I was to act as his private secretary or company clerk, and I suspect that he also intended to use my good clothes as a sort of a dressed-up dummy, to stand around the office with white gloves on, as a decoy to entice recruits to his roll, pretty much as we see the "walking sign"

now a days at recruiting offices.

In the Second Cavalry, the facings, instead of being the ordinary "yaller" of the cavalry, were of an orange color, to distinguish them as the "Dragoons," as they were listed previous to the reorganization of that service just before the war.

I was made a Corporal by the Captain, and had the stripes in a beautiful orange on my arms. The cap was the regulation little fatigue or McClellan style, with the crossed sabers, and the insignia of company and regiment in brass letter--B 2.

At my earnest solicitation, Captain Rodenbaugh sent me away with the first detachment of recruits to Cavalry Headquarters, then Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. Here I had a regular circus every hour of the day, from reveille till retreat or tattoo. It's only those who have seen cavalry recruits drilled with regular cavalry horses and old drilled Sergeants, that can be made to believe the stories that are told of their accomplishments in this direction.

Carlisle Barracks was in crude form, just what the West Point Riding School of to-day is. I was anxious to learn to be a good soldier, and I did learn a good deal--in a mighty short time, too--while I was at Carlisle. I was taught some things there that I thought I had learned thoroughly before I went there. For instance, I had been a long time in Western Texas, and had ridden wild and bucking horses without a saddle, chased buck-rabbits in a zigzag course over hog-wallow prairies in a reckless way that made my head dizzy, but it was reserved for my Drill Sergeant at Carlisle Barracks to show me how simple a matter it was for a trained cavalry horse to throw off a Texas cow-boy. Those old Sergeants--and there were a number of them--had the drill horses trained so thoroughly, and withal so full of tricks, that they beat Buffalo Bill and any circus horses I've ever seen all to pieces.

It was lots of fun for the Sergeants and a few officers and their wives, who were always watching our evolutions from their barrack windows, but it was a little bit rough on some of the boys.

We were given lessons in mounting and dismounting by the hour, till I became so expert that I was relieved of that part of the drill and advanced into a squad who had been there some time, and were soon to be sent off to the front as graduates. We were all obliged to hold the bridle-rein in one and the same way; that is, in the left hand, turned up so that we could see the finger-nails. All the steering had to be done by merely turning or twisting the clenched hand around, keeping it in the same position. There was no hauling back of the reins permitted, except by drawing the hand straight up to the chin to check or tighten the lines; and the forearm must be always directly in front of the pommel of the saddle.

This part of the riding lesson was all new to me. I had always used my hands as I pleased, but here we must all hold the infernal wild horses with one hand turned upside down, and dare not even yank the elbow around without getting a cuss from the Sergeant. There were always two or three Sergeants to each drill; one gave the commands from his position in front, while another old rascal rode behind somewhere to watch our arms and legs and to do the extra cussing.

Some of the fellows in our squad had been farmer boys, and felt that they knew all about horses, and were disposed at first to talk horse with the Sergeants; but one lesson in deportment answered for the whole term at Carlisle Barracks.

Those old fellows all said they would far rather take a city man who had never been on a horse than a farmer who had been riding all his life.

The city fellows made good Regular Cavalrymen. We learned to ride with our knees and to steer with the legs.

At first our little caps would not stay on top of our heads, but we soon became able to balance them, with the strap dangling under the nose or chin, instead of being fastened under the chin.

These old war-horses had been at the barracks a long time, and had been carefully trained to go by the bugle. At the sound "trot," they would all start off as neatly, with the left foot foremost, as any infantry squad. When the "gallop" was sounded every old horse would switch his tail, take the bit in his teeth and go off like a shot over the field, helter-skelter, as if it were a hurdle race, or the whole Rebel Army were after them. This part of the show is where the most of the fun came in. Of course, some of the riders couldn't keep time with the horses, and their caps and sabers would become troublesome appendages, and were often cast off; then the old Sergeant, bringing up the rear, would yell like a Comanche Indian, which none of us could understand, and, as everybody thought it was necessary we should hear, it had the effect of rattling the whole squad. One of our first lessons was that never, under any circumstances, must we speak to our horses; everything must be done quietly and effectively by bit and spur; but when they got to running us off by the bugle, some of the farmer boys, when they would be tossed up too much, involuntarily sang out, "Whoa!" or else, too audible, cursed the man alongside for jamming their legs. This would bring down such a torrent of abuse on the head of the offender that we were kept in a state of terror from the time we were on the horses till we dismounted.

The Sergeant, or perhaps an officer, after getting the squad well under way, would sound "to the right," and, of course, the horses knew what the bugle said and obeyed the signal instantly; but most of the riders didn't, and were, in consequence, involuntarily going straight ahead or fell off at the unexpected turn of the horse. Then, on the home-stretch, they would so abruptly sound a "halt," that the horses would stop in two jumps, while the rider very likely went straight ahead.

I'm telling you the truth about Carlisle Barracks and the Regular Cavalry. I've been there--several times--and know it all pretty well.

