 CHAPTER 10 OF THE STORY OF A COMMON SOLDIER OF ARMY LIFE IN THE CIVIL WAR, 1861, 1865 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. THE STORY OF A COMMON SOLDIER OF ARMY LIFE IN THE CIVIL WAR, 1861, 1865 By Leander Stillwell. CHAPTER X. THE SEAGE OF VIXBURG, JUNE AND JULI, 1863 General Grant closed up against Vixburg on May 19th, and on that day assaulted the Confederate defenses of the place, but without success. On the twenty-second a more extensive assault was made, but it also failed, and it was then evident to Grant that Vixburg would have to be taken by a siege. To do this he would need strong reinforcements, and they were forthwith sent to him from various quarters, so it came to pass that we went also. On May 31st we climbed on the cars, headed for Memphis, and steamed away from Old Belivar, and I have never seen the place since. For my part I was glad to leave. We had been outside of the main track of the war for several months, guarding an old railroad, while the bulk of the Western Army had been actively engaged in the stirring and brilliant campaign against Vixburg, and we were all becoming more or less restless and dissatisfied. From my standpoint one of the most mortifying things that can happen to a soldier in time of war is for his regiment to be left somewhere as a guard, while his comrades of the main army are in the field of active operations, seeing and doing big things that will live in history. But, as before remarked, the common soldier can only obey orders, and while some form the moving column, others necessarily have stationary duties. But, at last the old 61st Illinois was on the wing, and the Mississippi Central Railroad could go hang. The regiment at this time was part of General Nathan Kimball's division of the 16th Corps, and the entire division left Tennessee to reinforce Grant at Vixburg. We arrived at Memphis in the afternoon of the same day we left Belivar, the distance between the two places being only about seventy-two miles. The regiment bevwacked that night on a sandbar on the waterfront of Memphis, which said bar extended from the water's edge back to a high, steep, sand and clay bank. And that, by the way, is the only night I have ever spent within the limits of the city of Memphis. While we were there on this occasion I witnessed a pathetic incident, which is yet as fresh and vivid in my memory as if it had happened only yesterday. Soon after our arrival I procured a pass for a few hours and took a stroll through the city. While thus engaged I met two hospital attendants carrying on a stretcher a wounded Union soldier. They halted as I approached and rested the stretcher on the sidewalk. An old man was with them, apparently about sixty years old, of small stature and slight frame, and were in the garb of a civilian. I stopped and had a brief conversation with one of the stretcher-bearers. He told me that the soldier had been wounded in one of the recent assaults by the Union troops on the defences of Vixburg, and with others of our wounded had just arrived at Memphis on a hospital boat. That old gentleman present was the father of the wounded boy, and having learned at his home in some northern state of his son being wounded had started to Vixburg to care for him. That the boat on which he was journeying had rounded in at the Memphis wharf next to the above mentioned hospital boat, and that he happened to see his son in the act of being carried ashore, and thereupon at once went to him, and was going with him to a hospital in the city. But the boy was dying, and that was the cause of the halt made by the stretcher-bearers. The soldier was quite young, seemingly not more than eighteen years old. He had an orange which his father had given him, tightly gripped in his right hand, which was lying across his breast. But, poor boy, it was manifest that the orange would never be tasted by him as the glaze of death was then gathering on his eyes, and he was in a semi-unconscious condition. And the poor old father was fluttering around the stretcher in an aimless distracted manner, wanting to do something to help his boy, but the time had come when nothing could be done. While thus occupied I heard him say in a low, broken voice, he is the only boy I have. This was on one of the principal streets of the city, and the sidewalks were thronged with people, soldiers and civilians, rushing to and fro on their various errands. And what was happening at this stretcher excited no attention beyond careless passing glances. A common soldier was dying, that was all, nothing but a leaf in the storm. But for some reason or other the incident impressed me most sadly and painfully. I didn't wait for the end, but hurried away, tried to forget the scene, but couldn't. On the eve of June 1st we filed on board the big side-wheel steamer Luminary, which soon cast off from the wharf and in company with other transports crowded with soldiers when steaming down the Mississippi. Company D, as usual, was assigned to a place on the hurricane deck of the boat. After we had stacked arms and hung our belts on the muzzles of the guns, I hunted up a corner on the forward part of the deck, sat down, looked at the river and the scenery along the banks, and thought. There came vividly to my mind the recollection of the time about fourteen months previous, when we started out from St. Louis, down the father of waters bound for the seat of war. The old regiment in every respect had greatly changed since that time. Then we were loud, confident and boastful. Now we had become altogether more quiet and grave in our demeanor. We had gradually realized that it was not a Sunday school picnic excursion we were engaged in, but a desperate and bloody war, and what the individual fate of each of us might be before it was over no one could tell. There is nothing which in my opinion will so soon make a man out of a boy as actual service in time of war. Our faces had insensibly taken on a stern and determined look, and soldiers who a little over a year ago were mere laughing, foolish boys, were now sober, steady, self-reliant men. We had been taking lessons in what was, in many important respects, the best school in the world. Our voyage down the river was uneventful. We arrived at the mouth of the Yazoo River on the evening of June 3. There our fleet turned square to the left and proceeded up that stream. Near the mouth of the Chickasaw Bayou the fleet landed on the left bank of the stream. The boats tied up for the night. We went on the shore and bivouac there that night. It was quite a relief to get on solid ground and where we could stretch our legs and stroll around a little. Next morning we re-embarked at an early hour and continued up the Yazoo. During the forenoon we learned from one of the boats crew that we were approaching a point called Alligator Bend, and if we would be on the lookout we could see some Alligators. None of us so far as I know had ever seen any of these creatures, and of course we were all agog to have a view of them. A few of the best shots obtained permission from the officers to try their muskets on the reptiles in case any showed up. On reaching the bend indicated there were the Alligators sure enough, lazily swimming about and splashing in the water. They were sluggish, ugly looking things, and apparently from six to eight feet long. Our marksmen opened fire at once. I had read in books at home that the skin of an Alligator was so hard and tough that it was impervious to an ordinary rifle bullet. That may have been true as regards the round balls of the old small bore rifle, but it was not the case with the conical bullets of our hard-hitting muskets. The boys would aim at a point just behind the fore shoulder. The ball would strike the mark with a loud quack. A jet of blood would spurt high in the air. The Alligator would give a convulsive flounce and disappear. It had doubtless got its medicine. But this Alligator practice didn't last long. General Kimball, on learning the cause, sent word mighty quick from the headquarters boat to stop that firing, and we stopped. About noon on the fourth we arrived at the little town of Satarchia on the left bank of the Yazoo, and about forty miles above its mouth. There the fleet halted, tied up, and the troops debarked and marched out to the highlands back of the town. We were now in a region that was new to us, and we soon saw several novel and strange things. There was a remarkable natural growth called Spanish moss