n the rebellion in 1864 were just a mob, and that you didn't have
any fighting, and that the Southern people were only fooling you, and
that you didn't suffer like the Spanish war heroes did, and that you
just had a picnic from start to finish. The bugler said he wouldn't ask
any better fun than to fight the way you fellows did, when you had all
you wanted to eat, good beds to sleep on, and servants to carry your
guns, and cook for you. The bugler said you fellows all get pensions
just for making an excursion through the Southern resorts, while the
heroes of the Spanish war, who fought a foreign country to a standstill,
and went without food, and got malaria, are without pensions, and just
existing on the record they made fighting for their country----" and
the boy stopped nagging the old man when he noticed that Uncle Ike was
turning blue in the face, and choking to keep down his wrath.

"Where is this heroic bugler of the Spanish war?" said Uncle Ike, trying
to be calm, but actually frothing at the mouth. "Bring him here, and let
me hear him say these things, condemn him, and I will take him across my
knee and I will knock the wind out of him, so that he can never gather
enough in his carcass to blow another bugle. Why, confound him, he is a
liar. The war of the rebellion was a war, not a country schuetzenfest,
with a chance to go home every night and sleep in a feather bed, and get
a Turkish bath. The whole Spanish war, except what the navy did, was not
equal to an outpost skirmish in '63. Of course, the rough riders and
the weary walkers did a nice job going up San Juan hill, but we had a
thousand such fights in the rebellion. After that skirmish there was
nothing done by the army at Santiago, but to sit down in the mud and
wait for the Spaniards to eat their last cracker, and kill their last
dog and eat it, and then surrender. Ask that bugler to tell you where he
found, in his glorious career as a wind instrument in the Spanish war,
any Grants, Shermans, Sheridans, Logans, Pap Thomases, McClellans,
Kilpatricks, Custers, McPhersons, Braggs, and hundreds of such heroes.
What has the bugler got to show for his war? Shafter! And Alger! And
all of them quarreling over the little bone of victory that was not big
enough for a meal for our old generals of the war of the rebellion. And
he talks about our pensions, the young kid. He probably wears corsets.
Why, we didn't get pensions until we got so old we couldn't get up
alo