The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1898-06-26

for money and make believe everything
they want to. And there is Il great, big,
open grove all around, where they play
tag and mad dog and where they make
playhOuscs around the roots of the big
trees and decorate them with broken
plates and chinaware and empty cans
and marble chips. And there are rasp-
berries and blackberries down i'm the
corner of the garden and pretty flowers
all about; and everything is as free as
water to these children when they come.
and they know it. Yes, they know it!
What they break they bring to me TO
mend, as a matter Of course, and l keep
on hand hammer and nails and tacks
and a gluepot and my wife keeps her
scissors and needle and thread, and
there is always some biscuit and jelly
and cake in the sideboard for these chaps
always coming hungry, no matter how
much they have had at home. This
house is a free hotel-a caravausary for
children and grandchildren, and they
know it-yes, they know it, And it is
the same for near and dear friends, and
they know it, too. We like it and they
like it, and it beats fashion and folly
and war
War! Yes, war with all its pOmp and
glory. Chickamauga is in Walker coun-
ty and Walker county is begging for
martial law. 1t is history repeating it
self. These United States regulars are,
as n general rule, the scum of all ma
tions. When yagabond gets here he
is enlisted for he can find nothing else
to do and joins the machine. He had
no moral principle at home and has none
here. Whether white or black the regu-
lars are a set of brutes. We found that
out during the last war and they are the
same now. What do they care about
sUbduing Spain or relieving the starving
Cubans? They will rob and rape and
steal whenever and wherever they get
a chance, and our poor fools call them
patriots. Our Southern soldiers did not
do those things. / know they did not
They had regard for the rights of man
and respect for woman kind. l remem-
Der when Colonel Barton called his regi-
ment, the Eighth Georgia, to dress pa
rade at Winchester and told them that
an old man who lived near our camp
had been robbed Of his money, and resti-
tuition must be made him. Said he: II
thought that l had the honor to COM
maBd regiment composed Of the best
blood of Georgia. and l think so still,
bHt last night some soldiers from this
camp robbed poor old man Of his
honey-ten hives Of virgin money that
he was saving to sell and with the
money to buy some clothes for his fami-
~. I do not wish to know who did this
wrongful and unsoldierly act, but desire
that all who are willing to make restitu-
tion to him advance six PAGES to the
front" The whole regiment advanced
and the money taken up along the line
amounted to SO. Fifty dollars was
paid to the old man and the rest put in
the hospital fund.
do not recall any other case of pill
lage or wrong doing. One Of my mess
mates killed a pig at Orange Court
house and l never enjoyed roast pig in
all my life as / did that. 1t was a
small. plum Berkshire that nosed around
the boxes where we fed our horses and
my mesSmate declared the pig tried to
bite him and he shot him. The owner
lived on a hill nearby and came around
hunting for his pig, and somebody told
him that our mess had sh0at for dinner
day before yesterday. We referred him
to our cook, old Uncle Bob who pre-
tended to get fighting mad and lied out
of it. But before we left, Major Aver,
the quartermaster, went up and paid the
man for his pig. He was a Union man
and used cusswords on us, but he took
the Confederate money. This was the
only biting pig we came across in Nir-
ginia.
Regulars are simply machine soldiers.
Between the privates and the officers
there is a wide gap-no intimacy, no
familiarity, for the officers are gentle
men from West Point and the privates
are Arabs, Hessians, mercenaries from
anywhere. They meandered all over
this part of Georgia during the war and
did not leave a biting pig nor even
razorback in Barlow county. The 9th
or day | saw Il young man in Atlanta
who had come down from Marietta to
enlist. He was seventeen years old and
the down on his face had not turned to
beard An elderly man who knew his
folks was trying to persuade him to go
back and comfort his mother, who was
in great distress and the boy was troub
led on her account, but he said he was
going into the army to help her more
than for anything else, for said he:
"Gentlemen, / amt gettin' but $40
month and have to buy my clothes, and
that don't leave hardly anything for
mother. But 1 can get HlO III bue bElhNa
and they feed me and clothe me, and l
can send mother $40 or S12 every
month. / don't care a dogon about the
Cubans of the Spaniards, bur il they
should kill me. why, then, mother will
get pension, | reckon" | did not stay
to learn whether he went back home or
forward to the war; But there was no
patriotism in the venture, and that is the
case with most everyone who enlists.
wonder what will come of it?
BILL ARP.
T. S.-My last letter closed with
that seemed to mean that
my own loving family was broken up.
The typo omitted a part that preceded.
1t was political family-a ring that
was meant No, my own family is not
broken up and will not be as long as
live. 81 A.
In a New Channel Citizen
This war business is a good thing for
you newspaper men.
Distinguished Editor-More than you
imagine. The people who used to run
-,,. v,orowe, for re orn now hucw TELLING