A Boy Trooper With Sheridan

“I’m not going to sleep in that apple bin without you give me a bed,” said Taylor to the corporal who pointed out our bunks.

“Young man, do you know who you’re speaking to?” thundered the corporal.

“No; you may be the general or the colonel or nothing but a corporal – ”

“‘Nothing but a corporal!’ I’ll give you to understand that a corporal in the First Massachusetts cavalry is not to be insulted. You have no right to speak to me without permission. I’ll put you in the guard house and prefer charges against you.”

“See here,” said Taylor. “Don’t you fool with me. If you do I’ll cuff you.”

“Mutiny in the barracks,” shouted a lance sergeant who heard Giles’s threat to smite the corporal.

The first sergeant came out of a little room near the door, and charged down toward us with a saber in his hand.

“What’s the trouble here?” he demanded.

“This recruit threatened to strike me,” replied the corporal.

“And he threatened to put me in the guard house for saying I wouldn’t sleep in that box without a bed,” said Taylor.

“Did you ever hear the articles of war read?” asked the sergeant.

“No, sir.”

“Well, then, we’ll let you go this time; but you’ve had a mighty narrow escape. Had you struck the corporal the penalty would have been death. Never talk back to an officer.”

“Golly! that was a close call,” whispered Taylor, after he had crawled into his bunk.

We each had a blanket issued to us for that night, but the next day straw ticks were filled, and added to our comfort. Waterman and I took the upper bunk, and Giles slept downstairs alone until he paired with Theodore C. Hom of Williamstown, another new-comer.

One of the most discouraging experiences that a recruit was called upon to face before he reached the front was the drawing of his outfit – receiving his uniform and equipments. I speak of cavalry recruits. If there ever was a time when I felt homesick and regretted that I had not enlisted in the infantry it was the morning of the second day after our arrival at Camp Meigs. I recall no one event of my army life that broke me up so completely as did this experience. I had drawn a uniform in the Griswold cavalry at Troy before my father appeared on the scene with a habeas corpus, but I had not been called on to take charge of a full set of cavalry equipments. If I had been perhaps the second attack of the war fever would not have come so soon.

A few minutes after breakfast the first sergeant of Company I came out from his room near the door and shouted:

“Attention!”

“Attention!” echoed the duty sergeants and corporals in the barracks.

“Recruits of Company I who have not received their uniforms fall in this way.”

A dozen “Johnny come Latelys,” including the Berlin trio, fell in as directed. The sergeant entered our names in a memorandum book. Then we were turned over to a corporal, who marched us to the quartermaster’s office where we stood at attention for an hour or so while the requisition for our uniforms was going through the red-tape channels. Finally the door opened, and a dapper young sergeant with a pencil behind his ear informed the corporal that “all’s ready.”

The names were called alphabetically, and I was the first of the squad to go inside to receive my outfit.

“Step here and sign these vouchers in duplicate,” said the sergeant.

I signed the papers. The sergeant threw the different articles of the uniform and equipments in a heap on the floor, asking questions and answering them himself after this fashion:

“What size jacket do you wear? No. 1. Here’s a No. 4; it’s too large, but you can get the tailor to alter it.

“Here’s your overcoat; it’s marked No. 3, but the contractors make mistakes; I’ve no doubt it’s a No. 1.

“That forage cap’s too large, but you can put paper in the lining.

“Never mind measuring the trousers; if they’re too long you can have ‘em cut off.

“The shirts and drawers will fit anybody; they’re made that way.

“You wear No. 6 boots, but you’ll get so much drill your feet’ll swell so these No. 8’s will be just the fit.

“This is your bed blanket; don’t get it mixed with your horse blanket.

“I’ll let you have my canteen and break in the new one; mine’s been used a little and got jammed a bit, but that don’t hurt it.

“This is your haversack; take my advice and always keep it full.

“This white piece of canvas is your shelter tent; it is warranted to shelter you from the rain if you pitch it inside a house that has a good roof on it.

“These stockings are rights and lefts.

“Here’s your blouse. We’re out of the small numbers, but it is to be worn on fatigue and at stables, so it’s better to have plenty of room in your blouse.

“You will get white gloves at the sutler’s store if you’ve got the money to settle. He’ll let you have sand paper, blacking, brushes, and other cleaning materials on the same terms.

“Here’s a rubber poncho.

