The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1898-12-01
COL ONEL DREW'S ONLY COMMAND
The Story of Bones Of tho Hospital
Staff.
By n. QUAD.

M ATURALLLY enough, we were all
IN down on the noncombatants. 1t
is always so in the fighting lines. The
teamster enlists as a teamster, and it
is a very useful and necessary adjunct
of an army but yet when the fight is on
and you think of his being safe in the
rear, there is feeling against him. So
with the hospital staff and others.
We had other reasons for being down
on 'Bones," however. In addition to
being out of the row, he was the man
who examined us at sick call half the
time, or when the regimental surgeon
had all excuse for being absent.
There is programme about 'sick-
call, and itwaseonly one variation whe1
the hospital steward is the man you
run out your tongue at. When the
bugles sound the call, the ailing form
in line and march up to be examined.
So do the shrinkers. There are gener-
ally three shrinkers to one sick man.
There is widespread idea that neither
the regimental surgeon nor the hos
pital steward is on to this fact, but that
is one of the first things they discover.
When we came up before "Bones" the
programme was:
"Sick, eh?'
"Yes, SIR
"What's the matter?"
Had fever all night and was out
of my head most of the time
"Run out your tongue so can see it,"
Eyes, sir"
stake three of these
The looks of the tongue settled it
About one in six was excused from duty
for the day; the rest were pronounced
fit for drill and work. It was because
we couldn't beat Bones" that we called
him Bones" It was because he saw
through our little game that we would
have made his daily life miserable if
we had known how
Itwas because the regulations of war
put "Bones" to the rear when a fight
was on that we hoped stray bullet
would search him out some day In
time Bones" came to realize that he
had no friends in the rank and file of
the Seventeenth, but l lust do him the
justice TO add thatit made no difference
with him. He neither prescribed more
nor less physic, neither excused more
nor less men from duty He went right
along doing his duty by the United
States, and looking serious and con-
scientious over it, and this was another
cause for complaint on our part.
BY and by, when we were hatins,
"Bones" with all our hearts and things
had gone so bad that the sight of him
set men to yelling, we marched away 70
outtlank Jackson, as he had outflanked
Pope at Manassas. 1t was sharp fight
ing along the front from the start, and
after two days march our corps went
into battle line one morning. and we
knew that there was host of the enemy
in our front.
\ brigade was detached to reconno1.
ter the woods to our left, and later OH
our regiment was detached to deplov
as skirmishers and draw out the con
cealed strength of the enemy. Away we
went with yell. glad to be in at last,
and it wasn't five minutes before men
began to fall pretty fast. We pushed on
up to the woods, drove the gray skirm-
ASACAo OONNs oAu t1lcu ludSScO on the
center to hold gap between the hills.
Troops were moving up to support Us
and hold the ground we had gained,
when the enemy came swarming out.
Then for ten minutes the old Seven.
teenth made it's war record We held
full Brigade, We did even better than
that-we repulsed three determined
assaults by four times our number, and
we killed and wounded almost as many
!. men as we had in the ranks.
= But there was blunder somewhere
Our supports fell back, the enemy was
reinforced, and we were left there to b.
q sacrificed. There was panic-no re-
(. treat. 1t was simply that the lone regi
Il ment, realizing that it had been aban
81 doned, broke up into detachments ano
vi fought almost without leaders and each
IL man for himself. g..
" Again a whole brigade moved ur
d against us, and, though we were onlj