The Irish Volunteer Official Newsletter of the 116th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, Co. B VoL. X. - No. 1] PENNSYLVANIA, October, 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 October 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 Brunk House Living History Saturday October 11. Board Meeting Monday October 27, 2003 6PM 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 BOARD MEETING! The next meeting of the 116th board will be at 6 PM on Monday October 27th . Location will be John Bakers office at 2339 State St in Salem. Planned topics include upcoming elections and the Christmas party. 3/43/43/43/43/4(3/43/43/43/43/4 ELECTIONS! ELECTIONS! ELECTIONS! Yes, it is election time again. This year we need to fill the following positions: Captain 1st Sergeant 2nd Sergeant 1st Corporal 2nd Corporal 3rd Corporal Watch for ballots in November!!!! 3/43/43/43/43/4(3/43/43/43/43/4 4th 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 LIVING HISTORY September 27th and 28th Fort Hoskins once again came alive with the sounds of soldiers. Visitors from as far away as Lebanon (Lebanon Oregon) to enjoy the day . The Jantzen and Smith families of the 1st Oregon (20th Main) joined our 4th California troops for drill and Living History. Captain and Mrs. Stowell had a wall tent up and several Dog tents were also prominent. Harry Berkheimer, founder and 1st Captain of the 116th spent the day with the troops. The bayonet drill was cancelled due to the unseasonably warm weather. 3/43/43/43/43/4(3/43/43/43/43/4 FRESNO KEARNY PARK REENACTMENT The 116th Companies B and C met at Kearney Park in Fresno California over the weekend of October 3rd, 4th and 5th. Although attendance was a little down from last year, this event was probably still the largest reenactment west of the Mississippi. Friday morning was spent in Living History with thousands of school children, some had virtually no clue about the Civil War prior to coming. Later on the 116th participated in a skirmish. There were two battles on Saturday and two on Sunday. Our Lieutenant Baker, along with company C's Captain Grace, did a splendid job in leading our troops, on and off the field. See photos at the end of this newsletter. 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 Brunk House Living History Saturday Oct. 11. from 9 till 4 PM. Located off of Highway 22. Bring your lunch and plan on spending the day at this Historic house, "under the shade of the old apple tree." 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 3/43/43/43/43/4(3/43/43/43/43/4 SI KLEGG: HIS TRANSFORMATION FROM A RAW RECRUIT TO A VETERAN by John McElroy CHAPTER 4 THE AWFUL HARDTACK - THE HARD AND SOLID STAFF OF MILITARY LIFE. "Appetite's a queer thing," said Si to Shorty one day, when both were in a philosophical mood. "It's an awful bother when you haven't it, and it's a great deal worse when you have it, and can't get anything for it." "Same as money," returned sage Shorty. During the first few months of Si Klegg's service in the army the one thing that bothered him more than anything else was his appetite. It was a very robust, healthy one that Si had, for he had grown up on his father's farm in Indiana, and had never known what it was to be hungry without abundant means at hand for appeasing his desires in that direction. His mother's cupboard was never known to be in the condition of Old Mother Hubbard's, described in the nursery rhyme. The Kleggs might not have much tapestry and bric-a-brac in their home, but their smoke-house was always full, and Mrs. Klegg's kitchen could have fed a camp-meeting any time without warning. So it was that when Si enlisted his full, rosy face and his roundness of limb showed that he had been well fed, and that nature had made good use of the ample daily supplies that were provided. His digestive organs were kept in perfect condition by constant exercise. After Si had put down his name on the roll of Co. Q of the 200th Ind. he had but a few days to remain at home before his regiment was to start for Louisville. During this time his mother and sisters kept him filled up with "goodies" of every sort. In fact, it was the biggest thing in the way of a protracted picnic that Si had ever struck. "You must enjoy these things while you can, Si," said his mother, "for goodness knows what you'll do when you really git into the army. I've heerd 'em tell awful things about how the poor sogers don't have half enough to eat, and what they do git goes agin' any Christian stomach. Here, take another piece of this pie. A little while, and it'll be a long time, I reckon, till ye git any more." "Don't keer if I do !" said Si, for there was scarcely any limit to his capacity. And so during those days and nights the old lady and the girls cooked and cooked, and Si ate and ate, until it seemed as if he wouldn't want any more till the war was over. Si was full, and as soon as Co. Q was, it was ordered to camp, and Si had to go. They loaded him down with good things enough to last him a week. The pretty Annabel-the neighbor's daughter who had solemnly promised Si that she wouldn't go with any other fellow while he was away----came around to see Si off and brought him