A Boy Trooper With Sheridan. Allen Stanton P.

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СКАЧАТЬ not fifteen until the next February. The examiners did not question my age.

      “We won’t say twenty-one years,” said Waterman, “and so we won’t lie about it.”

      After I had been under fire for some time I was told to step aside, and Waterman was brought before the examiners.

      “He looks too young,” said Mr. Robinson to Lieutenant Hopkins.

      “Well, question him, suggested the lieutenant.

      “How old are you? inquired the committee man.

      “Twenty-one, sir,” replied Waterman.

      “When were you twenty-one?”

      “Last week.”

      “I think you’re stretching it a little.”

      “No, sir; I’m older than Allen, who has just been taken in.”

      “I guess not; you may go out in the other room by the stove and think it over.”

      Our married man Taylor was next called in.

      “We can’t take you,” said Robinson.

      “What’s matter?” exclaimed Giles.

      “You’re not old enough.”

      “How old’ve I got to be?”

      “Twenty-one, unless you get the consent of your parents.”

      “Taylor’s a married man,” I whispered to Lieutenant Hopkins.

      “Don’t tell that, or he’ll be asked to get the consent of his wife,” said the lieutenant, also in a whisper.

      The committee contended that Taylor would not fill the bill. Waterman was recalled, and Mr. Robinson said:

      “Well, you’ve had time to think it over. Now how old are you?”

      “Twenty-one, last week.”

      “I can’t hardly swallow that.”

      “See here, Mr. Quinn” (I had not heard the committee man’s other name then), I interrupted. “We three have come together to enlist. You have said that I can go. Taylor may be a trifle under age, but what of it? If you don’t take the three of us none of us will go.”

      There was more talk of the same kind, but finally the war committee decided to send us on to Pittsfield and let the recruiting authorities of that place settle the question of Taylor and Waterman’s eligibility.

      There was no trouble at Pittsfield, and we were forwarded to Boston in company with several other recruits. The rendezvous was at Camp Meigs in Readville, ten miles or so below the city. Arriving at the camp we were marched to the barracks of Company I, Third Battalion, First Massachusetts cavalry, to which company we had been assigned.

      When we entered the barracks we were greeted with cries of “fresh fish,” etc., by the “old soldiers,” some of whom had reached camp only a few days before our arrival. We accepted the situation, and were ready as soon as we had drawn our uniforms to join in similar greetings to later arrivals. The barracks were one-story board buildings. They would shed rain, but the wind made itself at home inside the structures when there was a storm, so there was plenty of ventilation. The bunks were double-deckers, arranged for two soldiers in each berth.

      “I’m not going to sleep in that apple bin without you give me a bed,” said Taylor to the corporal who pointed out our bunks.

      “Young man, do you know who you’re speaking to?” thundered the corporal.

      “No; you may be the general or the colonel or nothing but a corporal – ”

      “‘Nothing but a corporal!’ I’ll give you to understand that a corporal in the First Massachusetts cavalry is not to be insulted. You have no right to speak to me without permission. I’ll put you in the guard house and prefer charges against you.”

      “See here,” said Taylor. “Don’t you fool with me. If you do I’ll cuff you.”

      “Mutiny in the barracks,” shouted a lance sergeant who heard Giles’s threat to smite the corporal.

      The first sergeant came out of a little room near the door, and charged down toward us with a saber in his hand.

      “What’s the trouble here?” he demanded.

      “This recruit threatened to strike me,” replied the corporal.

      “And he threatened to put me in the guard house for saying I wouldn’t sleep in that box without a bed,” said Taylor.

      “Did you ever hear the articles of war read?” asked the sergeant.

      “No, sir.”

      “Well, then, we’ll let you go this time; but you’ve had a mighty narrow escape. Had you struck the corporal the penalty would have been death. Never talk back to an officer.”

      “Golly! that was a close call,” whispered Taylor, after he had crawled into his bunk.

      We each had a blanket issued to us for that night, but the next day straw ticks were filled, and added to our comfort. Waterman and I took the upper bunk, and Giles slept downstairs alone until he paired with Theodore C. Hom of Williamstown, another new-comer.

      One of the most discouraging experiences that a recruit was called upon to face before he reached the front was the drawing of his outfit – receiving his uniform and equipments. I speak of cavalry recruits. If there ever was a time when I felt homesick and regretted that I had not enlisted in the infantry it was the morning of the second day after our arrival at Camp Meigs. I recall no one event of my army life that broke me up so completely as did this experience. I had drawn a uniform in the Griswold cavalry at Troy before my father appeared on the scene with a habeas corpus, but I had not been called on to take charge of a full set of cavalry equipments. If I had been perhaps the second attack of the war fever would not have come so soon.

      A few minutes after breakfast the first sergeant of Company I came out from his room near the door and shouted:

      “Attention!”

      “Attention!” echoed the duty sergeants and corporals in the barracks.

      “Recruits of Company I who have not received their uniforms fall in this way.”

      A dozen “Johnny come Latelys,” including the Berlin trio, fell in as directed. The sergeant entered our names in a memorandum book. Then we were turned over to a corporal, who marched us to the quartermaster’s office where we stood at attention for an hour or so while the requisition for our uniforms was going through the red-tape channels. Finally the door opened, and a dapper young sergeant with a pencil behind his ear informed the corporal that “all’s ready.”

      The names were called alphabetically, and I was the first of the squad to go inside to receive my outfit.

      “Step here and sign these vouchers in duplicate,” said the sergeant.

      I signed the papers. The sergeant threw the different articles of the uniform and equipments in a heap on the floor, asking СКАЧАТЬ