Si Klegg and shorty question

[Doug Potter]

how many Si Klegg and shorty books are there, I just bought a 1889 copy of Si klegg and shorty 750 pages, and have since found another book called the further adventures of Si Klegg and shorty the 2nd year of service published date 1898 with 450 pages how large is the series I was under the impression that there was only the one book.

[64OVI]

Re: Si Klegg and shorty question

Doug, IIRC, there was only one Si Klegg book written by Wilbur Hinman. I believe that later, other volumes (and I dont know how many) were put out by the publisher by another author (I want to say McElroy - and who he was I dont know). I will look further into it and see what I can find.

Kent Dorr
64th OVI

[Tom Ezell]

Re: Si Klegg and shorty question

how many Si Klegg and shorty books are there, I just bought a 1889 copy of Si klegg and shorty 750 pages, and have since found another book called the further adventures of Si Klegg and shorty the 2nd year of service published date 1898 with 450 pages how large is the series I was under the impression that there was only the one book.

Doug:

I'm with ya... Over the past couple of weeks eBay has turned up several origanal copies of the Si Klegg stories... Most folks are familiar with the Hinman book that has been reprinted within the past six or seven years, but the ones now on eBay were published by the National Tribune around 1898 by John McElroy.

The ones I have at this point are Si Klegg - His Transformation from a Raw Recruit to a Veteran (320 pages) and Further Mishaps to Si and Shorty: The Second Year of their Service (448 pages).

Many of the short stories first book are similar to the Hinman edition, and were apparently expanded at one time or another into Hinman's book. The second book is altogether different -- It covers Si & Shorty's experience through the Stones River, Tullahoma, and Chickamauga campaigns in some detail.

These two are written a bit more "colorfully" than the Hinman work, and are quite entertaining as well as educational about life in the Army of the Cumberland. I've got one or two of them transcribed so far, and will try to post a few new quotes in a bit...

Tom

[Tom Ezell]

Re: Si Klegg and shorty question

An excerpt from the first book, Si Klegg - His Transformation from Raw Recruit to Veteran, which didn't make it into Hinman's version.

In the McElroy books, we learn that Si and Shorty hail from Posey County, Injianna, on the banks of the Wabash, where Si frequently wishes he is back in the second book...

DETAILED AS COOK, SI FINDS RICE ANOTHER INNOCENT WITH A GREAT DEAL OF CUSSEDNESS IN IT.

It would have been, very strange, indeed, if Si Klegg had not grumbled loudly and frequently about the food that was dished up to him by the company cooks. In the first place, it was as natural for a boy to grumble at the “grub” as it was for him to try to shirk battalion drill or “run the guard.” In the next place, the cooking done by the company bean-boiler deserved all the abuse it received, for as a rule the boys who sought places in the hash foundry did so because they were too lazy to drill or do guard duty, and their knowledge of cooking was about like that of the Irishman's of music:

“Can you play the fiddle, Pat?” he was asked. “Oi don't know, sor-r-r - Oi niver tried.”

Si's mother, like most of the well-to-do farmers' wives in Indiana, was undoubtedly a good cook, and she trained up her daughters to do honor to her, teachings, so that Si undoubtedly knew what properly-prepared food was. From the time he was big enough to spank he had fared sumptuously every day. In the gush of patriotic emotions that prompted him to enlist he scarcely thought at this feature of the case. If it entered his mind at all, he felt that he could safely trust all to the goodness of so beneficent a Government as that for the preservation of which he had offered himself as a target for the rebels to shoot at. He thought it no more than fair to the brave soldiers that Uncle Sam should furnish professional cooks for each company, who would serve everything up in the style of a first-class city restaurant. So, after Si got down among the boys and found out how it really was, it was not long until his insides was a volcano of rebellion that threatened serious results.

When, therefore, Si lifted up his voice and cried aloud, and spared not – when he said that he could get as good coffee as that furnished him by dipping his cup into a tan-vat; when he said that the meat was not good soap-grease, and that the potatoes and beans had not so much taste and nutrition to them as so much pine-shavings, he was probably nearer right than grumblers usually are.

