United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Fiction; War stories
For a few days the 200th Ind. lay in camp, but one day there came an
order for the regiment to march to Bardstown as rapidly as possible. A
battle was imminent. The roads were dusty as ash-heaps, and though the
pace was not three miles an hour, the boys' tongues were hanging out
before they were out of sight of camp.
"I say, Captain, don't they never have resting spells in the army?" said
Si.
"Not on a forced march," answered the Captain, who, having been in the
first 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 feet
that 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. They
say Morgan's cavalry are in our rear shooting down every straggler they
can find."
Si saw the boys around him lightening their knapsacks. He abominated
waste above all things, but there seemed no help for it, and, reaching
into that receptacle that bore, down upon his aching shoulders like a
glacier on a groundhog, he pulled out and tossed into the fence corner
the educational works he had anticipated so much benefit from. The
bottle of "No. 6" followed, and it seemed as if the knapsack was a ton
lighter, 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. The
enemy is trying to get to the bridge ahead of them," he shouted as he
dashed 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 it
into strips with his bowie. "My mother made that with her own hands," he
explained to a comrade, "and if I can't have the good of it no infernal
rebel shall. He next slashed the boots up and threw them after the
quilt, and then hobbled on to overtake the rest of his company.
"There's enough dry-goods and clothing lying along in the fence corners
to supply a good-sized town," the Lieutenant-Colonel reported as he rode
over the line of march in rear of the regiment.
The next day Si's feet felt as if there was a separate and individual
jumping toothache in every sinew, muscle, tendon and toe-nail; but that
didn't matter. With Bragg's infantry ahead and John Morgan's cavalry in
the rear, the 200th Ind. had to go forward so long as the boys could put
one 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 he
ruefully regarded it in the evening.
"Show me one in the regiment that don't," answered his comrade.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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