How Private George W. Peck Put Down the Rebellion Read online

  Produced by David Widger

  HOW PRIVATE GEORGE W. PECK PUT DOWN THE REBELLION

  OR, THE FUNNY EXPERIENCES OF A RAW RECRUIT.

  By George W. Peck

  CHAPTER I.

  The War Literature of the "Century" is very Confusing--I am Resolved to tell the True Story of the War--How and Why I Became a Raw Recruit--My Quarters--My Horse--My First Ride.

  For the last year or more I have been reading the articles in the_Century_ magazine, written by generals and things who served on boththe Union and Confederate sides, and have been struck by the number of"decisive battles" that were fought, and the great number of generalswho fought them and saved the country. It seems that each general on theUnion side, who fought a battle, and writes an article for the aforesaidmagazine, admits that his battle was the one which did the business.On the Confederate side, the generals who write articles invariablydemonstrate that they everlastingly whipped their opponents, and drovethem on in disorder. To read those articles it seems strange that theUnion generals who won so many decisive battles, should not have endedthe war much sooner than they did, and to read the accounts of battleswon by the Confederates, and the demoralization that ensued in theranks of their opponents, it seems marvellous that the Union army wasvictorious. Any man who has followed these generals of both sides, inthe pages of that magazine, must conclude that the war was a draw game,and that both sides were whipped. Thus far no general has lost a battleon either side, and all of them tacitly admit that the whole thingdepended on them, and that other commanders were mere ciphers. This isa kind of history that is going to mix up generations yet unborn in themost hopeless manner.

  It has seemed to me as though the people of this country had got somixed up about the matter that it was the duty of some private soldierto write a description of _the_ decisive battle of the war, and as I wasthe private soldier who fought that battle on the Union side, againstfearful odds, _viz_: against a Confederate soldier who was braver thanI was, a better horseback rider, and a better poker player, I feel itmy duty to tell about it. I have already mentioned it to a few veterans,and they have advised me to write an article for the _Century_, butI have felt a delicacy about entering the lists, a plain, unvarnishedprivate soldier, against those generals. While I am something of a liarmyself, and can do fairly well in my own class, I should feel that inthe _Century_ I was entered in too fast a class of liars, and the resultwould be that I should not only lose my entrance fee, but be distanced.So I have decided to contribute this piece of history solely for thebenefit of the readers of my own paper, as they will believe me.

  It was in 1864 that I joined a cavalry regiment in the department of theGulf, a raw recruit in a veteran regiment. It may be asked why I waitedso long before enlisting, and why I enlisted at all, when the war was sonear over. I know that the most of the soldiers enlisted from patrioticmotives, and because they wanted to help shed blood, and wind up thewar. I did not. I enlisted for the bounty. I thought the war was nearlyover, and that the probabilities were that the regiment I had enlistedin would, be ordered home before I could get to it. In fact therecruiting officer told me as much, and he said I would get my bounty,and a few months' pay, and it would be just like finding money. He saidat that late day I would never see a rebel, and if I did have to jointhe regiment, there would be no fighting, and it would just be onecontinued picnic for two or three months, and there would be no moredanger than to go off camping for a duck shoot. At my time of life, nowthat I have become gray, and bald, and my eyesight is failing, and Ihave become a grandfather, I do not want to open the sores of twenty-twoyears ago. I want a quiet life. So I would not assert that therecruiting officer deliberately lied to me, but I was the worst deceivedman that ever enlisted, and if I ever meet that man, on this earth, itwill go hard with him. Of course, if he is dead, that settles it, as Ishall not follow any man after death, where I am in doubt as to whichroad he has taken, but if he is alive, and reads these lines, he canhear of something to his advantage by communicating with me. I wouldprobably kill him. As far as the bounty was concerned, I got that allright, but it was only three-hundred dollars. Within twenty-four hoursafter I had been credited to the town from which I enlisted, I heard ofa town that was paying as high as twelve-hundred dollars for recruits.I have met with many reverses of fortune in the course of a short, butbrilliant career, have loaned money and never got it back, have beentaken in by designing persons on three card monte, and have been beatentrading horses, but I never suffered much more than I did when I foundthat I had got to go to war for a beggerly three-hundred dollars bounty,when I could have had twelve hundred dollars by being credited toanother town. I think that during two years and a half of servicenothing tended more to dampen my ardor, make me despondent, and hatemyself, than the loss of that nine-hundred dollars bounty. There was notan hour of the day, in all of my service, that I did not think of whatmight have been. It was a long time before I brought to my aid thatpassage of scripture, "There is no use crying for spilled bounty," butwhen I did it helped me some. I thought of the hundreds who didn't getany bounty.

