How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion

Food!-The Value o

Meal-I Steal Corn

nger-I Dine on Mul

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mpany, where I would have to do duty like the rest. I told him I was one of the talking backest fellows he ever saw, and that one of my duties as a newspaper man was to criticise the conduct of the war. Then he said I might report to the captain of my company. It seemed hard to go into the ranks, after having had a soft job with the chaplain, and again as colonel's orderly, but I thought if I got my back up and showed the captain that I was no ordinary soldier, but one who was qualified for any position, that maybe he would be afraid to monkey too much with me. I knew the captain would be a candidate for some office when the war was over, and if he knew I was on to him, and that I should very likely publish a paper that could warm him up quite lively, he would see to it that I wasn't compelled to do very hard work. So I rode back to my company and told the captain that the colonel and the chaplain had got through with me, and I had come back to stay, and would be glad to do any light work he might have for me. The captain heaved a sigh, as though he was not particularly tickled to have me back, and told me to fall in, in the rear of the company. I asked if I couldn't ride at the head of the company. He said no, there was more room at the rear. I tried to tell him that I was accustomed to riding at the head of the regiment, but he told me to shut up my mouth and get back there, and I got back, and fell in at the tail end of the company, with the cook and an officer's servant, and the orderly sergeant came back and wanted to know if the company had got to have me around again. Here was promotion with a vengeance. From the proud pinnacle from which I had soared, as chaplain's clerk, and colonel's orderly, I had dropped with one fell swoop to the rear end of my company, and nobody wanted me, because I had

he most of the men had fallen asleep, I made two pancakes of the wet meal, and put them in the ashes of the camp-fire to bake, but fell asleep before it was done, and when I woke up and reached into the ashes for the first pancake, it was gone. Some Union soldier, whom it were base flattery to call a thief, had watched me, and stole my riches as I slept, robbed me of all I held dear in life. With trembling hands I raked the ashes for my other pancake, hopelessly, because I thought that, too, was gone, but to my surprise I found it. The villain who had pursued me as I slept, had failed to discover the second pancake, and I was safe, and my life was saved. I have seen a play in a theater in which a miser hides his gold, first in one place, then in another, looking to the right and to the left to see if anybody was watching him. I was the same kind of a miser about my pancake. If I hid it in the woods I might fail to find the place, in the morning, where I had hid it, and besides, some soldier that was peacefully snoring near me, apparently, might have one eye on me, and commit burglary. If I put it in my pocket, and went to sleep, I might have my pocket picked, so I concluded to remain awake and hold it in my hands. There appeared to be nothing between me and death by starvation, except that cornmeal pancake, and I sat there for an hour, beside the dying embers of

rs in its eyes, but I couldn't be moved by no mule tears, with hunger gnawing at my vitals, so I hurried away like a guilty thing. While I was parching the corn stolen from the mule, in a half of a tin canteen, over the fire, the chaplain came along and wanted to sample it. He was pretty hungry, but I wasn't running a free boarding house for chaplains any more, and I told him he must go forage for himself. He said he would give his birthright for a pocket full of corn. I told him I didn't want any birthright, unless a birthright would stay a man's stomach, but if he would promise to always love, honor and obey me, I would tell him where he could get some corn. He swore by the great bald headed Elijah that if I would steer him onto some corn he would remember me the longest day he lived, and pray for me. I never was very much, mashed on the chaplain's influence at the throne, but I didn't want to see him starve, while government mules were living on the fat of the land, so I told him to go down to the quartermaster's corral and rob the mules as I had done. He bit like a bass, and started for the mules. Honestly, I had no designs on the chaplain, but he traded me a kicking mule once, and got a good horse of me, because I thought he wanted to do me a favor. As he was familiar with mules, I supposed he wou

and men around me, but there seemed a film over the eyes, and through it I could see all of the good things I ever had eaten. One moment there would be a steaming roast turkey, on a platter, ready to be carved. Again I could see a kettle over a cook-stove, with a pigeon pot-pie cooking, the dumpings, light as a feather, bobbing up and down with the steam, and I could actually smell the odor of the cooking pot-pie. It seems strange, and unbelievable to those who have never experienced extreme hunger or thirst, that the imagination can picture eatables and streams of running water, so plain that one will almost reach for the eatables, or rush for the imaginary stream, to plunge in and quench thirst, but I have experienced both of those sensations for thirteen dollars a month, and nary a pension yet. It is such experiences that bring gray hairs to the te

ng life are given you, take your rations and go away, and do

e teams;"-that is, two wheel mules and a single leader, instead of four-mule teams. After I saw the teams move out, each mule looking mournful, as though each one thought his time might come next, I didn't want to ask any questions about that

ives may pay the penalty!" I had been feeling for some days as though there was not the utmost confidence in my bravery, among the men, and I had been studying as to whether I would desert, and become a wanderer on the face of the earth, or do some desperate deed that would make me solid with the boys, and when the captain called for volunteers, I swallowed a large lump i

of the captain, whom I suspected of a desire to run for office when we got home, to get me in his power, so that if I went for him in my paper, he could charge me with stealing sheep. It worked me up considerable, but we were out of meat, and if there was a sheep in the vicinity, and I got it, there was one thing sure, they couldn't get any more mule down me. So we rode up to the plantation, which was apparently deserted. There was a lamb about two-thirds grown, in the front yard, and McCarty and myself dismounted and proceeded to surround the young sheep. As we walked up to it, the lamb came up to me bleating, licked my hand, and then I noticed there was a little sleigh-bell tied to its neck with a blue ribbon. The lamb looked up at us with almost human eyes, and I was going to suggest that we let it alone, when McCarty grabbed it by the hind legs and was going to strap it to his saddle, when it set up a bleating, and a little boy come rushing out of the house, a bright little fellow about three years old, who could hardly talk plain. I wanted to hug him, he looked so much like a little black-eyed baby at home, that was too awfully small to say "good bye, papa" when I left. The little fellow, with the dignity of an emperor, said, "Here, sir, you must not hurt my little pet lamb. Put him down, sir, or I will call the servants and have you put off the premises." McCarty laughed, and said the lamb would be fine 'atin for the boy's, and was pulling the little thing up, when the tears came into the boy's eyes, and that settled it. I said, "Mac, for heaven's sake, drop that lamb. I wouldn't break that little boy's heart for all the sheep-meat on earth. I will eat mule, or dog, but I draw the line at children's household pets. Let the lamb go." "Begorra, yer right," said McCarty, as he let t

f the scene, and would have gone off somewhere alone and hated myself, or killed the Irishman, but just then I saw the captain, and I said, "Captain, I have to report that the perilous expedition was a success. There'

eve you set that ram on to me on pu

his sides with laughter, "yez towld me