THE PARSON AND THE GRAVY.
A continuous diet of salt bacon had made the boys ravenous for fresh meat and as war has no tendency to strengthen respect for property rights where a soldier's appetite is involved, they were not, as a rule, very scrupulous as to the methods adopted to procure a supply. The means most in use at the date referred to were known in camp parlance as "flip ups." As no encyclopedia of my acquaintance describes this mechanical contrivance and its specifications have never encumbered the records of the patent office, it may not be amiss to say that it consisted of a bent sapling, a slip noose with a trigger attachment and a bait of corn. The unsuspecting porker, tempted by the bait, sprang the trigger and the sapling freed from its confinement, sought to resume its normal position, while the shote caught in the noose and partially suspended in the air gave noisy notice that the game was up.
On one occasion the catch, by right of discovery or otherwise, fell to a mess, of which Parson H——, a minister of the Presbyterian persuasion, was a member. When dinner was served that day a dish of smoking pork chops was passed to the Parson, but he declined with the remark that his conscience did not allow him to eat stolen meat. As the meal progressed the fragrant odor from the dish struck his olfactories with increasingly tempting force and he finally passed up his tin plate and said: "I'll take a little of the gravy if you please." He had made a brave fight for principle and his final compromise was probably due to the fact that Paul's vow, "If meat make my brother to offend I will eat no flesh while the world standth," failed to include gravy in its inhibition. He may have been further influenced by the reflection that his refusal to indulge could not possibly restore the porker to life again. As Jim Wilson said,
"'Twas Greece (grease), but living Greece no more."
This incident recalls the fact that Jim and the writer had on this subject the same scruples as the Parson, and in order to place ourselves on the line of strongest resistance we entered into an agreement with each other binding ourselves to total abstinence from all meat of questionable origin until mutually released from the obligation. The compact was religiously observed until Hood's campaign in Tennessee in the winter of '64. Transportation was scarce and rations were scarcer. On one occasion two ears of corn were issued to each soldier. Some wag in the company, probably Elmore Dunbar, seeing that horse rations were being furnished sang out, "come and get your fodder." On another occasion beef was issued but no bread. We had neither lard to fry nor salt to season, but our digestive apparatus was not then fastidious as to condiments. It was unimportant whether it was taken "cum grano salis" or without, so the void was filled.
A fire was built of dried limbs from a brush pile and the beef placed in a shallow frying pan to stew, Frank Stone being the chef de cuisine. The mess sat around with anxious faces and whetted appetites. Finally one of them, in shifting his position, struck the end of a limb on which the pan was resting and dumped the whole business into the dirt and ashes. The catastrophe placed us rather than the beef in a stew and we went to bed supperless.
Under such conditions it is, perhaps, but natural that the case should be re-opened, a new trial granted and a verdict rendered to follow Paul's other injunction, "Whatsoever is set before you, eat, asking no questions for conscience sake."
I can not recall positively that either of us ever indulged even as to gravy, but I think I can say that neither of us was particepts criminis in the act of impressment. If guilty, we were only accessories after the fact.