The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks - Donald Harington [69]
Concluding the interview, I told him to muster his men, drill them at length, then, if they passed an inspection, which my brother, Major Melton, would perform, I would commence regular orders for their detachment. Capt. Engledieu saluted me, but, his salute being somewhat irregular, I demonstrated the proper form until he had mastered it, and took his leave, supplied with a requisition to the quartermaster for three dozen black cavalry hats and cavalry sabers. I was left optimistic that he will be useful in dealing with Rebel forays in that quarter.
Upon his return to Stay More, Jacob found that the men were still kicking dogs and posts, and slamming their fists into their palms, and for the first time this pleased him. He went into his house and hollered, “Sarey! Make me a uniform!” But Sarah was not there, and he remembered why she was not there. He went to Lizzie Swain’s cabin and asked to speak to Sarah, but Lizzie would not let him. A fine kettle of fish: him a captain in the United States Army cavalry, and no way to get a uniform. Well, there were forty or more other women in town who might make him a uniform. He ordered an assembly of all the men, distributed the cavalry hats and sabers among them, and offered a lieutenancy to the first man whose wife would make a uniform for Jacob. The womenfolk of Stay More got busy, weaving wool and dyeing it blue with indigo, and cutting and sewing it into Federal uniforms. Sarah was quick to hear of this activity, and, not to be outdone, she sneaked back to her spinning wheel and loom and worked through the night by oil light for two nights and two days, and won the contest to be the first to provide Captain Ingledew with a uniform.
Try as he might, Jacob couldn’t very well appoint himself lieutenant, since he was already captain, so in the end he gave the lieutenancy to his son Isaac, and appointed four sergeants and eight corporals, and then the forty-six of them donned their new uniforms and climbed on their horses or mules or whatever riding animals they had (one donkey, two oxen, a large ram, and a tame buck), and Jacob began to drill them.
They raised a lot of dust. Women and children covered their faces with wet handkerchiefs, and all the green leaves turned tan, and the porches and roofs had inch-deep coats of dust. A favorable wind came and lifted the dust into an enormous dust cloud that hovered high in the sky over Stay More, visible for miles and miles, and people came from all over Newton County to see what was causing the cloud of dust, and to marvel at Jacob Ingledew’s cavalry parading, mounting, dismounting, shooting at targets while in full gallop, and generally raising dust. When a sizable audience had gathered, Jacob halted his men in formation, and, sitting atop his own horse at their front, made a speech, inviting all of the menfolk in the audience to join his cavalry and all the womenfolk to make uniforms for the men. The women seemed just as eager as the men, if not more so, and within a few days Jacob’s cavalry had swollen to slightly over a hundred. The cloud of dust covered the whole county, and people from neighboring counties, Madison and Searcy and Boone, came to watch Jacob’s cavalry, and some of these men joined too.
When Major Melton, the general’s brother, arrived eventually to inspect Jacob’s troops and assess their fitness for war, he discovered that the first thing he would have to do would be to promote Jacob Ingledew from captain to major because of the size of his cavalry. Then Major Ingledew paraded his men for Major Melton. The latter’s only serious criticism was of some of the irregular animals that were being ridden; he did not feel that there was any place in the United States Cavalry for oxen,