“Give it to ‘em, Si,” his comrades would say, when he tuned up his loud bazoo on the rations question. “They ought to get it ten times worse. When we come out we expected that some of us would get shot by the rebels, but we didn’t calculate that we were going to be poisoned in camp by a lot of dirty, lazy potwrastlers.”

One morning after roll call, the Orderly-Sergeant came up to Si and said:

“There’s been so much chin-music about this cooking business that the Captain’s ordered the cooks to go back to duty, and after this everybody’ll have to take his regular turn at cooking. It’ll be your turn today, and you’ll stay in camp and get dinner.”

When Co. Q marched out for the forenoon drill, Si pulled off his blouse and sat down on a convenient log to think out how he should go to work. Up to this time he had been quite certain that he knew all about cooking that it was worth while to know. Just now none of his knowl-edge seemed to be in usable shape, and the more he thought about it the less able he seemed to be to decide upon any way of beginning. It had always appeared very easy for his mother and sisters to get dinner, and on more than one occasion he had reminded them how much better times they had staying in the house cooking dinner than he had out in the harvest field keeping up with the reaper. At this moment he would rather have kept up with the fastest reaper in Posey County, on the hottest of July days, than to have cooked the coarse dinner which his 75 comrades expected to be ready for them when they returned, tired, hot and hungry, from the morning drill.

He went back to the barracks and inspected the company larder. He found there the same old, coarse, greasy, strong, fat pork, a bushel or so of beans, a few withered potatoes, sugar, coffee, bread, and a box of rice which had been collected from the daily rations because none of the cooks knew how to manage it. The sight of the South Carolina staple recalled the delightful rice puddings his mother used to make. His heart grew buoyant.

“Here's just the thing,” he said. “I always was fond of rice, and I know the boys will be delighted with it for a change. I know I can cook it; for all that you've got to do is to put it in a pot with water, and boil it till it is done; seen mother do that lots o' times. Let’s see,” he said, pursuing his ruminations.

“I think each boy can eat about a cupful, so I'll put one for each of 'em in the kittle.”

“There's one for Abner,” he continued, pouring a cupful in for the first name on the company-roll; “one for Acklin, one for Adams, one for Barber, one for Brooks,” and so on down through the whole well-known list.

“It fills the old kittle tol’bly full,” he remarked, as he scanned the utensil after depositing the contribution for Williams, the last name on the roll; “but I guess she'll stand it. I've heard mother tell the girls that they must always keep the rice covered with water, and stir it well, so that it wouldn't burn; so here goes. Won't the boys be astonished when they have a nice mess of rice, as a change from that rusty old side-meat!”

He hung the kettle on the fire and stepped out to the edge of the parade-ground to watch the boys drilling. It was the first time he had had the sensation of pleasure of seeing them at this without taking part in it himself, and he began to think that he would not mind if he had to cook most, of the time. He suddenly remembered about his rice and hurried back to, find it boiling, bulging over the top like a small snowdrift.

“I was afraid that kittle was a little too full,” he said to himself, hurrying off for another camp-kettle, in which he put about a third of the contents of the first. “Now they're all right. And it'll cook better and quicker in two than one. Great Scott! what's the matter? They're both boiling over. There must be something wrong with that rice.”

Pretty soon he had all the company kettles employed, and then all that he could borrow from the other companies. But dip out as much as he would there seemed no abatement in the upheaving of the snowy cereal, and the kettles continued to foam over like so many huge glasses of soda water. He rushed to his bunk arid got his gum blanket and heaped upon it a pile as big as a small haycock, but the mass in the kettle seemed larger than it was before this was subtracted.

He sweat and dipped, and dipped and sweat; burned his hands into blisters with the hot rice and hotter kettles, kicked over one of the largest kettles in one of his spasmodic rushes to save a portion of the food that was boiling over, and sent its white contents streaming over the ground. His misery came to a climax as he heard the quick step, of his hungry comrades returning from drill.

