Picket line

“ I am detailed for picket duty to-morrow. [335]
May 27, 1864.
Friday. With a horse to ride and a company of men from a western regiment, I went out about one and a half miles to relieve a part of the picket line. Quite an army goes out every day, for the line about our present stopping-place is many miles in length. I had about half a mile, almost all the way through bushes and wet ground. An empty house near one end of the line was my headquarters, and from there I hobbled over the line every two hours, the line being too rough to ride. ”

“ Because of the very nature of picketing there may be numbers of persons who will refuse to buy at all from a picketed store, either out of economic or social conviction or because they prefer to shop where they need not brave a picket line. ”

“ The other party finds out the fact as best it can. Frequently the withdrawal or concealment of the picket line will be its first intimation. Ordinarily, picket duty is not only of the very highest responsibility, but an exceedingly dangerous duty. Until agreements to cease picket-firing are made, every sentinel is a legitimate target for the sentinels or pickets of the enemy, hence extreme vigilance, care, and nerve are required in the performance of this duty.
The picket line in the presence of the enemy is generally posted in three lines,—viz., First, the line of sentries ”

“ A picket is a group consisting of two or more squads, ordinarily not exceeding half a company, posted in the line of outguards to cover a given sector. It furnishes patrols and one or more sentinels, double sentinels, sentry, squads, or cossack posts for observation.
Pickets are placed at the more important points in the line of outguards, such as road forks. The strength of each depends upon the number of small groups required to observe properly its sector. ”

“ The advance of the enemy should by these means have been delayed for a couple of hours, affording time for the troops to get under arms and take the order of battle.
The following diagram exhibits the general arrangement of picketing:
Let the line A B represent a chain of sentinels on a mile of picket front, C D a line of picket stations, and E the [Pg 606] grand guard. The whole force of men may perhaps be three hundred, of whom two thirds will remain at E, posted advantageously upon some eminence protected in part by a stream and commanding an open country. ”

“ I had a great partiality for those of my own color, so calling out several darkies I spread before them some corn cake, and gave them a little whiskey for dessert. While we were thus engaged the Yankee Minnie balls were whistling round our heads, for the picket lines of the contending parties were not half a mile distant from each other. The rebel pickets do not remain together in groups of three or four as our men do, but are strung along, one in each place, from three to four rods apart. I proposed to remain a while with the pickets, and the darkies returned to camp without me. ”

“ At the special request of Secretary Seward, who wrote six letters about it to the Governors of all the States, I have been appointed a picket of the army of the Upper Potomac. In your natural ignorance, my boy, you may not know why a man is called a picket. He is called a picket, my boy, because, if anybody drops a pocket-book or a watch anywhere, his natural gifts would cause him to pick-it up. ”

“ Perhaps you will ask, "What is a picket?" The papers constantly speak of our pickets being "thrown out," or the enemy's being "driven in," but never tell what sort of creatures these pickets are. The pickets are sentinels beyond the camp guard, and toward the enemy. There may be a chain of pickets stretching over the country; and the picket guard may be very large, or it may consist of a sergeant and six men. These are divided into three "relieves," which constitute the "videttes," or "lookout," as we might translate it. ”

“ He turned aside to consult with his foreman. Nicholson, the engineer, observing the situation from a distance, hurried back with his men. The laborers had already congregated about their employer. Abner Pickett, with grim determination stamped upon every line of his face and every muscle of his body, still sat upon the wall holding his gun in readiness for action. Dannie, white faced and fearful, but with never a thought of desertion, sat beside his grandfather, while Gabriel, standing near by, gripped two cobblestones tightly in his hands. ”

“ In our search for the pickle genius we hadn’t dreamed for the tail end of a second that anyone short of a first-class cook had made the poochy pickles. And we had sort of pictured in our minds a spotless kitchen, puddled with sunshine, with a line-up of shiny aluminum kettles on the shelves, clever little ruffled doo-dads at the windows, a gurgling canary, and, to finish off, an old rag rug of many colors in the middle of the kitchen floor. ”

“ They want better pickles than they can buy. So how easy for us to build up our new business if we get the right kind of pickles to sell!”
I gave him a sad look.
“Poppy,” I sighed, “you’re too much for me.”
“What do you mean?”
“As long as you’re a boy,” I advised, as a further effort to pull him down to earth, “why don’t you be a boy? This Peanut Parlor stuff is out of your line, kid.”
“I didn’t say anything about a Peanut Parlor.”
“Well, a Pickle Parlor is just as crazy. You can’t make it work. For pickles are groceries. And the place to buy them is in a grocery store.” ”

“ Last Thursday when I was in Rockford, my cousin, who works in a wholesale grocery store, took me down to the office to meet the boss. Our talk was mostly about cucumber pickles. Mr. Wiggins was very much interested in our new pickle business. I spread a lot of gab, I guess. And what do you know if I didn’t talk him into giving me an order for two thirty-gallon barrels! Being Henny’s cousin helped, I suppose. Anyway, whether it was that or just my line of gab, I got the order. Boy, did I ever feel big! ”

“ As there will not often be occasion for any one to pass the chain of pickets during the night, it is a good rule (especially if the party is small) , when a picket sentinel discovers any one lurking about his post from without, if he has not himself been seen, to quietly withdraw and report the fact to the commander, who can wake his men and make his arrangements to repel an attack and protect his animals. ”

“ The bait is dropped into the opening among the lily-pads, and sinking rapidly, by the weight of the shot, toward the bottom, is started up again by a twitch of the rod, and goes bobbing up and down till the pickerel, rendered frantic by such an absurd performance, can stand it no longer, and with one furious rush determines to end the gyrations of such a silly creature. Never wait for pickerel to gorge the bait, discard such old fogy notions, and by the aid of a strong rod and line, pull him out at once. ”