“Let’s see! that’s all in the clothing line. Now for your arms and accoutrements!”

I appealed to the sergeant:

“Let me carry a load of my things to the barracks before receiving my arms and other fixings?”

“Can’t do it – take too much time; and if you did go over with part of your outfit, somebody’d steal what you left in the barracks before you returned with the rest.”

“Go it, then,” I exclaimed in despair, and the sergeant continued:

“This carbine is just the thing to kill rebels with if you ever get near enough to them. It’s a short-range weapon, but cavalrymen are supposed to ride down the enemy at short range.

“The carbine sling and swivel attaches the carbine over your shoulder.

“This cartridge box will be filled before you go on the skirmish line; so will the cap pouch.

“This funny-looking little thing with a string attached is a wiper with which to keep your carbine clean inside.

“The screw-driver will be handy to take your carbine apart, but don’t do it when near the enemy. They might scoop you in before you could put your gun together.

“Your revolver is for short-range work. You can kill six rebels with it without reloading, if the rebels will hold still and you are a crack shot. You can keep the pistol in this holster which attaches to your waist-belt, as does also this box for pistol cartridges.

“These smaller straps are to hold your saber scabbard to the waist-belt, and this strap goes over the shoulder to keep your belt from slipping down around your heels.

“This is your saber inside the scabbard. I’ve no doubt it’s inscribed ‘Never draw me without cause or sheathe me with dishonor,’ but we can’t stop to look at it now. If it isn’t inscribed, ask your first sergeant about it. The saber knot completes this part of the outfit. The saber is pretty big for you, but we’re out of children’s sizes. The horse furniture comes next.”

“Will you please let Taylor and Waterman come in here and help me?” I petitioned to the sergeant.

“Everybody for himself is the rule in the army,” said the sergeant. “Tie up your clothing and arms in your bed blanket. You can put your horse furniture in your saddle blanket.”

Section 1,620 of the “Revised United States Army Regulations of 1861, with an Appendix Containing the Changes and Laws Affecting Army Regulations and Articles of War to June 25, 1863,” reads as follows:

“A complete set of horse equipments for mounted troops consists of 1 bridle, 1 watering bridle, 1 halter, 1 saddle, 1 pair saddle-bags, 1 saddle blanket, 1 surcingle, 1 pair spurs, 1 curry-comb, 1 horse brush, 1 picket pin, and 1 lariat; 1 link and 1 nose bag when specially required.”

The section reads smoothly enough. There is nothing formidable about it to the civilian. But, ah me! Surviving troopers of the great conflict will bear me out when I say that section 1,620 aforesaid, stands for a great deal more than it would be possible for the uninitiated to comprehend at one sitting. The bridle, for instance, is composed of one headstall, one bit, one pair of reins. And the headstall is composed of “1 crown piece, the ends split, forming 1 cheek strap and 1 throat lash billet on one side, and on the other 1 cheek strap and l throat lash, with 1 buckle,.625-inch, 2 chapes and 2 buckles,.75-inch, sewed to the ends of cheek piece to attach the bit; 1 brow band, the ends doubled and sewed from two loops on each end through which the cheek straps and throat lash and throat lash billet pass.” So much for the headstall. It would take three times the space given to the headstall to describe the bit, and then come the reins. The watering bridle “is composed of 1 bit and 1 pair of reins.” The halter’s description uses up one third of a page. “The saddle is composed of 1 tree, 2 saddle skirts, 2 stirrups, 1 girth and girth strap, 1 surcingle, 1 crupper.” Two pages of the regulations are required to describe the different pieces that go to make up the saddle complete, and which include six coat straps, one carbine socket, saddle skirts, saddle-bags, saddle blanket, etc. The horse brush, curry-comb, picket pin, lariat, link and nose bag all come in for detailed descriptions, each with its separate pieces.

Let it be borne in mind that all these articles were thrown into a heap on the floor, and that every strap, buckle, ring and other separate piece not riveted or sewed together was handed out by itself, the sergeant rattling on like a parrot all the time, and perhaps a faint idea of the situation may be obtained. But the real significance of the event can only be understood by the troopers who “were there.”

As I emerged from the quartermaster’s office I was a sight to behold. Before I had fairly left the building my bundles broke loose and my military effects were scattered all around. By using the loose straps and surcingle I managed to pack my outfit in one bundle. But it was a large one, just about all I could lift.

