Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman. James Harvey Kidd
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iron grey hair and beard which became towards the last almost as white as snow. This gave him a venerable look, though this evidence of apparent age was singularly at variance with his fresh countenance, as ruddy as that of youth. He looked like a preacher, though he would swear like a pirate. Indeed, it would almost congeal the blood in one's veins to hear the oaths that came hissing from between the set teeth of that pious looking old gentleman, from whom you would look for an exhortation rather than such expletives as he dealt in. But it was only on suitable provocation that he gave vent to these outbursts, as he was kind of heart, a good friend, and a capable physician and surgeon. The assistant was David C. Spaulding who remained with us but a short time when he was made surgeon of the Tenth Michigan cavalry—that is to say, in 1863. Weare staid till the war closed and settled in Fairport, New York, where he died.
Spaulding was surgeon in charge of the regimental hospital in Grand Rapids, and on one occasion came to my aid with some very scientific practice. It happened in this way: It came to my knowledge that a man who had enlisted with one of the lieutenants and mustered in with the troop, was not in the service for the first time; that he had enlisted twice before and then succeeded in getting discharged for disability. The informant intimated that the fellow had no intention of doing duty, would shirk and sham illness and probably get into the hospital, where the chances were he would succeed in imposing on the surgeons and in getting discharged again; that it was pay he was after which he did not propose to earn; least of all would he expose his precious life, if by any possibility he could avoid it.
A close watch was put upon the man, and sure enough, just before the regiment was to leave the state, he demurred to doing duty, pleading illness as an excuse. I sent him to the hospital but gave Dr. Spaulding a hint as to the probable nature of the man's illness, and he promised to give his best endeavors to the case. About a week, thereafter, the man came back, and whatever might have been his real condition when he went away, he was unmistakably ill. His pale face and weak voice were symptoms that could not be gainsaid.
"Well," said I, "have you recovered and are you ready for duty?"
"No, I am worse than ever."
"Why do you leave the hospital, then?"
"My God, captain," whined the man, "they will kill me, if I stay there."
"But if you are sick you need treatment."
"I cannot enter that place again."
"You prefer to perform your duties as a good soldier, then?"
"I will do anything rather than go there."
He was directed to go about his business and, soon thereafter, I inquired about the case. Dr. Spaulding said: "I discovered there was nothing the matter with the man, only that he was playing off, and when he described his alleged symptoms, I began a course of heroic treatment. He was purged, cupped, blistered, given emetics, until life really became a burden and he ran away from the "treatment."
This man never went to the regimental hospital again, but he made no end of trouble. He was a chronic shirk. He would not work, and there were not men enough in the regiment to get him into a fight. Soon after the campaign of 1863 opened in Virginia he was missing, and the next thing heard from him was that he had been discharged from some hospital for disability. He never smelt powder, and years after the war, he was to all appearance an able-bodied man. I believe the Sixth was the third regiment which he had gone into in the same way. When he enlisted, the surgeon who examined him pronounced him a sound man, and it was a mystery how he could be physically sound or physically unsound, at will, and so as to deceive the medical examiners in either event. He died long ago and his widow drew a pension after his death as he did before it, but he never did a day's honest military duty in his life. Peace to his ashes! He may be playing some useful part in the other world, for all that I know. At all events, I am glad that his widow gets a pension, though as a soldier he was never deserving of anything but contempt, for he would desert his comrades when they needed aid and never exposed his precious carcass to danger for his country or for a friend.
That is not an attractive picture which I have drawn. I will paint another, the more pleasing by reason of the contrast which the two present.
One day a party of sixteen men came into camp and applied for enlistment. A condition of the contract under which they were secured for my troop was that one of their number be appointed sergeant. They were to name the man and the choice, made by ballot, fell upon Marvin E. Avery. At first blush, he was not a promising candidate for a non-commissioned office. Somewhat ungainly in figure, awkward in manners, and immature in mind and body, he appeared to be; while he seemed neither ambitious to excel nor quick to learn. He certainly did not evince a craving for preferment. In the end it was found that these were surface indications, and that there were inherent in him a strength of character and a robust manliness that only awaited the opportunity to assert themselves.
He was appointed sergeant but, at first, manifested so little aptitude for the work, that it was feared he would never become proficient in his duties, or acquire a sufficient familiarity with tactics to drill a squad. No one could have been more willing, obedient, or anxious to learn. He was a plodder who worked his way along by sheer force of will and innate self-reliance, and governed in all that he did by a high sense of duty. He never attained first rank as a sergeant while in camp, but in the field, he sprang to the front like a thoroughbred. From the moment when he first scented battle, he was the most valuable man in the troop, from the captain down. In this, I am sure, there is no disparagement of the scores of fearless soldiers who followed the guidon of that troop from Gettysburg to Appomattox.
Avery was a hero. In the presence of danger he knew no fear. The more imminent the peril, the more cool he was. He would grasp the situation as if by intuition and I often wondered why fate did not make him colonel instead of myself, and honestly believe that he would have filled the position admirably, though he reached no higher rank than that of sergeant. He had, however, made of himself the trusted assistant and adviser of the commanding officer of his regiment and would have received a commission, had he lived but a few days longer. From the day of his enlistment to the day of his death he was not off duty for a single day; and the command to which he belonged, was in no battle when he was not at the front, in the place of greatest risk and responsibility, from the beginning to the end. He was killed by a shell which struck him in the head, in the battle of Trevillian Station, June 12, 1864. A braver or a truer soldier never fell on the field of battle.
Another excellent soldier was Solon H. Finney, who entered service as sergeant. He rose to be second lieutenant and was killed at Beaver Mills, Virginia, April 4, 1865, just five days before Lee surrendered. Finney was a modest, earnest, faithful man, attentive to his duties, not self-seeking, but contented with his lot and ambitious only to do a man's part. It seemed hard for him to go through so near to the end only to be stricken just as the haven of peace was in sight; but his friends have the satisfaction of knowing that Solon Finney never failed to do that which was right and, though he gave his life, it was surrendered cheerfully in the cause of his country and its flag. He was one of those who would have given a hundred lives rather than have his country destroyed—a genuine patriot and a noble man.
With the Washtenaw contingent of troop "F" came Aaron C. Jewett, of Ann Arbor. Jewett was a leading spirit in University circles. His parents were wealthy, he an only son to whom nothing was denied that a doting father could supply. Reared in luxury, he was handsome as a girl and as lovable in disposition. It was current rumor that one of the most amiable young women in the college town—a daughter of one of the professors—was his betrothed. He was graduated with the senior class of that year and immediately enlisted. Notwithstanding his antecedents and his station in life he performed his humble duties in the ranks without a murmur, thus furnishing one more illustration of the patriotism that animated the best type of young men of that day. Ah! He was a comely soldier, with his round, ruddy face, his fresh complexion, his bright black eyes, and curling hair the color of the raven—his uniform brushed and boots polished to the pink of neatness.
These things together with his modest mien and close attention to his duties made of him a marked man and, in a short time, regimental headquarters had need of him. He was detailed as clerk, then as acting sergeant major and, when early in the year 1863, it was announced that Hiram