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Updated: May 3, 2025
He and Shorty jumped up and ran over to where the Quartermaster-Sergeant and his assistants were dealing out a handful of crackers and a piece of pork to each man as he came up. "Mebbe I oughtn't to say it," said Si, as he munched away, taking a bite first off the crackers in his right and then off the meat in his left, "but nothing that ever mother baked tasted quite as good as this."
But when the issue commenced my envy died, and I realized that the first requisite of a non-commissioned officer on active service is diplomacy. There were nineteen men in our section, and they soon formed a semi-circle around us after the Corporal had called out, "Rations up." The Quartermaster-Sergeant had given a slip to the Corporal on which was written a list of the rations.
And in despite of such fires, the unrestricted space and pure hill-air notwithstanding, the noisome ditches wherein the cribbed, cabined, and confined defenders of Gueldersdorp alternately grilled and soaked, were alleys of musk-roses, marvels of sanitary purity compared with the works of the besiegers, and the abominable camps, where, in the absence of a nocturnally active Quartermaster-Sergeant, with his band of pioneers, stench took you by the throat and nose, while filth absorbed you over the ankles.
Then followed concerts, which were splendidly arranged by Regimental Sergeant-Major M. Hartnett, a veteran of Ladysmith and East Africa and a pillar of the Battalion, now, alas, dead, and by Quartermaster-Sergeant Mort, himself an adept as an entertainer.
He ordered me to go with him and help him draw the next day's rations, also told me to take my waterproof. Every evening, from each platoon or machine-gun section, a Lance-Corporal and Private goes to the Quartermaster-Sergeant at the Company Stores and draws rations for the following day. Many arguments take place between the "Quarter" and the platoon Non-Com, but the former always wins out.
While Crittenden's and McCook's corps were completely routed and disorganized, Thomas with his 14th corps thus stood the brunt of battle, and saved the Army of the Cumberland from total annihilation. Well may we call him the Rock of Chickamauga! "My father was quartermaster-sergeant of the regiment and I saw him for the first time during the battle on Sunday morning.
Almost every man wore a patch; not like the tiny, black ornament worn on the face by ladies in the old Corinthian days, but a large, comprehensive affair more or less securely sewn on the shirt or the seat of one's riding-breeches. The quartermaster-sergeant complained bitterly over a shortage of grain-sacks: the reason for it was walking about before his eyes all day long.
"They are loaded for the most part with rations for the troops, and grain for the horses and mules, with some general supplies." "Do you know if there is any rope among the supplies?" "The quartermaster-sergeant can answer that question better than I can," replied the officer. "Plenty of it, Lieutenant," replied this man. "It is in the first wagon in the line."
The regiment had been sent elsewhere, and only a quartermaster-sergeant and a squad of men remained. Yet Reynolds stood in the midst of thriving industries and swarming men. The First National Bank in town had now a marble front and a thousand depositors.
I was proudly told by a member of Company G, Seventeenth Mississippi, that Sam Prank, although excelling in every duty of his position, was exceeding brave, often earnestly asking permission to lead the skirmishers, and would shoulder a musket sooner than stay out of the fight. Maurice Bernhiem, quartermaster-sergeant, was also brave as the bravest.
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