that was very plentiful and a most fantastic looking thing. It grew on nearly all the trees, was of a grayish white color with long, pendulous stems. The lightest puff of air would set it in motion, and on a starlit night, or when the moon was on the wane, and there was a slight breeze, it presented a most ghostly and uncanny appearance. And the woods were full of an unusual sort of squirrels, being just as black as crows. They were in size, as I now remember, of a grayed, intermediate, the fox and gray squirrels we had at home. But all their actions and habits appeared to be just the same as those of their northern cousins. And there was a most singular bird of the night that was quite numerous here, called the Chuck Will's widow, on account of the resemblance its note bore to those words. It belonged to the Whippewill family, but was some larger. It would sound its monotonous call in the night for hours at a stretch, and I think its mournful cry, heard when alone, on picket at night, out in dense, gloomy woods, is just the most lonesome, depressing strain I ever heard. On the afternoon of the fourth all our force advanced in the direction of the little town of Mechanicsburg, which lay a few miles back of the river, those in the front encountered Confederate cavalry and a lively little skirmish ensued, in which our regiment was not engaged. Our troops burnt Mechanicsburg and captured about forty of the Confederates. I was standing by the side of the road when these prisoners were being taken to the rear. They were all young chaps, fine, hardy-looking fellows, and were the best-looking little bunch of Confederates I saw during the war. Early in the morning of June 6 we fell in line and marched southwest in the direction of Ixburg. Our route in the main was down the valley of the Yazoo River, and it will be said here that this was the hottest, most exhausting march I was on during my entire service. In the first place the weather was intensely hot. Then the road down the valley on which we marched mostly ran through immense fields of corn higher than our heads. The fields next to the road were not fenced, and the corn grew close to the beaten track. Not the faintest breeze was stirring, and the hot, stifling dust enveloped us like a blanket. Every now and then we would pass a soldier lying by the side of the road, overcome by the heat and unconscious, while one or two of his comrades would be standing by him, bathing his face and chest with water, and trying to revive him. I put green hickory leaves in my cap and kept them well saturated with water from my canteen. The leaves would retain the moisture and keep my head cool, and when they became stale and withered, would be thrown away and fresh ones procured. Several men died on this march from sunstroke. None, however, from our regiment, but we all suffered fearfully. And pure drinking water was very scarce, too. It was pitiful to see the men struggling for water at the farmhouse wells we occasionally passed. In their frenzied desperation they would spill much more than they saved, and air long would have the well drawn dry. But one redeeming feature about this march was we were not hurried. There were frequent halts to give the men time to breathe, and on such occasions, if we were fortunate enough to find a pool of stagnant swamp water, we would wash the dirt and dust from our faces and out of our eyes. As we trudged down the Yazoo Valley we continued to see things that were new and strange. We passed by fields of growing rice, and I saw many fig trees, loaded with fruit, but which was yet green. And in the yards of the most of the farmhouses was a profusion of domestic flowers, such as did not bloom in the north, of wonderful color and beauty. But on the other hand, on the afternoon of the second day's march, I happened to notice by the side of the road an enormous rattlesnake, which evidently had been killed by some soldier only a short time before we passed. It seemingly was between five and six feet long, and the middle of its body appeared to be as thick as a man's thigh. Its rattles had been removed, presumably as a trophy. It was certainly a giant among rattlesnakes, and doubtless was an old timer. On the evening of June 7th, about sundown, we arrived at Haines Bluff on the Yazoo River, and there went into camp. This point was about twelve miles north of Vicksburg, and had been strongly fortified by the Confederates. But Grant's movements had compelled them to abandon their works without a battle. There had been a large number of the Confederates camp there, and the ground was littered with the trash and rubbish that accumulates in quarters. And our friends in Gray had left some things in these old camps, which erelong we all fervently wished they had taken with them, namely a most plentiful quantity of the insect known as Pediculus vestimenti, which forthwith assailed us voraciously as if they had been on quarter-rations or less ever since the beginning of the war. On June 16th we left Haines Bluff and marched about two miles down the Yazoo River to Snyder's Bluff, where we went into camp. Our duties here, as they had been at Haines, were standing picket and constructing fortifications. We had the usual dress parade at sunset, but the drills were abandoned. We had more important work to do. General Joe Johnston, the Confederate commander outside of Vicksburg, was at Jackson, Mississippi, or in that immediate vicinity, and was collecting a force to move on Grant's rear in order to compel him to raise the siege. Grant thought that if Johnston attacked it would be from the northeast, so he established a line of defense extending southeast from Haines Bluff on the north to Black River on the south, and placed General Sherman in command of this line. As Grant has said somewhere in his memoirs, the country in this part of Mississippi stands on edge. That is to say, it consists largely of a succession of high ridges with sharp narrow summits. Along this line of defense the general course of these ridges was such that they were admirably adapted for defensive purposes. We went to work on the ridges with spades and maddox, and constructed the strongest field fortifications that I ever saw during the war. We dug away the crests, throwing the dirt to the front, and made long lines of breastworks along our entire front, facing of course the northeast. Then at various places on commanding points were erected strong redoubts for artillery floored and revetted on the inner walls with thick and strong green lumber and timbers. On the exterior slopes of the ridges were dug three lines of trenches or rifle pits, extending in a parallel form from near the base of the ridges almost to the summit, with intervals between the lines. All the trees and bushes in our front on the slopes of the ridges were cut down, with their tops outwards, thus forming a tangled abati which looked as if a rabbit could hardly get through. And finally on the inner slope of the ridges, a little below their summits, was constructed a covered way, that is, a road dug along the sides of the ridges and over which an army with batteries of artillery could have marched with perfect safety. The purpose of these covered ways was to have a safe and sheltered road right along our rear, by which any position on the line could be promptly reinforced if necessary. Sometimes I would walk along the parapet of our works, looking off to the northeast where the Confederates were supposed to be, and I ardently wished that they would attack us. Our defences were so strong that in my opinion it would have been a physical impossibility for flesh and blood to have carried them. Had Johnston tried, he simply would have sacrificed thousands of his men without accomplishing anything to his own advantage. It will be said here that I have no recollection of having, personally, taken part in the construction of the fortifications above mentioned. In fact, I never did an hour's work in the trenches with Spade and Maddock during all my time. I never took willingly to that kind of soldiering, but there were plenty of the boys who preferred it to standing picket. Because when on fatigue duty, as it was called, they would quit about sundown and then get an unbroken night's sleep. So, when it felt in my lot to be detailed for fatigue, I would swap with someone who had been assigned to picket. He would do my duty and I would perform his. We were both satisfied, and the fair inference is that no harm