Si Klegg, Book 4
"One consolation," said Si; "we won't have to march on this peck. The Adjutant's just passed the word that we're to rest here a day or two."
The rest of the regiment were similarly engaged in browsing off the blackberries that grew in wonderful profusion all around, and were really of extraordinary size. After filling themselves as full as possible of the fruit, Si and Shorty secured a couple of camp kettles and gave their garments a boiling that partially revenged themselves upon the insect life of Tennessee for the torments they endured in the Tullahoma campaign.
"The better the day the better the deed," remarked Shorty, as he and Si stood around the fire, clothed in nothing but their soldierly character, and satisfiedly poked their clothes down in the scalding water. "Thousands must die that one may be free from graybacks, fleas, and ticks. How could be better celebrated the Fourth of July than by the wholesale slaughter of the tyrants who drain the life-blood of freemen and patriots? Now, that's a sentiment that would be fine for your orator who is making a speech about this time to your folks in Injianny."
By this time they were hungry again. The black berries had no staying power in proportion to their filling qualities, and anxiously as they watched the western horizon, no feet of the mules bringing rations had been seen beautiful on the mountains.
They went out and filled up again on blackberries, but these seemed to have lost something of their delicious taste of those eaten earlier in the morning.
They went back, wrung out their clothes, and put them on again.
"They'll fit better if they dry on us," remarked Shorty. "And I'm afraid we'll warp, splinter and check if we are exposed to this sun any longer after all the soakin' we've bin havin' for the past 10 days."
Comfortably full abdominally, with a delicious sense of relief from the fiendish insects, the sun shining once more brightly in the sky, and elated over the brilliant success of the campaign, they felt as happy as it often comes to men.
The scenery was inspiring. Beyond Elk River the romantic Cumberland Mountains raised their picturesque peaks and frowning cliffs into a wondrous cloud-world, where the radiant sunshine and the pearly showers seemed in endless struggle for dominion, with the bright rainbows for war-banners. When the sunshine prevailed, filmy white clouds flags of truce floated lazily from peak to peak, and draped themselves about the rugged rocks. It was an ever-changing panorama of beauty and mystery, gazing on which the eye never wearied.
"Bragg's somewhere behind them mountains, Shorty," said Si, as the two lay on the ground, smoked, and looked with charmed eyes on the sky line. "The next job's to go in there and find him and lick him."
"I don't care a durn, if it's only dry weather," answered Shorty. "I kin stand anything but rain. I'd like to soldier awhile in the Sahara Desert for a change. Hello, what's that? A fight?"
A gun had boomed out loudly. The boys pricked up their ears, took their pipes from their mouths and half raised in anticipation of the bugle-call. An other shot followed after an interval, and then a third and fourth.
"They're firing a National salute at Division Headquarters in honor of the Fourth of July," explained the Orderly-Sergeant.
Everybody jumped to his feet and cheered
Cheered for the Fourth of July;
Cheered for the United States of America;
Cheered for President Abraham Lincoln;
Cheered for Maj.-Gen. Wm. S. Rosecrans.
Cheered for the Army of the Cumberland;
Cheered for the Corps Commander;
Cheered for the Division Commander;
Cheered for the Brigadier-General;
Cheered for the Colonel of the 200th Ind.;
Cheered for their Royal Selves.
"Whew, how hungry that makes me," said Shorty as the cheering and the firing ended, and he studied the western horizon anxiously. "And not a sign yit of any mule-team comin' up from the rear. They must have religious scruples agin travelin' on the Fourth o' July. Well, I s'pose there's nothin' to do but hunt up some more blackberries. But blackberries is like mush. They don't seem to stay with you much longer'n you're eatin' 'em."
But they had to go much farther now to find blackberries. The whole hungry regiment had been hunt ing blackberries all day, and for more than a mile around camp the briers were bare. Si and Shorty succeeded at last in finding another plentiful patch, upon which they filled up, and returned to camp for another smoke and an impatient look for the Commissary teams.
"I like blackberries as well as any other man," mused Shorty, "but it don't seem to me that last lot was nearly so good as the first we had this morning. Mebbe the birds kin eat 'em four times a day and seven days in the week without gittin' tired, but I ain't much of a bird, myself. I'd like to change off just now to about six big crackers, a pound o' fat pork and a quart o' coffee. Wonder if the rebel cavalry could've got around in our rear and jumped our trains? No; 'Joe Wheeler's critter company,' as that rebel called 'em, hain't quit runnin' yit from the lickin' Minty give 'em at Shelbyville. Mebbe the mules have struck. I'd 'a' struck years ago if I'd bin a mule."
