CHAPTER
VII
Among the many characters which served to fill up the
membership of Company G, we will not forget Sergeant George Townsend. George was a native of Maine, he had been a
soldier in the 8th Massachusetts, had been in the riot in Baltimore on the 19th
of April, and participated in the battle of Bull Run, had followed the sea for
a number of years, was always ready for a fight or a frolic, and as may well be
imagined when under the influence of “grog” which was pretty much all the time,
he was rather a privileged character and was allowed to do pretty much as he
pleased.
One morning George was Sergeant of the guard, with
head-quarters at the Chestnut
Street Hospital 10 o’clock was
sailing under a pretty heavy head of “steam,” and while promenading one of the
streets he fell in with Jack Williams, a notorious bad negro and a very giant
in strength. Just how the affair
commenced will never be exactly known, but the result was a fight between the
two. The first intimation that we had of
the affair was the announcement made by “Black Dick,” the half-witted colored
lad, who for so many years run in front of the trains on the N. C. Railway at
Harrisburg, and who but a few years ago met his death by being run over by a
locomotive, came up to the Chestnut Street Hospital, where he gave the alarm
saying, that the “sojers and de kullud men are fitin,” and that we had better
hurry up or they would kill “de sojers.”
The guard hastened to the scene of the conflict, and as soon as they
left, all the inmates of the hospital who were able to move, hastened to assist
the soldiers. When we arrived at the
place where the fighting was going on, we found Serg’t Townsend under the
darkey, bleeding from a stab in the mouth, and surrounded by a large number of
negroes, the Serg’t was pretty well played out.
Ed. Fougat a member of Co. “A,” 127th
P. V. I., threw a stone which bare1y missed the darkey’s head, and then seizing
a club made for the darkey. Williams
jumped up and run into a negro shanty, into which he was followed and caught up
on the loft. A “Buck-tail” Sergeant had
secured a hatchet and with it struck the darkey several strokes on the head
sufficient to fell an ox, and which only had the effect of making him shake his
woolly cranium. The boys were determined
to finish him, and finding that they had a tough customer on hand, U. P. Hafley
attempted to wrench the musket out of the hands of Jacob Leider, who had been
on guard at the Third St. entrance at the time the alarm was brought to the
hospital, and who had taken his gun along.
Leider held on to the gun, and as it had a bayonet attached it was a
fortunate thing for the negro as well all concerned that Hafley did not get the
gun. The darkey finally raised himself
from the floor with two or three men clinging to him. He was at last thrown down head foremost, and
strange to say escaped without injury. A
number or women had gathered in the shanty, and their screams were frightful in
the extreme. At last the patrol arrived
on the ground, and the darkey was arrested and taken to jail.
Court being in session, the following day the darkey
was arraigned, indicted upon the charge of assault and battery with intent to
kill. He was tried, found guilty and
sentenced to the Eastern Penitentiary for three years and six months. We have always felt as though the sentence
was rather an imposition upon justice.
Jos. C. McAlarney, Esq., formerly of this place defended Serg’t
Townsend.
The Company made White Hall Saloon its Head-quarters
and almost any hour of the day, one or the other of the boys were to be met in
the institution.
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