Ninety-Five Year Old Pioneer Still Remembers and Tells of Old Scenes, Places, Happenings (Part 3)

Date: 9 Feb 1933 to 9 Feb 1933
Location: Lacon, Il
Surnames/tags: Shafer Buck NINETY-FIVE YEAR OLD PIONEER STILL REMEMBERS AND TELLS OF OLD SCENES, PLACES, AND HAPPENINGS

By Chas. F. Buck Excerpted from Lacon Home Journal of Lacon, Illinois

Feb 9, 1933

(Part 3, continued from Part 2)

If men are kept busy they are much better satisfied and time seems to move faster. At last spring came and the roads dried up and the campaign opened but we were soon ordered to transfer to the east side of the Mississippi where we were in all of the troop movements in western Tennessee.

Our second winter found us in winter quarters at Corinth, Miss., and occasionally we were sent out on scout duty to chase Rebel cavalry that came too close to our camp, but it was mighty tiresome at times with nothing to do but to care for our mules. We were always on the watch for a chance to get away from the camp for a while. One day I borrowed a horse from a cavalry man and struck out to forage a little on my own hook. I didn’t take the trouble to get a permit to leave camp for I knew that I could talk the sentry into letting me pass. He halted me and said, “Where are you going?” “Oh,” I said, “I’m going out for a little fresh air.” “Well don’t try to get too much of it for there is a much of Johnnies out about five miles that are bad actors and they may take you into camp.”

“Not me,” I bragged. I rode along at a jog for some time, keeping a sharp look-out in all directions, until I was between four and five miles from camp, when I came to a plantation and decided to look it over and see if by any chance there had been a chicken or something that had been overlooked. The house was deserted and the barn and shed were empty and it looked like a water haul. Then I saw a low shed some forty rods away and thought I saw something move. I rode down to the shed and there were half a dozen sheep that both the Yanks and Johnnies had missed. It was no use to wish for some of the boys and a wagon and the more I looked at them the more I wanted them. At last I made up my mind to take one anyway. I thought that I could tie the critters legs together and hang it over the saddle. I tied my horse to the fence and went after the mutton. I chased the sheep into a corner and grabbed one of the legs and flopped it on its back, caught the other three legs, drew them together and tied them good and tight. Foragers always carried some strong string in their pockets just to keep sheep and other things from biting them. The sheep was a nice fat wether and was pretty heavy, but I picked it up and tried to put it on the horse but that critter didn’t like the looks or the smell of the sheep and reared and plunged something scandalous. It looked for a while like the horse would win, but a hoss is like a woman, a firm hand and a pleasant voice usually bring results, and it did so in this case, for I was mounted with the mutton in front of me.

The road wound up a hill about a mile away and as I turned for a last look to see that no one was following me I was surprised to see a dozen or more horsemen come into view. You see the Johnnies were out to see if anything had been overlooked, too. They saw me as soon as I had seen them and put spurs to their mounts and came down that hill like the devil beatin’ tan bark.

Their old butter-nut brown clothes told me there were Johnnis and there was one Yank that they had set their hearts on. I stuck a spur into my horse and said, “Come on old Spavin, if you ever run in your life, do it now,” and he did.

For a time he held his own in spite of the weight of the sheep, but after a mile or so he began to tire and I could see that they were crawling up on me. It would have been easy to have dropped the sheep and run away from the Rebs but I couldn’t bear to hear their insulting yells of, “Hey, Yank you all is suah scairt wen youse throws away youah mutton,” and I decided to hang on to that wooly if I got shot doing it. My horse was getting pretty well winded and the Johnnies were coming up on me faster than I liked. A bullet whined over my head and I began to feel a bit uncomfortable, but the first out-post of our lines was in sight a mile away and the smoke and the report of the gun would be sure to attract the notice of the sentry, and the Rebs knew it too, for they were yelling and urging their horses to top speed, and the bullets were coming faster and much closer, when I heard as sweet a sound as ever I listened to, it was a bugle call for boots and saddles and it came from our camp. I knew that a troop of cavalry would be coming my way in a jiffy. The Johnnies knew it too, for they had heard the call and stopped immediately and began to back track in a hurry and they were none too soon either, for before I reached the sentry I saw a troop coming on the run. They sentry told me he had seen the chase more than a mile away and knowing that I had gone out, it was not hard to guess that some fellow was wanting help so badly that he could taste it. He turned in the alarm and the bugle call saved my bacon and the mutton at the same time.

Time passed quickly and our term of enlistment was getting short, the war was drawing to a close and thousands of prisoners were being shipped north where they would be out of the way and if they did escape they would be so long getting back that the war would be over.

Our troops was [sic] detailed as guard for 1,500 prisoners, to be taken to Camp Douglas, Chicago. We had been roughing it for nearly three years and had been out in all kinds of weather but that camp on the lake was the coldest place that we had ever struck. Our time was not yet up and we were continued as guards at the prison, take turns with an Irish brigade that had come with prisoners from the east and were waiting for their time to expire before being sent home. This camp covered forty acres of ground and was surrounded by a right board fence ten feet high. The prisoners quarters were in the center of the camp and our beats were around the outside of their quarters but inside of the fence at night, fires were kept, burning about thirty feet apart all the way around the camp. The wood was brought across the lake from Michigan and was not overly plentiful. It was a part of the sentry’s job to keep these fires going. It was a tough place around that camp both inside and outside. Bootleggers would saw holes in the fence large enough to pass a pint bottle of whiskey, which they would sell to the guards, the price was thirty-five cents for a half pint. In the deal the soldier had to drop his money through the hole first and then the seller, many of whom were women, would let loose of the bottle. This Irish brigade were a lot of hard drinkers and were drunk on duty often, in fact they were drunk as long as they had any money.

As a fighting unit they were the equals of anything in either army north or south. Our hours of duty were two on and four off, our beats were about thirty feet, from one fire to another. Each beat was numbered and the sentry going off duty was supposed to give the man who relieved him its number, but half the time he would be so drunk that he couldn’t remember it. It was a comical sight at times when the sentries were drunk to see them try to line up, all facing the same way and start for the other end of their beat, weaving and twisting from side to side like a snake, but I don’t recall that anybody was ever punished for it.

The war was on its last legs and it was only a question of time until Grant would finish it. We were mustered out and sent home. A great many changes had taken place in the three years that we had been away. Prices were high and all kinds of business were booming. Pork was selling for $13.00 a hundred and we thought we would never see it that high again, but along came the World War and boosted it to $20 a hundred.

Continued in Part 4...