When I got into the barracks I was very much discouraged. What to do with the things was a puzzle to me. I distributed them in the bunk, and began to speculate on how I could ever put all those little straps and buckles together. The more I studied over it the more complicated it seemed. I would begin with the headstall of the bridle. Having been raised on a farm I had knowledge of double and single harness to some extent, but the bridles and halters that I had seen were not of the cavalry pattern. After I had buckled the straps together I would have several pieces left with no buckles to correspond. It was like the fifteen-puzzle.

As I was manipulating the straps Taylor arrived with his outfit. He threw the bundle down in the lower bunk, and exclaimed:

“I wish I’d staid to home.”

“So do I, Giles.”

“Where’s Theodore?”

“I haven’t seen him since I left him at the quartermaster’s.”

“He got his things before I did and started for the barracks.”

Taylor left his bundle and went in search of Hom who was found near the cook-house. His pack had broken loose, and he was too much disgusted to go any further. Taylor assisted him, and they reached the bunk about the time Waterman arrived. We held a council of war, and decided to defer action on the horse furniture till the next day.

“We’ll tog ourselves out in these soldier-clothes and let the harness alone till we’re ordered to tackle it,” said Taylor, and we all assented.

“Attention!”

The orderly sergeant again appeared.

“The recruits who have just drawn their uniforms will fall in outside for inspection with their uniforms on in ten minutes!”

There was no time for ceremony. Off went our home clothes and we donned the regulation uniforms. Four sorrier-looking boys in blue could not have been found in Camp Meigs. And we were blue in more senses than one. My forage cap set down over my head and rested on my ears. The collar to my jacket came up to the cap, and I only had a “peek hole” in front. The sleeves of the jacket were too long by nearly a foot, and the legs of the pantaloons were ditto. The Government did not furnish suspenders, and as I had none I used some of the saddle straps to hold my clothes on. Taylor could not get his boots on, and Hom discovered that both of his boots were lefts. He got them on, however. When Waterman put on his overcoat it covered him from head to foot, the skirts dragging the floor. Before we had got on half our things the order came to “fall in outside,” and out we went. Taylor had his Government boots in his hands, as a corporal had informed him that if he turned out with citizen’s boots on after having received his uniform he would be tied up by the thumbs. So he turned out in his stocking feet.

We were “right dressed” and “fronted” by the first sergeant, who reported to the captain that the squad was formed. The captain advanced and began with Taylor, who was the tallest of the squad, and therefore stood on the right.

“Where are your boots?”

“Here,” replied the frightened recruit, holding them out from under the cape of his great coat.

“Fall out and put them on.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I wear nines and these are sevens.”

“Corporal, take this man to the quartermaster’s and have the boots changed.”

Taylor trotted off, pleased to get away from the officer, who next turned his attention to Hom.

“What’s the matter with your right foot; are you left-handed in it?”

“No, sir; they gave me both lefts.”

“Sergeant, send this man to the quartermaster’s and have the mistake rectified.”

Waterman was next in line.

“Who’s inside this overcoat?” demanded the captain. “It’s me, sir – private Waterman.”

“Couldn’t you get a smaller overcoat?”

“They said it would fit me, and I had no time to try it on.”

“Sergeant, have that man’s coat changed at once. Fall out, private Waterman.”

Then came my turn. The captain looked me over. My make-up was too much for his risibility.

“Where did you come from?” he asked, after the first explosion.

“Berlin.”

“Where’s that?”

“York State.”

“Well, you go with the sergeant to the quartermaster and see if you can’t find a rig that will come nearer fitting you than this outfit.”

I was glad to obey orders, and after the captain’s compliments had been presented to the quartermaster, directions were given to supply me with a uniform that would fit. Although the order could not be literally complied with, I profited by the exchange, and the second outfit was made to do after it had been altered somewhat by a tailor, and the sleeves of the jacket and the legs of the trousers had been shortened.

The captain did not “jump on us” as we had expected. ‘The self-styled old soldiers had warned us that we would be sent to the guard house. The captain had seen service at the front, and had been through the mill as a recruit when the First Battalion was organized. He knew that it was not the fault of the privates that their clothes did not fit them. This fact seemed to escape the attention of many commissioned officers, and not a few recruits were censured in the presence of their comrades by thoughtless captains, because the boys had not been built to fill out jackets and trousers that had been made by basting together pieces of cloth cut on the bias and every other style, but without any regard to shapes, sizes or patterns.

