John McElroy

“ Much rain in the hill country had swollen the swift waters of the Cumberland and they fiercely clamored their devious way to the broad Ohio. The gentle roar as the rippling wavelets dashed against the rock bound shores sounded almost surf-life, but to Si, who had never heard the salt waves play hide-and-go-seek on the pebbly beach, the Cumberland's angry flood sang only songs of home on the Wabash. He had seen the Wabash raging in flood time and had helped to yank many a head of stock from its engulfing fury. ”

“ McGillicuddy marched proudly out at the head of 75 broad-shouldered, well-thewed young Indianians, fit and fine as any south of the Ohio.
The guides, holding their muskets butts up, indicated where the line was to form, the trim little Adjutant, glorious as the day in a new uniform and full breasted as a pouter-pigeon, was strutting over toward the band, and the towering red-headed Colonel, martial from his waving plume to his jangling spurs, stood before his tent in massive dignity, waiting for the color company to come up and receive the precious regimental standard. ”

“ All Orderly-Sergeants have to be. If they are not naturally, they learn it very quickly, or lose the little diamond on their sleeves, if not all their stripes. The man who undertakes to manage 60 or 75 stalwart, high-spirited young Americans through all their moods and tenses, and every kind of weather, has to be as wise as a serpent, though not necessarily as harmless as a dove. Therefore, the Orderly-Sergeant didn't tell the boys what ailed the teamster. ”

“ Those slapjacks, so fearfully and wonderfully made, and those lumps of dough, mixed with cold water and dried on flat stones before the fire, as hard as cannon balls, played sad havoc with his internal arrangements. For the first time he was obliged to fall into the cadaverous squad at sick-call and wabble up to the doctor's shop, where he was dosed with castor-oil and blue-mass. Si was glad enough to see hardtack again. Most of the grumbling he did thereafter concerning the hardtack was because he often couldn't get enough. ”

“ How true they are to nature every veteran can abundantly testify from his own service. Really, only the name of the regiment was invented. There is no doubt that there were several men of the name of Josiah Klegg in the Union Army, and who did valiant service for the Government. They had experiences akin to, if not identical with, those narrated here, and substantially every man who faithfully and bravely carried a musket in defense of the best Government on earth had sometimes, if not often, experiences of with those of Si Klegg, Shorty and the boys are strong reminders. ”

“ Far up and down the stream were hundreds of men, swimming and splashing about.
The soldiers availed themselves of every opportunity to enjoy this luxury.
Having thoroughly performed their ablutions. Si and Shorty turned their energies toward the clothes, which were in such sore need of soap and hot water. Putting their garments into the kettle and filling it with water, they built a fire under it. ”

“ In spite of this his temper rose to the boiling point as he struggled thru the sweeping rush of muddy water to get the other wagons out of the road and the ammunition wagon pulled back a little ways to allow the poles to be piled in front of it.
The dashing downpour did not check the Wagon Master's flow of profanity. He only yelled the louder to make himself heard above the roar. The rain stopped for a few minutes as suddenly as it had begun and Col. McTarnaghan came up with all his parade finery drenched and dripping like the feathers of a prize rooster in a rainy barnyard. ”

“ The bully of the 200th took it into his thick head one day to try to "run over" Si. The latter had just filled his canteen, and the bully found that the momentum of three pints of water swung at arm's length by an angry boy was about equal to a mule's kick.
Just as he was beginning to properly appreciate his canteen, he learned a sharp lesson, that comes to all of us, as to how much "cussedness" there can be in the simplest things when they happen to go wrong. He went out one day and got a canteen of nice sweet milk, which he and "Shorty" Elliott heartily enjoyed. ”

“ If it entered his mind at all, he felt that he could safely trust all to the goodness of so beneficent a Government as that for the preservation of which he had offered himself as a target for the rebels to shoot at. He thought it no more than fair to the brave soldiers that Uncle Sam should furnish professional cooks for each company, who would serve everything up in the style of a first-class city restaurant. So, after Si got down among the boys and found how it really was, it was not long till his inside was a volcano of rebellion that threatened serious results. ”