Why, it's a fact, that those old horses would, at the command "right dress," as soberly turn their one eye down the line and back up a step or forward as any infantry regiment; and on the wheel the inside horse always marked time beautifully, while the fellow on the outside had to gallop.

I had lots of fun during the couple of weeks that I was at Carlisle Barracks. Probably because I entered with so much zest and earnestness into the drill, which was really sport for me. I attracted the attention (favorably) of the Sergeants and officers, and was so rapidly advanced that my request to be sent to the front with the first detachment was approved. In this ambition Captain Rodenbaugh seconded me, as he had been relieved of recruiting duty, and was ordered to conduct the first party to the front.

We left one cold day in November, via Harrisburg, traveling all night in a box-car attached to a freight train. We were delayed all the next day in Baltimore, putting in the time standing around in the cold, miserable streets, under guard, awaiting our transportation over the slow Baltimore & Ohio to Washington. The second night we reached Washington, and slept on the floor of the barn-like affair they called the Soldiers'

Retreat, then located down by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Depot. A great many soldiers will remember that shanty.

Early next morning, before any of my comrades were awake, I was up about daybreak, anxious to get a look at Washington, and especially Old Capitol Prison, through the glasses of a Union soldier. It was a bitter cold morning; so early as 5 A. M., when I went to the door of our barracks, I was astonished to see, wrapped up in his big blue overcoat, the snow blowing all over him, and standing almost up to his knees in it, our Captain, C. F. Rodenbaugh.

I did not know then that it was an officer's duty, and one of his privileges, to stand around all night in the cold, while his men slept comfortably under shelter. I said something like this to the Captain, when he courteously answered that he was the officer in charge, and it was his duty to see that the sentries were on hand. It was an early lesson; and I will say right here that the Regular officers, though severe and strict in discipline, I found always ready to expose themselves before they asked their men to do so. Apparently the Regular officers held themselves aloof from their men, and though I was almost intimate with Captain Rodenbaugh, I would not have ventured to address him, except in the way of duty, and then only after a proper salute, after we had gotten out in the field. Yet, if I could have met him alone or unobserved, I should have been as free with him as with my best friend. This matter of Regular Army etiquette was fully understood as part of our drill, and the subject never gave us any uneasiness, but in all probability saved us much trouble. There were no favorites in our service; every man was treated alike, and as long as every man did his duty, right up to the scratch, in Regular Army style, he was as independent as any officer, in his way. I had some queer experiences in this way, which I will relate further on.

I was in Washington again, and, strange to say, we were camped for the first night right in sight of the Old Capitol Prison.

Mr. Stanton, the autocrat Secretary of War, failed entirely to suppress me. With all his arbitrary exercise of authority he could not keep me away from the front. Locking me up in Old Capitol Prison only detained me temporarily. If I had not been released I certainly should have escaped the same day.

The first visit I made in Washington after my return there as a soldier was to the Capitol.

Armed with a pass, duly approved by the Provost-Guard officers, and dressed up in my Sunday uniform, I called the member of Congress from my home District from his seat out into the corridor (Mr. Covode being absent), where I bluntly and briefly explained that I had been given a parole not to come South until released, but being satisfied in my own heart that it was a wrong to me, and injustice had been done through the envy and malice of some War Department officials, I had, upon the advice of such men as Covode, decided to enlist in the army, and they had formally notified the Secretary of my intention of so doing.

I had not officially been advised that "I was forgiven," and desired Mr.

Blair to see the Secretary and arrange the matter for me. He looked at me with astonishment at first, and then, realizing the absurdity of the thing, laughed heartily, saying "Why, of course, that's all right; they would not dare to annoy you any further."

I was, further, most kindly assured that my friends in Congress would all see me through, in case I had any difficulties on that score.

I left the Capitol, going straight to the War Department, where I endeavored to get an interview with the Secretary, but, dear me, a soldier--a common soldier--only a little Corporal in the Dragoon's uniform--presuming to address the Secretary of War, was something so unheard of among the old regular attendants about the door that they were disposed to fire me out of the up-stairs window for my effrontery.

I had found it difficult as a civilian to reach the Secretary of War on several former occasions, but I learned, to my disgust, that as a soldier it was entirely impossible.

The lesson in the Regular Army etiquette which I took that day, burned itself so bitterly and deeply into my heart that I never attempted afterward to address anything higher than a First Sergeant in the Regular Army, except through the regular channels.

On account of an accident that happened me at Carlisle, I was permitted by Captain Rodenbaugh to sleep in a boarding-house during the first days after our arrival at Washington City, or until horses were issued to us.

At Carlisle there was an old horse widely known among all the Regular cavalrymen who have been there as "Squeezer." At stable-call, I had noticed the men in the squad to which I had been advanced, all showed a singular alacrity in rushing to the task of cleaning their horses as soon as we broke ranks for this purpose. I learned by an experience that came near being serious, that this was caused not so much by anxiety of the troopers to clean horses, as to avoid a certain stall which Squeezer occupied.

[Illustration: THE SERGEANT KINDLY GAVE HIM THE STEEL.]

Squeezer was a good-enough horse outside of his stall, or away from a fence-post or the side of a house. The trouble with him was, that he would invariably catch the man detailed to curry him against the side of the stall, and the vicious beast would deliberately put the weight of his whole body against the man so caught, to try and crush his bones.

