Chapter 11

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_ CHAPTER XI

I am Detailed to Build a Bridge-It Was a Good Bridge, but Over the Wrong Stream--The General Appears--I am Crushed, in Fact Pulverized!--I am Attacked with Rheumatism.

After the episode, related last week, in which I foolishly organized a regular battle, to capture a supposed rebel, who turned out to be a member of my own regiment, I expected to be the laughing stock of all the soldiers, and that my commission as corporal would be taken away from me, and that I would be reduced to the ranks, and when, the next morning, the colonel sent for me to come to his tent, it was a stand-off with me whether I would take to the woods and desert, in disgrace, and never show up again, or go to the colonel, face the music, and admit that I had made an ass of myself. Finally I decided to visit the colonel. On the way to his tent I noticed that our force had been augmented greatly. The road was full of wagons, the fields near us were filled with infantry and artillery, and there were fifty wagons or more loaded with pontoons, great boats, or the frame-work of boats, which were to be covered with canvass, which was water-proof, and the boats were to be used for bridges across streams. The colonel had not told me anything about the expected arrival of more troops, and it worried me a good deal. May be there was a big battle coming off, and I might blunder into it unconscious of danger, and: get the liver blowed out of me by a cannon. I felt that the colonel had not treated me right in keeping me in ignorance of all this preparation. I went to the colonel's tent and there was quite a crowd of officers, some with artillery uniforms, several colonels, and one general with a star on his shoulder straps, and a crooked sword with a silver scabbard, covered with gold trimmings. I felt quite small with those big officers, but I tried to look brave, and as though I was accustomed to attending councils of war. The colonel smiled at me as I came in which braced me up a good deal.

General, this is the sergeant I spoke to you about, said the colonel, as he turned from a map they had been looking at. I felt pale when the colonel addressed me as sergeant, and was going to call his attention to the mistake, when the general said:

Sergeant, the colonel tells me that you can turn your hand to almost anything. What line of business have you worked at previous to your enlistment?

"Well, I guess there is nothing that is usually done in a country village that I have not done. I have clerked in a grocery, tended bar, drove team on a threshing machine, worked in a slaughter house, drove omnibus, worked in a-saw-mill, learned the printing trade, rode saw-logs, worked in a pinery, been brakeman on a freight train, acted as assistant chambermaid in a livery stable, clerked in a hotel, worked on a farm, been an auctioneer, edited a newspaper, took up the collection in church, canvassed for books, been life-insurance agent, worked at bridge-building, took tintypes, sat on a jury, been constable, been deck-hand on a steamboat, chopped cord-wood, run a cider-mill, and drove a stallion in a four-minute race at a county fair."

"That will do," said the general. "You will be placed in charge of a pioneer corps, and you will go four miles south, on the road, where a bridge has been destroyed across a small bayou, build a new bridge strong enough to cross artillery, then move on two miles to a river you will find, and look out a good place to throw a pontoon bridge across. The first bridge you will build under an artillery fire from the rebels, and when it is done let a squad of cavalry cross, then the pontoon train, and a regiment of infantry. Then light out for the river ahead of the pontoon train, with the cavalry. The pioneer corps will be ready in fifteen minutes."

The colonel told me to hurry up, but I called him out of his tent and asked him if I was really a sergeant, or if it was a mirage. He said if I made a success of that bridge, and the command got across, and I was not killed I would be appointed sergeant. He said the general would try me as a bridge-builder, and if I was a success he would try me, no doubt, in other capacities, such as driving team on a threshing machine, and editing a newspaper.

