USA > New Hampshire > History of the Twelfth regiment, New Hampshire volunteers in the war of the rebellion > Part 52
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At this, the smaller and quieter one suggested to his companion the propriety of going down instead of unnecessarily exposing themselves. But the other laughed at his Christian brother's timidity, with no enemy within a mile of him, as he expressed it (he little knew of the long range and deadly aim of a Whitworth), and boldly exclaimed : " Well, if you aren't a brave one to come out to war. I should just like to be under fire once to see if it would affect me as much as the bare thought of it does you."
The officer had no doubt now which of his two visitors was the braver, and his wish that the next shot, momentarily expected, would come close enough to take the starch out of the pompous one, was soon granted.
" Well, don't be impatient, my brave friend, and you may be lucky enough to have your ambitious desires gratified," said the officer, without waiting any reply from the one to whom the taunting remark was directed. Hardly had these words been spoken when the flagman, who was on the watch for the flash of the gun, cried out : " Here she comes," and the next instant our brave hero of
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the moment before reels against the side planking and goes down, apparently life- less, upon the floor.
With no color in his face, no strength in his muscles, and not enough talk in his tongue to utter a single word in reply to the bantering questions of the officer about how he liked it, wanting to be under fire again, etc., he was lowered down in the windlass cradle, his legs being no longer able to use the ladders that he went up on.
Only a few words more need be written of this Whitworth shot and its target :
It came so near it took his breath, And frightened him almost to death.
BRAVER TO SEND THAN RECEIVE.
The commander of the double-turreted monitor. Onondago, that in the Fall and Winter of 1864-65 was the largest and the only first-class war vessel of four or five that held the James river above City Point, and guarded that place against an attack of the Confederate ironclads that lay between them and Richmond, was always bragging about what he would do if the " rebel rams," as he called them, should come down the river and give them battle.
The signal officer, referred to in the last anecdote, was then in charge of " Crow's Nest Tower," which stood on the bluff near where the Onondago lay, and used to direct the shots from her guns that were sent into the enemy's lines.
This brought the two officers into frequent communication, and the naval com- mander would so often refer to his wish that he could aim his guns at the rebel ironclads, at close quarters, instead of wasting his shot by throwing them at the enemy's works a mile or more away, that the other said to him one day : " Well, now, I'll not question but you honestly feel all you talk ; but, if the rebel rams should commence butting you with their steel horns one of these mornings, 1 would n't wonder if you would be the first one to hoist the white flag." Although this expression of opinion was as sincere as it was plain, yet the speaker little thought that his words would so soon become literally true.
A few weeks later, January 23, 1865, the enemy's ironclads, with their long steel prows, did commence butting against the Federal chain of obstructions above Dutch Gap, and opened a severe fire upon our little opposing squadron, of which the Onondago, mounting a 15-inch smooth-bore and a 200-pound rifted Parrott in each turret, was the chief reliance. Yet no sooner did the action com- mence than its brave-tongued commander ordered his boat to steam down the river, and with such cowardly haste as to run through a pontoon bridge that was in the way of his flight. He was afterward tried for cowardice, cashiered, and sent home in disgrace. The foregoing is but illustrative of the fact, so well known to every old veteran.
That he can be relied on most. Who is the least inclined to boast ; White those impatient for the fun Are usually the first to run.
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New Hampshire Volunteers.
THAT STUMP.
John F. Webster, of Company I, while confined to the hospital by a severe wound received at Gettysburg, was a listener to the following amusing conversations between a sharp examining surgeon and some of the hospital "bummers" that he had been instructed to start for their regiments :
Walking up to the ward master - a great, stout fellow, who had grown fat on much food and little exercise, and who had been so long there that he supposed himself secure from all liability of ever, again, being sent to the front - he said :
" Well, sir, what's the matter with you?"
" I've got a lame back and hip."
" From what cause, sir?"
" I was struck on the back by a limb that was cut from a tree by a solid shot at the battle of Chancellorsville."
" Take off your coat and pants and let me examine you."
"O there's nothing you can see now, doctor; but it injured my hip and spine and -
" The spinal cord, and affecting the sciatic nerve, causing you great pain at times, I suppose."