The only satisfaction the old horse seemed to get out of the dirty trick was, in listening to the cries of pain the poor fellow so caught was obliged to give vent to.

The Sergeants in charge of the stables were up to Squeezer's tricks so well that they always carried a sharp-pointed saber-blade to the stable, which was the only thing, well struck in, that would make the old rascal let go his hold of a victim.

It was the custom to let the recruit get caught by this horse trick, and I, as the latest in our squad, suffered the penalty. Squeezer put his haunches up against my breast and forced me up against the board stall until the bones began to crack, when the Sergeant kindly gave him the steel, and he let go of me, but began to kick viciously at the Sergeant.

I was hurt badly, and suffered severely from it for some days. I learned afterward that every man in our squad carried a saddler's awl as part of the outfit, and when Squeezer became too affectionate with the man to whose lot it fell to tackle him, he kept the awl in one hand and the brush in the other, and used them alternately.

It was one of the games of the men to lay for a chance to catch the old Sergeant near his heels, when they would give Squeezer an inch of the awl, and the heels would reach for the Sergeant in a style that took all the military dignity out of him.

For a few days our detachment was encamped in the roughest kind of barracks, located on Capitol Hill, near Old Capitol. We drew our rations of soft bread, but our meat was the regulation pickled pork, fished out of the original barrels on the spot. I recall now, with a good deal of surprise to myself, the truth that there ever was a time in Washington when I had to take my slice of raw pork on a slice of bread, standing in two inches of snow, warming up with a quart of black coffee drank from a tin cup.

I am at the present writing a resident of this same Capitol Hill, within gunshot of the Old Capitol Prison and this former camp-ground. We would consider it a great hardship to be deprived of any of the comforts and pleasures to be extracted from a residence in this beautiful city.

How few of those who now enjoy the blessings of this great Government ever think that all of these pleasures were made possible for the children by the willing sacrifices and hardships of their parents in 1861-65.

After many unsatisfactory days spent about the old barracks on the Hill, we were at length ordered into camp near Fort Albany, Virginia. This fort was located on the high ground just beyond the Long Bridge, close by Fort Corcoran, or between the Long Bridge and Arlington.

I was at heart greatly rejoiced to find myself once more in old Virginia, even if it were only over the Long Bridge and the Potomac River. Though yet in sight, I was out of Washington, and safely beyond the reach of the meddlesome War Department detectives, who had become so numerous and about as thoroughly despised as were the army insect pests.

It does not speak so well for the shrewdness or effectiveness of Mr.

Pinkerton's corps, that I am able to record the truthful fact that they had not, with all their vaunted facilities of telegraph and military and civil police connections, been able to locate me, or discover that I, who had been represented to the Secretary of War as a dangerous man, was freely circulating all over Washington City.

Had I been so disposed, it would have been a simple matter to have concocted much mischief, with the aid of information I had obtained in the Old Capitol of Rebel sympathizers who were living in the city. Miss Boyd had given me the names and addresses of pretty nearly everybody she had known as a friend of the South; but I made no use of this myself, except to give the information in writing to Covode's committee.

At our camp, near Fort Albany, we were quartered in the regulation Sibley tent, which all old soldiers will recognize without further description. As the company clerk, or private secretary of our Captain, I was pleasantly provided for in the First Sergeant's tent. There were but the two of us in the big concern, because we had to make room for the desks or writing-table and other storage for the company papers.

It is a little curious that I was selected to do precisely this same duty by the Rebels in their capital.

Through the good management of the Captain and the First Sergeant, who were, of course, my friends, and looked after my interests in the company while I was busy on the papers, I was supplied with a real beauty of a horse. He was one of the black Morgan type, a little small, but oh, my! I suspect that the Captain became personally solicitous about my being handsomely mounted, as I found myself detailed to act as an Orderly to himself and the other officers almost every time they rode into the city.

My little nag was what may be termed frisky and spirited. I am talking all this horse now, because in the days and weeks and months that immediately followed "Frisky" took an important part in all the adventures that I had. From this time forth most of my experiences were somewhat of a dashing character, dressed, as I was, in a neat uniform, and well mounted on a horse. One little trick of Frisky's will serve to illustrate better than I could describe in many words the nature of the animal.

The stable, in the field, you know, was simply a parallelogram composed of ropes tied to posts driven in the ground. Inside of this the horses were tied to the ropes. At every stable-call I usually went out to attend to my own horse, so as to get a chance to ride bareback to water.

At a certain signal, all hands mounted their horses, and at the command all filed out of the ropes, under the leader, toward the water. Frisky, being well to the rear of the column the first time I got on him, astonished me and surprised the officer in command by suddenly jumping at a clear leap over the top of the rope and running off toward the head of the line. So that, at every water-call, it got to be a regular show for the officers to come around to Frisky's side of the corral to see him jump over the rope instead of marching around in the rear of the others.

I was at least as good a horseman as any of the rest of our batch of recruits, and probably my experience in Texas, supplemented by the lessons at Carlisle, had made me quite proficient in the regulation style of marching my horse.