“Friends: We have met here today to conduct the last rites over a man, who but yesterday was among us but who, in an unguarded moment drank too much whisky, and paid the penalty. (There was a smile perceptible on the faces on the officers.) The ignorant man who died, did not know any better, but I see around me men who know better, but who drink more than this man did, and if they are not careful they will go the same way. (There was less smiling among the officers.) It is said of this man that he was bad, that he would steal. I have investigated, and have found that it is true, but that his peculations consisted of small things, of little value, and I am convinced that the habit was not worse with him than with any of us. In war times, everybody steals. We are all thieves to a certain extent. The soldier will not go hungry if he can jay-hawk anything to eat. The officer will not go thirsty if he can capture whisky, nor will anybody walk if he can steal a horse. The higher a man gets the more he will steal. Shall we harbor unkind thoughts against this dead man for stealing a pair of boots, and honor a general who steals a thousand bales of cotton? (No! no! shouted the cooks and servants, while the officers looked as though they were sorry they attended the funeral.) Friends let us look at the good qualities of our friend. I say, without fear of successful contradiction, that a man, however humble his station, who can bake beans as well as the remains could bake them, is entitled to a warm place in the heart of every soldier, and if he goes to the land that is fairer than this,-and who can say that he will not,—he is liable to be welcomed with 'well done, good and faithful servant,' and he will be received where horse doctors can never enter with their condition powders, and where there will never be war any more. To his family, or several families, as the case may be, I would say——”

At this point I had noticed an uneasiness on the part of my mourners and bearers, as well as the officers. Nine of the negroes fell down on the ground and groaned as if in pain, and the general and his stall looked off to a piece of woods where a few shots had been fired, and rode away hurriedly, the colonel telling me I had better hurry up that funeral or it was liable to be interrupted. The horse-doctor went to the negroes who were sick, and after examining them he said they had been poisoned by eating melons that had been doctored, and he advised them to get to town as quick as possible. They scrambled on their horses the best way they could, and just then there was a yell, and out of the woods came half a dozen Union soldiers followed by fifteen or twenty Confederates, and all was confusion. The niggers scattered towards town, the driver of the cart taking the lead, trying to catch the general and his start, who were hurrying away, leaving the horse-doctor, myself and the deceased. The horse-doctor seized the shovel and threw a little dirt on the coffin, then mounted his horse, I mounted my mule, and away we went towards town, with the rebels gaining on us every jump. The horse-doctor soon left me, and with a picket I had pulled off the fence of the cemetery, I worked my passage on that mule. I mauled the mule, and the more I pounded the slower it went. There was never a more deliberate mule in the world. I forgot all the solemn thoughts that possessed me at the grave, and tried to talk to the mule like a mule-driver, but the animal just fooled along, as though there was no especial hurry. Occasionally I could hear bullets 'zipping' along by me, and the rebels were yelling for all that was out. O, how I did wish I had my old race horse that the chaplain had beat me out of. In my first engagement my horse was too fast, and there was danger that I would catch my friend, the rebel, and I complained of the horse. Now I had a mule that was too slow. What I wanted was a 'middling' horse, one that was not too confounded fast when after the enemy, and one not so all-fired slow when being pursued. The Johnnies were coming closer, but we were only half a mile from town. Would they chase us clear into town? At that critical moment the blasted mule stopped short, never to go again, and began to kick. What on earth possessed that fool mule to take a notion to stop right there and kick, is more than I shall ever know, but it simply kicked, and I felt that my time had come. The Union soldiers that were being chased by the Confederates passed me, and told me I better light out or I would be captured, but I couldn't get the mule to budge an inch. It just kicked. The good Lord only knows, what that mule was kicking at, or why it should have been scheduled to stop and kick at that particular time, when every minute was precious. I saw the rebels very near me, and as it was impossible to get the mule to go a step farther, I raised the large, flat, white-washed picket which I had torn on the cemetery fence to maul the mule with, in token of surrender, and the Confederate boys surrounded me, though they kept a safe distance, after my mule had kicked in the ribs of one of their horses. The rebs had gone about as far towards the town as it was safe to go, and and they knew the whole garrison would be out after them pretty soon, so they laughed at me for being armed with a whitewashed picket, and asked me if I expected to put down the rebellion by stabbing the enemy with such things. I told them I had been burying a nigger. One of my captors run the point of his saber into my mule, to stop its kicking, and then he said to his comrades, “Boys, we came out here with the glorious prospect of capturing a Yankee general and his staff, and instead of getting him, we have broken up a nigger funeral and captured the gospel sharp, armed with a picket fence, and a kicking mule. Shall we hang him for engaging in uncivilized, warfare, by stabbing us with pickets poisoned with whitewash, or shall we take the red-headed slim-jim back with us as a curiosity.” The boys all said not to hang me, but to take me along. I saw that it was all day with me this time. I felt that I was helping put down the rebellion rapidly, as I had been a soldier four weeks, been captured twice, and not a drop of blood had been spilled. The rebels started back, with me and my mule ahead of them, and they kept the mule ahead by jabbing it with a saber occasionally. I felt humiliated and indignant at being called slim-jim, sorrel-top, and elder. They seemed to think I was a preacher. I stood it all until a cuss reached into my pocket and took my meershaum pipe and a bag of tobacco, filled the pipe and lit it, then I was mad. I had paid eight dollars of my bounty for that pipe, and I said to the leader: “Boss, I can stand a joke as well as anybody, but when you capture me, in a fair fight, you have no right to jab my mule with a saber, or call me names. I am a meek and lowly soldier of the army of the right, and want to so live that I can meet you all in the great hereafter, but by the gods I can whip the condemned galoot that stole my meershaum pipe. You think I am pious, and a non-combatant, but I am a fighter from away back, and don't you forget it.” The young man who seemed to be in command told me to dry up, and he would get my pipe. He went and took it away from the one who had stolen it, filled it and lit it himself, and said it was a good pipe, and then he passed it around among them all. We moved on at a trot, and were getting far away from my regiment, and I realized that I was a captive, and that I should probably die in Andersonville prison. I looked at the dozen stalwart rebels that were riding behind me, and knew I could not whip them all with one picket off the cemetery fence, and so I resolved to remain a captive, and die for my country, of scurvey, if necessary. I turned around in my saddle to ask if it wasn t about time for me to have a smoke out of my own pipe, and as I looked up the road we had come over I saw a large body of our own cavalry, coming like the wind toward us. I said nothing, but my face gave me away. I looked so tickled to see the boys coming that the rebels noticed it, and they looked back and saw the soldiers in pursuit, they yelled, “The Yanks are coming!” put spurs to their horses, stabbed my mule and told me to pound it with the picket, and hurry up, and then they passed me, and away they went, leaving me in the road alone between them and my own soldiers, I yelled to the leader to give me back my pipe, and I can hear his mocking laugh to this day, as he told me to “go to hell.” This made me mad, and drawing my picket I dashed after the retreating rebels, knowing that the men of my regiment would soon overtake me, and they would think I had chased the rebels three miles from town, armed only with a picket off the fence, and saved the garrison from capture. The thing worked to perfection, and when our command came up, the horses panting and perspiring, and the boys looking wild, the captain in command asked me how many there was of em, and I told him about forty, and he said I had done well to drive them so far, and he charged by me after them. I yelled to the captain to try and kill that long-legged rebel on the sorrel horse, and get my meershaum pipe, but he didn't hear me. I hurried along as fast as I could, but before I caught up, there was a good deal of firing, and when I got there flankers were out in the woods, and there was sorrow, for three or four boys in blue had been killed in an ambush, and the rebels had got away across a bayou. As I rode up on my mule, with the picket still in my hand, I saw the three soldiers of my regiment lying dead under a tree, two others were wounded and had bandages around their heads, and for the first time since I had been a soldier, I realized that war was not a picnic. I could not keep my eyes off the faces of my dead comrades, the best and bravest boys in the regiment, boys who always got to the front when there was a skirmish. To think that I had been riding right amongst the rebels who had done this thing but a few minutes before, and never thought that death would claim anybody so soon. I wondered if those rebels were not sorry they had killed such good boys. I wondered, as I thought of the fathers and mothers, and sisters of my dead companions, whether the rebels would not sympathize with them, and then I thought suppose our fellows had not been killed, and we had killed some of the Confederates, wouldn't it have been just as sorrowful, wouldn't their fathers, mothers and sisters have mourned the same.