was thereby done to the cause. And it was intensely interesting to me when on picket at night, on the crest of some high ridge, to stand and listen to the war of our cannon pounding at Vicksburg, and watch the flight of the shells from Grant's siege guns and from the heavy guns of our gunbolts on the Mississippi. The shells they threw seemed principally to be of the fuse variety, and the burning fuse as the shell flew through the air, left a stream of bright red light behind it like a rocket. I would lean on my gun and contemplate the spectacle with far more complacency and satisfaction than was felt when anxiously watching the practice on us by the other fellows at Salem Cemetery about six months before. There was another thing I was want to observe with peculiar attention when on picket at night during the siege, namely the operations of the signal core. In the nighttime, they used lighted lanterns in the transmission of intelligence, and they had a code by which the signals could be read with practically the same accuracy as if they had been printed words. The movements of the lights looked curious and strange, something elf-like, with a suspicion of witchcraft or deviltry of some kind about them. They would make all sorts of gyrations, up, down, a circle, a half circle to the right, then one to the left, and so on. Sometimes they would be unusually active. Haynes Bluff would talk to Sniders, Sniders to Sherman's headquarters, Shermans to Grants, and back and forth all along the line. Occasionally at some station the lights would act almost like some nervous man talking at his highest speed in a perfect splutter of excitement, and then they would seem as if drunk or crazy. Of course I knew nothing of the code of interpretation, and so understood nothing, could only look and speculate. In modern warfare the telephone has probably superseded the signal service, but the latter certainly played an important part in our civil war. During the siege we lived high on some commestibles not included in the regular army rations. Corn was in the roasting-earth state, and there were plenty of big fields of it beyond and near the picket lines, and we helped ourselves liberally. Our favorite method of cooking the corn was to roast it in the shuck. We would snap the ears from the stock, leaving the shuck intact, dob over the outside a thin plaster of mud, or sometimes just saturate the ears in water, then cover them with hot ashes and live coals. By the time the fire had consumed the shuck down to the last or inner layer the corn was done, and it made most delicious eating. We had no butter to spread on it, but it was good enough without. And then, the blackberries, I have never seen them so numerous and so large as they were on those ridges in the rear of Vicksburg. I liked them best raw, taken right from the vine, but sometimes for a change would stew them in my coffee can, adding a little sugar, and prepared in this manner they were fine. But like the Darkies' rabbit they were good anyway. The only serious drawback that we had on our part of the line was the unusual amount of fatal sickness that prevailed among the men. The principal types of disease were camp diarrhea and malarial fevers, resulting in all probability largely from the impure water we drank. At first we procured water from shallow and improvised wells that we dug in the hollows and ravines. Wild cane grew luxuriously in this locality, attaining a height of fifteen or twenty feet, and all other wild vegetation was rank in proportion. The annual growth of all this plant life had been dying and rotting on the ground for ages, and the water would filter through this decomposing mass and become well-nigh poisonous. An order was soon issued that we should get all water for drinking and cooking purposes from the Yazoo River and boil it before using, but it was impossible to compel complete obedience to such an order. When men got thirsty they would drink whatever was handy, orders to the contrary notwithstanding. And the water of the river was about as bad as the swamp water. I have read somewhere that the Yazoo is an Indian word signifying the River of Death, and if so it surely was correctly named. It is just my opinion, as a common soldier, that the epidemic of Camp Diarrhea would have been substantially prevented if all the men had eaten freely of blackberries. I didn't have a touch of that disorder during all the time we were in that locality, and I attribute my immunity to the fact that I ate liberally of blackberries about every day. But Camp Diarrhea is something that gets in its work quick, and after the men got down with it they possibly had no chance to get the berries. And all the time we were at Snyder nearly every hour of the day could be heard the doleful mournful notes of the dead march played by the military bands as some poor fellow was being taken to his long home. It seemed to me at the time, and seemed so yet, that they should have left out that piece of music. It did no good, and its effect was very depressing, especially on the sick. Under such circumstances it would seem that common sense, if exercise, would have dictated the keeping dumb of such saddening funeral strains. Sometime during the latter part of June the regiment was paid two months' pay by Major C. L. Bernay, a pay master of the U.S. Army. He was a fine old German of remarkably kind and benevolent appearance, and looked more like a venerable Catholic priest than a military man. After he had paid off the regiment his escort loaded his money-chest and his personal stuff into an ambulance, and he was soon ready to go to some other regiment. Several of our officers had assembled to bid him good-bye, and I happened to be passing along and witnessed what transpired. The few farewell remarks of the old man were punctuated by the roar of the big guns of our army and navy pounding away at Vicksburg, and the incident impressed me as somewhat pathetic. Good-bye, Colonel, said Major Bernay, extending his hand, BOOM! Good-bye, Major, BOOM! Good-bye, Captain, BOOM! And so on to the others, then with a wave of his hand to all the little group. Good-bye, gentlemen, BOOM! Maybe so, BOOM! We meet not again. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! It was quite apparent that he was thinking of the so-called fortunes of war. Then he sprang into his ambulance and drove away. His prediction proved true. We never met again. The morning of the Fourth of July opened serene and peaceful, more so, in fact, than in old times at home, for with us not even the popping of a firecracker was heard. And the stillness south of us continued as the day wore on. The big guns of the army and navy remained absolutely quiet. Our first thought was that because the day was a national holiday, Grant had ordered a cessation of the firing in order to give his soldiers a day of needed rest. It was not until some time in the afternoon that a rumor began to circulate among the common soldiers that Vicksburg had surrendered. And about sundown we learned that such was the fact. So far as I saw or heard, we indulged in no hooping or yelling over the event. We had been confident all the time that the thing would finally happen, so we were not taken by surprise. There was a feeling of satisfaction and relief that the end had come, but we took it coolly and as a matter, of course. On the same day that Vicksburg surrendered, Grant started the greater part of his army under the command of General Sherman in the direction of Jackson for the purpose of attacking General Johnston. Our division, however, remained at Snyders until July 12th, when we left there, marching southeast. I remember this march especially from the fact that the greater part of it was made during the night. This was done in order to avoid the excessive heat that prevailed in the daytime. As we plotted along after sunset at Root Step and Arms at Will, a low hum of conversation could be heard, and occasionally a loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind. By ten o'clock we were tired. We had been on the road since noon, and moreover getting very sleepy. Profound silence now prevailed in the ranks, broken only by the rattle of canteens against the shanks of the bayonets, and the heavy monotonous tramp of the men. As Walter Scott has said somewhere in one of his poetical works, no symbol clashed, no clarion rang, still were the pipe and drum. Save heavy tread and armor's clang, the sullen march was dumb. The column