Part 2

This increased, and when half of my regiment was put on a small, light draft river steamer, to go down the James River to Hampton Roads, they went aboard with no good grace and we had only begun our journey down the river when the men on the lower deck began firing at objects on the shore. I was on the upper deck, and, drawing my revolver, started down to stop the firing, but I had got but half way down when a dozen carbines were put to my head and breast, and I was told that I could kill one man, but it would be the last one I ever would kill, and hundreds were standing around with their carbines in their hands. The argument was convincing, and I returned to the upper deck. Shortly after they either run out of ammunition or got tired of the sport, as they ceased firing. When we got to Hampton Roads and went on board the steamship Meteor, which was to take us to Texas, we found that the other half of the regiment had also mutinied on their way down the river, and when the whole regiment got together on the decks of the Meteor and compared notes of what they had done, they just went wild, and, refusing to obey all orders, began raising the devil generally. It was already dark when we went on board the Meteor, and during the night word was sent to Gen. Nelson A. Miles, the commandant of Ft. Monroe. He sent orders for the regiment to land at the wharf at eight o'clock the next morning, and when the steamship headed for the wharf the men very readily fell in at the order, supposing they were to have their own way and not be sent south. The wharf was then where it is now, between the Chamberlain and Hygeia Hotels, though neither of those hotels were there at the time. Approaching the wharf we saw the garrison of Ft. Monroe drawn up in line about 150 feet from the beach, on the exact spot where the Hygeia Hotel was afterward built. They were facing the water, and when my regiment went ashore it was marched in between the garrison and the water, and then the order was given to ground arms. Many obeyed the order at once, but many hesitated and looked back at the garrison, and then all laid down their arms. They were at once marched back on board the ship, and the ship returned to her anchorage above the Rip Raps. This was the first and last time I ever saw Gen. Nelson A. Miles. He was a tall, handsome, blonde complexioned young man of about 25 years of age, who wore the straps of a Major-General with dignity and honor. When the ship returned to her moorings the men at first seemed dazed, but as the day wore on they became more and more unruly, and presently we found they had broken into the hold of the ship into the sutler's stores and were all hands getting wild drunk. They were shut out from this, but they already had a good supply hidden under their skins and elsewhere, and they went wild. Just about sunset a big pock-marked mulatto got on top of the pilot house near the bows of the ship and was haranguing the crowds on the deck below him, when he turned, and, shaking his fist at the group of officers on the quarter deck, he said, "You damned white livered ---- of ---- we will throw you overboard," at which a great howl went up from his audience, whereupon three of the officers with their revolvers in their hands forced their way through the crowd and jerked the orator off the pilot house and dragged him back on the quarterdeck where Capt. Whiteman, of Xenia, Ohio, put his pistol to his breast and told him to hold up his hands and put his thumbs together. We were going to swing him up to the rigging by his two thumbs, but the fellow simply folded his arms and looked at his captors with an air of drunken bravado. Whiteman told him three times to hold up his hands, but he made no motion to obey and Whiteman fired. I was standing at Whiteman's left and was looking the man in the face when the shot was fired, and he did not change a muscle, and I thought Whiteman had missed him, but, looking down to his breast, I saw blood reddening his shirt front, and at once his arms dropped limply at his sides and he fell in a heap at our feet on the deck. When they saw their champion go down the men raised a wild yell and shouting, "Kill them; throw them overboard," they seized axes, hand spikes, pieces of lumber and whatever could be used as weapons which they found around the deck, and came pouring aft to attack us. Some of the officers of the regiment were sick, some on detached duty, some were absent on furlough, and some on shore, so there were just sixteen of us to face the torrent. Without a word of command, perhaps by that instinct born of years of military service, we lined up across the quarter deck, each with a revolver in each hand. It seemed as if we would be swept away in a minute, but not a shot was fired, and they came pouring aft. Presently I saw one or two of those in front drop back and let others get ahead, and presently all stopped and glared at us like wild beasts. Then one threw down his axe and another his handspike and they all sneaked off toward the bow of the ship. Then we knew we had conquered. There was a thirty pounder Parrott gun lashed to the rail on the quarter deck, and, sending for the howitzer crews, we ordered the gun unlashed and the muzzle swung out so it swept the deck forward, and made them load it with cannister. Then we sent for the band and we sat around on the quarter deck with our revolvers in our hands and made them play for about an hour, but at every pause in the music we could hear the dying groans of the man shot. The surgeon had laid him on a blanket on the deck where he fell, and so great was his vitality that he lived for two days. Before that, while I was still in the infantry, I was in a fight where the man behind me was killed and the man first on my left was wounded, and I had a bullet through my coat, which happily did not touch the hide, all in about five minutes, and I thought that was pretty strenuous; but I can say it was but a Sunday School picnic compared to the time when, in the fading light of a summer day, sixteen of us lined up across the quarter deck of the old steamship Meteor and faced a howling, rushing mob of 700 half-drunken devils in the absolute assurance that we had found the place where without poetry or trimmings we must either conquer or die.

The ship sailed the next day. We went to Mobile, to the Southwest pass of the Mississippi, and then to Brazos Santiago, Texas, where we landed on July 3d, 1865. We lay in camp on the sand hills for about three months, but soldiering had lost its interest, and one morning I wrote out my resignation and took it to the Colonel. He laughed and said he would sign it, but I could not get it through. I took it to the Commander of the brigade and he signed it, but said as the Colonel had. I went on board a small steamer going up the Rio Grande to Brownsville, arriving there the next morning. I went to the headquarters of Gen. Weitzel. He demurred, but signed it, saying I would never get it past Gen. Steele, but with the expenditure of some eloquence I persuaded _him_, and, returning to Brazos Santiago, took a steamer for New Orleans via Galveston. At Galveston I had to get the signature of Gen. H. G. Wright, and then went on to New Orleans, and, going to the headquarters of Gen. P. H. Sheridan, left the papers, being told to come back the next day. The next day I received a certified copy of the order mustering me out, dated September 27th, 1865, making my service in the army all told, three days less than four years.

With the order in my pocket, I returned to my room in the St. Charles Hotel, and, taking off my hat, looked at the crossed sabres on its front. With my pocket knife I cut them off; then taking off my jacket, I cut off the shoulder straps and realized, not without a heart pang, that I was no longer a soldier.

I still have the pistols which I held in my hands when we lined up across the quarter deck of the Meteor. I still have the crossed sabres and straps which I cut off in the St. Charles Hotel. They are not as pretty as they were forty-two years ago, but they still have for me a certain value.