Then I made a resolve that I would never kill anybody if I could help it; I even decided that if I should meet the rebel that had my meershaum pipe, I would not fight him to get it. If he wasn't gentleman enough to give it up peaceably, he could keep it, and be darned. Just then some of our skirmishers came in carrying another dead body, and we were all speculating as to which one of our poor boys had fallen, when we noticed that the dead soldier had on a gray suit, and it was soon found that he was one of the Confederates. He was laid down beside our dead boys, and I don't know but I felt about as bad to see him dead, as it was possible to feel. It is true he had told me, half an hour before, when I asked him for my pipe, to go to hades, but I did not have to go unless I wanted to. And he was gone first. I saw something sticking out of the breast pocket of the dead Confederate, and could see that it was my pipe. Then I thought of the foolish remark I made to the captain, to kill that long-legged rebel and get my meershaum. God bless him, I didn't want anybody to kill him for a bad smelling old pipe, and I wondered if that remark would be registered up against me, in the great book above, when I didn't mean it. I tried to make myself believe that my remark did not have any influence on the man's fate. He just took his chances with his comrades, and was killed, no doubt, and yet it was impossible to get the idea off my mind that I was responsible for his death. Anyway, I would never touch the confounded old pipe again, and if I ever heard of his mother or sister, after the war was over, I would stand by them as long as I had a nickel. An ambulance was sent for and the dead and wounded were placed in it, and we went back to town, a sad procession. There was no need to detail any mourners for this occasion, and there was no straggling for watermelons. Everybody was full of sorrow. The next day there was a Union funeral in that Southern town, and the three Union boys were laid side by side, while a little, to one side my Confederate was buried, receiving the same kind words from the chaplains. As a volley was about to be fired over the graves, I picked a handful of roses, buds and blossoms, from a rose bush in the cemetery, and went to the grave of the Confederate and tenderly tossed them upon the coffin. The horse doctor saw me do it, and in his rough manner said,

“What you about there? It ain t necessary to plant flowers on the graves of rebels.

