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How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion

<h2> CHAPTER XXIII. </h2> Tells How the Chaplain was Paralyzed by the Spotted Circus- Horse—I am Court Martialed—I Plead my own Case, and am Acquitted. In the last chapter I told of trading my circus-horse to the chaplain, and how the chaplain had rode away with the regiment for review, and I remained in camp, pretending to be sick. The result of that scheme on my part was not all my fancy painted it. I stood in front of my tent with a wet towel around my head, and saw the regiment return from review, the chaplain's spotted circus horse with no rider, being led by a colored man, the horse looking as innocent as any horse I ever saw. Where was the 'chaplain? Had he been killed? I noticed half the men were laughing and it seemed to me they wouldn't laugh if the good chaplain was dead. I also noticed that the colonel and his staff wore faces clouded with anger, and that they seemed as though they would like to kill somebody. Before the regiment had got fairly dismounted, a sergeant and three men marched to my tent, and I was arrested, and was informed that I would be tried at once, by court-martial, for conduct prejudicial to good order and military discipline. I knew the sergeant, and tried to joke with him, telling him to “go on with his old ark, as there wasn't going to be much of a shower,” but he wouldn't have any funny business, and kindly informed me that I had probably got to the end of my rope, and that I would no doubt spend the remainder of my term of enlistment in the military prison. I asked him what the row was about, and he said. I would find out soon enough. One soldier got on each side of me, and one behind with sabers drawn, to stick me with if I attempted to get away, and we started for the colonel's tent. On the way there, the chaplain came towards us, covered with red clay, and begged the sergeant to allow him to kill me right there. He was the maddest truly good man I ever saw. He fairly foamed at the mouth, and said, “O, sergeant, turn him loose, and let me chew him up.” I said to the sergeant: “Now, look-a-here, don't you let that savage get at me, or he will get hurt. I don't want to have any trouble with the church, but if any regularly ordained ministerial cannibal of a sky pilot attempts to chew me, he will find a good deal more gristle than tender loin, and I will italicise his nose so he will look so crossed-eyed that he can't draw his pay.” My thus showing that I was not afraid of a non-combatant, seemed to have the desired effect, for he spit on his hands, jumped up and cracked his heels together, said he would wipe the Southern Confederacy with my remains, and he went to his tent to change his clothes, and get ready for the court-martial. The guard took me to the colonel's tent, and I walked right in where the colonel and major and several others were, and I said Hello, and smiled, and extended my hand to the colonel. None of them helloed, and none of them returned my smile, and the colonel did not shake hands with me. He said, however, that I had brought disgrace on the regiment, and broken the heart of a noble man, the chaplain. I told him I didn't think the chaplain's heart was very badly broke, as he had just ottered to whip me in several languages, and threatened to eat me. The colonel had me sit down on a trunk and keep still, while the court-martial convened. It was not many minutes before the officers had arrived, and organized, the adjutant read the charges and specifications against me. Not to go into the military-form of charges and specifications, the substance of them was that I had with malice aforethought, procured a trick-horse from a circus, with the intention of inducing the chaplain to trade for it, with the purpose of causing the aforesaid chaplain to become a spectacle for laughter. When the charges were read I was asked what I had to say, and I told the Judge Advocate it was a condemned lie. That made him mad, and he was going to commence whipping me where the chaplain left off, when the colonel smoothed matters over by asking me if I didn't mean to plead “not guilty.” I said, “Certainly, not guilty. It is false. I did not secure the horse for the purpose of sawing it off on the chaplain. I jayhawked it, and when I found it was not the kind of a horse for a modest fellow like me, who didn't want to make any display, I thought I would trade it to some officer with gall, and the chaplain was the first man who struck me for a trade, and he got it, and from his remarks to me, and from these court-martial proceedings, I was satisfied the chaplain did not like the horse.” The officers laughed then, and I suppose they were thinking of something that happened to the chaplain on review. The colonel asked me if I wanted anybody to defend me, and I told him I had a printing office once next door to a lawyer's office, and I knew a little about law, and would defend myself. The chaplain came soon, and began to tell his story, but I insisted, that he be sworn, and then he proceeded to tell his tale. He said that he was a God-fearing man, and meant to do right, and was willing to take his chances in the lottery of war, but when a man got him to ride a circus trick-horse, and bring upon his sacred calling the ribald laughter of the wicked, he felt that civilization was a failure. He said he traded for the spotted horse in good faith, and that he was particular to ask me if the horse had any tricks, and I said he had none, and he traded on that understanding, that he rode the afore—said horse to the review, and as soon as the aforesaid horse heard the band play, he waltzed out into the middle of the street, whirled around more than fifty times, waltzed into an infantry regiment, breaking the ranks of the soldiers just as the reviewing officer come along, causing the reviewing officer to say, “get out of the ranks, you d-d fool, and take that horse back to the circus,” thus causing him, the chaplain, to be scandalized. He said he would have stood that, but the horse carried him to a battery of artillery which was in position, and began to jump over the guns, and that a gunner took a swab with which he had been cleaning a gun, and punched him, the chaplain, in the face, covering his face with burnt powder which smelled badly. Then the horse carried him out on the field in front of the reviewing officers, got up on its hind feet and walked for half a block, making the chaplain appear as though climbing up the horse's neck, and when some of the general's staff came out to arrest him, the horse whirled around and kicked, in every direction at once, and broke the saber of one of the staff-officers. That the horse seemed to be possessed of the devil. That he finally got the horse to go back to the regiment where he belonged, but on the way he had to pass brigade headquarters, when the horse stopped in front of the commanding officer and sat down like a dog, on his hind parts, and tried to shake hands with the colonel commanding, who was offended, and told the chaplain he was an ass, and to go away with his museum, or he would have the chaplain put in the guard house. That a colored man near the review ground