the many and queer uses to which it was at last put.
the diverse uses of the good old canteen 029
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 prospective importance. in the 22 hot summers that he had lived through he had never found himself very far from a well or spring when his thirst cried out to be slacked, and he did not suppose that it was much farther between wells down south.
"i don't see the use of carrying two or three pints o' water along all day right past springs and over cricks," he remarked to his chum, as the two were examining the queer, cloth-covered cans.
"we've got to take 'em, any way," answered his chum, resignedly, "it's regulations."
on his entry into service a boy accepted everything without question when assured that it was "regulations." he would have charged bayonets on a buzz-saw if authoritatively informed that it was required by the mysterious "regulations."
the long march the 200th ind. made after bragg over the dusty turnpikes the first week in october, 1862, taught si the value of a canteen. after that it was rarely allowed to get empty.
"what are these grooves along each side for?" he asked, pointing out the little hollows which give the "prod" lightness and strength.
"why," answered the orderly, who, having been in the three-months' service, assumed to know more about war than the duke of wellington, "the intention of those is to make a wound the lips of which will close up when the bayonet is pulled out, so that the man'll be certain to die."
naturally so diabolical an intention sent cold shivers down si's back.
the night before si left for "the front" he had taken his musket and couterments home to show them to his mother and sisters—and the other fellow's sister, whose picture and lock of hair he had safely stowed away. they looked upon the bayonet with a dreadful awe. tears came into maria's eyes as she thought of si roaming about through the south like a bandit plunging that cruel steel into people's bowels.
"this is the way it's done," said si, as he charged about the room in an imaginary duel with a rebel, winding up with a terrifying lunge. "die, tur-r-rraitor, gaul durn ye," he exclaimed, for he was really getting excited over the matter, while the girls screamed and jumped upon the chairs, and his good mother almost fainted.
the attention that the 200th ind. had to give to the bayonet drill confirmed si's deep respect for the weapon, and he practiced assiduously all the "lunges," "parries," and "guards" in the manual, in the hope that proficiency so gained would save his own dearly-beloved hide from puncture, and enable him to punch any luckless rebel that he might encounter as full of holes as a fishing net.
what the bayonet was good for 033
the 200th ind.'s first fight was at perryville, but though it routed the rebel force in front of it, it would have taken a bayonet half-a-mile long to touch the nearest "johnny." si thought it odd that the rebels didn't let him get close enough to them to try his new bayonet, and pitch a dozen or two of them over into the next field.
if the truth must be told, the first blood that stained si's bayonet was not that of a fellow-man.
si klegg's company was on picket one day, while gen. buell was trying to make up his mind what to do with bragg. rations had been a little short for a week or so. in fact, they had been scarcely sufficient to meet the demands of si's appetite, and his haversack had nothing in it to speak of. strict orders against foraging had been, issued. it was the day of "guarding rebel onion patches." si couldn't quite get it straight in his head why the general should be so mighty particular about a few pigs and chickens and sweet potatoes, for he was really getting hungry, and when a man is in this condition he is not in a fit mood to grapple with fine-spun theories of governmental policy.
so when a fat pig came wabbling and grunting toward his post, it was to si like a vision of manna to the children of israel in the wilderness. a wild, uncontrollable desire to taste a fresh spare-rib took possession of him. naturally, his first idea was to send a bullet through the animal, but on second thought he saw that wouldn't do at all. it would "give him away" at once, and, besides, he had found that a single shot on the picket-line would keep buell's entire army in line-of-battle for a whole day.
si wrote to his mother that his bright new bayonet was stained with southern blood, and the old lady shuddered at the awful thought. "but," added si, "it was only a pig, and not a man, that i killed!"
"i'm so glad!" she exclaimed.
as maria pictured si using his bayonet 035
by the time si had been in the service a year there was less zeal in the enforcement of orders of this kind, and si had become a very skillful and successful forager. he had still been unable to reach with his bayonet the body of a single one of his misguided fellow citizens, but he had stabbed a great many pigs and sheep. in fact, si found his bayonet a most useful auxiliary in his predatory operations. he could not well have gotten along without it.
uncle sam generally furnished si with plenty of coffee—roasted and unground—but did not supply him with a coffee mill. si thought at first that the government had forgotten something. he saw that several of the old veterans of '61 had coffee mills, but he found on inquiry that they had been obtained by confiscation only. he determined to supply himself at the first opportunity, but in the meantime he was obliged to 'use his bayonet as a substitute, just as all the rest of the soldiers did.
we regret to say that si, having thrown away his "baxter's call to the unconverted" in his first march, and having allowed himself to forget the lessons he had learned but a few years before in sunday-school, soon learned to play poker and other sinful games. these, at night, developed another use for the bayonet. in its capacity as a "handy" candlestick it was "equaled by few and excelled by none." the "shank" was always ready to receive the candle, while the point could be thrust into the ground in an instant, and nothing more was necessary. this was perhaps the most general sphere of usefulness found by the bayonet during the war. barrels of candle-grease flowed down the furrowed sides of this weapon for every drop of human blood that dimmed its luster.