“O, no, it isn't necessary, I said, as the volley was fired over the graves, but it will make his mother or his sister feel better to know that there are a few roses in there, and it won't hurt anybody. I will just play that I am the authorized agent of that Confederate soldier's sister.

“O, all right if you say so, said the horse-doctor, as he drew the sleeve of his blue blouse across his eyes, which were wet. The last volley was fired, and the soldiers returned to camp, leaving the dead of two armies sleeping together. As I went in the chaplain's tent and sat down to think, the chaplain handed me something, saying:

“Here's your pipe. They found it on that Confederate soldier that captured you.”

I pushed it away and said, “I don't want it. I have quit smoking.”

CHAPTER VI.

The winding up of the last chapter of this history, with its sad incidents, deaths and burials, was unavoidable, but it shall not occur again. The true historian has got to get in all the particulars. I think I never felt quite as downhearted as I did the day or two after the skirmish, when our boys were killed. It had seemed as though there was no danger of anybody getting hurt, as long as they looked out for themselves, but now there was a feeling that anybody was liable to be killed, any time, and why not me? Of course the old veterans of the regiment were the ones who would naturally be expected to take the brunt of the battle, but there was a habit of sending raw recruits into places of danger that struck me as being mighty careless, as well as very bad judgment. Then there were great preparations being made for an advance movement, or a retreat, or something, and my mind was constantly occupied in trying to find out whether it was to be an advance or a retreat. If it was an advance, I wanted to arrange to be in the rear, and if it was a retreat, it seemed to me as as though the proper place for a man who wanted to live to go home, was in front. And yet what chance was there for a common private soldier to find out whether it was an advance or a retreat. Finally I decided that when the regiment did start out, I would manage to be about the middle, so it wouldn't make much difference which way we went. When that idea occurred to me I pondered over it a good deal and told the chaplain, and he said it was a piece of as brilliant strategy as he had ever heard of, and he was willing to adopt it, only being a staff officer it was necessary for him and me to ride with the colonel, and the colonel most always rode at the head, though his place was about the middle. He said he would speak to the colonel about it. It made my hair stand to see the preparations that were being made for carnage. Ammunition enough was issued to kill a million men, and the doctors were packing bandages and plasters, and physic, and splints and probes, until it made me sick to look at them. When I thought of actual war, my mind reverted to my mule, the kicking brute that was no good, and I decided to get a horse. I had got so, actually, that I could hear bullets whistle without turning pale and having cold chills run over me, and it seemed as though a horse was none too good for me, so I went to the colonel and told him that a soldier couldn't make no show on a kicking mule and I wanted a horse. I told him I supposed, as chaplain's clerk. I should have to ride with him and his staff on the march, and he didn't want to see as nice a looking fellow as I was riding a kicking mule that would kick the ribs of the officers horses, and break the officers legs. The colonel said he had not thought of that contingency. He had enjoyed seeing me ride the mule, because I was so patient when the mule kicked. He said they used that mule in the regiment to teach recruits to ride. A man who could stay on that mule could ride any horse in the regiment, and as I had been successful, and had displayed splendid mulemanship, I should be promoted to ride a horse, and he told the quartermaster to exchange with me and give me the chestnut-sorrel horse that the Confederate was shot off of. I went with the quartermaster to the corral, turned out my mule, and cornered the beautiful horse that had been rode so proudly a few days before by my friend, the rebel. It took six of us to catch the horse, and bridle and saddle him, and the men about the corral said the horse was no good. He hadn't eaten anything since being captured, and his eyes looked bad, and he wanted to kick and bite everybody. I told them the poor horse was homesick, that was all that ailed him. The horse was a Confederate at heart, and he naturally had no particular love for Yankees. I remembered that once or twice when I was riding with the rebels, after they captured me, the young fellow on this horse patted him on the neck and called him “Jeff”, so I knew that was his name, so I led him out of the corral away from the other fellows, where there was some grass growing, and made up my mind I would “mash” him. After he had eaten grass a little while, looking at me out of the corner of his eyes as though he didn't know whether to kick my head on, or walk on me, as I sat under a tree, I got up and patted him on the neck and said, “Well, Jeff, old boy, how does the grass fit your stomach?”