halted about midnight. We bivouacked in the woods by the side of the road, and I was asleep about as soon as I struck the ground. We resumed the march early in the morning, and during the forenoon arrived at Messengers Ford on Black River, where we went into camp. We remained here only until July 17th, and on that day marched a few miles south to the railroad crossing on Black River and bivouacked on the west bank of the stream. The Confederates during the campaign had thrown up breastworks of cotton bales which evidently had extended for quite a distance above and below the railroad crossing. When our fellows came along they tore open the bales and used the cotton to sleep on, and when we arrived at the place the fleecy stuff was scattered over the ground in some places half knee deep all over that portion of the river bottom. It looked like a big snowfall. Cotton at that very time was worth one dollar a pound in the New York market and scarce at that. A big fortune was there in the dirt going to waste, but we were not in the cotton business just then, so it made no difference to us. At the beginning of the war it was confidently asserted by the advocates of the secession movement that cotton was king, that the civilized world couldn't do without it, and as the south had a virtual monopoly on the stuff the need of it would compel the European nations to recognize the independence of the Southern Confederacy and which would thereby result in the speedy and complete triumph of the Confederate cause. But in thus reasoning they ignored a law of human nature. Men, under the pressure of necessity, can get along without many things which they have previously regarded as indispensable. At this day in my opinion many of the alleged wants of mankind are purely artificial, and we would be better off if they were cut out all together. Aside from various matters of food and drink and absurdities in garb and ornaments, numbers of our rich women in eastern cities regard life as a failure, unless they each possessed a thousand-dollar pet dog decorated with ribbons and diamond ornaments and honored at dog functions with a seat at the table, where on such occasions pictures of the dogs, with their female owners sitting by them, are taken and reproduced in quarter-page cuts in the Sunday editions of the daily papers. If these women would knock the dogs in the head and bring into the world legitimate babies, or even illegitimate for their husbands are probably of the capon breed, then they might be of some use to the human race. But as it is they are a worthless unnatural burlesque on the species. But this has nothing to do with the war or the sixty-first Illinois, so I will pass on. While we were at the Black River Railroad Bridge, thousands of paroled Confederate soldiers captured at Vicksburg past us, walking on the railroad track going eastward, we had strict orders to abstain from making to them any insulting or taunting remarks, and so far as I saw these orders were faithfully obeyed. The Confederates looked hard. They were ragged, sallow, emaciated, and seemed depressed and disconsolate. They went by us with downcast looks and in silence. I heard only one of them make any remark whatever, and he was a little drummer boy, apparently not more than fifteen years old. He tried to say something funny, but it was a dismal failure. While in camp at the railroad crossing on Black River a most agreeable incident occurred, the pleasure of which has not been lessened by the flight of time, but rather augmented. But to comprehend it fully, some preliminary explanation might be advisable. Before the war there lived a few miles from our home near the Jersey Landing Settlement, a quaint and most interesting character of the name of Benjamin F. Slaton. He owned and lived on a farm, but had been admitted to the bar and practiced law to some extent as a sort of sideline. But I think that until after the war his practice in the main was confined to the courts of justices of the peace. He was a shrewd, sensible old man of a remarkably kind and genial disposition, but just about the homeliest looking individual I ever saw. And he had a most singular squeaky sort of voice, with a kind of a nasal twang to it, which if heard once could never be forgotten. He was an old friend of my father's and had been his legal advisor, so far as his few untrifely necessities in that line required, from time immemorial. And for a year or so prior to the outbreak of the war my thoughts had been running much on the science of law, and I had a strong desire, if the thing could be accomplished, to sometime be a lawyer myself. So, during the period aforesaid, whenever I would meet Uncle Ben, as we frequently called him, I would have a lot of questions to fire at him about some law points, which it always seemed to give him much pleasure to answer. I remember yet one statement he made to me that later, and sometimes to my great chagrin, I found out was undeniably true. Leander, he said, if you ever get into the practice of law, you'll find that it is just plum full of little in trick eight points. But things are not so bad now in that respect as they were then. The war ensued, and in September 1862 he entered the service as captain of company K. of the 97th Illinois Infantry. He was about 42 years old at this time. In due course of events the regiment was sent south and became a part of the Army of the Tennessee, but the paths of the 61st and the 97th were on different lines, and I never met Captain Slayton in the field until the happening of the incident now to be mentioned. When we were at Black River I was on picket one night, about a mile or so from camp, at a point on an old country road. Sometimes shortly after midnight, while I was curled up asleep in a corner of the old worm fence by the side of the road, I was suddenly awakened by an energetic shake, accompanied by the loud calling of my name. I sprang to my feet at once thinking maybe some trouble was a foot, and to my surprise saw Captain Keely standing in front of me with some other gentleman. Still well said Keely, here's an old friend of yours, he wanted to see you, and being pressed for time his only chance for a little visit was to come to you on the picket line. My caller stood still and said nothing. I saw that he was an officer, for his shoulder straps were plainly visible, but I could not be sure of his rank for there was no moon and the night was dark. He was wearing an old sugarloaf hat, seemingly much decayed. His blouse was covered with dust and in general he looked tough. His face was covered with a thick, scraggy beard, and under all these circumstances it was impossible for me to recognize him. I was very anxious to do so in view of the trouble the officer had taken to come away out on the picket line in the middle of the night to see me, but I just couldn't, and began to stammer a sort of apology about the darkness of the night, hindering a prompt recognition when the unknown gave his head a slant to one side, and in his never-forgettable voice spoke thus to Keely, I told you he wouldn't know me. I know you now, said I, I recognize that voice if I heard it in Richmond. This is Captain Ben Slayton of the ninety-seventh Illinois, and springing forward I seized his right hand with both of mine while he threw his left arm about my neck and fairly hugged me. It soon came out in the conversation that ensued that his regiment had been with Sherman in the recent move on Jackson, that it was now returning with that army to the vicinity of Vicksburg and had arrived at Black River that night, that he had at once hunted up the sixty-first Illinois to have a visit with me, and ascertaining that I was on picket had persuaded Captain Keely to come with him to the picket line as his regiment would leave early in the morning on the march, hence this would be his only opportunity for a brief meeting, and we all certainly had a most delightful visit with the old Captain. From the time of his arrival until his departure there was no sleeping by anybody on that picket post. We sat on the ground in a little circle around him and listened to his comical and side-splitting stories of army life and incidents in camp and field generally. He was an inimitable storyteller, and his peculiar tone and manner added immensely to the comicality of his anecdotes, and somehow he had the happy faculty of extracting something numerous or absurd from what the generality of men would have regarded