Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1876-08-03
ter. This is my record as house
THE STEALING WOOD CHARGE.

THE STEALING WOOD CHARGE.
| They charge me, too, with stealing
wood and name the amoant-twenty
cords. The amounts right. (Great
Laughtcr.) | got the wood. (Re-
newed laughter.) Philo there,
pointing to Mr.. Case, the drummer
of the martial tand present. sitting
at one side, and who was drummer
of Co. ID. of the Second Iowa, knows
about that. Also Mr.. Moore, sitting
there, pointing to Mr.. w. s. Moore,
of the Second, knows about it, too,
and was there. Both Of you helped
me to steal it. Mr.. Case-That's
so. The circumstances were these !:
| | was ordered to take my regiment
and proceed to Paducah and join a
fleet going up the Tennessee river,
to take Fort Henry. At Cairo |
learned that Fort Henry was taken.
My orders were changed to proceed
to Smithland, and join the feet going
up the Cumberland river, to Fort
Donelson. The officers of the steam
boat that [ was on, with my regi-
ment, were bitter rebels. and sought
every opportunity to delay US, SO
that we couldn't reach there in time
When we arrived at Smithland, the
| feet had been gone six hours. The
| Captain of the boat said be had no
Cumberland river pilot, and couldn't
go mp that river. | forced him to
60 at the point of the bay onet, and
placed q file of soldiers in front of the
pilot house with orders not to allow
the Captain and pilot to live min
ute if any accident happened to the
boat. Cheer Capt. Mills, of Des
Moines, afterwards Colonel, was off,
Ger of the day, and had charge of the
sqnad, and all who knew that noble
man and heroic soldier know that he
would have performed his duty.
But we had not been going long till
one of my soldiers, who was an old
steamboatman, told me that the Cap
tain was playing it on me-" that
there wasn't cord of wood on the
boat al .ogether, and that the purpose
was TO run out of wood at some point
beyond the reach of fuel, and so pre-
vent our getting to Fort Donelson.
HEIDI STEAL IT.
| began TO watch for wood -
L@ughter.] Soon | saw some-this
same twenty cords ordered the
captain to land the boat for the
wood. FL protested that he didn't
need it, that he had plenty of it. |
told MIN he could pull ashore or pull
hemp. laughter He landed the
bout. [Cheers'l A tassy old rebel
was on the spot, the owner of the
wood. The captain asked him if he
would sell it-with rebel wink.
The owner of course said no. | said
We would take it without making o
bargain. He said we couldn't take
it. | replied perhaps We couldn't,
but we would try. We tried, and
every man in the regiment, officers
and oil, were soon loading wood, and
it was on the boat speedily. Yes,
every soldier in the lot helped me to
do tina: stealing. Laughter. ] The
| owner wanted to know, as we were
leaving, who was going to pay him
| for the wood. | told him that |
didn't know, and that all knew was
| that we were bound for Fort Donel-
son, and no rebels were going to stop
us on the trip if we could help it.
That is the story of the wood
| don't know exactly how much |
stole. | didn't ask the price and l
didn't pay for it, This is the robber
that | was there. But we did get to
Fort Doneson, and some of you have
heard of the fun that the Second
Iowa had there with that lot of Ben
Hills "Constitution-huggers."
GEN. FUTILE AS A MURDERER.
They say am murderer Well,
I'll tell you about that. Some anon
ymous coward has sent me 40 ex-
tract from paper in Missouri-name
of the paper not given. but the piece
cut out-charging me with having
murdered man in Stewart, Nilsson
ri, and with shoe ting men after they
l BGu SuETGDu6IGQ. rs ~ thO hACS .
That was an incident of our trip as
we first went to the front. The
town was CD the Hannibal & st. 10
Road The Second Iowa was the
first Union regiment that made the
trip along the whole length OF the
line. Others had gone part of the
way. but the Second made the whole
trip, and were the first Union troops
that the rebels down there had seem
AS we came up to this little town, q
rebel flag was streaming from q pole
in door.yard. 1t was the first rag
of the Confederacy my boys had
seen, and they said it must come
down on the instant. (Cheers) |
anticipated no trouble, but after the
boys went up there | heard some
shots and then | vent up. A young
rebel had heard of our coming TO
| town. and had raised the flag, as
! defiance and menace, and said it
should float if he had to protect it
with his life. He got chance. He
said, with his revolver drawn, as the
boys came up, that the first man
who laid hands on that flag be
| would shoot dead. The boys proceed
ed to take the thing down-and he
got killed. How he was killed |
don't know exactly. Philo, there
pointing to Mr.. Case, again, sitting
near by. holding the same old drum
that he drummed through the war
can tell you more about that than |
can.
TMR. CAsE-the fellow said he
would shoot the first man who dared
even to touch the flag or the staff,
and the boys went for it. He tried
to shoot, swapping his revolver twice.
He didn't get chance to snap it
again. His flag came down and so
did he. [Cheers.]
THE GENERAL-Well, that's the
story of it. didn't sec that part of
it. I saw the flag after it was down,
r. szkx IN ~