The Irish Volunteer Official Newsletter of the 116th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, Co. B VoL. X. - No. 1] PENNSYLVANIA, November, 1863 [SINGLE COPIES SIX CENTS Entered according to Act of Congress, in the Year 1863, by Sullivan et-al in the Clerk's Office for the Far Western District of Pennsylvania November 2003 Joe and Holly Sullivan Editors 3/43/43/43/43/4(3/43/43/43/43/4 ADMINISTRATION IN THE FIELD Capt. Steve Stowell BEHIND THE DESK Chairman, Kevin Burton ON THE HOME FRONT Civilian Advocate, Lynette Stowell Official Web Site of 116 PVI http://www.116pvi.org 3/43/43/43/43/4(3/43/43/43/43/4 UPCOMING EVENTS AND MEETINGS Board Meeting Monday November 24th, 2003 6:30 PM at John Baker's office in Salem Veterans Day Parade November 9th in Eugene Veterans Day Parade November 11th in Albany For a full calendar of events visit our events web page at http://www.116pvi.org/Upcoming Events.htm 3/43/43/43/43/4(3/43/43/43/43/4 CHRISTMAS PARTY! Date: December 6 Time: 4:30 till??? Place: Polk County Fair Grounds on Hwy 99 at Rickreal (directions call Lynette) Please bring: a main dish and a side dish, 1 or 2 toppings for ice cream, place settings for your family, a gift if exchanging. NO DESSERTS, company is providing drinks and ice cream. Gift exchange: no more than $10.00 maybe something that could be used to reenact with, maybe something homemade. * -adults- for either man or woman * -youth- 11years to 18years (approximately) * -children- 7years to 10years (approximately) * -toddlers- under 7years This is what we are doing: * eating at about 4:45 * ice cream social * gift exchange * games maybe 1 or 2 * dancing 3/43/43/43/43/4(3/43/43/43/43/4 VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! All members need to vote to accept or reject the Restated 116th Articles of Incorporation. At the board meeting on October 27th, the board reviewed the updated and restated Articles and voted that they be sent to the membership for final approval. All members that have attained 16 years of age are eligible to vote. Ballots must be returned by 11/24. **** This year we need to vote for 6 open military positions. All military members that have attained 16 years of age are eligible to vote for the following positions: Captain 1st Sergeant 2nd Sergeant 1st Corporal 2nd Corporal 3rd Corporal 4th Corporal Ballots have been mailed to eligible members and should arrive in the next few days. These ballots need to be returned before the 24th of November!!! 4th 3/43/43/43/43/4(3/43/43/43/43/4 ANNUAL EUGENE VETERANS DAY PARADE Eugene Veterans Day Parade will be Sunday November 9th at 1 PM. There will be approximately 120 entries, including an Abrams tank, and a fly over by 2 F-18 fighter jets. Television coverage will be taking place also, so this is a good opportunity to get out and show the public in the southern valley something about our hobby, and to honor those veterans who have served and continue to serve. This area is populated by thousands who are proud of our veterans and who turn out to support them and their accomplishments. If you are a veteran please feel free to wear your medals proudly. Directions: Off I-5 take the I-105 exit and head west toward Eugene. Take the Coburg Rd exit and head onto the overpass, you will drop onto Coburg Rd and go over the Ferry St Bridge. Take the 1st exit off the bridge(6th St) and follow it to Willamette St. Turn left and follow Willamette out until you see the EM'S Baseball stadium on your right. South Eugene High is across the street. There will be volunteers to help you find where you need to be. 3/43/43/43/43/4(3/43/43/43/43/4 ALBANY VETERANS DAY PARADE The Largest Veterans day parade west of the Mississippi will be held in Albany Oregon on Tuesday November 11th. This years theme is "America Stands United". Staging for participants will be at 8:30 A.M. on Industrial Way, just off Marion and Jackson Streets. The Parade starts at 10 AM with the parade route being about a mile long. 3/43/43/43/43/4(3/43/43/43/43/4 Fort Hoskins February 1865 The following comes from William M. Hilleary's "Recollections". Hilleary was a private stationed at Ft. Hoskins in 1865. -Ed. "Much of the time while at Hoskins we were required to go into the woods and cut our own wood. It required about two cords every day to keep up the fires in the fort. We had no stoves, not even cook-stoves, but open fire places in every room. The usual style of bunk was two stories high, arranged for four persons, two above and two below. The end of the bunk was set against the wall with a space of two feet between it and the next one. On the end of the bunk next the aisle a gun rack was fixed up for four guns and the necessary fixtures. There was a row of such bunks on either side of the squad room. The bed sacks were generally made single width, hence there was no grumbling that one or the other had all the straw on their side. If straw was scarce no one could get more than his share, for it was weighed out in equal quantities to each one. The squad room was kept in order by a 'room orderly,' detailed by the order sergeant every day. It was his duty to keep up the fires and swept out and keep the floor clean. Sometimes it would be ordered that the room orderly carry a mop and when he caught any one spitting on the floor he was authorized to hand the mop over to the offender, who in turn had to carry it and keep the floor clean until he could catch some one else spitting on the floor." -------- Pork used in the bean soup served by the chief cook, Claypool, "had been packed twelve years before, and shipped from New York; then