There was a ringing, rolling chorus to each verse, of course, and which was not at all germane to the text, and, moreover, as the newspapers sometimes say, is "not adapted for publication,"—so it will be omitted. Well, I can now shut my eyes and lean back in my chair and let my memory revert to that far away time, and it just seems to me that I can see and hear Nelse Hegans, of Co. C, singing that song at night in our quarters at old Camp Carrollton. He was a big, strong six-footer, about twenty-one years of age, with a deep bass voice that sounded when singing like the roll of distant thunder. And he was an all-around good fellow. Poor Nelse! He was mortally wounded by a musket ball in the neck early in the morning of the first day at Shiloh, and died a few days thereafter.
The health of the boys while at Camp Carrollton was fine. There were a few cases of measles, but as I remember, none were fatal. Once I caught a bad cold, but I treated it myself with a backwoods remedy and never thought of going to the surgeon about it. I took some of the bark of a hickory tree that stood near our quarters, and made about a quart of strong hickory-bark tea. I drank it hot, and all at once, just before turning in for the night. It was green in color, and intensely bitter, but it cured the cold.
A few weeks after my enlistment, I was appointed to the position of corporal. There are, or were in my time, eight corporals in an infantry company, each designated by a number, in numerical order. I was fifth. I owed this appointment to the friendship and influence of Enoch Wallace, and this was only one of the countless acts of kindness that he rendered me during my term of service. I just cannot tell you how proud I was over this modest military office. I am telling you the truth when I say that I felt more pride and pleasure in being a "Corporal of Co. D" than I ever did later in the possession of any other office, either military or civil. The boys framed up a story on me, to the effect that soon after my appointment I was seen in the rear of the company quarters, stooping over an empty barrel, with my head projected into it as far as possible, and exclaiming in a deep, guttural tone, "CORPORAL STILLWELL!" "CORPORAL STILLWELL!" This was being done, so the boys said, in order that I might personally enjoy the sound. In order to be strictly accurate, I will state that, although the appointment was made while we were at Carrollton, my official warrant was not issued until our arrival at Benton Barracks.
The only thing recalled now that was sort of disagreeable at Camp Carrollton was the utter absence of privacy. Even when off duty, one couldn't get away by himself, and sit down in peace and quiet anywhere. And as for slipping off into some corner and trying to read, alone, a book or paper, the thing was impossible. To use a modern expression, there was always "something doing." Many a time after supper, on very cold nights, when the boys would all be in the barracks, singing or cutting up, I would sneak out and walk around under the big trees, with the snow crackling under my feet, for no other purpose whatever than just to be alone a while. But that condition of things changed for the better after we got down South, and were no longer cooped up in a forty acre lot.
General Grant gained his great victory at Fort Donelson on February 16, 1862, and the news reached us a few days later. The boys talked about it with feelings of mingled exultation,—and mortification. Exultation, of course, over the "glorious victory," but mortification in regard to its effects and consequences on our future military career. We all thought, from the officers down, that now the war would end, that we would see no actual service, and never fire a shot. That we would be discharged, and go home just little "trundle-bed soldiers," and have to sit around and hear other sure-enough warriors tell the stories of actual war and fighting. If we only had known, we were borrowing unnecessary trouble,—as we found out later.
CHAPTER II.
BENTON BARRACKS. ST. LOUIS, MARCH, 1862.
Sometime during the last of February, the welcome news was given out from regimental headquarters that we were soon to leave Camp Carrollton. Our first objective point was to be St. Louis, Mo., and what next nobody knew. Definite orders for the movement were issued later, and it then occurred to us that possibly all our recent apprehensions about not seeing any fighting were somewhat premature.
Right here I will say that in the brief sketch of the regiment published in the reports of the Adjutant-General of the State of Illinois, the date of our leaving Carrollton is given as February 21, which is wrong. That date is either a mistake of the person who wrote that part of the sketch, or a typographical error. I have in my possession, and now lying before me, a letter I wrote to my father from Benton Barracks, of date March 2, 1862, in which the date of our arrival at St. Louis is given as February 28th. And I well know that we were only two days on the trip. And besides the date given in my letter, I distinctly remember several unwritten facts and circumstances that satisfy me beyond any doubt, that the day we left Carrollton was February 27, 1862. Early in the morning of that day, the regiment filed out at the big gate, and marched south on the dirt road. Good-bye to old Camp Carrollton! Many of the boys never saw it again, and I never have seen it since but once, which was in the summer of 1894. I was back then in Jersey county, on a sort of a visit, and was taken with a desire to run up to Carrollton and look at the old camp. There was then a railroad constructed during the last years of the war, (or about that time), running south from the town, and less than an hour's ride from Jerseyville, where I was stopping, so I got on a morning train, and, like Jonah when moved to go to Tarshish, "paid the fare and went." I found the old camp still being used as a county fair ground, and the same big trees, or the most of them, were there yet, and looked about as they did thirty-two years before. Of course, every vestige of our old barracks was gone. I stood around and looked at things awhile,—and thought—then left, and have never been there again.