Si Klegg, Complete, Books 1-6

"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...

Poor Si scarcely dare to breathe. He hoped the man would think he was dead, and therefore no longer of any account. But the soldier began to prod him with his bayonet, ordering...

"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'...

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...

THE SIX VOLUMES SI KLEGG, Book I, Transformation From a Raw Recruit SI KLEGG, Book II, Through the Stone River Campaign SI KLEGG, Book III, Meets Mr. Rosenbaum, the Spy SI KLEGG...

These sketches are the original ones published in THE NATIONAL TRIBUNE, revised and enlarged some what by the author. How true they are to nature every veteran can abundantly te...

"SHORTY" said Si Klegg, the morning after Christmas, 1862, as the 200th Ind. sullenly plunged along through the mud and rain, over the roads leading southward from Nashville, "t...

SI KLEGG was generous with his rail, as he was with all things among his comrades. He selected the softest part, in the center, for him self and Shorty, and then invited the oth...

"Gol darn hit," he said, "you'uns hain't got ez many ez we'uns; they hain't nigh ez good men ez we'uns, an' they'uns ain't heah. We'uns air Tennesseans, an' you'uns hain't."

The sun shone brightly and cheerily through the crisp December air. The fires of cedar rails sent up a pungent, grateful fragrance. Hardtack, pork and coffee tasted better than...

"RAIN agin to-day," said Shorty, disgustedly, as, on the morning of Dec. 30, 1862, he crawled out of the shelter which he and Si had constructed by laying a pole in the crotches...

THE fagged-out 200th Ind. was put in reserve to the brigade, which lay in the line-of-battle. After having got the train safely into camp, the regiment felt that it was incapabl...

There were some fragments of cracker-boxes near. With these they dug a hole several inches deep, put some splinters in, and started a stealthy blaze. They were careful to sit on...

The misty darkness around them was filled with noise and motion. Men who had become separated from their regiments were wandering around trying to find them, in the bewildering...

SI WAS awakened the next morning by the rain dashing down squarely on his upturned face. He was lying on the flat of his back, sleeping the sleep of the utterly outworn, and he...

ON THEIR way back from "settling the battery," Si and Shorty each broke off a big armful of cedar branches. These they spread down on the ground when the regiment resumed its pl...

"Here, Si," said one, "is a nice knuckle-bone o' ham, that I pulled back there at the General's when his cook returned to the tent for something. You ought t've heard the nigger...

THE NEXT day Sunday after the battle dawned as clear, bright and sparkling as only a Winter's day can dawn in Tennessee, after a fortnight of doleful deluges. Tennessee Winter w...

SI AND Shorty kept Sunday as planned. They really did not know how tired they were until they formed the resolution to give the day to absolute restfulness. Then every joint and...

WITH a tin roof, a real door, a glazed window and a plank floor, Si and Shorty's house was by far the most aristocratic in the cantonment of the 200th Ind., if not the entire Wi...

"MOTHER," said Mr. Josiah Klegg, Sr., suddenly laying down the County paper, and beginning to polish his spectacles with his red bandanna, "do you know what I've the greatest mi...

"THINGS don't look so tumultuous-like on this train," said Mr. Klegg, with a sigh of satisfaction, as he seated himself in the car for Murfreesboro' and deposited his valuables...

"Pap" said Si, by way of introduction, "this is Shorty, my pardner, and the best pardner a feller ever had, and the best soldier in the Army of the Cumberland."

"Beats the cabin I had to take your mother to, Si, when I married her," he said with a retrospective look in his eye, "though I'd got up a sight better one than many o' the boys...

WITH the Deacon's assistance, the chimney was soon rebuilt, better than ever, and several homelike improvements were added. The lost utensils were also replaced, one by one. The...

FROM the door of the cabin the Deacon could see the fort on which the boys were piling up endless cubic yards of the red soil of Tennessee. As he watched them, with an occasiona...

"PAP," said Si, as they were riding back, comfortably seated on a load of corn-fodder, "now that it's all over, I'm awfully scared about you. I can't forgive myself for runnin'...

"WHAT is yer a-gwine tub do wid me, mas'r?" asked the negro, with a look and an attitude curiously like a forlorn stray dog which had at last found an owner and protector.

"No use talkin' no more about the heathen 'On Greenland's icy mountains,' or any place else," he communed with himself that evening, as he sat and smoked, and occasionally glanc...

These sketches are the original ones published in The National Tribune, revised and enlarged somewhat by the author. How true they are to nature every veteran can abundantly tes...

SOME days later, Si had charge of a picket-post on the Readyville Pike, near Cripple Deer Creek. The Deacon went with them, at their request, which accorded with his own inclina...

