Si Klegg
Chapter 35 : They were both awake by this time, and looked around in amazement."We went to slee

They were both awake by this time, and looked around in amazement.

"We went to sleep nice and comfortable, under a wagon last night," said Shorty, slowly recalling the circ.u.mstances. "The two Lieutenants and the Orderly had the upper berth, and we slept on the ground-floor."

"Yes," a.s.sented Si; "and someone's come along, hitched mules to our bedroom and snaked it off."

"Just the way in the condemned army," grumbled Shorty, his ill-humor a.s.serting itself as he sat up and looked out over the rain-soaked fields. "Never kin git hold of a good thing but somebody yanks it{94} away. S'pose they thought that it was too good for a private soldier, and they took it away for some Major-General to sleep under."

[Ill.u.s.tration: A DISAGREEABLE AWAKENING FOR SHORTY AND SI. 94]

"Well, I wonder what we're goin' to do for grub?" said Si, as his athletic appet.i.te began to a.s.sert itself.

"Our own wagons, that we had such a time guarding, are over there in the cedars, and the rebels are filling themselves up with the stuff that we were so good to bring up for them."

"It makes me jest sizzle," said Shorty, "to think of all we went through to git them condemned wagons up where they'd be handiest for them."

Si walked down the line toward where the Regimental Headquarters were established under a persimmon tree, and presently came back, saying:

"They say there's mighty small chance of gettin' any grub to-day.

Wheeler burnt three or four miles of our wagons yesterday, and's got possession of the road to Nashville. We've got to fight the battle out on empty stomachs, and drive these whelps away before we kin get a square meal."

Jan. 1, 1863, was an exceedingly solemn, unhappy New Year's Day for the Union soldiers on the banks of Stone River. Of the 44,000 who had gone into the line on the evening of Dec. 30, nearly 9,000 had been killed or wounded and about 2,000 were prisoners. The whole right wing of the army had been driven back several miles, to the Nashville Pike. Cannon, wagon-trains, tents and supplies had been captured by the rebel cavalry, which had burned miles of wagons, and the faint-hearted ones murmured that the army would have to surrender or starve.

There was not ammunition enough to fight an other battle. The rebel army had suffered as heavily in killed and wounded, but it was standing on its own ground, near its own supplies, and had in addition captured great quant.i.ties of ours.{96}

The mutual slaughter of the two armies had been inconceivably awful inexpressibly ghastly, shuddering, sickening. They had pounded one another to absolute exhaustion, and all that sullen, lowering, sky-weeping Winter's day they lay and glared at one another like two huge lions which had fanged and torn each other until their strength had been entirely expended, and breath and strength were gone. Each was too spent to strike another blow, but each too savagely resolute to think of retreating.

All the dogged stubbornness of his race was now at fever point in Si's veins. Those old pioneers and farmers of the Wabash from whom he sprang were not particularly handsome to look at, they were not glib talkers, nor well educated. But they had a way of thinking out rather slowly and awkwardly it might be just what they ought to do, and then doing it or dying in the effort which made it very disastrous for whoever stood in their way. Those who knew them best much preferred to be along with them rather than against them when they set their square-cornered heads upon accomplis.h.i.+ng some object.

Si might be wet, hungry, and the mora.s.s of mud in which the army was wallowing uncomfortable and discouraging to the last degree, but there was not the slightest thought in his mind of giving up the fight as long as there was a rebel in sight. He and Shorty were not hurt yet, and until they were, the army was still in good fighting trim.

The line of the 200th Ind. was mournfully shorter than it was two days before, but there were still several hundred boys of Si's stamp gathered resolutely{97} around its flag, the game little Colonel's voice rang out as sharply as ever, and the way the boys picked up their guns and got into line whenever a sputter of firing broke out anywhere must have been very discouraging to Gen. Bragg and his officers, who were anxiously watching the Union lines through their gla.s.ses for signs of demoralization and retreat.

"We licked 'em yesterday, every time they come up squarely in front o'

the 200th Ind.," Si said to Shorty and those who stood around gazing anxiously on the ma.s.ses of brown men on the other side of the field. "We can do it again, every time. The only way they got away with us was by sneakin' around through the cedars and takin' us in the rear. We're out in the open ground now, an' they can't get around our flanks." And he looked to the extreme right, where every knoll was crowned with a battery of frowning guns.

"They got their bellies full o' fightin' yesterday," added Shorty, studying the array judicially. "They hain't none o' the brashness they showed yesterday mornin', when they were jumpin' us in front, right, left and rear at the same minute. They're very backward about comin'

forward acrost them fields for us to-day. I only wish they'd try it on."

But the forenoon wore away without the rebels showing any disposition to make an a.s.sault across the muddy fields. Si's vigilant appet.i.te took advantage of the quiet to a.s.sert its claims imperiously.

"Shorty," said he, "there must be something to eat somewhere around here. I'm goin' to look for it."

"You'll have just about as much chance of findin' it," said Shorty dolefully, "among that mob o' {98}famished Suckers as you would o'

findin' a straw-stack in the infernal regions. But I'll go 'long with you. We can't lose the regiment in the day time."

