Si Klegg, Book 6: Si and Shorty, with Their Boy Recruits, Enter on the Atlanta CampaignMcElroy, John
History
Si Klegg, Book 6: Si and Shorty, with Their Boy Recruits, Enter on the Atlanta Campaign
McElroy, John
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Fiction; War stories
It was the first time in all their service that either of them had
seen a soldier in the full dress prescribed by the United States Army
regulations, and this man had clearly won the coveted detail of Orderly
by competition with his comrades as being the neatest, best-dressed
man in the squad. He was a tall, fine-looking young man, wearing white
gloves and a paper collar, with a spotless dress coat buttoned to the
chin, his shoes shining like mirrors, his buttons and belt-plates like
new gold, and his regulation hat caught up on the left side with a
feather and a gilt eagle. The front of his hat was a mass of gilt
letters and figures and a bugle, indicating his company, regiment and
State. On his breast was a large, red star.
"Jehosephat," sighed Shorty. "I wish I had as many dollars as he has
style. Must be one of old Abe's body guards, sent out here with Grant's
commission as Lieutenant-General. Expect that red star passes him on
the railroads and at the hotels. I'd like to play him two games out o'
three, cut-throat, for it. I could use it in my business."
"No," said the Orderly to Si, with a strong Yankee twang, "I don't know
a mite about the 200th Ind. Leastwise, I don't remember it. Everybody
down here's from Indiana, Ohio or Illinois. It's one eternal mix, like
Uncle Jed Stover's fish--couldn't tell shad, herring nor sprat from one
another. It seems to me more like a 'tarnal big town-meeting than an
army. All talk alike, and have got just as much to say; all act alike.
Can't tell where an Indiana regiment leaves off and Ohio one begins;
can't tell officer from private, everybody dresses as he pleases, and
half of them don't wear anything to tell where they belong. There wasn't
a corps badge in the whole army when we come here."
"Corps badges--what's them?" asked Si.
"Corps badges? Why this is one," said the man, tapping his red star.
"This shows I belong to the Twelfth Corps--best corps in the Army of the
Potomac, and the First Division--best division in the corps. We have to
wear them so's to show our General which are his men, and where they be.
Haven't you no corps badges?"
"Our General don't have to tag us," said Shorty, who had come up and
listened. "He knows all of us that's worth knowin', and that we'll go
wherever he orders us, and stay there till he pulls us off. Our corps
badge's a full haversack and Springfield rifle sighted up to 1,200
yards."
"Well, you do fight in a most amazing way," said the Orderly, cordially.
"We never believed it of such rag-tag and bobtail until we saw you go
up over Mission Ridge. You were all straggling then, but you were
straggling toward the enemy. Never saw such a mob, but it made the
rebels sick."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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