“Right face; Arms a-port; Break ranks – March!” commanded the Orderly-Sergeant, and there was a clatter of tin cups and plates as they came rushing toward him to get their dinner – something to stay their ravenous stomachs. There was a clamor of rage, ridicule, wrath and disappointment as they took in the scene.

“What's the matter here?” demanded the Captain, striding back to the company fire. “You young rascal, is this the way you get dinner for your comrades? Is this the way you attend to the duty for which you're detailed? Waste rations in some fool experiment and scatter good food all over the ground? Biler, put on your arms and take Klegg to the guard-house. I'll make you pay for this nonsense, sir, in a way that you won't forget in a hurry, I'll be bound.”

So poor Si was marched to the guard-house, where he had to stay for 24 hours, as a punishment for not knowing, until he found out by this experience, that rice would “swell.” The Captain wouldn't let him have anything to eat except that scorched and half-cooked stuff out of the kettles, and Si thought he never wanted to see any more rice as long as he lived.

In the evening one of the boys took Si's blanket to him, thinking he would want it to sleep in.

“I tell ye, pard, this is purty derned tough!” said Si as he wiped a tear out of the southwest corner of his left eye with the sleeve of his blouse. “I think the Cap'n's hard on a feller who didn't mean to do nothin' wrong!” And Si looked as if he had lost all his interest in the old flag, and didn't care a pinch of his burnt rice what became of the Union.

His comrade “allowed” that it was hard, but supposed they had got to get used to such things. He said he heard the Captain say he would let Si out the next day.
------------------------------------------------------------
(Copyright 1898, by McElroy, Shoppell, & Andrews, Washington, D.C.)

[KathyBradford]

Re: Si Klegg and shorty question

Tom,

What a hoot! You've inspired me to look for more.

Thank you so much for whetting my appetite.

[Doug Potter]

Re: Si Klegg and shorty question

here are some of the other titles I have found,
I found these titles doing a search of the web for out of print books,
so I guess my question would be how many titles are out there???

Further Mishaps to Si Klegg & Shorty. the Second Year of Their Service.
Si Klegg His Transformation From Raw Recruit to a Veteran
Si Klegg: Thru the Stone River Campaign and In Winter Quarters at Murfreesboro
Si Klegg. Experiences of Si and Shorty on the Great Tullahoma Campaign
Si Klegg, Vol. III, Si and Shorty Meet Mr. Rosenbaum, the Spy, Who Relates His Adventure
Si Klegg The Deacon's Adventures at Chatta-Nooga in Caring for the Boys
Si Klegg Thru the Stone River Campaign
Si Klegg: From Raw Recruit To Veteran
Si Klegg the Deacon's Adventures at Chattanooga in Caring for the Boys Book No. 5
Si Klegg: the Transformation From a Raw Recruit to a Veteran-Book No. 1
Further Mishaps To Si Klegg And Shorty

[Tom Ezell]

Re: Si Klegg and shorty question

Tom,

What a hoot! You've inspired me to look for more.

Thank you so much for whetting my appetite.

Kathy:

The McElroy stories are ideed a hoot... Most of the ones Doug seems to have rounded up appear as chapters in the "Further Mishaps" volume. Hinman's book is considerably tamer than these "new adventures."

"I took it from a teamster. You ought to know it ain't never stealin' to take anything from a teamster. I'll bet it was some of that Toledo rigimint that stole it. Them Maumee River muskrats are the durnedest thieves in the brigade. They'd steal the salt out of yer hardtack if you didn't watch it -- not because they wanted the salt, but just because they cain't help stealin'."
-- Shorty

[KentuckyReb]

Re: Si Klegg and shorty question

I've been diggin' around everywhere I can think of on the 'Net, using "Si Klegg" as the keyword for my searches, and all I can come up with is the hardcover version of that first book by Hinman from Amazon. Does anyone know where it, or any of the others, might be available in softcover? Or at all, in the case of the McElroy books?

