One day a soldier who had been drinking just enough of the sutler’s beer to make him think he was smart came along, and as he passed Tabor’s tent he gave the box a kick, upsetting it. Garrity saw the act, and he took the smart chap by his coat collar and shook him as a terrier would a rat.
A crowd gathered and then Garrity proceeded to read the riot act to those assembled.
“Look a’here, my hearties,” said he, “I’m going to give you young devils some advice, an’ you’ll be doin’ well to mind what I be sayin’. I want you young blackguards to be very careful how you thrate this lad hereafter. No more pokin’ fun at his religion, ’twould be better if all of you had some of the same.
“I’m none too good meself an’ ought to be counting me beads oftener than I do, but I likes fair play, and be that same token I’ll see that James Tabor has it or me name is not Dennis.
“So now, me laddy bucks, if you don’t like what I’m sayin’ you can put it in your pipes an’ smoke it.”
This little episode was the beginning of a strange and tender attachment between Tabor and Garrity that lasted to the close of the war. They tented together, slept under the same blanket and drank from the same canteen--except when Garrity’s had some of Uncle Sam’s commissary in it, for Dennis, like many an old campaigner, liked a little whisky.
The boys called Tabor “Jim” or “Jimmie,” but it was always James when Garrity spoke of him. When Tabor wanted his comrade it was: “Have you seen Mr. Garrity?”
Among the recruits that came to our regiment in the winter of 1862 was a squad of 25 or 30 Indians from the Onondaga reservation. Among them was a fairly good brass band. The officers had no business to enlist them, and they were all discharged in a few months.
They were with us one pay day, however, and managed to get some firewater. Then they went on the war path and there was “blood on the moon” and they indulged in war dances that were the real thing. One “big Injun” was discovered crawling under the back of the colonel’s tent. He was armed with a sabre bayonet which had been sharpened for the express purpose of lifting the hair of that officer.
They dared all the white men to fight them, and, finally, a young buck rubbed up against Garrity, who gave him a slap on the side of his head that sent him spinning. This led to a challenge to fight and the affair was arranged to take place in the fort late in the afternoon.