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
"Well, if you'd seen us bustin' your old friend Long-street at Snodgrass
Hill, you'd seen some hefightin'. We learned him that he wasn't
monkeyin' with the Army o' the Potomac, but with fellers that wuz
down there for business, and not to wear paper collars and shine their
buttons. He come at us seven times before we could git that little fact
through his head, and we piled up his dead like cordwood."
"Well, you didn't do any better than we did with Early's men at Gulp's
Hill, if we do wear paper collars," returned the other proudly. "After
we got through with Johnston's Division you couldn't see the ground in
front for the dead and wounded. And none of your men got up on Lookout
Mountain any quicker'n we did. Paper collars and red stars showed you
the way right along."
"My pardner's only envious because he hain't no paper collars nor fine
clothes," said Si, conciliatorily. "I've often told him that if he'd
leave chuck-a-luck alone and save his money he'd be able to dress
better'n Gen. Grant."
"Gen. Grant's no great shakes as a dresser," returned the other. "I was
never so surprised in my life as one day when I was Orderly at Division
Headquarters, and a short man with a red beard, and his clothes
spattered with mud, rode up, followed by one Orderly, and said,
'Orderly, tell the General that Gen. Grant would like to see him.' By
looking hard I managed to make out three stars on his shoulder. Why, if
Gen. McClellan had been coming you'd have seen him for a mile before he
got there."
"If Gen. Grant put on as much style in proportion to what he done as
McClellan, you could see him as far as the moon," ventured Shorty.
"Well, we're not gettin' to the rijimint," said the impatient Si. "Le's
rack on. So long, Orderly. Come and see us in the 200th Injianny and
we'll treat you white. Forward, march!"
"There's a couple of boys comin' up the road. Probably they kin tell us
where the rijimint is," suggested Shorty.
The two boys were evidently recruits of some months' standing, but not
yet considered seasoned soldiers.
"No," they said, "there is no 200th Ind. here now. It was here
yesterday, and was camped right over there, where you see that old camp,
but before noon came an order to march with three days' rations and 40
rounds. It went out the Lafayette Road, and the boys seemed to think
they wuz goin' out to Pigeon Mountain to begin the general advance o'
the army, and wuz mightily tickled over it."
"Gone away," said Si, scanning the abandoned camp sadly; "everybody
couldn't have gone. They must've left somebody behind that wasn't able
to travel, and somebody to take care o' 'em. They must've left some
rijimintal stuff behind and a guard over it."
"No," the boys assured him. "They broke up camp completely. All that
wasn't able to march was sent to the hospital in Chattynoogy. Every
mite of stuff was loaded into wagons and hauled off with 'em. They never
expected to come back."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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