People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 27-25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 January 1896 — CHRISTMAS IN CAMP. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

CHRISTMAS IN CAMP.

HON. AMOSJ. CUMMINGS RELATES A-N AMUSING EXPERIENCE. How He Added a Pot of Soap, a Little Sugar, Some Molasses and a Canteen of Yeast to the Christinas Mess—Oil "Short Rations. My recollections of Christinas experiences in the army are mostly connected with the matter of grub, and I suppose every other old soldier, if he is frank enough, will admit the sime thing. As a ru’e we always looked for boxes from home on Christmas day, and those boxes were tolerably certain to have something in them that made a delightful change from the ordinary rations. When we got thoso boxes, we celebrated Christmas. When-we didn’t, we didn’t celebrate. Christmas was pretty much the same as any other day under those circumstances. The particular Christmas that stands up above all others in my memory was that of 1862. We had gone into camp after Fredericksburg, at a place (Milled White Oak church, about six miles Irom Falmouth, Va., and lay there when Christ mas came. We looked for our boxes, of course, for we

know tho people at homo would not forget us, but no boxos came. We learned afterward that they were only threo or four miles away, but that didn’t help us then, and we didn’t get them for several days. It was bitter cold. Only two days after Christmas three or four men were frozen to death on picket, and it was almost as oold then, hut even worse than the weather was the notion of feedintr on hard tank and salt horse, which was about all we had, while the people at home had turkey and plum pudding. In the morning, though, there seemed to be no help for it, and while we didn’t grin we thought we had to bear it.

At noon, however, thero came a little alleviation. One of the men—l remomber his name was Hageman—carno in from picket duty with the hones of a sheep that he had kicked up in tho snow. Some guerrillas had boen along thore and had killed and eaten the poor brute and loft the bones. They had mighty little meat on thorn, but they wore full of marrow, and we boiled them up. There was a Dutch sergeant in the company who had a potato, and somebody managed to steal two onions from the quartermaster; so we had some soup.

It was a change, and so it was welcome. I don’t remember to has 7 e enjoyed any soup since then quite as much as I did that, hut somehow it didn’t seem to fill tho bill of faro very well for Christmas, and we were ready to take almost any kind of a chance for something good. My brother was in the same company with me, and he was on guard at brigade headquarters that day. We all know that there were some provisions in the storehouse there, hut tho question was how to got at them. It meant running the risk of being shot by some sentinel, besides tho certainty of severe punishment in ease we should get caught trying to steal anything, yet there were some of us willing to take tho chance.

When my brother came in after being relieved, ho came to my tent in great glee. ‘ I’ve got it!” ho said after making sure that nobody was looking or listening. ‘‘What have you got?” I asked. “Sugar,” he exclaimed. “Where ‘is it?” said I. “Here,” said he, showing me his musket. He had managed to get into the storehouse lpng onough to pack tho barrel of his gun full of sugar, but didn’t get anything else. “Sugar is good,” said I, “but if there is sugar in tho storehouse there ought to be some whisky thore too.” And I made up my mind to get some of that whisky that night if it was a possible thing. There was a corporal named Nason in tho company, who was always ready to take chances if there was anything to bo gained by it, and he wanted somo of that whisky as much as I did. It was cold enough to make a temperance orator long for a nip. I hunted Nason up, and we agreed to start together when it got dark enough. Meantime we managed to steal an auger from the quartermaster, and that, with two canteens, made all the outfit we thought we needed. Fortunately it was a dark night, and we Know tno lay or me lanu an rignt, so we had a comparatively easy time to dodge tho sentries. It wasn’t really easy, but it proved to be a good deal easier than getting away from tho place afterward. It took us half an hour of hiding and dodging to get through the line, but we managed it and found ourselves, somewhere about 10 o’clock, under the storehouse. It was a rough sort of a shanty, built on the side of a hill, and there was room enough to move around under it all right, but the trouble was, we had neither of us been inside the building and we hadn’t any notion where the things were packed, so we could only guess where the whisky barrel was, aud that Was what wo were after.

