Speaking of Major Waters, recalls how little things sometimes lead on to fortune. After leaving the service he and his brother started a "box factory," on the canal in Grand Rapids. In the winter of 1865-66 he took me over to see it. It was a small affair run by water power. The "boxes" which they manufactured were measures of the old-fashioned kind like the half-bushel and peck measures made of wood fifty years ago. They were of all sizes from a half-bushel down to a quart and used for "dry measure." Before the top rim was added and the bottom put in it was customary to pile the cylindrical shells one on top of another in the shop. Looking at these piles one day Waters saw that three of them, properly hooped, would make a barrel. Why not put hoops on and make them into barrels? No sooner said than done. A patent was secured, a stock company organized and the sequel proved that there were "millions in it." The major did not live to enjoy the fruits of his invention but it made of his brother and partner a millionaire. The latter is today one of the wealthiest men in Michigan—all from that lucky beginning.
The first adjutant of the regiment was Lyman E. Patten, who resigned to become a sutler and was succeeded by Hiram F. Hale who, in turn, left the cavalry to become a paymaster.
Sutlers were an unnecessary evil; at least, so it seems to me. They were in some cases evil personified. Many of them went into the business solely "for the money there was in it," and did not hesitate to trade on the necessities of the "boys in blue," so that as a rule there was no love lost, and enlisted men would raid a sutler with as little compunction as the sutler would practice extortion on them. The sutler's tent was too often the army saloon where "S.T.—1860—X bitters" and kindred drinks were sold at inflated prices. There were exceptions to the rule, however, and Mr. Patten was one of these. The whole sutler business was a mistake. The government should have arranged for an issue, or sale at cost through the commissary and quartermaster departments, of such articles as were not regularly furnished and were needed by the officers and men. Sutlers sold a thousand and one things that were not needed and that the men would have been better without. Spirits and tobacco could have been issued as a field or garrison ration, under proper restrictions. This was done at times but, whether a good thing or a bad thing, depends altogether upon the point of view. To take up the discussion would be to enter into the controversy as to the army canteen, which is not my purpose.
The medical department of the regiment was in good hands. No officer or enlisted man of the Sixth Michigan ever wanted for kind and sympathetic care when ill or wounded. The position of army surgeon in the field was no sinecure. He had to endure the same privations as the other officers. He was not supposed to be on the fighting line, to be sure, but had to be close at hand to assist in the care of those who were, and oftentimes got into the thickest of it whether he would or not. To the credit of the profession, be it said, no soldier was ever sick or wounded who did not, unless a prisoner of war, find some one of the green-sashed officers ready to minister to his needs. And it often happened that army surgeons permitted themselves to fall into the enemy's hands rather than to desert those who were under their care and treatment.
The surgeon was Daniel G. Weare, who gave up a lucrative practice to put on the uniform of a major in the medical department of the volunteer army. He was an elderly man with iron grey hair and beard which became towards the last almost as white as snow. This gave him a venerable look, though this evidence of apparent age was singularly at variance with his fresh countenance, as ruddy as that of youth. He looked like a preacher, though he would swear like a pirate. Indeed, it would almost congeal the blood in one's veins to hear the oaths that came hissing from between the set teeth of that pious looking old gentleman, from whom you would look for an exhortation rather than such expletives as he dealt in. But it was only on suitable provocation that he gave vent to these outbursts, as he was kind of heart, a good friend, and a capable physician and surgeon. The assistant was David C. Spaulding who remained with us but a short time when he was made surgeon of the Tenth Michigan cavalry—that is to say, in 1863. Weare staid till the war closed and settled in Fairport, New York, where he died.
Spaulding was surgeon in charge of the regimental hospital in Grand Rapids, and on one occasion came to my aid with some very scientific practice. It happened in this way: It came to my knowledge that a man who had enlisted with one of the lieutenants and mustered in with the troop, was not in the service for the first time; that he had enlisted twice before and then succeeded in getting discharged for disability. The informant intimated that the fellow had no intention of doing duty, would shirk and sham illness and probably get into the hospital, where the chances were he would succeed in imposing on the surgeons and in getting discharged again; that it was pay he was after which he did not propose to earn; least of all would he expose his precious life, if by any possibility he could avoid it.
A close watch was put upon the man, and sure enough, just before the regiment was to leave the state, he demurred to doing duty, pleading illness as an excuse. I sent him to the hospital but gave Dr. Spaulding a hint as to the probable nature of the man's illness, and he promised to give his best endeavors to the case. About a week, thereafter, the man came back, and whatever might have been his real condition when he went away, he was unmistakably ill. His pale face and weak voice were symptoms that could not be gainsaid.
"Well," said I, "have you recovered and are you ready for duty?"
"No, I am worse than ever."
"Why do you leave the hospital, then?"