The Little Things of Life, Happening All Over the World and Caught in Ink for Trotwood’s Monthly.
He was a fine-looking old gentleman, well-dressed and had the air of a well-to-do business man. A silver-white mustache set off his cheery-looking, full, round face, and something in his eyes told me he wasn’t at all struck on formality and would not mind talking to a stranger, to pass away an hour or two in a sleeping-car.
An Unfinished Race.
I noticed, too, that his left sleeve had no arm in it, and then that he had on a G. A. R. button.
“That old fellow is all right,” I said to myself, “and I’ll bet he left that arm down in Tennessee. There are a dozen good yarns tucked away under that derby hat that have never yet seen the color of white paper, and I am going to get one of them. I should say that he fought from Shiloh to Chickamauga and from Chattanooga to Nashville, and made a good one, too, or else he wouldn’t have left that arm in the enemy’s country.” “He fought the war out,” I said, after I had studied his countenance more closely and noticed the big bump of benignity that made up his back head and ended in kind, mild countenance; “and after it was over he let it stay over, forgot all its meanness, inhumanity and cussedness generally, came on up here to Indiana and went into business, attended strictly to it, and is now a well-to-do business man.”
Satisfied that my diagnosis was correct, I went over, and taking a seat by him, began to slyly get in my net for the fish I knew was there.
“From Middle Tennessee, you say?” he said after awhile. “Well, I guess I know every foot of it, nearly.” He laughed. “Under a little black locust tree near Murfreesboro is what is left of this,” he said, as he touched his empty coat sleeve. “I have often wanted to go back there and see some of those pretty farms and good horses and bluegrass hills when I didn’t have any guard duty to do and wasn’t looking for an enemy, but friends.”
I cordially invited him to come, and mentioned how many of the veterans come down every now and then to go over the battlefields of the South.
“Is that long, wooden, covered bridge still spanning Duck River at Columbia?” he asked quickly, as if suddenly remembering all about it. “That old bridge has got a history,” he continued. “I was with Buell when we got orders that we were to unite our army with Grant’s somewhere in the neighborhood of Pittsburg Landing, on the Tennessee. When we reached Columbia the river was up and the bridge was partially destroyed, and all the flooring burned. I was one of the engineers and had to repair the bridge. Word had come that we were needed badly, and we worked day and night. Then word came that we were needed worse, and by hard dint I got the army over, and on we rushed for Pittsburg Landing. We got there almost too late. Grant’s army was nearly ruined. Johnston had driven it from Shiloh Church to the river bank, a distance of five or six miles, and only our arrival that night, bringing in the thirty or thirty-five thousand of Buell’s army, saved Grant. On what small things do great destinies hang!” he mused. “A loss of a day at Columbia would have changed the history of this country, and General Grant, instead of having been President, would have been one more of our unsuccessful generals.
“But the funniest experience I had in Tennessee was at a little place in Marshall County, almost at the extreme edge of our army’s position. It was after the battle of Shiloh, when the main army was at Nashville and our outposts went as far south as Pulaski. Do you all still raise pacing horses down there?”
I looked around to see if anybody was near enough to understand the humor of such a question, but seeing none, and no sign of a joke on the old gentleman’s face, I kept my face straight as I answered him that we still raised a few.
