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Chapter 10: ‘Bob Wheat.’
the boy and the man. (Communicated.)
In the early summer of 1846, after the victories of
Palo Alto and
Resaca de la Palma, the United States Army, under
General Zachary Taylor, lay near the town of
Matamoras.
Visiting the hospital quarters of a recently-joined volunteer corps from ‘the States,’ I remarked a bright-eyed youth of some nineteen years, wan with disease, but cheery withal.
The interest he inspired led to his removal to army headquarters, where he soon recovered health and became a pet. This was ‘
Bob Wheat,’ son of an Episcopal clergyman, and he had left school to come to the war. He next went to
Cuba with
Lopez, was wounded and captured, but escaped the garroters to follow
General Walker to
Nicaragua.
Exhausting the capacity of
South American patriots to
pronounce, he quitted their society in disgust, and joined
Garibaldi in
Italy, whence his keen scent of combat summoned him home in time to receive a bullet at
Manassas.
The most complete
Dugald Dalgetty possible; he had ‘all the defects of the good qualities’ of that doughty warrior.
Some months after the time of which I am writing, a body of Federal horse was captured in the valley of
Virginia.
The colonel commanding, who had dismounted in the fray, approached me. A stalwart, with huge moustache, cavalry boots adorned with spurs
