United States or Ukraine ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"If I had my hat with me, I'd take it off to you, Johnny Bull," said Hodge. "You're clever altogether too clever for us poor unsophisticated Yanks. How long have you been over?" "How long has he been over?" sneered Sim Scrogg from third. "Why, he never saw the Atlantic Ocean. He was born inland, and he has never yet been two hundred miles away from home."
During the siege there had been a good deal of friendly sparring between the soldiers of the two armies, on picket and where the lines were close together. All rebels were known as "Johnnies," all Union troops as "Yanks." Often "Johnny" would call: "Well, Yank, when are you coming into town?" The reply was sometimes: "We propose to celebrate the 4th of July there."
The Yank found himself welcome in every quarter of the city but hailed with most camaraderie in the French quarter. With the Russian night patrols he soon came to an amicable understanding and Russian cafes soon found out that the Yanks were the freest spenders and treated them accordingly. Woe to the luckless "Limmey" who tried to edge in on a Yank party in a Russian place.
A friendly intercourse, not always confined to a trade of coffee for tobacco, existed between the outposts; "Johnnies" and "Yanks" often exchanged greetings across the Rappahannock; and it is related that one day when Jackson rode along the river, and the Confederate troops ran together, as was their custom, to greet him with a yell, the Federal pickets, roused by the sudden clamour, crowded to the bank, and shouted across to ask the cause.
Northern news arrived by grapevine, and Northern papers told the army that was what it was going to do, "invade Maryland and move on Washington sixty thousand bloody-minded rebels!" "Look here, boys, look here. Multiplication by division! The Yanks have split each of us into four!"
"I wus jest passin' on my way home an' thought I'd halt an' ax about that cut o' yore'n." "Oh, I'm doing pretty well, Peter," answered Westerfelt, as he extended his hand without rising. "But I didn't know that you ever got this far from home." "Hain't once before, since I went to fight the Yanks," grinned Slogan. "Seems to me I've rid four hundred an' forty-two miles on that churndasher thar.
You see, I stayed wid de folks til 'long cum de Yanks. Dey took me off an' put me in de War. Firs', dey shipped me on a gunboat an', nex', dey made me he'p dig a canal at Vicksburg. I was on de gunboat when it shelled de town. It was turrible, seein' folks a-tryin' to blow each other up. Whilst us was bull-doggin' Vicksburg in front, a Yankee army slipped in behin' de Rebels an' penned 'em up.
"Dave an' Billy told us good-bye yesterday. Pap is going down the mountain to-day. Dave took the shotgun an' pap has grandpap's flintlock, but Billy didn't have a gun. He said he'd take one from the Yanks." "Sho!" exclaimed Sairy. "Didn't he have no weapon at all?" "He had a hunting-knife that was grandpap's. An' the blacksmith made him what he called a spear-head.
Just about the last fighting they had over about Appomattox perhaps the very day before the Surrender he lost that horse and his left arm a-fighting over that same Jay Timlow, who had got a ball in the leg, and Le Moyne was trying to keep him out of the hands of you Yanks. "He got back after a while, and has been living with his mother on the old plantation ever since.
I never thought Yanks had any of the rudiments of decorum and laudability about them. I reckon I might have been too aggregative in my tabulation. But it ain't me you want to thank it's the Confederate States of America. "'And I'm much obliged to 'em, says I. 'It's a poor man that wouldn't be patriotic with a country that's saved his life.
Word Of The Day