as a very serious affair. He did most of the talking that night while the rest of us sat there and fairly screamed with laughter. It was well known and understood that there were no armed Confederates in our vicinity, so we ran no risk in being a little careless. Finally, when the owls began tuning up for the day, the old Captain bet us goodbye and trudged away, accompanied by Captain Keely. To fully comprehend this little episode, it is perhaps necessary to have some understanding and appreciation of how a soldier a way down south, far from home and the frenzy had left behind, enjoyed meeting some dear old friend of the loved neighborhood of home, it was almost equal to having a short furlough. I never again met Captain Slayton during the war. He came out of it alive with an excellent record, and about thirty-seven years after the close died at his old home in Jersey County, Illinois, sincerely regretted and mourned by a large circle of acquaintances and friends. of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861, 1865, by Leander Stillwell, Chapter 11, Helena, Arkansas, Life in a Hospital, August, 1863. General Sherman soon drove General Johnston out of Jackson and beyond Pearl River, and then his column returned to the vicinity of Vicksburg. On July 22, our division marched back to Snyder's Bluff and resumed our old camp. But we had not been here long before it was rumored that we were under marching orders and would soon leave for some point in Arkansas. Sure enough, on July 29 we marched to the Yazoo River and filed on board the sidewheel steamer Sultana, steamed down the river to its mouth, and there turned up the Mississippi, headed north. I will remark here that one of the most tragical and distressing incidents of the war was directly connected with a frightful disaster that later befell the above-named steamboat. It left Vicksburg for the north on, or about, April 25, 1865, having on board nearly 1,900 Union soldiers, all of whom, with few exceptions, were paroled prisoners. On the morning of April 27, while near Memphis, the boilers of the boat exploded, and it was burnt to the water's edge. Over 1,100 of these unfortunate men perished in the wreck. In different ways, some scalded to death by escaping steam, some by fire, others and the greatest number by drowning. Besides the soldiers, cabin passengers and members of the boat's crew, to the number of about 140 also perished. It was the greatest disaster of that kind that ever occurred on the Mississippi. It may perhaps be noticed that the regiment is leaving the vicinity of Vicksburg without my saying a word about the appearance at that time of that celebrated stronghold. There is good reason for it, namely it so happened that we never were in the place. We were close to it on the north and on the east, but that was all. And I never yet have seen Vicksburg, and it is not probable now that I ever shall. We arrived at Helena, Arkansas, on July 31st, debarked, and went into camp near the bank of the river, about two miles below the town. There were no trees in our camp except a few cotton woods. The ground on which we walked, sat and slept, was, in the main, just a mass of hot sand, and we got water for drinking and cooking purposes from the Mississippi River. The country back of the town and in that immediate vicinity, generally, was wild and thinly settled, and had already been well foraged, so we were restricted to the ordinary army diet, of which one of the principal items, as usual, was fat saw-belly. I never understood why we were not allowed to camp in the woods west of the town. There was plenty of high, well-shaded space there, and we soon could have sunk wells that would have furnished cool, palatable water. But this was not done, and the regiment remained for about two weeks, camped on the riverbank, in the conditions above described. A natural result was that numbers of the men were prostrated by malarial fever, and this time I happened to be one of them. I now approach a painful period of my army career. I just lay there, in a hot tent, on the sand, oh, so sick! But I fought off going to the hospital as long as possible. I had a superstitious dread of an army hospital. I had seen so many of the boys loaded into ambulances, and hauled off to such a place, who never returned, that I was determined never to go to one if it could be avoided in any honorable way. But the time came when it was a military necessity that I should go, and there was no alternative. The campaign that was in contemplation was a movement westward against the Confederates under General Sterling Price at Little Rock, with the intention of capturing that place and driving the Confederates from the State. The officer in command of the Union forces was General Frederick Steele. Marching orders were issued, fixing the thirteenth of August as the day our regiment would start. All the sick who were unable to march, and I was among that number, were to be sent to the division hospital. So, on the morning before the regiment moved, an ambulance drove up to my tent, and some of the boys carried me out and put me in the vehicle. Captain Keely was standing by. He pressed my hand and said, Good-bye, still well, brace up, you'll be all right soon. I was feeling too wretched to talk much. I only said, Good-bye, Captain, and let it go with that. Later, when I rejoined the regiment, Keely told me that when he bade me good-bye that morning he never expected to see me again. Our division hospital, to which I was taken, consisted of a little village of wall-tents in the outskirts of Helena. The tents were arranged in rows, with perhaps from fifteen to twenty in a row, with their ends pinned back against the sides, thus making an open space down an entire row. The sick men lay on cots, of which there was a line on each side of the interior of the tents, with a narrow aisle between. I remained at the hospital eight days, and was very sick the most of the time, and retained a distinct recollection of only a few things. But, aside from men dying all around me, both day and night, nothing important happened. All the accounts that I have read of this movement of general steels on Little Rock agree in stating that the number of men he left sick at Helena and other places between there and Little Rock was extraordinary and beyond all usual proportions. And from what I saw myself, I think these statements must be true. And a necessary consequence of this heavy sick list was the fact that it must have been impossible to give the invalids the care and attention they should have received. We had but few attendants and they were soldiers detailed for that purpose who were too feeble to march, but were supposed to be capable of rendering hospital service. And the medical force left with us was so scanty that it was totally inadequate for the duties they were called on to perform. Oh, those nights were so long at intervals in the aisle, a bayonet would be stuck in the ground with a lighted candle in its socket. And when a light went out, say after midnight, it stayed out and we would toss around on those hard cots in a state of semi-darkness until daylight. If any attendants moved around among us in the latter hours of the night, I never saw them. We had well water to drink, which of course was better than that from the river, but it would soon become insipid and warm, and sometimes especially during the night we didn't have enough of that. On one occasion, about midnight, soon after I was taken to the hospital, I was burning with fever and became intolerably thirsty for a drink of water. No attendants were in sight, and the candles had all gone out but one or two, which emitted only a sort of flickering light that barely served to render darkness visible. My suffering became well-nigh unendurable, and I could stand it no longer. I got up and staggered to the door of the tent, and looking about me saw, not far away, a light gleaming through a tent that stood apart from the others. I made my way to it as best I could, and went in. A young fellow, maybe an assistant surgeon, was seated at the further end of a little desk, writing, My entrance was so quiet that he did not hear me, and walking up to him, I said in a sort of hollow voice, I want a drink of water. The fellow dropped his pen and nearly fell off his stool. The only garment I had on was a white, sleazy sort of cotton bed-gown, which they garbed us all in when we were taken to the hospital. And this chap's eyes, as