The darkey brought Pete another note during the day and it simply said, “I will meet you in the grove. J. Y.”
Of course all of us boys went over with Pete and the Marylander brought three companions.
The two principals stripped to the waist and I confess I was fearful of the result when I saw how much larger Pete’s antagonist was than he.
When they got the word Yardsley made a spring at Pete who dropped his head and butted the big fellow below the wind and slid him over his back. He got up and came furiously at our Pete again. But he knew a lot of Bowery tricks and quick as a flash stepped aside, caught him around the neck, whirled him around and threw him, slapped his face smartly and then let him up. The fellow rushed at Pete again, who now thought it about time to quit fooling, and he landed a good hard blow on the fellow’s nose and mouth which staggered him and made the blood fly.
The spectators on both sides thought that the affair had gone far enough and called for a cessation of hostilities. Pete offered to shake hands with his antagonist, but he declined and went away muttering threats.
That evening we started for our Virginia camp in a large carry-all accompanied by a bevy of young people on horseback. They rode with us a couple of miles and then bade us good night and good bye, and as we drove away we heard them singing, “Maryland, My Maryland.”
When I sat down to write of my old comrade it was to tell of two deeds of heroism performed by him and not of his adventures at a country fair, but when I unrolled my knapsack of war memories, the incidents narrated came tumbling out with the rest so I have jotted them down.
A HERO OF WAR AT COLD HARBOR.
A drummer boy of our regiment who was carrying a musket was wounded and left between the lines. There were many others of our comrades there, too, but somehow to us drummer boys who had beaten the reveille and tattoo together and tramped at the head of the regiment so many long and wearisome marches, the thought that one of our number was lying out there in the blazing June sun suffering not only pain but the terrible agony of thirst, stirred our sympathies to the uttermost and we longed to go to his relief, but dared not for it was like throwing one’s life away to show himself over the breastworks.
It was late in the afternoon that Peter Boyle, “our Pete,” suggested a plan by which our comrade was rescued. Pete cut three or four scrub pine trees which abounded there and proposed that he and a couple of others should use them as a screen and go out between the lines.