had a ginger bread stand, with a sheet tacked up to keep the sun off, and the spotted horse attempted to jump through the sheet, evidently thinking it was a paper hoop in a circus. And in conclusion, after making the chaplain so mortified and ashamed that he wished he might die, the horse laid down in the road and rolled over the aforsaid chaplain, leaving him in the road covered with dirt, while the horse run across the street and walked up a pair of stairs, outside a store, went into the rooms occupied by some milliners and scared the women so they put their heads out of the windows and yelled fire, and said a regiment of Yankee cavalry had raided their homes. That the review was made a farce, the chaplain a laughing stock, and that it took ten men to get the horse down stairs, and half the regiment to console the milliners, and convince them that no harm was intended. He said he demanded that I be sentenced to be shot. The colonel asked me if I had anything to say, and I asked permission to cross-examine the witness. Permission being granted, I asked the chaplain what his business was. He said he was a minister. I asked him if he didn't consider trading horses one of the noblest professions extant. He said he didn't know about that. Then I asked him if he didn't take advantage of me when I came to the regiment, as a raw recruit, and trade me a kicking mule, that made my life a burden. He said he remembered that he traded me a mule. I asked him if he didn't know the mule was balky, vicious, and spavined, that it would kick its best friend, bite anybody, that it was so ugly that he had to put the saddle on with a long pole, that he warranted the mule sound when he knew it had all the diseases that were going. He said he objected to being asked such questions, but the judge-advocate said I had a right to bring out any previous transactions in the horse-trade line, as it would have some effect in this case. Then I asked him if he didn't know the horse he beat me out of was sound, a splendid rider, and that the mule was the worst one in the army. He admitted that he knew the animal was not a desirable animal, but he thought a recruit could get along with a kicking mule better than a chaplain. I had saved my best shot for the last, and I said, “knowing the mule was unsound, a vicious animal, and that my horse was sound and desirable, and worth more than a dozen such mules, did you consider that you was pursuing your calling as a minister when you gained my confidence, and not only sawed the mule off on to me, bereaved me of a fine horse, but took twenty dollars of my hard-earned bounty money as boot in the trade? In doing that to an innocent and fresh recruit who had confidence in you, did you not pave the way for me to get even with you on a horse trade, and haven't I got even, and do you blame me for doing it?” The chaplain was perspiring while I was asking the questions, and all the officers were looking at him as though he had caught a tartar, but he blushed, choked, and finally answered that perhaps he did wrong in trading me that mule, and he asked to be forgiven. Then I turned to the officers and said, “Gentlemen, I admit that I traded the spotted circus-horse to the chaplain. I did it on purpose to show him that there is a God in Israel. When I came to the regiment, right fresh from the people, I needed salting. The boys all salted me whenever they got a chance, and I took it like a little man. In turning to the chaplain for comfort, I did not expect that he would salt me worse than all of the boys combined, but when I found that he had gone through me, and taken advantage of my guileless innocence, and laughed at my woe when I found the confounded mule was not all his fancy had painted it, and that it laid awake nights to devise ways to kick my head on, I took a blooded oath that before the cruel war was over I would salt that chaplain on a horse trade, until he would own up the corn. I leave it to you, gentlemen, if I have done it or not. When that spotted horse fell to me, by the fortunes of war, I was not long in learning that it was the relic of a circus. I rode the horse one day last week at a funeral, and it acted in such a manner as to almost wake up the late lamented. I was made the laughing stock of the brigade, and of the town. It was government property, and I could not kill the horse, and I thought the time had arrived for me to get even with my old friend. He was mashed on my spotted horse, and bantered me for a trade. Finally we traded, and I got ten dollars to boot. The result has been all that I could desire. I have had the satisfaction of demonstrating to this truly good man that all is not gold that glitters. I have shown him that however spotted a man may be, if he rides a spotted circus horse, he will get there. I will leave it to the chaplain, now, if I was not justified in trading him that horse, after what he had done to me, and will ask him if he was not served perfectly right, and if in trading me that mule he did not do to others as he would have others do to him, and if so, if he does not think the others did it to him in great shape. I am done. I leave my life in your hands.” When I quit they were all laughing except the chaplain, and there was a quiet smile around his mouth, as he thought of his experience on the spotted horse. The colonel asked the chaplain, if he had anything to say, and he said he had just been thinking that he could go over to a New Jersey regiment and trade that spotted horse to the chaplain of that regiment, and if he could, he would be willing to drop the case. He said that chaplain played a mean trick on him once, and he wanted to get even. The court martial acquitted me, and while we were all taking a drink with the colonel, the chaplain went out, and pretty soon we saw his servant leading the spotted horse over towards the camp of the New Jersey regiment, and later the chaplain sauntered off in that direction on foot, as though there was some weighty subject on his mind. The weighty subject was the spotted circus-horse. I do not suppose any incident ever caused so much talk as did the chaplain's circus. The boys were talking and laughing about it in every company all that afternoon, and when it was found that I had not been punished, for trading the horse to him, the boys were wild. They wanted to show their appreciation of the fun I had given them, so a lot of them got together to give me a sort of reception. They sent for me to come over to Co. D., and when I got over there they grabbed me and carried me off on their shoulders. I felt proud to see them so joyous and friendly, until they put me in a blanket and tossed me up into the trees, and caught me in the blanket as I came down. Of all the sensations I ever experienced, that of being tossed up in a blanket was the worst. I tried to laugh, at first, but it became serious, as I went into the air twenty feet, let loose of the air and came down, expecting to be crushed maimed, killed. My breath forsook me, I was dizzy, but I struck the blanket easy, and after being sent up a dozen times they let me go, and my reception was over. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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