Audubon County Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Audubon Co., Iowa) 1885-1894, 1888-07-12
CAMP FIRE.
Badeau's War Memories Dicipline In
the Army Fritz and
the Soldiers, Etc.
Badcau,s war Memories.

Eadcau's war Memories.
was then young man, fresh from
journalism and society, used to writ
ing about operas and actors and balls
and visits. In all my studies and the
aspirations which most young men
not absolutely stupid entertain, it had
never occurrted to me that l should
sec real war; and this life of camp
and battle and seige was the more
fascinating because 1t was unexpected.
OF the other war correspondents with
the expedition several were either then
distinguished or afterward became so.
One was Doesticks, among the clever
est of American humorists; but he re-
NAMED only awhile in South Carolinaj
he was Ill at the time of consump-
ton and died, think, within a year.
Another was George W. Smalley, a
son-in-law by adoption of Wendell
Phillips, and now the widely known
and accomplished European corre-
spondent of the New York Tribune;
the American who knows most to day
about English and continental politics,
though his knowledge does not always
obtain the acquiescence of his country
men in the opinions it inspires in his
own mind.
But had known journalists before.
1t was the military men who most in
terested me. The group of young
soldiers into which | was thrown APP
peared to me the reality of which |
had so often seen the representation
on the stage. These were actual he
roes as we'll as future commanders. l
listened to their talk of ordnance and
engineering, of embrasures and evolu-
tions; l studied field fortiications un
der their tuition; | took lessons in
very hard riding with a tub of cold
water afterward to sit in if | was sore;
/ accompanied them in reconnaisances
in the South Carolina swamps till |
was fairly innoculated with the mill
tary ardor; and, though literary or
fashionable life was hardly good
preparation for the army, 1 did the
best knew. learned to make fire.
which was great achievement for
me, who had always been impractical,
and l remember writing home, in my
pride, at the accomplishment; but |
had to put postscript to my letter
The = fire went OUT
Porter and Wilson were my especial
chums. They shared their tent and
their mess with me, and friendship
was struck up that affected all our at.
ter lives, for Wilson was on Giants
staff year afterward, and it was he
who recommended me to Grant as a
suitable secretary and abide camp,
and, in consequence of his urging,
Grant applied for my detail; Will.
Wilson and long afterward did our
best to procure almost the same APP
pointment for Porter, and, with the
help of others, among them the Hon.
Charles A. Dana, then assistant
secretary of war, we succeeded. These
two, Wilson and Porter, seemed to me
then the very type of chiv alrous young
soldiers; highly educated in their pro-
fession, only year or two away from
West Point, neither of them more than
Is years old, full of spirit, enthusiasm,
ambition, and honor. They were pas
sionately attached to each other, had
been room-mates for years at West
Point, and the intimacy was now kept
up in danger and on hard duty till it
became conspicuous and romantic.
They admitted me to share in this
friendship, and whether over campfire
and amid the clever but sometimes
coarse stories of the mess table. in the
marshes (where Wilson once pulled me
out, sinking up to my neck in the
mire, and l used to think he saved my
life), or when one of us fell ill with an
infectious fever and the others
watched over him till his recovery. or
when Porter and lay in the trenches
in front of Pulaski, the connection
was as close as men often form. But
that was twenty-five years ago, and we
are all gray now. All have gone
through many changes and vicis-
situdes, and our enthusiasm has abated,
while Gilmore and Skunk, Tardy, Pc.
louze, O'Rorke, and Sherman himself
the commander of us all, have gon'
over to the majority. ADAM BADEAU.