" O yes, doctor, I have suffered -"
" A great deal, no doubt, and there is more or less weakness of the nervous system affecting the will power of the mind and causing a growing disinclination to move round and control the muscular action of the lower limbs."
" Yes, doctor, that's just it ; you've explained it better than I could myself."
" Very likely ; yours is by no means a rare case in army hospitals. Now, let me see if you can shut one eye and stand on the opposite leg."
The sergeant tries the leg with the injured hip, and, after seemingly great effort and much wabbling, fails.
" Just as I expected. Now try your other leg, and see if you have any trouble with either one or both eyes shut."
"No, doctor; I can stand on this leg all right."
"So I see, and I think I understand your case perfectly."
Then turning to the physician in charge of the ward : "I suppose you would call this a case of acute sciatica complicated with incipient locomotor ataxia which, without heroic treatment, will rapidly progress to a fatal termination, would you not? "
The ward doctor, now both amused and puzzled, half nodded his head; but before he could make up his mind what to say, the sergeant, who had heard the word "fatal" and saw the nod, could wait no longer, but anxiously inquired : "I don't know, doctor, as I really understand you. Do you think I am in a dangerous condition ? "
"Not now, sir, but you soon will be."
" What do you mean, doctor?"
" I mean, sir, that you shall soon have a chance to smell the invigorating fumes of burnt powder, and take your share and chance of the toil and danger of your comrades in the field, instead of bumming round here any longer. You will start for your regiment at 8 o'clock to-morrow morning."
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By this time several other hospital loafers, who had heard some of the conver- sation, began to tremble in their nicely blacked shoes, for they saw that their days of soft bread and bed were numbered.
The next subject for examination was a lymphatic specimen of the Teutonic race, " fat, fair, and forty," who, for fear of the very danger that now confronted him, had for some time been trying to get his discharge; having a much stronger liking and keener relish for sour crout and lager beer, than for " hard- tack" and coffee.
"Now, sir," said the examining physician, " we are ready for your case. In what battle were you wounded ?"
" I vash no hit mits ze gun, docsher, but me vash keek mits ze mule rightsh in ze shtoomick."
" When was that, sir?"
" Dat vash in ze battle of- of - whats you calls it, when we fights mits Sigel?"
" What were you doing with a mule in battle, sir?"
"O it vash ze mule vhats done mits me. Itsh me shtoomick so bad, itsh no goot in ze army mits me, shure, docsher ; so I vish zhu give mine dishsharge."
"All right, sir, I will discharge you, now, from this hospital, with orders to report to your regiment for duty as soon as you can get there."
" O, mine Got ! docsher, mine Got! I ish dead, shure! I can no shtand it! Zhu no tinks me shick, cos me vhats zhu call poor, tamn Dutchman ; zhu no tinks me shick, docsher. O, mine Gott! mine shtoomick! mine fader in himmel! whats shall I do?"
But no amount of badly mixed Dutch and English pleading could change the doctor's verdict ; so, leaving his second patient still bemoaning his cruel fate, and remarking as he passed along, that it was another bad case of chronic laziness and constitutional cowardice, he soon hunts up another victim and again inquires :
" Well, sir, how happens it that you are here?"
" I fell over a stump and -
" Fell over what stump, where, and when ?"
"On the last night's march before the battle of Gettysburg."
" And after you fell over that stump you fell out of the ranks, and remained behind until after the battle, I suppose ?"
" Yes, sir, I could n't help it."
"Oh, no ! of course not; for you are the seventeenth man, that I have found to-day in this hospital, that tumbled over that very same, identical stump! You will have a chance to talk it over with them on your way back to your regiment to-morrow."
How THE SAVED ILS MONEY AND HIS LIFE.
Sergeant John S. Collins, of Company H, was one of the unfortunate number who were captured out of the Twelfth Regiment on the "Ber- muda Front," as then called, in the Fall of '64.
As customary with the rebel officers and their soldiers, when they made a Yankee catch, every prisoner was closely examined, not so much to ascertain if he had any secreted arms, as to disencumber him of his
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" greenbacks" and watch, if he had any ; and their victim was consid- ered worthy of especial congratulation if he succeeded in saving his coat and boots from exchange for the worn-out ones of some of his captors.