You may talk about brute intelligence, but that horse was human. He stopped eating, with his mouth full of grass, looked astonished at being addressed by a stranger without an introduction, and turned a pair of eyes as beautiful and soft as a woman's upon me, and then began to chew slowly, as though thinking. I rubbed his sleek coat with, my bare hands, and did not say much, desiring to have Jeff make the first advances. He looked me over, and finally put his nose on my sleeve, and rubbed me, and looked in my face, and acted as though he would say, “Well, of course this red-headed fellow is no comparison to my dead master, but evidently he's no slouch, and if I have got to be bossed around by a Yankee, as he is the only one that has spoken a kind word to me since I was captured, and he seems to know my name, I guess I will tie to him,” and the intelligent animal rubbed his nose all over me, and licked my hand. I rubbed the horse all over, petted him, took up his feet and looked at them, and spoke his name, and pretty soon we were the best of friends. I mounted him and rode around and it was just like a rocking chair. That poor, dead Confederate had probably rode Jeff since he was a kid and Jeff was a colt, and had broken him well, and I was awfully sorry that the original owner was not alive, riding his horse home safe and sound, to be greeted by his family with loving embraces. But he was dead and buried, and his horse belonged to me, by all the laws of war. And yet I had not become a hardened warrior to such an extent that I could forget the hearts that would ache at his home, and I made up mind that horse would be treated as tenderly as though he was one of my family. I rode Jeff around for an hour or two, found that he was trained to jump fences, stand on his hind feet, trot, pace, rack, and that he could run like a scared wolf, and everything the horse did he would sort of look around at me with one eye as much as to say, “Boss, you will find I have got all the modern improvements, and you needn't be afraid that I will disgrace you in any society.” I was fairly in love with my new horse, and, except for a feeling that I was an interloper with the horse, and sorry for the poor boy that had been shot off him, I should have been perfectly happy.

The chaplain had got in the habit of wearing a nice, blue broadcloth blouse which I had brought from home, which had two rows of brass buttons on it. I had paid about twenty dollars of my bounty for the blouse, and had found that the private soldiers did not wear such elaborate uniforms in active duty, so I kept it in the chaplain's tent. I thought if I was killed and my body was sent home, the blouse would come handy. The chaplain wore it occasionally, and he said any time I wanted to wear any of his clothes to just help myself. An order had been issued to move the following day, with ten days' rations, and some of the boys asked for passes to go down town and have a little blow-out before we started. They wanted me to go along, and so I got a pass, too. We were to go down town in the afternoon and stay till nine o clock at night, when we had to be in camp. I saddled up Jeff and looked for my blouse, but it was gone, the chaplain having worn it to visit the chaplain of some other regiment, so I took his coat and put it on, as he had told me to. The coat had the chaplain's shoulder-straps on, but I thought there would be no harm in wearing it, so about a dozen of us privates started for town to have a good time, and I with chaplain's-straps on. It was customary, when soldiers went to town on a pass, to partake of intoxicating beverages more or less, as that was about the only form of enjoyment, and I blush now, twenty-two years afterward, to write the fact that we all got pretty full. It seemed so like home to be able to go into a saloon and drink beer, good old northern beer, and who knew but tomorrow we would be killed. So we ate, drank, and were merry. One of the boys said when the officers got on a tear, they would ride right into billiard saloons, and sometime shoot at decanters of red liquor behind the bar, and he said a private was just as good as an officer any day, and suggested that we mount our horses and paint the town. We mounted, and rode about town, racing up and down the streets, and finally we came to a billiard saloon, and half a dozen of us rode right in, took cues out of the rack, and tried to play billiards on horse-back. It was a grand picnic then, though it seems foolish now. My horse Jeff would do anything I asked him, and when I rode up to the bar and told him to rear up, he put both fore feet on the bar, and looked at the bartender as much as to say, “set up the best you have got.”

The chaplain's shoulder-straps gave the crowd a sort of confidence that everything was all right, and after exhibiting in a saloon for a time, there was something said about horse-racing, and I said my horse could beat anything on four legs, so we adjourned to the outskirts of town for a race, followed by half the people in town. We had a horse-race, and Jeff beat them all, and wherever I went the crowd would cheer the chaplain. They said they liked to see a man in that position who could unbend himself and mix up with the boys. There never was a chaplain more popular than the “Wisconsin preacher” was. It did not occur to me that I was placing the chaplain in an unfavorable position before the public, by wearing his coat. Nothing occurred to me, that day, except that we were having a high old time. Finally, after dark, one of our boys got into a row with a loafer in a saloon, and picked the loafer up and tossed him through the window, to the sidewalk. This was very wrong, but it couldn't be helped. There was a great noise, cries for the provost guard, and we knew that the only way to get out of the scrape honorably, would be to get out real quick, so we mounted and rode to our camp. My horse was the fastest and I got home first, unsaddled my horse and went to the tent, took off the chaplain's coat and hung it up carefully, and was at work writing a letter, and thinking how my horse acted as though he had been on sprees before, he enjoyed it so, when I heard a noise outside, and it was evident that the provost guard had followed us to camp, and were making complaint to the colonel about our conduct down town. Finally the guard went away, and shortly the colonel and the adjutant called at our tent and inquired for the chaplain. I told them the chaplain had been away most of the day, and had not returned. The colonel and the adjutant winked at each other, and asked me if he wasn t away a good deal. I told them that he was away some. They asked me if I never noticed that his breath had a peculiar smell. I told them that it was occasionally a little loud. They went away thoughtfully. Now that I think of it I ought to have explained that the peculiarity of the chaplain's breath was caused from eating pickled onions of the sanitary stores, but it did not occur to me at the time. After a while the chaplain came back, asked me if anybody had died during the day, took a drink of blackberry brandy for what ailed him, and we retired. The next morning there was a circus. The little town boasted, a daily paper, and it contained the following:

