Recollections of Captain J. J. Kellogg.
The day we left home for the war was an eventful one, and the incidents crowded into that day will never be effaced from my memory.
There was a rally that afternoon, upon which occasion we added some important names to our company roll. Some of the boys who then enlisted in our ranks were prominent in our local society and passed current in the ranks of our best young people. Others came out of their obscurity for the first time on that occasion, and were first known and noticed on the day of their enlistment. I had never intimately known Isaac Haywood, who was afterwards my bunkmate, until that day. I first made the acquaintance of Tom Wilson then, but it would require too much space to name all the comrades I then met. And when the great struggle finally ended, how few of those fair-haired, bright-eyed boys were permitted to return to their old homes. Only a small squadron of lithe-limbed, bronze-faced fellows came back. I loved Ike Haywood on sight. I think I was mainly attracted towards Ike because of his eccentric ways, odd manner of speech and his wonderful good nature. Dame Nature had gotten Ike up without especial regard to good looks, but had braced, propped and generally supported his irregular features with wonderful bones and sinews, all contained in a close knit wrapper of inflexible cord and muscle. Like other unusually powerful men, Ike was usually the very soul of good nature; but when fully aroused and forced on the aggressive he was known and acknowledged to be a holy terror. He had long powerful arms and hands, broad shoulders, thick neck, surmounted by a bullet-shaped head with small ears. He had thin red hair, faded red mustache, was squint-eyed and wore a half smile on his peach blossom face, and his under lip sort of slouched down at one end. He looked funny at all times, but more particularly was he comical when he tried to be in sober earnest.
Tom Wilson, on the contrary, was a handsome boy and a school teacher by profession, but I can't waste time and space in extended personal descriptions of my comrades.
The war excitement had fully aroused the patriotic citizens of our city, and the simple message which the gallant Major Anderson had sent under the first flag of truce to Governor Pickens at Charleston in which he asked, "Why have you fired upon the flag of my country?" found an echo in every loyal heart, and we young men found ourselves asking in fierce, hot whispers, "Why have you fired on the flag of my country?"
The fragment of a company had already been enlisted there and forwarded to camp at Cairo, and that day the citizens had made a supreme effort to fill its ranks at least to the minimum. I can describe but faintly the patriotic turmoil of that day. I only remember that along every highway leading into town came overloaded vehicles in apparently unending procession, bearing their burden of human freight. Flags fluttered from windows, and business fronts were swathed with patriotic bunting. The thundering discharge of an old anvil seemed to jar the universe at each discharge. At stated intervals the brass band also played loudly and harshly from the band stand, and the recruiting squad paraded the streets with fife and drum. A reverend gentleman spoke at the city hall, and as he waxed warm and eloquent, more than a score of men walked up to the desk and signed the enlistment rolls.
Tom and Ike and I subscribed our names on the roll together. When Tom Wilson got up and declared his intention to enlist everybody cheered vociferously. In the little speech he made with trembling voice he reminded his friends that he must surrender to their care his aged and helpless mother during his absence. That she gave her husband and his father to the country in the Mexican war, and he had hoped the privilege would have been accorded him to tenderly care for her in the decline of her life, and that he was the only slender reed she had to lean upon in the world, etc., etc. Ike and I followed Tom, and in turn several others followed us. The crowd yelled and cheered themselves hoarse, and coming forward irrespective of rank or social position, cordially shook our hands and spoke encouraging words to us. When the rally ended we had our full complement of men, and were ordered to be ready to go to the front when our train which had been ordered should arrive that night.