The sun began to sink toward the western hills, and still no welcome sign of coming wagons.
Si remarked despairingly:
"Well, after all the berry-eatin' I've done to-day I feel as holler as a bee-gum. I don't believe any wagons'll git up to-night, and if we're goin' to have any supper at all we'd better go out and pick it before it gits too dark to see."
They had to go a long distance out this time to find a good berry patch. It was getting dark be fore they fairly began picking their supper. Presently they heard voices approaching from the other side. They crouched down a little behind the brier-clumps and listened.
"Be keerful. The Yankee pickets must be nigh. Thar's their campfires."
"Pshaw. Them fires is two miles away. Thar's no pickets fur a mile yit. Go ahead."
"No sich thing. Them fires ain't a mile off.
"Their pickets are likely right along that 'ere ridge thar."
"Bushwhackers," whispered Si, rising a little to reconnoiter. "One, two, three, four, five, six on 'em. Sneakin' up to pick off our pickets. What'd we better do?"
"Only thing I kin think of," whispered Shorty back, feeling around for a stick that would represent a gun, "is the old trick of ordering 'em to surrender. It's an awful bluff, but we may work it this time. If they've got any grit we needn't worry no more about rations. They'll git us."
Si snatched up a piece of rail, and they sprang up together, shouting:
"Halt! Surrender! Don't move a hand or we'll blow your heads off."
"All right, Yank. We surrender. Don't shoot. We'uns 've bin a-huntin' yo'uns to gin ourselves up. We'uns is tired o' the wah."
"The thunder you do," said Si in amazement.
"Yes," said the leader, walking forward; "we'uns is plumb sick o' the wah, and want t' take the oath and go home. 'Deed we'uns do."
"Well, you liked to 've scared two fine young soldiers to death," murmured Si under his breath.
"Halt, there," called out the suspicious Shorty.
"Don't come any nearer, or I'll fire. Stand still, and hold your guns over your heads, till I send a man out to git 'em."
The rebels obediently held their guns in the air.
"Sergeant," commanded Shorty, "go forward and relieve the men of their arms, while the rest of us keep 'em kivvered to prevent treachery and gittin' the drop on us."
Si went out and took the guns, one by one, from the hands of the men, and made as good an examination as he could, hastily, to see that they carried nothing else.
"Lordy, Yank, if you only knowed how powerful glad we'uns is to git to yo'uns, you wouldn't 'spicion us. We'uns 's nigh on to starved t' death. Hain't had nothin' to eat but blackberries for days. And hit's bin march, march, all the time, right away from we'uns's homes. Goramighty only knows whar ole Bragg's a-gwine tuh. Mebbe t' Cuby. We'uns wuz willin' t' fout fur ole Tennessee, but for nary other State. When he started out o' Tennessee we'uns jest concluded t' strike out and leave him. Lordy, Mister, hain't you got something t' eat? We'uns is jest starvin' t' death. 'Deed we'uns is."
"Awful sorry," replied Shorty, as he and Si gathered up the guns and placed themselves behind the group. "But we hain't nothin' to eat ourselves but blackberries, and won't have till our wagons git up, which 'll be the Lord and Gen. Rosecrans only knows when. You shall have it when we kin git it. Hello, the boys are cheerin'. That means a wagon's got in. Skip out, now, at a quarter-hoss gait. They may gobble it all up before we git there."
Inspired by this, they all started for camp in quick-time. Shorty was right in interpreting the cheering to mean the arrival of a ration-wagon.
When they reached Co. Q they found the Orderly-Sergeant standing over a half-box of crackers.
Around him was gathered the company in a petulant state of mind.
"Cuss and swear, boys, all you've a mind to," he was saying, "if you think that'll swell your grub. You know it won't. Only one wagon's come up, and it had only a half-load. Our share in it is what you see here. I figure that there's just about one cracker apiece for you, and as I call your names you'll step up and get it. Don't swear at me. I've done the best I could. Cuss the Tennessee mud and freshets in the cricks all you want to, if you think that'll fill your crops, but let me alone, or I'll bust somebody."
"I've my opinion o' the glorious Fourth o' July," said Shorty, as he nibbled moodily at his solitary cracker. "I'll change my politics and vote for Thanksgiving Day and Christmas after this."