While standing in. line to be searched, Sergeant Collins noticed how his com- rades, whose turns came before his to be examined, were being treated, and quickly improvised a shrewd plan whereby he saved all of his money, except a few pieces of scrip, which luckily consisted of but one bill, and that a twenty- dollar one.
Without exciting the least suspicion (for what could be more natural than that he should earnestly desire one more smoke, before losing perhaps both his pipe and tobacco), he commenced to fumble through his pockets, and pretty soon took out his jack-knife, tobacco, and pipe, and, putting the latter into his mouth, began to cut from the plug of his cherished weed a good hollow-hand roll to fill it with. But contrary to the usual custom of loading pipes, as well as fire-arms of a more dangerous kind, the wadding already prepared, was put in before the ammunition. After the bowl of his " T. D." was jammed full to its very brim, our cool-headed hero of the occasion deliberately takes a match from his vest pocket, and giving it a quick scratch down the right-hip side of his army blues, proceeds to light it. This, after burning up two or three matches, and taking a number of apparently hard and long drawn suction drafts, followed by as many nearly or quite smokeless puffs, he partially succeeded in doing ; but no sooner were the cool, independent, and almost insulting acts and manner of the Sergeant noticed by the officer in charge, than he was sharply ordered to " stop smoking." This he was more willing to do than the officer was to have him, though he obeyed the order with great seeming reluctance. He was the only one of that prison-bound squad who saved his money, and he told the writer years afterward, when attesting to the truth of the story, that that twenty-dollar " greenback " saved his life, referring to his suffering experience at Salisbury.
ALL THE SAME.
Though a cold night in December, '64, the orders were that no fires be built upon the picket-line, so that the enemy should not know the position of that part of our army.
After shivering humanity could stand it no longer, Corporal Tibbetts, of Com- pany G, gathered together some dry sticks and leaves, applied the match, and stood warming his benumbed fingers by a good cheerful blaze, when the officer of the line came riding furiously up and angrily asked the Corporal if he did not know that the orders were to have no fires.
" O yes, sir," was the cool reply.
" Then, sir, how is this? Do you not intend to obey orders?"
" Well, I guess I'm puty well up to the average in that respect, Colonel ; but, con dem it all, I might as well be shot to death as froze to death."
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The officer saw that he was talking to an " old vet," and after a shrugging, "Urgh! 't is awful cold," and a few words about not letting his fire burn up too bright, rode along, leaving the Corporal in command of his post with his com- fortable headquarters undisturbed.
IN REBEL PRISONS.
What the Union soldiers suffered in the prison pens of the South, could it all be written, would never be known : for words, however carefully chosen or skillfully arranged, can only produce a faint somber shading of that dark and damnable reality known only to those who suffered there.
The following is from the pen of Lyman N. Merrill, of Company I, than whom there were few, if any, better soldiers ever captured by the enemy :
I wish to give a very brief description of how I lived and was treated while confined in the rebel prisons.
I was captured on the seventeenth day of November, 1864, while on picket on the Bermuda line. I was first taken to Richmond, and stayed one night in the old Libby prison. I was then sent over across the street to the Pemberton building, where I remained about two weeks. Dick Turner came around and called the roll every morning. I was next taken to Salisbury, N. C., getting there about December 6. O. P. Hall, of Company D, and G. W. Dockham, of Company G, and myself used to den together in a hole in the ground. We took care of ourselves the best we could. We had a very small piece of corn bread and a little rice water that they called soup. They gave us a small piece of meat once, which is all that I can remember of -and it was a very small piece at that, about half as large as my two fingers -while we were in the prison. We were drowned out of our hole three times. We had to get out and stand in the rain until it stopped. The hole would fill up full, and we would have to dip the water out as best we could, having nothing but a pint tin cup to do it with. When it was all out we would crawl back into our hole again to keep from suffering from heat or cold as the season and weather might be.
We stayed there until the twenty-second day of February, 1865, and what a glorious Washington's birthday it was to us to be relieved from such a place as that ! No pen can describe the suffering there was in those prisons.
THE HISTORY OF A FIVE-CENT PIECE.