“I was always fond of a good saddle horse,” he went on, “and many of the boys in our company of cavalry were of the same way of thinking. In fact, we had picked up a whole company of them down there, and I’m afraid we did not take the trouble to issue any Government warrants for them either,” he laughed. “So when we went into camp in this village of Marshall County we had a company of as fine horses as any cavalry company ever bestrode. Time went a little heavy on our hands, until one day some of the boys got up a bet on the speed of their respective horses, and a quarter race was run that evening at which the entire company turned out. It was won by a little roan horse that could pace nearly as fast as he could run, which was saying a good deal, for he could run for a quarter of a mile about as fast as anything I ever saw on four legs. Well, he won, and two days afterward beat two others, and a week after that beat everything they could rake and scrape up against him. All this was hugely interesting and immensely exciting, and as none of us had ever heard anything of the presence of the rebel cavalry leader and reckless raider, General Forrest, and never dreamed of the danger we were in, I am sorry to say that we were more interested in horse-racing just then than anything else. The owner of the horse called the little roan pacer and runner “Mack,” in honor of General MacPherson, who commanded some of us at Shiloh. Well, after Mack had beaten everything running, it was announced in camp one day that Mack’s match at pacing had been captured a few days before, and a big pacing race was to come off that evening to decide it. I had never seen a pacing race under saddle, and with all the others I went out to see it. You can imagine what asses we were when we left everything in camp, even our side arms, in care of a few sentinels and camp followers, and all of us adjourned to an old field about a quarter of a mile to see the sport. The track was a half-mile, laid off on a nice country road, the judges standing at the end of the half mile and the start was at the beginning. It is needless to say that every man in the company was at the end of the track where the judges were. The horses were nearly equal favorites, and we soon had to appoint a man to hold the bets. He had his hands full, for every man in the company had something upon the race, and the goose hung high—and we were the goose,” he laughed.
“There were to be three heats. An Indiana man rode Mack, and an Ohio man rode the other horse. Down the lane they came on the first heat, and all of us strained our necks to see who led. In forty yards of the wire, so to speak, Mack lost his head, concluded he was born for running and not for pacing, broke out and ran away from his man. The judges gave the heat to the other horse. This made Mack’s friends mad, and after a good deal of palavering the heat was declared off and everything started over. In this heat Mack got down to business and beat the other horse by the nose. But in the next heat the other horse turned the tables on Mack and beat him a good length. I’ve seen a good many harness races in my day since then,” continued the old soldier, “but I never saw one that interested me as much as that. Everything was excitement, and the boys were betting everything they had, from hardtacks to dollars. When they turned up the road to come down for the third heat, we could easily see them from where we were, as the beginning of the track was slightly elevated. They turned ’round to come, when all at once I saw both horses stop, their riders looking intently toward the camp, which was behind us and could be seen by them from their slight elevation. In another instant they started, but not our way. They gave one wild shout, bolted the fence on the side of the road and lit out across the fields, according to our notion, like two fools. Before we had time to imagine what was up, we heard some shouts and shots in camp, some wild galloping and yells our way, and we turned ’round only to rush into the arms of a detachment, some five-hundred strong, of Forrest’s Cavalry. If there ever were a cheap set, we were the boys. We made no bones of surrendering, for we hadn’t a dog’s show and were glad to get off with our clothes.
“‘What in h—— are you Yanks doin’ down here, anyway?’ asked their leader, a big fellow with a Colonel’s gray uniform on. When the situation was explained to him he laughed like a big schoolboy. ‘Where is the stakeholder?’ he asked. When this gentleman was pointed out he hollered out: ‘Fetch them stakes over here, sonny, and tell the judges all bets are declared off on this race’! And the way the Johnnies laughed racked us more than being captured.
“We soon learned the secret of the thing. Forrest had made one of his characteristic raids around Nashville, captured and burned our stores at Gallatin and Murfreesboro, and was sweeping on towards Bragg’s army at Tullahoma. In his sweep he simply scooped us up while we were down in the woods of Marshall County, running a pumpkin fair, a goose show and a pacing meeting. But he was in a big hurry himself, for nearly all of Buell’s cavalry were after him. He had no time to do anything but take all we had, including our horses, the gate receipts and the book money and parole us and push on. But he never got Mack and the other horse, and to this day I have always wished that he had waited five minutes longer. I’d give ten dollars now,” he added, “to know whether Mack or the other horse would have won that last heat. But we never knew, for we were soon forced to the front again; forgot all about our paroles, for we never did think we were fairly captured, and I never saw Mack or his rider again. I stayed the war out, but I never went to see any more pacing races in the enemy’s country,” he laughed.<............