Show A 14 vi vt 7 BY WESTERN NEWSPAPER UN ON r e III e Z I 1 R f q THE LITTLE BUGLER BUGLE R AS HE LOOKED IN 61 A aarn F johnston FJ went to war at the age of eleven years and became ethe a plains fighter afterward his HI s 7 TH BUGLER 1 reflections here set down point a HOME A SOLDIERS TODA TODAY W moral and adorn tale lie down to sleep stretched in long lines of any an a y j J number of men all curled up spoon fashion as a close together as possible this human document Is pub dished as one ot lie the most remarkable re m letters we ever read it was not intended d for cation originally but was written by mr johnston who lives in the michl fran gan soldiers florae to his brother an editor in nebraska 1 I 1 Y DEAR brother george your letter ot of november 27 la is at hand and it warms my old heart to think my little brother Is so inter ested in anything pertaining to my rather uneventful past of all things I 1 despise an egotist however as you wish to know something about 4 your brother billy s early experience I 1 don dont t see how I 1 can help telling I 1 was born june 18 1850 in detroit mich and when the civil war broke out in 1861 1 I was going to school with no thought of adyth ng but a good time and mischief in july 1861 when one month past eleven years of age I 1 offered my services in the ninth michigan infantry company H cap tain adams in command which was quartered at fort port wayna of course I 1 ran away from school to enlist and mother was almost crazy before they found out where I 1 was they kept me some two weeks at the tort fort as a drummer boy I 1 was so chort short my drum would not clear the ground when marching and I 1 had got into so much mischief in ili that time that a sergeant took me to the port gate toofe took me over his knee and spanked me with a leather belt ana told me to beat it tor for home aad slid mother which I 1 did I 1 have always thought father told them what to do with me ay my well father whipped me and mother cried over me and as I 1 lad got peppered wi h lice while at the tort fort I 1 was made to sleep in the barn for a week until cleaned up but the fife and drum were too much tor for me and in july when twelve years and a month old 1862 1 I again ran away from home and enlisted in the twenty fourth michigan infantry which was quartered on the old fair grounds in detroit I 1 beat the drum and played the devil tor for ten days when I 1 was again taken to the guard line and invited to skip with the in vi tation went some kicks and cuffs I 1 have not no t tor for gotten yet but the boys were not to blame tor for the rough treatment they gave me as my father had quietly put them up to it trying to make me tired of soldiering my brothers and sisters thought I 1 was a hero father thought I 1 was a devil but mother thought I 1 was just her own little billy just the same but go 90 to school I 1 would not there was too much attraction on the street so in ocoler 1862 my mother packed a little trunk of clothing and they started me for the lansing agricultural college well things began to happen then I 1 arrived at the school in the afternoon of saturday october 9 and was to have been examined and put into my classes monday morning 1 I might say this was the extent of my college education schooling and the last of my sunday morning mr T abets who kept the boarding house for the school and his wife fr f r the left day to make a vis t milton ward of detroit who was at the school at the time and self helt my were boon companions having been ed acquaint in detroit sunday morn ng milton and I 1 hooked away and went up to lans ng as I 1 remember ren lember it a couple of miles milt away always had and money was four or five years older than I 1 he hel got a big bag of candy and a bottle of wine win out to the school we went for a lark after dinner milt and I 1 and another boy and three or four little girls who were visiting boys I 1 at the school got together in a big room upstairs and what a time we did have mr and his wife came home and found the lot of us all as pp some on the floor some on the bed but all of us tipsy and sick from the wine was there anything doin doln then I 1 should say yea yes this whole lark was laid at my door I 1 wac war locked in a room to be kept until monday when I 1 was to be sent back home to my parents I 1 did not dare go home as father would certainly have tried at least to whip some of the meanness out of me tor for I 1 had about used up his patience so after the house had got quiet at night I 1 dropped out the window and hiked for lansing they were then recruiting for the sixth michigan cavalry I 1 told the recruiting officer I 1 had no mother or father that I 1 sold papers and did odd jobs tor for a living and swore I 1 was eighteen years old sure he knew better but they enlisted me regularly as a bugler and assigned me to company G sixth michigan cavalry I 1 was twelve years three months and twenty three days old and was in my third enlistment but this was the first time I 1 was mustered in alt alf madden enlisted with me I 1 was sent to grand rapids where the regiment was camped while being recruited to its full strength we were mustered into the service there the life that we led the officers of company G was anything but pleasant in hi washington we camped for a time on meri merl den hill from which place we made our first hike and we tasted war when we went to falmouth and skirmished with moseby s guerrillas we had the opportunity of trading coffee tor for tobacco with the confederate pickets A white handkerchief