The Hocking sentinel. [volume] (Logan, Ohio) 1871-1906, 1901-08-08

~ The fort wa.
l named for our i'm
mediate commander, from whose com
mand we had been detached for thi.
service.
One day Lamkin himself came I,
me when | was ut his headquarters
| He was in trouble.
This boy, 81 Tucker he said, Ii
the son of one of the best friends evel
had in the world. The boy Is COW
ard. He literally lives in a rathOle.
have repeatedly pulled him out by the
legs, only TO have him crawl bach
| again the moment l let go of his an
| kics. l don't know what to do. It's
my duty. of course, to prefer charges
of cowardice against him, and If l dc
he will certainly be shot, and his fa
ther is my best friend
He paused. and then said with eager
ness in his voice: Why can't you take
him.:
| Il agreed ut once. told him would
take the boy with ME to my pits and
make either a soldier or stiff out OF
him within the next twenty four hours
| was under no obligations to his fa.
| ther: l had never even met any of bis
| relatives, and l had seen too many
| years of service to have much patience
| with cowardice.
The boy was sent for and ordered to
go with me. We walked down toward
| BlanfOrd Church. AT the proper point
| we turned out of the Jerusalem plank
| road across the fields toward Fort Lam
kin. Half way there, and on the top
| of little hill. which was especially
| exposed to the gaze of the sharpshoot-
| ers, | made 81 Tucker sit down by my
side. There we came to an under
standing. / told him he had been as
signed to ME to be shot out Of hand. or
to be court-martialed for coward,ce.
which. at that particular juncture of
the war, meant very much the same
thing. l explained to him that he was
about to join a detachment composed
exclusively Of men specially selected
for their courage-every one Of them a
volunteer for what was deemed a pc
culiarly dangerous service l explain
ed further that l should require him
to do his duty as they did theirs.
"'YOu have managed to make for
YOURSELF l said, the reputation Of a
coward. You have now one last
chance to redeem yourself. You must
do that or you must die
THE sharpshOOters were meantime
picking at us most uncOmfOrtably as
we sat there. My experience as an old
soldier strongly suggested to me that
we ought to move. The position was
Of that kind that military men call un-
tenable. Nevertheless, l thought it
best to keep 81 Tucker there a minute
longer, for purposes of observation II
nothing else.
AT our pits said, we have one
uniform rule Of procedure. When
bombardment begins the men go to
their guns. l take my stand on the
top Of the magazine mound to watch
the enemy's fire and direct our own. II
l see that a mortar shell is about to
fall into one Of the gun pits call out
the pit number and the men run into
the bOmbproof until the explosion is
over. No man ever goes into q bomb
proof till this order is given. You must
do as they do. If You run to bomb
proof before l have given the order 1t
will be my Imperative order to shoot
you then and there, and l shall GER
tainly discharge that duty. Do you
fully understand that. Siy
He thought he did. and as the sharp
shooters We're by this time becoming
pestilently personal in their attentions,
we resumed our walk Half an hour
after our arrival at Fort Lamkin a bonn
bardment began. didn't want to shoot
that boy. distinctly preferred to make
a soldier rather than a stiff out of
him. So. instead Of taking my custom
ary stand on the mound of earth over
the magazine, l ordered Joe to that
post and placed myself in the gun pit
to which 81 Tucker had been assigned,
taking care to stand between him and
the mouth of the bombproof. spoke
to him as l passed.
Remember what 1 told you. II
you forget, it is instant death
He remembered. For nearly two
hours he stood there. quaking and shiv-
ering, but not daring to seek safety by
retreat to bombproOf. By the time
that the outburst was over 81 Tucker
had learned his first lesson In war. He
had learned to realize that a man may
endure lot of very savage fire and
yet come out of 1t alive. A few hours
later, when the guns were at work
again, 81 was steady enough in his
nerves to carry shells to the guns. The
next day he was even able, during a
bombardment, to cut fuses-a delicate
operation, requiring a steady hand.
Within two or three days he had be-
come as good soldier as we bad in all
that band Of men specially picked for
their unflinching courage
when the great mine explosion oc-
Cured few weeks later l had occa-
sion to rebuke 81 Tucker for fault
quite unrelated to cowardice. We had
been ordered to go with our mOrtars as
near as possible to the crater and to
drop a continual rain of shells among
the thousands of helpless fellows in
that awful pit. 1t was cruel. ghastly
work. But 1t was war. And poet has
Justly characterized war as n brain
scattering. windpipe-splitting art Or,
os Gen. Sherman once said, and he
knew, War is all hell
I'VE were within sixty yards of the
crater. Each one of our mOrtars was
belching from three to five shells a
minute into that hole, but 81 fuckers
enthusiasm was not satisfied. Having
no personal duty to do at the moment,
he began plugging shells with long
fuses, lighting them, running with
them to the margin of the pit, and toss
Ing them in as hand grenades. He
was greeted by a tremendous volley Of
at each repetition of this per
fOrmance but he did IL three times be-