' 'Tis strange, but true ; "
The following remarkable instance of the fact that a good as well as a bad penny sometimes returns. is from the pen of Col. Thomas E. Barker :
While a prisoner of war in Old Parish prison, New Orleans, La., in Decem- ber, 1862, like many of my associates, I became quite skilled in the manufacture,
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from the bones in our rations, of rings, charms, Masonic emblems, etc., which were eagerly sought for and purchased by the many visitors who were allowed, on certain days of each week, to see us.
On one occasion I received, among other change for my wares, a five-cent piece bearing date of 1795 and marked with the initials " M. K." Regarding it a rare specimen, I resolved to keep it to add to a collection of coins that a friend in the North had been for many years gathering, should it be my good fortune ever to return from captivity to my old home and friends. Soon, however, our rations were diminished, and even the supply of bones run out; so our only source of revenue stopped, and I was reduced to this last five-cent bit. Though placing upon it a greater value than any ten dollars I have ever seen since the war, the temptation to buy with it a cup of molasses one day, when hard pressed by the gnawings of hunger, was too much, and it went out of my possession into the great Crescent City.
Two months later, while en route for Salisbury, N. C., having received some money from home, I gave one of the guard in charge of us a dollar to buy some articles of food at one of the railroad stations for myself and comrades, but he forgot to return.
Several days after arriving at Salisbury prison, where we were confined for the next three months, one of the Confederate soldiers, who was cognizant of the mean act of the man who stole my money, found and compelled him to restore it to me. To my utter astonishment but great delight, there among the rest of the change returned to me was the identical five-cent coin that I had so reluctantly parted with at New Orleans two or three months before. My fond ambition and desire, intensified by this circumstance, to take it to my friend was gratified a few months later, when we were paroled and sent home.
Twenty years after the war, my friend concluded to dispose of his coins, and the old five-cent piece came again into my possession; and from its strange tenacity to follow me, it now has a permanent place among my most valued keepsakes.
WHAT HIE HAD COME FOR.
The hero of this amusing incident was the good and brave private Nudd, of Company I.
He had just returned from a furlough visit home, granted him for superior, appearance and deportment in the competitive trial on Chapin's Farm, when, one day, he was seen in dress parade trim, marching, with his musket at " right shoulder shift," toward General Weitzel's headquarters.
" See ! there goes Nudd for another furlough," exclaimed one of his comrades to another ; " and I'll bet you he gets it, too."
They did not know that he had got a little too much of that which brings trouble instead of furloughs already, for he had the firm and measured step, erect carriage, and proud bearing of one of the king's foot body-guard, and he marched as straight forward as if he was making a perambulatory demonstration that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points.
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But it was no such a trifling object as a thirty days' furlough that he had in view now. His aim was higher, and he was bound to bring down, as the sequel will show, much bigger game; for the spirit within him stirred up his blood and fired his ambition to dare, if he could not do, great and noble deeds. Soon he reaches the General's tent, and with arms already at a " shoulder " he demands immediate admission as a bearer of verbal orders from the highest authority and of the greatest importance. After a brief parley with the guard he, by order of the General who had overheard the conversation, was admitted ; and marching in and saluting the somewhat surprised but more amused com- mander of the right wing of the Army of the James, he assumes the stone-stern rigidity of a soldier statue, and speaking in tones of unquestioned authority, he says : "General Weitzel, I have come to relieve you of your command !! "
WHY IT WOULDN'T DRAW.
Of the same quaint and queer soldier of Company I, as individualized in the last anecdote, another may be here told.
He was a mason by trade, and was one day employed by his company com- mander to build a chimney, with fire-place, for the officer's new log house that he had erected with much care and pains for his winter quarters ; although, as will be scen elsewhere, his intentions of permanent occupancy were never con- summated. When the chimney was all finished as well and nicely as green- pine brick and mud plaster in skillful hands could make it, the officer was greatly puzzled and perplexed because it would not draw, the smoke coming out of the fire-place instead of the chimney top, in spite of dry boughs and pitch-pine stumps to drive it up.
The builder, who has gone to his quarters, is recalled, and asked to explain the mystery. He mutters something about the chimney being green and the workman being dry, the last part of which the officer easily interpreted, and offered to give the mason an order to draw a canteen of whiskey if he would make the chimney draw.
