Si Klegg, Book 2

"Corp'l Klegg," said the Captain, without an instant's hesitation, "you hear what's to be done. Take five men and go."

Si looked around to see if there was someone he could borrow a shoe from. But that was hardly a time when men were likely to lend shoes. He picked Shorty and four others. They flung down their guns and started on a run for the pike.

The batteries were sweeping the fields with shells, but they were so intent on their errand that they paid no attention to the demoniac shrieks of the hurtling pieces of iron.

They gained the other side of the field, but as they entered the welcome shelter of the woods they encountered an officer with a drawn sword, commanding a line of men.

"Stop there, you infernal, cowardly rascals," he yelled. "Pick up those guns there, and get into line, or I'll shoot you. You, Corporal, ought to be ashamed of yourself."

"We're after ammunition for the 200th Ind.," gasped Si. "We must have it right away. Where's the division ammunition train?"

"That ammunition story's played. Can't work it on me. Where's your regiment? Where's your caps? Where's your shoes? Where's your guns? You're rattled out of your senses. Stop here and cool off. Pick up guns there and fall into line."

"Name o' God, Lieutenant," said Shorty excitedly. "This's no time for any foolishness. Our regiment's out there on the hill without any ammunition. The rebels are gittin' ready to jump it, four or five to one. Don't fool, for heaven's sake. There's not a minute to waste. Come with us and help us git the ammunition. That's a blame sight more important than stoppin' these here runaways, who're no good when they are stopped. Come along, for God's sake."

His earnestness impressed the Lieutenant.

"Lieut. Evans," he called out, "take command of the line while I go back with these men to the ammunition-train. I can get it quicker for them than they can. Your Colonel should have sent a commissioned officer with you."

"The Colonel needs all the officers he has left with him," panted Shorty, running ahead of the rest. "Everybody back there's got all he can attend to, and we couldn't really be spared."

There was a crowd of similar men surging around the ammunition wagons, each eager to get his load and rush back. The covers of the wagons had been torn off, and a man stood in each, pitching the boxes to the clamoring details. All were excited and reckless. The pitching would be wild, or the catching bad, and occasionally a box would strike a man on the head or body and knock him down. He would scarcely stop to swear, but snatch up his precious box and rush off toward his regiment.

"Open out here, let us in," commanded the Lieutenant, striking right and left with the flat of his sword. It was not a moment for gentle courtesies. The crowd opened up, and Si and Shorty pushed in near the wheels.

"Now give us six boxes in a hurry," commanded the Lieutenant.

Si caught the first box, Shorty the second, and before the Lieutenant was hardly done speaking the rest had theirs, and started back on the run, accompanied by the Lieutenant. The boxes were very heavy and the mud was deep, but they went faster than they had ever done, even when running from the rebels.

"I'm awfully afraid you'll have a time getting across the field there," said the Lieutenant, as they came to the edge, and he surveyed the ground in front doubtfully. "Lieut. Evans says they've moved a battery up closer, and are sweeping the field with canister."

"We don't care what they're shootn'," said Si resolutely. "We're goin' back to the regiment with these boxes, or die a-tryin'."

"Go on, then, and God help you," said the Lieutenant. "I'd go with you if I could do any good."

Si arranged his box for a desperate rush. A blast of canister swept through, cutting down shrubs, splattering the mud, and shrieking viciously.

"Let's get as far as we can before they fire again," he shouted, and plunged forward. Half-way across the field his foot caught in a devil's shoe-string, and down he went in the mud, with the heavy box driving him deeper.

Just then another blast of canister hurtled across the field.

"Golly, it was lucky, after all, that I was tripped," said Si, rising, stunned and dripping. "That load of canister was meant for me personally."

Two minutes later he flung the box down before the company, and sank panting on the ground. The others came up after. Some had teen grazed by canister, but none seriously wounded. They arrived just in the nick of time, for the regiment had expended its last cartridge in repulsing the last assault, and was now desperately fixing bayonets to meet the next with cold steel. The lids of the boxes were pried off with bayonets, and the Sergeants ran along the companies distributing the packages. The assault was met with a stream of fire, given with steady deadliness, which sent the rebels back to their covert.

