With biggest ears and loudest call,
And to fatigue a stranger;
The first on Santiago’s brow,
And in Luzon the friskiest now:
Oh, that’s the Missouri Mule.
Comedy and Carnage.
The “Sky Pilot” and the “Dutch” Corporal.—The Mule that Sounded the Charge.—“Bull’s-Eye” Kelley and the Fire-Bug.
War, with all its horrors, laconically described by General Sherman as hell, is not without its comedy. The marching through rain and mud; camping in marshes; digging in trenches, using the bayonet for a pick and the meat-ration can for a shovel; wading rivers by day and sleeping exposed to the elements by night, are all sandwiched with numerous mirthful incidents. Soldiers, above all people, have an eye for the ridiculous, and are ever ready to make merry and laugh over the most trivial matter. Even the horrors of battle are unable to quench the spark of gaiety ever present in the make-up of a “Yankee Doodle” soldier.