How Private George W. Peck Put Down the Rebellion / or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887

by George W. Peck

A Short Story About a Pair of Boots, Showing the Monumental
Gall of their Owner.

When I enlisted in the cavalry I bought a pair of top boots, of the Wellington pattern, stitched with silk up and down the legs, which were of shiny morocco. They came clear above my knees, and from the pictures I had seen of cavalry soldiers, it struck me those boots would be a pass-port to any society in the army. The first few months of my service, it seemed to me, the boots gave me more tone than any one thing. I learned afterwards that all new recruits came to the regiment with such boots, and that they were the laughing stock of all the old veterans. I did not know that I was being guyed by the boys, and I loved those boots above all things I had. To be sure, when we struck an unusually muddy country, some idiot of an officer seemed to be inspired to order us to dismount. The boys who had common army boots would dismount anywhere, in mud or water, but it seemed to me cruel for officers to order a dismount, when they knew I would have to step in the mud half way up to my knees, with those morocco boots on. Several times when ordered to dismount in the mud, I have ridden out of the road, where it was not muddy, to dismount, but the boys would laugh so loud, and the officers would swear so wickedly, that I got so I would dismount wherever they told me, suppress my emotions, as I felt my beautiful, shiny boots sink into the red clay, and when we got into camp I would spend half the night cleaning my boots. The captain said if I would spend half the time cleaning my carbine and saber that I did cleaning my boots, I would have been a model soldier.

I think that for the first year of my service I had as elegant a pair of boots as could be found in the army. But it was the hardest work to keep track of them. The first three months it was all I could do to keep the chaplain from trading me a pair of old army shoes for my boots. The arguments he used to convince me that mo-. rocco boots were far above my station, and that they were intended for a chaplain, were labored. If he had used the same number of words in the right direction, he could have converted the whole army. I had to sleep with my boots under my head every night, to prevent them from being stolen and twice they were stolen from my tent, but in each case recovered at the sutler's, where they had been pawned for a bottle of brandy peaches, which I had to pay for to redeem the boots. The boots had become almost a burden to me, in keeping them, but I enjoyed them so much that money could not have bought them. When we were in a town for a few days, and I rode around, it did not make any difference whether I had any other clothes on, of any account, the morocco boots captured the town. The natives could not see how a man who wore such boots could be anything but a high-up thoroughbred. The last time I lost my boots will always be remembered by those who were in the same command. We were on the march with a Michigan and a New Jersey regiment, through the dustiest country that ever was. The dust was eight inches deep in the road, and just like fine ashes. Every time a horse put his foot down the dust would raise above the trees, and as there were two thousand horses, with four feet apiece, and each foot in constant motion, it can be imagined that the troops were dusty. And it was so hot that the perspiration oozed out of us, but the dust covered it.

The three regiments took turns in acting as rear guard, to pick up stragglers, and on this hot and dusty day the New Jersey regiment was in the rear. It was composed of Germans entirely, with a German colonel, a man who had seen service in Europe, and he looked upon a soldier as a machine, with no soul, fit only to obey orders. That was not the kind of a soldier I was. During the day's march the boys stripped off everything they could. I know all I had on was a shirt and pants, and a handkerchief around my head. I took off my boots and coat and let the colored cook of the company strap them on to his saddle with the camp kettles. He usually rode right behind the company, and I thought I could get my things any time if I wanted to dress up. It was the hardest day's march that I ever experienced, lungs full of dust, and every man so covered with dust that you could not recognize your nearest neighbor. Afternoon the command halted beside a stream, and it was announced that we would go into camp for the night. The colored cook came along soon after, and he was perfectly pale, whether from dust or fright I could not tell, but he announced to me, in a manner that showed that he appreciated the calamity which had befallen the command, that he had lost my boots. I was going to kill him, but my carbine was full of dust, and I made it a point never to kill a man with a dirty gun, so I let him explain. He said:

“I fell back to de rear, by dat plantation where de cotton gin was burning, to see if I couldn't get a canteen of buttermilk to wash de dust outen my froat, when dat Dutch Noo Jersey gang come along, and de boss he said, 'nicker, you got back ahead fere you pelong, or I gick you in de pack mit a saber, aind't it,' and when I get on my mule to come along he grab de boots and he say, 'nicker, dot boots is better for me,' and when I was going to take dem away from him he stick me in de pants wid a saber. Den I come away.”

I could have stood up under having an arm shot off, but to lose my boots was more than I could bear. It never did take me long to decide on any important matter, and in a moment I decided to invade the camp of that New Jersey regiment, recapture my boots or annihilate every last foreigner on our soil, so I started off, barefooted, without a coat, and covered with dust, for the headquarters of the New Jersey fellows. They had been in camp but a few minutes, but every last one of them had taken a bath in the river, brushed the dust off his clothes, and looked ready for dress parade. That was one fault of those foreigners, they were always clean, if they had half a chance. I went right to the colonel's tent, and he was surrounded with officers, and they were opening bottles of beer, and how cool it looked. There was something peculiar about those foreigners, no matter if they were doing duty in the most inaccessible place in the south, and were short of transportation, you could always find beer at their headquarters. I walked right in, and the colonel was just blowing the foam off a glass of beer. He looked at me in astonishment, and I said in a voice husky from dust down my neck:

“Colonel this is an important epoch in the history of our beloved country. Events have transpired within the past hour, which leaves it an open question whether, as a nation, we are afoot or on horseback.”

“Great hefens,” said the colonel, stopping with his glass of beer half drank, “you vrighten me. Vot has habbened. But vait, und dake a glass of beer, as you seem exhausted, und proke up. Captain Ouskaspiel, hand the shendleman some peer. Mine Gott, bud you look hard, strancher.”

I do not believe that I ever drank anything that seemed to go right to the spot, the way that beer did. It seemed to start a freshet of dust down my neck, clear my throat, and brace me up. While I was drinking it I noticed that the German colonel and his officers eyed me closely, my bare feet, my flannel shirt full of dust, and my hair that looked as though I had stood on my head in the road. They waited for me to continue, and after draining the last drop in the glass, I said:

“Colonel, it was no ordinary circumstance that induced you brave foreigners, holding allegiance to European sovereigns, to fly to arms to defend this new nation from an internecine foe. While we natives, and to the manor born, left our plows in the furrow, to spring to-arms, you left your shoemaker shops, the spigots of your beer saloons, the marts of commerce in which you were engaged, and stood shoulder to shoulder. Where the bullets of the enemy whistled, there could be found the brave Dutchmen of New Jersey. It brings tears to eyes unused to weeping, to think of the German fathers and mothers of our land, who are waiting and watching for the return of sons who will never come back, and this is, indeed, harder for them to bear, when we reflect that these boys were not obliged to fight for our country, holding allegiance, as I said before to——”