on the end of a saber was the signal to stop shooting while the trade was being made between the crebs on oil the fredericksburg side of the rap pa hannock river and us yanks on the falmouth side I 1 must say I 1 never knew of any advantage being taken to shoot a fellow while the trade was being made in the early s siring ring of 1863 no regi ment was kept more busy than the sixth michigan looking out for moseby and his men we always had them but never got them to any great ex tent moseby was a wonder from then to the time I 1 was taken prisoner we were in eighteen battles and minor engage ments between june 30 to october 11 1863 the little bugler never lost a day but did lose lots of meals in that time on october 11 1863 at brandy station my horse was shot from under me and I 1 was taken pris oner our regiment was charging through a regi ment ot of enemy cavalry that had got in between the main column and the rear guard I 1 when my horse was struck by a piece of shell between the knee and hoof throwing me heels over appetite some feet over his head I 1 was cut and bruised by the feet of the charging troopers who were be hind when I 1 finally got up it was to look into the barrel of what appeared to me to be a cannon but I 1 in n tact fact was only a 45 colt and a fellow in a gray suit was telling me to strip he took my shoes and pants and darn him he could not wear either of them he nas mas so much larger than I 1 I 1 was taken with a trainload of other prisoners to richmond va but on the way had traded off my blouse tor for something to eat we were divided up in bunches after arriving at richmond destiny sent me to old libby prison and later to belle isle I 1 had no pants shoes or hat one of the older men had given me an old coat the guard would issue us a few sticks of wood in the evening we burned our fires as long as possible and when the fires bad had burned out to coals we scattered the coals oer oler the ground to warm it and then would I 1 lay down on the end of the line one cold when soon a poor fellow came and snuggled up to me along in the early morning when he should have turned to warm my back he did not move I 1 got up on my elbow and pulled his nose he was dead it was the most frightful experience I 1 ever had our dead were usually relieved of any good clothing they may have had on to be used by those who were almost naked I 1 had still on what was left of a shirt and pair palf of drawers that I 1 had worn for almost a year can you realize or im agine how little of either were left I 1 went down to the dead line one morning and saw a body on which was a fine shirt of blue cashmere cloth I 1 went to the gate and asked the officer of the con federate guard an old man it if I 1 might remove the shirt from that body to wear myself my poor boy he said and gave permission with tears running down his wrinkled cheeks to take the shirt A red whiskered spindle low down fellow from wisconsin that I 1 was chumming with and whom I 1 had kept alive by stealing grub tor for him to eat stole that shirt from me I 1 lost a silver mine in colorado years ago that sold afterwards tor for three hundred thousand dollars but it did not hurt so badly as the loss of that shirt shortly after this there was a parole of sick and disabled men agreed on by the governments I 1 got out and walked aboard our transport at sa vannah the edest looking kid that ever left that city what few troops there were in that transport just stood and cried when they saw our boys this was the nineteenth of november 1864 at annapolis I 1 got my back pay ration money and clothing money tor for the time I 1 had been pris oner amounting to some with a furlough for thirty days I 1 started tor for detroit I 1 can t tell you all that happened on the trip but I 1 got home broke after a week or ten days on the road father killed the tatted fatted calf mother had it cooked and I 1 was made much of by everybody for I 1 had been reported dead long ago and they had preached a memorial sermon tor for me telling what a good little boy I 1 had been I 1 came home and spoiled it all after a few days at home I 1 went to dismounted camp at harper s ferry perry and from the camp was returned to my regiment then in washington waiting to take part in the grand review after which we were sent to fort leavenworth here I 1 was discharged and the regiment sent out on the plains after indians I 1 went to denver in the fall of 1865 with a mule train before there was a railroad in the moun bains I 1 returned to topeka kan with bull trains enlisting in the regular army went to call tornia fornia by way of the isthmus guarded surveyors in arizona from the indians and fought indians in arizona with the first united states cavalry I 1 made a trip into mexico with a load of phoney leweir later I 1 was arrested as a filibuster spy in guaymas and was shipwrecked on my trip from guaymas to Maz atlan two out of seven were saved after floating around for thirty six hours I 1 viat ws shanghaied in san francisco and taken tallen around cape horn to dublin which was the most adventurous five live months of my life I 1 came back to my home in 1873 married in 1874 and settled down don to be decent I 1 am now a member of the michigan soldiers home uncle sam is trying his best to make me comfortable in my declining years but neither he nor all the powers that be can make up the ten years worse than lost from my twelfth to twenty second year for what I 1 did not learn that was rough in that time I 1 have halve not learned since and it Is nat in the books |