Part 12 (2/2)

THE SOLDIER'S FARE.

A lady said the other day, ”Tell us in your next what the men had to eat out at the front, how they managed to do the cooking, was.h.i.+ng of clothes,”

etc.

Well now, the cooking did not bother us one bit, for we did not have anything to cook. When at Cold Harbor we had not had a vegetable for weeks, and beef only twice, and the flesh was so tainted with wild onions, on which the cattle had fed as they were driven through the country, that it could hardly be eaten. Coffee, hard tack, sugar, with a small allowance of salt pork two or three times during a month was what we had to live on.

Money would not purchase anything because the sutlers were all sent to the rear when Gen. Grant crossed the Rapidan.

Each man carried a little tin pail in which he boiled coffee, holding it over the fire with a stick. A quartet of boys who were making coffee one morning at Cold Harbor had their breakfast spoiled by a piece of a sh.e.l.l dropping into the fire.

LAUNDERING ON THE MARCH.

When we started out on the campaign our well filled knapsacks made us the laughing stock of the veterans of the 2d Corps, but gradually we had lightened our loads until we were down to a blanket, half a shelter tent, possibly a towel and a piece of soap, and some little keepsakes, all of which were twisted up in the blanket and slung over the shoulder. When we came to a stream the men would pull off their s.h.i.+rts, rinse them and if no halt was made would put them back on wet, or else hang them on their guns to dry on the march.

IN ANOTHER MAN'S BOOTS.

After a few weeks our shoes were nearly worn out, and in this connection I must turn aside to tell you how one of my comrades came into possession of a nice pair of boots.

It was the day following a big battle. Our regiment was being moved to the left and in doing so we pa.s.sed several amputating tables where the surgeons had performed their operations on the wounded the night before.

Trenches had been dug at the ends of the tables but were filled to overflowing with hands, arms and legs. The boy espied a nice pair of boots protruding from one pile and, pulling them out, found that some staff officer had amputation performed above the knees. The limbs were drawn from the boots and the boy remarked that they were about his fit; so he exchanged his old shoes for them. I think I should rather have gone barefooted from there to Appomattox than to have done likewise.

CHAPTER XII.

TO PETERSBURG.

On the night of June 12, '64, the withdrawal of the army from the trenches at Cold Harbor began. The picket lines were not disturbed until the army were several hours under way.

Of course there were all sorts of rumors as to where we were bound for.

Many were of the opinion that we were going to White House landing and take transports for Was.h.i.+ngton, but Grant was not that kind of a general.

He had started out to destroy Lee's army and he was going to keep hammering away until they were licked.

The march from Cold Harbor was a hard one. It is a great wonder how men could bear up under the hards.h.i.+p, considering what they had gone through for several weeks.

No halt was made until morning, and after we had made coffee we were hurried on again. Would-be stragglers were forced along at the point of the bayonet.

Before we left Cold Harbor our colonel had given orders that all of the drummer boys who were without drum should be given a gun, but I was excused from carrying one on this march because of an injury caused by falling in a trench while removing wounded from between the lines one night. My father tried in vain to get me a chance to ride in an ambulance or wagon; there were not accommodations enough for the badly wounded.

We arrived at Wilc.o.x's Landing; on the James river the night of the 13th, where a pontoon bridge 2,000 feet long had been laid across the river.

The next morning the army crossed over, and it was a sight to stir the sensibilities of even a weary soldier, to see the thousands marching across the river, all in battle array. The water was dotted with tugs, gunboats and transports loaded with troops, and what made it more impressive to me was the thought that it was a real genuine thing and not a mere show.

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