Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1891-07-18
WAR "REMINISCENCES.
A LETTER WRITING ARMY.
now tho Soldier Boys Remembered the
Folks Mt Home.


| Folks Mt Home.
1t is not an easy thing to go into an
encampment and not find men busy,
hard at work, and you would always
see number of them writing. There
never was such letter-writing army
on the face of Gods earth. You never
could go into camp without finding the
men writing letters, on the ground,
against the side of trees, from which
they had torn the bark, on their knees;
and never did we women at home in
preparing for the sanitary commission
fix up comfort bags in which we did
not put sheets of paper, postage stamps,
envelopes and the inevitable plug of to-
bacco
remember very distinctly when the
army came back from the relief of
Burnside at Knoxville. Never was
there such tatterdemalion looking set
of men in the world. They started out
in summer blouses; they came back
with their feet bound up in rags, so
that as they walked they looked like
the most veritable scarecrows that you
ever saw in cornfield. One came out
of the hospital more ragged than the
others, more thoroughly demoralized in
his personal appearance. One of the
physicians said to him: "Well, my
boy, if you don't need clothes l don't
know who does" And the happy fell
low, looking at him said: "Well, now,
/ amt hankering for clothes, you bet
your life, but / am just dead clean
heartbroken for diamond breast-pin."
The army wasn't good place to go
to talk the blues. 1t wasn't very good
thing to undertake to indulge in morbid
sentiments. You were taken off your feet
in no time; you were compelled to know
that these men had a high sense of hui
NOR about them. Said one fellow, COM
ing out one morning when the reveille
was sounded altogether too early for his
comfort: "When this cruel war is over
and get home in my own house 1 am
going to hire a fellow to come and
sound reveille every morning under my
window, simply that / may have the
pleasure of opening the window and
throwing the contents of the washbowl
on him"
They did not even die gloomily.
Again and again have heard men say:
"Chaplain, the doctor is mistaken about
my case. am going to die, and not
live" and turn their faces to the wall
and die. And when one man was not
so very sick, but who thought he was,
and was becoming hypochondriac and
giving vent to his anguish, which was
purely imaginary, while talking with
him saw two-thirds of the men in the
beds about slip themselves into clothes
that would make them little more re-
spectacle, and march about the room,
one of them pretending to play the
banjo, another the violin, another the
flute, another the clarinet, another the
double base drum. There was not an
instrument there and it was all done in
pantomine, but the mimicry was SO per
feet, and they went through the move
ments of playing the various instru-
ments so well that they stopped the
gloomy outpourings of the hypochon-
driacs, who were compelled to join in
the laugh.
When l was in Switzerland / was one
day standing at the door of a railway
station, and at the opposite side of the
station l saw railway porter wearing
an artificial leg. AS l looked at him
carefully thought he was wearing the
badge of the grand army. l stepped
back to tell my husband about it.
"Oh," said my husband, ''of course
you know it can not be the badge oi
the grand army. 1t is probably some
foreign decoration"
But the man crossed over toward me
and l saw it was badge of the grand
army. l Immediately forgot all con
ventionalities and hurried to him, anG
in the very best French l could muster
l asked him how it came about that he
a Swiss railway porter, was wearing
the badge of the Grand Army of the
Republic of America?
He said, speaking perfect English:
madam, enlisted in the service il
your country in June, 1861, and wa
mustered out in October 1865" Ap
plause. ..r
Where did you lose your Leg"
"'At Gettysburg, and l still remained
in the service, as / wanted to see th
end. So got myself put into the in
valid corps, that might do duty in thu
hospital, and / was not mustered ou
: until October, 1855 r'9G %.
"'Then,' said I, if you have lost You
leg at the battle of Gettysburg ant
| my SouheiJ . hsib ich io''
years, you are my brother, and / mus
,, shake hands with YOU
''Said he: Madame, your Americ
and my America is a good nation to liv
: for, to fight for, to die for. BY and by
8 when the old father and mother pas
away, am going back to my America
My brothers are there with their fam
l lies. have no family, and / am her
to take care of the old father an
mother. l receive pension from tn
United States government. 1 am on
of it's people, naturalized citizen, on
p of you not by birth but by adoption
and am going back some time. B'
lieve me, America is to be the Messia
=, of nations Before God, had though
that myself, but had never dared sa
it"-Mrs. M. A. Livermore.
; INSIDE WAR HISTORY.