CHAPTER I.

Parentage—Early discipline—Childhood incidents—Subsequent occupations—Driven from Mississippi—Works on rebel fortifications—Escape to Illinois—Enlists as a soldier—Supposed to have deserted—How he got his name—Examination by the Surgeon—Roster of the Regiment.

I was born in the town of Copley, in what is now known as Summit County, Ohio, on the 17th day of June, 1823, and at the time that I entered the army I was thirty-nine years of age. My father's name was Alfred Ruggles. At the time of his death he was living with his second wife. His family numbered twelve sons and seven daughters. I am the youngest of seven children by my father's second wife.

My father was a blacksmith by trade, and all of his sons, except myself, were learned the trade, under his personal instruction. Lorenzo Ruggles, my father's second son by his first wife, after having finished his trade, was sent to college and educated. He is the General Ruggles of the Confederate army.

When I was ten years of age my father died, leaving a large farm disposed of by a will. The children went to law, and spent the entire property in breaking the will and settling the estate. In consequence of that I was thrown upon my own labor for my support at a very early age.

My father was an old-fashioned strict disciplinarian; in the government of his family "he ruled with an iron hand." His government was not only rigid but chilling. The deviation of a hair from the paternal command was usually followed by a whipping, and sometimes one was administered without proper investigation.

People often ask me, "What is the essential qualification of a good spy?" My answer is, "It requires an accomplished liar." I mean by that, a man that can successfully practice deception. I do not mean by that that a man must be an habitual liar. There is nothing that I despise more than a man whose word can not be relied upon. Whether deception, as I have practiced it in the discharge of my duty as a spy, is a moral wrong, I shall not here attempt to argue. Of this much I am sure: it has many times saved my life, and perhaps the lives of thousands of others, besides saving immense sums of money to the Government.

Whatever of the art of deception I possess has been somewhat shaped by the chilling discipline administered to me by my father. An incident or two from my early life will serve to show what that discipline was, and what effect it may have had in my after career.

In my childhood days I was noted as "a mischievous boy." I suppose that means that I was constantly devising or hunting some sort of diversion. My father usually kept wrought nails of his own manufacture to sell to his customers. These I used to get and drive into the fence, firewood, shade-trees, or any thing else that came in my way. This my father had forbidden me to do, but sometimes the impulse of the moment would cause me to break over, and as often I would be whipped for my disobedience.

One day, as my father was going away from home he charged me particularly not to go into the shop during his absence. While he was gone I became so much interested in play that I never thought of going to the shop. Near the close of the day my father returned, and it so happened that he needed a few wrought nails to use the first thing after his arrival. On going to the shop after some, he found his nail-box empty. His last impression, on leaving, had been that I would get them, and now his first impression was that I had got them. Consequently, I was immediately summoned to give an account of them.

"My son, what made you go into the shop during my absence?" inquired my father.

"Father, I did not go into the shop," I replied.

"Somebody has been there and carried off my nails. Nobody else was here but you; you must be the one that got them."

"I did not get them, father; neither did I go to the shop. I certainly did not."

My father knew that I had been in the habit of getting them, and, though he had never known me to tell him a willful lie, nevertheless, he thought that I had carried off his nails. I had not only disobeyed, but had lied about it. It was too aggravated an offense to let pass without punishment. Taking a hickory gun-wiper that stood in a corner of the shop, he gave me a severe whipping, and then said, "Lorain, what did you do with the nails?" Again I denied getting them, and again he whipped me, which was repeated several times. At length "forbearance ceased to be a virtue"—at least, my poor back felt so—and I said to him, "Father, if you won't whip me any more, I'll tell you what I did with them."

"Well, what did you do with them?"

"I drove them into the grind-stone block."

After having talked to me about the wickedness of telling a lie, he sent me into the house, little thinking that he had been forcing me to tell one.

The next morning, as I was standing by, a customer entered the shop for some nails. He had called the day before, and finding nobody present, and needing them for immediate use, took all that he could find, weighed them, and returned home. "There, father," said I, "I told you that I did not get your nails!" His heart smote him for the whipping that he had given me, and he wept like a child. The incident, however, had its effect, and not many days passed until I was again placed on trial.

Myself and sister Electa attended the district school. Our nearest neighbor, Mr. Moss, had a daughter about the age of my sister, who used to attend the same school; her name was Cordelia. She was a very proud-spirited girl, and improved every opportunity to show off. Her mother bought her a new work-pocket; this she would frequently display, and say to my sister, in a proud, haughty way, "You haint got no new work-pocket bought out of the store." It displeased me considerably to have her assume to be any better than my sister; so I resolved to stop it at the first opportunity.

