The Van Buren press., 1898-09-03
ARP In FINE HUMOR.
He Tells Good Story on General
Joe Wheeler.
SaysEe Forgot Himself-TFhOught He
Wis stiiI Fighting for the Lost
Cause When Charging
the Spaniards.

TIL. way that Joe Wheeler forgot
himsslf at Santiago when the Span
iards fired their deadly volleys from
the brush, and he spurred his steed
forward and shouted: Charge 'em,
boys Charge the damn Yankees; run
'em out of the brush!-the damn Span
iards | meant" And now they tell it
on Gen. Lee that when his handsome
blue uniform came and his wife took
it ou. of the case he looked at it with
solemn countenance and said: Put
it badk, wife; let it stay there awhile
till | can get reconeiled. I'm afraid
] might shoot at it all of a sudden"
The boys in camp get up many a
joke, and they go on the grand rounds,
and that reminds me of Pat Doolan,
fresh Irishman, who was put on picket
and ordered to let no man pass with
out the password. When the officer
came round to change the guard Pat
challenged him with: Halt, be Jasus,
and give he password" "Of1icer on
the grand rounds" said the lieuten-
ant. "Graad rounds and be damned
to yez!" sail Pat, IAN if ye don't come
forward and say, Bull Run I'll be
tfther shootin' into ye, Mr.. Grand
Rounds"
The boys say that down at Camp
Griffin when a new recruit comes in
the devilish fellows take him off to
drill him. Young man, you must re-
member the Maine, and also remember
that you are private. When you meet
an officer yol must salute him and
say: L am your dog, sir, and the off
Ger will wave MS hand and smile and
say: . know it, and pass on They
haze the green ones as bad as college
boys haze a veIdaht freshman. There
is many wag around the camp fires
and they spice the weary hours with
wit and wisdom. The average soldier
bears no malice, not even toward the
foe he has been sent to fight. Cervera
and Hobson are the best of friends,
and IL it is possible for us to likeCer-
vera it is possible that The people who
placed him in high command have
some redeeming virtues. In our civil
war the priyates of both armies ex-
changed civilities on the picket lines.
Stonewall Jackson rebuked them, and
once when picket brought him a
New York paper he refused it and
said: Take nothing from them, sir,
and give them nothing but lead. They
are our enemies" But the common
soldier has not considered the casus
bell, the aggravation from a national
standpoint. nor can he, like Crom-
we'll or Stonewall jackson, worship
God by killing his country's foes.
A soldiers life is a good training
school, and he soon loses some of his
conceit and selfshness. When a boy
who has been humored and petted at
home becomes schoolboy and has to
rub up against other boys he soon
learns to give and take and tote fair
with his schoolmates. Just so these
young soldier boys, when far away
from father and mother, soon find
themselves enduring a common hard
ship and in peril a common danger,
and it softens their nature and takes
one another, and, like these CONNER
cial travellers, absorb knowledge by
contact. The best informed people |
meet with are the veterans of the
civil war. However dull and unedu-
Gated we the boys when they en-
tered service in 1861 they were bright
and genial when they came out. I'll
venture that there was more good
sense and more forbearance, more
real reflective patriotism and less self
ishness in the recent grand gather
ing of veterans in Atlanta than in any
body of men ever assembled in the
United States. These veterans all look
alike to me. Hard service has ham
mered them down like steel used to be
hammered out of iron. Their faces,
their hearts, their walk, their solid
ity, their considerate conservatism,
all mark them as men who have been
tried and refined in the crucible of
war-the dross expelled and the pure
gold left.
But war is bad thing-the worst
thing in the world. \ philosophic
friend of mine says no, and he argues
that periodically nations must have
war, pestilence or famine to purify
them, to purge them and to kill off
the unproductive surplus and give
quiet to the government. ! don't be-
lieve that. but l am not going to ar
gue about it. John Temple Graves and
Simon Peter Richardson and Joe Oil
have written strong letters about war
and how il ennobles a nation. These
men are thinkers-make the best OF
o bad thing-but still we can fall back
and intrench upon the teachings OF
the Son of Man. who said; MY king
dom is peace" Peace on earth and
rood will among men," Only a few
months have passed, but there Is
many a heartbroken mother now
weepinp for her soldier son whose
shallow grave is in foreign land. The
tears of these mothers are worth a
thousand victories. But these preach
FRS perplex me. Most of them are for
the war to go on until we have taken
all the Islands of the sea and planted
missionaries there. One of them said:
'AIv friend. the kingdom of Heaven
suffereth violence. and the violent take
It by force" but | never heard before
that il meant guns and cannon and
dynamite. 1 fear that the zeal OF
most of these preachers is inspired
by their hatred of the Roman Catholic
religion. FOnsed TO have a horror of
that religion myself, for l had read
- Mart - and inn