Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1906-05-07
DAILY STORY
couLD'T SPELL HIS OWN NAME.
[Original.1

| Mexican war, and 1 got this story
| from him direct:
1 was with that army which, under
Scott, landed at Vera Cruz and march
ed to the City of Mexico, fighting one
battle after another by the way. In
the til artillery was sergeant
named Kelly, who was one Of the best
discptnarians among noncommission-
| ed officers l ever knew. Any man I'M
der his command must toe the mark
or take the consequences. Kelly was
an Irishman and had served in the
British army. He was a natural sol
der and. like most such, was not fitted
for anything else.
| At Vera Cruz man who said that
| his parents were or had been Ameri-
| cans, though he had been born and had
| always lived in Mexico, wanted to en-
| list in the United States army. He
| spoke English with n broken Spanish
accent, but any one under the circum-
stances would have done that. He was
accepted. put in the battery with kel-
| ly and fell under the sergeant's orders.
The recruit gave his name as Gala
ger, which denoted Irish extraction,
and Kelly looked for him to have at
least heard something about the EN-
| erald Isle, but he was woefully igno-
rant of it. For this reason, possibly,
the sergeant was not prepossessed i'll
his favor and put on the screws of dis
| cipline in his case to the fullest extent.
Gallagher bore the sergeant's severe
rebukes at his errors at first with pa
| thence, but he looked as much like
| Spaniard as an Irishman, and he could
not miss pugnacious blood in either
race. At any rate the sergeant worried
him into state of frenzy. We enlist
ed men thought we saw dislike for the
recruit in Kelly and condemned him
| for taking advantage of his position TO
crafty his spite. There was one act
| that came under my observation which
was unfair. He had noticed that Gal
lagher was especially indispoSed to do
police duty"-that is, he WINGED at
going about picking up old papers,
cigar stumps and such like, and the
sergeant detailed him for this duty
oftener than he should have done.
Once when Gallagher had been de-
tailed for the same ignoble work three
days in succession he refused to serve.
Hot words between him and Kelly re-
suited, and the affair ended by the re-
cruit knocking the sergeant down.
saw this quarrel, and l made up my
mind that Gallagher had drawn Irish
fight with his mothers milk and Span
iSh fight with the atmosphere he had
breathed from the day he was born.
BronZed as he was by the sun of trop-
les, he looked under the spirit of re-
bellion more like Il descendant of the
Aztecs than the Irish and more like Il
Spaniard than either.
Instead of giving vent to rage, as he
was bound to do by the traditions of
his race, Kelly picked himself up and
quietly called for q corporal of the
guard to take the mutinouS recruit to
the guardhouse 1t occurred to me that
he had been trying to prod the man in
to mutiny in order to have the pleasure
of penning him up. AS Gallagher was
marched away l noticed Il peculiar eX-
preston on his face, an expression that
denoted self condemnation. He was
evidently much dissatisfied with him
self for letting the sergeant get the
better of him.
We marched next day, and Gallagher
walked, with other prisoners, under
guard. We soon came upon the Mexi
cans, and our little army deployed for
a fight The ordinary routine OF army
life vanishes with the sound of firing,
al lea Inr m hn
of us. / remember seeing one of the
junior leutenants telling him to go
in" and he would help him by testify
ing to the fact on his trial for mutiny.
But that was the last 1 saw of the mu-
tineer during the fight, and after it
was over no one saw him. He was
among the missing. When / suggested
that he had died the death of soldier,
Kelly's wrath exploded.
KILLED, the spalpeen. Dye be think
in there was a bullet fired by the
Mexicans that would "a touched the
dirty spy"
What do you mean, sergeantT'
'Oh, go long wild yez. Dye think Oh
wouldn't know any o. the Gala ghers?
The miserable Spaniard didn't even
know how to spell his own Irish name"
We laughed at the sergeant's preju- !
dice against the poor fellow, who must |
have been buried by those of another |
corps who didn't know him, and |
thought no more about the matter.
Our work had now commenced in |
earnest, and we had no time for any |
thing but fighting till we had captured |
the City of Mexico. Our battery was |
good deal cut up by the concentrated |
fire Of several Mexican batteries on |
the heights of Chapultepec. Kelly |
vowed that the Aztec. as he had called |
Gallagher, had come back from purga-
tory and entered the body of the officer
commanding the battery that had done |
us the most damage. When the fight |
was over Kelly went up the heights,
and later we saw him coming back,
with body SllIp& biz. Sho.siies.