[Tom Ezell]

Re: Si Klegg and shorty question

As of what I've been able to find so far, the McElroy books have not been reprinted anywhere, the first I found of them was when a few of them came up on eBay... the most recent one I got from a vendor in Canada.

Finished "Further Mishaps" yesterday, and it covers Stones River and the following six months, ending just before the Tullahoma campaign. A right engaging little story... and a good deal more character development on Shorty and Si's father (who comes to visit the boys in camp for a couple of weeks during the construction of Fort Rosecrans). Shorty has a real name, as do many of the other folks from the Hinman book... Co. Q's commander is Captain McGillicuddy, for example.

Best deal is to keep an eye out on eBay, with "Si Klegg" as the search term, as well as the really-old-book places. They're out there somewhere...

your pard,

Tom
writing a letter to Bad Ax, Wisc. ...

[Doug Potter]

Re: Si Klegg and shorty question

I found them on www.bookfinder.com
I found this to be the best sight to look for out of print books
just type in Si Klegg under the title search and it should bring up a bunch

[KentuckyReb]

Re: Si Klegg and shorty question

Pard! You're a baseball-card hero, man. I hated to miss out on these. They sound right up my alley, and I think my Dad would love 'em too. I never get tired of reading back over Twain's 'war stories', so this really sounded good. Come to think of it--anybody ever notice how Twain's style kind of reminds you of McElroy's and Shelby Foote's kind of rings like John Billings? Not making any dark insinuations here. Just noticed a similarity. Guess that's why I like 'em. Thanks again.

[Company Tailor]

Re: Si Klegg and shorty question

This is fantastic. I feel like I just stumbled across the Dead Sea Scrolls. I had absolutely no idea there were multiple volumes of one of my favorite books of all time. I just hopped on abebooks.com and bought a few.

Kudos to you guys for letting us know about this.

Can't wait for them to get here.

[theadversary]

Re: Si Klegg and shorty question

Best deal is to keep an eye out on eBay, with "Si Klegg" as the search term, as well as the really-old-book places. They're out there somewhere...

I agree with your ebay suggestion. I found two of them back to back.

[58 lorenz]

Re: Si Klegg and shorty question

I recently got a copy of "Further Mishaps" from ebay,and I am quite suprised by the quality of the writing. I had assumed, since it was not written by Hinman, that it was going to be a pale imitation of the real thing, but that is not the case. The drawings, however, are not of the same quality as the ones in Hinman. The chapters on how they construct their winter quarters are interesting and detailed. The author seems to have harbored ill feelings for teamsters and wagonmasters-they show up frequently in a poor light. A favorite quote from the book:"it's never stealin' to take anything from a teamster"
I also just won an original copy of Hinmans book on ebay, for a very reasonable sum-way cheaper than the reprint I have.

Doug Price

[Tom Ezell]

A taste from "Further Mishaps..."

It just gets better from here, folks...

========================================

CHAPTER I

THE MUD AND MIRE OF DUTY'S PATH.

“Shorty," said Si Klegg, the morning after Christmas, 1862, as the 200th Indiana sullenly plunked 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 backward to strop 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 shoemakers that's runnin' this war in the interest o' their business."

The cold, soaking rain had reduced the most of the 200th Indiana to a mood where they would have 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, au' 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 an' night, but 'back home on the Wabash.' I've bin on the Wabash, an' I don't want to never see the measly, muddy, agery ditch agin'. Why, they have the ag'er so bad out there that it shakes the buttons off a man's clothes, the teeth out of his head, the horns off the cows. An' as for milk-sickness---

"Shorty!" thundered Si, "stop right there. If you wasn't my pardner I'd thrash you this minute. I kin join you in jawin' about the officers an' the Government. A great deal of your slack that I can't agree with I kin put up with, but you mustn't say nothin' against my home in the Wabash Valley. That I won't stand from no man. For fear that I may lose my temper I'm goin' away from you till you're in better humor."