When, I went on after my horse, being pretty proud. The idea of being picked out of so many non-commissioned officers, and placed in charge of a pioneer corps, and sent ahead of the army to rebuild a bridge that had been destroyed, with a prospect of being promoted or killed, was glory enough for one day, and I rode back to headquarters feeling that the success of the whole expedition rested on me. If I built a corduroy bridge that would pass that whole army safely over, artillery and all, would anybody enquire who built the bridge. Of course, if I built a bridge that would break down, and drown somebody, everybody would know who built it. The twenty men were mounted, and ready, and the general told me to go to the quartermaster and get all the tools I wanted, and I took twenty axes, ten shovels, two log chains, and was riding away, when the general said:

"When you get there, and look the ground over, make up your mind exactly at what hour and minute you can have the bridge completed, and send a courier back to inform me, and at that hour the head of the column will be there, and the bridge must be ready to cross on."

I said that would be all right, and we started out. In about forty minutes we had arrived, at the bayou, and I called a private soldier who used to do logging in the woods, and we looked the thing over. The timber necessary was right on the bank of the stream.

"Jim," I said to the private, "I have got to build a bridge across this stream strong enough to cross artillery. I shall report to the general that he can send, along his artillery at seventeen minutes after eight o clock this evening. Am I right?"

"Well," said Jim, as he looked at the standing timber, at the stream, and spit some black tobacco juice down on the red ground, "I should make it thirty-seven minutes after eight. You see, a shell may drop in here and kill a mule, or something, and delay us. Make it thirty-seven, and I will go you."

We finally compromised by splitting the difference, and I sent a courier back to the general, with my compliments, and with the information that at precisely eight o clock and twenty-seven minutes he could start across. Then we fell to work. Large, long trees were cut for stringers, and hewn square, posts were made to prop up the stringers, though the stringers would have held any weight. Then small trees were cut and flattened on two sides, for the road-bed, holes bored in them and pegs made to drive through them into the stringers. A lot of cavalry soldiers never worked as those men did. Though there was only twenty of them, it seemed as though the woods were full of men. Trees were falling, and axes resounding, and men yelling at mules that were hauling logs, and the scene reminded me of logging in the Wisconsin pineries, only these were men in uniform doing the work. About the middle of the afternoon we had the stringers across, when there was a half dozen shots heard down the stream, and bullets began "zipping" all around the bridge, and we knew the rebels were onto the scheme, and wanted it stopped. I got behind a tree when the bullets began to come, to think it over. My first impulse was to leave the bridge and go back and tell the general that I couldn't build no bridge unless everything was quiet. That I had never built bridges where people objected to it. I asked the private what we had better do. He said his idea was to knock off work on the bridge for just fifteen minutes, cross the stream on the stringers, and go down there in the woods and scare the life out of those rebels, drive them away, and make them think the whole army was after them, then cross back and finish the bridge. That seemed feasible enough, so about a dozen of us squirreled across the stringers with our carbines, and the rest went down the stream on our side, and all of us fired a dozen rounds from our Spencer repeaters, right into the woods where the rebels seemed to be. When we did so, the rebels must have thought there was a million of us, for they scattered too quick, and we had a quiet life for two hours. We had got the bridge nearly completed, when there was a hissing sound in the air, a streak of smoke, and a powder magazine seemed to explode right over us. I suppose I turned pale, for I had never heard anything like it. Says I, "Jim, excuse me, but what kind of a thing is that?"

Jim kept on at work, remarking, O, nothing only they are a shellin on us. And so that was a shell. I had read of shells and seen pictures of them in _Harper's Weekly_, but I never supposed I would hear one. Presently another came, and I wanted to pack up and go away. I looked at my pioneers, and they did not pay any more attention to the shells than they would, to the braying of mules. I asked Jim if there wasn't more or less danger attached to the building of bridges, in the South, and he, the old veteran, said:

"Corp, don't worry as long as they hain't got our range. Them 'ere shell are going half a mile beyond us, and we don't need to worry. Just let em think they are killing us off by the dozen, and they will keep on sending shells right over us. If we had a battery here to shell back, they would get our range, and make it pretty warm for us. But now it is all guess work with them, and we are as safe as we would be in Oshkosh. Let's keep right on with the bridge."

