Si Klegg, Book 1 His Transformation from a Raw Recruit to a Veteran

"Si Klegg, of the 200th Ind., and Shorty, his Partner," were born more than 25 years ago in the brain of John McElroy, editor of The National Tribune, who invented the names and...

AFTER Si Klegg had finally yielded to his cumulative patriotic impulses and enlisted in the 200th Ind. for three years or until the rebellion was put down, with greater earnestn...

IN COMMON with every other young man who enlisted to defend the glorious Stars and Stripes, Si Klegg, of the 200th Ind., had a profound superstition concerning the bayonet. All...

WHEN Josiah (called "Si" for short) Klegg, of the 200th Ind., drew his canteen from the Quartermaster at Louisville, he did not have a very high idea of its present or prospecti...

"APPETITE'S a queer thing," said Si to Shorty one day, when both were in a philosophical mood. "It's an awful bother when you haven't it, and it's a great deal worse when you ha...

IT WAS told in the last chapter how the patriotic impulses of Si Klegg, of the 200th Ind., reached his stomach and digestive apparatus, and brought them under obedient subjectio...

IT WOULD have been very strange, indeed, if Si Klegg had not grumbled loudly and frequently about the food that was dished up to him by the company cooks. In the first place, it...

WHEN Si Klegg went into active service with Co. Q of the 200th Ind. his ideas of drill and tactics were exceedingly vague. He knew that a "drill" was something to make holes wit...

Si believed it would be a case of justifiable homicide, and, if the truth must be told, this feeling was largely shared by the other members of the company. For more than a week...

"COMPANY Q, tumble up here and git yer mail!" shouted the Orderly one afternoon, soon after the 200th Ind. turned into a tobacco patch to bivouac for the night. It had been two...

SI KLEGG was a good specimen of a healthy, robust Hoosier lad--for he could scarcely be called' a man yet. Since he lay in his cradle and was dosed with paregoric and catnip tea...

"I'd like ter know what finger-nails 's got to do with soljerin'!" said Si. "The 'cruitin' ossifer 'n' the man 't keeps the doctor shop made me shuck myself, 'n' then they 'xami...

NIGHT threw her dark mantle over the camp of the 200th Ind. The details of guard and picket had been made. Videts, with sleepless eye and listening ear, kept watch and ward on t...

ONE day while Buell was chasing Bragg, two or three weeks after leaving Louisville, the army was pushing forward at a gait that made the cavalry ahead trot half the time to keep...

"I'VE GOT to have a man to drive team for a few days," said the Orderly of Co. Q of the 200th Ind. one morning at roll-call. "The teamster's sick and I'm goin' to send him to th...

"SEEMS to me it's 'bout time ter be gitt' into a fite!" said Si Klegg to Shorty one night as they sat around the fire after supper, with their shoes and stockings off, comparing...

"CORPORAL Klegg, you will go on duty to-night with the camp guard!" said the Orderly of Co. Q one evening, as the 200th Ind. filed off into a piece of woods to bivouac for the n...

THE long chase after Bragg from Louisville to the mountains of southeastern Kentucky was rough on the new troops. It weeded them out very fast, and in every town through which B...

"YOU can take it easy to-day, boys, for we ain't goin' to move!" said the Orderly of Co. Q one morning at roll-call. "The orders is for to put the camp in nice shape, and for th...

"COMPANY Q's bin detailed to go out 'n' help guard a forage train to-morrow," said the Orderly one evening at roll-call. "You fellers wants to all be up 'n' dressed bright 'n' e...

This was in the nature of news to the boys. But for the announcement very few of them would have known it. The Orderly was not distinguished for his piety, and it is not likely...

COL. TERRENCE P. McTARNAGHAN, as his name would indicate, had first opened his eyes where the blue heavens bend over the evergreen sod of Ireland. Naturally, therefore, he thoug...

IT WAS Sunday again, and the 200th Ind. still lingered near Nashville. For some inscrutible reason known only to the commanding officers the brigade had been for nearly a week i...