Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1916-02-08
s5E III 4 A LII
IN
A SOLDIERS
HOME TO-DAY

lie down to Sleep stretched in long lines of any
number of men, all curled up spoon fashion, as
close together as possible.
lay down on the end of the line one cold night
when a poor fellow came and Struggled up to
me. Along in the early morning when he should
have turned to warm my back, he did not move
l got up on my elbow and pulled his nose. He was
dead. 1t was the most frightful experience ever
had
Our dead were usually relieved of any good
clothing they may have had on to be used by those
who were almost naked. l had still on what was
left of shirt and pair of drawers that | had
for almost year. Can you realize or i'm
agine how little Of either were left? went down
to the dead line morning and saw body on
which was fine shirt of blue cashmere cloth.
went to the gate and asked the officer of the Con-
federate guard, old man, if | might remove the
shirt from that body to wear myself
my poor boy" he said, and gave permission,
with tears running down his wrinkled cheeks, to
take the shirt.
A red-whiskered spindle-shanked lowdown
fellow from Wisconsin that was cumming with,
and whom I had kept alive by stealing grub for
him to eat, stole that shirt from me, lost silver
mine in Colorado years ago that sold afterwards
for three hundred thousand dollars, but it did not
hurt so badly the loss of that shirt.
Shortly after this, there was parole of sick and
disabled men agreed on by the governments. l got
out and walked aboard transport at Sa
vannah the Notwithstanding kid that ever left
that city. What few troops there were in that
transport just stood and cried when they our
boys This the nineteenth of November, 1864
At Annapolis l got my back pay, ration money
and clothing money for the time l had been pris
oner amounting to some $500, with furough for
thirty days. l started for Detroit l can't tell
you all that happened on the trip, but l got home
broke after a week ten days the road.
Father killed the fatted calf, mother had it
cooked, and l was made much of by everybody,
for l had been reported dead long ago, and they
had preached memorial sermon for me, telling
what good little boy had been. l came home
and spoiled it all. After few days at home
went to dismounted camp at Harper's Ferry and
from the camp was returned to my regiment
then in Washington waiting to take part in the
grand review, after which sent to Fort
Leavenworth Here l was discharged and the
regiment sent out on the plains after Indians.
l went to Denver in the fall of 1866 with mule
train, before there a railroad in the noun
tains. l returned to Topeka, Kan, with bull
trains, enisting in the regular army, went to Cali
forna by way Of the isthmus, guarded surveyors
in Arizona from the Indians, and fought Indians
in Arizona with the First United States cavalry
1 made trip into Mexico with load of phoney
jewelry. Later | was arrested as ilibuster SOY
in Guaymas and shipwrecked on my trip
from Guaymas to Mazatlan. Two out of seven
were saved after floating around for thirty-six
hours l was shanghaied in San Francisco and
taken around Cape Horn to Dublin which was the
most adventurous five months of my life l came
back to my home in 1873, married in 1874 and
settled down to be decent
am now member of the Michigan Soldiers
home. Uncle Sara is trying his best to make me
comfortable in my declining years. But neither
be nor all the powers that be can make up
the ten years worse than lost from my twelfth
TO twenty-second year. for what l did not learn
that was rough in that time | have not learned
since and it is not in the books