a rich fruit cake. "I made that for you," she said. "Bully for you !" said Si, for he felt that he must begin to talk like a soldier. The first day or two after reaching Louisville the 200th received rations of "soft bread." But that didn't last long. It was only a way they had of letting the fresh soldier down easy. Orders came to get ready to pull out after Bragg, and then Si's regiment had its first issue of army rations. As the Orderly pried open a box of hardtack and began to distribute them to the boys, Si exclaimed: "Them's nice-looking soda crackers. I don't believe the grub is going to be so bad, after all." Si had never seen a hardtack before. "Better taste one and see how you like it !" said one of Buell's ragged Indiana veterans, who had come over to see the boys of the 200th and hear the latest news from "God's country." It happened that this lot was one of extra quality as to hardness. The baker's watch had stopped, or he had gone to sleep, and they had been left in the oven or dry-kiln too long. Si took one of them and carried it to his mouth. He first tried on it the bite which made such havoc with a quarter section of custard pie, but his incisors made no more impression upon it than if it had been a shingle. "You have to bear on hard," said the veteran, with a grim smile. "Je-ru-sa-lem !" exclaimed Si after he had made two or three attempts equally barren of results. Then he tried his "back teeth." His molars were in prime order, and his jaw power was sufficient to crack a hickory nut every time. Si crowded one corner of the hardtack as far as he could between his "grinders," where he could get a good "purchase" on it, shut his eyes and turned on a full head of steam. His teeth and jaws fairly cracked under the strain, but he couldn't even "phase" it. "If that ain't old pizen !" said Si. "It beats anything I ever seen up in the Wabash country." But his blood was up, and laying the cracker upon a log, he brought the butt of his gun down upon it like a pile-driver. "I thought I'd fix ye," he said, as he picked up the fragments, and tried his teeth upon the smaller ones. "Have I got to eat such stuff as that?" with a despairing look at his veteran friend. "I'd just as soon be a billy-goat and live on circus-posters, fruit-cans and old hoop-skirts." "You'll get used to it after a while, same's we did. You'll see the time when you'll be mighty glad to get even as hard a tack as that!" Si's heart sank almost into his shoes at the prospect, for the taste of his mother's pie and Annabel's fruit cake were yet fresh in his mouth. But Si was fully bent on being a loyal, obedient soldier, determined to make the best of everything without any more "kicking" than was the inalienable right of every man who wore a uniform. For the first time in his life Si went to bed hungry that night. Impelled by the gnawings of his appetite he made repeated assaults upon the hardtack, but the result was wholly insufficient to satisfy the longings of his stomach. His supper wasn't anything to speak of. Before going to bed he began to exercise his ingenuity on various schemes to reduce the hardtack to a condition in which it would be more gratifying to his taste and better suited to the means with which nature had provided him for disposing of his rations. Naturally Si thought that soaking in water would have a beneficial effect. So he laid five or six of them in the bottom of a camp-kettle, anchored them down with a stone, and covered them with water. He thought that with the aid of a frying-pan he would get up a breakfast that be could eat, anyway. Si felt a little blue as he lay curled up under his blanket with his head pillowed on his knapsack. He thought some about his mother, and sister Maria. and pretty Annabel, but he thought a good deal more about the beef and potatoes, the pies and the puddings, that were so plentifully spread upon the table at home. It was a long time before he got to sleep. As he lay there, thinking and thinking, there came to his mind some ether uses to which it seemed to him the hardtack might be put, which would be much more consistent with its nature than to palm it off on the soldiers as alleged food. He thought he could now understand why, when he enlisted, they examined his teeth so carefully, as if they were going to buy him for a mule. They said it was necessary to have good teeth in order to bite "cartridges" successfully, but now he knew it was with reference to his ability to eat hardtack. Si didn't want to be killed if he could help it. While he was lying there he determined to line one of his shirts with hardtacks, and he would put that on whenever there was going to be a fight. He didn't believe the bullets would go through them. He wanted to do all he could toward paralyzing the rebels, and with such a protection he could be very brave, while his comrades were being mowed down around him. The idea of having such a shirt struck Si as being a brilliant one. Then, he thought hardtack would be excellent for half-soling his shoes. He didn't think they would ever wear out. If he ran short of ammunition he could ram pieces of hardtack into his gun and he had no doubt they would do terrible execution in the ranks of the