The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1900-01-07

Z
! Gen. Phil Sheridan,
Gen. w. T. Sherman,
! Gen. Schenck,
Schuyler COIfax.
S----~~~.~o~~
oocker. The Atlantic had just been start
ed in Boston, and people were reading
with delight DIR. Holmes 'Autocrat of the
Breakfast Table,, which was running az
serial in that monthly"
LIFE IN THE ARMY.
Mr.. Smalley described wildly his life in
the army, and said:
MY service in the ranks came to a
sudden end one June day in the wheat
field near Port Re
public, in the valley
Of Virginia. While cefViSS
climbing a fence, I In The Arr,v
felt what seemed to
be heavy blow on
my thigh, prostrating me to the ground.
I tried to rise, but found my right leg
paralyzed. I felt no pain at first, and
did not realize what had happened until
l saw the blood trickling from bullet
wound. AS soon as I had regained my
presence Of mind, my first thought was
how to get off the field. I had heard of
the horrors OF Southern prisons, and
dreaded nothing more than capture. Two
comrades attempted to carry me off, US
ing their muskets as a sort of a stretch
ing Of dependency took possession Of
me. The shells still hurtled through the
air, and now and then mimic bullet
sang in the grass close by. At last saw
coming towards me an artillery bugler,
mounted and leading spare horse. He
was smooth-faced boy, not older than
myself. I called to him with all the force
l could command, and implored him to
stop and help me mount his extra horse.
The boy stopped his horse, dismounted,
and. with great effort, 1 got astride, my
wounded leg giving me intense pain, and
away we went at g. trot to the rear
About a mile off we found a group of
ambulances loaded with wounded men,
The surgeon made room for me by SOU ez-
ing three of us poor fellows on the upper
deck Of one Of the ambulances in space
intended for only two occupants. Here
ended my experience of carrying a mus
ket.
KNEW ROCKEFELLER BOYS.
GAS soon as I was able to limp around
with the aid Of q cane I went to Cleve-
land and found work
- as compositor in
cleveland the job office of the
ComnoSitiou Herald. The editor
of the paper, Mr..
Benedict, noticed
one day the lame young man in blue
army trousers going up stairs to the job
office and stopped to ask who he was
and where he had served. A few days
afterwards he offered me the position of
marine and market reporter at salary
of $6 a week. Now came a happy time
for me- 1 had case in the news room
and set up my own reports, and thus
made about as much more. About half
Of my working day I spent along the
wharves, among the vessel captains and
with the grain merchants who formed
the board Of trade. Then I went to the
custom house to copy the list Of arrivals
and clearances, and the rest Of the time
I set up in type my market reports and
shipping news. My name was on the free
list at the shabby little play house called
the Academy Of Music, where I heard
Peter and Caroline Richings, Couldock,
Barry Sullivan and John Wilkes Booth.
was then twenty-five years old
My best friends among the commits
sion merchants on the river were two
young men named William and John
Rockefeller, who dealt in grain in small
way, and who have since become the
famous millionaires of the Standard Oil
company. 1 remember them as TALL
slender, active young fellows, very acute
in business matters and of a kindly dis
position. They suggested that 1 could
add to my earnings by bringing down
every morning to the Board of Trade
proof slips of the latest war news and
reading them to the assembled mer-
chants, and they raised a small subscrip-
ton fund, which yielded me SO a week
for this service.
CT,EPL[ IN CIJTNGTON
1.-THE Washington which I saw late in
the autumn of 1863 had little In common
with the handsome
capital city of this
day, except the old On Army
er public buildings. Paw Polls
1t was a struggling
town of muddy
streets and shabby houses, with a little
center of wealth and dignity where the
White house stands Two streets, Penn
sylvania avenue and Seventh street, were
paved with "9bblestones; all the others
presented surface of mud or dust, &C.
cord1ng to the season, and were cut UP
into deep ruts by the long trains OF
army wagons going to and from the
camps and forts. The city was protected
by chain of forts, numbering, If I re-
member right, some thirty or forty, and
connected by earthworlzs, bitches and
abattis In fact the whole place throb-
bed with the fierce pulses of war; Near
ly all the men 1 saw on the streets wore
the blue uniform. It was at this time
that Abraham Lincoln made the quaint
remark that you could not throw stick
into the crowd in front of Wizards ho-
tel without hitting at least six brigadier
generals. Another story of Lincoln of the
same date was that, on receiving a dis
patch announcing that the rebels in some
raid had captured a brigadier and a hun
dred horses, he said that he did not much
mind the loss of the brigadier, for he
could make as many as he wanted, but
that 1t was a pity about the horses
After I had a year on the army nav
rolls l became very weary of the mo-
notony Of the occupation Most of
my fellow clerks dreaded nothing so
much as to lose their places and look
ed forward to nothing more eventful
than promotion. Eighteen hundred a
year was the top of the ladder which
they all aspired to reach, but there were
comparatively few of these so called
fourth-class clerkships, and the chances
Of mans getting one after ten years
service were small. did not feel dis
satisfied with the pay, which seemed gen.
erous for the work performd, but the
work was distasteful and opened no
pleasant prospects for the future An
admirable escape soon appeared In
February, 1866, my former employer,
James Dumars, of Youngstown, O., came
to Washington and urged me to buy his
paper He wanted to go to Memphis
and start a daily and he would sell out
cheap. The member of congress from
the district in which Youngstown was