An Aid dashed across the field to the brigade commander.

"The line is now formed," he said. "Retire your command to it."

That night, after the battle had ceased, Si and Shorty were seated on a rail by the Nashville pike munching rations which they had luckily found in a thrown-away haversack. They were allowed no fires, they had no blankets nor overcoats, and it was bitter cold.

"Shorty, you said last night you was sure that they couldn't git up nothin' to-day that'd be as bad as what we had yesterday," said Si. "I bel'eve that I'd rather guard wagon-trains and fight cavalry than have such another day as this."

"I think the lake of brimstone'd be a pleasant change from this," snorted Shorty.

CHAPTER VII. AFTER THE FIRST DAY

THE DISCOMFORTS OF THAT LAST NIGHT OF 1862

IT WAS so desperately cold and comfortless that Si and Shorty felt that they must do something or perish.

There were some fragments of cracker-boxes near. With these they dug a hole several inches deep, put some splinters in, and started a stealthy blaze. They were careful to sit on the side toward the rebels, the better to hide from them any sight of it. It was a very small fire, but there was more relief in it than Si had before gotten from those a thousand times larger. It kept his unshod foot from freezing, and brought the blood back to his numb hands.

"Just think, Shorty," said Si; "night before last we had a whole panel of fence on the fire, and all our blankets and overcoats, and yet you kicked. I believe this is a judgment on you for not being thankful for what you receive."

"Judgment be blowed," ejaculated Shorty. "This ain't no judgment; it's just durned luck that is, what isn't foolishness in sendin' a boy to mill. If we'd had only half as many men out there in the cedars as the rebels had we'd licked thunder out of 'em. We simply couldn't whip four or five to one. McCook didn't size up his job right."

"Well, we have something to be thankful for," said Si, determined to see the bright side of things. "Neither of us got hurt, which is a blessing."

"Don't know whether it is or not. If we are goin' to freeze to death before mornin' I'd rather've bin shot the first volley."

The misty darkness around them was filled with noise and motion. Men who had become separated from their regiments were wandering around trying to find them, in the bewildering maze of men, wagons and animals. Officers were calling aloud the names of regiments to bring together stragglers. Aids were rushing around to find Generals and Colonels to give and receive orders and instructions. Regiments and batteries were marching hither and yon to get into position and complete the formation of the line for the morrow's battle. The 200th Ind., which had fallen back in good order with its brigade, was well together, and made an island around which a restless sea of humanity flowed and eddied. Cheer less as was its bivouac in the cold mud, yet it was infinitely preferable to being lost in the inextricable confusion that reigned over those cottonfields on that sorrowful night of Dec. 31, 1862.

"I'm not goin' to freeze to death," said Si, starting up, at last. "I'm going to look around and see if I can't find something to make us more comfortable. Shorty, hold on to that hole in the ground. It's all that we've got left in the world, and if we lose that I don't know what'll become of us."

"Better stay here, and not go wanderin' off into that mob," remonstrated Shorty. "You'll git lost entirely, and never find your way back."

"I'll not get lost," responded Si. "I've got the lay o' the ground in my mind. If I did," he continued proudly, "it'd be easy to find you agin. Everybody knows where the 200th Ind. is."

He went only a little ways, and carefully, at first.

He was rewarded by kicking against an object which upon examination proved to be a well-filled haver sack, which someone had flung away in his hurry. He carried it back, rejoicing, to Shorty.

"Finders is keepers," said Shorty, unbuckling the knapsack. "We'll just call this fair exchange for what we've throwed away in to-day's hustle. Let's open her up."

"Some new recruit's," said Si, as they examined the inside. "Looks like the one I packed from Injianny. What's this? I declare if it ain't a pair o' new shoes, and about my size; and some socks. I tell you, Shorty, I'm in luck."

He pulled the muddy socks off his shoeless foot, and drew on one of the warm, homemade affairs, and then the shoe. Both fitted well. He put on the other sock and shoe, and life at once seemed brighter.

"Shorty," said he, "I shouldn't wonder if I could find a blanket and an overcoat. You keep on holding that hole down, and I'll go out agin. I won't be gone long, for I'm dead tired. Just as soon as I find an overcoat or a blanket to put between us and the mud, I'll come back and we'll lay down. Every joint in me aches."