I had a boy bring me a paper every morning, and I read the article before the chaplain awoke, and destroyed the paper. Early the next morning the colonel sent for the chaplain, placed him under arrest, and the good man came back to the tent feeling pretty bad. I asked him what was wrong, and he said he was under arrest for conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. He said charges were preferred against him for drunkenness and disorderly conduct, horse-racing, playing billiards on horse-back, riding his horse into a saloon and trying to jump him over the bar, and lots of things too numerous to mention. I felt sorry for him, and told him I had been fearful all along that he would get into trouble by going away from me so much, and associating with the chaplains of the other regiments, but I had never supposed it would come to this.

“Wine is a mocker,” said I, becoming warmed up, “and none of us can afford to tamper with it. With me, it does not make so much difference, as I have no reputation but that which is already lost, but you, my dear sir, think of your position. Go to the colonel and confess all, and ask him to forgive you,” and I wiped my eyes on my coat sleeve.

“But I was not drunk,” said the chaplain, indignantly. “I was not in a saloon, and never saw a game of billiards in my life. I was over to the New Jersey regiment, talking with their chaplain about getting up a revival, among the soldiers,” and the good man groaned as he said, “it is a case of mistaken identity.”

“Bully, elder,” said I. “If you can make the court-martial believe you, you will be all right, and you will not be cashiered. But it looks dark, very dark, for you. May heaven help you.”

The chaplain was worried all the morning, and the officers and men joked him unmercifully. At noon the chaplain was released from arrest, as we were to move at four p. m., and he begged so to be allowed to accompany the regiment. The colonel told him he could be tried when we got back, and he was happy. There was a great commotion as the regiment broke up its camp and got ready to move. There was the usual crowd of negresses who had been doing washing for the soldiers, to be paid on pay day, and we were going away, no one knew where, and no one knew when we would meet pay day. There were saloon-keepers with bills against officers, and standing-off creditors was just about as hard in the army as at home. I couldn't see much difference. But finally everything was ready, the ammunition wagons, wagon train of stores, and a battery of little guns, about three pounders, had been added. I didn't like the battery. It seemed to me hard enough to kill our fellow citizens with revolver balls, without shooting them with cannon. At 4 p.m. the bugle sounded “forward,” and with the clanking of sabers, rattling of hoofs and wagons, we marched outside the picket line, past the cemetery where my deceased friends were buried, and were going towards the enemy. The chaplain and myself were riding behind the colonel, when the colonel asked the good man to ride up to a log that was beside the road, and make his horse put his forefeet upon it, as he did on the bar in the saloon. I felt sorry for the chaplain, and I rode up to the log, and had Jeff put his feet up on it. Then I rode back and saluted the colonel and told him it was I who had done the wicked things the chaplain was accused of, and I told him how the chaplain was using my coat, so I put on his, with the shoulder straps on, and all about it. He laughed at first and then said, “Then you are under arrest. You may dismount and walk and lead your horse until further orders.” I dismounted, like a little man, and for five miles I walked, keeping up with the regiment. Finally the colonel sung out, “gallop, march,” and I got on my horse. I reasoned that the order to gallop was “further orders,” and that as he knew I couldn't very well gallop on foot he must have meant for me to get on. We galloped for about ten miles, and were ordered to halt, when I dismounted and led my horse up to the colonel, and saluted him. “Well, you must have had a hard time keeping up with us on foot,” said he. I told him it rested me to go on foot. We were just going into camp for the night, and the colonel said, “Well, as you are rested so much from your walk, you may go out with the foraging party and get some feed for your horse and the chaplain's.” I was willing to do anything for a quiet life, so I fell in with a party of about forty, under a lieutenant, and we rode off into the country to steal forage from a plantation, keeping a sharp lookout for Confederates who might object. I guess we rode away from camp two or three miles, when we came to a magnificent plantation house, and outhouses, negro quarters, etc. The house was on a hill, in a grove of live oaks, and had immense white pillars, or columns in front. As we rode up to the plantation the boys scattered all over the premises. This was the first foraging expedition I had ever been with, and I thought all we went for was to get forage for our horses, so I went to a shock of corn fodder and took all that I could strap on my saddle, and was ready to go, when I passed a smoke house and found some of the boys taking smoked hams and sides of bacon. I asked one of the boys if they had permission to take hams and things, and he laughed and said, “everything goes,” and he handed me a ham which I hung on to my saddle. Then the lieutenant told me to go up in front of the house and stand guard, and prevent any soldier from entering the house. I rode up to the house, where there was an old lady and a young married woman with a little girl by her side. They were evidently much annoyed and frightened, though too proud to show it, and I told them they need have no fear, as the men were only after a little forage for their horses. The old lady looked at the ham on my saddle and asked me if the horses eat meat, and I said, “No, but sometimes the men eat horses.” I thought that was funny. The young woman was beautiful, and the child was perfectly enchanting. They were on the opposite side of the railing from me, and my horse kept working up towards them, rubbing his nose on the pickets, and finally his nose touched the clasped hands of the mother and child. The little girl laughed and patted the horse on the nose, while the mother drew back. It was almost dark and the horse was almost covered with corn fodder, but the little girl screamed and said:

“Mamma, that is Jeff, papa's horse!”

