“No.”
“Now, colonel, look at this paper and tell me if that is your signature.”
“Well, I should say it was.”
“Now, colonel, will you oblige me by reading the statement you signed many years ago and then tell me how you reconcile that statement with the one you just made to me?”
The colonel was something of a rough diamond but the soul of honor. He was sturdy, honest and blunt. A man who called a spade a spade. He disliked subterfuge or deceit. A fighter from way back, and I can imagine something of the indignation he felt when he got up out of his chair to make reply.
“Say, young man, I’m no highwayman or perjurer. I was fighting my country’s battles when you was nursing a bottle. The lapse of time, and my infirmities, the result of wounds and hardships, do not permit me to remember the names, the color of hair and eyes of several thousand men who were on the rolls of my regiment nearly 40 years ago, but I will have you to understand, sir, that I am no less a gentleman than a soldier and whatever I have put my name to you can bet your bottom dollar is God’s truth, every word of it, and if you dare to stand up before me and intimate otherwise, damn me if I won’t knock you down in a jiffy and walk all over you.”
The government special laughed as he read the interview and rolling the papers up put them in his grip as he remarked: “Say, I rather liked the old veteran after all.”
THE COMPANY COOK.
One of the most important personages of a company was the cook. Even the officers stood in awe of him. What if he did boil his shirts and greasy trousers in the kettle in which he cooked our food, made soup, tea and coffee.
As a result the flavor was somewhat mixed at times, but no one dared to remonstrate with the “son of a sea cook,” for the one that provoked his displeasure was sure to suffer in some way. If they punished those whom they disliked they bestowed many favors upon those whom they happened to take a liking to. The writer always stood in well with “Uncle” Hawley, our first cook, who was taken prisoner at Bull Run, and “Lige” Moyer, who succeeded him. Hawley was an elocutionist of no mean ability. “Lige” used to while away his spare moments with a fiddle.