  I joined my regiment, and had a cavalry horse issued to me, and wasassigned to a company. I went up to the captain of the company, whom Ihad known as a farmer before the war commenced, and told him I had cometo help him put down the rebellion. I never saw a man so changed as hewas. I thought he would ask me to bring my things into his tent, andstay with him, but he seemed to have forgotten that he had known me,when he worked on the farm. He was dressed up nicely, and I thought heput on style, and I could only think of him at home, with his overallstucked in his boots, driving a yoke of oxen to plow a field. He seemedto feel that I had known him under unfavorable circumstances before thewar, and acted as though he wanted to shun me. I had drawn an infantryknapsack, at Madison, before I left for the front, and had it full ofthings, besides a small trunk. The captain called a soldier and told himto find quarters for me, and I went out of his presence. At my quarters,which consisted of what was called a pup-tent, I found no conveniences,and it soon dawned on me that war was no picnic, as that lyingrecruiting officers had told me it was. I found that I had got to throwaway my trunk and knapsack, and all the articles that I couldn't strapon a saddle, and when I asked for a mattress the men laughed at me. Ihad always slept on a mattress, or a feather bed, and when I was toldthat I would have to sleep on the ground, under that little tent, I felthurt. I had known the colonel when he used to teach school at home, andI went to him and told him what kind of a way they were treating me,but he only laughed. He had two nice cots in his tent, and I told himI thought I ought to have a cot, too. He laughed some more. Finally Iasked him who slept in his extra cot, and intimated that I had rathersleep in his tent than mine, but he sent me away, and said he would seewhat could be done. I laid on the ground that night, but I didn't sleep.If I ever get a pension it will be for rheumatism caught by sleeping onthe ground. The rheumatism has not got hold of me yet, though twenty-twoyears have passed, but it may be lurking about my system, for all Iknow.

  I had never rode a horse, before enlisting. The only thing I had evergot straddle of was a stool in a country printing office, and when Iwas first ordered to saddle up my horse, I could not tell which way thesaddle and bridle went, and I got a colored man to help me, for which Ipaid him some of the remains of my bounty. I hired him permanently, totake care of my horse, but I soon learned that each soldier had to takecare of his own horse. That seemed pretty hard. I had been raised a pet,and had edited a newspaper, which had been one of the most outspokenadvocates of crushing the rebellion, and it seemed to me, as much as Ihad done for the government,
in urging enlistments, I was entitled tomore consideration then to become my own hostler. However, I curbed myproud spirit, and after the nigger cook had saddled my horse, I led theanimal up to a fence to climb on. From the remarks of the soldiers, andthe general laugh all around, it was easy to see that mounting a cavalryhorse from off the top of a rail fence was not according to tactics,but it was the only way I could see to get on, in the absence ofstep-ladders. They let me ride into the ranks, after mounting, and thenthey laughed. It was hard for me to be obliged to throw away all thearticles I had brought with me, so I strapped them on the saddle infront and behind, and only my head stuck out over them. There was onething, it would be a practicable impossibility to fall off.

  Mounting a horse from the top of a rail fence 021]