I never can explain what a comfort Jim's remarks were to me. After listening to him, I could work right along, driving pegs in the bridge, and pay no attention to the shells that were going over us. In fact, I lit my pipe and smoked, and began to figure how much it was going to cost the Confederacy to "celebrate" that way. It was costing them at the rate of fourteen dollars a minute, and I actually found myself laughing at the good joke on the rebels. Pretty soon a courier rode up, from the general, asking if the shelling was delaying the bridge. I sent word back that it was not delaying us in the least; in fact, it was hurrying us a little, if anything, and he could send along his command twenty-seven minutes sooner than I had calculated, as the bridge would be ready to cross on at eight o'clock sharp. At a quarter to eight, just as the daylight was fading, and we had lighted pine torches to see to eat our supper, an orderly rode up and said the general and staff had been looking for me for an hour, and were down at the forks of the road. I told the orderly to bring the general and staff right up to the headquarters, and we would entertain them to the best of our ability, and he rode off. Then we sat down under a tree and smoked and played seven up by the light of pine torches, and waited. I was never so proud of anything in my life, as I was of that bridge, and it did not seem to me as though a promotion to the position of sergeant was going to be sufficient recompense for that great feat of engineering. It was as smooth as though sawed plank had covered it, and logs were laid on each side to keep wagons from running off. I could see, in my mind, hundreds of wagons, and thousands of soldiers, crossing safely, and I would be a hero. My breast swelled so my coat was too tight. Presently I heard some one swearing down the road, the clanking of sabres, and in a few moments the general rode into the glare of the torch-light. I had struck an attitude at the approach of the bridge, and thought that I would give a good deal if an artist could take a picture of my bridge, with me, the great engineer, standing upon it, and the head of the column just ready to cross. I was just getting ready to make a little speech to the general, presenting the bridge to him, as trustee of the nation, for the use of the army, when I got a sight of his face, as a torch flared up and lit the surroundings. It was pale, and if he was not a madman, I never saw one. He fairly frothed at the mouth, as he said, addressing a soldier who had fallen in the stream, during the afternoon, and who was putting on his shirt, which he had dried by a fire:

"Where is the corporal, the star idiot, who built that bridge?"

I couldn't have been more surprised if he had killed me. This was a nice way to inquire for a gentleman who had done as much for the country as I had, in so short a time. I felt hurt, but, summoning to my aid all the gall I possessed, I stepped forward, and, in as sarcastic a manner as I could assume, I said:

"I am the sergeant, sir, who has wrought this work, made a highway in twelve hours, across a torrent, and made is possible for your army to cross."

"Well, what do you suppose my army wants to cross this confounded ditch for? What business has the army got in that swamp over there? You have gone off the main road, where I wanted a bridge built, and built one on a private road to a plantation, where nobody wants to cross. This bridge is of no more use to me than a bridge across the Mississippi river at its source. You, sir, have just simply raised hell, that's what you have done."

Talk about being crushed! I was pulverized. I felt like jumping into the stream and drowning myself. For a moment I could not speak, because I hadn't anything to say. Then I thought that it would be pretty tough to go off and leave that bridge without the general's seeing what a good job it was, so I said:

"Well, general, I am sorry you did not give me more explicit instructions, but I wish you would get down and examine this bridge. It is a daisy, and if it is not in the right place we can move it anywhere you want it."

That seemed to give the general an idea, and he dismounted and examined it. He said it was as good a job as he ever saw, and if it was a mile down the road, across another bayou, where he wanted to cross, he would give a fortune. I told him if he would give me men enough and wagons enough, I would move it to where he wanted it, and have it ready by daylight the next morning. He agreed, and that was the hardest nights work I ever did. Every stick of timber in my pet bridge had to be taken off separately, and moved over a mile, but it was done, and at daylight the next morning I had the pleasure of calling the general and telling him that the bridge was ready. I thought he was a little mean when he woke up and rubbed his eyes, and said:

"Now, you are sure you have got it in the right place this time, for if that bridge has strayed away onto anybody's plantation this time, you die."

