CHAPTER
VI
EXCITEMENT IN CAMP
About this time a tragedy was enacted in the city
which occasioned great excitement in Camp.
It will be remembered by our readers that a little six year old daughter
of Mr. E. S. German the Bookseller, was abducted from her home, and after
having been brutally ravished, was found dead in a strip of woods near the
cemetery, and it was reported that the child had been seen in company with a
man dressed in the uniform of a soldier.
As soon as the intelligence was received the guard around the camp was
trebeled every precaution was taken to prevent the escape of the miscreant if
he was in the camp.
In the afternoon the troops, who by this time had been
increased to several thousand, were drawn up in line in “open order”, and two
lades who had seen the man, together with the police and military officers,
passed through the ranks. At one time
the women halted in front of a man from the Westmoreland company and thought he
was the man. No sooner had the party
halted than the greatest excitement ensued.
A large number of the men broke ranks and rushed towards the suspected
man, but the officers of the company were able to give a satisfactory account
of the mans whereabouts, as he had not been out of camp on the day the tradgedy
had been committed. Order was restored
ad the parties continued on their way but were unable to discover the fied, for
the very best reason in the world as has since been discovered, he was not in
the camp at the time. Had he been
discovered he certainly would have been lynched on the spot.
After the excitement had passed away the guards were
reduced to their usual number, and everything again passed in the even tenor of
its way.
We had now been in camp about two months and were fast
becoming veteran (?) soldiers. Our
evenings in the camp were spent in various ways, the leading attraction was the
introduction of the “Kentucky Giant”
which was done by taking a light man, who would seat himself on the
shoulders of a tall strong man, after which a blanket was placed over the
shoulders of the man on the top and then allow the ends to hang down, this
would cause the deception to be complete, representing a man seven or eight
feet tall.
Tossing in the blanket was also one of the principal
evening sports, and when eight strong men would take hold of a blanket, and
placing a man in it, they would be able to toss him ten or twelve feet into the
air; this like the fable of the boys and the frogs, “was fun for the tossers
but proved to be the next thing to death , to the one being tossed.”
At this time the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Cavalry
was lying in camp, they afforded our boys considerable sport, as they were
learning their horses to jump over a rail fence. A number of the men knew nothing at all about
riding, whilst many of the horses knew nothing about jumping, and more than one
laughable circumstance was the result. Whenever any of the men made an unusual
awkward appearance, he was greeted with cheers, which usually had the effect of
getting the cavalry officers on their ears, and the result would be that we
would be driven away.
About one of the first mishaps that befell any of the
company boys, was the arrest of Stephen Templin and the placing of him in the
guard-house for several hours. One of
the sporting ladies of the city happened to find her way into Camp whilst
intoxicated, and with her glib tongue attacked all who came within her
reach. Her ribald jests were cheered by
the large crowd of soldiers by whom she was surrounded. About the time that the occurrence was at its
height, a number of the boys had secured camp kettles and mess pans and were
proceeding to drum her out of Camp, Captain Tarbutton arrived upon time scene
and seeing that our Steve was enjoying the affair immensely, had him placed in
the guard-house, to appease the dignity of outraged military discipline.
Our officers at once took steps to have him released,
and when the matter was explained to Captain Tarbutton, he ordered Templin to
be released. We welcomed him back to the company with three cheers and a tiger.
On the 15th of November, Rev. O. O. Hall, who had gone
along with the company to Harrisburg, with the intention of becoming the
Chaplain of the regiment to which the company would become attached, took sick
with small-pox, was sent home and died on the 30th of the same month. He was buried at night in the Evangelic Lutheran
Cemetery
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