The Fourteenth Indiana and one company of cavalry went to the summit this morning to fortify.
The Colonel has gone to Beverly. The boys repeat his Rich mountain speech with slight variations: "Men, there are ten thousand secessionists in Rich mountain, with forty rifled cannon, well fortified. There's bloody work ahead. You are going to a butcher-shop rather than a battle. Ten thousand men and forty rifled cannon! Hostler, you d----d scoundrel, why don't you wipe Jerome's nose?" Jerome is the Colonel's horse, known in camp as the White Bull.
Conway, who has been detailed to attend to the Colonel's horses, is almost as good a speech-maker as the Colonel. This, in brief, is Conway's address to the White Bull:
"Stand still there, now, or I'll make yer stand still. Hold up yer head there, now, or I'll make yer hold it up. Keep quiet; what the h-ll yer 'bout there, now? D--n you! do you want me to hit you a lick over the snoot, now-do you? Are you a inviten' me to pound you over the head with a sawlog? D--n yer ugly pictures, whoa!"
SOURCE: John Beatty, The Citizen-soldier: Or, Memoirs of a Volunteer, p. 29-30
No comments:
Post a Comment