id detail;
indeed, adding a few picturesque embellishments from his own
observations. He cut short the other's contemptuous criticism of boy
soldiers, and his comparison with the hardships endured during the Civil
War, with a curt "I know they fooled away men's lives then; that is no
reason we should fool them away now. The men are sickening to-day--they
will be dying to-morrow; I'm desperate. If that camp is not changed by
to-morrow I shall march my regiment out myself and pitch my own camp,
and you may court-martial me for it if you like. I would rather stand a
court-martial than see my men die, because I was afraid to speak out!
The camp we have now is murder, as the reporters say! I don't wonder
that young fellow from Chicago talks hard!"

"You're excited, Colonel; you forget yourself."

"I _am_ excited, Major; I'm desperate! Will you walk round the camp with
me?"

The end of the colloquy was that the captain saw the major and the
colonel and told the first-lieutenant, who told, the first-sergeant,
whose name was Spruce. "Captain's kicked to the colonel, I guess," says
Spruce, "and colonel's kicked to the major. That's the talk. Git ready,
boys, and pack." True enough, the camp was moved the very next day.

"I guess captain will make an officer if he lives and don't git the big
head," Spruce moralized. "It's mighty prevalent in the volunteers."

The captain wrote the whole account home to one single confidant--his
father--and him he swore to secrecy. The captain's father was the man
who had committed Company G to Spruce's good offices. He sent a check to
the company and a special box of cigars to Spruce. And Spruce, knowing
nothing of the intermediary, felt a more brilliant pride in his adopted
town, and bragged of its virtues more vehemently than ever. The camp was
not moved soon enough. Pneumonia and typhoid fever appeared. One by one
the boys of the regiment sickened. Presently one by one they began to
die.

Then Spruce suggested to the captain: "I guess I'd be more good in the
hospital than I am here, Captain." And the captain (who was scared, poor
lad, and had visions of the boys' mothers demanding the wasted lives of
their sons at his hands) had his best sergeant put on the sick detail.
If Spruce had been useful in camp he was invaluable in hospital. The
head surgeon leaned on him, with a jest, and the young surgeon in charge
with pretense of abuse. "You'll burst if you don't work off your steam,
Spruce