Chapter 63

CHAPTER LXIII

As old Sephes made his appearance before the Colonel, he said:

“Kolonel Pardee, I no kill a kalf.”

The  guard however contradicted his story and the Colonel ordered him to be bucked and gagged.  And whenever afterwards the boys desired to see a mad Dutchman, all they had to do was to wait until Sephes was about, then place their hands up to their mouths and “bah” like a calf, this never failed to have the desired effect.

Towards evening we advanced about one-fourth of a mile, taking position upon a ridge, a branch of Raccoon Mountain.  From this elevated position we had an admirable view of the Wauhatchie Valley, as well as of the rebel position on Lookout Mountain and beyond, while at the same time a ­glimpse of the Union cantonments in the vicinity of Chattanooga was also discernible, affording us some slight idea of the strength of the Union Army.

Night soon threw her sable curtains around us, and all that was to be seen were the numberless camp fires which dotted the hills and the valleys as far as the eye could scan.

The following day was Sabbath, as well as the 1^st of the month, being our muster day, and we were soon busily engaged in preparing our arms and accouterments for inspection and which owing to the heavy rains, was no easy task our guns being thickly coated with rust.  However by dint of scraping, scouring and burnishing, by noon we were prepared for muster.

At two o’clock, we were drawn up in regimental line and by three o’clock we were through, and were marched to our quarters with orders to com­mence fortifying our position immediately.  Fortune appeared to have favored us for once, immediately to the right of our company, and in line of the proposed works, stood a noble old oak, Asa B. Churchill and Daniel Ehrhart at once proceeded to fell it,  and by a little skill, well known to the backwoodsman, they threw its trunk along the entire length of our company and after trimming off the branches and filling in a little ground we soon had excellent breast-works completed, and by dusk the entire line was completed and our color sergeant placed the flag upon the works and unfurled it, allowing it to wave a defiance to the hosts of treason and rebellion.

On the following day we put up quarters and made all necessary arrangements to make ourselves as easy as possible.  In an astonishingly short time we had first class summer quar­ters up, and our camp presented quite a pleasant and attractive appearance.  The rebels had observed our activity and noticing that we had put up a line of works, sent us their compliments in the shape of a number of 31 pound shells, one of which went screeching over our heads and exploded near Division head-quarters, but the rest all fell short and finding that they were only uselessly wasting ammunition they soon stopped shelling us to our great delight.

While laying in this line, Sherman’s veterans passed us on their way to the front, and their appearance was so vastly different from any soldiers that we had yet seen that we couldn’t fail to notice it, the majority of them were tall men with bushy hair and whiskers indicative of the Western type of manhood, wearing large black hats, with an eagle feather, giving them the ap­pearance of full fledged bandits.  No doubt our men, who wore the fatigue cap, with short hair and closely cropped whiskers and being small in stat­ue, appeared just as oddly to these heroes of Vicksburg, and it is no wonder that they styled us the “bread and butter” soldiers of the “paper-collar” Brigade.

In passing our command they wo’d occasionally halt, and then the most laughable conversation would take place, generally in language similar to the following.

Sherman’s Veteran—“Do you draw your paper collars from the Government?”

Hooker’s Boy—“Certainly. why don’t your men get them issued to ‘em in this army? “

Sherman’s V—“No, we are mighty glad when we get hard-tack and salt-horse enough.”

Hookerite—“Yon don’t say, but certainly you get pie, butter and bread issued to you?”

Shermanite—“Do you hear that Joe, this here paper collar chap wants to know whether we don’t draw butter, pies and bread?”

Joe—“By gol, he’ll find out, guess he’ll get pies with Bragg shortening in em, and if they are hard to digest they wont give ’em the dyspepsia.”

By this time the bugle would sound the forward and the Veterans would shoulder their knapsacks, evidently pitying us whilst the men who fought under the gallant Hooker would enjoy a good hearty laugh at the credulity of the long-haired rangers.

It was owing to little incidents like the one just narrated that the soldiers of the south-west learned to look upon the soldiers from the brave old Army of the Potomac, as being their inferiors in point of bravery and endurance, a conclusion which the facts in the case did not warrant.  And in a short time wonderful stories were related at the camp-fires of the Western Army as to what the soldiers of the Army of the Potomac did, and did not draw with their rations and it was a long time before they made the discovery that they had been duped by some wags of Hooker’s command.

The time we spent in Wauhatchie Valley will never be forgotten, we almost literally starved, being reduced to less than quarter rations.  The poor mules actually starved by the dozens.  A team of six mules were given six ears of corn at a feed, twice, and often only once a day, whilst a guard was placed over them to prevent the hungry men from stealing their scanty feed.  The mules became so reduced that six of them could scarcely draw the empty wagons over the corduroy.  One could almost walk a mile on dead mules, between our camp and the river landing.  The poor beasts would fall down exhausted, and when a mule once gives up nothing can be done with it, the driver would take an axe and brain it and let him lay where he fell or at most not doing more than rolling the carcass to the side of the road to become a prey to the carrion crow and buzzard.

In the course of the week the men became as greatly reduced as the teams, we were scarcely able to work ourselves up and down the hill for water, whilst at the same time our duty was severe, large details for fatigue duty every third day, and  not infrequently were we compelled to go to labor without a morsel of food for breakfast, even our supply of coffee, the soldiers solace, being run out, with no prospect of getting anything for the day.  It was at times like these that we wished for the crumbs that fell from the tables of our friends at home.

It was in the midst of this starvation, that Sergeant Eby had a large boil on his face, he went to Dr. McClure to have it lanced.  The Doctor said it was not ripe, he ought to put on a bread and milk poultice.  Eby came away growling, saying:

“He knows that we ain’t got hardtack to eat, I wonder where in the d—l he thinks I am to get bread and milk poultice?”  This was an enigma we could not answer and consequently gave it up with the request that he should ask us an easier question.

Our condition at this time was rather forcibly illustrated by Jack Black, who was seated on a rail pile, with both hands clasped over his knees, and slowly rocking himself backward and forwards muttering:

“No money!—no grub,—no tobacco,—no Nothing! Gal darn it.”

And Jack’s sentiments were generally shared by one and all.