In the evening the citizens gave us a farewell banquet with an interesting program. A glee club sang patriotic songs; a student of the high school declaimed "The Charge of the Light Brigade"; a Mexican war veteran volunteered suggestions as to the best means and methods of avoiding camp diseases in active military service, and as to the best and most approved treatment of severed arteries, fractured limbs and contused heads. An old Mississippi steamboat captain with a glow of ripe cherry mantling his cheeks and nose, spoke at some length recommending whiskey and quinine if obtainable, but whiskey anyhow for river and swamp fevers, and gunpowder and whiskey for weak knees. Though strongly urged, neither Tom Wilson nor myself spoke, but Ike couldn't excuse himself satisfactorily when solicited, and though greatly against his inclination, he was fairly lifted to his feet by his new comrades, and as nearly as I can remember said substantially, as follows:
"Feller citizens, the time has arrove when every galloot that cares a tinker's darn for the Union orter go to the front. I'm goin' fer one. I haint got much book larn'n but I reckon I can soon larn to cock a cannon or lug a musket 'round and in this racket, I b'leve I've got edication 'nuf to know which way to shute. I never have ranked very high in this community, and don't 'spect to get much higher than a brigadier in this war, but I'm goin' to help our fellers drive them rebels from pillar to post, and if necessary drive 'em right into the post, but what we git 'em b'gosh. This supper you women have given us was luscious, and I b'leve I shall taste it clear through the war. I want to bid all the folks and more specially you fellers who could go to the war just as well as not and won't, goodbye. If yer ever tackled in the rear while we're down there in the front, let us know and we'll come up and help you through."
At the conclusion of the banquet exercises, each newly enlisted man hurried away from the hall to arrange for his departure. The families and friends of those living at a distance, were nearly all in town to witness the departure of friends and loved ones. The streets of the town were crowded with excited citizens and visitors. There was the faithful mother with tearful eyes and blanched cheeks clinging to the arm of her soldier boy and bravely struggling to calm the throbbings of her aching heart. The sad eyed father and sorrowing brothers and sisters were standing near, each vainly trying to say encouraging words. A group of half tipsy recruits joked and laughed and sang snatches of patriotic songs with thick and wobbling tongues. Across the street in the shadow of the maples, a boy and girl paced to and fro with slow and measured steps. Maybe afterwards that girl when her hair was frosted with age remembered that last promenade with bitter tears, and again maybe the grim old war kindly gave back to her at the last her boy, lithe-limbed but bronzed by the sulphurous breath of battle.
I saw Tom Wilson hurry home after the banquet, and I knew he had gone to stay with his old mother and assist her in preparing his meagre belongings for departure, and I knew what the agony of that parting would be when the supreme minute of departure actually came. And when I called for him on my way to the depot, I saw him unclasp her loving arms from his neck and lay her almost unconscious form tenderly upon the lounge. He kissed her pale lips, and with a great sob hurried out across the threshold of his humble home. At the gate we met Mrs. Haywood, who, having bade her own son goodbye, was making her way to the Wilson home to try and comfort and be comforted in their common sorrow. We bade Mrs. Haywood a tender farewell, and we promised to watch over her boy through the days of his absence, and she in turn assured Tom that she would care for and protect his dear old mother to the best of her ability. When Mrs. Haywood had passed into the house, Tom turned and watched the window anxiously until he saw again the dear old face with its straggling gray locks framed there, and then with our modest bundles under our arms and hats drawn down over our flushed, sad faces, we went slowly down to the depot. And when almost to the depot, Tom could still see that window with its precious living picture. With streaming eyes she had watched him drifting out of her life. Tom was her only child. He was all she had on earth to cling to and love. For many years his meager earning had supported the home. Ever since the death of his father the boy had been her idol. And now in her old age, not only was she to be deprived of his presence and companionship, but also of the simple little income his labor had produced. And she at last saw her darling drifting away from the shores of her simple life out into the blue depths of the Union army, maybe never to return. She had given the country the father, now the country had taken the only son. The measure of her sacrifices was more than full and almost more than she could bear.
Arriving at the depot, many farewells were said to us by both friends and strangers, as the processions of men, women and children swept along the platform ere the coming of our train. The queenly Miss Frankie Bell, whom we young fellows had always considered with her wealth and beauty too high and mighty to ever deign to notice one of us common fellows, actually sobbed when she pressed our hands, and pledged poor Tom Wilson that his aged mother should be her especial charge during his absence and should want for no comfort which her means could obtain. And when I saw the glad look her assurances had brought out on Tom's face, and knew so well her ability to do all she promised, she all at once became in my estimation the grandest and most angelic woman I had ever beheld. And at last the low rumble of our train was heard in the distance, and the click of the strumming rails warned the anxious waiting friends that the final farewells were now in order and must be said quickly. Ike at the last moment appeared upon the scene, actually staggering under his great load of boxes and bundles. He was sweating and puffing like a porpoise, and said as he came up to us, in his usually droll way. "Got a few things here mother fixed up for us to chaw on the way down to war."
