In what way to account for it I know not, but so it is, that soldiers always have been, and I suppose always will be, merry-hearted fellows and full of good spirits. One would naturally suppose that, having so much to do with hardship and danger every day, they would be sober and serious above the generality of men. But such was by no means the case with our Boys in Blue. In camp, on the march, nay even in the solemn hour of battle, there was ever and anon a laugh passing down the line or some sport going on amongst the tents. Seldom was there wanting some one noted for his powers of storytelling, to beguile the weary hours about the camp-fire at the lower end of the company street, or out among the pines on picket. Few companies could be found without some native-born wag or wit, whose comical songs or quaint remarks kept the boys in good humor, while at the same time each and all, according to the measure of their several capacities, were given to playing practical jokes of one kind or other for the general enlivenment of the camp.

There was Corporal Harter, for example, of my own company. I do not single him out as a remarkable wit, or in any sense as a shining light in our little galaxy of Boys in Blue; but choose him rather as an average specimen. More than one was the trick which Harter played on Andy and myself—though I cannot help but remember, also, that he sometimes had good ground for so doing, as the following will show.

It was while we were yet lying around Washington during the winter of 1863, that Harter and I one day secured a "pass" and went into the city. In passing the Treasury Department we found a twenty-five cent note. We had at first a mind to call on the Secretary of the Treasury and ask whether he had lost it, as we had found it in front of his establishment; but thinking that it would not go very far toward paying the expenses of the war, and reflecting that even if it did belong to Uncle Sam, we belonged to Uncle Sam too, and so where could be the harm of our keeping it and laying it out on ourselves?—we finally concluded to spend it at a certain print-shop on Pennsylvania Avenue, where were exposed for sale great numbers of colored pictures of different generals and statesmen, a prize of cheap gilt jewelry being given with each picture. For the jewelry we cared not a whit; but the pictures each of us was anxious to possess, for they would make very nice decorations for our tents, we thought. Having, then, purchased a number of these with our treasure-trove, and having received from the shopkeeper a handful of brass earrings, which neither of us wanted (for what in the world did a soldier want with brass earrings, or even with gold ones, for the matter of that?), we took our way to the park, west of the Capitol buildings, and sat down on a bench.

"Now, Harry," said the corporal, as he sat wistfully looking at a picture of a general dressed in the bluest of blue uniforms, who, with sword drawn and horse at full gallop, dismounted cannon in the rear and clouds of blue smoke in front, was apparently leading his men on to the desperate charge. The men had not come on the field yet, but it was of course understood by the general's looks that they were coming somewhere in the background. A person can't have everything in a picture, at the rate of four for a quarter, with a handful of earrings thrown in to clinch the bargain,—all of which, no doubt, passed rapidly through the corporal's mind as he examined the pictures,—"Now, Harry, how will we divide 'em?"

"Well, corporal," answered I, "suppose we do it this way: we'll toss up a penny for it. 'Heads I win, tails you lose,' you know. If it comes head I'll take the pictures and you'll take the jewelry; if it comes tail you'll take the jewelry and I'll take the pictures. That's fair and square, isn't it?"

The corporal's head could not have been very clear that morning, or he would have seen through this nicely laid little scheme as clearly as one can see through a grindstone with a hole in the middle. But the proposition was so rapidly announced, and set forth with such an appearance of candor and exact justice, that, not seeing the trap laid for him, he promptly got out a penny from his pocket, and balancing it on his thumb-nail, while he thoughtfully squinted up toward a tree-top near by, said,—

"I guess that's fair. Here goes—but, hold on. How is it, now? Say it over again."

"Why, it's as plain as the nose on your face, man. Don't you see? If it comes head, then I take the pictures and you take the jewelry. If it comes tail, then you take the jewelry and I take the pictures. Nothing could be plainer than that; so, flop her up, corporal."

"All right, Harry. Here she go—. But hold on!" said he, as a new light seemed to dawn on his mind, while he raised his cap and thoughtfully scratched his head. "Let me see. Ah! you young rascal! You're sharp, you are! Going to gobble up the whole grist of illuminated generals and statesmen, and leave me this handful of brass earrings and breastpins to send home to the girl I left behind me—eh?" But every dog has his day, and whether or not Harter bided his time for retaliation, or had quite forgotten about 'heads I win, tails you lose,' by the time we got down into Virginia, yet so it was that in more than one camp he gave Andy and myself a world of trouble. More than one evening in winter-quarters, as we sat about our fire, cartridges were dropped down our chimney by some unseen hand, driving us out of our tent in a jiffy; and it was not seldom that our pan of frying hard-tack was sent a flying by a sudden explosion. It was wasted breath to ask who did it.

We were lying in camp near the Rappahannock some time along in the fall of 1863, when Andy said one day,—

"Look here, Harry, let's have some roast beef once. I'm tired of this everlasting frying and frizzling, and my mouth just waters for a good roast. And I've just learned how to do it, too, for I saw a fellow over here in another camp at it, and I tell you it's just fine. You see, you take your chunk of beef and wrap it up in a cloth or newspaper, and then you get some clay and cover it thick all over with the clay, until it looks like a big forty-pound cannon-ball, and then you put it in among the red-hot coals, and it bakes hard like a brick; and when it's done, you just crack the shell off, and out comes your roast fit for the table of a king."

