Show OLD ABE THE WAB EAGLE A Bird of Battle With a Charmed Life That Was Carried by the Eighth Wisconsin Volunteers BY VIRGINIA FRENCH The emperors of old Rome used to have the figure of an eagle In silver borne aloft before their armies but in i our late civil war one regiment carried a live eagle a baldhead again and again into battle That regiment was the Eighth Wisconsin volunteers and the bird was the special property of Company C They bought him at the beginning of the war and till the end of the war his place was next in rank to that of the regimental flag The men named him Old Abe and swore him Into the United States service a ceremony cere-mony that consisted of putting around his neck red blue and white ribbons and decorating his breast with a rosette ro-sette of the same Being now a national na-tional bird he was furnished at state expense with a new perch which was used throughout the war and worn and battered with service is still reserved re-served by Wisconsin as an army relic An eagle bearer was appointed Com I pany C was the regimental color company com-pany and when the regiment formed in line the eagle was always on the left of the color bearer Old Abe was In all the regiments battles He had some of his tail feathers shot away once but he never lost a drop of blood and more than that neither color bearer nor eagle bearer In this regiment regi-ment was ever shot so that the soldiers sol-diers said that Old Abe led a charmed life and that he cast a spell of protection pro-tection around those two men who were his particular friends He would grow greatly excited In battle and scream and flap his wings continually he would also behave In this vainglorious vain-glorious way any time that his regiment regi-ment gave veQt to cheers but to reg cheering of other regiments he paid no attention After he had been in the army a year he always gave heed to Attention he would fasten his eye on the parade commander and note time accuratiy When parade was dismissed dis-missed he would drop his military airs and stretch and Oap his wings The soldiers vtere so Inspired with enthusiasm by their bird that at the battle of Corinth the confederate General Gen-eral Price said he would rather cap ture that eagle than to take the whole regiment without him But he was never taken and it was the boast of his regiment that they never lost a battle though they saw such hard 1 I I service that nearly half of their orig inal number lay when the war closed in soldiers graves The old cOloQel of the regiment said that he sincerely believed that the regiments proud record owned not a little to the eagle he shared General Prices view of the case |