He started off less carefully this time. His new shoes made him feel more like walking. He was some distance from the regiment before he knew it. He found an overcoat. It had been trampled into the mud by thousands of passing feet, but still it was an overcoat, and it was not a time to be too nice about the condition of a garment. Presently he found a blanket in similar condition. He pulled on the overcoat, and threw the blanket over his shoulders. He felt warmer, but they were very heavy. Still, he thought he would go on a little ways farther, and perhaps he would find another overcoat and blanket, which would fix out both him and his partner.

All this time men were sweeping by him in companies, regiments and squads; batteries were moving in all directions, and mounted officers were making their way to and fro. Filling up the spaces between these were hundreds of men, single and in small groups, wandering about in search of their regiments, and inquiring of everyone who would stop to listen to them as to the whereabouts of regiments, brigades and divisions. No one could give any satisfactory information. Organizations which had formed a line two miles long in the morning had been driven back, frequently in tumult and disorder, for miles through the thickets and woods. Fragmentary organizations had been rallied from time to time. A fragment of a regiment would rally at one point with fragments of other regiments and make a stand, while other regiments would rally at widely-separated places and renew the fight, only to be pushed back again toward the Nashville Pike. Regiments and brigades that had remained nearly intact had been rapidly shifted from one point to another, as they were needed, until the mind could not follow their changes, or where nightfall had found them, or whither they had been shifted to form the new line.

At last Si succeeded in picking up another over coat and blanket out of the mud, and started to go back to the regiment.

But where was the regiment? He had long since lost all track of its direction. He had been so intent upon studying the ground for thrown-away clothing that he had not noticed the course he had taken.

It suddenly dawned on him that he was but one drop in that great ocean of 35,000 men, surging around on the square miles lying between the Nashville Pike and Stone River. He looked about, but could see nothing to guide him. His eyes rested everywhere on dark masses of moving men. Those immediately around him were inquiring weariedly for their own regiments; they had no patience to answer inquiries as to his own. Discouraged, he determined to walk as straight ahead as possible in the direction which he had come, and see where that would bring him. He was so tired that he could scarcely drag one foot after another, but he plodded on. At length he drew out of the throng a little, and saw that he was approaching the banks of a large stream. This disheartened him, for they had not been within miles of Stone River during the day. He saw a group of men huddled around a larger fire than had been permitted near the front. This, too, was discouraging, for it showed that he had been forging toward the rear. But he went up to the group and inquired:

"Do any o' you know where the 200th Ind. is?"

The men had become wearied out answering similar questions, and were as cross as soldiers get to be under similar circumstances.

"The 200th Ind.," snapped one; "better go back to the rear-guard and inquire. The straggler-ketchers 've got 'em."

"No," said another; "they skipped out before the rear-guard was formed, and were all drowned trying to swim the Cumberland."

"They say the Colonel went on foot," said a third, "and was the first man in the regiment to reach Nashville. Made the best long-distance run on record."

"You infernal liars," roared Si; "if I wasn't so tired I'd lick the whole caboodle of you. But I'll say this: Any man who says that the 200th Ind. run, or that our brave Colonel run, or that any man in it run, is a low-down, measly liar, and hain't a grain a' truth in him, and he daresn't take it up."

It was a comprehensive challenge, that would have met with instantaneous response at any other time, but now the men were too exhausted for such vanities as fisticuffs.

"O, go off and find your rattled, lousy Hoosiers," they shouted in chorus. "Go talk to the Provost-Marshal about 'em. He's got the most of 'em. The rest are breaking for the Wabash as fast as their legs can carry them. Don't be bothering us about that corn-cracking, agery crowd."

"Where'd you leave your regiment, you chuckle-headed straggler?"

"You were so rattled you couldn't tell which way they went."

"Where's your gun?"

"Where's your cartridge-box and haversack?"

"Where's your cap?"

"You were so scared you'd 'a' throwed away your head if it'd been loose!"

"Clear out from here, you dead-beat."