We had to laugh at him. On his shoulder he carried a dry goods box crammed full. From his waist belt dangled an old battered coffee pot and cracked skillet. In his left hand he carried a mammoth cloth satchel wadded so full that ghastly stumps of a roast turkey were protruding from its gaping mouth. To the smiling bystander he said with a comical squint, "The feller who won't provide for his own household is wus than an infidel, b'gosh." It was plain to be seen that Ike had fully anticipated and provided for his most pressing wants during our trip to the front. As the train came wheezing up to the platform, the perfect shower of goodbyes, farewells, Godspeeds and kisses, hugs and hand pressures were hastily enacted, the locomotive tolled mournfully for a brief space, the conductor shouted, "All aboard," the engine began to wheeze and cough, and the train crawled slowly away into the shadows of the night. The citizens cheered the vanishing cars, and we sent back an answering cheer, which hardly rose above the rumble of the receding train. We watched the lights of the old home town until they were finally quenched in the thick midnight gloom, as we were whirled away toward the scene of conflict. We were destined for Cairo, where the other part of our company awaited us. When we had gotten out beyond the limits of the old home town we suffered a reaction, and those who had so recently wept now talked and laughed excitedly. The long faces began to broaden, and the compressed lips curl into smiles. Some one led off with "John Brown's Body, etc., etc." and by the time they got his body mouldering in the grave everybody was singing and they sang hysterically and wildly.
When all had howled themselves hoarse, they raided their well-filled lunch baskets and ate like famished wolves, notwithstanding the fact that every soul of them had been crammed and wadded with food at the banquet that evening. If the mothers and friends of those boys could have seen them in their wild carousal they would have thought them heartless and dissembling wretches but such judgment would have been wholly unjust. This line of action was the result of the relaxation of the overwrought nerves and muscles. Every old veteran of the civil war will recall many occasions where the relaxation of overwrought nerves made him act very foolishly.
The effect of that hour of final leave taking upon the depot platform upon our boys was not wholly unlike that afterwards sustained on the battle line just preparatory to an engagement, when an occasional double leaded message jarred the sensitive membrane of a fellow's ears as it scooted by with a cold hiss or a shell shrieking and seething in its mad flight through the upper air; such occasions not only try men's nerves, but they try men's souls. Finally things settled down and everyone sought repose and some manner of rest. I watched from the car window, the lights flitting past as the train forged steadily ahead. Station after station had been passed while we caroused and slept. For the men were sprawled out through the coaches in every conceivable position, now forgetful in their heavy slumber of both home and friends. Late in the night a sudden jerk of the engine tumbled me off my seat, and this was the first knowledge I had that I had actually been asleep. As I rubbed my sleepy eyes, I saw the outlines of an angular form picking his way towards me, and carefully over-stepping the sleeping forms that lay in his path. He carried a big satchel, and made manifest his mission when sufficiently near me. It was Ike, and he opened his remarks by saying "Thought 't was 'bout time we foddered up." He lounged down beside me.
"I was taking it pretty comp'table back yonder till the durned old engine just yanked me off my roost," he said.
He explored the inside of the old satchel, and brought out a goodly supply of provender. "The boys must have sung themselves to sleep," said I for want of something better to say.
"Yes," drawled Ike, as he sliced off two huge chunks of roast turkey breast. "They kept John Brown's body moulderin' in the grave till it seemed to me the corpse got mighty stale. I tell ye, Jack, we may fetch the rebs down with our muskets," he continued, "an frighten them with wild whoops, but we'll never charm 'em much with our singin', I reckon," he mused as he busied himself spreading our lunch on the opposite seat.
"I guess the boys had to do something extraordinary to overcome the sad sensations the parting engendered," said I.
"Prob'ble," said Ike, as he bolted a ponderous chunk of roast turkey. "I felt 'siderable like yelpin' myself, but couldn't see as 'twould add anything much to the infernal racket, so I jes held my yelp."