he stared at me, looked as if they would pop out of his head. Perhaps he thought I was a gliding ghost. But he got me some water and I drank copiously. I don't clearly remember what followed. It seems to me that this man helped me back to my tent, but I am not sure. However, I was in the same old cot next morning. The fair at the hospital was not of a nature liable to generate an attack of the gout, but I reckon those in charge did the best they could. The main thing seemed to be a kind of thin soup with some grains of rice or barley in it. What the basis of it was, I don't know. I munched a hard tack occasionally, which was far better than the soup. But my appetite was quite scanty anyhow. One day we each had at dinner served in our tin plates about two or three tablespoons of preserved currents, for which it was said we were indebted to the U.S. Sanitary Commission. It seemed that a boatload of such goods came down the river in charge of a committee of ladies destined for our hospitals at Vicksburg. The boat happened to make a temporary stop at Helena and the ladies ascertained that there was at the hospitals their great need of sanitary supplies, so they donated us the bulk of their cargo. I will remark here that that little dab of currents was all the U.S. sanitary stuff I consumed during my army service. I am not kicking, merely stating the fact. Those goods very properly went to the hospitals, and as my stay therein was brief, my share of the delicacies was consequently correspondingly slight. As regards the medicine given us in the hospital at Helena, my recollection is that it was almost entirely quinine, and the doses were frequent and copious, which I suppose was all right. There was a boy in my company of about my age, a tall lanky chap named John Barton. He had lived in our neighborhood at home, and we were well acquainted prior to our enlistment. He was a kind-hearted, good sort of a fellow, but he had, while in the army, one unfortunate weakness, the same being a voracious appetite for intoxicating liquor, and he had a remarkable faculty for getting this stuff under any and all circumstances. He could nose it out in some way, as surely and readily as a bear could find a bee-tree. But, to keep the record straight, I will further say that, after his discharge, he turned over a new leaf, quit the use of whiskey, and lived a strictly temperate life. He was under the weather when the regiment left Helena, and so was detailed to serve as a nurse at the hospital, and was thus engaged in my tent. Since making that bad break at Owl Creek, I had avoided whiskey as if it were a rattlesnake, but somehow, while here in the hospital, I began to feel an intense craving for some spiritus frumenti, as the surgeons called it. So one day I asked John Barton if he couldn't get me a canteen full of whiskey. He said he didn't know, was afraid it would be a difficult job, but to give him my canteen and he would try. That night, as late maybe as one or two o'clock, and when the lights were nearly all out, as usual, I heard someone stealthily walking up the aisle and stopping occasionally at different cots, and presently I heard a horse whisper, Still well, still well. Here, I answered in the same tone. The speaker then came to me. It was old John, and stooped down, he whispered, By God, I've got it. Bully for you, John, said I. He raised me to a sitting posture, removed the cork, and put the mouth of the canteen to my lips, and I drank about as long as I could hold my breath. John took a moderate swing himself, then carefully put the canteen in my knapsack, which was serving as my pillow, cautioned me to keep it concealed to avoid its being stolen, and went away. I was asleep in about five minutes after my head struck my knapsack, and slept all the balance of the night, just like a baby. On waking up, I felt better, too, and wanted something to eat. However, let no one think who may read these lines that I favor the use of whiskey as a medicine, for I don't. But the situation in those Helena hospitals was unusual and abnormal, the water was bad, our food was no good, and very unsatisfactory, and conditions generally were simply wretched. I'm not blaming the military authorities. They doubtless did the best they could. It seemed to me that I was getting weaker every day. It looked as if something had to be done, and acting on the maxim that desperate cases require desperate remedies, I resorted for the time being to the whiskey treatment. I made one unsuccessful attempt afterwards to get some to serve as a tonic, which perhaps may be mentioned later, and then forever abandon the use of the stuff for any purpose. Immediately succeeding the above mentioned incident, the fever let up on me, and I began to get better, though still very weak. My great concern right now was to rejoin the regiment just as soon as possible. It was taking part in an active campaign in which fighting was expected, and the idea was intolerable that the other boys should be at the front marching and fighting while I was in the rear playing the part of a hospital pimp. It was reported that a steamboat was going to leave soon via the Mississippi and White Rivers with convalescence for Steel's army, and I made up my mind to go on that boat at all hazards. But to accomplish that it was necessary, as I was informed, to get a written permit from the division surgeon, Major Shoeball York of the 54th Illinois Infantry. So one morning, bright and early, I blacked my shoes and brushed up my old cap and clothing generally, and started to Major York's headquarters to get the desired permission. He was occupying a large two-story house with shade trees in the yard, in the residence part of town, and his office was in the parlor in the first story of the building. I walked in and found an officer of the rank of Major seated at a table engaged in writing. I removed my cap and, standing at attention, saluted him and asked if this was Major York, and was answered in the affirmative. I had my little speech carefully prepared and proceeded at once to deliver it as follows. My name is Leander Stillwell. I am a sergeant of Company D. of the 61st Illinois Infantry, which is now with General Steel's army. The regiment marched about a week ago, and as I was then sick with a fever, I could not go, but was sent to the division hospital here in Helena. I am now well, and have come to you to request a permit to enable me to rejoin my regiment. The Major looked at me closely while I was speaking, and after I had concluded he remained silent for a few seconds, still scrutinizing me intently. Then he said in a low and very kind tone, By sergeant you are not able for duty and won't be for some time. Stay here till you get a little stronger. His statement was a bitter disappointment to me. I stood there in silence a little while, twisting and turning with trembling hands my old faded and battered camp. I finally managed to say, I want to go to my regiment, and here my lips began to tremble and I got no further. Now don't laugh at this. It was simply the case of a boy, weak and broken down by illness, who was homesick to be with his comrades. The Major did not immediately respond to my last remark, but continued to look at me intently. Presently he picked up his pen and said, I am inclined to think that the best medical treatment for you is to let you go to your regiment, and he thereupon wrote and handed me the permit, which was quite brief, consisting only of a few lines. I thanked him and departed with a light heart. I will digress here for a moment to chronicle with deep sorrow the sad fate that ultimately befell the kind and noble surgeon Major York. While he with his regiment was home on Veteran Furlough in March 1864, an organized gang of copperheads made a dastardly attack on some of the soldiers of the regiment at Charleston, Illinois, and murdered Major York and five privates, and also severely wounded the Colonel Greenville M. Mitchell and three privates, see official records of the war of the rebellion, Serial Number 57, Page 629. The war ended over half a century ago, and the feelings and passions engendered thereby as between the people of the nation and those of the late Confederate states have well-nigh wholly subsided, which is right. But nevertheless I will set it down here that in my opinion the most undesirable citizens that ever have afflicted our country were the traitorous malignant breed that infested some portions of the loyal states during the war, and were known as copperheads. The rattlesnake gives warning before it strikes, but the copperhead snake of equally deadly venom gives none, and the two-legged copperheads invariably pursued the same course. They deserved the name. On leaving Major York's office I returned to the hospital and gathered up my stuff, which included my gun, cartridge box, knapsack, haversack, and canteen, and said goodbye to Barton and the other boys I knew. Then to the commissary tent, and exhibiting my permit, was furnished with five days' rations of hard tack, bacon, coffee, and sugar, thence to the river landing, and on to the steamboat pike, which was to take the present batch of convalescence to Steele's army. CHAPTER XII. OF THE STORY OF A COMMON SOLDIER OF ARMY LIFE IN THE CIVIL WAR. 1861. 