The Recollections of a Drummer-Boy

by Henry Martyn Kieffer

"What do you mean by not facing about when I tell you? I'll have you put in the guard-house, if you don't mind."

"Why—I—did, sergeant," said the trembling recruit.

"You did not, sir. Didn't I watch your feet? They never moved an inch."

"Why, you see," said the man, "my shoes are so big that they don't turn when I do. I go through the motions on the inside of them!"

Although Camp Curtin was not so much a camp of instruction as a camp of equipment, yet once we had received our arms and uniforms, we were all eager to be put on drill. Even before we had received our uniforms, every evening we had some little drilling under command of Sergeant Cummings, who had been out in the three months' service. Clothed in citizens' dress and armed with such sticks and poles as we could pick up, we must have presented a sorry appearance on parade. Perhaps the most comical figure in the line was that of old Simon Malehorn, who, clothed in a long linen duster, high silk hat, blue overalls, and loose slippers, was forever throwing the line into confusion by breaking rank and running back to find his slipper, which he had lost in the dust somewhere, and happy was he if some one of the boys had not quietly smuggled it into his pocket or under his coat, and left poor Simon to finish the parade in his stocking-feet.

Awkward enough in the drill we all were, to be sure. Still, we were not quite so stupid as a certain recruit of whom it was related that the drill sergeant had to take him aside as an "awkward squad" by himself, and try to teach him how to "mark time." But alas! the poor fellow did not know his right foot from his left, and consequently could not follow the order, "Left! Left!" until the sergeant, driven almost to desperation, lit on the happy expedient of tying a wisp of straw on one foot and a similar wisp of hay on the other, and then put the command in a somewhat agricultural shape—"Hay-foot, Straw-foot! Hay-foot, Straw-foot!" whereupon it is said he did quite well; for if he did not know his left foot from his right, he at least could tell hay from straw.

One good effect of our having been detained in Camp Curtin for several weeks was that we thus had the opportunity of forming the acquaintance of the other nine companies, with which we were to be joined in one common regimental organization. Some of these came from the western and some from the eastern part of the State; some were from the city, some from inland towns and small villages, and some from the wild lumber regions. Every rank, class, and profession seemed to be represented. There were clerks, farmers, students, railroad men, iron-workers, lumbermen. At first we were all strangers to one another. The different companies, having as yet no regimental life to bind them together as a unit, naturally regarded each other as foreigners rather than as members of the same organization. In consequence of this, there was no little rivalry between company and company, together with no end of friendly chaffing and lively banter, especially about the time of roll-call in the evening. The names of the men who hailed from the west were quite strange, and a long-standing source of amusement to the boys from the east, and vice versâ. When the Orderly-Sergeant of Company I called the roll, the men of Company B would pick out all the outlandish-sounding surnames and make all manner of puns on them, only to be paid back in their own coin by similar criticisms of their roll. Then there were certain forms of expression peculiar to the different sections from which the men came, strange idiomatic usages of speech, amounting at times to the most pronounced provincialisms, which were a long-continued source of merriment. Thus the Philadelphia boys made all sport of the boys from the upper tier of counties because they said "I be going deown to teown," and invariably used "I make out to" for "I am going to," or "I intend to." Some of the men, it was observed, called every species of board, no matter how thin, "a plank;" and every kind of stone, no matter how small, "a rock." How the men laughed one evening when a high wind came up and blew the dust in dense clouds all over the camp, and one of the western boys was heard to declare that he had "a rock in his eye!"

Once we got afield, however, there was developed such a feeling of regimental unity as soon obliterated whatever natural antagonisms may at first have existed between the different companies. Peculiarities of speech of course remained, and a generous and wholesome rivalry never disappeared; but these were a help rather than a hindrance. For in military, as in all social life, there can be no true unity without some diversity in the component parts,—a principle which is fully recognized in our national motto, "E pluribus unum."