"Well, I think that we've had a pretty fine Fourth," said the more cheerful Si. "For once in my life I've had all the blackberries I could eat, and otherwise it's a pleasant day. Them deserters gave me a cold chill at first, but I'm glad we got 'em. There'll certainly be more wagons up to-night, and to-morrow we'll have all we kin eat."
And that night, for the first in 10 days, they slept under dry blankets.
CHAPTER IX. A LITTLE EPISODE OVER LOVE LETTERS
HOW exuberantly bright, restful, and happy were those long July days on the foothills of the Cumberland Mountains, after the fatigues and hardships, the endless rains, the fathom less mud, the angry, swollen streams, the exhaust ing marches, and the feverish anxieties of the Tullahoma campaign.
The insolent, threatening enemy had retreated far across the mountain barrier. For the while he was out of reach of striking or being struck. The long-delayed commissary-wagons had come up, and there was an abundance to eat. The weather was delightful, the forests green, shady and inviting, the scenery picturesque and inspiring, and every day brought news of glorious Union victories, over which the cannon boomed in joyful salutes and the men cheered themselves hoarse. Grant had taken Vicksburg, with 25,000 prisoners, and chased Joe Johnston out of sight and knowledge. Prentiss had bloodily repulsed Sterling Price at Helena. Banks had captured Port Hudson, with 6,000 prisoners. The Mississippi River at last "flowed unvexed to the sea." Meade had won a great victory at Gettysburg, and Lee's beaten army was in rapid retreat to Virginia. "The blasted old Southern Confederacy is certainly havin' its underpinnin' knocked out, its j'ints cracked, and its roof caved in," remarked Si, as the two boys lay under the kindly shade of a low-growing jackoak, lazily smoked their pipes, and gazed contentedly out over the far-spreading camps, in which no man was doing anything more laborious than gathering a little wood to boil his evening coffee with. "'Tain't fit to store brick-bats in now. By-and-by we'll go out and hunt up old Bragg and give him a good punch, and the whole crazy shebang 'll come down with a crash."
"I only wish old Bragg wasn't of sich a retirin' nature," lazily commented Shorty. "The shade o' this tree is good enough for me. I don't want to ever leave it. Why couldn't he've waited for me, and we could've had it out here, coolly and pleasantly, and settled which was the best man! The thing' d bin over, and each feller could've gone about his business."
Both relapsed into silence as each fell into day dreams the one about a buxom, rosy-cheeked little maiden in the Valley of the Wabash; the other of one in far-off Wisconsin, whom he had never seen, but whom he mentally endowed with all the virtues and charms that his warmest imagination could invest a woman. Neither could see a woman without thinking how inferior she was in looks, words or acts to those whose images they carried in their hearts, and she was sure to suffer greatly by the comparison.
Such is the divinely transforming quality of love.
Each of the boys had taken the first opportunity, after getting enough to eat, a shelter prepared, and his clothes in shape and a tolerable rest, to write a long letter to the object of his affections. Shorty's letter was not long on paper, but in the time it took him to write it. He felt that he was making some progress with the fair maid of Bad Ax, and this made him the more deeply anxious that no misstep should thwart the progress of love's young dream.
Letter-writing presented unusual difficulties to Shorty. His training in the noble art of penmanship had stopped short long before his sinewy fingers had acquired much knack at forming the letters. Spelling and he had a permanent disagreement early in life, and he was scarcely on speaking terms with grammar. He had never any trouble conveying his thoughts by means of speech. People had very little difficulty in understanding what he meant when he talked, but this was quite different from getting his thoughts down in plain black and white for the reading of a strange young woman whom he was desperately anxious to please, and desperately afraid of offending. He labored over many sheets of paper before he got a letter that seemed only fairly satisfactory. One he had rejected because of a big blot on it; second, because he thought he had expressed himself too strongly; a third, because of an erasure and unseemly correction; a fourth, because of some newborn suspicions about the grammar and spelling, and so on. He thought, after he had carefully gathered up all his failures and burned them, together with a number of envelopes he had wrecked in his labor to direct one to Miss Lucinda Briggs, Bad Ax, Wis., sufficiently neatly to satisfy his fastidious taste.
He carefully folded his letter, creasing it with a very stalwart thumb-nail, sealed it, gave it a long inspection, as he thought how much it was carrying, and how far, and took it up to the Chaplain's tent to be mailed.
