The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1907-04-04

couragement. About half believing
them we mustered courage and
cash enough to carry us to Camp
Curtin, Harrisburg. Here the en-
rolling officer, after sizing us up,
advised us to 60 home to our mother
and grow some whiskers before we
attempted to stand up under the
mule.load of soldier when fully
equipped. While this advice hurt
our pride it was likely best for the
Government and ourselves but it
fell like cool and wet blanket over
our burning ardor to put down the
rebellion. We regretted the war
would still have to continue as we
went home. And sure enough it
continued.
But during the second rebel inva
sion into Our State (we had grown
some little fuzz in the meantime)
we easily got into Capt. Clark S
company referred to. We were the
rawest kind of raw recruits, with
out drill, drummed together hur-
riedly under the persuasive eloqu,
ence of Doc. John, Chris Knapp,
Davy Waller, John Grotz, Bob
Clark, and even Charlie Buckalew,
Col. Tale and other democrats,
strange as it may seem, who met
with republicans at the courthouse
to encourage us to go while they
stayed at home.
While Col. Tate was of course
not chief spokesman yet he is credit
ed with saying in his sweet falsetto
voice "Its too bad that our south
ern friends should thus invade and
raid us, when we have so many
| able bodied young men to defend
us, who are willing to strike till the
last armed foe expires. We struck
for the altars Of our sires while Doc.
John, Col. Tate and the rest they
stayed safe at home to look after
the political fires, &c. when prices
were inflated and profits big. Per-
haps they were too old"
AS Our company had a flag, we
looked upon this with swelling
pride while wondering whether the
rebels would shoot the flag and
ourselves full of holes before we
got home. Spurning to 60 as a
hired substitute for any drafted
man, we simply went in Our boyish
pride of our own volition and ON
our own hook to put down the re-
bellion, abolish slavery, and save
the union. When the rebels heard
of our coming we didn't know but
they'd throw down their arms and
go right home, but they didn't.
They kept right on just the same
as though we had never enlisted.
This wounded our pride still more.
Being a mere apprentice boy
from DR.. Johns republican printing
Office, and at the age of I6, when
boys are apt to be most augumen-
tative and wise in their own
conceit we were called a "black
abolitionist" by Democratic COM
rades who shot all right but talked
all wrong in our opinion, because
| they differed with us on the all
absorbing slave question.
1t is true soldiers often differ in
politics and sometimes quarrel over
prevailing issues, such as "state
sovereignty" Slavery" &C., in
this land of the free and the home
of the brave, which is sometimes
misquoted as "the land of the spree
and the home OF the knave" We
were troubled tc notice that some
argued with fervor upon the folly
of our standing up to be shot down
or be mained for life just to free
negroes, whom they claimed, as
Senator Tillman of S. c., where
the first jar took place, still claims,
that negroes were born so much our
interiors by decree Of Almighty
God, that they are naturally slaves
proper for the white man who is
too lazy to work where the sun
shines hot enough to make him
earn his bread by the sweat of his
brow even though the Almighty in
tended he should do so. We mean