“ Light began to dawn upon Si, and he started back in terror at the thought of the mistake he had made.
"Of course, I wouldn't let anybody else have it," he stammered; "but I knew you, Cap'n!"
"That makes no difference to a man on duty. Corporal. You hang on to your gun the rest of the night, and if anybody—I don't care if it's Gen. Buell himself—insists on your giving it to him, let him have two or three inches of the point of your bayonet. Don't let anybody pass without the countersign, either! ”

“ CHAPTER IV. THE AWFUL HARDTACK THE HARD AND SOLID STAFF OF MILITARY LIFE.
"APPETITE'S a queer thing," said Si to Shorty one day, when both were in a philosophical mood. "It's an awful bother when you haven't it, and it's a great deal worse when you have it, and can't get anything for it." "Same as money," returned sage Shorty. During the first few months of Si Klegg's service in the army the one thing that bothered him more than anything else was his appetite. ”

“ The officers always got the softest rails to sleep on, the hardtack that was least tunneled through by the worms, the bacon that had the fewest maggots, and the biggest trees in a fight.
"Forward—March!" shouted the officer in command, when the detachment was ready. Si stepped off very proudly, thinking how glad his good old mother and sister Marier and pretty Annabel would be if they could see him at that moment. He was determined to discharge his official duties "right up to the handle," and make the boys stand around in lively style. ”

“ Down with the traitor and up with the Star, While we rally 'round the Flag, boys, We'll rally once again, Shouting the battle cry of freedom. We will welcome to our numbers the loyal, true and brave. Shouting the battle cry of freedom, And although they may be poor, not a man shall be a slave. ”

“ When, therefore, Si lifted up his voice and cried aloud, and spared not—when he said that he could get as good coffee as that furnished him by dipping his cup into a tan-vat; when he said that the meat was not good soap-grease, and that the potatoes and beans had not so much taste and nutrition in them as so much pine-shavings, he was probably nearer right than grumblers usually are.
"Give it to 'em, Si," his comrades would Say, when he turned up his loud bazoo on the rations question. "They ought to get it ten times worse. ”

“ The regiment pushed after the fleeing rebels, but whenever Suell's army halted to take breath, "Fall in for drill!" was shouted through its camp three or four times a day. It was liable to be called into action at any moment, and it was deemed indispensable to begin at once the process of making soldiers out of those tender-footed Hoosiers, whose zeal and patriotism as yet far exceeded their knowledge of military things. Most of the officers of the 200th were as green as the men, though some of them had seen service in other regiments ”

“ Chilled to the bone, and almost dropping with fatigue from hours of standing in the deep water running like a mill race. Si called Al Klapp, Sib Ball and Jesse Langley to take their poles and act as guides.
Al Klapp had it in for the sutlers. He was a worm that was ready to turn. He had seen some previous service, and had never gone to the Paymaster's table but to see the most of his $13 a month swept away by the sutler's remorseless hand. He and Jesse got the remaining army wagons over all right. The last wagon was a four-horse team belonging to a sutler. ”

“ Before going to bed he began to exercise his ingenuity on various schemes to reduce the hardtack to a condition in which it would be more gratifying to his taste and better suited to the means with which nature had provided him for disposing of his rations. Naturally Si thought that soaking in water would have a beneficial effect. So he laid five or six of them in the bottom of a camp-kettle, anchored them down with a stone, and covered them with water. He thought that with the aid of a frying-pan he would get up a breakfast that he could eat, anyway. ”

“ One morning three or four days after leaving Louisville, word was passed around that the regiment would not move that day, and the boys were so glad at the prospect of a day of rest that they wanted to get right up and yell. Si was sitting on a log, with his shoes off, rubbing his aching limbs and nursing his blisters, when the Orderly came along.
"Co. Q, be ready in 10 minutes to fall in for drill. Stir around, you men, and get your traps on. Klegg, put on them gunboats, and be lively about it." ”