Si was too sick at heart to more than resolve that he would remember each one of them, and pay them off at some more convenient time. He turned and walked back as nearly as possible in the direction in which he had come. He knew that his regiment was at the front, and he had been forging toward the rear. He knew vaguely that the front was some where near the Nashville Pike, and as he wearily wound around and through the bewildering masses, he inquired only for the Nashville Pike.

He reached the Pike, at last, just as he was sinking with fatigue. The dreary rain had set in again, and he had determined to give the thing up, and sit down, and wait for morning. He saw a feeble glimmer of light at a distance, and decided to make one more effort to reach it, and inquire for his regiment.

"Partner, have you any idee where the 200th Ind. is?" he said meekly to the man who was crouching over the fire in the hole.

"Hello, Si," said Shorty. "I had given you up long ago. Of course, you went off and got lost in that mob, as I told you you would. Next time you'll have sense enough to mind what I say."

"O, Shorty," groaned Si, "don't say nothing. I've nigh walked my legs offen me. I think I've tramped over every foot of ground betwixt here and Overall's Crick. But I've brought back two overcoats and two blankets."

"That's bully," answered Shorty, much mollified. "Say, I've got an idee. D'you see that white thing over there? That's a wagon. The mules 've been taken away, and it's been standing there for an hour. I've seen the Lieutenants and the Orderly-Sergeant sneak back there, and I know what they're up to. They're goin' to sleep in the wagon. Of course, they're officers, and got the first pick. But we kin lay down under it, and get out of the rain. Be sides, it looks as if the ground was drier up there than it is down here."

They slipped quietly back to the wagon, and were lucky enough to find a little hay in the feed-box, which they could lay down to spread their blankets upon. They pulled the tail-gate off and set it up on the side from which the rain was coming.

"There," said Shorty, as they crawled in. "Si, what'd you do without me? Ain't I a comfort to you every minute of your life?"

"You certainly are, Shorty," said Si, as he fell asleep.

CHAPTER VIII. A GLOOMY NEW YEAR'S DAY

THE TWO ARMIES LIE FROWNING AT EACH OTHER

SI WAS awakened the next morning by the rain dashing down squarely on his upturned face. He was lying on the flat of his back, sleeping the sleep of the utterly outworn, and he got the full force of the shower.

"Plague take it, Shorty," said he, kicking his snoring partner, "you're at your old tricks again scrougin' me out o' the tent while I'm asleep. Why can't you lay still, like a white man?"

"It's you, dod rot you," grumbled Shorty, half-awakening. "You're at your old tricks o' kickin' the tent down. You need a 10-acre lot to sleep in, and then you'd damage the fence-corners."

They were both awake by this time, and looked around in amazement.

"We went to sleep nice and comfortable, under a wagon last night," said Shorty, slowly recalling the circumstances. "The two Lieutenants and the Orderly had the upper berth, and we slept on the ground-floor."

"Yes," assented Si; "and someone's come along, hitched mules to our bedroom and snaked it off."

"Just the way in the condemned army," grumbled Shorty, his ill-humor asserting itself as he sat up and looked out over the rain-soaked fields. "Never kin git hold of a good thing but somebody yanks it away. S'pose they thought that it was too good for a private soldier, and they took it away for some Major-General to sleep under."

"Well, I wonder what we're goin' to do for grub?" said Si, as his athletic appetite began to assert itself.

"Our own wagons, that we had such a time guarding, are over there in the cedars, and the rebels are filling themselves up with the stuff that we were so good to bring up for them."

"It makes me jest sizzle," said Shorty, "to think of all we went through to git them condemned wagons up where they'd be handiest for them."

Si walked down the line toward where the Regimental Headquarters were established under a persimmon tree, and presently came back, saying:

"They say there's mighty small chance of gettin' any grub to-day. Wheeler burnt three or four miles of our wagons yesterday, and's got possession of the road to Nashville. We've got to fight the battle out on empty stomachs, and drive these whelps away before we kin get a square meal."

