Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1882-09-19
LETTER TO OLD SOLDIERS.
BY GEORGE W. PECK.

BY GEORGE W. PECK.
The following was sent in response to
an invitation to be present at a reunion
Of old soldiers :
Tomue Croft, Esq:
My BEAUTIFUL DREAMER: Your invitation
to me to be present at your bean banquet is re-
ceived, and 1 regret to say that previous
engagement Will prevent me from taking you
by the hand on that occasion, and leading you
through green pastures and beside still waters.
Do you think want to get all the beans in the
country? am not a hog, Tom. I know when
/ got enough beans. That last painful of beans
at the Milwaukee campfire fixed me, and
have not looked at bean square in the face
since. don't know what it is, but there is
something in beans which makes men sociable
and reckless. Beware of beans, Tom, as you
value your future happiness. Look not upon
the bean when it is baked and giveth its color
In the pan, for at last it swelleth like an accor-
dion and biteth like q cucumber.
But would Like to be there, Thomas, and
take the old soldiers by the hand, and look into
the eyes that are becoming dim, and notice the
effect Of Father Times pencilings on the faces
OF the boys who, twenty years ago, were as full
Of vitality and as htteny as any man that ever
kept step to the rafting Of canteens against
cartridge box. Boys, do you realize that you
are getting old? When you enlisted, twenty
years ago, the Government was glad to vel
come you to the ranks but if you should go to
recruiting officer to-day he would say: "My
friend, you are too old" You feel like kicking
the recruiting officer, but he would right. You
could not stand the marching, the lying under
fences, sleeping in the mud, and living on army
rations. 1t is hard to realize it, but if another
war was to break out, your little baby that you
left in his mothers arms twenty years ago,
grooming at the blue uniform in which you were
disguised, would be the chap the Government
would want.
Boys. you are rapidly becoming old back
numbers" though you feel young enough to
stub around home. You are "exempt" now.
Do you realize that the little baby girl that
chung to you as you said good-by, twenty years
ago. with tears in your eyes as big as glass
paper weight or an editors diamond, is now
woman, married, and that another baby is try
ing to utter the word grandpa when you
come i'll putting on youthful airs?
1t is pleasant now to chase the festive bean
around the home campfire, and talk of the
nights when you slept on the ground in a pup
tent, OF some battlefield with your wet and
muddy pantaloon legs frozen as stiff as dried
Goldfish, while you dreamed that every star
that was looking down from above was the eve
OF dear one at home reckoning you to "Hold
the Fort and hurry up and get through with
the confounded foolishness and come home.
You can laugh now as you think how you got
up in the morning after such nights rest look
ing as though you had been drawn through
brush fence. and swearing because the niger
was afraid to come up with the camp-kettIe of
coffee. You who are left have q right to be
happy; but, in the midst of your bean banquet,
let me ask you to stand up with your tin cup of
black coffee and drink to "The Boys Who Ney-
er Got Home" the brave fellows who never re-
turned to the loved ones they parted from
twenty years ago. Let us hope that the great
Congress above removed the disabilities ~ of
the boys who left vacancies in their regiments.
and that the few chickens they took from the
enemy by way of business will not be entered ND
against them in the Big Book, but that the pro-
vost guard on duty at the gates Of the New Je-
rusalenl will "present arms" to them, and tell
the boys they are welcome to the best there is
and that when we all get in our work lere. and
are ready to join our regiment in heaven, the
fellows that were buried years ago may stand on
the parapet as we come struggling in and give
us the soldiers welcome, "three times three"
with tiger; and we shall say to them, GAN
right, comrades we would have been here be-
fore, only we were detained by business"