THE Officer of the Guard was a long time in coming, and Mr. Rosenbaum grew quite chatty and communicative, as they sat around the bright fire of cedar logs and smoked.

"What in the world's going on at the house?" Si asked anxiously, as they were standing on the regimental parade ground waiting to be dismissed. Strange sounds came floating from...

"That was just the trouble," replied Rosenbaum. "I got to know them very well, but they got to know me a confounded sight better. When I was in the clothing pizniss in St. Louis...

MR. ROSENBAUM'S stories of adventure were not such as to captivate the boys with the career of a spy. But the long stay in camp was getting very tedious, and they longed for som...

Deer Son: I got hoam safely a weke ago, thanks 2 all-protecting Providens; likewise 2 about 175 pound of tuff & helthy Josiah Klegg. Providens helpt rite along, but it tuk 50-ye...

SI AND SHORTY got the common feeling of men of some months' service, that they had fully mastered the art of war, and that there was little, if anything, left for them to learn....

IT TOOK many days for the boys' lacerated feet to recover sufficiently to permit their going about and returning to duty. They spent the period of enforced idleness in chewing t...

A LIGHT spring wagon, inscribed "United States Sanitary Commission," drove through the camp of the 200th Ind., under the charge of a dignified man with a clerical cast of counte...

THE 200th Ind. Volunteer Infantry had been pushed out to watch the crossings of Duck River and the movements of the rebels on the south bank of that narrow stream. The rebels, w...

SHORTY had always been conspicuously lacking in the general interest which his comrades had shown in the mails. Probably at some time in his life he had had a home like the rest...

"Dan Elliott will act as Corporal of the Guard." It is one of the peculiarities of men that the less they have to do the less they want to do. The boys of Co. Q were no differen...

"I WONDER what has become of our Jew spy, Shorty?" said Si, as he and Shorty sat on the bank of Duck River and watched the rebel pickets lounging under the beeches on the other...

"Never had my nerve so strained before," Shorty frankly admitted. "At their best, women are curiouser than transmogrified hullaloos, and when a real cute one sets out to hornswo...

WHEN physical exhaustion called a halt in the fracas, Mrs. Bolster was seated on Jeff Hackberry's breast with her sinewy hands clutching his long hair, and her thumb, with a cru...

THE REBEL Major accepted the unexpected turn of events with soldierly philosophy. Tuggers, captured in a blue uniform, saw the ignominious fate of a spy loom up before his eyes....

THE boys were sitting around having another smoke before crawling into their blankets, spread under the shade of the scraggly locusts and mangy cedars, when the dogs raised an a...

"HIST, boys, don't talk friendly to me out loud," said the prudent Rosenbaum. "What's happened? I know you have got the house. I have been expecting for a long time that there w...

THE SIX VOLUMES SI KLEGG, Book I, Transformation From a Raw Recruit SI KLEGG, Book II, Through the Stone River Campaign SI KLEGG, Book III, Meets Mr. Rosenbaum, the Spy SI KLEGG...

These sketches are the original ones published in THE NATIONAL TRIBUNE, revised and enlarged some what by the author. How true they are to nature every veteran can abundantly te...

Then its 60,000 eager, impatient men swept forward in combinations of masterful strategy, and in a brief, wonderfully brilliant campaign of nine days of drenching rain drove Bra...

"Seemed to me yesterday," said Si, on the morning of June 25, as he vainly tried to peer through the dashing drench and locate some of the other regiments of the division, "that...

IT SEEMS impossible, but the third day's rain was even worse than that of the two preceding. The drops seemed much larger, to follow each other faster, and with less interval be...

AND it rained the fourth day rained as if there had been months of drouth, during which it had been saving up water and gathering its energies for an astonishing, overwhelming,...

"Bah," said Shorty, contemptuously; "no alligator-gar is goin' to come up into this mud-freshet. He'd ruther hunt dogs and nigger-babies further down the river. Likes 'em better...

"Same here, Si," said Shorty. "Never knowed 'em to be so bad. Seem to 've just got in from a march, and are chawin' three days' rations out o' me every minute. I'd 'a' thought t...

"O, come off," said Shorty. "You tried your best to keep us from gittin' in. You put up a very pretty little fight, but our cavalry jest rode over you."

hundred miles in every direction, an' I seed men marchin' toward Tullyhomy till my eyes ached a-lookin' at 'em. Yo'uns 'll stir up a mouty sight wuss hornets' nest at Tullyhomy...

git up a worse time than we had at Stone River, and we managed to live through that; so that I guess we kin pull through another. If we don't, this 's just as good a place to go...