Later in the afternoon a hilarious group was gathered under a large cottonwood. It was made up of teamsters, Quartermaster's men, and other bobtail of the camp, with the officers' servants forming the dark fringe of an outer circle. Groundhog was the presiding spirit. By means best known to himself he had become possessed of a jug of Commissary whisky, and was dispensing it to his auditors in guarded drams to highten their appreciation of his wit and humor. He had come across one of the nearly-completed letters which Shorty had thrown aside and failed to find when he burned the rest. Groundhog was now reading this aloud, accompanied by running comments, to the great amusement of his auditors, who felt that, drinking his whisky, and expecting more, they were bound to laugh uproariously at anything he said was funny.
"Shorty, that lanky, two-fisted chump of Co. Q, who thinks hisself a bigger man than Gineral Rosecrans," Groundhog explained, "has writ a letter to a gal away off somewhere up North. How in the kingdom he ever come to git acquainted with her or any respectable woman 's more'n I kin tell. But he's got cheek enough for anything. It's sartin, though, that she's never saw him, and don't know nothin' about him, or she'd never let him write to her. Of course, he's as ignorant as a mule. He skeercely got beyant pot-hooks when he wuz tryin' to larn writin', an' he spells like a man with a wooden leg. Look here:
"'Mi Dere Frend.' Now, everybody knows that the way to spell dear is d-e-e-r. Then he goes on:
"'I taik mi pen in hand to inform u that Ime well, tho I've lost about 15 pounds, and hoap that u air injoyin' the same blessin."
"Think o' the vulgarity o' a man writin' to a young lady 'bout his losin' flesh. If a man should write sich a thing to my sister I'd hunt him up and wollop the life outen him. Then he goes on:
"'I aint built to spare much meat, and the loss of 15 pounds leaves fallow lots in mi cloze. But it will grow it all back on me agin mitey quick, as soon as we kin hav another protracted meetin' with the Commissary Department.'
"Did you ever hear sich vulgarity?" Groundhog groaned. "Now hear him brag and use langwidge unfit for any lady to see:
"'We've jest went throo the gosh-almightiest campane that enny army ever done. It wuz rane and mud 48 ours outen the 24, with thunder and litenin' on the side. We got wettern Faro's hosts done chasin' the Jews throo 50 foot of Red See. But we diddent stop for that till we'd hussled old Bragg outen his works, and started him on the keen jump for Chattynoogy, to put the Cumberland Mountings betwixt us and him.'
"Think o' the conceit o' the feller. Wants to make that gal believe that he druv off Bragg a'most single-handed, and intends to foller him up and kick him some more. Sich gall. Sich fellers hurts us in the opinion o' the people at home. They make 'em think we're all a set o' blowhards. But this aint nothin' to what comes next. He tries to honeyfugle the gal, and he's as clumsy 'bout it as a brown b'ar robbin' a bee-hive. Listen:
"'mi dere frend, I can't tell you how happy yore letters maik me. I've got so I look for the male a good dele more angshioussly than for the grub wagon.'
"Think o' a man sayin' grub to a lady," said Groundhog, in a tone of deep disgust. "Awful coarse. A gentleman allers says 'peck,' or 'hash,' or Vittels,' when he's speakin' to a lady, or before ladies. I licked a man onct for sayin' 'gizzard-linen' before my mother, and gizzard-linin' aint half as coarse as grub. But he gits softer'n mush as he goes on. Listen:
"'I rede every wun of 'em over till they're cleane wore out, and then I save the pieces, bekaze they cum from u. I rede them whenever Ime alone, and it seems to me that its yeres before another one comes. If I cood make anybody feel as good by ritin' to 'em as u kin me Ide rite 'em every day.'
"Thar's some more of his ignorant spellin'," said Groundhog. "Everybody but a blamed fool knows the way to spell write is w-r-i-g-h-t. I learnt that much before I wuz knee-high to a grasshopper. But let me continner:
"'I think Bad Ax, Wisconsin, must be the nicest plais in the world, bekaze u live there. I woodent want to live anywhair else, and Ime cummin up thar just as soon as the war is over to settle. I think of u every our in the day, and—'
"He thinks of her every hour. The idee," said Groundhog, with deep scorn, "that sich a galoot as Shorty thinks of anything more'n a minute, except triple-X, all-wool, indigo-dyed cussedness that he kin work off on some other feller and hurt him, that he don't think's as smart as he is. Think o' him gushin' out all this soft-solder to fool some poor girl."
"You infernal liar, you, give me that letter," shouted Si, bolting into the circle and making a clutch at the sheet. "I'll pound your onery head off en you."