1865. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Sue Anderson. THE STORY OF A COMMON SOLDIER OF ARMY LIFE IN THE CIVIL WAR. 1861. 1865. By Leander Stillwell. CHAPTER XII. DEVAL'S BLUFF LITTLE ROCK AUGUST OCTOBER 1863. On the morning of August 21st the pike cast off and started down the Mississippi River. On reaching the mouth of White River we turned up that stream, and on August 26th arrived at Deval's Bluff on the West Bank where we debarked. Our trip from Helena was slow and uneventful. The country along White River from its mouth to Deval's Bluff was wild, very thinly settled, and practically in a state of nature we passed only two towns on the stream, St. Charles and Clarendon, both small places. On different occasions I saw several bears and deer on the riverbank, they having come there for water. Of course they ran back into the woods when the boat got near them. All of Steel's infantry was temporarily in camp at Deval's Bluff while his cavalry was some miles further out. I soon found the old regiment and received a warm welcome from all of Company D. They were much surprised to see me as they had no idea that I would be able to leave the hospital so soon. They had had no fighting on this campaign so far, and they said that their march across the country from Helena had been monotonous and devoid of any special interest. During my first night at Deval's Bluff there came a heavy and protracted rainstorm, and on waking up the following morning I found myself about half hip deep in a puddle of water, and this was the beginning of more trouble. My system was full of quinine taken to break the fever while in the hospital, and the quinine and this soaking in the water did not agree. In a short time I began to feel acute rheumatic twinges in the small of my back, and in a day or two was practically helpless and could not get up or walk around without assistance. The regiment left Deval's Bluff with the balance of the army on September 1, advancing towards Little Rock. I was totally unable to march, but was determined to go along some way, and with Captain Keeley's permission the boys put me into one of the regimental wagons. This wagon happened to be loaded with barrels of pickled pork standing on end, and my seat was on top of one of the barrels, and it was just the hardest, most painful day's ride in a wagon I ever endured. I was suffering intensely from acute rheumatism in the coupling region, and in this condition trying to keep steady on top of a barrel and being occasionally violently pitched against the ends of the barrel staves when the wagon gave a lurch into a deep rut, which would give me well-nigh intolerable pain. To make matters worse the day was very hot, so when evening came and the column halted I was mighty near all in. But some of the boys helped me out and laid me on a blanket in the shade, and later brought me some supper of hard-tack, bacon, and coffee, except the rheumatism I was all right, and had a good appetite, and after a hearty supper felt better. Next morning, in consequence of the active exertions of Captain Keeley in the matter, an ambulance drove up where I was lying and I was loaded into it. And oh, it was a luxury. Poor Enoch Wallace had been taken down with a malarial fever, and he was also a passenger, likewise two other soldiers whose names I have forgotten. Enoch had been promoted to Second Lieutenant and had been acting as such for some months, but his commission was not issued until September 3, a day when he was a very sick man. From this on, until September 10, the day our forces captured Little Rock, my days were spent in the ambulance. At night the sick of each division, of whom there were hundreds, would bevwack by the side of some lagoon or small water-course. The attendants would prepare us some supper, and the surgeons would make their rounds, administering such medicine as the respective cases required. The prevailing type of sickness was malarial fever, for which the sovereign specifics seemed to be quinine. As for me, I was exempt from taking of medicine, for which I was thankful. The surgeon, after inquire into my case, would sententiously remark, ah, acute rheumatism, and pass on. I was at a loss to understand this seeming neglect, but its sort of explanation was given me later, which will be mentioned in its order. The food that was given the sick was meager and very unsatisfactory, but it was probably the best that could be furnished under the circumstances. Each man was given an oyster can full of what seemed to be beef soup with some rice or barley grains in it. By the time it got around to us, there was usually a thin crust of cold tallow on the top, and the mere looks of a mess was enough to spoil one's appetite if he had any. One evening Wallace and I were sitting side by side with our backs against a tree when an attendant came to us and gave each one his can of the decoction above mentioned. It was comical to see the look of disgust that came over the face of poor Enoch. He turned towards me, and tilting his can slightly to enable me to see the content spoke thus. Now, ain't this nice stuff to give a sick man? I have a good notion to throw the whole business in that fellow's face, referring to the attendant. The trouble with you, Enoch, I said, is that you are losing your patriotism, and I shouldn't be surprised if you'd turned secess yet, kicking on this rich, delicious soup. Next thing you'll be ordering turtle soup and clamoring for napkins and finger bowls. You remind me of a piece of poetry I have read somewhere, something like this. Jesseron waxed fat and down his belly hung against the government he kicked and high his buttocks flung. The poor old fellow leaned back against the tree and indulged in a long, silent laugh that really seemed to do him good. I would joke with him after this fashioned a good deal, and long afterwards he told me that he believed he would have died on that march if I hadn't kept his spirits up by making ridiculous remarks. In speaking of Wallace as old, the word is used in a comparative sense, for the fact is he was only about thirty-four years of age at this time. On the evening of September 9, the sick of our division bivouacked by the side of a small bayou in a dense growth of forest trees, next morning the rumours spread among us that on that day a battle was impending that our advance was close to the Confederates and that a determined effort would be made for the capture of Little Rock. Sure enough, during the forenoon the cannon began to boom a few miles west of us, and our infantry was seen rapidly moving in that direction. As I lay there helpless on the ground I could not avoid worrying somewhat about the outcome of the battle. If our forces should be defeated, we sick fellows would certainly be in a bad predicament. I could see in my mind's eye our ambulance starting on a gallop for Deval's bluff while every jolt of the conveyance would inflict on me excruciating pain. But this suspense did not last long. The artillery practice soon began moving further towards the west, and was only of a short duration anyhow, and we saw no stragglers which was an encouraging sign, and some time during the afternoon we learned that all was going in our favour. From the standpoint of a common soldier I have always thought that General Steele affected the capture of Little Rock with commendable skill and in a manner that displayed sound military judgment. The town was on the west side of the Arkansas River, and our army approached it from the east. General Price, the Confederate commander, had constructed strong breast-works a short distance east of the town, and on the east side of the