Campfire Memories
After a hard day on the march...
Next time ya see private Hamilton, ask him "Where's Max??" Appears Ol' Max can be hard to see from time to time, as private Hamilton found out. Ya see, Max wandered off to water the grass one night, and when he returned, his seat was taken - so he sat across the fire from Brian. Well, in the dark of night with a glaring fire in your vision, it CAN be hard to see who's on the other side.... Brian asked one of the other fellows - a helpful chap by name of Lindsey, "Where's Max?" Lindsey looked around, stared straight at Max, shrugged and claimed "Dunno, haven't seen him." Well, Hamilton caught on, and he and Lindsey proceeded to torment ol' Max, by acting as if they could not hear him, and asking everyone "Where's Max?" Nowadays, that's a greeting around camp that'll get a chuckle out of a few guys (except Max, who'll grumble and mumble about what he'd like to do to those "jokesters"!
On a cold, bitter, windy day, in the quiet lull between battles at a Lil' ol' place called Linden Mills, our fellas crowded around the campfire, tryin' to keep warm....when a furry friend chose to join us, and partake of our meager warmth in the heart of the bleak wintery storm. One of the privates, known for his long-winded oratorical dissertations, began tellin' us of all his experiences with shrews on the farm where he came from, and in our fascination, we all missed the poor thing climbing up our good Lieutenant's greatcoat sleeve! (We always wondered about that Lieutenant, anyway! He always seemed too fond of sheep!) Oh well, the only bad thing was, we had to see some of the fellas cry, 'cuz they didn't get to eat the shrew, after he accidentally fell into the fire.....
Have ya heard about "Mouse"? Well, it seems one o' the fellas had his canteen stored in the cellar, and the cork fell out...Wouldn't ya know? A furry little friend tried to help him, by cleaning it out. Only thing, the poor critter couldn't get back out!! When Mike Poer started to take a drink of fresh, clean, cold water from his canteen, he noticed something move....so next time you see us, stop by and say HI! to Mouse
Well, there is this one young lad in our Battery who found himself taken up with not one, not two, but THREE lovely young ladies... It seems they convinced him it would be alright to accompany them into town, after all - they WERE escorted by one of the girls' mother. Unfortunately, they tarried a little TOO long, and he missed that night's cannon drill, and the evening's color ceremony. It did NOT go unnoticed - Our 1st Seargent, with all the compassion he could find, bellowed at the young soldier to get his flea-bitten carcass across those parade grounds NOW! He started to give the lad a reprimand like no other, when he couldn't help but break down and shake his hand - after all, how many young lads do YOU know that can entertain THREE ladies at once? The soldier was given mess duty for the entire day following. But that's not all, at inspection the following day, the Captain found ladies' undergarments in his tent!
To the "normal" person, someone yelling "Fire!" raises some concern - to us artillerists, we usually respond by turning just to make sure, but don't get too excited....one of our guys got TOO used to the word though.....We were camped in the woods between battlefields during The Wilderness Campaign, sittin' 'round the fire, takin' turns tellin' the lamest jokes we could, and one of our privates was knockin' the ashes off his cigar by bumpin' it against the stump upon which he was parked. Well, to our surprise, apparently a few hot ashes fell between the bark and the wood, and lay a'smolderin' down there. As the evenin' wore on, a few fellows noticed the stump started smokin' (NOT the guy ON it, though...) - Well, they commenced to tellin' him, a little louder and a little louder, then yellin' at him, that his seat was afire! He heard 'em, but dismissed it, thinkin' they had sipped somethin' wrong, or somethin'. Eventually, he caught on, jumped up, and we got the fire out. Next time you see Private Adrian, ask him what HIS nickname is!
...And then, of course, there's Edsel and Elmer - two wayward "graybeards" who keep appearing at our fireside out of the dark...how DO they get past our guards!?!
Ya remember Gettysburg, in '98? We'll never forget it, after the Limber Fun Run...Ya see, we we're s'posed to have some time to get our Limbers outta the way, before the next battle....when the Cornfederates decided they were tired of bein' out in the hot sun, and wanted our shady restin' spot. So, here they come, and the command was -and I quote:"GET THOSE LIMBERS OUT OF THERE, NOW!" So we pulled, and pushed, and cussed (some of us are lax in our language), and swerved around infantry, and cav, and trees, and rocks....'til we came across this tree that had fallen right across our path. After surveyin' the situation, and gettin' yelled at once to many times, our Q.M. Sgt. yelled PUSH!!! We all pushed, and with a THUMP! The limber went over the tree, about three feet in the air, sprayin' canteens, jackets, hats, and don' know what all else everywhere, to a rousin' hats off cheer from the infantry!
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