“Now that you are to be a commissioned officer, don't get the big head. During this war, we have had soldiers near us all the time, and I have seen some splendid soldiers spoiled by being commsssioned. Nine out of ten men that have received commissions in this locality, have been spoiled. I am a few years older than you, and have seen much of the world. You are a kind hearted man, and desire to treat everybody well, whether rich or poor, yankee or confederate. If you let this commission spoil you, you are not worthy of it. You will naturally feel as though you should associate with officers entirely, but you will find in them no better companions than you have found in the private soldiers, and I doubt if you will find as true friends. Do not, under any circumstances, draw away from your old friends, and let a barrier raise up between you and them. My observation teaches me that the only difference between the officers and men in the Union army, is that officers get more pay for doing less duty; they become dissipated and fast because they can better afford it, they drink more, put on style, play cards for money, and think the world revolves around them, and that they are indispensible to success, and yet when they die, or are discharged for cause, private soldiers take their place and become better officers than they did, until they in turn become spoiled. I can think of no position better calculated to ruin a young man than to commission him in a cavalry regiment. Now take my advice. Do not run in debt for a new uniform and a silver mounted sword, and don't put a stock of whisky and cigars into your tent, and keep open house, because when your whisky and cigars are gone, those who drank and smoked them will not think as much of you as before, and you will have formed habits that will illy prepare you for your work. You will not make any friends among good officers, and you will lose the respect of the men who have known you when you were one of them, but who will laugh at you for getting the big head and going back on those who are just as good as you are, but who have not yet attained the dignity of wearing shoulder straps. I meet officers every day, who were good soldiers before they were raised from privates, and they show signs of dissipation, and have a hard look, leering at women, and trying to look blasé. They try to act as near like foreign noblemen who are officers, as they can, from reading of their antics, but Americans just from farms, workshops, commercial pursuits, and the back woods and country villages of the north, are not of the material that foreign officials are made of, and in trying to imitate them they only show their shallowness. Do not, I beg of you, change one particle from what you have been as a private soldier, unless it is to have your pants fit better, and wear a collar. Of course, you will be thrown among officers more than you have before. Imitate their better qualities, and do not compete with them in vices. Always remember that when a volunteer army is mustered out, all are alike. The private, who has business ability, will become rich and respected, after the war, while the officer, who has been promoted through favoritism, and who acquires bad habits, will keep going down hill, and will be glad to drive a delivery wagon for the successful private, whom he commanded and snubbed when he held a proud position and got the big head. Now, my convalescent red-headed yankee, you have the best advice, I know how to give a young man who has struck a streak of luck. Go back to your friends, and may God bless you.”
Well, I had never had any such advice as that before, and as Jim and me rode back to camp that Thanksgiving evening, her words seemed to burn into my alleged brain. I could see how easy it would be for a fellow to make a spectacle of himself. What did a commission amount to, anyway, that a fellow should feel above anybody. When we arrived in camp, and went into our tent to have a smoke, the chaplain came in. I had not seen much of him lately. When I was sick I felt the need of a chaplain considerably. Not that I cared particularly to have him come and set up a howl over me, as though I was going to die, and he was expected to steer me the right way. But I felt as though it was his duty to look after the boys when they were sick, and talk to them about something cheerful. But he did not show up when I needed him, and when he called at our tent after I was well, there wasn't that cordiality on my part that there ought to have been. He had a package which he unrolled, after congratulating me on my recovery, and it proved to be a new saber, with silver mounted scabbard and gold sword handle. The chaplain said he had heard that I was to be commissioned, and he had found that saber at a store down town, and thought I might want to buy it. He said of course I would not want to wear a common government saber, as it would look too rude..He said he could get that saber for forty dollars, dirt cheap, and I could pay for it when I got my first pay as an officer. I could see through the chaplain in a minute. He had thought I would jump at the chance to put on style, and that he could make ten or fifteen dollars selling me a gilt-edged saber. I thanked him warmly, and a little sarcastically, for his great interest in the welfare of my soul, in sickness and in health, but told him that I was going to try and pull through with a common private's saber. I told him that the few people I should kill with a saber, would enjoy it just as well to be run through with a common saber. My only object was to help put down the rebellion, and I could do it with ordinary plain cutlery, as well as silver-mounted trappings. I said that to smear a silver-mounted saber all over with gore, would spoil the looks of it. The chaplain went out, when a drummer for a tailor shop came in with some samples, and wanted to make up a new uniform for me, regardless of expense. I stood him off, and went to bed, tired, and thought I had rather be a private than a general. The next morning it was my turn to cook our breakfast, and I turned out and built a fire, cut off some salt pork, and was frying it, when the orderly sergeant came along and detailed Jim and me, with ten or a dozen others to go to work on the fortifications. The rebels-were preparing to attack our position, and the commanding officer had deemed it advisable to throw up some earthworks. I told the orderly that he couldn't detail me to work with a shovel, digging trenches, when I was an officer, but he said he could, until I received my commission and was mustered in. I left my cooking and went to the colonel's tent. He was just rolling out of his bunk, and I said:
“How is it, Colonel? Can an officer be detailed to go and shovel dirt? I have been detailed by the orderly, with a lot of privates, to report to the engineer, to throw up fortifications. That does not strike me as proper work for a commissioned officer.”
“You will have to go,” said the colonel, as he stood on one leg while he tried to lasso his other foot with a pants leg. “It may be three months before your commission will arrive, and then you will have to go to New Orleans to be mustered out as a private and mustered in as an officer. Until that time you will have to do duty as a private.”
“Then what the devil did you say anything about my being commissioned for, until the commission got here,” said I, and I went back and finished cooking breakfast for myself and Jim.
Our detail went down to the river, at the left of the line, and reported to the engineer, and were set to work cutting down trees, throwing up dirt, and doing about the dirtiest and hardest work that I had ever done. As a private I could have done anything that was asked of me, but the thought of doing such work, while all the boys were calling me “Lieutenant,” was too much. I never was so crushed in my life. How glad I was that I did not buy that gilt-edged saber of the chaplain. We had to wear our side arms while at work, fearing an attack at any minute, and I thought how ridiculous I would have looked with that silver-mounted saber hanging to me, while I was handling a shovel like a railroad laborer. If that detail was made to humiliate me, and reduce my proud flesh, that had appeared on me by my sudden promotion, it had the desired effect, for before night I was as humble an amateur officer as ever lived. I had chopped down trees until my hands were blistered, and had shoveled dirt until my back was broke, and at night returned to my tent too tired to eat supper, and went to bed too weary and disgusted to sleep. And that was my first day as a commissioned officer.
CHAPTER XVIII.
My Sickness and Hospital Experiences Have Spoiled Me for a
Soldier—I Am Full of Charity, and Hope the War Will Cease—
We Have a Grand Attack—The Battle Lasted Ten Minutes—The
Rebel Angel's Brother is Captured.
I became satisfied, more each day, that my sickness, and experience in the hospital, had spoiled me for a soldier. Being attended to so kindly by a rebel girl and getting acquainted with her people, and hearing her mother pray earnestly that the bloodshed might cease, sort of knocked what little fight there was in me, out, and I didn't hanker any more for blood. It seemed to me as though I could meet any rebel on top of earth, and shake hands with him, and ask him to share my tent, and help eat my rations.