Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 157, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 July 1913 — AROUND THE CAMP FIRE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

AROUND THE CAMP FIRE

INCIDENTS OF WAR RECALLED Rapid Rise of Judson Kilpatrick From* Lieutenant to Major Gener_.— Wanted to Scout. Thomas J. Taylor was a member of Colonel Duryea’s Fifth New York regiment and is one of the few survivors of the battle of Big Bethel 1 known to be now in Chicago. At tho beginning of the war he nad opportunity to see a young soldier just out! of military school, who, as lieutenant and soon afterward as colonel, then began the career that in four years, brought him the title of major general in both the volunteer and regular armies. This was Judson Kilpatrick. “The colonel brought Captain Kilpatrick with him from New York,” said Mr. Taylor. “He was a lively man with sharp features and reddish hair, and at Camp Hampton he was always wanting to go out -on raids. He was continually bothering the colonel for permission to go scouting, as the colonel complained. Sometimes he would get permission and then h» would go out with a few men and gather up some of the wild zazor backed hogs that ran in the woods about Camp Hampton. In the battle of Big Bethel he was wounded and left the regiment, and the next wa' saw of him was farther south. Just before he became a brigadier general. The last time 1 saw him was at Chancellorsvilie. Our colonel halted us as we met Colonel Kitpatrick, and the regiment cheered him. “Among the prisoners that we took at Chancellorsville there was one that I shall never forget Most of them, passed with bowed heads and eyes downcast, but this one held his head up. The crown was gone from his hat and his hair stuck up through the hole ,and he was in great good humor. Anybody could see that he was an Irishman. “ ‘Well, Paddy,’ said one of our men, ‘we’ve got you this time.* “ ‘Yes,* said Paddy, ‘and at last I’m. going where I can get something to eat.’ “I remember one long march in the rain, when I almost went to sleep on my feet. It rained and rained and we were drenched and hungry and sleepy. I was orderly for Colonel Warren then and slept in the next tent when we did pitch camp. The colonel went to sleep in his tent, and the rain came down and ran down the slope on which the tents stood. Colonel Warren wouldn’t stand the wet, and so he jumped up and went out of the tent with only a raincoat to protect himself from the storm. He was not ordinarily given to profanity, but then he did say what was in his mind. Outside the tent was a soldier patiently digging a trench to catch the wafer and divert it from the colonel’s quarters, but he was digging it below instead of above the tent.”