"THIS is the glorious Fourth of July," remarked Si, as Co. Q broke ranks from reveille roll-call on the banks of Elk River, and he and Shorty turned anxious attention to the pro...

HOW exuberantly bright, restful, and happy were those long July days on the foothills of the Cumberland Mountains, after the fatigues and hardships, the endless rains, the fatho...

THOUGH every man in the Army of the Cumberland felt completely worn out at the end of the Tullahoma campaign, it needed but a few days' rest in pleasant camps on the foothills o...

THE long roll turned out to be occasioned by the burning of a Union Tennesseean's house by a squad of revengeful guerrillas, but the regiment had to stay under arms until a part...

THE shot fired by Nate Hartburn was the only one that interrupted the progress of the 200th Ind. to the banks of the Tennessee River. Its cautious advance at last brought it out...

THE girls heard their mother's happy scream and rushed out, dish towels in hand. They at once realized what had happened, piped up their joyous altos, and precipitated themselve...

FOR awhile the tumult of thought kept Si awake, but he was too young, healthy, and tired for this to last long, and soon he had his head pillowed on his blanket-roll, placed in...

ALL of that eventful 19th of September, 1864, the men of Lieut. Bowersox's detachment were keyed up with the knowledge that they were heading straight for a desperate battle, an...

LIEUT. Bowersox, Si, Shorty and the recruits left the woods and entered a large clearing, in the midst of which was a log cabin, with a few rude outbuildings. Over it flew the y...

FOR a short time a silence that seemed oppressive followed the fierce turmoil of the last charge of the rebels upon Snodgrass Hill and its repulse. Both sides had exhausted them...

It did not arrive at Sumpunkins Station, three miles from the Deacon's home, until the next forenoon. The youth who discharged the multifarious duties of Postmaster, passenger,...

"YOU are the father of that boy in the far end of the tent," said the Surgeon coming up to the Deacon, who had stepped outside of the tent to get an opportunity to think clearly...

THE Deacon reached the corn-crib again be fore daylight, and found Si and Shorty fast asleep. This relieved him much, for he had been disturbed with apprehensions of what might...

THE SIX VOLUMES SI KLEGG, Book I, Transformation From a Raw Recruit SI KLEGG, Book II, Through the Stone River Campaign SI KLEGG, Book III, Meets Mr. Rosenbaum, the Spy SI KLEGG...

These sketches are the original ones published in The National Tribune, revised and enlarged somewhat by the author. How true they are to nature every veteran can abundantly tes...

THE Deacon was repaid seventyfold by Si's and Shorty's enjoyment of the stew he had prepared for them, and the extraordinary good it had seemed to do them as they lay wounded in...

"It's an awful risk to have an old man and a civilian come down here into camp," Si complained. "And he oughtn't to go about alone. He's always been used to mingling with the qu...

IT DID not seem that so many dangers beset the possession of a cow as of a horse, yet the Deacon prudently rose while it was yet dark to look after the animal.

THE Surgeon, who had conceived quite a good opinion of the Deacon's ability, readily certified that the boys could be safely taken home, since they would have the benefit of his...

IT WAS not until late the next afternoon that the wagon-train finally reached Bridgeport, and the weak, wornout mules had at last a respite from straining through the mud, under...

THE Deacon had been afraid to telegraph directly to his wife that he was bringing the boys home. He knew the deadly alarm that would seize mother and daughters at the very sight...

WHAT days those were that followed the arrival of the boys home. In Shorty's hard, rough life he had never so much as dreamed of such immaculate housekeeping as Mrs. Klegg's. He...

ANNABEL came in just as the reading of the letter was finished and her arrival caused a commotion in the family, as it always did, which momentarily distracted attention from th...

"I AINT got no pass," said Shorty, in response to the demand of the Provost-Guard. "Bin home on sick-furlough. Goin' back to the front now. Left my papers at home. Forgot 'em."

"WELL," said the General, after he had listened to Shorty's story, and questioned him a little, "you are all right now. I'll take care of you. The Surgeon says that you are not...

THE disturbance in the Deacon's family when Shorty's note was delivered by little Sammy Woggles quite came up to that romance-loving youth's fond anticipations. If he could only...

THAT evening, as Shorty was gathering his things together, preparatory for starting to the front the next morning, Lieut. Bigelow, one of the General's young Aids, thrust his he...

"COME, hustle these prisoners back into the car in which we were," commanded the Lieutenant. "We'll leave it on the switch with a guard. Lock it up carefully, and one man'll be...

