find out whether it was to be an advance or a retreat. If it was an advance, I wanted to arrange to be in the rear, and if it was a retreat, it seemed to me as as though the proper place for a man who wanted to live to go home, was in front. And yet what chance was there for a common private soldier to find out whether it was an advance or a retreat. Finally I decided that when the regiment _did_ start out, I would manage to be about the middle, so it wouldn't make much difference which way we went. When that idea occurred to me I pondered over it a good deal and told the chaplain, and he said it was a piece of as brilliant strategy as he had ever heard of, and he was willing to adopt it, only being a staff officer it was necessary for him and me to ride with the colonel, and the colonel most always rode at the head, though his place was about the middle. He said he would speak to the colonel about it. It made my hair stand to see the preparations that were being made for carnage. Ammunition enough was issued to kill a million men, and the doctors were packing bandages and plasters, and physic, and splints and probes, until it made me sick to look at them. When I thought of actual war, my mind reverted to my mule, the kicking brute that was no good, and I decided to get a horse. I had got so, actually, that I could hear bullets whistle without turning pale and having cold chills run over me, and it seemed as though a horse was none too good for me, so I went to the colonel and told him that a soldier couldn't make no show on a kicking mule and I wanted a horse. I told him I supposed, as chaplain's clerk. I should have to ride with him and his staff on the march, and he didn't want to see as nice a looking fellow as I was riding a kicking mule that would kick the ribs of the officers horses, and break the officers legs. The colonel said he had not thought of that contingency. He had enjoyed seeing me ride the mule, because I was so patient when the mule kicked. He said they used that mule in the regiment to teach recruits to ride. A man who could stay on that mule could ride any horse in the regiment, and as I had been successful, and had displayed splendid mulemanship, I should be promoted to ride a horse, and he told the quartermaster to exchange with me and give me the chestnut-sorrel horse that the Confederate was shot off of. I went with the quartermaster to the corral, turned out my mule, and cornered the beautiful horse that had been rode so proudly a few days before by my friend, the rebel. It took six of us to catch the horse, and bridle and saddle him, and the men about the corral said the horse was no good. He hadn't eaten anything since being captured, and his eyes looked bad, and he wanted to kick and bite everybody. I told them the poor horse was homesick, that was all that ailed him. The horse was a Confederate at heart, and he naturally had no particular love for Yankees. I remembered that once or twice when I was riding with the rebels, after they captured me, the young fellow on this horse patted him on the neck and called him "Jeff", so I knew that was his name, so I led him out of the corral away from the other fellows, where there was some grass growing, and made up my mind I would "mash" him. After he had eaten grass a little while, looking at me out of the corner of his eyes as though he didn't know whether to kick my head on, or walk on me, as I sat under a tree, I got up and patted him on the neck and said, "Well, Jeff, old boy, how does the grass fit your stomach?" You may talk about brute intelligence, but that horse was human. He stopped eating, with his mouth full of grass, looked astonished at being addressed by a stranger without an introduction, and turned a pair of eyes as beautiful and soft as a woman's upon me, and then began to chew slowly, as though thinking. I rubbed his sleek coat with, my bare hands, and did not say much, desiring to have Jeff make the first advances. He looked me over, and finally put his nose on my sleeve, and rubbed me, and looked in my face, and acted as though he would say, "Well, of course this red-headed fellow is no comparison to my dead master, but evidently he's no slouch, and if I have got to be bossed around by a Yankee, as he is the only one that has spoken a kind word to me since I was captured, and he seems to know my name, I guess I will tie to him," and the intelligent animal rubbed his nose all over me, and licked my hand. I rubbed the horse all over, petted him, took up his feet and looked at them, and spoke his name, and pretty soon we were the best of friends. I mounted him and rode around and it was just like a rocking chair. That poor, dead Confederate had probably rode Jeff since he was a kid and Jeff was a colt, and had broken him well, and I was awfully sorry that the original owner was not alive, riding his horse home safe and sound, to be greeted by his family with loving embraces. But he was dead and buried, and his horse belonged to me, by all the laws of war. And yet I had not become a hardened warrior to such an extent that I could forget the hearts that would ache at his home, and I made up