river, commanding the road on which we were approaching, the right of these works rested on the river, and the left on an impassable swamp. But General Steele did not choose to further Price's plans by budding his infantry up against the Confederate works. He entertained him at that point by ostentatious demonstrations and attacked elsewhere. The Arkansas was very low in many places, not much more than a wide sandbar, and was easily affordable at numerous points. So Steele had his cavalry and some of his infantry forward the river to the west side below the town and advance along the west bank, which was not fortified. General Price, seeing that his position was turned and that his line of retreat was in danger of being cut off, withdrew his troops from the east side and evacuated Little Rock about five o'clock in the afternoon, retreating southwest. Our troops followed close on his heels and marched in and took possession of the capital city of the state of Arkansas. Our loss in the entire campaign was insignificant, being only a little over a hundred in killed, wounded, and missing. The sixty-first was with the troops that operated on the east side of the river and sustained no loss, whatever. A few cannonballs poorly aimed and flying high passed over the regiment but did no mischief, beyond shaking the nerves of some recruits who had never before been under fire. About sundown on the evening of the tenth, the ambulance drivers hitched up and the sick were taken to a division hospital located near the east bank of the river. Captain Keely came over the next day to see Wallace and myself, and at my urgent request he arranged for me to be sent to the regiment. As here too forth stated, I just loathed the idea of being in a hospital. There were so many disagreeable and depressing things occurring there every day, and which could not be helped, that they inspired in me a sort of desperate determination to get right out of such a place and stay out, if possible. Early next morning an ambulance drove up. I was put in it and taken to the camp of the old regiment. Some of the boys carried me into a tent and laid me down on a cot, and I was once more in the society of men who were not groaning with sickness but were cheerful and happy. But it was my fate to lie on that cot for more than a month and unable even to turn over without help, and I shall never forget the kindness of Frank Gates during that time. He would come every day when not on duty, and bathe and rub my rheumatic part with a rag soaked in vinegar, almost scalding hot, which seemed to give me temporary relief. There was an old doctor of the name of Thomas D. Washburn, an assistant surgeon of the 126th Illinois Infantry, who for some reason had been detailed to serve temporarily with our regiment, and he would sometimes drop in to see me. He was a tall old man, something over six feet high, and gaunt in proportion. I don't remember that he ever gave me any medicine or treatment of any kind, for the reason doubtless that will now be stated. One day I said to him, Doctor, is there nothing that can be done for me? Must I just lie here and suffer indefinitely? He looked down at me sort of sympathetically and slowly said, I will answer your question by telling you a little story. Once upon a time a young doctor asked an old one substantially the same question you have just asked me, which the old doctor answered by saying, yes, there is just one remedy, six weeks, and patting me lightly on the shoulder he further remarked, that's all, and left. The sequel, in my case, confirmed Dr. Washburn's story. The spot where the regiment went into camp on the day of the capture of Little Rock was opposite the town on the east bank of the Arkansas, not far from the river and in a scattered grove of trees. The locality was supposed to be a sort of suburb of the town and was designated at the time in army orders as Huntersville, but the only house that I now remember of being near our camp was a little old ramshackle building that served as a railroad depot. Speaking of the railroad, it extended only from here to Devales Bluff, a distance of about fifty miles, and was the only railroad at that time in the state of Arkansas. The original project of the road contemplated a line from Little Rock to a point on the Mississippi opposite Memphis. Work was begun on the western terminus, and the road was completed and in operation as far as Devales Bluff before the war, and then the war came along and the work stopped. Since then the road has been completed as originally planned. This little old sawed-off railroad was quite a convenience to our army at the Rock, as it obviated what otherwise would have been the necessity of hauling our supplies in wagons across the country from Devales Bluff. It also frequently came handy for transporting the troops, and several times saved our regiment, and, of course, others, from a hot and tiresome march. For some weeks while in camp at Huntersville we lived high on several articles of food not included in the army rations. There were a good many sheep in the country roundabout that the military authorities confiscated, and so we had many a feast on fine, fresh mutton. Corn was plentiful also, and cornmeal was issued to us liberally. Last, but not least, the rich Arkansas river bottom lands abounded in great, big, yellow sweet potatoes that the country people called yams, and we just reveled in them to our entire satisfaction. There was a boy in my company named William Banfield about the same age as myself. We had been near neighbors at home and intimate friends. Bill was a splendid soldier, seldom sick, and always performed his soldier duties cheerfully and without grumbling. And Bill was blessed with a good digestion and apparently was always hungry. The place where he would build his cookfire in this camp was near the front of my tent, where I had a good view of his operations. I was lying helpless on my cot, and like others so situated from time immemorial had nothing to do, and scarcely did anything else but watch the neighbors. Among the cherished possessions of our company was an old-fashioned cast iron Dutch oven of generous proportions, which was just the dandy for baking mutton. Well, Bill would in the first place get his chunk of mutton, a fine big piece of the saddle or of a ham, and put it to cook in the oven. Then we had another oven, a smaller affair of the skillet order in which Bill would set to cooking a cornmeal cake. At the right stage of the proceedings he would slice up some yams and put them in with the mutton. Next and last he would make at least a quart of strong black coffee. Both from long experience and critical observation, Bill knew to the fraction of a minute how long it would take for all his converging columns of table comforts to reach the done point on time and all together, and the resulting harmony was perfection itself, and to use an overworked phrase left nothing to be desired. Dinner now being ready the first thing Bill did was to bring me an ample allowance of the entire Bill of Fair, and which by the way I had to dispose of as best I could lying down as it was impossible for me to sit up. Having seen to the needs of a disabled comrade, Bill next proceeded to clear his own decks for action. He seated himself at the foot of a big tree on the shady side with his back against the trunk. Then, spreading his legs apart in the shape of a pair of carpenter's compasses, he placed between them the oven containing the mutton and yams. At his left side the skillet with the cornbread, and on his right his can of coffee, and then the services began, and how Bill would enjoy his dinner there was no indecent haste about it, no bolting of the delicacies or anything of the sort. He proceeded slowly and with dignity, while occasionally he would survey the landscape with a placid, contented air, but everything was devoured. The last crumb of cornbread did duty in sopping up the final drop of grease. The banquet over Bill would sit there a while in silence, gazing per chance at the shimmering waters of the Arkansas and its sandbars glittering in the sun. But air long his head would begin to droop. He would throw one leg over the Dutch oven, swinging the limb clear of that utensil, settle himself snugly against the tree, and in about five minutes would be asleep. At the time I am now writing, October 1916, Bill is yet alive and residing at Grafton, Illinois. He is a good old fellow, and long may he wave.