heir places behind their trees, and opened a noisy but harmless fire.

{150}

CHAPTER XI. SHORTY'S CORRESPONDENT

GETS A LETTER FROM BAD AX, WIS., AND IS ALMOST OVERCOME WITH JOY.

SHORTY had always been conspicuously lacking in the general interest
which his comrades had shown in the mails. Probably at some time in his
life he had had a home like the rest of them, but for some reason home
now played no part in his thoughts. The enlistment and muster-rolls
stated that he was born in Indiana, but he was a stranger in the
neighborhood when he enrolled himself in Co. Q.

His revelations as to his past were confined to memories of things which
happened "when I was cuttin' wood down the Mississippi," or "when I was
runnin' on an Ohio sternwheel."

He wrote no letters and received none. And when the joyful cry, "Mail's
come," would send everybody else in the regiment on a run to the
Chaplain's tent, in eager anticipation, to jostle one another in
impatience, until the contents of the mailpouch were distributed, Shorty
would remain indifferent in his tent, without an instant's interruption
in his gun cleaning, mending, or whatever task he might have in hand.

A change came over him after he sent his letter to Bad Ax, Wis. The
cry, "Mail's come," would make{151} him start, in spite of himself, and
before he could think to maintain his old indifference. He was ashamed,
lest he betray his heart's most secret thoughts.

The matter of the secure transmission of the mails between camp and home
began to receive his earnest attention. He feared that the authorities
were not taking sufficient precautions. The report that John Morgan's
guerrillas had captured a train between Louisville and Nashville, rifled
the mail car, and carried off the letters, filled him with burning
indignation, both against Morgan and his band and the Generals who had
not long ago exterminated that pestiferous crowd.

He had some severe strictures on the slovenly way in which the mail was
distributed from the Division and Brigade Headquarters to the regiments.
It was a matter, he said, which could not be done too carefully. It
was a great deal more important than the distribution of rations. A man
would much rather lose several days' rations than a letter from home.
He could manage in some way to get enough to live on, but nothing would
replace a lost letter.

Then, he would have fits of silent musing, sometimes when alone,
sometimes when with Si