We at once set to work, and all went well enough till Harter came along that way. While Andy was off for more clay, and I was looking after more paper, Harter fumbled around our beef, saying he didn't believe we could roast it that way.

"Just you wait, now," said Andy, coming in with the clay; "we'll show you."

So we covered our beef thick with stiff clay, and rolled the great ball into the camp-fire, burying it among the hot ashes and coals, and sat down to watch it, while the rest of the boys were boiling their coffee and frying their steaks for dinner. The fire was a good one, and there were about a dozen black tin cups dangling on as many long sticks, their several owners squatting about in a circle,—when all of a sudden, with a terrific bang, amid a shower of sparks and hot ashes, the coffee-boilers were scattered, right and left, and a dozen quarts of coffee sent hissing and sizzling into the fire. Our poor roast beef was a sorry looking mess indeed when we picked it out of the general wreck.

We always believed that Harter had somehow smuggled a cartridge into that beef of ours while our backs were turned, and we determined to pay him back in his own coin on the very first favorable opportunity. It was a long time, however, before the coveted opportunity came; in fact it was quite a year afterward, and happened in this wise.

We were lying in front of Petersburg, some little while after the celebrated Petersburg mine explosion, of which my readers have no doubt often heard. We were playing a game of chess one day, Andy and I, behind the high breastworks. Our chessmen we had whittled out of soft white pine with our jack-knives. I remember we were at first puzzled to know how to distinguish our men; for, all being whittled out of white pine, both sides were of course alike white, and it was impossible to keep them from getting sadly confused during the progress of the game. At length, however, we hit on the expedient of staining one half of our men with tincture of iodine, which we begged of the surgeon, and then they did quite well. Our kings we called generals,—one Grant, the other Lee,—the knights were cavalry, the castles forts, the bishops chaplains, and the pawns Yanks and Johnny Rebs. We were deep in a game of chess with these our men one day, when Andy suddenly broke a long silence by saying:

"Harry, do you remember how Harter blew up our beef-roast last year down there along the Rappahannock? And don't you think it's pretty nearly time we should pay him back? Because if you do, I've got a plan for doing it."

"Yes, Andy, I remember it quite well; but then, you know, we are not quite sure he did it. Besides, he was corporal then, and he's captain now, and he might play the mischief with us if he catches us at any nice little game of that sort."

"Oh, pshaw!" exclaimed Andy, as he threw out his cavalry on my right flank. "He won't find out; and if he does, 'all's fair in love, war, and controversy,' you know, and I'm sure we can rely on his good nature, even if he does get a little riled."

On examining into matters at the conclusion of the game, we found that the captain was on duty somewhere, and that, so far, the coast was clear. Entering his tent, we found a narrow bunk of poles on either side, with an open space of several feet between the two. Here, while Andy set out in search of ammunition, I was set to digging a six-inch square hole in the ground, into which we emptied the powder of a dozen cartridges, covering all carefully with earth, and laying a long train, or running fuse, out of the rear of the tent.

When Harter came in for dinner, and was comfortably seated on his bunk with his cup of bean-soup on his knee, suddenly there was a fiz-z-z and a boom! and Harter came dashing out of his tent, covered with gravel and bespattered with bean soup, to the great merriment of the men, who instantly set up shouts of—

"Fall in your pits!"

"Petersburg mine explosion!"

"'Nother great Union victory!" Did he get cross? Well, it was natural he should feel a little vexed when the fur was so rudely brushed the wrong way; but he tried not to show it, and laughed along with the rest; for in war, as in peace, a man must learn to join in a laugh at his own expense sometimes, as well as to make merry over the mishaps of others.

A famous and favorite kind of sport, especially when we had been long lying in camp in summer, or were in quarters in winter, was what was commonly known as "raiding the sutler."

We heard a great deal in those days about "raids." We read in the newspapers which occasionally fell into our hands, or heard on the picket-line, of raids into Maryland and raids into Pennsylvania, sometimes by Mosby's men, and sometimes by Stuart's cavalry; and it was quite natural, when growing weary of the dull monotony of camp life, to look around for some one to raid. Very often the sutler was the chosen victim. He was selected, not because he was a civilian and wore citizen's clothes, but chiefly because of what seemed to the boys the questionable character of his pursuit,—making money out of the soldiers. "Here we are,"—for so the men would reason—"here we are,—left home and took our lives in our hands—in for 'three years or sooner shot'—get thirteen dollars a month and live on hard-tack; and over there is that sutler, at whose shop a man may spend a whole month's pay and hardly get enough to make a single good meal—it's a confounded mean business!"