"By the way, Shorty," said Si, happening to glance at the sleeves of the overcoats which he had picked up, "we both seem to be Sergeants."

"That's so," a.s.sented Shorty. "Both these are Sergeant's overcoats.

We'll take our guns along, and play that we are on duty. It may help us out somewhere."

Things looked so quiet in front that the Captain gave them permission, and off they started. It seemed a hopeless quest. Everywhere men were ravenous for food. They found one squad toasting on their rammers the pieces of a luckless rabbit they had cornered in a patch of briars.

Another was digging away at a hole that they alleged contained a woodchuck. A third was parching some corn found in a thrown-away feed box, and congratulating themselves upon the lucky find.

Finally they came out upon the banks of Stone River at the place to which Si had wandered during the night. Si recognized it at once, and also the voices that came from behind a little thicket of paw paws as those of the men with whom he had had the squabble.

Si motioned to Shorty to stop and keep silent, while he stepped up closer, parted the bushes a little, looked through, and listened.

Two men were standing by a fire, which was concealed from the army by the paw-paws. Four others had just come up, carrying rolled in a blanket what seemed to be a dead body. They flung it down{99} by the fire, with exclamations of relief, and unrolled it. It was the carca.s.s of a pig so recently killed that it was still bleeding.

"h.e.l.lo," exclaimed the others joyfully; "where did you get that?"

"Why," exclaimed one of the others, "we were poking around down there under the bank, and we happened to spy a n.i.g.g.e.r cabin on the other side of the river, hid in among the willers, where n.o.body could see it. We thought there might be something over there, so we waded across. There wasn't any thing to speak of in the cabin, but we found this pig in the pen. Jim bayoneted it, and then we wrapped it up in our blanket, as if we wuz taking a boy back to the Surgeon's, and fetched it along. We couldn't 've got a hundred yards through that crowd if they'd dreamed what we had. Jerusalem, but it was heavy, though. We thought that pig weighed a thousand pounds before we got here."

"Bully boys," said the others gleefully. "We'll have enough to eat, no matter how many wagons the rebels burn. I always enjoyed a dinner of fresh pork more on New Year's Day than any other time."

Si turned and gave Shorty a wink that conveyed more to that observant individual than a long telegram would have done. He winked back approvingly, brought up his gun to a severely regulation "carry arms,"

and he and Si stepped briskly through the brush to the startled squad.

"Here," said Si, with official severity; "you infernal stragglers, what regiments do you belong to? Sneaking out here, are you, and stealin'

hogs instead of being with your companies. Wrap that pig up{100} again, pick it up, and come along with us to Headquarters."

For a minute it looked as if the men would fight. But Si had guessed rightly; they were stragglers, and had the cowardice of guilty consciences. They saw the chevrons on Si's arms, and his positive, commanding air finished them. They groaned, wrapped up the pig again, and Si mercifully made the two who had waited by the fire carry the heaviest part.

Si started them back toward the 200th Ind., and he and Shorty walked along close to them, maintaining a proper provost-guard-like severity of countenance and carriage.

The men began to try to beg off, and make advances on the basis of sharing the pork. But Si and Shorty's official integrity was incorruptible.

"Shut up and go on," they would reply to every proposition. "We ain't that kind of soldiers. Our duty's to take you to Headquarters, and to Headquarters you are going."

They threaded through the crowds for some time, and as they were at last nearing the regiment a battery of artillery went by at as near a trot as it could get out of the weary horses in that deep mire. The squad took advantage of the confusion to drop their burden and scurry out of sight in the throng.

"All right; let 'em go," grinned Si. "I wuz jest wonderin' how we'd get rid o' 'em. I'd thought o' takin' them into the regiment and then givin'

them a chunk o' their pork, but then I'd get mad at the way they talked about the 200th Ind. last night, and want to stop and lick 'em. It's better as it is. We need all that pig for the boys."{101}

Si and Shorty picked up the bundle and carried it up to the regiment.

When they unrolled it the boys gave such l.u.s.ty cheers that the rebels beyond the field rushed to arms, expecting a charge, and one of our impulsive cannoneers let fly a sh.e.l.l at them.

Si and Shorty cut off one ham for themselves and their particular cronies, carried the other ham, with their compliments, to the Colonel, and let the rest be divided up among the regiment.

One of their chums was lucky enough to have saved a tin box of salt, and after they had toasted and devoured large slices of the fresh ham they began to feel like new men, and be anxious for some thing farther to happen.

But the gloomy, anxious day dragged its slow length along with nothing more momentous than fitful bursts of bickering, spiteful firing, breaking out from time to time on different parts of the long line, where the men's nerves got wrought up to the point where they had to do something to get the relief of action.

Away out in front of the regiment ran a little creek, skirting the hill on which the rebels were ma.s.sed. In the field between the hill and the creek was one of our wagons, which had mired there and been abandoned by the driver in the stampede of the day before. It seemed out of easy rifle-shot of the rebels on the hill.

Si had been watching it for some time. At length he said:

"Shorty, I believe that wagon's loaded with hard tack."