t you chip in and hire some
niggers." The idea seemed inspired. There were plenty of niggers around
that would work for a little money. One of the Irishmen moved that the
Corporal hire ten niggers to unload the quartermasters stores, and the
motion was carried unanimously. I would have voted against it, but the
Scotchman, who was chairman, ruled that I had no right to vote. So I
went and found ten niggers that agreed to work for fifty cents each, and
they were set to work, the quartermaster promising not to tell in camp
about my hiring the work done. One of my Dutchmen moved that, inasmuch
as we had nothing to do all day, that we take in the town, and play
billiards, and whoop it up until the boat was unloaded. That seemed a
reasonable proposition, and the motion carried, after an amendment had
been added to the effect that the Corporal stay on the boat and watch
the niggers, and see that they didn't shirk. So my first command, my ten
picked men, rode off up town, and I set on a wagon and watched my hired
men. It was four o clock in the afternoon before the stuff was all
loaded, and after paying the niggers five dollars out of my own pocket,
some of my bounty money, I went up to town to round up my picked men to
take them to camp. I found the Scotchman pretty full of Scotch whisky.
He had found a countryman who kept a tailor shop, who had a bag pipe,
and they were having a high old time playing on the instrument, and
singing Scotch songs. I got him on his horse, and we looked for the
rest. The two Germans were in a saloon playing pee-nuckel, and singing
German songs, and their skins were pretty full of beer and cheese. They
were got into the ranks, and we found the Irishmen playing forty-five
in a saloon kept by a countryman of theirs, and they had evidently had
a shindig, as one of them had a black eye and a scratch on his nose, and
they were full of fighting whisky. The Yankees had swelled up on some
kind of benzine and had hired a hack and taken two women out riding, and
when we rounded them up each one had his feet out of the window of the
hack, and they were enjoying themselves immensely. The Welchman was the
only one that was sober, but the boys said there was not enough liquor
in the South to get him drunk. When I got them all mounted they looked
as though they had been to a banquet. We started for camp, but I did not
want to take them in until after dark, so we rode around the suburbs of
the town until night drew