Jan. 1, 1863, was an exceedingly solemn, unhappy New Year's Day for the Union soldiers on the banks of Stone River. Of the 44,000 who had gone into the line on the evening of Dec. 30, nearly 9,000 had been killed or wounded and about 2,000 were prisoners. The whole right wing of the army had been driven back several miles, to the Nashville Pike. Cannon, wagon-trains, tents and supplies had been captured by the rebel cavalry, which had burned miles of wagons, and the faint-hearted ones murmured that the army would have to surrender or starve.

There was not ammunition enough to fight an other battle. The rebel army had suffered as heavily in killed and wounded, but it was standing on its own ground, near its own supplies, and had in addition captured great quantities of ours.

The mutual slaughter of the two armies had been inconceivably awful inexpressibly ghastly, shuddering, sickening. They had pounded one another to absolute exhaustion, and all that sullen, lowering, sky-weeping Winter's day they lay and glared at one another like two huge lions which had fanged and torn each other until their strength had been entirely expended, and breath and strength were gone. Each was too spent to strike another blow, but each too savagely resolute to think of retreating.

All the dogged stubbornness of his race was now at fever point in Si's veins. Those old pioneers and farmers of the Wabash from whom he sprang were not particularly handsome to look at, they were not glib talkers, nor well educated. But they had a way of thinking out rather slowly and awkwardly it might be just what they ought to do, and then doing it or dying in the effort which made it very disastrous for whoever stood in their way. Those who knew them best much preferred to be along with them rather than against them when they set their square-cornered heads upon accomplishing some object.

Si might be wet, hungry, and the morass of mud in which the army was wallowing uncomfortable and discouraging to the last degree, but there was not the slightest thought in his mind of giving up the fight as long as there was a rebel in sight. He and Shorty were not hurt yet, and until they were, the army was still in good fighting trim.

The line of the 200th Ind. was mournfully shorter than it was two days before, but there were still several hundred boys of Si's stamp gathered resolutely around its flag, the game little Colonel's voice rang out as sharply as ever, and the way the boys picked up their guns and got into line whenever a sputter of firing broke out anywhere must have been very discouraging to Gen. Bragg and his officers, who were anxiously watching the Union lines through their glasses for signs of demoralization and retreat.

"We licked 'em yesterday, every time they come up squarely in front o' the 200th Ind.," Si said to Shorty and those who stood around gazing anxiously on the masses of brown men on the other side of the field. "We can do it again, every time. The only way they got away with us was by sneakin' around through the cedars and takin' us in the rear. We're out in the open ground now, an' they can't get around our flanks." And he looked to the extreme right, where every knoll was crowned with a battery of frowning guns.

"They got their bellies full o' fightin' yesterday," added Shorty, studying the array judicially. "They hain't none o' the brashness they showed yesterday mornin', when they were jumpin' us in front, right, left and rear at the same minute. They're very backward about comin' forward acrost them fields for us to-day. I only wish they'd try it on."

But the forenoon wore away without the rebels showing any disposition to make an assault across the muddy fields. Si's vigilant appetite took advantage of the quiet to assert its claims imperiously.

"Shorty," said he, "there must be something to eat somewhere around here. I'm goin' to look for it."

"You'll have just about as much chance of findin' it," said Shorty dolefully, "among that mob o' famished Suckers as you would o' findin' a straw-stack in the infernal regions. But I'll go 'long with you. We can't lose the regiment in the day time."

"By the way, Shorty," said Si, happening to glance at the sleeves of the overcoats which he had picked up, "we both seem to be Sergeants."

"That's so," assented Shorty. "Both these are Sergeant's overcoats. We'll take our guns along, and play that we are on duty. It may help us out somewhere."

Things looked so quiet in front that the Captain gave them permission, and off they started. It seemed a hopeless quest. Everywhere men were ravenous for food. They found one squad toasting on their rammers the pieces of a luckless rabbit they had cornered in a patch of briars. Another was digging away at a hole that they alleged contained a woodchuck. A third was parching some corn found in a thrown-away feed box, and congratulating themselves upon the lucky find.

Finally they came out upon the banks of Stone River at the place to which Si had wandered during the night. Si recognized it at once, and also the voices that came from behind a little thicket of paw paws as those of the men with whom he had had the squabble.

Si motioned to Shorty to stop and keep silent, while he stepped up closer, parted the bushes a little, looked through, and listened.