Si Klegg, Book 1 Read online

  CHAPTER I. GOING TO WAR--SI KLEGG'S COMPLETE EQUIPMENT

  AND WHAT BECAME OF IT.

  AFTER Si Klegg had finally yielded to his cumulative patriotic impulsesand enlisted in the 200th Ind. for three years or until the rebellionwas put down, with greater earnestness and solemnity to equip himself forhis new career.

  He was thrifty and provident, and believed in being ready for anyemergency. His friends and family coincided with him. The Quartermasterprovided him with a wardrobe that was serviceable, if not stylish, butthere were many things that he felt he would need in addition.

  "You must certainly have a few pairs of homeknit socks and some changesof underclothes," said his tearfully-solicitous mother. "They won'tweigh much, and they'll in all likelihood save you a spell of sickness."

  "Certainly," responded Josiah, "I wouldn't think of going away without'em."

  Into the capacious knapsack went several pounds of substantial knitwoolen goods.

  "You can't get along without a couple of towels and a piece of soap,"said his oldest sister, Maria, as she stowed those things alongside thesocks and underclothes.

  "Si," said Ellen, his second sister, "I got this pocket album for mygift to you. It contains all our pictures, and there is a place foranother's picture, whose name I suppose I needn't mention," she addedarchly.

  Si got a little red in the face, but said:

  "Nothing could be nicer, Nell. It'll be the greatest comfort in theworld to have all your pictures to look at when I'm down in Dixie."

  "Here's a 'housewife' I've made for you with my own hands," addedAnnabel, who was some other fellow's sister. She handed him aneatly-stitched little cloth affair. "You see, it has needles, thread,buttons, scissors, a fine-tooth comb, and several other things thatyou'll need very badly after you've been in camp awhile. And" (she gotso near Si that she could whisper the rest) "you'll find in a littlesecret pocket a lock of my hair, which I cut off this morning."

  "I suppose I'll have a good deal of leisure time while we're in camp,"said Si to himself and the others; "I believe I'll just put this Ray'sArithmetic and Greene's Grammar in."

  "Yes, my young friend," added the Rev. Boanarg, who had just enteredthe house, "and as you will be exposed to new and unusual temptations,I thought it would be judicious to put this volume of 'Baxter's Call tothe Unconverted' in your knapsack, for it may give you good counsel whenyou need it sorely."

  "Thankee," said Si, stowing away the book. Of course, Si had to havea hair-brush, blackingbrush, a shaving kit, and some other toiletappliances.

  SI DECIDES TO ENLIST 017 ]

  Then it occurred to his thoughtful sister Maria that he ought to havea good supply of stationery, including pens, a bottle of ink, and aportfolio on which to write when he was far away from tables and desks.

  These went in, accompanied by a half-pint bottle of "No. 6," which wasSi's mother's specific for all the ills that flesh is heir to. Then,the blanket which the Quartermaster had issued seemed very light andinsufficient to be all the bed-clothes a man would have when sleeping onthe bare ground, and Si rolled up one of the warm counterpanes that hadhelped make the Indiana Winter nights so comfortable for him.

  "Seems rather heavy," said Si as he put his knapsack on; "but I guessI'll get used to it in a little while. They say that soldiers learnto carry surprising loads on their backs. It'll help cure me of beinground-shouldered; it'll be better 'n shoulder-braces for holding me upstraight."

  Of course, his father couldn't let him go away without giving himsomething that would contribute to his health and comfort, and atlast the old gentleman had a happy thought--he would get the villageshoemaker to make Si a pair of his best stout boots. They would be everso much better than the shoes the Quartermaster furnished for trampingover the muddy roads and swamps of the South. Si fastened these on topof his knapsack until he should need them worse than at present.

  His old uncle contributed an immense bowie knife, which he thought wouldbe of great use in the sanguinary hand-to-hand conflicts Si would haveto wage.

  On the way to the depot Si found some of his comrades gathered aroundan enterprising retail dealer in hardware, who was convincing them thatthey could serve their country much better, besides adding to theircomfort, by buying from him a light hatchet and a small frying-pan,which he offered, in consideration of their being soldiers, to sell themat remarkable low rates.

  OFF TO THE WAR 019 ]

  Si saw at once the great convenience a hatchet and a frying-pan wouldbe, and added them to his kit. An energetic dealer in tinware succeededin selling him, before he reached the depot, a cunning little coffee-potand an ingenious combination of knife, fork and spoon which did notweigh more than a pound.

  When he got in the cars he was chagrined to find that several of hiscomrades had provided themselves with convenient articles that he hadnot thought of. He consoled himself that the regiment would stop sometime in Louisville, when he would have an opportunity of making up hisdeficiencies.