The mamma looked at me with a wild, hunted look, then at the horse, rushed down the steps and threw her arms around the neck of the horse and sobbed in a despairing manner:

“O, where is my husband? Where is he? Is he dead?

“My son, my son!” cried the old lady.

“Bring me my papa, you bad man!” said the little child, and I was surrounded by the three.

Gentle reader, I have been through many scenes in my life, and have been many times where it was not the toss of a copper whether death or life was my portion, and I had some nerve to help me through, but I never was in a place that tried me like that one. I had been captured by the father of this little child, the husband of this beautiful, proud woman, the son of this charming old lady. I had seen him brought in, dead, had seen him buried, and had thrown a bunch of roses in his grave. Now I was surrounded by these mourners, mourners when they should know the worst. Cold chills run all over me, and cold perspiration was on my brow.

“Is he dead?” they all shouted together.

I hate a liar, on general principles, and yet there are times when a lie is so much easier to tell than truth. I did not want to be a murderer, and I knew, by the dreadful light in the eyes of that lovely wife, as she looked up at me from the neck of the horse, her face as white as snow, that if I told the truth she would fall dead right where she was. If I told the truth that blessed old lady's heart would be broken, and that little child's face would not have any more smiles, during the war, for mamma and grandma, and, with a hoarse voice, and choking, and trying to swallow something that seemed as big as a baseball in my throat, I deliberately lied to them. I told them the young man who rode this horse had been captured, after a gallant fight, unharmed, and sent north. That he was so brave that our boys fell in love with him, and there was nothing too good for him in our army, and that he would be well taken care of, and exchanged soon, I had no doubt, and bade them not to worry, but to look at the discomforts and annoyances of war as leniently as possible, and all would be well soon.

“Thank heaven! Take all we have got in welcome,” said the old lady, as a heavenly smile came over her face. “My boy is safe.”

“O, thank you, sir,” said the little mother, as a lovely smile chased a dimple all around her mouth, and corraled it in her left cheek, while a pair of navy-blue eyes looked up at me as though she would hug me if I was not a Yankee, eyes that I have seen a thousand times since, in dreams, often with tears in them.

“You are a darling good man,” said the little girl, dancing on the gravel path. The mother blushed and said,

“Why, Maudie, don't be so rude;” and there was a shout:

“Fall in!”

The lieutenant rode up to me and asked, as he noticed the glad smiles on the faces of the ladies, if this was a family reunion, and, apologizing for being compelled to raid the plantation, we rode away. I was afraid they would mention the news I had brought them, and the lieutenant would tell the truth, so I was glad to move. I was glad to go, for if I had remained longer I would have cried like a baby, and given them back the horse, and walked to camp. As we moved away, I took out my knife and cut the string that held the smoked ham on my saddle, and had the satisfaction of hearing it drop on the path before the house. I could not give back the husband of the blue-eyed woman, the son of the saintly Southern mother, the father of the sweet child, but I could leave that ham. As we rode back to camp that beautiful moonlight night, I did not join in the singing of the boys, or the jokes. I just thought of that happy home I had left, and how it would be stricken, later, when the news was brought them, and wondered if that fearful lie I had been telling, them was justifiable, under the circumstances, and it it would be laid up against me, charged up in the book above. That night I slept on the ground on some corn fodder and dreamed of nothing but blue-eyed mamma's and golden-haired Maudie's and white-haired angel grandmothers.

CHAPTER VII.

