History of the Eighty-sixth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, during its term of service Part 12

He stopped instanter, obeying the summons of his captor, for there was no other alternative; he was powerless. The next demand made of him was his watch and pocket book.

The rebel, for a short distance, marched the Captain a few paces in front, following close in the rear with a c.o.c.ked gun, and leading the horse by the reins; but this was not getting along fast enough, for the horse would not lead good. He now ordered the Captain on horseback, still walking close behind and directing the course of the prisoner by proper military commands.

They had thus traveled about two miles when a horseman was heard to approach on a keen trot from the direction of their front. This horseman was supposed to be a rebel cavalryman, but on coming closer he was discovered to be a Yankee. The rebel leveled his gun on him and commanded his surrender; but saying nothing, the Yankee threw the reins loose on the horse's neck and approached to the rebel's gun as if to give up, but seizing it thrust it to one side, when off it went, hurting no one.

The rebel was now at their mercy, if they could catch him, for he took leg-bail. Both the Yankees pursued and finally captured him. The Orderly--for the last character was the Captain's Orderly--tried to shoot the fugitive, but his pistol would not go off.

Having captured the rebel, the Captain loaded his gun and demanded back all that had been taken from him. The Captain soon after found the column, bringing his captive with him, rejoicing--the rebel fighting mad.

SOLDIERS' LETTERS.

Letters are the soldier's tonic. They will strengthen and restore when army grub and other restoratives, duly proportioned, wholly fail. The blues and all kinds of contagious diseases to which mortals are heir, caused by idleness and the lack of proper diversion of the mind, are soon uprooted by a good interesting letter from a fellow's most affectionate. Give soldiers full rations and regular mail, then there can nowhere be found a more rational set of men than they. But letters are sometimes like our crackers and pork, unfit for use. Such letters do no good--they are no good. There is a sheet full of writing, to be sure, but it is about something that neither interests nor concerns us.

Those letters that tell us about the little things of home; the farm, the horses, the cattle, the dogs and cats, their quality and disposition; also the parties and frolics, who is going to see who, and what people say about it, are the very letters that do all this good I have been telling about.

The soldiers will always crowd around the ones who get such letters, make remarks and ludicrous suggestions which cause bursts of hearty laughter and strains of highest merriment, thus pa.s.sing the tedious hours of camp life in a light and merry way.

No one cares for a letter which is wholly devoted to the praise and admiration of one's patriotism and to the sacredness of the Union cause.

Such letters bore to the very quick. It seems to them that the writer is taking that opportunity to speak a word of eulogy for himself. As for the true soldier, he never asks for words of flattery; he is not to be gulled with bland words and braggadocio. The letter for the soldier is the long, pithy one, full of little things, even down to gossip.

_Gossip is better than eulogy_, especially when used in an egotistical manner.

BATTLE.

Much has been said and written about battle, the greater portion of which is an exaggeration of facts. Fireside writers and reporters have composed long ma.n.u.scripts, beginning and ending in frantic agonies and seas of blood, exhausting the vocabulary of pathetic epithets. That battle is dreadful cannot be denied, but those who have pa.s.sed through the fiery ordeal do not experience half the convulsions and agony of soul that is written. If a comrade falls, the column still moves on. No one, by the late rules of war, dare stop to bear off the wounded or sympathize with those in the throes of death. There are men detailed for that purpose, who follow up in the rear and give those in need due attention.

A soldier in a pitched battle does not pretend to know who is hurt until the battle is ended; he must needs push ahead and do his part until he is no longer able. Many of your comrades fall around you; they show unmistakable symptoms of severe wounds, but your attention is too much engrossed to ever think to inquire the nature of their wounds. You are hardly conscious of any suffering around you. Excitement has borne you off so that you never think to look and see who is on your right or left, or whose spirit is winging its flight from the body over which you are walking. The soldier does not seem to feel pangs of sorrow when arms clash the loudest; he does not see danger and suffering and ghastly sights until all is over and quiet restored. Those who are unacquainted with the mental condition of the soldier in time of battle, wonder and ask why it is that those whom he knows so intimately are wounded and many times killed by his side without knowing the nature of their wounds or the circ.u.mstances of their death. The reason for this is manifest from what has already been said.

There is oftentimes more horror in the idea and dread of battle than in the thing itself. The soldier becomes so accustomed to human butchery that it loses many, very many, of its horrors.

After battle, when the clash of arms has ceased, is when the soldier's sympathy is tried. The solicitations of the maimed and dying raise a feeling of commiseration in the most obdurate heart; and still this feeling is of but short duration and of a mild character.

FARMING IN THE SOUTH.

Farming in the Southern States is carried on in a very simple and seeming ignorant style. One could not refrain from laughing at their oddity in agricultural pursuits. They are a great many years behind the North in this respect, as well as in many others.