Si had come up unnoticed, and listened for a few minutes to Groundhog's tirade before he discovered that his partner was its object. Then he sprang at the teamster, struck him with one hand, and snatched at the letter with the other. The bystanders instinctively sided with the teamster, and Si became the center of a maelstrom of kicks and blows, when Shorty, seeing his partner's predicament, bolted down the hill and began knocking down every body in reach until he cleared a way to Si's side. By this time the attention of the Sergeant of the Guard was attracted, and he brought an energetic gun-barrel to the task of restoring the reign of law and order.
"How in thunder'd you come to git into a fracas with that herd o' mavericks, Si?" asked Shorty, in a tone of rebuke, as the Sergeant was rounding up the crowd and trying to get at who was to blame. "Couldn't you find somebody on your own level to fight, without startin' a fuss with a passel o' low-down, rust-eaten roustabouts? What's got into you? Bin livin' so high lately that you had to have a fight to work off your fractiousness? I'm surprised at you."
"Groundhog' d got hold of a letter o' your'n to your girl up in Wisconsin," gasped Si, "and was readin' it to the crowd. Here's a piece of it."
Shorty glanced at the fragment of torn paper in Si's hand, and a deep blush suffused his sun-browned cheek. Then he gave a howl and made a rush for Groundhog.
"Here, let that man alone, or I'll make you," shouted the Sergeant of the Guard.
"Sergeant," said Si, "that rat-faced teamster had got hold of a letter to his girl, and was reading it to this gang o' camp offal."
"O," said the Sergeant, in a changed tone; "hope he'll baste the life out of him." And he jumped in before a crowd that was showing some disposition to go to Groundhog's assistance, sharply ordered them to about-face, and drove them off before him.
"Here, Sergeant," shouted the Officer of the Guard, who came running up; "what are you fooling around with these fellows for? They're not doing any thing. Don't you see that man's killing that team ster?"
"Teamster had got hold of a letter to his girl," explained the Sergeant, "and was reading it to these whelps."
"O," said the Officer of the Guard in a different tone. "Run these rascals down there in front of the Quartermaster's and set them to work digging those stumps out. Keep them at it till midnight, without anything to eat. I'll teach them to raise disturbances in camp."
CHAPTER X. AFTER BRAGG AGAIN
RESTFUL SUMMER DAYS END—THE UNION PEOPLE OF EAST TENNESSEETHOUGH every man in the Army of the Cumberland felt completely worn out at the end of the Tullahoma campaign, it needed but a few days' rest in pleasant camps on the foothills of the Cumberland Mountains, with plenty of rations and supplies of clothing, to beget a restlessness for another advance.
They felt envious of their comrades of the Army of the Tennessee, who had cornered their enemy in Vicksburg and forced him to complete surrender.
On the other hand, their enemy had evaded battle when they offered it to him on the place he had himself chosen, had eluded their vigorous pursuit, and now had his army in full possession of the great objective upon which the eyes of the Army of the Cumberland had been fixed for two years Chattanooga.
It was to Chattanooga that Gen. Scott ultimately looked when he began the organization of forces north of the Ohio River. It was to Chattanooga that Gens. Anderson, Sherman and Buell looked when they were building up the Army of the Ohio. It was nearly to Chattanooga that Gen. Mitchel made his memorable dash after the fall of Nashville, when he took Huntsville, Bridgeport, Stevenson and other outlying places. It was for Chattanooga that the "Engine Thieves" made their thrilling venture, that cost eight of their lives. It was to Chattanooga that Buell was ordered with the Army of the Ohio, after the "siege of Corinth," and from which he was run back by Bragg's flank movement into Kentucky. It was again toward Chattanooga that Rosecrans had started the Army of the Cumberland from Nashville, in December, 1862, and the battle of Stone River and the Tullahoma campaign were but stages in the journey.
President Lincoln wanted Chattanooga to relieve the sorely persecuted Unionists of East Tennessee. Military men wanted Chattanooga for its immense strategic importance, second only to that of Vicksburg.
The men of the Army of the Cumberland wanted Chattanooga, as those of the Army of the Potomac wanted Richmond, and those of the Army of the Tennessee had wanted Vicksburg, as the victor's guerdon which would crown all their marches, skirmishes and battles.
But between them and Chattanooga still lay three great ranges of mountains and a broad, navigable river. Where amid all these fortifications of appalling strength would Bragg offer them battle for the Confederacy's vitals?