With that Si strode on ahead, feeling as cross and un-comfortable internally as he was ill-at-ease externally. He hated above all things to quarrel with Shorty, but the Wabash Valley, that garden spot of earth, that place where lived his parents, and sister, and Annabel — but the subject was too sore to think about.

Presently an Aide came galloping along the middle of the road, calling upon the men to make way for him. His horse's hoofs threw the mud in every direction, and Si caught a heavy spatter directly in his face.

“Confound them snips of Aides," said he angrily, as he wiped the mud off. "Put on more airs than if they was old Gen. Scott himself. Always pretend to be in such a powerful hurry. Everybody must hustle out of their way. I think that fool jest did that on purpose."

The rain kept pouring down with tormenting persistence. Wherever Si looked were drenched, depressed looking men; melancholy, steaming horses; sodden, gloomy fields; yellow, rushing streams, and boundless mud that thousands of passing feet were churning into the consistency of building-mortar.

Si had seen many rainy days since he had been in the army, but this was the first real Winter rain he had been out in.

Jabe Belcher, the most disagreeable man in Co. Q, was just ahead of him. He stepped into a mud puddle, slipped, threw the mud and water over Si, and his gun, which he flung in the effort to save himself, struck Si on the shoulder.

“Clumsy lunkhead!” roared Si, as ill-tempered now as anybody. “Couldn’t you see that puddle and keep out of it? You’d walk right into the Cumberland River if it was in front of you. Never saw such a bat-eyed looney in all my life.”

“If the Captain wasn’t lookin’,” retorted Belcher, “I’d shut up both of them dead mackeral eyes o’ your’n, you backwoods yearlin’. I’ll settle with you after we get into camp. Your stripes won’t save you.”

“Never mind about my stripes, old Stringhalt. I kin take them off long enough to wallop you.”

Si was in such a frame of mind that his usual open-eyedness was gone. The company was wading across a creek, and Si plunged in without a thought. He stepped on a smooth stone, his feet went out from under him, and he sat down hard and waist-deep in much the coldest water that he ever remembered.

“O, Greenland’s icy mountains,” was all that he could think to say.

The other boys yelled:
“Come on to camp, Si. That’s no place to sit down.”
“Feet hurt, Si, and goin’ to rest a little?”
“This your day for takin’ a bath, Si?”
“Thinks this s a political meetin’ an’ he’s to take the chair.”
“In-Place, Rest!”
“When I sit down, I prefer a log or a rail, but some men’s different.”
“See a big bass there, Si, an’ try to ketch ‘im by settin’ down on ‘im?”
“Git up, Si, and give your seat to some lady.”

Si was too angry to notice their jibes. He felt around in the icy water for his gun, and clambered out on the bank. He first poured the water out of his gun barrel and wiped the mud off. His next thought was about the three days’ rations he had drawn that morning. He opened his haversack, and poured out the water it had caught. With it went his sugar, coffee, and salt. His hardtack were a pasty mess; his meat covered with sand and dirt. He turned the haversack inside out, and swashed it out in the stream.

Back came Capt. McGillicuddy, with water streaming from the down-turned rim of his hat, and his humor bad. He was ignorant of Si’s mishap.

"Corporal Klegg, what are you doing back here? Why aren't you in your place? I've been looking all around for you. The company wagon's stalled back somewhere. That spavin-brained teamster's at his old tricks. I want you to take five men off the rear of the company, go back and find that wagon, and bring it up. Be smart about it."

"Captain," remonstrated Si, "I'm wetter'n a drowned rat. I – “

"Well, who in thunder ain't?" exploded the Captain. "Do I look as dry as a basket of chips? Am I walking around in a Panama and linen clothes? Did you expect to keep from getting your feet wet when you came into the army? I want none of your belly-aching or sore-toeing. You take five men and bring up that wagon in a hurry. Do you hear me?"

And the Captain splashed off through the red mud to make somebody else still more miserable.

