MOBILE REGISTER AND ADVERTISER, July 24, 1864, p. 1, c. 8
Picture of the War.
Jack Hardin, or the Old Soldier of the Arizona Brigade.
[From the Texas Telegraph]
* * * He was passing by our camp with a simple nod, driving before him a miserable pony that should have been discharged with a pension. "Stop, old soldier, and give us the news. What command are you from?" "Baylor's regiment, Major's division. Wo, there, Starvation, and browse the leaves a little. "Hain't had a mouthful but piney woods grass for four days."
"Is that a specimen of your cavalry horses that have had the forty-six days' running fight." "Not exactly. I had a first-rate horse I got from a dead Ohio Yankee, t'other day, but I met a fine boy going to the army, limping yet from a wound at Pleasant Hill, and he had broke down this horse and was trying to walk. As I was going on a furlough, I took his nag and gave him mine, and I have been driving him and walking ever since." "Put him to the trough there; he shall be fed. Where is your command now, and what doing?"
"Chasing the d---d Yankees yet—down below the Atchafalaya—giving 'em h—l." "You don't seem to have much affection for the rascals. Why are you going the wrong way to find and punish them?"
"Well, Capting. I've been thinking o' that, and have half a notion to turn back. But then you see I'm 55 years old and I have not had no furlough or lost a day in three years and three months; and I drawed with the rest of the boys and it was my luck to get it. I offered it for a pound of tobacco, but none of 'em had more'n a chaw, and so I started; sort o' shamed too 'cause I hadn't no family, but a little girl with her mother's people way down in San Antonio. Hain't no home myself. So I told the boys to give me all their money and I'd go out and see my child and bring in a load of country tobacco. They said hurrah for old Jack Hardin, they did; and they gave me their little change. They've only given me a short furlough and I think old Starvation can't make it to San Antonio and back, so I'll gist go out to Hardin county and see my old uncle, git my tobacco and come back and let some of the other boys go."
"Have you been through all the fights without getting wounded or taken prisoner—Arizona and all?"
"Everywhere, and never got a scratch; but good many times I thought it was all up. You've hearn of Glorietta, I reckon. Well thar was the d---st place I ever got into. I was left with the sick to watch the teams, and all of 'em went into the fight and 'fore I know'd it, here come the Yanks to cut off our train and teams and all. I did manage, God knows how, to chase off twenty mules down a holler and hid behind the rocks, and they never did find me nor my mules; so I saved that many, and that was all that was saved. It saved the lives of our poor sick boys, for they couldn't walk, and every d—d thing besides was gone up."
"But you have a new homespun coat; where did you secure that piece of good luck. The dead Yankee that gave you a horse was not dressed in homespun, was he?"
"No, I was in a sort of hurry when I got his horse, or I'd pulled on his long boots, seein' he wouldn't need 'em any more. But d—n his blue coat! I'd go naked 'fore I'd wear that! You see the hailstones was mighty thick and I might o' got hurt by delayin'. This coat ha, ha! I got curious. As I came along in the jayhawker thicket a feller jumped up from behind a tree and run like a quarter horse. I reckon he'd been asleep. I examined his bed and found only this coat, which had been his pillow. It fits me mighty well, and as I had none I just borrowed it. My old uncle, they say, is rich and I wanted a coat for fear he wouldn't own me. And that d—d jayhawker, he hain't got no rich uncle to visit. I reckon, if he kept on agoin' he's at Orleans by this time."
Having replenished his pony and his appetite, he trudged on saying, "Might obliged, Capting; good luck!"
Three days later I was astonished at a hearty salute from old Jack Hardin, passing by with only a "gwine back, you see!"
"Hold on here, my old soldier—halt, and give us the news of your rich uncle."
"Well, I heard at Jasper that he'd moved away out 'tother side of the Warloup [sp?], and I thought it warn't no use to be follerin' him, so I jist gathered up as much tobacker as the pony could travel under, and started back to camps. You see, I hain't got no home and nobody, but the boys cares for Hardin, and the tobacker will give him a welcome. I bet they'll hurrah when they see me and old 'Starvation' with the load. Then they might git into a fight, and they'd miss old Hardin equal to a squad of doctors among our wounded men. They'll miss me—they will if any on 'em gits hurt." And he started off.
"Stop. You shall not be cheated out of your furlough. Just report to the sergeant in camp, and put old "Star" in the cavallard. He shall be fed—and you, too, till you recruit."
"Thank you, Capting; I'll do that. But you're the first man has offered me shelter since I started. These d----d fellows this o' way don't know that a soldier's human—they think he's a feller to gouge, and charge him a month's wages for a night's lodgin'. D---n 'em! They need a Yankee raid up here. I hearn one making a mighty fuss out here, cause one of his niggers has to work for the Government at the breastworks. I axed him how many years he'd carried a musket in the war himself. This sort o' flummoxed him, and he said he was 45.
"And I'm 55," says I, "and would fight the Yankees if I was 65, ef I could see to draw a bead."
Three days after I called for Jack, thinking to make him a courier to Gen. Taylor, as I needed one; but he was gone—left early that morning, leaving me a message of "bleeged," and saying to the sergeant:--"Tell the 'Capting' that he knows now how to treat an old soldier. That I'm washed clean, well rested, got my belly full, and horse, too, and am good for another three years now, or for the war, if it takes forty years to whip out the Yanks."
Let the readers of this sketch remember the name of old Jack Hardin, of Baylor's regiment, Arizona regiment, as a model patriot and soldier.
Civil War Newspapers by Vicky Betts