The whites and negroes are so sluggish, indolent and careless in their habits that their works are a fair prototype of themselves. There is a difference between a farm and a plantation, though they are carried on in nearly the same style; the main difference is that the one is gotten up on a larger scale than the other. What is usually called a farm is owned by a poor white man--while the plantation is owned by a wealthy planter, with his hundreds of negroes. The farm is known by its small area, by its improvements and its little old log house with its appendages; the plantation, by its vast area, its stately mansion and numerous negro shanties. The improvements are usually very poor, with but few conveniences. On every plantation you will see a cotton press and gin house, with the stable under the latter. The cotton press is the first thing you get your eyes on when you approach a plantation, and then the gin house next. And as for the farms or little plantations, you scarcely know anything about them until you have them suddenly spread before your view. There is hardly ever anything external to warn one of their presence.

It is, as it were, a swath mown in the deep pine forest--the labor of a poor ignorant being, who, like the parrot, can talk and palaver with simple unmeaningness, but ignorant of the world beyond a radius of ten miles. The people, for the most part, break up their ground with one horse or ox, as the case may be, their plows being suited to the purpose.

This small plow is made after the fas.h.i.+on of our large two-horse breaking plows, and is, as we are wont to say, right or left handed.

Some farmers are too poor to afford a horse or mule; in this case they work an ox as if he were a horse, hitch him to the plow and drive him with ropes attached to his horns with as much precision as a horse or mule.

The oxen here may be of a more docile breed than found in our parts, and certainly are, for it would be dangerous with us to hitch one to a plow and start him on a row through a cornfield, for he would likely jump the fence before he reached the other end.

The rows of corn here are usually six feet apart, with a row of negro beans between. If one man can tend eight acres he thinks he is doing good business; the corn is hardly ever plowed, it being worked with the hoe for the most part.

The women work in the field as well as the men, they being used to it.

They will not believe us when we tell them that our women do not work in the field. When an acre of ground yields twelve bushels of corn it is thought to be a fine crop. They gape with wonder when we tell them we break our ground with two horses, plow our corn with a plow on which we can ride; that one man can tend forty acres and raise forty bushels to the acre. When we tell them about our reapers, our vast fields of wheat, oats, etc., etc., they gape, and wonder what we do with it all.

If we tell them about our large prairies, rich soil and productive land, they wonder why they had not heard of that before.

Their princ.i.p.al diet is corn bread, meat and negro beans. These n.i.g.g.e.r beans, by the way, are not so bad, just the thing for the soldier; many farmers raise them altogether, so to speak. It is a common thing to see cribs of these beans as you pa.s.s through the country; it takes them so short a time to cook, which adapts them to our use. Corn and beans are not their only productions, for they sometimes grow a little wheat, oats, tobacco and cotton. Many reap their grain with the sickle, not having known the existence of the cradle. There are no reapers to be seen, or if at all, but seldom.

As a people, they have no enterprise; they live only to eat, and even that is done in a poor, unhandy style.

There are a great many turpentine, rosin and tar factories in "the sunny land of Dixie." There are vast tracts of land here, covered with dense forests of pine, that can be put to no other use than the production of these things. In North Carolina these factories are most numerous. They are built on small streams of water, and for miles around the trees are hewn on two sides; the turpentine running out, gums on the tree where it is hewn. On our march we burned many of these factories; they made a grand, huge smoke, most sublime.

It is impossible for a person who has not seen the like to form a proper idea of the real grandeur and sublimity of these dense volumes of black, agitated smoke, brightened betimes with lofty flames of liquid fire that seem to lift themselves in the fury of their madness to the very skies.

REBEL LETTER.

This letter, written by a rebel soldier, was found on the battle-ground at Bentonville, N. C.

BIVOUAC NEAR "RACc.o.o.n FORD," VA., September 25th, 1863.

DEAR c.o.o.n--I have just received your kind favor of the 8th inst., and am very much gratified with its contents. I could not expect a long letter from a soldier "in the field," and I suppose your time was fully taken up reorganizing your company and regiment.

Since last writing you we had some little excitement ourselves.

The Yankee, Meade, has tried to take advantage of our supposed decimated army, and has advanced across the Rappahannock river to the banks of the Rapidan. We have here checked his advance and are awaiting the attack which he is very slow about making. I think both sides are awaiting the decision of the battle in Tennessee and Georgia before a move is made.

We are daily in receipt of glorious news from Bragg, but there are so many rumors without foundation that we hardly know what he has done. I hope he will not rest until he has driven the foe across the Ohio. You have our brag fighting general with you now, and I know you will be victorious.

I have not heard a word from "Miss Mattie" since I left home, and if the truth must be told, I never want to again. I have found a new sweetheart, and I think the change is more agreeable, at least to me. I suppose you know that Miss Katie Furlow's father is running for Governor; of course you will support him.

You recollect that pretty little woman that I showed you in the theatre in Augusta, the one I said was the belle of Augusta--Miss Fannie Hatch. Well, I have been told by one who knows and believes, that "Albert," who performed with the "Queen Sisters" that night, has betrayed her. I can scarcely believe that so much loveliness would have fallen so easily, yet they say 'tis true.

I shall anxiously wait to hear further from you in reference to the lieutenancy. If you are successful in securing it for me (which I hope and pray you may be,) I shall be ever grateful to you.

I have not seen Joe Holt since the reception of yours, his regiment being on picket guard. I know he would send you his kind regards, if he knew I was writing to you. Accept my best wishes, and believe me to be

Truly your Friend,

A. KENT BISEL.