When our foraging party got back to camp, and I unloaded the corn fodder from my horse, I was about as disgusted with war as a man could be. The faces of those people I had met at the plantation rose up before me, and I could imagine how they would look when they heard that the Confederate soldier who was their all, was dead. I hoped that they would never hear of it. While I was thinking the matter over, and grooming my horse, the chaplain came along and took nearly all the fodder I had brought in, and fed it to his horse, and asked me where the chickens and hams, and sweet potatoes were. I told him I didn't get any. Then he spoke very plainly to me, plainer than he had ever spoken before, and told me that fodder for horses was not all that soldiers got when they went out foraging. He said I wanted to snatch anything that was lying around loose, that could be eaten. I asked him if the government did not furnish rations enough for him to live comfortably, in addition to the sanitary stores. He said sometimes he yearned for chicken. Then I told him his salary was sufficient to buy such luxuries. He was hot, and talked back to me, and told me he didn't propose to be lectured by no red-headed private as to his duties, or his conduct, and he wanted me to understand that I was expected to forage for him as well as myself, and not to let another soldier come into camp with a better assortment of the luxuries afforded by the country, than I did. He said that he picked me out as a man that would fill the bill, and do his duty. I told him if he had selected me from all the men in the regiment as being the most expert sneak thief, he had made a mistake, and I would be teetotally d——d if I would go through the country stealing hens and chickens for any chaplain that ever lived, and he could put that in his pipe and smoke it. It was pretty sassy talk for a private soldier to indulge in towards a chaplain, but I was so disgusted to hear a man who should discountenance anything unsoldierly, talk so flippantly about taking from the women and children of the country what little they had to live on, because we had the power, their men folks being away in the army, that I got on my ear, as it were. I told him that I was not much mashed on war, and hoped I would never have to fire a gun at a human being, but now that I was into the business, I would fight if I had to, or do any duty of a soldier, but I would be cussed if I would rob henroosts, and he didn't weigh enough to compel me to. Then he said I could go back to my company, as he didn't want a man around him that hadn't sand enough to do his duty. I asked him if I hadn't better wait till after supper, it being after dark, but he said I could go right away, and he would have another man detailed to take my place. I was discharged, because I struck against stealing hens. I saddled my horse, took my share of the fodder, and started for my company to return to duty as a soldier. On the way to my company I saw a half a dozen soldiers, covered with mud, and their horses covered with foam, ride up to the colonel's tent, and I stopped to see what was the matter. A sergeant gave the colonel a dispatch, which he tore open, read it, looked excited, and then he turned to 'me and said, “Ride to every commanding officer of a company and say with my compliments, that 'Boots and Saddles' will be sounded in ten minutes, and every man must be in line, mounted, within five minutes after the call is sounded, then come back here.” Well, I was about as excited as the colonel, and I rode to every captain's tent and gave the command. Some of the captains, who were just sitting down to supper, asked, “What you giving us,” thinking it was some foolishness on my part. One captain said if I came around with any more such orders he would run a saber through me and turn it around a few times; another said to his lieutenant, “That is the chaplains idiot, that the boys play jokes on; some corporal has probably told him to carry that message.”

I got all around the companies, and went back to the colonel, and told him that I had delivered his invitation, but the most of the captains sent regrets in one way and another, and one was going to jab me with a saber. He called the bugler, and told him to blow “Boots and Saddles,” and in five minutes to sound, “To Horse;” then he turned to me and said, “You will be my orderly tonight, and you will have the liveliest ride you ever experienced. Buckle up your saddle girth and lead my horse out here.” I told the colonel I should have to buckle up my own belt a few holes, as I hadn't had any supper, when he told his servant to bring me out what was left of his supper, which he did, one small hard tack. I eat pretty hearty, and let my horse fill himself all he could on corn stalks, and in a short time the bugle calls were echoing through the woods, men were saddling up and mounting, and picking up camp utensils in the dark, and swearing some at being ordered out in that unceremonious manner when they had got all ready to have a night's rest. There was not near as much swearing as I had supposed there would be, but there was enough. The chaplain came rushing up to where I was with his coat off, and asked me what was the matter, and the colonel having gone to the major's tent, I answered him that we were going to have the liveliest ride he ever experienced, and not to forget it, and that probably before morning we would have the biggest fight of the season.

“Come and help me catch my horse,” said the chaplain, “I turned him loose so he could roll over, and he has stampeded.”

“Go catch your own horse,” said I with lofty dignity, “and steal your own chickens. I am serving on the start of the commanding officer, sir. I am the colonel's orderly.”

I thought that would break the chaplain all up, but it didn't. “The devil you say,” remarked the chaplain, as he went off in the darkness, whistling for his horse. Gentle reader, did you ever ride on horseback fifty miles in one night, on an empty stomach, after having ridden thirty miles during the day? If you never have accomplished such a feat, you don't know anything about suffering. O, to this day I can feel my stomach freeze itself to my backbone. We started soon after orders were given on a gallop, and if we walked our horses a minute during the whole night, I did not know it. We marched by “fours,” but I had the whole road to myself, as I rode behind the colonel. I wanted to know where we were going and what for, and once, when the colonel fell back to where I was, while he was taking a drink out of a canteen, I said, “This is a little sudden, ain't it?” My idea was to draw him out, and get him to tell me all about the destination of the expedition, and its object. The colonel got through drinking, and as he knocked the cork into the canteen, he said, “Yes, this is a little spry.” That was all he said, and evidently he wanted me to draw my own inference, which I did. Pretty soon the orderly sergeant of the company that was on the advance, directly behind the colonel, rode up to me and asked me if I had any idea where we were going. He said he had seen me talking with the colonel, and thought maybe he had told me the programme. He added that he thought it was a shame that men couldn't be allowed a little rest. I told him that I had just been talking with the colonel about it, but I had no authority to communicate what he said. However, I would assure the orderly that we were going to have the liveliest ride he ever experienced. I knew I was safe in saying that, and the orderly remarked that he had about come to that conclusion himself, and he left me. I had never expected to rise, on pure merit, to that proud position of colonel's orderly, and I made up my mind if that night's ride did not founder me, or drive my spine up into the top of my hat, or glue the two sides of my empty stomach together, so they would never come apart, that I would try to conduct myself so that the commanding officers would all cry for me and want me on their starts. I argued, to myself, as we rode along, that the position of colonel's orderly could not be so very unsafe, as it did not stand to reason that a colonel would go into any place that was particularly dangerous, as long as he could send other officers. I knew that colonels in action should ride behind their regiments, and wondered if this colonel knew his place, or would he be fool enough to go right ahead of his men? I was going to speak to him about it, if we ever stopped galloping long enough, but everything was jarred out of my head.