One day, as we were returning from school we espied a squirrel that had taken refuge in a small tree by the roadside. Cordelia laid her work-pocket at the roots of the tree, and she and my sister mounted the fence, and commenced to climb the tree to catch it. Discovering the work-pocket, I picked it up unperceived, and started on. Coming to a bank of loose earth, where a tree had been recently uprooted by the wind, I buried it, and then returned toward my companions and called to them to come along. The girls had started to overtake me, when Cordelia, missing her work-pocket, returned to get it. She searched for it a long time, but without success. Failing to find it, she accused me of getting it, which I stoutly denied. At last, complaint was made to my father. Both of the girls had seen it lying near the tree, but neither of them had seen me have it. My father asked me what I had done with it; but I denied having seen it. "You must have taken it," said the old man, "for nobody else was there that could have taken it."

"I must have got the nails too," I replied. This outflanked him; he remembered having whipped me once wrongfully, and feared a repetition of the same thing. The result was I evaded punishment, and my father never found out what I had done with the work-pocket.

The next summer, after my father's death, I hired out on board of one of the packet-boats running on the Ohio Canal, as cabin-boy. I continued for three summers to follow the canal in that capacity, and for four summers following I was a canal driver. The last three seasons I drove the same team, and at the end of the third season I received from the Transportation Company a prize of ten dollars for having kept my team in the best order.

The winter following, my seventh season on the canal, I went down the Mississippi River to Arkansas, and spent the season chopping steamboat wood. While thus employed on Island Twenty-eight, I had the fortune to kill a very large black bear, which I sold to a steamboat captain for what seemed to me at that time a great price. The incident turned my attention to trapping and bear-hunting. I spent several successive winters in hunting and trapping in the wilds of Arkansas. In the winter of 1851 and 1852 I was employed in hunting wild hogs in the Yazoo bottoms for a man in Vicksburg, Miss. I was thus engaged at the same time that the fourteen French hunters were killed by wild hogs in the Yazoo bottoms. I spent one year as an overseer for Mr. James Ford, of Memphis, Tenn., on the French palace plantation, near the fort of Island No. 60. My summers were usually spent on the Mississippi and its tributaries. In the summer of 1859 I went to Pike's Peak, and thence to Salt Lake. The winter of 1860 and 1861 I was at work on White River, Ark., and had several hands at work with me, filling a contract for shingles for a man by the name of Hanner, in Bolivar County, Mississippi.

In the spring, I commenced to deliver the shingles, but Mr. Hanner refused to receive them, on the ground that the country was engaged in war. His refusal to receive them provoked me, and I said to him, "All you need is a good thrashing, and then you'll behave yourself and not talk so." That enraged him, and he turned and left me, muttering vengeance as he went. An hour later he returned with a party of men, threatening to hang me if he should catch me, but I was not to be found. Mr. Hanner did not accuse me of being an abolitionist or a Northern man. He was soon after made Colonel of the 17th Mississippi Zouaves. Knowing that my life was in danger there, I made my way to Memphis, Tenn.

At Memphis, Tenn., I found the secession element decidedly too hot for me. I saw no other way for me to do but "aid and comfort" the secession movement or leave the country.

Lying at the levee was a steamboat just getting up steam, destined, it was said, for St. Louis, Mo. She had on board a cargo of picks, spades, wheelbarrows, and whisky. I took passage in her and went to Columbus, Ky., and there she stopped and commenced to discharge her cargo. I soon learned that she was going no further.

At that place I came across Mr. James Ford, for whom I had been an overseer on the French palace plantation. He gave me a warm greeting, and said that he was glad that I had come. He was at that time in command of the post, and engaged in fortifying the place. He persuaded me to take charge of a gang of negroes and work on the forts, which I did, to kill all suspicion until an opportunity occurred for me to escape. When I had been there engaged for five days, the steamboat Amelia came up the river and landed, on her way to Cairo, Ill. I happened to know the pilot, and told him that I was in a tight place, and by his assistance I secreted myself on board the boat and went to Cairo. It was the last steamer that was allowed to pass by Columbus, Ky., until the place was captured by the Federal army.

From Cairo I went to Toledo, O. Recruiting for the Federal army was going on rapidly all over the North. In the fall of 1861 I visited the principal cities in Ohio, in search of a company of sharp-shooters, in which to enlist. I found several such organizations, but none of them were officered by men that suited me. In the month of December, while at Columbus, Ohio, I met Lieutenant Downs, of the 20th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, with a squad of ten men, on his way to Trumbull County to recruit. Liking his appearance and that of his men, I enlisted, on condition that he would furnish me with an Enfield rifle.