HAVING seen their prisoners safely behind the bars, Si and Shorty breathed more freely than they had since starting out in the morning, and Si remarked, as he folded up the rece...

WHEN the boys came to breakfast the next morning, they found Maria with the hollyhock effulgence of garb of the day before changed to the usual prim simplicity of her housedress...

THE bright, active minds of the 65 boys that Si and Shorty were put in charge of were aflame with curiosity regarding everything connected with the war. For two years they had b...

MUCH to their amazement, the boys waked up the next morning in Nashville, and found that they had passed through the "dark and bloody ground" of Kentucky absolutely without adve...

THE long fast had sharpened the zest the boys had for their first "soldier-breakfast." Until they got down to "real soldier-living" they could not feel that they were actually i...

THE train passed Shelbyville in the course of the afternoon and halted on a switch. Tired of reading, Si was standing at the door of the car, looking out over the country and tr...

THOUGH Si and Shorty were certain that the trouble was over and the rebels all gone, it was impossible to convince the boys of this. The sudden appearance of the guerrillas had...

"WHAT'S the program?" Si inquired of the conductor, as the boys were being formed on the bank, preparatory to entering the cars. "I s'pose it's to go over there and put in a wee...

These sketches are the original ones published in The National Tribune, revised and enlarged somewhat by the author. How true they are to nature every veteran can abundantly tes...

"Dod durn it," blubbered Pete, "I ain't cryin' bekase Pm skeered. I'm cryin' bekase I'm afeared you'll lose me. I know durned well you'll lose me yit, with all this foolin' arou...

Boys do the same with their heroes. It is either fervent admiration, or profound distrust, merging into actual contempt. After the successful little skirmish with the guerrillas...

"Now that you boys have had a good breakfast," Si remarked with an accent of cutting sarcasm, "at the expense of that kind-hearted gentleman, Mr. Billings, I'm goin' to give you...

It was their regiment—the 200th Ind.; it was made up of the same companies, with the great majority of the men the same, but it was very far from being the 200th Ind. which cros...

BY the time Shorty had gotten the boys fairly tented, he was ordered to take a squad and guard some stores at the Division Quartermaster's. Si, instead of going on camp-guard, h...

"I GUESS," thought Si, as he left the Orderly-Sergeant, and walked down the company street to the left, "that the best way to begin is to get them little whelps into an awkward...

AFTER the flush of excitement of returning to his old regiment and meeting his comrades—after the process of readjusting himself to the changed relations made by death, wounds,...

THE self-sufficient, self-reliant Shorty had never before had anything to so completely daze him. "Ackchelly a letter from Maria Klegg. Writ of her own free will and accord. And...

"SI," said the Orderly-Sergeant, "here's a chance to give them pin- feather roosters o' yours a little taste of active service, that'll be good seasoning for 'em, and help devel...

"I know you will. You'll take Shorty along, and your seven kids, which'll make up the number. You'll draw three days' rations, at the end of which time you'll be relieved."

The long, tiresome tramp, the violent rainstorm, which had soaked them to their skins, and apparently found its way to their hearts; the muddy, slippery road, with torrents rush...

"Oi know what Oi'm goin' to do," said Hennessey. "Oi'm goin to show the foinest pace av shprinting back to camp that has been sane in these parts since our roight bruk that day...

WHAT an ineffably imposing spectacle of military power was presented to the May sun, shining on the picturesque mountains and lovely valleys around Chattanooga in the busy days...

AS usual, it seemed to the boys of the 200th Ind. that they had only lain down when the bugle blew the reveille on the morning of May 3, 1864.

"GREAT Jehosephat, how hungry I am," suddenly ejaculated Shorty, stopping his cheering, as the thunder of the guns died away into an occasional shot after the rebels galloping b...

FOR the next few days there was a puzzling maze of movements, which must have completely mystified the rebel Generals—as was intended—for it certainly passed the comprehension o...

Joe Johnston was fiercely contesting every hilltop and narrow gorge to gain time to adjust his army to the unexpected movement through Snake Creek Gap, and save the stores he ha...

"HOORAY for Injianny. Injianny gits there every time," roared Si, joining the yelling, exultant throng crowding around the Colonel. "The old 200th wuz the first to cross the wor...

"RUSSELL, that ain't going to heal without a A scar," Alf Russell consoled himself, as he studied his hurt with a little round pocket looking-glass, a screen of bushes concealin...

THE next morning the rebels were found to be gone from the position in front of the 200th Ind;, and after breakfast the regiment marched leisurely by a road around the dreaded a...

TO REST, refit after the sharp fighting and marching, and to wait for the slightly wounded and other convalescents to come up, the brigade went into camp on the banks of the Oos...