We took turns boring holes in tho floor at random, and it wasn’t long before we found out that wo had a pretty dirty job on hand, to say nothing of a good bit of hard work, but we persevered for something like an hour before wo could strike anything that would look through. We Btruck nil sorts of things that wouldn’t leak, but we had no means of knowing wnai iney were and no way of getting them down if we had known. At length, after an hour, we struck a barrel out of which a slow thick stream began to trickle. We couldn’t think what it was till wo tasted it, and then we knew it was molasses. Wo used a little language for a minute or two, but even molasses was a treat, and we couldn’t afford to despise it. S* we filled one canteen with that and plugged tho hole up as well as we could, so as not to waste the stuff unnecessarily. I am afraid the plug wasn’t a very good ope, but we did the best we could. Then we went to work again. It was a little discouraging, but we didn’t propose to give up. We bored hole after hole. It seems to me we must have bored 60 or more before we got through, and It took some minutes Jot each one._ Sometimes

we would go through the floor and lilt nothing, and sometimes, as I said, it would bo something solid. At last we struck something that spouted like a geyser, only it spouted downward. I was right under it and I was flooded in a minute. I scrambled out of the way as quickly as possible, and wo investigated. It was yeast. Well, yeast didn’t seem to be as near what we wanted as the molasses was, but we didn’t propose to lose any tricks, so we filled the other canteen with that, after we had had a good drink apiece. It was not quite equal to the best beer, but it was a sort of substitute for it, -and we enjoyed it hugely. We didn’t succeed in plugging that up as well as we did the molasses barrel, though we did try. Tho yeast was too much for us, and I am seriously afraid that that whole barrel of yeast was spilled. By tliis time wo had pretty well despaired of finding the whisky, but we kept on trying awhile longer, until it seemed as if wo had riddled the floor so completely that there was no place left above where a barrel could stand. Finally we gave it up and began to plan a retreat. The side of the hill in the rear of the house was covered with a sort of ice formation that was 300 or 400 feet wide and sloped downward at a prettv steep angle. We had surveyed this carefully before going in, and I said to Nason that if we could make a rush over to where that ice was we could get down tho hill a good deal faster than any of the sentinels would care to come after us, for all we had to do was to jump on the ice and slide down. That seemed to bo about the best scheme we' could think of, so we watched our chance and made a rush.

We hadn’t got to tho edgo of the hill, and that was only a few feet from the storehouse, when we heard the sentries cry, ‘‘ Who goes there?” It really wasn’t worth while for us to stop and answer them under tho circumstances, so wo kept right on. There were two or three shots fired after us, but we did not get hit. I don’t imagine tho men on guard were very anxious to kill us, for they must have understood in an instant what we were about and probably stopped long enough to remember that they would have liked the chance to try the same thing. So our Christmas extras that year wore a pot of soup, a little sugar, a little molasses and a canteen of yeast. And I think perhaps we enjoyed tho yeast more than any of the other things. The real Christmas festival did not come for some days afterward, when our boxes arrived, and I remember that I had a glorious time, for thore was a big Yorkshire plum pudding in my box and threo pounds of killikinick tobacco, and the tobacco was a perfect godBend.

But before that, on the morning after Christmas day, there was tho very mischief to pay in camp, and if Nason and I had boen found out, wo would have been in for sovere punishment, for we had done a great amount more of mischief than we know anything about. It appeared that there was a politician of somo standing—l think he was an alderman from Boston or somewhere—who had been in camp for some days looking for. tho remains of his brother, who had been killed somo time before, and ho had found them Christmas morning. The body had been disinterred and put in a handsome coffin that tho alderman had broughtfrom home, and the coffin luid been put in tho storehouse over night.

Of course we didn’t know it was there. Perhaps it might have made a difference to Nason and me if wo had known. I don’t know as I care about expressing an opinion on such a delicate question. At all events we didn’t know, and naturally we couldn’t bo expected to bore holes through the floor in as many places as we did bore them without hitting tho coffin, and as a matter of fact we had bored three or four holes in it. It hadn’t really spoiled the coffin for actual service, but it had certainly damaged it to some extent. Well, tlie politician made a row, and the commanding officer ordered a general search of the camp, to see if any trace could be found of the miscreants—meaning Nason and me—who had boon guilty of tho desecration. It was a pretty rigor-

ous soarch, too, and our tents were ransacked thoroughly, but long before they got around to our quarters Nason and I had the molasses and sugar, or what was left of them, safely buried. Of course the yoast was all gone, and there (wasn’t a trace of our crimes left. I suppose it would ho easy to tell a more sentimental story about a soldier’s Christmas, hut tho sentiment that moved us most powerfully when we were on short rations in those days was hunger. Amos J. Cummings.

“SUGAR,” HE EXCLAIMED.

I WAS FLOODED IN A MINUTE.