in the army, came running after us (Carter Page, John Page, George
Harrison, and myself) with gleeful cries, "Here, fellows, I've got
something. It isn't much, but it will give us a bite apiece. Here! look
at this, a piece of bread! let me give you some."

As he came up he held in his hand the identical piece of bread I had
seen the little darkey munching on. It was a small, wet, half-raw
fragment of corn ash-cake, and it had moulded on one edge a complete
cast of that little nigger's mouth, the perfect print of every tooth.
The Doctor had bought it from him for fifty cents, and now, wanted to
divide it with us four--a rather heroic thought that was, in a man
hungry as a wolf. Of course we young fellows flatly refused to divide
it, as we knew the Doctor, twice our age, needed it more than we. We
said, "We were not hungry; couldn't eat anything to save us." A lie,
that I hope the recording Angel, considering the motive, didn't take
down; or, if he did, I hope he added a note explaining the
circumstances.

We then began to joke the Doctor about the print of the little darkey's
teeth on his bread and suggested to him, to break off that part. "No,
indeed," said the Doctor, gloating over his precious ash-cake, "Bread's
too scarce, _I_ don't mind about the little nigger's teeth, I can't
spare a crumb." And when he found he could not force us to take any, he
ate it all up.

Indifference to the tooth prints was a perfectly reasonable sentiment,
under the circumstances, and one in which we all would have shared, for
we were wolfish enough to have eaten the "little nigger" himself. The
Doctor didn't mind the little chap's tooth marks _then_ but--he did
_afterwards_. After he had been pacified with a square meal, the idea
wasn't so pleasant, and though we often recalled the incident,
afterwards, the Doctor could not remember _this part of it_. He
remembered the piece of ash-cake, but, somehow, he could not be brought
to recall the tooth marks in it. Not he!

It was about eleven o'clock when we passed Verdiersville. Soon after, we
turned down a road, which led over to the plank road on which A. P.
Hill's column was moving. Hour after hour all the morning, reports had
come flying back along the columns, that our people, at the front, had
seen nothing but Federal Cavalry; hadn't been able to unearth any
infantry at all. An impression began to get about that maybe after all,
there had been a mistake, and that Grant's army was not