“ He didn't have quite so rough an experience with that other staple of army diet, which was in fact the very counterpart of the hardtack, and which took its most popular name from that part of the body of the female swine which is usually nearest the ground. Much of Si's muscle and brawn was due to the fact that meat was always plenty on his father's farm. When Si enlisted he was not entirely free from anxiety on the question of meat, for to his appetite it was not even second in importance to bread. If bread was the "staff of life" meat was life itself to Si. ”

“ Si could not tell whether he was going to amount to anything as a soldier until he had gone through the test of being under fire. There were many men who walked very erect, talked bravely, drilled well, and made a fine appearance on dress parade, before they reached "the front," but who wilted at the "zip" of bullets like tender corn blades nipped by untimely frost. And a good many of them continued in that wilted condition. Perhaps they really couldn't help it. An inscrutable Providence had seen fit to omit putting any "sand in their gizzards," as the boys expressed it. ”

“ But Shorty was already fast asleep. Si spooned up to him and was soon, in his dreams, away up in Posey County.
The sound of the bugle and drum, at daylight, fell upon unwilling ears, for the soldiers felt the same indisposition to get up early Sunday morning that is everywhere One of the characteristics of modern civilization. Their beds were hard, but to their weary limbs no couch of down ever gave more welcome rest than did the rough ground on which they lay. But the wild yell of the Orderly, "Turn out for roll-call!" ”

“ No one who has not "been there" can imagine how good a degree of comfort—comparatively speaking, of course—it was possible to reach, with such surroundings, by the exercise of a little patience, ingenuity and industry.
Si and Shorty and the others of the "mess" bestirred themselves, and it did not take them more than 20 minutes to build, out of rails and cornstalks, a shelter that was really inviting. They kindled a big fire in front of it, laid some rails within, covered with stalks, and on these spread their blankets. Si, who had "bossed" the job, viewed the work with great satisfaction. ”

“ Si didn't know till he found out by experience how hard it was to "ketch up" when a soldier once got behind on the march. Si was too fat for a good roadster, but it didn't take a great while to work off his surplus flesh. Shorty was tall and slim, mostly bone—one of the sort that always stood the marching best, crept up to the Orderly and told him that he would have to stop and puff a while and give his blisters a rest. ”

“ It makes a great difference with a soldier under fire whether he can take a hand in the game himself, or whether he must lie idle and let the enemy "play it alone."
"Did ye hear him squeal?" said Si, as he dropped upon the ground and began to reload with all his might. "I hit that son-of-a-gun, sure. Give 'em H—Hail Columbia, Shorty. We'll show 'em that the 200th Ind. is in front to-day!"
"Forward, men!" shouted the officers. "Go right for 'em!"
The skirmishers sprang over the fence and swept across the field at a "double-quick" in the face of a sputtering fire that did little damage. ”

“ Si drew the line at this point. He had an ironplated stomach, but putrid and maggoty meat was too much for it. Whenever he got any of this he would trade it off to the darkies for chickens. There is nothing like pork for a Southern negro. He wants something that will "stick to his ribs."
By a gradual process of development his appetite reached the point when he could eat his fat pork perfectly raw. During a brief halt when on the march he would squat in a fence corner, go down into his haversack for supplies, cut a slice of bacon, lay it on a hardtack, and munch them with a keen relish. ”

“ If he did show up, he would go back to bed and snooze for an hour while the cook was getting breakfast. If one of the men did that he would soon be promenading with a rail on his shoulder or standing on a barrel with a stick or a bayonet tied in his mouth.
"I think that's a fust rate notion to mount the guards," said Si to Shorty as they sat on a rail by the fire making coffee and frying bacon. "It'll be so much better 'n walkin' back 'n' forrard on the beats. Wonder 'f they'll give us bosses or mules to ride." ”