Si picked up his wet gun from the rain-soaked sod, put it under his streaming overcoat, ordered the five drenched, dripping, dejected boys near him to follow, and plunged back into the creek, which had by this time risen above his knees. He was past the stage of anger now. He simply wished that he was dead and out of the whole business. A nice, dry grave on a sunny hillock in Posey County, with a good roof over it to keep out the rain, would be a welcome retreat.

In gloomy silence he and his squad plodded back through the eternal mud and the steady downpour, through the mirey fields, through the swirling yellow floods in the brooks and branches, in search of the laggard company wagon.

Two or three miles back they came upon it, stuck fast in a deep mudhole. The enraged teamster was pound-ing the mules over the head with the butt of his blacksnake whip, not in the expectation of getting any further effort out of them—he knew better than that -- but as a relief to his overcharged heart.

"Stop beatin' them mules over the head," shouted Si, as they came up. Not that he cared a fig about the mules, but that he wanted to "lump" somebody.

"Go to brimstone blazes, you freckle-faced Posey County refugee," responded Groundhog, the teamster, in the same fraternal spirit. "I'm drivin' this here team." He gave the nigh-swing mule a "welt" that would have knocked down anything else than a swing mule.

"If you don't stop beatin' them mules, by thunder, I'll make you."

"Make's a good word," responded Groundhog, giving the off-swing mule a wicked "biff." "I never see anything come out of Posey County that could make me do what I didn't want to."

Si struck at him awkwardly. He was so hampered by his weight of soggy clothes that there was little force or direction to his blow. The soaked teamster returned the blow with. equal clumsiness.

The other boys came up and pulled them apart.

"We ain't no time for sich blamed nonsense," they growled, "We've got to git this here wagon up to the company, an' we'll have the devil's own time doin' it. Quit skylarkin' an' git to work."

They looked around for something with which to make pries. Every rail and stick within a quarter of a mile of the road was gone. They had been used up the previous Summer, when both armies had passed over the road.

There was nothing to do but plod off through mud and rain to the top of a hill in the distance, where there was a fence still standing. A half an hour later each of the six came back with a heavy rail on his shoulder. They pried the wagon out and got it started, only to sink again in another quagmire a few hundred yards further on.

Si and the boys went back to get their rails, but found that they had been carried off by another squad that had a wagon in trouble. There was nothing to do but to make another toilsome journey to the fence for more rails.

After helping the wagon out they concluded it would be wiser to carry their rails along with them a little ways to see if they would be needed again.

They were – many times that afternoon. As darkness came on Si, who had the crowning virtue of hopefulness when he fully recognized the unutterable badness of things, tried to cheer the other boys up with assertions that. they would soon get into camp, where they would find bright, warm fires with which to dry their clothes, and plenty of hot coffee to thaw them out inside.

The quick-coming darkness added enormously to the misery of their work. For hours they struggled along the bottomless road, in the midst of a ruck of played-out mules and unutterably tired, disgusted men, laboring as they were to get wagons ahead.

Finally they came up to their brigade, which had turned off the road and gone into line-of-battle in an old cotton-field, where the mud was deeper, if possible, than in the road.

"Where's the 200th Ind.?" called out Si.

"Here, Si," Shorty's voice answered.

"Where's the fires, Shorty?" asked Si, with sinking heart. -

"Ain't allowed none," answered his partner gloomily. "There's a rebel battery on that hill there, and they shoot every time a match is lighted. What've you got there, a rail? By George, that's lucky! We'll have something to keep us out of the mud."

They laid the rail down and sat upon it.

"Shorty," said Si, as he tried to arrange his aching bones to some comfort on the rail, "I got mad at you for cussin' the Wabash this mornin'. I ain't a fluid talker such as you are, an' I can't find words to say what I think. But I just wisht you would begin right here and cuss everybody from Abe Lincoln down to Corporal Si Klegg, and everything from the Wabash in Injianny down to the Cumberland in Tennessee. I’d like to listen to you. "

-- Further Mishaps to Si Klegg and Shorty: Their Second Year of Service. Copyright 1898, McElroy, Shoppell, & Andrews, Washington, DC