The Recollections of a Drummer-Boy

by Henry Martyn Kieffer

Then there was Ike Zellers, of our own company; he invented another style of architecture, or perhaps I should rather say he borrowed it from the Indians. Ike would have none of your flat-roofed concerns; he would build a wigwam. And so, marking out a huge circle, in the centre of which he erected a pole, and around the pole a great number of smaller poles, with one end on the circle and the other end meeting in the common apex, covering this with brush, and the brush with clay, he made for himself a house that was quite warm, indeed, but one so fearfully gloomy, that within it was as dark at noon as at midnight. Ominous sounds came afterward from the dark recesses of "The Wigwam;" for we were a "skirmish regiment," and Ike was our bugler, and the way he tooted all day long, "Deploy to the right and left," "Rally by fours," and "Rally by platoons," was suggestive of things yet to come.

Then there was my own tent, or cabin, if indeed I may dignify it with the name of either; for it was a cross between a house and a cave. Andy and I thought we would follow the advice of the Irishman, who, in order to raise his roof higher, dug his cellar deeper. We resolved to dig down some three feet; "and then, Harry, we'll log her up about two feet high, cover her with ponchos, and we'll have the finest cabin in the row!" It took us about three days to accomplish so stupendous an undertaking, during which time we slept at night under the bushes as best we could, and when our work was done, we moved in with great satisfaction. I remember the door of our house was a mystery to all visitors, as, indeed, it was to ourselves until we "got the hang of it," as Andy said. It was a hole about two feet square, cut through one end of the log part of the cabin, and through it you had to crawl as best you could. If you put one leg in first, then the head, and then drew in the other leg after you, you were all right; but if, as visitors generally did, you put in your head first, you were obliged to crawl in on all fours in a most ungraceful and undignified fashion.

That was a queer-looking camp all through. If you went up to the top of the hill, where the Colonel had his quarters, and looked down, a strange sight met your eyes. By the time the next winter came, however, we had learned how to swing an axe, and we built ourselves winter quarters that reflected no little credit on our skill as experienced woodsmen. The last cabin we built—it was down in front of Petersburg—was a model of comfort and convenience: ten feet long by six wide and five high, made of clean pine-logs straight as an arrow, and covered with shelter tents; a chimney at one end, and a comfortable bunk at the other; the inside walls covered with clean oat-bags, and the gable ends papered with pictures cut from illustrated papers; a mantelpiece, a table, a stool; and we were putting down a floor of pine-boards, too, one day toward the close of winter, when the surgeon came by, and, looking in, said:

"No time to drive nails now, boys; we have orders to move!" But Andy said:

"Pound away, Harry, pound away; we'll see how it looks, anyhow, before we go!"

I remember an amusing occurrence in connection with the building of our winter quarters. I had gone over to see some of the boys of our company one evening, and found they had "logged up" their tent about four feet high, and stretched a poncho over it to keep the snow out, and were sitting before a fire they had built in a chimney-place at one end. The chimney was built up only as high as the log walls reached, the intention being to "cat-stick and daub" it afterward to a sufficient height. The mess had just got a box from home, and some one had hung nearly two yards of sausage on a stick across the top of the chimney, "to smoke." And there, on a log rolled up in front of the fire, I found Jimmy Lucas and Sam Ruhl sitting smoking their pipes, and glancing up the chimney between whiffs every now and then, to see that the sausage was safe. Sitting down between them, I watched the cheery glow of the fire, and we fell to talking, now about the jolly times they were having at home at the holiday season, and again about the progress of our cabin-building, while every now and then Jimmy would peep up the chimney on one side, and shortly after Sam would squint up on the other. After sitting thus for half an hour or so, all of a sudden, Sam, looking up the chimney, jumped off the log, clapped his hands together, and shouted:

"Jim, it's gone!"

Gone it was; and you might as well look for a needle in a haystack as search for two yards of sausage among troops building winter quarters on short rations!

One evening Andy and I were going to have a feast, consisting in the main of a huge dish of apple-fritters. We bought the flour and the apples of the sutler at enormous figures, for we were so tired of the endless monotony of bacon, beef, and bean-soup, that we were bent on having a glorious supper, cost or no cost. We had a rather small chimney-place, in which Andy was superintending the heating of a mess-pan half full of lard, while I was busying myself with the flour, dough, and apples, when, as ill-luck would have it, the lard took fire and flamed up the chimney with a roar and a blaze so bright that it illuminated the whole camp from end to end. Unfortunately, too, for us, four of our companies had been recruited in the city, and most of them had been in the volunteer fire department, in which service they had gained an experience, useful enough to them on the present occasion, but most disastrous to us.

No sooner was the bright blaze seen pouring high out of the chimney-top of our modest little cabin, than at least a half-dozen fire companies were on the instant organized for the emergency. The "Humane," the "Fairmount," the "Good-will," with their imaginary engines and hose-carriages, came dashing down our company street with shouts, and yells, and cheers. It was but the work of a moment to attach the imaginary hose to imaginary plugs, plant imaginary ladders, tear down the chimney and demolish the roof, amid a flood of sparks, and to the intense delight of the firemen, but to our utter consternation and grief. It took us days to repair the damage, and we went to bed with some of our neighbors, after a scant supper of hard-tack and coffee.