put in water to fill the kettles. The odor from those kettles would have attracted cayotes for fifty miles. What a grist of grease raised to the top of those pots! In the course of a month we had barrels of hog grease, and invited those in need of soap grease to call and examine our stock before purchasing elsewhere. We threw out rich greasy slops at our own back door and the pigs from the neighboring farms were attracted thither, and ye farmer laughed to see his porkers growing fat so fast on so small amount of wheat. And ye guard reported one dark night a fight with a bear. Short and decisive was the battle. The breakfast table was loaded with "bear steaks," and a mess was sent to ye officers. And ye "bears" returned nightly and fell in like manner. And when the daylight was come ye farmers and their sons arose and cried with a loud voice saying "pig-oo-ee." And behold, the fattest of their porkers came not, and the farmers said one to another, "There's something wrong a-brewing, don't you smell a mice?" And girding up their loins, they came up to our coasts and drove down all, both big, little, old and young, of the tribe of hog. And it came to pass that the guard was vexed no more in the night time by ye "bears." 3/43/43/43/43/4(3/43/43/43/43/4 CLASSIFIEDS Place your classified ads here, free to members 3/43/43/43/43/4(3/43/43/43/43/4 NCWC WINTER BALL November 15th from 7PM till 10:30 PM at Norse Hall, 111 NE 11th & NE Couch Portland, Oregon. Tickets will be sold at the door for $12 per person. Please, no shoes with heel plates or hobnails. For more information contact Catherine Harper at goshawk.harper@worldnet.att.net phone: 503-624-3901 3/43/43/43/43/4(3/43/43/43/43/4 DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION This is your newsletter and all are encouraged to submit articles to it. All announcements, advertisements, letters to the editor, and articles must be received by the 19th of the month to make the next newsletter. Make submissions to: Editor 24465 Gellatly Way Philomath, Oregon, 97370 Or email: mailto:editor@116pvi.org SI KLEGG: HIS TRANSFORMATION FROM A RAW RECRUIT TO A VETERAN by John McElroy CHAPTER 5 FAT PORK - INDISPENSABLE BODY TIMBER FOR PATRIOTISM. It was told in the last chapter how the patriotic impulses of Si Klegg, of the 200th Ind., reached his stomach and digestive apparatus, and brought them under obedient subjection to hardtack. He didn't have quite so rough an experience with that other staple of army diet, which was in fact the very counterpart of the hardtack, and which took its most popular name from that part of the body of the female swine which is usually nearest the ground. Much of Si's muscle and brawn was due to the fact that meat was always plenty on his father's farm. When Si enlisted he was not entirely free from anxiety on the question of meat, for to his appetite it was not even second in importance to bread. If bread was the "staff of life," meat was life itself to Si. It didn't make much difference to him what kind it was, only so it was meat. He didn't suppose Uncle Sam would keep him supplied with quail on toast and porterhouse steaks all the time, but he did hope he would give him as much as he wanted of something in that line. "You won't get much pork, unless you're a good forager," said one of Si's friends he met at Louisville, and who had been a year in the service. Si thought he might, with practice and a little encouragement, be fairly successful in foraging on his own hook, but at the same time he said he wouldn't grumble if he could only get plenty of pork. Fortunately for him he had not been imbued with the teachings of the Hebraic dispensation which declared "unclean" the beast that furnished the great bulk of the animal food for the American defenders of the Union. Co. Q of the 200th Ind. received with the first issue of army rations at Louisville a bountiful supply of bacon of prime quality, and Si was happy at the prospect. He thought it would always be that way. "I don't see anything the matter with such grub as that!" said Si. "Looks to me as though we were goin' to live like fighting-cocks." "You're just a little bit brash," said his veteran friend, who had just been through the long, hungry march from Huntsville, Ala., to Louisville. "Better eat all you can lay yer hands on now, while ye've got a chance. One o' these days ye'll git into a tight place and ye won't see enough hog's meat in a week to grease a griddle. I've bin there, myself! Jest look at me and see what short rations 'll bring you to?" But Si thought he wouldn't try to cross a bridge till he got to it, nor lie awake nights worrying over troubles that were yet in the future. Si had a philosophical streak in his mental make-up and this, by the way, was a good thing for a soldier to have. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," was an excellent rule for him to go by. So Si assimilated all the pork that fell to his share, with an extra bit now and then from a comrade whose appetite was less vigorous. He thrived under its fructifying influence, and gave good promise of military activity and usefulness. No scientific processes of cookery were necessary to prepare it for immediate use. A simple boiling or frying or toasting was all that was required. During the few days at Louisville fresh beef was issued occasionally. It is true that the animals slain for the soldiers were not always fat and tender, nor did each of them have four hind-quarters. This last fact was the direct cause of a good deal of inflammation in the 200th Ind., as in every other regiment. The boys who got sections of the forward part of the "critter," usually about three-quarters bone, invariably kicked, and fired peppery remarks at those who got the juicy steaks from the rear portion of the animal. Then when their turn came for a piece of hind-quarter the other fellows would growl. Four-fifths of the boys generally had to content themselves with a skinny rib or a soup-shank. Si shared the common lot, and did his full quota of grumbling because his "turn" for a slice of steak didn't come every time beef was issued. The pickled pork was comparatively free from this cause of irritation. It was all-alike, and was simply "Hobson's choice." Si remembered the fragrant and delicious fried ham that so often garnished his mother's breakfast table and wondered why there was not the same proportion of hams and sides in the Commissary that he remembered in the meat-house on the Wabash. He remarked to Shorty one day: "I wonder where all this pork comes from?" "It comes from Illinoy, I suppose," said Shorty. "I notice the barrels are all marked 'Chicago'." "Must grow funny kind o'hogs out there-mile long each, I should say." "What do you mean?" "Why, we've drawn a full mile o' sides from the Commissary, and haint struck a ham yit. I'm wonderin' jest how long that hog is!" "Well, you are green. You oughter know by this time that there are only enough hams for the officers. Now and then a few pigs' shoulders were handed around among the boys, but the large proportion of bone they contained was exasperating, and was the cause of much profanity. Sometimes bacon was issued that had really outlived its usefulness, except, perhaps, for the manufacture of soap. Improperly "cured," it was strong and rancid, or, occasionally, so near a condition of putrefaction that the stench from it offended the nostrils of the whole camp. Some times it was full of "skippers," that tunneled their way through and through it, and grew fat with riotous living. Si drew the line at this point. He had an iron plated stomach, but putrid and maggoty meat was too much for it. Whenever he got any of this he would trade it off to the darkies for chickens. There is nothing like pork for a Southern negro. He wants something that will "stick to his ribs." By a gradual process of development his appetite reached the point when he could eat his fat pork perfectly raw. During a brief halt when on the march he would squat in a fence corner, go down into his haversack for supplies, cut a slice of bacon, lay it on a hardtack, and munch them with a keen relish. At one of the meetings of the Army of the Cumberland Gen. Garfield told a story which may appropriately close this chapter. One day, while the Army of the Cumberland was beleaguered in Chattanooga and the men were almost starving on quarter rations, Gen. Rosecrans and his staff rode out to inspect the lines. As the brilliant cavalcade dashed by a lank, grizzled soldier growled to a comrade: "It'd be a darned sight better for this army if we had a little more sowbelly and not quite so many brass buttons!" 3/43/43/43/43/4(3/43/43/43/43/4 "Every blade of grass is a study; and to produce two, where there was but one, is both a profit and a pleasure." --A. Lincoln, September 30, 1859 3/43/43/43/43/4(3/43/43/43/43/4 FROM THE CIVILIAN ADVOCATE Greetings to All, We had a fun time at Fort Hoskins, got to know some new members and visited with those from the 20th Maine. Although only 2 tents were put up we had a good time of visiting. Hope more can join us next year!!!! Well Christmas is just around the corner and we are planning our party, I have talked with some of the ladies and got their input and have put together an outline of what we are going to do, there is always room for changes. I have a couple of places in mind and a tentative date, which will be decided at the board meeting and gotten out to you the next day. Hope you all are planning on joining us for this fun time!!!!! Lynette Stowell Civilian Advocate 3/43/43/43/43/4(3/43/43/43/43/4 COMPANY COMMANDER'S REPORT October, 2003 Though the big events have come and gone and fall is upon us .We have had fun at some of our more low keyed activities. There was a fair turn out at Fort Hoskins . Some of us made a week end out of it and set up camp Friday evening , the sky was so clear that we had a breath taking view of thousand upon thousands of stars in the sky above us . Saturday we awoke to a pleasant day and after all were fed and a few reinforcements had arrived we assembled the men. We then went for our annual march around the Fort Hoskins on the trail. We then had the great opportunity to drill and do firing demonstrations for the folks who came to watch . The heat got the better of us and though the soldier in me wanted to drill the men more , the kindhearted side of me won over . So instead of drill we relaxed in what little shade we could find and visited . Saturday evening we enjoyed a great shared meal which consisted of an excellent chilly, bread, cold salad and fresh cucumbers. We broke camp by noon on Sunday after a leisurely morning. A few folks made the trip to the Fresno event and from the report from Cpl. Haggen it was a good reenactment. There are still a few events left so make sure you read the event postings and set the time aside so you can attend them if possible. Company Commander 116th PVI Capt. Steven Lee Stowell 3/43/43/43/43/4(3/43/43/43/43/4 Both the Civilian Advocate Report and the Company Commanders Report were not included in the first release of the October Newsletter, but were added later. They are re-published here for those that may have missed them -ED.