The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-07-24
THE vErERAN,s STORY.
The True Tale of How the Sergeant
Sent the News to the General.


Sent the News to the General.
New York SUM-
The veteran in the dingy uniform that
might have been gray or blue, was perhaps
shade indefinite as to where he had ex-
perienced the stories he was telling, but he
was an interesting old fellow, and his list
eners had been reading too many war tales
sent by special messengers to newspapers
to worry about the details so long as the re-
suits were good. So they filled up the mar
rator's beer mug and set him going again.
one of the oldest things" he said, with
the calm confidence iof truth, that I can
remember happened to my brother and me,
both OF us being members of battery. On
one occasion we had been watching the
enemy for week, trying to keep him from
crossing a river until our reinforcements
had got up, but the rains had set in and
men couldn't move. and we were pretty
sure lhat the enemy was up to some dodge
or other that was going to wipe us off the
face of the earth, for he had ten times as
many men and guns as we had to meet him
with. or course, that made the command
ing officers dead blue and they offered all
sorts of inducements for some of our fell
lows to go over and find out what was up.
i, suppose dozen or more went, to ten
times that many who volunteered to go,
but none came back, and we wasn't any
better off than we were before.
one morning ] told the general that my
brother and me had a scheme to get the in
formation he wanted, and if ne would agree
to promote us both if we got it, we'd try
tor it. He mighty near agreed to make
sergeants, and my brother left for the other
side, after telling me goodbye. For two
DAYS we did not hear from him. and on the
third the enemy got a tweive-pound gun
into position the battery / was with had
been fighting him away from for a week.
and l got blast from the major, but I
never said word. Neither did the general;
and my poor brother-nobody knew where
he was.
Strange to say, our battery didn't open
up on the enemy, either, in his new posi-
ton, and the officers began to look worried
waiting to hear from the general in COM
mand. About 10 O'clock in the morning the
enemy's gun let loose with a roar that tore
the ground UP, and a she'll that looked to
me to be as big as a barrel come flying
across the river and hit in sand pile in the
rear of our battery. In a minute [ had
broke for that sand pile and was scratching
like a dog at a rabbit hole and pretty soon
1 come out with the she'll in my arms and
cutting across lots for the generals
tent
II never stopped to ask any questions of
the folks at our battery, but got to the gen.
eral as soon as / could, and, rushing right
into his tent. i dropped the hot shell into
bucket of water and out again, and let into
the vent of it with Ratchet. Well, to make
a long story short, on the inside of the
she'll where the blow-up stuff usually is
was communication from my brother
signed Sergt John Smith, giving the gem
eral the very kind of informa ton he was
crazy to get hold of, and it fixed him so
that he knocked the enemy galley west in
no time. My brother had got onto it easy
enough: for it wasn't such a great secret
over there what they were going to do
The only trouble was we hadn't been able
to get back with it whom our men went
over after it. My brother got onto a plan,
though, by loading it into the shell and fir
ing it from the gun in the position he had
got for it, when the enemy couldn't have
done it in a month. That was the scheme
worked, and my brother, being a fine
gunner, had no trouble getting in with the
artillery company, especially when he went
to the officers with story about how he
could get the gun in the position that they
had been trying so long to get and couldn't
owing to our battery on the other bank of
the river. He was great strategist was
in this war
NO" sighed the veteran, ''he never got
his promotion, though l did mine, as the
killed at the battery he fired the shell from
and by the guns of his friends. Just
as like as not / done it myself, but that is
war"