d a musket in
defense of the best Government on earth had some times, if not often,
experiences of which those of Si Klegg are a strong reminder.

THE PUBLISHERS.

THIS BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED

TO THE RANK AND FILE

OF THE GRANDEST ARMY EVER MUSTERED FOR WAR.

SI KLEOG

CHAPTER I. THROUGH MUD AND MIRE

DUTY'S PATH LEADS THE 200TH IND. SOUTHWARD FROM NASHVILLE.

"SHORTY" said Si Klegg, the morning after Christmas, 1862, as the 200th
Ind. sullenly plunged along through the mud and rain, over the roads
leading southward from Nashville, "they say that this is to be a
sure-enough battle and end the war."

"Your granny's night-cap they do," answered Shorty crossly, as he turned
his cap around back ward to stop the icy current from chasing down his
backbone. "How many thousand times 's that bin stuffed into your ears?
This is the forty-thousandth mile we've marched to find that battle that
was goin' to end the war. And I'll bet we'll march 40,000 more. This
war ain't goin' to end till we've scuffed the top off all the roads
in Kentucky and Tennessee, and wore out God's patience and all the
sole-leather in the North. I believe it's the shoe-makers that's runnin'
this war in the interest o' their business."

The cold, soaking rain had reduced the most of the 200th Ind. to a mood
when they would have {16}disputed the Ten Commandments and quarreled
with their mothers.

"There's no use bein' crosser'n a saw-buck, if you are wet, Shorty,"
said Si, walking to the side of the road and scraping off his
generous-sized brogans several pounds of stiff, red mud. "They say this
new General with a Dutch name is a fighter from Wayback, an' he always
licks the rebels right out of their boots. I'm sure, I hope it's so. I
like huntin' ez well ez anybody, an' I'll walk ez fur ez the next man to
find something to shoot. But I think walkin' over two States, backward
and forward, is altogether too much huntin' for so little shootin'.
Don't you?"

"Don't worry," snapped Shorty. "You'll git all the shootin' you want
before your three years are up. It'll keep."

"But why keep it so long?" persisted Si. "If it can be done up in three
months, an' we kin git back home, why dribble it out over three years?
That ain't the way we do work back home on the Wabash."

"Confound back home on the Wabash," roared Shorty. "I don't hear nothin'
else, day and night, but 'back home on the Wabash.' I've bin on the
Wabash, an'