I partook freely of the tempting lunch thus offered, and blessed the careful forethought of Mrs. Haywood which had supplied us such a luxury. Eating revived my spirits amazingly, and though not depressed by parting with relatives, as my relatives were all far away, yet I was terribly saddened by the goodbye from my best girl.
"Who knows," said I, "but what the war will soon wind up without much more fighting and bloodshed and we within a few weeks will go rattling back home over this road all safe and sound?"
"I don't know," said Ike, "mor'n you do, but I can't get the igee out of my head that we will yet see some of the dog blastedest fightin' and killin' afore we fellers return home that ever jarred the gable end of this 'ere universe. I tell you, Jack Kellogg," he continued, as he hurriedly imported the lunks, chunks and slabs of provender into his capacious mouth, "ef ther ain't no blood on the moon fore long then my cackalation has jumped a cog. I tell you this here thunderin' fuss of ringing bells, blowin' whistles, drummin' and fifin' and shootin' great guns and husselin' a lot of us fellers off down here atween two days, aint none of Mrs. Winslow's soothin' syrup, by a gol durned sight. It all means bloody noses an' black eyes, I tell ye, and there'll be vacant cheers 'nuff t' seat a concert hall fore it' all done with, I tell ye."
This was a long speech for Ike to make, but he made it in such an earnest manner with such impressive gestures and vigorous delivery that I was greatly impressed with the belief that his statements were probably true.
At many of the stations through which our train passed straggling soldiers were waiting to go to their commands, and boarded our train. And under the dim light of the station lamp we saw the weeping mother hold her soldier boy close to her aching heart as they kissed the last long, good-bye kiss. Those affecting scenes so often re-enacted before us contributed in no small degree to intensify the solemnity of that hour. At one station standing on the depot platform was an ominous looking box, and in the few minutes we were delayed there we learned from an old gentleman that it contained the remains of his boy which he was taking back to mother and the old northern home for burial. His soldier boy had been killed in a skirmish with the rebels down in Missouri.
On the evening of the third day from home the train which bore our detachment pulled slowly into Cairo. In every direction as far as eye could discern, we saw an unbroken blaze of camp fires. An ear-splitting din of strange and unusual sounds filled the air. Mule drivers were haranguing their teams in blasphemous eloquence, as the poor creatures floundered through the bottomless roads, and liberally applied the merciless lash to the backs of those poor patient, overloaded creatures. The roll and beat of drums blended and echoed and swelled, filling the night with weird hoarse thunder. Distant headquarter bands were concerting noisily, and newly arrived commands went splashing along the muddy highways to some destination beyond the line of our vision. Staff officers and orderlies galloped their smoking steeds hither and yonder at wonderful speed. Black ambulances toiled slowly along the crowded tracks with their freight of the sick and suffering. Steamboats ablaze with signal lights coughed, whistled and wheezed out on the dark bosom of the Mississippi, while the volley of brays from the mule corral smote our ears like the concluding blasts of the very last trumpet.
"The hull United States seems to be goin' to roost down here," observed Ike as he leaned out of one of the car windows and observed the situation.
"Beats a camp meeting," chipped in somebody else.
"Don't seem to be much discipline in this end of the army," said another.
"I reckon they'll have to cheese this racket 'fore they catch any fish," another remarked.
And all these and many other comical remarks were made by our boys, as they contemplated the new situation from the cars and patiently awaited orders to go to camp.
It was indeed a great relief to us when an orderly bestriding a jaded, mud-bespattered horse finally rode up and informed us that he would take us to camp. Accordingly we disembarked, fell into line and set out for our campground.
After a deep wading, tiresome zigzagging along miserable roads, devious and uncertain paths and blind trails, across sloppy and splashy summer-fallows, for what seemed an interminable distance, we at last reached camp.