A fellow can think of a good many things, riding on a gallop at night, and I guess I thought of about everything that night. There were few interruptions of the march. There were about four stops, two being caused by horses falling down and being run over by those behind them, and two by carbines going off accidentally. One man was dismounted and run over by half the horses in the regiment, and when he was pulled out from under the horses he asked for a chew of tobacco, and saying he was marked for life by horse shoes, he kicked his horse in the ribs for falling down, climbed on and said the procession might move on. He was all cut to pieces by horse's hoofs, but he was full of fight the next morning. Another soldier had his big toe shot off by the accidental discharge of a carbine, and when the regiment stopped, and the colonel asked him if he wanted to stop there and wait for an ambulance to overtake him, he said, not if there is going to be a fight. I don't use a big toe much, anyway, and if there is a fight ahead, I want to be there, if I haven't got a toe left on my feet. The colonel smiled and said, all right, boy. I never saw fellows who were so anxious to fight, and I wondered how much money it would take to induce me to go into a fight when I was crippled up enough to be excused. Along toward morning everybody felt that we were so far into the enemy's lines that there must be some object in the long ride, and the probabilities of a fight seemed to be settled in every man's mind. Up hill and down we galloped, until it seemed to me I should fall off my horse and die. About half an hour before daylight the command was halted, and the officers of each company were sent for, and they surrounded the colonel, separated from the men, and he said: “There is a town ahead, about four miles, garrisoned by confederate troops. We are to charge it at daylight, drive the enemy out the other side of town, kill as many as possible, and when they go out they will be attacked by another Union regiment that has been sent around to the rear. There is a railroad there, and a bridge across a river, Confederate stores of ammunition, provisions, cotton, etc. The stores are to be burned, the railroad bridge destroyed, the track torn up, engines, if there are any, are to be ditched, and everything destroyed except private residences. You understand?” The officers said they did, and they went back to their companies and ordered the men to get a bite to eat. When the officers had gone I was pretty scared, and I said, “Colonel, suppose the rebels do not get out of that town.” The colonel was chewing a hard-tack when he answered. Daylight was just streaking up from the East, and he held a piece of the hard-tack up to the light to pick a worm out of it, after which he answered: “If they don't get out, we will, those of us who are not killed. I always like to eat hard-tack in the dark, then I can't see the worms.” To say that I was reassured would be untrue. I admired a man who could mingle business with pleasure, as he did when talking of possible death and worms in hard-tack, but death was never an interesting subject to me. I wanted to talk with the colonel more, and asked him if colonels often get killed, and if an orderly was exactly safe in his immediate vicinity, but he leaned against a tree and went to sleep, and I stood near, as wide awake as any man ever was. I wondered whose idea it was to send us fifty miles into the Confederacy to destroy provisions and railroads.

Did they suppose the Confederates didn't want anything to eat. I thought it was a mean man or government that would burn up good wholesome provisions because they couldn't eat them themselves. And who owned this railroad that was going to be torn up? Why burn a bridge that probably cost several hundred thousand dollars. As I was thinking these things over and finding fault with the persons responsible for such foolishness, the chaplain, who had not showed up during the night, came up to where I was, without any hat, leading his horse, which was lame. The first thing he asked me how I would trade horses. They all wanted my Jen, but he was not in the market. The chaplain said he had caught up with the regiment about midnight, and had rode at the rear, with the horse-doctor. He said this expedition was foolish, and had no object except to try the endurance of the horses and men. I told him that we were going to have a fight in less than an hour, and burn a town, and probably we would all be killed. The chaplain turned pale and looked faint.

I had read about hell, and seen pictures of it, from the imagination of some eminent artist, but the hell I had read of, and seen pictured, was not a marker to the experience of the next three hours. In a few minutes the colonel woke up, and the regiment mounted and moved on. An advance guard was put further out than before, with orders to charge the rebel picket almost into town, and then hold up for the rest of us. As we neared the town it was just light enough to see. The advance captured the picket post without a shot being fired, and moved right into town, followed by the regiment, and we actually rode right into the camp of the boys in gray, and woke them up by firing. They scattered, coatless and shoeless, firing as they ran, and in five minutes they were all captured, killed, gone out of town, or were in hiding in the buildings. Then began the conflagration. Immense buildings, filled with goods, or bales of cotton, were fired, and soon the black smoke and falling walls made a scene that was enough to set a recruit crazy. A train came in just as the fire was at its greatest, and a squad of men was sent to burn it, and the colonel told me to go and capture the engineer and bring him to the headquarters.