“ A picket was also stationed at the narrow isthmus connecting with the main-land.
These were not all the difficulties in their way. Supposing them able to pass the sentinels in the passage and at the outer door of their quarters, they must then cross the open space and ascend the wall under the eye of the guards posted on the parapet. Admitting the summit of the rampart gained, the exterior wall was defended with strong pickets driven obliquely into the earthen wall of the fort. From this point was a sheer descent of twenty feet to the bottom of the ditch. ”

“ We had passed a very quiet week there, when one night the Spaniards passed our picket secretly in the darkness, fired a volley into the town, and then immediately retreated. Our picket only just managed to get through safely into the town, leaving one of our men asleep in the picket-house, and he must certainly have met his death if he had been caught there singly; but the tallow-chandler, though himself a Spaniard, concealed him under a quantity of dry hides while the enemy were scouring the place in search of stragglers, and so saved his life. ”

“ Abner Pickett walked deliberately to the east wall and seated himself on it, his gun resting carelessly in his lap. Dannie and Gabriel followed him, and took similar positions at his side.
“We’ll have to begin in the graveyard,” said [100] McDonough, the contractor, “and cut down that knoll and carry it east here for this fill.”
“Then the first thing to do,” replied the foreman, “is to tear away that wall, about where them fellows are sitting on it.”
“Exactly. There’s where the line is. Bring your men up and let ’em go at it. Come, gentlemen, you’ll have to vacate your seats up there ”

“ Do you s’pose we sit up all night down at the gap?”
“Really, I didn’t know, Mr. Pickett, without inquiring.”
The witness was losing his temper, the lawyer was getting sarcastic, and the spectators were anticipating a still greater treat in store from the continuance of the examination.
[138]
In his seat at the rear of the court room Dannie sat, dazed, motionless, listening and hearing as one in a dream; in his breast still the imperious demand of his conscience urging him to confess; in his palsied limbs no power to move. Then Marshall took up a new line of examination. ”

“ I who write say that I have known British pickets, like the pickets of other nations, run in discreditably once and again. For instance, on315 the evening before Ginghilovo, when a picket of one of our crack regiments bolted back into the position headed by its sergeant, leaving its officer the sole defender of the abandoned ground. For instance, on the night but one before Ulundi, when a picket of Wood’s most seasoned regiment, a regiment that had distinguished itself grandly at Kambula, scuttled into the laager in uncontrollable scare. ”

“ No, she told me, after tasting the pickles, they weren’t out of her kitchen. Nor could she help me. But she’d like to buy some of the pickles, she said, if it turned out that there were more of the same kind for sale. I went to three women in turn. No success at all. [21] But here’s an important point, Jerry: Every woman who sampled the pickles wanted to buy some. So you can see the big money that’s waiting for us if we can find out who this unknown pickle genius is and win her over to our scheme.”
There’s nothing I like better than mystery stuff. ”

“ It is equally clear that the right to picket is not absolute. It may, if actually necessary, be limited, let us say, to two or three individuals at a time and their manner of expressing their views may be reasonably restricted to an orderly presentation. ”

“ At every place where a string has been tied, a picket is stuck in the ground; then the cane is removed to another place, and so on till all the estate is marked out by pickets. After the picketing, a hole is made with the spade at every mark; it should be a good foot broad and deep, and the earth inside should be made very fine and clear. The earth is now ready to receive the coffee plant, and the time has only to be waited for when the first rains fully begin. ”

“ The pickets may be larger; they are driven further apart, 12 or 18 inches, and the brush may be heavier. The construction is more rapid. The pickets are driven with a little more slant than is intended and must be anchored to the parapet. A line of poles, with wire attached at intervals of two or three pickets, will answer. The wires should be made fast to the pickets after the wattling is done. They will interfere with the weaving if fastened sooner. Two men should make 4 yards of continuous hurdling of ordinary height in one hour. ”

“ Seeing that it was useless to argue with him further, I sort of resigned myself to my fate as his pickle partner.
“I have a hunch,” says I, “that it’s going to be a whole lot worse than that. A Pickle Parlor! We’ll be the laugh of the town.” ”

“ Try one of those pickles in the jar there, won’t you. I always like to have a boy enjoy himself when he comes to see me,” said the grocery man, winking to a man who was filling an old fashioned tin box with tobacco out of the pail, who winked back as much as to say, “if that boy eats a pickle on top of them mumps we will have a circus, sure.”
“You can’t play no pickle on me, not when I have the mumps. Ma passed the pickles to me this morning, and I took one mouthful, and like to had the lockjaw. ”

“ Probably they are fairly good pickles, as pickles go. Because I am in the pickle business myself is no reason why I should run down anybody else’s pickles. Yet, on the other hand, I feel that I have a right to uphold the superior quality of my own pickles. And it is of such pickles that I am going to make good your loss. Not store pickles, Mrs. Clayton, as we usually accept the term, but home-made pickles, of which the more you eat the more you want; pickles that you never tire of; pickles with the lasting, lingering taste; pickles with a skin you love to touch ”

“ Pickles is pickles for the most part, but you’ll always get preferred pickles when you deal with us. Even your wife, excellent cook as she no doubt is, will be unable to make better pickles than ours. And to serve with those tasty party sandwiches, which mean so much to an experienced hostess, who would want to use any pickle except the perfect pickles that are the fame of Poppy’s Pickle Parlor? ”

“ Gabriel recalled, with startling distinctness, that night on his employer’s porch, when the old man declared with such terrible emphasis that no person could do a better deed than to pull out all the stakes and throw them into the brook. And there was Abner Pickett now, sitting on the front bench, head and shoulders above the crowd, piercing him through with those clear blue eyes. ”