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"Orderly-Sergeant," said the Captain, "detail a Corporal and five men to report for fatigue duty at Division Headquarters to-morrow at 7 o'clock." The Orderly-Sergeant looked over his roster, and then walked down to Si's residence. "Klegg," said he, "you will report for fatigue duty at Division Headquarters to-morrow at 7 o'clock with five men.
The teamster demurred, but Shorty was obdurate, and began preparations to put his intention into operation, when the Orderly-Sergeant came down through the company street distributing mail. "Shorty," he said, entirely ignoring the bellicosity of the scene, "here's a letter for you." Shorty's first thought was to look at the postmark. Sure enough, it was Bad Ax, Wis.
We'd just got there, and it looked as if the biting was good, and we probably wouldn't stay there longer'n over Sunday." "Well, I ain't done yet," continued the Orderly-Sergeant. "That little snipe, Pete Skidmore " "Good gracious, he wasn't lost again, was he?" gasped Si. "That's just what he was, the little runt, and we had the devil's own time finding him.
By and by their bugles sounded, and they trotted away, wheeling over the ivy-grown stone bridge, and disappearing behind the trees on the Milnethorpe road. Our host comes forth from the bar with a bill, which he presents to an orderly-sergeant. He, the host, then tells me that he himself once rode many years, a trooper, in this regiment, and that all his comrades were larger men than himself.
"Among the prisoners captured by Kilpatrick's cavalry was Captain Brown, of the Fifth Virginia cavalry, and the guerilla, Colonel E. P. Jones. The only man wounded was Orderly-Sergeant Northrup, of Company G, Harris Light Cavalry, who was hit with a buckshot-charge fired by a bushwhacker.
Hain't they got any niggers around here that they kin set at the work?" Nor did Si like the job. "The artillery made the muss, and now the infantry's got to stay and clean up after it. That don't seem right." "Well, orders is orders, and got to be obeyed," said the Orderly-Sergeant, cutting short the discussion with the usual formulary of his class.
Of the pandemonium that reigned inside the rebel works for the next few minutes Si only recollected seeing the Orderly-Sergeant, bareheaded, and with bayonet fixed, leap down from the bank and transfix a man who tried to snatch the flag from the Colonel's hand.
By and by their bugles sounded, and they trotted away, wheeling over the ivy-grown stone bridge, and disappearing behind the trees on the Milnethorpe road. Our host comes forth from the bar with a bill, which he presents to an orderly-sergeant. He, the host, then tells me that he himself once rode many years, a trooper, in this regiment, and that all his comrades were larger men than himself.
And they proceeded to get themselves some supper, accompanying the work of denunciations of the Commissary for the kind of rations he was drawing for the regiment, and of the Orderly-Sergeant for his letting the other Orderlies eucher him out of the company's fair share.
AS usual, it seemed to the boys of the 200th Ind. that they had only lain down when the bugle blew the reveille on the morning of May 3, 1864. The vigilant Orderly-Sergeant was at once on his feet, rousing the other "non-coms" to get the men up.
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