At sunrise every available gun from the Appomattox to the Weldon Railroad must have been brought into service and trained against the enemy's works, for the noise was terrific. And still further to increase the din, the Johnnies, supposing it to be a grand assault along the whole line, replied with every gun they could bring to bear, and the noise was so great that you would have thought the very thunders of doom were rolling. After the firing had ceased, the Johnnies were informed that "we have only been giving three iron cheers for the victory Sheridan has gained up the valley lately." There was, I presume, some regret on the other side over the loss of powder and shot. At all events, whenever, after that, similar iron cheers were given, and this was not seldom the case, the enemy preserved a moody silence.
After remaining in our works for about a month, we were relieved by other troops and marched off to the left in the direction of the Weldon Railroad, which we took after severe fighting. We held it, and at once fortified our position with a new line of works, thus cutting off one of the main lines of communication between Petersburg and the South.
CHAPTER XXI.
FUN AND FROLIC.
In what way to account for it I know not, but so it is, that soldiers always have been, and I suppose always will be, merry-hearted fellows and full of good spirits. One would naturally suppose that, having so much to do with hardship and danger every day, they would be sober and serious above the generality of men. But such was by no means the case with our Boys in Blue. In camp, on the march, nay even in the solemn hour of battle, there was ever and anon a laugh passing down the line or some sport going on amongst the tents. Seldom was there wanting some one noted for his powers of storytelling, to beguile the weary hours about the camp-fire at the lower end of the company street, or out among the pines on picket. Few companies could be found without some native-born wag or wit, whose comical songs or quaint remarks kept the boys in good humor, while at the same time each and all, according to the measure of their several capacities, were given to playing practical jokes of one kind or other for the general enlivenment of the camp.
There was Corporal Harter, for example, of my own company. I do not single him out as a remarkable wit, or in any sense as a shining light in our little galaxy of Boys in Blue; but choose him rather as an average specimen. More than one was the trick which Harter played on Andy and myself—though I cannot help but remember, also, that he sometimes had good ground for so doing, as the following will show.
It was while we were yet lying around Washington during the winter of 1863, that Harter and I one day secured a "pass" and went into the city. In passing the Treasury Department we found a twenty-five cent note. We had at first a mind to call on the Secretary of the Treasury and ask whether he had lost it, as we had found it in front of his establishment; but thinking that it would not go very far toward paying the expenses of the war, and reflecting that even if it did belong to Uncle Sam, we belonged to Uncle Sam too, and so where could be the harm of our keeping it and laying it out on ourselves?—we finally concluded to spend it at a certain print-shop on Pennsylvania Avenue, where were exposed for sale great numbers of colored pictures of different generals and statesmen, a prize of cheap gilt jewelry being given with each picture. For the jewelry we cared not a whit; but the pictures each of us was anxious to possess, for they would make very nice decorations for our tents, we thought. Having, then, purchased a number of these with our treasure-trove, and having received from the shopkeeper a handful of brass earrings, which neither of us wanted (for what in the world did a soldier want with brass earrings, or even with gold ones, for the matter of that?), we took our way to the park, west of the Capitol buildings, and sat down on a bench.
"Now, Harry," said the corporal, as he sat wistfully looking at a picture of a general dressed in the bluest of blue uniforms, who, with sword drawn and horse at full gallop, dismounted cannon in the rear and clouds of blue smoke in front, was apparently leading his men on to the desperate charge. The men had not come on the field yet, but it was of course understood by the general's looks that they were coming somewhere in the background. A person can't have everything in a picture, at the rate of four for a quarter, with a handful of earrings thrown in to clinch the bargain,—all of which, no doubt, passed rapidly through the corporal's mind as he examined the pictures,—"Now, Harry, how will we divide 'em?"
"Well, corporal," answered I, "suppose we do it this way: we'll toss up a penny for it. 'Heads I win, tails you lose,' you know. If it comes head I'll take the pictures and you'll take the jewelry; if it comes tail you'll take the jewelry and I'll take the pictures. That's fair and square, isn't it?"
The corporal's head could not have been very clear that morning, or he would have seen through this nicely laid little scheme as clearly as one can see through a grindstone with a hole in the middle. But the proposition was so rapidly announced, and set forth with such an appearance of candor and exact justice, that, not seeing the trap laid for him, he promptly got out a penny from his pocket, and balancing it on his thumb-nail, while he thoughtfully squinted up toward a tree-top near by, said,—