The sutler seldom enjoyed much respect, as how could he when he flourished and fattened on our hungry stomachs? Of course, if a man spent the whole of his month's pay for ginger-cakes and sardines, why it was his own fault. He did not need to spend his money if he did not choose to do so. But it was hardly in human nature to live on pork, bean-soup, and hard-tack day after day, and not feel the mouth water at the sight of the sutler's counter, with its array of delicacies, poor and common though they were. Besides, the sutler usually charged most exorbitant prices—two ginger-cakes for five cents, four apples for a quarter, eighty cents for a small can of condensed milk, and ninety for a pound of butter, which Andy usually denounced in vigorous Biblical terms as being as strong as Samson and as old as Methuselah. Maybe the sutler's charges were none too high, when his many risks were duly considered; for he was usually obliged to transport his goods a great distance, over almost impassable roads, and was often liable to capture by the enemy's foraging parties, besides being exposed to numerous other fortunes of war, whereby he might lose his all in an hour. But soldiers in search of sport were not much disposed to take a just and fair view of all his circumstances. What they saw was only this—that they wanted somebody to raid, and who could be a fitter subject than the sutler?

The sutler's establishment was a large wall tent, usually pitched on the side of the camp farthest away from the colonel's quarters. It was therefore in a somewhat exposed and tempting position. Whenever it was thought well to raid him, the men of his own regiment would usually enter into a contract with those of some neighboring regiment—

"You fellows come over here some night and raid our sutler, and then we'll come over to your camp some night and raid your sutler. Will you do it?"

It was generally agreed to, this courteous offer of friendly offices; and great, though indescribable, was the sport which often resulted. For when all had been duly arranged and made ready, some dark night when the sutler was sleeping soundly in his tent, a skirmish line from the neighboring regiment would cautiously pick its way down the hill and through the brush, and silently surround the tent. One party, creeping close in by the wall of the tent, would loosen the ropes and remove them from the stakes on the one side, while another party on the other side, at a given signal, would pull the whole concern down over the sutler's head. And then would arise yells and cheers for a few moments, followed by immediate silence as the raiding party would steal quietly away.

Did they steal his goods? Very seldom; for soldiers are not thieves, and plunder was not the object, but only fun. Why did not the officers punish the men for doing this? Well, sometimes they did. But sometimes the officers believed the sutler to be exorbitant in his charges and oppressive to the men, and cared little how soon he was cleared out and sent a-packing; and therefore they enjoyed the sport quite as well as the men, and often did as Nelson did when he put his blind eye to the telescope and declared he did not see the signal to recall the fleet. They winked at the frolic and came on the scene usually in ample time to condole with the sutler, but quite too late to do him any service.

Thus, once when the sutler was being raided he hastily sent for the "officer of the day," whose business it was to keep order in the camp. But he was so long in coming, that the boys were in the height of their sport when he arrived; and not wishing to spoil their fun, he gave his orders in two quite different ways,—one in a very loud voice, intended for the sutler to hear, and the other in a whisper, designed for the boys:—

(Loud.) "Get out of this! Put you all in the guard-house!"

(Whisper.) "Pitch in, boys! Pitch in, boys!"

The sutler's tent was often a favorite lounging place with the officers. One evening early a party of about a dozen officers were seated on boxes and barrels in the sutler's establishment. All of them wanted cigars, but no one liked to call for them, for cigars were so dear that no one cared about footing the bill for the whole party, and yet could not be so impolite as to call for one for himself alone. As they sat there with the flaps of the tent thrown back, they could see quite across the camp to the colonel's quarters beyond.

"Now, boys," said Captain K——, "I see the chaplain coming down Company C street, and I think he is coming here; and if he does come here we'll have some fun at his expense. We all want cigars, and we might as well confess what is an open secret, that none of us dares to call for a cigar for himself alone, nor feels like footing the bill for the whole party. Well, let the sutler set out a few boxes of cigars on the counter, so as to have them handy when they are needed, and you follow my lead, and we'll see whether we can't somehow or other make the chaplain yonder pay the reckoning."

The chaplain in question, be it remembered, made some pretension to literature, and considered himself quite an authority in camp on all questions pertaining to orthography, etymology, syntax, and prosody; and presumed to be an umpire in all matters which might from time to time come into discussion in the realm of letters. So, when he came into the sutler's tent, Captain K—— saluted him with,—

"Good evening, Chaplain; you're just the very man we want to see. We've been having a little discussion here, and as we saw you coming we thought we'd submit the question to you for decision."

"Well, gentlemen," said the chaplain, with a smile of gratification, "I shall be only too happy to render you what poor assistance I can. May I inquire what may be the question under discussion?"

"It is but a small thing," replied the captain; "you might, I suppose, call it more a matter of taste than anything else. It concerns a question of emphasis, or rather, perhaps, of inflection, and it is this: Would you say, 'Gentlemen, will you have a cigÁr?' or 'Gentlemen, will you have a cigÀr?'" Pushing his hat forward as he thoughtfully scratched his head, the chaplain, after a pause, responded,—

"Well, there don't seem to be much difference between the two. But, on consideration, I believe I would say, 'Gentlemen, will you have a cigÁr?'"

"Certainly!" exclaimed they all, in full and hearty chorus, as they rushed up to the counter in a body and each took a handful of cigars with a "Thank you, Chaplain," leaving their bewildered literary umpire to pay the bill,—which, for the credit of his cloth, I believe he did.