Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1896-08-21
They dressed me up in sojer clothes,
They treated me so kindly,
And yet | never could forget
The girl left behind me.

The girl left behind me
And we'd fall in and march behind our
friend until we reached the battery quar-
tiers.
Sometimes when the grizzled first ser
geant of the battery was inclined TO be
pleasant we would stay to dinner with
Dumpey; bean soup, pork, bread and
coffee, with a real live cooks bully (sol-
dier) to wait on us, just as if we were full
tledged battery men.
These were our happy times; there were
sad ones usually at pay day. when poor
Dumpey would fall from grace and disap-
pear from among us for days at a time.
Sometimes he would be in the guard house,
sometimes in the hospital. We never spoke
of it, and when the iii was over he would
be safe for few more months.
1t was a sad day for the battery, and par
ticularly for Dumpey, when the junior
lieutenant left our post by transfer. The
very next pay day Dumpey was in the
guard house with general charges against
him. Intercession proved of no avail; the
captain was determined to make an ex-
ample of him, but the court was lenient, so
after months confinement Dumpey came
back to us, but an altered man. Not that
his manner had changed toward us; he
was still our friend, but his boyishness and
lightness of heart seemed gone.
Hell get me YETI was all he said
when we asked him the trouble. "He,"
of course, meant the captain, who for some
unaccountable reason had taken strC n 2
dislike to the lowly drummer. Things
went from bad to worse. Dumpey was in
the guard house continually; first for one
thing and then another, which, though
trivial enough in their way, were rapidly
building up a bad reputation for him,
which he did not really deserve.
The end came when they found him
drunk on guard. The general court, which
tried him, found him guilty and sentenced
him to be drummed out of the service.
The colonel wrote to the reviewing author
ity rather strongly in his favor, but Dumpey
was doomed. Nothing could save him,
and the sentence was duly confirmed.
Never did sun shine brighter, never
were skies bluer; never was nature more
generous than on that dreadful May morn
ing almost 80 years ago. We had all been
to see Dumpey at the guard house the
night before. We had shaken hands with
him, and carried him such boyish gifts as
we could to assure him of our loyalty and
friendship, and he, poor old boy, had
turned his face away from us and wept like
a child.
1t was the first and only time that had
ever seen man drummed out of the ser
vice. can never again see such a shock
ing sight of a mans inhumanlty to man.
Almost 80 years ago-I was very young
boy then, still | remember that the sun
was bright and that skies were blue; | re-
member that the air was soft and balmy;
remember that the flag, emblem of liberty
and equality, threw out the glory of its
stars and stripes straight and strong to the
morning breeze; | remember that we all
stood huddled together, waiting-and-
then it came.
First the drums and flies; then two pla-
toons of men fully armed and equipped,
their bayonets flashing and sparkling in
the sunlight, and between them, Dumpey,
with head closely cropped, and on his back
a board marked "Drunkard."
And still-the sun shone, the skies were
blue, and the flag tapped gaily overhead.
On they came, the drums and flies play
ing the Rogue's march.
Poor old soldier; poor old soldier,
Tarr'd and feathered and then drumm'd out
Because he couldn't keep sober.
Our hearts were in our Threats, but we
clenched our hands and held our places
like men.
There was no music in the march it was
simply wailng and sobbing of the drums
the drums to drum Dumpey out of the
service; DumpeY their champion, their
hero, their king.
But on they came
Poor old soldier; poor old soldier
Just as they passed us we heard some
one ask:
"What makes him walk so queer? He
seems to be limping."
Every boy there could have told him
that it was the bullet he got at Mission
Ridge, which the doctors had never been
able to take out.
And on they came
Tarr'd and feathered and then drumm'd out
At last they reached the sally port
Because he couldn't keep SOBER
shrieked out the flies, and moment later
Dumpey stood outside the fort, free man.
And then-this worthless outcast this
drummed out drunkard; this limping,
halting, wounded ex-soldier, who had
played mans part in the bitterest war
the world has ever known, this drunken
Dumpey, halted, quietly took the board
marked "drunkard'' off from his back,
and, barring his close-cropped head to the
morning sun, looked up toward the flag
and bravely cried out:
"Three cheers for the stars and stripes"
have never forgotten it.-Lieut. Thos.
III. Wilson, U. S. A., in Neio York Sun.