"Talk as you please about old Pigey, boys, he's a regular trump on the whiskey question. He'll cut red-tape any day on that. Don't you see the boys?" continued the Corporal, addressing a crowd reposing at full length upon the freshly cut pine boughs, conspicuous among whom was the Adjutant;—pointing as he spoke to several men in uniform, but boys in years, who were being forced and dragged along by successive groups of their comrades.
"Couldn't stand the Commissary—stomachs too tender. Ha! ha! Pigey and myself are in on that."
"What is up now, Corporal?" queried the Adjutant.
"Nothing is up; it's all down," retorted the Corporal,
in a half serious air, as he saluted the Colonel respectfully. "You see, Adjutant, they are bits of boys at any rate, just from school, and the Commissary was too much for their empty stomachs. I was sent back to hurry up the stragglers, and while we were catching up as rapidly as possible, old Pigey came ploughing up the mud alongside of us, followed by that sucker-mouthed Aid. I saw at once that Division Head-quarters had a good load on. With a patronizing grin, said the General stopping short alongside of a wagon belonging to another corps, and that was fast almost up to the wagon-bed, while the mules were fairly floating, 'What's in that wagon?' and without waiting for answer, 'whiskey, by G—d,' he broke out, snuffing at the same time towards the wagon. 'Boys, unload a couple of barrels,' he continued, good-humoredly, as if trying to make up for the outrage he has just committed upon the Regiment. The driver protested, and the wagon guards said that it could not be taken without an order; but it was after three, and old Pigey ripped and swore that his order was as good as anybody's, and the guards were frightened enough to let our boys roll out two barrels. No pigeon-holing on a whiskey scent! One barrel he ordered up to his head-quarters, and the head of the other was knocked in, and he told us to drink our fill, and at it the boys went. Tin cups, canteens, cap-covers, anything that would hold the article, were made use of, and they are a blue old crowd, from the General down. The boys had had nothing but a few hard tack during the day, and it was about the first drink to some, and from the way it tastes it must have been made out of rotten corn and not two months old, and altogether straggling increased considerably."
"Straggling! why they are wallowing like hogs in the mud, Adjutant! It is a shame, and if some one of my superiors will not prefer charges against the General and his Adjutant, I will. Men of mine are drunk that I never knew to taste a drop before," indignantly exclaimed the Western Virginia Captain, as, with hat off, face aglow with perspiration, eyes flashing, and boots that indicated service in taking the soundings of the mud on the march, he came panting up with rapid strides. "Now, sir, fourteen of my best men are drunk—the first drunken man I have had during the campaign—and I'll be shot to death with musketry, sooner than punish a single man of them."
"But discipline must be kept up," said the Adjutant.
"Discipline! do you say, Adjutant?" retorted the Captain. "If you want to see discipline go to Division Head-quarters. Why old Pigey is prancing around like a steed at a muster,—crazy! absolutely crazy! His cocked hat is more crooked than ever, and the knot of his muffler is at the back of his neck, and the ends flying like wings. Just a few minutes ago he stopped suddenly while on a canter, right by one of my men, lying along the road-side, that he had made drunk, and chuckled and laughed, and lolled from side to side in his saddle, and then at a canter again rode to another one and went through the same performance. And his Adjutant-General—why one of my men not ten minutes ago led his horse to Head-quarters. He was so drunk, actually, that his eyes looked like those of a shad out of water a day,—his feet out of the stirrups, the reins loose about his horse's neck, his hands hanging listlessly down, and the liquor oozing out
of the corners of his sucker mouth. And there he was, his horse carrying him about at random among the stumps, and officers and men laughing at him, expecting to see him go over on the one side or the other every moment. Now, it is a burning shame. And I, for one, will expose them, if it takes the hide off. Here are our Colonels confined just for no offence at all,—for doing their duty, in fact,—and this man, after having Court-martialed all that he could of his command, trying to demoralize the rest by whiskey. Now, sir, the higher the rank the more severe the punishment should be. Just before we started Burney had an order read that we were about to meet the enemy, and that every man must do his duty. And here is a General of Division, in command of nine thousand men, as drunk as a fool."