enemy. All these things and many more Si thought of until finally he was lost in sleep. Then he dreamed that somebody was trying to cram stones down his throat. The company was called out at daylight, and immediately after roll-call Si went to look after the hardtacks he had put to soak the night before. He thought he had never felt so hungry in his life. He fished out the hardtack and carefully inspected them, to note the result of the submerging and to figure out the chances on his much-needed breakfast. To any old soldier it would be unnecessary to describe the condition in which Si found those hardtacks, and the effect of the soaking. For the information of any who never soaked a hardtack it may be said that Si found them transformed, to all appearances, into sole-leather. They were flexible, but as tough as the hide that was "found in the vat when the tanner died." Si tried to bite a piece off one of them to see what it was like, but he couldn't get his teeth through it. In sheer desperation he laid it on a log, seized a hatchet, and chopped off a corner. He put it in his mouth and chewed on it a while, but found it as tasteless as cold codfish. Si thought he would try the frying-pan. He chopped the hardtacks into bits, put in equal parts of water and grease, sifted over the mixture a little salt and pepper, and then gave it a thorough frying. Si's spirits rose during the gradual development of this scheme, as it seemed to offer a good prospect for his morning meal. And when it came to the eating, Si found it really good, comparatively speaking, even though it was very much like a dish compounded of the sweepings from around a shoemaker's bench. A good appetite was indispensable to a real enjoyment of this-which the soldiers called by a name that cannot be given here-but Si had the appetite, and he ate and was thankful. "I thought I'd get the bulge on them things some way or other," said Si, as he drank the last of his coffee and arose from his meal feeling like a giant refreshed with new wine. For the next two or three months Si largely devoted his surplus energies to further experimenting with the hardtack. He applied every conceivable process of cookery he could think of that was possible with the meager outfit at his command in the way of utensils and materials. Nearly all of his patient and persevering efforts resulted only in vexation of spirit. He continued to eat hardtack from day to day, in these various forms, but it was only because he had to do it. He didn't hanker after it, but it was a military necessity-hardtack or starvation. It was a hard choice, but Si's love of life-and Annabel-induced him to choose the hardtack. But for a long time Si's stomach was in a state of chronic rebellion, and on the whole he had a hard time of it getting used to this staple article of army diet. He did not become reconciled to it until after his regiment had rations of flour for a week, when the "cracker-line" had been cut by the guerrillas and the supply of that substantial edible was exhausted. Si's experience with the flour swept away all his objections to the hardtack. Those slapjacks, so fearfully and wonderfully made, and those lumps of dough, mixed with cold water and dried on flat stones before the fire, as hard as cannon balls, played sad havoc with his internal arrangements. For the first time he was obliged to fall into the cadaverous squad at sick-call and wabble up to the doctor's shop, where he was dosed with castor-oil and blue-mass. Si was glad enough to see hardtack again. Most of the grumbling he did thereafter concerning the hardtack was because he often couldn't get enough. About six months taught Si what all the soldiers learned by experience, that the best way to eat the average hardtack was to take it "straight"-just as it came out of the box, without any soaking or frying or stewing. At meal-time he would make a quart or so of coffee, stab the end of a ramrod through three or four slices of sowbelly, and cook them over the coals, allowing some of the drippings to fall upon the hardtack for lubricating purposes, and these constituted his frugal repast. 3/43/43/43/43/4(3/43/43/43/43/4 CHRISTMAS PARTY We are starting to plan the Christmas Party, the place and date are not set yet (to be agreed on at the board meeting and will be sent out the next day so you can plan to be there) This is what we are planning on doing. Please bring a main dish and or salad, but NO desserts, do bring a topping or two for ice cream, as we are going to have an ice cream social and the club will pay for the ice cream. We are doing a gift exchange and this is the criteria- no more than a $10.00 value and if it could be used for reenacting that would be nice, gifts exchange for adults suitable for men or women, youth ages 11yrs to 18 yrs (approximately), children 6yrs to 10yrs (approximately), toddlers under 6yrs (approximately). Be creative, homemade. There may be a game or two so be prepared to volunteer and there will be dancing so come in your best, and as always lots of visiting. hope to see all of you there, Lynette and committee 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 a 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