mind that horse would be treated as tenderly as though he was one of my family. I rode Jeff around for an hour or two, found that he was trained to jump fences, stand on his hind feet, trot, pace, rack, and that he could run like a scared wolf, and everything the horse did he would sort of look around at me with one eye as much as to say, "Boss, you will find I have got all the modern improvements, and you needn't be afraid that I will disgrace you in any society." I was fairly in love with my new horse, and, except for a feeling that I was an interloper with the horse, and sorry for the poor boy that had been shot off him, I should have been perfectly happy. The chaplain had got in the habit of wearing a nice, blue broadcloth blouse which I had brought from home, which had two rows of brass buttons on it. I had paid about twenty dollars of my bounty for the blouse, and had found that the private soldiers did not wear such elaborate uniforms in active duty, so I kept it in the chaplain's tent. I thought if I was killed and my body was sent home, the blouse would come handy. The chaplain wore it occasionally, and he said any time I wanted to wear any of his clothes to just help myself. An order had been issued to move the following day, with ten days' rations, and some of the boys asked for passes to go down town and have a little blow-out before we started. They wanted me to go along, and so I got a pass, too. We were to go down town in the afternoon and stay till nine o clock at night, when we had to be in camp. I saddled up Jeff and looked for my blouse, but it was gone, the chaplain having worn it to visit the chaplain of some other regiment, so I took his coat and put it on, as he had told me to. The coat had the chaplain's shoulder-straps on, but I thought there would be no harm in wearing it, so about a dozen of us privates started for town to have a good time, and I with chaplain's-straps on. It was customary, when soldiers went to town on a pass, to partake of intoxicating beverages more or less, as that was about the only form of enjoyment, and I blush now, twenty-two years afterward, to write the fact that we all got pretty full. It seemed so like home to be able to go into a saloon and drink beer, good old northern beer, and who knew but tomorrow we would be killed. So we ate, drank, and were merry. One of the boys said when the officers got on a tear, they would ride right into billiard saloons, and sometime shoot at decanters of red liquor behind the bar, and he said a private was just as good as an officer any day, and suggested that we mount our horses and paint the town. We mounted, and rode about town, racing up and down the streets, and finally we came to a billiard saloon, and half a dozen of us rode right in, took cues out of the rack, and tried to play billiards on horse-back. It was a grand picnic then, though it seems foolish now. My horse Jeff would do anything I asked him, and when I rode up to the bar and told him to rear up, he put both fore feet on the bar, and looked at the bartender as much as to say, "set up the best you have got." The chaplain's shoulder-straps gave the crowd a sort of confidence that everything was all right, and after exhibiting in a saloon for a time, there was something said about horse-racing, and I said my horse could beat anything on four legs, so we adjourned to the outskirts of town for a race, followed by half the people in town. We had a horse-race, and Jeff beat them all, and wherever I went the crowd would cheer the chaplain. They said they liked to see a man in that position who could unbend himself and mix up with the boys. There never was a chaplain more popular than the "Wisconsin preacher" was. It did not occur to me that I was placing the chaplain in an unfavorable position before the public, by wearing his coat. _Nothing_ occurred to me, that day, except that we were having a high old time. Finally, after dark, one of our boys got into a row with a loafer in a saloon, and picked the loafer up and tossed him through the window, to the sidewalk. This was very wrong, but it couldn't be helped. There was a great noise, cries for the provost guard, and we knew that the only way to get out of the scrape honorably, would be to get out real quick, so we mounted and rode to our camp. My horse was the fastest and I got home first, unsaddled my horse and went to the tent, took off the chaplain's coat and hung it up carefully, and was at work writing a letter, and thinking how my horse acted as though he had been on sprees before, he enjoyed it so, when I heard a noise outside, and it was evident that the provost guard had followed us to camp, and were making complaint to the colonel about our conduct down town. Finally the guard went away, and shortly the colonel and the adjutant called at our tent and inquired for the chaplain. I told them the chaplain had been away most of the day, and had not returned. The colonel and the adjutant winked at each other, and asked me if he wasn t away a good deal. I told them that he was away some. They asked me if I never noticed that his breath had a peculiar smell. I told them that it was occasionally a little loud. They went away thoughtfully. Now that I think of it I ought to have explained that the peculiarity of the chaplain's breath was caused from eating pickled onions of the sanitary stores, but it did not occur to me at the time. After a while the chaplain came back, asked me if anybody had died during the day, took a drink of blackberry brandy for what ailed him, and we retired. The next morning there was a circus. The little town boasted, a daily paper, and it contained the following:
