Ellis Spear

“ At the rendezvous the company first to arrive found neither quarters nor rations, and therefore marched into the city, woke up the Mayor, and then relied on his patriotic charity. But the later arrivals fared better, and there was plenty of beef and bread.
[7] The Governor, when he saw the enlistment rolls, and heard that the men had been placed in camp at the rendezvous, said to himself and his counsellors: "These fellows who have recruited so many men and have actually landed them in camp must have military qualifications," and straightway he commissioned them all. ”

“ Simps, for God's sake draw up your bowels." The miserable Simps could not; his bowels were not built that way, and further exhortations followed in the same vein, and with increasing emphasis. He was advised to employ the worst drilled man in the regiment to teach him, and finally was driven into the rear of the regiment, where he disappeared to fame, and from whence he soon after retired to private life. His military career was short but conspicuous. He had one notice from his commanding officer in front of his regiment. ”

“ It then appeared that the men were selected not for courage or endurance, which could not be examined into, but for good grinders, and the wonder now is that men enough to put down the rebellion could have been found with teeth equal to the task of putting down the army hardtack. ”

“ He was probably, too, the only man in military history, certainly the only one whom I have found in a somewhat extensive reading, who was disabled as to the military service and lost to the defence of his country because he could not "draw up his bowels." Other heroes, notably in the recent Spanish war, have failed to confer luster on the American arms and to secure immortal fame for themselves simply from lack of opportunity. It was reserved to Simps alone to miss the shining mark by reason of stomachic distortion. ”

“ Indeed, instances have been reported, though perhaps not in the official records, where the haversack of a soldier stopped the bullet of the enemy, and these perhaps are the only cases where it was found that the hardtack saved life. It is well known that the army mule would not eat it, and it is another proof of the high intelligence of that noble animal, without whose constant aid the rebellion never would have been put down. ”

“ The knowledge of the manner in which people lived and thought and acted in private life throws light upon public affairs and public characters. It is interesting, and not unprofitable, to know that the Father of his Country in some wrathful mood swore roundly ”

“ He should have a monument appropriately placed amongst the unknown dead built of some quality of stone most nearly approximating hardtack in quality and shape, and surmounted by a marble block carved in imitation of a hunk of rusty salt pork.
In the formative period of enlistment, when we raised companies and enlisted men no greener than ourselves, I used to wonder at that requirement of the army regulations which related to the teeth of the recruit. ”

“ Amongst those raising companies were young lawyers who had perhaps [5] learned to draw an indictment, but who would not then have been able to draw anything in the military line, unless it were rations, or the enemy's fire. There were schoolmasters whose only qualifications for getting men to the front and keeping them there, were based on experience in teaching young ideas how to shoot. ”

“ But the same genius which invented the hardtack must also have invented that other main element of the ration, rusty salt pork, an infernal compound of animal fat, with sodium chloride, in which the chloride predominated, a combination of the cheapest of minerals with the basest of animals, and rusted by time and heat of the climate. ”

“ However, he might be credited with some enterprise and even audacity, for such certainly were required in a young man given to serious reflection, who should proposed to organize a military company, and to command it in the field, when he scarcely knew a line of battle from a line of rail fence. ”

“ Did any comrade ever study this article in a geological way? It was a solid, there was no doubt about that. It was not a stratified rock. It was homogeneous and amorphous, excepting when wormy. It did not resemble anything in the vegetable, animal or mineral kingdom, excepting brick. It was inflexible, inelastic, infrangible, and indigestible, suited neither to the stomach nor bowels, and was adapted, except in shape, better as armor. ”

“ After these trials by fire, so to speak, the Government in its [14] wisdom proceeded to give a further seasoning by water, and this regiment with another (2,000 men in all) were shipped, packed like so many sardines, in one vessel, from Boston to Alexandria. This process was perhaps a process of artificial aging as of liquor, and served well to assist in the process of drawing up the bowels to the regimental standard. ”

“ It was sheer grinding and mastication, but the flavor developed can be understood only by one who has exercised the process, under like conditions, to wit: hunger and the hoe cake. It brought out the ethereal sweetness of the Indian corn, a flavor as of sunshine and mother earth, of [12] the neighborhood of oak and pine and sassafras and wild flowers, combined in the subtle chemistry of nature. I Fletcherized before Fletcher, and looked regretfully on the last fragment. I learned, too, that important lesson that the pleasure of eating depends more on the appetite than upon the diet. ”

“ He had the State's quota to fill, and was most concerned to fill it as early and as easily as possible. The average examining surgeon had no more knowledge of the business than the recruiting officer, and was inclined to take the patriotism of the volunteer as conclusive evidence of bodily soundness. The mustering officer mustered in the lump, what the recruiting officer had gathered and the surgeon had passed. ”

“ Certainly the commissions and uniforms were made by rule and in accordance with the army regulations. The officers, so far, had simply happened.
[10] The diverse effect of all these new clothes was remarkable. Of course there was no such blaze of glory as that which now appears upon the Avenue on occasions of official display; but compared with the sober drabs of civil life, the blue cloth with the gold buttons and the new shoulder-straps were comparatively gorgeous. Some whose youth was more easily affected by the unusual display assumed airs of importance ”

“ The Hoe Cake of Appomattox.
In considering the unity of that great brotherhood of men who composed the armies of the United States in the war for sustaining the government, and perpetuating the form of it made by the founders, we have been giving attention to every phase of the many common conditions which formed our common experience and bound us so firmly together, excepting those of a social and physical character. ”

“ It is true that our diet had not always the same monotony. At Wapping Heights, in what the men called the “Molasses Gap,” in July of 1863, we had marched away from these regular rations, and our diet was more varied and scanty. ”

“ They must be raised by volunteering. The inducements were bounties to the men and commissions to the officers. He who could raise a company in the least time was looked upon with the greatest favor [6] and, other things being equal, got the earliest letter in the alphabet of the regiment. The recruiting officer did not know what kind of a man, of what physical or moral fibre, the service required, and had no opportunity to learn. His object was to get his hundred men as quickly as possible ”

“ The recruiting was done by private individuals, and at their own expense, under the authority of the Governor of the State. These private individuals, as a matter of course, expected, as a reward for their labor and expenditures, to be commissioned in the companies which they might raise. ”

“ The Adjutant and Sergeant-Major were made out of the same raw material, and in a few days the regiment reached that astounding perfection of drill which permitted it to get into line and go from line into column and the reverse. The sound of men counting off, "1, 2," "1, 2," "1, 2," was heard throughout the camp, and that wonderful complication in which No. ”