The army crossed all right, and I had the proud pleasure of standing by the bridge until the last man was across, when I rode up to my regiment and reported to the colonel, pretty tired.{*} He was superintending the laying of a pontoon bridge across a large river, a few miles from my bridge, and he said:

"George, the general was pretty hot last night, but he was to blame about the mistake in the location, and he says he is going to try and get you a commission as lieutenant."

* A few weeks ago I met a member of my old regiment, who is traveling through the South as agent for a beer bottling establishment in the North. He was with me when we built the corduroy bridge twenty-two years ago. As we were talking over old-times he asked me if I remembered that bridge we built one day in Alabama, in the wrong place, and moved it during the night. I told him I wished I had as many dollars as I remembered that bridge. "Well," said my comrade, "on my last trip through Alabama I crossed that bridge, and paid two bits for the privilege of crossing. A man has established a toll-gate at the bridge, and they say he has made a fortune. I asked him how much his bridge cost him, and he said it didn't cost him a cent, as the Yankees built it during the war. He said they cut the timber on his land, and when he got out of the Confederate army he was busted, and he claimed the bridge, and got a charter to keep a toll- gate." My comrade added that the bridge was as sound as it was when it was built. He said he asked the toll-gate keeper if he knew the bridge was first built a mile away, and he said he knew the timber was cut up there, and he wondered what the confounded Yankees went away off there to cut the timber for, when they could get it right on the bank. Then my comrade told the toll-gate keeper that he helped build the bridge, the rebel thanked him, and wanted to pay back the two bits. Some day I am going down to Alabama and cross on that bridge again, the bridge that almost caused me to commit suicide, and if that old rebel-for he must be an old rebel now--charges me two bits toll, I shall very likely pull off my coat and let him whip me, and then as likely as not there will be another war.

I felt faint, but I said, "How can he recommend a star idiot for a commissioned office?"

"O, that is all right," said, the colonel, "some of the greatest idiots in the army have received commisssions." As he spoke the rebels began to shell the place where the pontoon bridge was being built, and I went hunting for a place to borrow an umbrella to hold over me, to ward off the pieces of shell. Then a battery of our own opened on the rebels, so near me that every time a gun was discharged I could, feel the roof of my head raise up like the cover to a band box. It was the wildest time I ever saw. Cavalry was swimming the river to charge the rebel battery, shells were exploding all around, and it seemed to me as though if I was to lay a pontoon bridge I would go off somewhere out of the way, where it would be quiet. Finally my regiment was ordered to swim the river, and we rode in. The first lunge my horse made he went under water about a mile, and when we came up I was not on him, but catching hold of his tail I was dragged across the river nearly drowned, and landed on the bank like a dog that has been after a duck I shook myself, we mounted and without waiting to dry out our clothes we went into the fight, before I could realize it, or back out. Scared! I was so scared it is a wonder I did not die. That was more excitement than a county fair. Bullets whizzing, shells shrieking, smoke stifling, yelling that was deafening. It seemed as though I was crazy. I must have been or I could never, as a raw recruit, with no experience, have ridden right toward those guns that were belching forth sulphur and pieces of blacksmith shop. I didn't dare look anywhere except right ahead. All thought of being hit by bullets or anything was completely out of my mind. Occasionally something would go over me that sounded as though a buzz saw had been fired from a saw mill explosion. Presently the firing on the rebel side ceased, and it was seen they were in retreat. I was never so glad of anything in my life. We stopped, and I examined my clothes, and they were perfectly dry. The excitement and warmth of the body had acted like a drying-room in a laundry. Then I laid down under a fence and went to sleep, and dreamed I was in hades, building a corduroy bridge across the Styx, and that the devil repremanded me for building it in the wrong place. When I awoke I was so stiff with rheumatism that I had to be helped up from under the fence, and they put me in an ambulance with a soldier who had his jaw shot off. He was not good company, because I had to do all the talking. And in that way we moved towards the enemy. _

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