THE GREAT MILITARY TRUTH
THAT IN THE ARMY THE MOST LIKELY THING TO HAPPEN IS SOMETHING ENTIRELY UNLIKELY.
COL. TERRENCE P. McTARNAGHAN, as his name would indicate, had first opened his eyes where the blue heavens bend over the evergreen sod of Ireland. Naturally, therefore, he thought himself a born soldier, and this conviction had been confirmed by a year"s service as Second Lieutenant of Volunteers in the Mexican War, and subsequent connection with the Indiana Militia. Being an Irishman, when he went in for anything, and especially soldiering, he went in with all his might.
He had a.s.sociated with Regular Army officers whenever there was an opportunity, and he looked up to them with the reverence and emulation that an amateur gives to a professional. Naturally he shared their idea that an inspection and parade was the summit of military art.
Consequently, the main thing to make the 200th Ind. the regiment it should be were frequent and rigid inspections.
Fine weather, two days of idleness, and the prospect that the regiment would remain there some time watching the crossing of the c.u.mberland were enough and more than enough to set the Colonel going. The Adjutant published the following order:
Headquarters 200th Indiana, In the Field, on the c.u.mberland,
Nov. 25, 1862.
I. The Regiment will be paraded for inspection tomorrow afternoon at 4 o"clock.
II. Captains will be expected to parade the full strength of their companies.
III. A half hour before the parade. Captains will form their companies in the company streets and inspect every man.
IV. The men will be required to have their clothes neatly brushed, blouses b.u.t.toned up, clean underclothes, shoes blacked, letters and numbers polished, and arms and accouterments in best condition. They will wear white gloves.
V. The man who has his clothes, arms and accouterments in the best order will be selected for the Colonel"s Orderly.
By command of
Attest: COL. TERRENCE P. McTARNAGHAN, Colonel.
B. B. LAUGHLIN, Adjutant.
When Capt. McGillicuddy marched Co. Q back to its street, he called attention to the order with a few terse admonitions as to what it meant to every one.
"Get at this as soon as you break ranks, boys," urged the Captain. "You can do a whole lot between now and tattoo. The others will, and you must not let them get ahead of you. No straw in knapsacks this time."
Company spirit was high, and it would be little short of a calamity to have Co. Q beaten in anything.
There was a rush to the Sutler for white gloves, blacking, needles, thread, paper collars, sweet oil and rotten stone for the guns.
That genial bird of prey added 50 per cent to his prices, because it was the first business he had done for some weeks; 50 per cent more for keeping open in the evening, another 50 per cent for giving credit till pay day, and still another for good will.
The Government had just offered some very tempting gold-interest bonds, of which he wanted a swad.
""Tain"t right to let them green boys have their hull $13 a month to waste in foolishness," he said. "Some good man should gather it up and make a right use of it."
Like Indiana farmer boys of his cla.s.s. Si Klegg was cleanly but not neat. Thanks to his mother and sisters, his Sunday clothes were always "respectable," and he put on a few extra touches when he expected to meet Annabel. He took his first bath for the year in the Wabash a week or two after the suckers began to run, and his last just before the water got so cold as to make the fish bite freely.
Such a thing as a "dandy" was particularly distasteful to him.
"Shorty," said Si, as he watched some of the boys laboring with sandpaper, rotten stone and oil to make the gunbarrels shine like silver, "what"s the cense o" bein" so partickler about the outside of a gun? The business part"s inside. Making them screw heads look like beads don"t make it no surer of gitting Mr. b.u.t.ternut."
"Trouble about you folks on the Wabash," answered Shorty, as he twisted a screw head against some emery paper, "is that you don"t pay enough attention to style. Style goes a long ways in this vain and wicked world,"
(and his eyes became as if meditating on worlds he had known which were not so vain and wicked), "and when I see them Kokomo persimmon knockers of Co. B hustling to put on frills, I"m going to beat "em if I don"t lay up a cent."
"Same here," said Si, falling to work on his gunbarrel. "Just as" nice people moved into Posey County as squatted in Kokomo. Gang o" hoss thieves first settled Howard County."
"Recollect that big two fister from Kokomo who said he"d knock your head off if you ever throwed that up to him again?" grinned Shorty.
"You invited him to try it on, an" he said your stripes stopped him. You pulled off your blouse, and you said you had no stripes on your shirt sleeves. But I wouldn"t say it again until those Co. B fellers try again to buck us out of our place in the ration line. It"s too good a slam to waste."
Tattoo sounded before they had finished their guns and accouterments.
These were laid aside to be completed in the full light of day.
The next morning work was resumed with industry stimulated by reports of the unusual things being done by the other companies.
"This Tennessee mud sticks closer"n a $500 mortgage to a 40-acre tract,"
sighed Si, as he stopped beating and brushing his blouse and pantaloons.
"Or, ""Aunt Jemima"s plaster, "The more you try to pull it off the more it sticks the faster."
hummed Shorty, with what breath he had left from his violent exercise.
So well did they work that by dinner time they felt ready for inspection, careful reconnoissances of the other companies showing them to have no advantages.
Next to the Sutler"s for the prescribed white gloves.
Si" had never worn anything on his hands but warm, woolen mittens knit for him by his mother, but the order said white gloves, and gloves they must have. The accommodating sutler made another stoppage in their month"s pay of $1 for a pair of cheap, white cotton gloves. By this time the sutler had acc.u.mulated enough from the 200th Ind. to secure quite a handful of gold interest-bearing bonds.
"Well, what do you think of them. Si?" said Shorty, as he worked his generous hands into a pair of the largest sized gloves and held them up to view.
"If they were only painted yaller and had a label on them," said Si, "they could be issued for Cincinnati canvas covered hams."
Shorty"s retort was checked by hearing the bugle sound the officers"
call. The Colonel announced to them that owing to the threatening look of the skies the parade and inspection would take place in an hour.
There was feverish haste to finish undone things, but when Capt.
McGillicuddy looked over his men in the company street, he declared himself proud to stack up Co. Q against any other in the regiment. Gun barrels and bayonets shone like silver, rammers rang clear, and came out without a stain to the Captain"s white gloves.
The band on the parade ground struck up the rollicking
"O, ain"t I glad to git out of the wilderness, Out of the wilderness-Out of the wilderness,"
and Capt. McGillicuddy marched proudly out at the head of 75 broad-shouldered, well-thewed young Indianians, fit and fine as any south of the Ohio.
The guides, holding their muskets b.u.t.ts up, indicated where the line was to form, the trim little Adjutant, glorious as the day in a new uniform and full breasted as a pouter-pigeon, was strutting over toward the band, and the towering red-headed Colonel, martial from his waving plume to his jangling spurs, stood before his tent in ma.s.sive dignity, waiting for the color company to come up and receive the precious regimental standard.
This scene of orderly pomp and pageantry was rudely disturbed by an Aid dashing in on a sweating horse, and calling out to the statuesque commander:
"Colonel, a train is stalled in the creek about three miles from here, and is threatened with capture by Morgan"s cavalry. The General presents his compliments, and directs that you take your regiment on the double-quick to the a.s.sistance of the train. You v"e not a moment lose."
"Tare and "ounds!" swore the Colonel in the cla.s.sic he used when excited, "am I niver to have a dacint inspection? Orderly, bring me me ha.r.s.e.