  The regiment started on a raid. The colonel came along by my companyduring the afternoon, and I asked him where we were going. He gave me anevasive answer, which hurt my feelings. I asked his pardon, but told himI would like to know where we were going, so as to have my letterssent to me, but he went off laughing, and never told me, while the oldsoldiers laughed, though I couldn't see what they were laughing at.I did not suppose there was so much difference between officers andprivates, and wondered if it was the policy of this government to havea cavalry regiment to start off on a long raid and not let the soldiersknow where they were going, and during the afternoon I decided to writehome to the paper I formerly edited and give my opinion of such a foolway of running a war. Suppose anybody at home was sick, they wouldn'tknow where to write for me to come back. There is nothing that will givea man such an appetite as riding on a galloping horse, and along aboutthe middle of the afternoon I began to get hungry, and asked the orderlysergeant when we were going to get any dinner. He said there was a hotela short distance ahead, and the colonel had gone forward to order dinnerfor the regiment. I believed him, because I had known the orderly beforethe war, when he drove a horse in a brickyard, grinding clay. But hewas a liar, too, as I found out afterwards. There was not a hotel withinfifty miles, and soldiers did not stop at hotels, anyway. Finally theorderly sergeant came along and announced that dinner was ready, and Ilooked for the hotel, but the only dinner I saw was some raw pork thatsoldiers took out of their saddle bags, with hard tack. We stopped inthe woods, dismounted, and the boys would cut off a slice of fat porkand spread it on the hard tack and eat it. I had never supposed thegovernment would subject its soldiers to such fare as that, and Iwouldn't eat. I did not dare dismount, as there was no fence near thatI could use to climb on to my horse, so I sat in the saddle and let thehorse eat some grass, while I thought of home, and pie and cake, andwhat a condemned fool a man was to leave a comfortable home to goand put down anybody's rebellion. The way I felt then I wouldn't havetouched a rebellion if one lay right in the road. What business was itof mine if some people in the South wanted to dissolve partnership andgo set up business for themselves? How was I going to prevent themfrom having a southern confederacy, by riding an old rack of bones of ahorse, that would reach his nose around every little while and chew mylegs? If the recruiting officer who inveigled me into the army hadcome along then, his widow would now be drawing a pension. While I wasthinking, dreaming of home, and the horse was eating grass, the foolanimal suddenly took it into his head to lay down and roll, and before Icould kick any of his ribs in, he was down, and I was rolling off, withone leg under him. The soldiers quit eating and pulled the horse ofme, and hoisted me up into the space between my baggage, and then theylaughed, lit their pipes and smoked, as happy as could be. I couldn tsee how they could be happy, and wondered if they were not sick of war.Then they mounted, and on we went. My legs and body became chafed, andit seemed as though I couldn t ride another minute, and when the captaincame along I told him about it, and asked him if I couldn t be relievedsome way. He said the only way was for me to stand on my head and ride,and he winked at a soldier near me, and, do you know, that soldieractually changed ends with himself and stood on his head and hands inthe saddle and rode quite a distance, and the captain said that was theway a cavalry soldier rested himself. Gracious, I wouldn t have triedthat for the world, and I found out afterwards that the soldier whostood on his head formerly belonged with a circus.

  I suppose it was wrong to complain, but the horse they gave me was themeanest horse in the regiment. He would bite and kick the other horses,and they would kick back, and about half the time I was dodging theheels of horses, and a good deal of the time I was wondering if a manwould get any pension if he was wounded that way. It would seem prettytough to go home on a stretcher, as a wounded soldier, and have peoplefind out a horse kicked you. I never had been a man of blood, and didn'tenlist to kill anybody, as I could prove by that recruiting officer,and I didn t want to fight, but from what I could gather from theconversation of the soldiers, fighting and killing people was about allthey thought about. They talked about this one and that one who had beenkilled, and the hundreds of confederates they had all shot or killedwith sabres, until my hair just stood right up. It seems that twelve orfifteen men, more or less, had been shot off the horse I was riding, andone fellow who rode next to me said no man who ever rode that old yellowhorse had escaped alive. This was cheering to me, and I would have givenmy three hundred dollars bounty, and all I could borrow, if I could getout of the army. However, I found out afterwards that the soldier lied.In fact they all lied, and they lied for my benefit. We struck into thewoods, and traveled until after dark, with no road, and the march wasenlivened by remarks of the soldiers near me to the effect that we wouldprobably never get out of the woods alive. They said we were trying tosurround an army of rebels, and cut them off from the main army, and thechances were that when tomorrow's sun rose it would rise on the ghostlycorpses of the whole regiment, with jackals and buzzards eating us.One of the soldiers took something from his pocket, about the size ofa testament, pressed it to his heart, and then kissed it, and I felt asthough I was about to faint, but by the light of a match which anothersoldier had scratched on his pants to light his pipe, I saw that what Isupposed to be a testament, was a box of sardines the soldier had boughtof the sutler. I was just about to die of hunger, exhaustion, and frightat the fearful stories the veterans had been telling, when there wasa shout at the head of the regiment, which was taken up all along theline, my horse run under the limb of a tree and raked me out of thesaddle, and I hung to the limb, my legs hanging down, and