CHAPTER III

The Buglers’ Drill – Getting Used to the Calls – No Ear for Music – A Visitor from Home – A Basket full of Goodies – Taking Tintypes – A Special Artist at the Battle of Bull Run – Horses for the Troopers – Reviewed by a War Governor – Leaving Camp Meigs – A Mother’s Prayers – The Emancipation Proclamation – The War Governors’ Address.

SHOULD there be living to-day a survivor of Sheridan’s Cavalry Corps of the Army of the Potomac who can, without shuddering, recall the buglers’ drill, his probationary period on earth must be rapidly drawing to a close. I do not mean the regular bugle calls of camp or those sounded on company or battalion parade. I refer to the babel of bugle blasts kept up by the recruit “musicians” from the sounding of the first call for reveille till taps. A majority of the boys enlisted as buglers could not at first make a noise – not even a little toot – on their instruments, but when, under the instruction of a veteran bugler, they had mastered the art of filling their horns and producing sound they made up for lost time with a vengeance. And what a chorus! Reveille, stable call, breakfast call, sick call, drill call retreat, tattoo, taps – all the calls, or what the little fellows could do at them, were sounded at one time with agonizing effect.

The first sergeant of Company I said to me one day while we were in Camp Meigs:

“The adjutant wants more buglers, and he spoke of you as being one of the light weights suitable for the job. You may go and report to the adjutant.”

“I didn’t enlist to be a bugler; I’m a full-fledged soldier.”

“But you’re young enough to bugle.”

“I’m twenty-one on the muster-roll. I want to serve in the ranks.”

“Can’t help it; you’ll have to try your hand.”

I reported to the adjutant as directed, and was sent with a half-dozen other recruits to be tested by the chief trumpeter. After a trial of ten minutes the instructor discovered that there was no promise of my development into a bugler, and he said with considerable emphasis:

“You go back mit you to de adjutant and tell him dot you no got one ear for de music.”

I was glad to report back to the company, for I preferred to serve as a private.

The recruits soon became familiar with the sound of the bugle. The first call in the morning was buglers’ call – or first call for reveille. The notes would be sounding in the barracks when the first sergeant, all the duty sergeants and the corporals would yell out:

“Turn out for reveille roll-call!”

“Be lively, now – turn out!”

As a result of this shouting by the “non-coms” the boys soon began to pay no attention to the bugle call, but naturally waited till they heard the signal to “turn out” given by the sergeants and corporals. And in a very short time they ceased to hear the bugle when the first call was sounded.

In active service in the Army of the Potomac so familiar with the calls did the soldiers become that when cavalry and infantry were bivouacked together, and the long roll was sounded by the drummers, it would not be heard by the troopers, and when the cavalry buglers blew their calls the foot soldiers would sleep undisturbed. In front of Petersburg troops would sleep soundly within ten feet of a heavy battery that was firing shot and shell into the enemy’s works all night. But let one of the guards on the line of breastworks behind which they were “dreaming of home” discharge his musket, and the sleepers would be in line ready for battle almost in the twinkling of an eye. And let the cavalry trumpeter make the least noise on his bugle, and the troopers would hear it at once.

A few weeks before our battalion left Camp Meigs for the front Mrs. E. L. Waterman of Berlin, mother of Irving Waterman, paid us a visit. She brought with her a basket full of goodies. Home-made pies, bread, butter, cheese, cookies and fried cakes were included in the supplies. She took up her quarters at the picture gallery of Mr. Holmes, the camp photographer, and we went to see her as often as our duties would permit. She brought us socks knit by our friends at home, and many articles for our comfort. About the first thing she said was: “My boys, what do they give you to eat?”

“Bread and meat and beans and coffee,” we answered.

“No butter?”

“No.”

“I thought not. I had heard the soldiers had to eat their bread without butter, with nothing but coffee to wash it down, so I brought you a few pounds of butter.”

And the dear woman remained at the gallery, and Irving and I would drop over and eat the good things she fixed for us. If we had taken our commissary stores to the barracks they would have been stolen.

