The National tribune., 1901-02-14
WARS BRIGHTER SIDE
An UnsucCessfu! Confidence
Game Played by One of John
Morgan's Spies.
By CAPT. HENRY CASTLE,
Auditor for the Post Office Department

III IdCt, Tue lrSt Two were mucn more nu-
merous as they certainly were more enjoy
able than the last. Sometimes | think
| that we are inclined to dwell too much
upon the tragic features of our civil war
| memories, thereby creating incorrect i'm
pressons in the minds of such inexper-
| fenced persons as may be prevailed upon
to read or listen to our army recoliectiOnS.
With your permission, therefore, | will for
this occasion depart from my recent line
of writing and tell the story of a single
curious, eyentful day in my own war ex-
perience.
l. October, 1862, was, at the age Of
u years, private soldier in the 73d H..
attached to Sheridan's Division of Bueii's
Army, afterwards the Army of the Cum
berand. The battle of Perryville had been
fought and won; we had followed Bragg S
army as far southeastward as Grab Or
chard, Ky; then abandoned the pursuit,
followed our own tracks backward to Dan
vile, and encamped one night, about Oct.
20, within three miles of Pcrryyille bat
tleground, on the turnpike leading toward
Lebanon. We had been in the service
just two months, but had gone through all
the yicisstudes of camp, march and bat
tie, although we knew very little of army
drill. regulations or etiquet. These things
come largely by experience, whereof we
had abundant measure later on.
On the night alluded to just above |
was honored by temporary detail as
| Quartermaster's Sergeant of the regiment,
that functionary having been granted a
short leave of absence. | was told by the
Quartermaster that my duty during the
| march would be to act as Wagon Master
| in charge of the regimental train. That
| train in those luxurious days consisted
| OF 13 big army wagons, each drawn by six
patient, belligerent. melodious mules. But
five or six of these teams had been with
drawn from each regiment to constitute
| n train charged with the important duty
of transporting rations from the base OF
supplies to sustain our large army en-
route.
To supply the places of those thus with
drawn we were obliged to call upon farm
ers along the road for a considerably
greater number of teams in order that
our enormous supply of baggage, includ-
ing Sibley tents, big trunks for all the
officers, the cooking utensils, and varied
paraphernalia eeenod iad!sse.sabl-
those early days of campaigning, might be
transported with US on our march to Nash
vile. Seven or eight farmers teams of
horses mules or oxen, as the case might
be, were thus constantly employed in our
regiment and as these successfully gave
out we were obliged TO secure new ones
to take their places. The oxen especially
were very short-lived in this service: three
or four days, at the most, of hard travel
Oh the limestone turnpikes. wore out their
unshod feet and they must be abandoned.
The next morning after my assignment
to duty as aforesaid the regiment took up
its line of march about daylight, after
striking tents, loading wagons, etc, leav-
ing me in perpleXed state of mind with
my new responsibilities. l found two of
the ox-teams entirely disabled, and was
obliged to scour the neighborhood to get
others in their stead. This was a hard
task, as the marching and countermarch
ing of both Bragg's and BuelPs armies
through this region for q month preced-
ing had swept it practically bare of all
efficient livestock and left even the most
prosperous farmers entirely destitute. 1t
required two hours of hard work to Sc
cure two very Indifferent ox-teams, with
each of which was sent colored driver
who was the slave of the owner of the
team and supposed to be sufficiently re-
liable to return with it when we should
no longer require its services.
Transferring the loads to those two
teams | finally got my caravan under way
about s or D o'clock in the morning, at
which time, of course, our troops were
FIVE or six miles ahead of us. while long,
numbering wagon train interviewed. had
my Is or 16 drivers, white and black, also
30 or 40 invalid and struggling soldiers be-
longing to our regiment, who had stayed
behind for the occasional rides they could
get during the days march.
At the first gap in the wagon train ]
cut in with my teams and was progressing
finely, until | was brought up with a
round turn by Regimental Quarterfnas-
ter, who said had split his train in two
and must get out of there. As he out
ranked me very seriously, l was obliged
1. Al 4
ed to fall in behind him was told by the
Brigade Quartermaster that l must not
cut his train in two. And so il went on;
| was ranked" out of one place after an
other until / found myself with my teams |
and men at the rear of the entire trans |
portation train Of Buelfs army, with the
exception of a few odds and ends of am
balances, suffers wagons, laundry wag |
ons, ETC., which had no status anywhere |
and no commander to bluff me.
1t thus turned out that we did not get |
fairly started on the road until nearly |
noon, and were thereby thrown 10 or u |
miles to the rear of the marching column. |
We had with US the rations and the cook |
ing utensils of our entire regiment, hence |
| fully appreciated the Importance of re-
porting at headquarters at the earliest pos |
sible moment after camp should be |
reached How | was to do this was the |
experienced mind during all the hours of |
that dreadful day.
To add to my perplexities occasionally |
a linchpin would break, or an OK would lie |
down, or q mule would kick over the |
traces, or some other irregular incident |
would occur to cause a halt in the pro- |
ceedings and require more or less technical |
skill to provide a remedy. The same sort |
of accidents were happening also in the |
long train ahead of us, each of which |
caused delay and threw us further and |
further behind.
But for these veyations the days ex-
perience would have been pleasant enough. |
The weather was perfect; | had a good, |
seryiceable horse, and shortly after noon
rode off a short distance and procured |
good dinner at substantial farmhouse. |
This, with the splendid breakfast L had |
secured in the morning from n farmer, |
who thus tried to bribe me to take n team
from some of his neighbors instead of |
himself, constituted agreeable compensa-
tions for some of the tribulations of the
position.
Along late in the afternoon / received |
word from the front by some officer who
had dropped back that very long days
march was to be made by the troops, who
would not go into camp before dark, and
that they were then at least u miles
ahead Of us. l then knew that at best it
would be nearly morning before we could
overtake them. But l had relied on the
Colonel or Quartermaster to send a guide
back in ample time 20 conduct us to the
nyQ tu NJ thA