  But when the 200th reached Louisville there was no leisure for anything.Bragg was then running his celebrated foot-race with Buell for theKentucky metropolis, and the 200th Ind. was trotted as rapidly as unusedlegs could carry it to the works several miles from the center of thecity.

  Everybody who was in that campaign remembers how terribly hot and dryeverything was.

  Si Klegg managed to keep up tolerably near the head of the column untilcamp was reached, but his shoulders were strained and blisters began toappear on his feet.

  "That was a mighty tough pull, wasn't it?" he said to his chum as theyspread their blankets on the dog-kennel and made some sort of a bed;"but I guess after a day or two we'll get so used to it that we won'tmind it."

  For a few days the 200th Ind. lay in camp, but one day there came anorder for the regiment to march to Bardstown as rapidly as possible. Abattle was imminent. The roads were dusty as ash-heaps, and though thepace was not three miles an hour, the boys' tongues were hanging outbefore they were out of sight of camp.

  "I say, Captain, don't they never have resting spells in the army?" saidSi.

  "Not on a forced march," answered the Captain, who, having been in thefirst three months' service, was regarded as a veteran. "Push on, boys;they say that they'll want us before night." Another hour passed.

  AS SI LOOKED WHEN HE LANDED AT LOUISVILLE 021 ]

  "Captain, I don't believe you can put a pin-point anywhere on my feetthat ain't covered with a blister as big as a hen's egg," groaned Si.

  "It's too bad, I know," answered the officer; "but you must go on. Theysay Morgan's cavalry are in our rear shooting down every straggler theycan find."

  Si saw the boys around him lightening their knapsacks. He abominatedwaste above all things, but there seemed no help for it, and, reachinginto that receptacle that bore, down upon his aching shoulders like aglacier on a groundhog, he pulled out and tossed into the fence cornerthe educational works he had anticipated so much benefit from. Thebottle of "No. 6" followed, and it seemed as if the knapsack was a tonlighter, but it yet weighed more than any stack of hay on the home farm.

  A cloud of dust whirled up, and out of it appeared a galloping Aid.

  "The General says that the 200th Ind. must push on much faster. Theenemy is trying to get to the bridge ahead of them," he shouted as hedashed off in another cloud of dust.

  A few shots were heard in the rear.

  "Morgan's cavalry are shooting some more stragglers," shouted some one.

  Si was getting desperate. He unrolled the counterpane and slashed itinto strips with his bowie. "My mother made that with her own hands," heexplained to a comrade, "and if I can't have the good of it no infernalrebel shall. He next slashed the boots up and threw them after thequilt, and then hobbled on to overtake the rest of his company.

  "There's enough dry-goods and clothing lying along in the fence cornersto supply a good-sized town," the Lieutenant-Colonel reported as he rodeover the line of march in rear of the regiment.

&n
bsp; The next day Si's feet felt as if there was a separate and individualjumping toothache in every sinew, muscle, tendon and toe-nail; but thatdidn't matter. With Bragg's infantry ahead and John Morgan's cavalry inthe rear, the 200th Ind. had to go forward so long as the boys could putone foot before the other.

  SI'S LOAD BEGINS TO GET HEAVY 023 ]

  The unloading went on even more rapidly than the day before.

  "My knapsack looks like an elephant had stept on it," Si said, as heruefully regarded it in the evening.

  "Show me one in the regiment that don't," answered his comrade.

  Thenceforward everything seemed to conspire to teach Si how vain andsuperfluous were the things of this world. The first rain-storm soakedhis cherished album until it fell to pieces, and his sister's portfoliodid the same. He put the photographs in his blouse pocket and got alongjust as well. When he wanted to write he got paper from the sutler. Amule tramped on his fancy coffee-pot, and he found he could make quiteas good coffee in a quart-cup. A wagon-wheel lan over his cherishedfrying-pan, and he melted an old canteen in two and made a lighter andhandier pan out of one-half of it. He broke his bowie-knife prying thelid off a cracker-box. He piled his knapsack with the others oneday when the regiment was ordered to strip them off for a charge,and neither he nor his comrades ever saw one of them again. He neverattempted to replace it. He learned to roll up an extra pair of socksand a change of underclothing in his blanket, tie the ends of thistogether and throw it over his shoulder sash fashion. Then, with hissocks drawn up over the bottoms of his pantaloons, three days' rationsin his haversack and 40 rounds in his cartridgebox, he was ready to makehis 30 miles a day in any direction he might be sent, and whip anythingthat he encountered on the road.