From Columbus we took the first train of cars to Cleveland; it was late in the evening when we arrived. Passing a boot and shoe store that was yet open, I obtained leave of the Lieutenant to stop and purchase a pair of boots before going to our place of lodging. The Lieutenant and party did not stop, but continued on to the hotel where we were to stop. After having purchased a pair of boots, I got into an interesting conversation with the shop-keeper, and remained somewhat longer than was necessary. I had been intrusted to the care of Corporal Grinnell by the Lieutenant, and my long absence had created a suspicion in the mind of the Corporal that I had deserted. He had also heard Lieutenant Bostwick, while in Columbus, advise Lieutenant Downs not to enlist me, for fear I would run away. At last he started out with three men in search of me, and found me still at the shop. I have since had many a joke with Lieutenant Bostwick and Corporal Grinnell about their suspecting that I would desert. They have been among my warmest friends in the army. The next morning, at eleven o'clock, we reached Warren. At that place the party dispersed to their homes, and I was furnished boarding at the Eagle House, where I remained for ten days.

On Monday, January 8, 1862, we met to go to the regiment, then at Camp King, near Covington, Ky. The squad had increased by accession of recruits to twenty men. Our journey passed off pleasantly, and in two days' time we reached our regiment. The party that went home with the Lieutenant had carried their knapsacks with them; not knowing at that time the name for them, I asked the Lieutenant if he had a "Bunker Hill" for me to wear on my back. From that I received the name of "Bunker," and have been more generally known by that name in the army than any other.

The next morning after our arrival in camp, we were marched over to the Surgeon's quarters for examination. From a list of names that the Lieutenant had handed him, the Surgeon called "Lorain Ruggles!"

"Here I am, Doctor," I answered; "what do you want of me?"

"I want to examine you, and see if you are sound."

"Oh, that's it, is it. You need not be to that trouble, I'm sound enough."

"Well, but I must see whether you are sound or not; hold out your hands; work your fingers; touch your hands over your head."

Going through the motions, I added, "Oh, I tell you that I am all right."

"Are you ruptured," he continued.

"Ruptured! what is that?"

"Are you bursted?"

"No, I ain't quite busted yet; I've a couple of dollars left."

"You don't understand me, Mr. Ruggles," continued the surgeon, placing his hands on my abdomen. "Are your bowels all right?"

"Oh, I understand you now! They are a little thin; the rations don't relish well yet."

The doctor succeeded at last in making me understand, and having finished his examination, we were accepted as a soldier in the United States army.

Like all other recruits, as soon as mustered in I was placed under drill. To me the "steps" and "facings," "times" and "motions," were perfectly incomprehensible. I formed a dislike to them that I could never get over. I was expert in the forest at handling my piece, and I did not see why the same times and motions that would kill a bear would not kill a "reb."

The following is a list of the commissioned officers that were in the 20th Ohio Volunteer Infantry at the time that I entered it:

Charles Whittlesy, Colonel,
M. F. Force, Lt. Colonel,
J. N. McElroy, Major,
E. L. Hill, Surgeon,
J. G. Purple, Asst. Surgeon,
E. N. Owen, Adjutant,
P. M. Hitchcock, Qr.-Master,
James Knapp, Chaplain.

Elisha Hiatt,CaptainCo. A.W. W. Updegraff,CaptainCo. F.
William Rogers,1st Lt.Co. A.D. R. Hume,1st Lt.Co. F.
L. N. Ayres,2d Lt.Co. A.W. D. Neal,2d Lt.Co. F.
John C. Fry,CaptainCo. B.J. N. Cassel,CaptainCo. G.
A. J. Edwards,1st Lt.Co. B.G. L. Melick,1st Lt.Co. G.
R. M. Colby,2d Lt.Co. B.Nathan Bostwick,2d Lt.Co. G.
J. M. McCoy,CaptainCo. C.James Powers,CaptainCo. H.
Z. P. Atkins,1st Lt.Co. C.E. C. Downs,1st Lt.Co. H.
Conrad Garris,2d Lt.Co. C.H. M. Davis,2d Lt.Co. H.
C. H. McElroy,CaptainCo. D.F. M. Shaklee,CaptainCo. L.
V. T. Hills,1st Lt.Co. D.Harrison Wilson,1st Lt.Co. L.
Henry Sherman,2d Lt.Co. D.W. L. Waddell,2d Lt.Co. L.
George Rogers,CaptainCo. E.Abraham Kaga,CaptainCo. K.
B. A. F. Greer,1st Lt.Co. E.David Rhinehart,lst Lt.Co. K.
W. H. Jacobs,2d Lt.Co. E.Seneca Hale,2d Lt.Co. K.