"Can't do it, Capt., but if you'll put a one spot ' greenback' with the order we'll call it a square cut for past and present, and you shall see the smoke go heavenward up your chimney and a bright fire burning in your fire-place . right smart o' qnick.'"
" How quick?" demanded the officer.
"Quick as I get the order and the dollar."
Thinking that impossible from his own experience, and that the chimney would have to be all built over before it could ever be used, which would be worth the price demanded, he scribbles off' the order, pulls out the money, and gives them to the waiting and grinning soldier, who at once mounts to the top of the house, and runs a stick down the chimney until the paper he had cunningly fixed across the draft is broken through, and the smoke goes up in triumph at the magic touch of the witty artificer, followed by a shout of laughter in which the victim of the trick heartily joins; while the shrewd perpetrator, descending to the ground, salutes the officer, and walks back to his quarters.
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New Hampshire Volunteers.
A STORY OF THE PICKET-LINE.
The first day the regiment went out on picket, after returning from Petersburg to the Bermuda lines, was the time that the following interesting incident occurred :
A few of the men had been stationed in the woods at some distance apart and considerably in advance of the other pickets, as was frequently done in the absence of cavalry, as infantry vedettes.
One of these men, soon after taking his position, thought he heard something moving among the leaves not far in front of him, but the undergrowth was so thick he could not see what it was. After listening intently for some time, and when about to give it no further attention, thinking it was nothing more than some small wild animal. he heard quite distinctly a sound like the breaking of a dry limb that convinced him that a human being, and probably an armed rebel, was approaching. The next moment and the Twelfth boy was under cover and on his guard.
Lying close and still, he anxiously awaited further developments, feeling all the while somewhat nervous at the prospect of having a single-handed skirmish at close quarters with a "Johnny Reb." His first impulse was to fire and fall back to the reserve ; but thinking he might be mistaken as to the true cause of his apprehension, and having no reason to suppose from the sound that more than one animal, human or brute, was within danger distance of him, he con- cluded not to run until there were some more threatening signs of being hurt. Feeling almost ashamed of himself that he, an old soldier, and fresh from the deadly lines of Petersburg, should be now frightened at what might prove nothing more than a squirrel in the woods, he arose from his crouching position behind a large tree, determined to know whether his imagination was playing fool with him or not.
So he started forward. keeping a sharp lookout, however, to the front for whatever might appear. Stepping into a little hollow which gave him a chance, by stooping a little, to take a ground look for some distance ahead, he discovered, as he thought, and as it proved, a pair of butternut colored legs moving swiftly behind a tree. With a soldier's first thought, he at once dropped upon the ground, raising his head just enough to watch sharply the trunk of the tree from its roots up to the height of a man.
Although he had now a slight advantage of the situation, it was, nevertheless, not a very desirable one to occupy ; but there was no safe retreat for him now, without greater risk of his life than to remain where he was and watch his chances for the first shot. Besides, he was no coward, and did not like the idea of showing the white feather, even to save his own life. Hardly had he cocked his gun and brought it to a range sight, when part of a face was plainly scen upon one side of the tree, and while he was waiting for a full-sized head or bust for a target, the thought occurred to him : " What if I should fire and miss?"
Having nothing but a muzzle-loader to fight with, he would certainly then, at so short a distance between them, be at the mercy of his foe, who could either kill him or take him prisoner as he chose.
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Whether the rebel had seen or only heard him, when he advanced, he did not know, but from the quickness that he covered himself, he was quite sure that he had been seen. Some little time passed with no change in positions, one hugging the tree and the other the ground ; the latter feeling he could lie down and watch as long as the former could stand up and wait. At any rate he was not going to fire until sure of his game.
While his antagonist could not advance except at his peril, he could easily cover a retreat ; but this gave our picket man no especial anxiety, as he was more interested, just then, in saving himself, than in slaying his enemy. But in this, as in many other instances in life's strange experiences, in the army as well as out, there was, between apprehension and realization, a pleasantly wide and safe space for self-congratulation. The Confederate, as the sequel will show, was not of the " Louisiana Tiger " type, thirsting for blood, and concluded, after a brief consultation with himself, to test the temper and disposition of his patiently watchful Lincolnite, with his tongue instead of his gun.
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