"Wine is a mocker," said I, becoming warmed up, "and none of us can afford to tamper with it. With me, it does not make so much difference, as I have no reputation but that which is already lost, but you, my dear sir, think of your position. Go to the colonel and confess all, and ask him to forgive you," and I wiped my eyes on my coat sleeve. "But I was not drunk," said the chaplain, indignantly. "I was not in a saloon, and never saw a game of billiards in my life. I was over to the New Jersey regiment, talking with their chaplain about getting up a revival, among the soldiers," and the good man groaned as he said, "it is a case of mistaken identity." "Bully, elder," said I. "If you can make the court-martial believe you, you will be all right, and you will not be cashiered. But it looks dark, very dark, for you. May heaven help you." The chaplain was worried all the morning, and the officers and men joked him unmercifully. At noon the chaplain was released from arrest, as we were to move at four p. m., and he begged so to be allowed to accompany the regiment. The colonel told him he could be tried when we got back, and he was happy. There was a great commotion as the regiment broke up its camp and got ready to move. There was the usual crowd of negresses who had been doing washing for the soldiers, to be paid on pay day, and we were going away, no one knew where, and no one knew when we would meet pay day. There were saloon-keepers with bills against officers, and standing-off creditors was just about as hard in the army as at home. I couldn't see much difference. But finally everything was ready, the ammunition wagons, wagon train of stores, and a battery of little guns, about three pounders, had been added. I didn't like the battery. It seemed to me hard enough to kill our fellow citizens with revolver balls, without shooting them with cannon. At 4 p.m. the bugle sounded "forward," and with the clanking of sabers, rattling of hoofs and wagons, we marched outside the picket line, past the cemetery where my deceased friends were buried, and were going towards the enemy. The chaplain and myself were riding behind the colonel, when the colonel asked the good man to ride up to a log that was beside the road, and make his horse put his forefeet upon it, as he did on the bar in the saloon. I felt sorry for the chaplain, and I rode up to the log, and had Jeff put his feet up on it. Then I rode back and saluted the colonel and told him it was I who had done the wicked things the chaplain was accused of, and I told him how the chaplain was using my coat, so I put on his, with the shoulder straps on, and all about it. He laughed at first and then said, "Then you are under arrest. You may dismount and walk and lead your horse until further orders." I dismounted, like a little man, and for five miles I walked, keeping up with the regiment. Finally the colonel sung out, "gallop, march," and I got on my horse. I reasoned that the order to gallop was "further orders," and that as he knew I couldn't very well gallop on foot he must have meant for me to get on. We galloped for about ten miles, and were ordered to halt, when I dismounted and led my horse up to the colonel, and saluted him. "Well, you must have had a hard time keeping up with us on foot," said he. I told him it rested me to go on foot. We were just going into camp for the night, and the colonel said, "Well, as you are rested so much from your walk, you may go out with the foraging party and get some feed for your horse and the chaplain's." I was willing to do anything for a quiet life, so I fell in with a party of about forty, under a lieutenant, and we rode off into the country to steal forage from a plantation, keeping a sharp lookout for Confederates who might object. I guess we rode away from camp two or three miles, when we came to a magnificent plantation house, and outhouses, negro quarters, etc. The house was on a hill, in a grove of live oaks, and had immense white pillars, or columns in front. As we rode up to the plantation the boys scattered all over the premises. This was the first foraging expedition I had ever been with, and I thought all we went for was to get forage for our horses, so I went to a shock of corn fodder and took all that I could strap on my saddle, and was ready to go, when I passed a smoke house and found some of the boys taking smoked hams and sides of bacon. I asked one of the boys if they had permission to take hams and things, and he laughed and said, "everything goes," and he handed me a ham which I hung on to my saddle. Then the lieutenant told me to go up in front of the house and