Devils Lake inter-ocean. (Devils Lake, Ramsey Co., Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1905, 1903-05-29
A WARTIME MEETING

man with the glide braid around his SLOUGH
nat, washington doesn't look much like it
old when l saw it the last time-in Nav.
1855. ~
My dad brought me down here to Wash
ington from Detroit to enter me at George.
Town university in the year 1860. was then
a olt more than l6 years old. liked the life
al the Georgetown university until the war
broke out. Then there were too MANY roll.
licking soldier boys camped around in the
nelghborhood of Georgetown for me to pre-
serve my contentedness. They all looked to
me as If they were enjoying a picnic, and
l made up my mind that I'D have to get
one of those blue uniforms on myself or
shrivel up.
Shortly after the beginning of the war
l wrote nome to my dad in De1roit-he was
then organizing a Michigan regiment, which
ne took all through the war, and it was cut
to pieces several times, tco-and told him
that l thought ! would like to join the army,
The phrase wasn't in use. tLen, but he wrote
back something to tLe general effect that |
had another tnink or two a-coming. He
wrote that l didn't know waen | was well
on, and saM that, as,he was getting together
LUZ men for the big conflict, he figured
that he could come pretty near doing all
the soldering necessary In our family.
remember thinking that this was pretty
selfish on the old gentleman's part. | re-.
fected that he had been in the Mexican
war, and that therefore in wishing to do all
OF the soldering in the civil war, too, he GER
talnly was showing a disposition to hog
things.
However, l studied my lessons and vent
Along all right at Georgetown university
until early in 1861, amt then | couldn't stand
it any longer. So one afternoon l just cut
out through the big gate, made for the rail-
road station and Established connections
with a freight car tackled on to q freight
train that l found was booked to 10 to west
ern New York. Inside of three or four days
I was incontinentally dropped at Lockport,
N. Y.
u didn't take me long there to fall into
the hands of a substitute broker, and two
days after l arrived at Lockport l was duly
logged out in a government straight uni
form that, as | remember it, was the baldest
End of"a; joke al. a fit. Somehow + didn't
feel half 30 cheerful over the prospect of
arollicking military career when, with about
100 other young gossoons, | was herded in a
corner of an old storehouse, near the rail
road, and kept there under guard until the.
train was ready to take US to the front.
Naturally enough was pretty curious
to hnd out to what part Of the front we
were going, but never a line of information
could l get from anybody about it until
we were well past Baltimore. | don't sup
pose any of the others knew any more than
l did.
When We got beyond Baltimore, now
ever, l found out, all right, whittier we were
bound, and the news made ME almost wither
up.
"'We'r going to Giesboro' Point!' one of
the young officers announced when the train
got outside of Baltimore. Now, only a few
days before I'd jumped the Georgetown uni
versity ld received a letter from my dad
in Detroit, saying that ned be over to the
university to see me presently, as his rtgit
ment was going to be stationed only a little
distance way from Washington-at Gies.
boro' Point! None Of the terrors of battle
or sudden death looked half SO fierce to me
in prospect as my dads discovering me il
q misft uniform, and right in his own camp.
too, after he'd so expressly forbidden me
to have anything to do with soldering.
IL well remember the night we were
dumped at Giesboro' Point, the little place
down the Potomac a bit on the Maryland
side drove over there yesterday to have
a look at the old grounds. l made w my
mind that the best thing for me to do would
be to look up the old gentleman the very
first thing on the following morning and
take my. medicine was too tired to think
of anything but rolling up in a blanket on
the first night we got in.
Il found my dad in his tent along toward
10 o'clock on the next morning. He had
H. Ala .-.-5A ~:-Lx 1~.-
the river at Georgetown conjugating Latin
verbs, and on that very day, in fact, he
was intending to cross over to Georgetown
to look me up.
"Hello, pop said l, s~trolling into hii
tent and endeavoring to look as rakish Al
I could. How are they all at home!
"Well, the old gentleman looked at me
steadily for a good three minutes before he
said a word or before l knew what was going
to happen to me. l put in the time shifting
from one leg to the other. Then M dad''
~countenance broke into a grin.
"'That's q queer-looking uniform, son,
he said. You'll have to be looking up your
company tailor to have it whitfield down te
your proportions
That was all. He didn't roast me at all
and l had been expecting him to swoop upor
me like a thousand Of bricks. Not a ques
ton did he ask me as to why I'D disobeyec
him and jumped the university. I'm not Ger
tain that the old gentleman wasn't just a bit
tickled inwardly that one of his cubs hac
taken the bit in his teeth in that way.
"Well, pretty nigh four years after that
in the month of March, before Appomatto1
l was dumped, along with many scores O
others that had been pretty badly nit, into
a boat on the James river bound from Their.
to a Washington hospital. l had got min'
in a skirmish. and yet it was a bad enough
piece of work for a mar to have got in thu
biggest pitched battle of the war. Dow
the James and up the Potomac was thu
course of the boat, and when l came to
found myself on cot in an institution called
Campbell's hospital
Il was still there when Lincoln was as
sassinated, and l can remember how
pitched and tossed around in a hostile hume
because l wasn't in shape to get up for th'
grand review of the army. Ny dad, who't
been through the entire war with his Michi
gan outfit. came to see NE at the hospital
I hadn't clapped an eye on him since leav
ing Giesboro' Point, nearly four years be
fore-and he inquired Of ne which appealed
to me the more-tne life of a soldi Ter or
student: He got me out CT t.at place wher
7 yuoe ,vs+ ohio RI wall .pI with a lOf n