The Cook County herald. [volume] (Grand Marais, Minn.) 1893-1909, 1898-01-29
!. MULE. NOUN BY MooNLIc
BrIgade's First Experience Mounted
sa During the Late War. 8


During the Late War.
In December, 1862, just before Rose
Grams planned to start for Murfrees- ,
Esboro from Nashville. John Morgan
broke into Kentucky again on one of
|shis numerous raids. .sz !.
hOur division-the Fourth in the Four
|steenth Army Cor.ps-was assigned to
|athe duty. Our brigade had been sta
|Ytioned at Mumfordsville, on the Green
River, from about the Goth of October
kguntil the latter part Of November, and
ssWe had not been away from there
#sfhirty days. This trip sent us back to
!sWithin three miles OF the same place,
ito turn around again, after three or
four days, and march back to Nash
S5Srille and then on to Murfreesboro, thus
passing substantially over' the same
route three times in less than forty
days; but in consequence we missed the
heavy battle of Stone River. .s
E@ When the order to pursue Morgan
twas received we were in camp at or
Enear Bledsoe's,e Greek. We moved
and came: SO close to Morgan
that he was beginning to shy off, and ,
ISWas heading evidently for return in
ITO Tennessee. When near Cave City,
l..in in Kentucky, one evening soon after
1--we biYouacked. we received orders to
fSsend a certain number Of mules from
leach regiment train to a certain point
!#on the pike within our lines by 8
70 clock. The strangeness of the order
Escaused'a good deal Of curiosity; but
ERssupon inquiry we. soon found Col.
IssWilder of an Indiana regiment and
commanding the First Brigade of our
sxdivision had become possessed of the
idea that if he could get his command
a3to a certain point that night he could
hurt hurt Morgan seriously, and perhaps
capture him. He~was so full of en-
Sthusiasm over the project, and had SO
much faith in it., that he finally pre-
vailed upon our division commander
Sto issue the order for the mules to be
FURNISHED from the teams.
We had no cavalry of any amount
with us, and there was no way to get
q. W'ilder's men to the point he wanted
Ito 90 to except to use the mules.
:H When it was known what was to be
asdone:s the teamsters notified some of
their friends that if they wanted to see
Ia good deal of fun in short time they
Eshad better be at the place where the
Nmules were to be taken.
H Accordingly quite a little party of us
went 1t was a bright moonlightnight.
NIt should, perhaps, be said that Of the
1steams used in the army one mule was
dllnn BY the alriyeEs and thea other
may have been nllghl broEana
!, to harness, tractable and serviceable,
but quite probably had never been rid
! den, and to attempt to mount them
was much like attempting to mount so
many untamed mules.
! The men had no saddles, and all they
could do was to jump right on to the
j bare backs Of the animals, or simply
! put their Blankets on, with nothing to
keep them in place.
j. When we arrived there were several
hundred mules on hand, and the men
to mount soon arrived. The pike was
!: so full that there was soon an overflow
into plowed field along its side, and
in a short time alltook to the field for
; obvious reasons.
AS soon as the command to mount
came things became active. In less
than five minutes good many men
| had been thrown on to the stony pike
with such force and violence that they
/ were disabled from duty that night,
i and quite number were seriously in
| jured. 1t soon became apparent that
, the soft plowed field was much the
! safer place, and all withdrew to that
There the mounting was going on on
large scale. If a man was thrown off
, he was not generally hurt much, as the
ground was soft. 1t is not wide of the
mark to say that for some time the
air was full of mules heels, blankets
and men. Considerably more than
half of the men were thrown off. Some
!! went off on the end, over the mules
head, some on the rear end. Some
! never firmly gained seat, but were
pitched about, and finally thrown off
before getting entirely on.
! The most common thing was for q
man to jump on, think he was all
right, but before he was fully satisfied
he would find his mule pricking up it's
ears, getting under pretty lively mo-
ton, and the next thing he would
! know he would find himself suddenly
going over the mules head The mule
would run short distance and balk
or jump. stiff-legged suddenly, and
come to a dead halt The man always
went off over the mules head. Some
OF. the mules would rear, some kick.
Most OF them would give kind of
squeal as they started. They ran in
any and every direction, ran into each
other, and such general mix-up no
man ever saw beforeor since. It was
solight that we could see distinctly.
Talk about spcrt at circus, at seeing
one or even two trick mules perform!
Here were several hundred, all per- 1
forming at once. It was a circus COM
plete.
Ihe men were plucky though, and If !
thrown once and not injured, tried it
again. They labored under still greater
disadvantages, because they were
loaded down with their guns and ac-
coutrements. All the mules that had
been ridden before were quiet and
orderly, and after time the men were
victorious. Their officers were hurry
ing them up, and they fnally started
of, butt was a motley caYalcade. Had !
John Morgan known Of it and dis
patched a companysor two of cavalry
after them, and they got near en- ough
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