stand guard, and prevent any soldier from entering the house. I rode up to the house, where there was an old lady and a young married woman with a little girl by her side. They were evidently much annoyed and frightened, though too proud to show it, and I told them they need have no fear, as the men were only after a little forage for their horses. The old lady looked at the ham on my saddle and asked me if the horses eat meat, and I said, "No, but sometimes the men eat horses." I thought that was funny. The young woman was beautiful, and the child was perfectly enchanting. They were on the opposite side of the railing from me, and my horse kept working up towards them, rubbing his nose on the pickets, and finally his nose touched the clasped hands of the mother and child. The little girl laughed and patted the horse on the nose, while the mother drew back. It was almost dark and the horse was almost covered with corn fodder, but the little girl screamed and said: "Mamma, that is Jeff, papa's horse!" The mamma looked at me with a wild, hunted look, then at the horse, rushed down the steps and threw her arms around the neck of the horse and sobbed in a despairing manner: "O, where is my husband? Where is he? Is he dead? "My son, my son!" cried the old lady. "Bring me my papa, you bad man!" said the little child, and I was surrounded by the three. Gentle reader, I have been through many scenes in my life, and have been many times where it was not the toss of a copper whether death or life was my portion, and I had some nerve to help me through, but I never was in a place that tried me like that one. I had been captured by the father of this little child, the husband of this beautiful, proud woman, the son of this charming old lady. I had seen him brought in, dead, had seen him buried, and had thrown a bunch of roses in his grave. Now I was surrounded by these mourners, mourners when they should know the worst. Cold chills run all over me, and cold perspiration was on my brow. "Is he dead?" they all shouted together. I hate a liar, on general principles, and yet there are times when a lie is so much easier to tell than truth. I did not want to be a murderer, and I knew, by the dreadful light in the eyes of that lovely wife, as she looked up at me from the neck of the horse, her face as white as snow, that if I told the truth she would fall dead right where she was. If I told the truth that blessed old lady's heart would be broken, and that little child's face would not have any more smiles, during the war, for mamma and grandma, and, with a hoarse voice, and choking, and trying to swallow something that seemed as big as a baseball in my throat, I deliberately lied to them. I told them the young man who rode this horse had been captured, after a gallant fight, unharmed, and sent north. That he was so brave that our boys fell in love with him, and there was nothing too good for him in our army, and that he would be well taken care of, and exchanged soon, I had no doubt, and bade them not to worry, but to look at the discomforts and annoyances of war as leniently as possible, and all would be well soon. "Thank heaven! Take all we have got in welcome," said the old lady, as a heavenly smile came over her face. "My boy is safe." "O, thank you, sir," said the little mother, as a lovely smile chased a dimple all around her mouth, and corraled it in her left cheek, while a pair of navy-blue eyes looked up at me as though she would hug me if I was not a Yankee, eyes that I have seen a thousand times since, in dreams, often with tears in them. "You are a darling good man," said the little girl, dancing on the gravel path. The mother blushed and said, "Why, Maudie, don't be so rude;" and there was a shout: "Fall in!" The lieutenant rode up to me and asked, as he noticed the glad smiles on the faces of the ladies, if this was a family reunion, and, apologizing for being compelled to raid the plantation, we rode away. I was afraid they would mention the news I had brought them, and the lieutenant would tell the truth, so I was glad to move. I was glad to go, for if I had remained longer I would have cried like a baby, and given them back the horse, and walked to camp. As we moved away, I took out my knife and cut the string that held the smoked ham on my saddle, and had the satisfaction of hearing it drop on the path before the house. I could not give back the husband of the blue-eyed woman, the son of the saintly Southern mother, the father of the sweet child, but I _could_ leave that ham. As we rode back to camp that beautiful moonlight night, I did not join in the singing of the boys, or the jokes. I just thought of that happy home I had left, and how it would be stricken, later, when the news was brought them, and wondered if that fearful lie I had been telling, them was justifiable, under the circumstances, and it it would be laid up against me, charged up in the book above. That night I slept on the ground on some corn fodder and dreamed of nothing but blue-eyed mamma's and golden-haired Maudie's and white-haired angel grandmothers. _ |
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