Mrs. Waterman asked Irving and myself to have our pictures taken. Neither of us had ever been photographed or tintyped, but we took kindly to the idea. We sat together, and the picture, a tintype, was pronounced an excellent likeness. What a trying performance it was, though! We were all braced up with an iron rest back of the head, and told to “look about there – you can wink, but don’t move.” Of course the tintype presented the subject as one appears when looking into a mirror. The right hand was the left, and our buttons were on the wrong side in the picture. But Mrs. Waterman declared the tintype to be “as near like them as two peas,” and we accepted her verdict. The dear old lady has kept that picture all these years.

The soldier boys resorted to all sorts of expedients to “beat the machine.” That is, to so arrange their arms and accoutrements that when the tintype was taken it would not be upside down or wrong end to. To this end the saber-belt would be put on wrong side up so that the scabbard would hang on the right side – that would bring it on the left side, where it belonged in the picture. I tried that plan one day and then stood at “parade rest,” with the saber in front of me. I put back my left foot instead of my right to stand in that position, and when the picture was presented, I congratulated myself that I had made a big hit. But when I showed it to an old soldier in the company he humiliated me by the remark:

“It’s all very fine for a recruit, but a soldier wouldn’t hold his saber with his left hand and put his right hand over it at parade rest.”

Sure enough. I had changed my feet to make them appear all right, but had forgotten the hands. But recruits were not supposed to know everything on the start.

We had photographs taken as well as tintypes. But the art of photography has greatly improved since the war. Most of the photographs of that day that I have seen of late are badly faded, and it is next to impossible to have a good copy made. Not so with the tintypes. They remain unfaded, and excellent photographic copies can be secured. In many a home to-day hang the pictures of the soldier boy, some of them life-sized portraits copied from the tintypes taken in the days of the war.

I know homes where the gray-haired mothers still cling to the little tintype picture – the only likeness they have of a darling boy who was offered as a sacrifice for liberty. How tenderly the picture is handled! How sacredly the mother has preserved it! The hinges of the frame are broken – worn out with constant opening. The clasp is gone. The plush that lined the frame opposite the picture is faded and worn. But the face of the boy is there. Surviving veterans understand something of the venerable lady’s meaning when she puts the picture to her lips and with tears in her eyes says:

“Yes, he was only a boy. I couldn’t consent to let him go, and I couldn’t say no. I could only pray that he would come back to me – if it were God’s will. He didn’t come back. But they said he did his duty. He died in a noble cause, but it was hard to say ‘Thy will be done,’ at first, when the news came that he’d been killed. I’m so thankful I have his picture – the only one he ever had taken. He was a Christian boy, and they wrote me that his last words as his comrades stood about him under a tree where he had been borne, were, that he died in the hope of a glorious resurrection, and that mother would find him in Heaven to welcome her when she came. There’s comfort in that. And I’ll soon be there. I shall meet my boy again, and there will be no more separation. No more cruel rebellions.” The early war-time pictures are curiosities to-day, particularly to veterans who study them. Not a few of the special artists of the first year of the war seemed to have gained whatever knowledge of the appearance of troops in battle array that they had from tintype pictures. I have before me as I write, a battle scene “sketched by our special artist at the front.” The officers all wear their swords on the right side, and in the foreground is an officer mounting his horse from the off side – a feat never attempted in military experience but once, to my knowledge, and then by a militia officer on the staff of a Troy general, since the war. In some of these pictorial papers of the early war-days armies are represented marching into battle in full-dress uniform and with unbroken step and perfect alignment.

One thing, however, always puzzled me in these pictures – before I went to war – and that was how the infantry could march with measured tread – regulation step of twenty-eight inches, and only one hundred and ten steps per minute – and keep up with the major-generals and other officers of high rank who appeared in front of their men, and with their horses on a dead run in the direction of the enemy! These heroic leaders always rode with their hats in one hand and their swords in the other, so there was no chance for them to hold in their horses. But the puzzle ceased to be a puzzle when I reached the front. I found that the special artists had drawn on their imagination instead of “on the spot,” and that it was not customary for commanding generals to get in between the contending lines of battle and slash right and left and cut up as the artists had represented. In the majority of cases, great battles were fought by generals on both sides who were in position to watch, so far as possible, the whole line of battle, and to be ready to direct such movements and changes as were demanded by the progress of the fight. To do this they must necessarily be elsewhere than in front of their armies, riding down the enemy’s skirmishers, and leaping their horses over cannon.