“Now,” said Billy, “William has another bet to make. He offers a hundred to one that if the colonel catches you fellows at this sort of idiotic performance, he’ll take the ‘honor’ out of both of you by making you grub stumps for weeks to come. Put up your swords and shake hands, or else take the bets.”
The absurdity of the situation ended it. Billy remarked: “Now let William give you a tip. There is the enemy to fight; and if William does not hopelessly misunderstand the temper of George B. McClellan’s army, they will give us all the fighting we want without anything of this sort.”
It was Billy who, at the end of the war, protested his loyalty to the Southern cause by vowing that he would never send a letter unless it could go under cover of a Southern postage-stamp. I am credibly informed that for thirty odd years he has kept this vow.
It must have spared him a great deal of trouble.
A CRADLE CAPTAIN
THEY said we had robbed the cradle and the grave to recruit our army.
We had.
The cradle contingent acquitted itself particularly well.
He was a very little fellow. He was said to be fourteen years old. He didn’t look it. In his captain’s uniform he suggested the need of a nurse with cap and apron. But when it came to doing the work of a soldier the impression was different.
It was in 1864, late summer. We were in the trenches outside a fortification engaged in bombarding Fort Harrison, below Richmond. The enemy had captured that work, and it was deemed necessary to drive him out. To that end we had been sent from Petersburg to the north side of James River, with twenty-two mortars to rain a hundred shells a minute into the fort preparatory to the infantry charge.