In anticipation of our coming, the camp boys had prepared us a regulation army supper consisting mainly of beans, bacon, rice and hard tack, with the usual black coffee accompaniment. Notwithstanding the rude coarse rations, the hungry recruits laid to and ate with a wonderful relish and offered no excuses. To be sure, as the supper progressed, many humorous observations were made by the boys, touching the kinds and quality of Uncle Sam's menu and the manner of its service. Notwithstanding the coarse rations offered and the fact that every mother's son of them had been continually gormandizing ever since we left home, each did ample justice to his first army supper. Haywood discovered the corpse of a lightning bug embalmed in his plate of beans, and another equally as observing and curious fished the remains of an unknown beetle out of his rice. A detachment of daddy long legs charged to and fro across the bacon platter, and divers bugs and insects swarmed around the sputtering candles. One recruit soaked his hard tack in his coffee until it bloated up like a toad, and Ike, while wrestling with a piece of swine belly, allowed he probably "wasn't the first feller that had had holt of that."
"Ike, how do you like the grub?" asked Tom, when he had lounged down beside a stump, after eating.
"Better'n I 'spected," said Ike, "Haint got used to them tacks yet, but the pepper'n salt was passable."
Then we stowed away our luggage, finding places for our traps and boxes, and selecting sleeping places. Observing that two blankets could be utilized by two persons bunking together better than one blanket could serve one lone person, they paired off and mated up like spring geese. As might naturally be supposed, Ike and I bunked together. We spread our blankets at the roots of a tree where Haywood allowed we would be a little above high-water mark, and by the time the numerous regimental bands and bugles were sounding tattoo, we were well tucked away for the night, and though this was an entirely new experience to us, we were only too glad to stretch ourselves out in the open air between two coarse army blankets. As we pulled the drapery of our couch about us, Ike got a sniff of carbolic acid upon our blankets and asked me if I "catched onto the deathly fragrance of our bed clothes." I told him I noticed a peculiar smell.
"Smells like a woodpecker's nest," continued Ike. "Guess they've been packing limberger cheese 'r suthin' in 'em.
"No," said I, "but I suppose the blankets have been treated with some preparations of disinfection."
"Took us fer a lot of lepers, I spose," said Ike.
"Hardly that," I replied, but I explained to him that it was my understanding that all army blankets were perfumed in this way for protection against moths and perhaps for sanitary reasons.
"Prob'ble," Ike murmured drowsily, and his next breath was a hoarse snore.
I was very tired, but could not at once go to sleep, and for some time I remained awake amid my strange surroundings and looked out into the night and listened to the wild weird noises of the camp. Above me, through the tangle of twigs and vines appeared the starlit sky; the campfires shone on either hand far out into the night, and away over the fields and forests came the good night bugle calls, the soldier's lullaby, softly saying "go-to-sleep, go-to-sleep, go-to-sleep, soldier, sleep, go-to-sleep." From the mule corral came volley upon volley of subdued, tongue-tied braying, and the old steamboat engines coughed down at the river landing. Those strange sounds at last sent me also to dreamland, but I believe my last sleepy thoughts were tapping at the window of my old northern home.
I have already related in this article more than one day's experience in my war life, unlike what I intended to do at the onset, but all is so closely linked together that I felt I must add the first night in camp to the article to make it complete, and so I have added more.
The reveille on the succeeding morning brought us tired fellows out all too soon. It seemed that scarcely ten minutes had elapsed since retiring, when the wild blasts of bugles, jarring drums and screaming of fifes aroused us from slumber. Ike rolled up onto his elbow and remarked to me, "Them fellers out there are jovial cusses, aint they, pounded their drums and things all times of the night." I told him I guessed this was one of the calls.
"Might have waited 'till we got fixed up a little fore they called," said Ike, sitting up on the blanket. "I supposed we come to stay all night," with a questioning squint at me.
"No," I told him, "this is a different kind of a call. The thundering they gave us last night just as we went to bed was what they call tattoo, and meant to go to bed. The few whacks of the drum and snorts of the bugle afterwards meant to put out the lights, and this racket means to fall in for roll call."
"Wal, I swow," said Ike, pulling on one of his boots. "They treat us like a lot of kids, don't they? But I say, you don't pretend to imagine if a feller should take a cramp 'r some other pain in the night, he couldn't strike up a light to find his pills nor nothin', do ye?"
I told him I thought not, because in war times, if every soldier was allowed to fire up in the night at will the enemy could shoot us just as well as in the day time.
"B'gosh, there's sense in that," replied Ike, as we fell in for roll call.
That day we elected our officers.
