Our No. 1 and No. 2—which all old soldiers will remember, are the figures that represent the two men who stand at the muzzle of an old-fashioned gun, one of whom swabs her out, while the other rams the charge home—were two stalwart Irish brothers, Mike and Terry by name. The former had been a boss of a wheelbarrow gang somewhere out on the railway in Virginia—one of those blustering Irish fellows who are so full of extravagant and positive talk. He was eternally and forever complaining about something or somebody, and I remember that he gave the officers and men more trouble on this account than all the rest. He had, as the leader of his gang, brought a dozen of his Irish recruits into our organization at one draft, and felt as if he must continue to be their boss. His men were also disposed to recognize "Mike's" authority, as being superior to that of the military officers. A good deal of discipline was necessary to explain to them the changed condition in their affairs. His brother Terry was a strapping big fellow, whose position at the gun was alongside of his brother. In disposition and temperament, Terry was the very opposite of Mike, being a quiet, sullen fellow, whom I do not remember to have heard speak a dozen words beyond mere monosyllables. He was, however, a tricky, treacherous fellow, and the pair of big gray mules gave the team of Maryland colts any amount of trouble and fun.
The man whose duty it was to prick the cartridge and attend the vent was a native of Richmond—a fat, boyish fellow of eighteen full of fun and laugh all the time. My recollection is, that he had been a butcher's clerk somewhere. He represented what may be called the "poor white trash," as it was termed by the Southern people.
He was probably attracted by the bounty and the chance to ride on a gun-carriage, as we found out very soon he was too blamed lazy to walk. Another peculiarity of this recruit, that we subsequently discovered, and which made it interesting to the rest of us, was, that he was subject to epileptic fits, and probably for this cause he had been rejected by the more respectable Virginia regiments.
When he first took one of those spells, during the excitement occasioned by the drill-master hustling him around a little, we all felt that something dreadful had occurred in our midst, and every man in the camp was crawling over the other in their efforts to wait upon and assist the poor fellow. He lay on the ground, gnawing and twisting himself in the most horrible way, frothing at the mouth in the meanwhile in a frightful manner.
It was on such occasions as this that big Mike showed his usefulness in the company. He would grab the big Virginian lubber by each hand and hold him "steady," as if he was a mere baby in his hands, giving orders meanwhile, as if he was a captain on a man-of-war in a great storm.
The other fellow, who pulled the lanyard, was a slender, good-looking man, who had been a sailor who had traveled around the world, and did not seem to have any nationality. The war had found him blockaded at Norfolk, and, being unable to get out to sea, he had gravitated into Richmond, where he was induced to join the refugee band by the hard logic of an empty pocket, a hungry belly, and a show of money as bounty. He and I became fast friends, and, as a singular coincidence, I mention here that we both joined that battery with the same intent—i. e., to use it as a means of escape North; and though we were together and slept together every night for months, neither knew the other's thoughts on the subject until the morning we met, accidentally, while both were escaping through the Rebel pickets.
Our No. 5, whose duty it was to carry the cartridge from the caisson to the gun, was a queer character. He was a man of about forty-five years of age, tall and angular, with that odd cast of countenance that one often sees among the lower order of Germans. He was not exactly a German, but had an accent similar to the German; his face was broad and square, the lower part of it being apparently broader than the upper. I think he must have been a Russian or a Polander. He was not a successful No. 5, because his motions were too stiff and lumbering for that position; and, in consequence of his stupidity, he was being prodded all the time when on drill. He became, however, a very useful member to the company.
By some mysterious expressions from the officers, we were led to believe at first that he might have been a disguised "juke" or count, exiled from his native land, and who desired to serve his adopted home with this band of devoted refugees. We learned, however, that he had simply been a professor in his own country in—a barbershop. We were all glad enough to ascertain this fact; also, that he served his time as a tailor—to be sure his "time" as a tailor had been "put in" at a certain penitentiary—but he was a good and useful refugee all the same, because he was detailed to shave the company and, also, to do over the baggy gray uniforms which were furnished us.
The "Colonel" and I were the first to take advantage of this information, as to the "juke's" accomplishments, to have him refit the gray blouses and trousers which we were to wear. We procured some black stuff for trimming the cuffs of our coats, because one of the Lanyards' lady friends had told him that the black and gray matched nicely together. We also had our Sergeant's and Corporal's stripes of bright red stitched on to our sleeves, and a narrow binding of red was sewed down in front of the coat. It was in this rather neatly-trimmed Rebel uniform that I boldly walked the streets of Richmond, and secured entrance to houses and places of interest, from which I had heretofore been excluded, during the rest of my eventful stay in that city.
It will be seen that, in this account of the personnel of one section of the so-called Maryland Battery, there was but the one genuine Maryland refugee in its outfit, outside of Elkton, and that was the Sergeant, who is the "Colonel" of our story. I was, of course, supposed to be another Marylander, but it will be seen that the much-vaunted "flower of the South," which composed the Confederate armies, was very much like the "flower of the North" in its actual composition.