Now there was an unwritten
law in the army that no man should rifle the pockets of our own dead; he
might take all he could get from the enemy's dead, but our own dead were
sacred, and inviolate, and any man found breaking that law was despised.
The deacon, however, felt himself pretty independent. He was well-to-do;
he always had money and received many useful things from home--like
gloves, socks, fine high boots, and he had a set of false teeth set in a
gold plate. He did not make any prayers for the public benefit for quite a
while after the Fredericksburg affair, but when he did make one, the
company street for a minute or two was as quiet as death; then all at
once the old truck began to arrive on the deacon's tent. Empty tin cans,
tin cups, empty whiskey bottles, old shoes, anything in the way of rubbish
that could be found, suddenly found its way to the deacon's tent. Well,
that prayer was brought to a very sudden close and it was never repeated.
As we moved out at daybreak, the morning of November 14th, things looked
about as dark as most of us cared to have them. But some of those boys
were never disturbed at anything, and remembering the deacon one of them
piped up, "I say, Billy, if old blank should get hit now, what should you
go for?" "I should go for his teeth," said Billy. "What should you go for,
Tom?" "I should go for his boots." "What should you go for, Gus?" "I
should go for his gloves?"--this at a time when most of the boys felt
funny if they ever did, the deacon right among the very fellows who were
ready to pick his bones. We succeeded in stopping the Johnnies. Indeed,
that attack proved to be only a feint and during the day our trains and
artillery started towards Knoxville. Not until the evening of the 15th did
we start back, then during one of the darkest nights and over one of the
muddiest roads imaginable, we floundered along, reaching Campbells Station
a little before morning. At dawn we were thrown out on to the Kingston
road. We were there none too soon. Within a half hour after we were in
position, Longstreet's advance came in sight. Longstreet's feint at Lenoir
was evidently made in the hope of holding us there until he could reach
Campbell's Station, thus placing himself between Burnside and Knoxville.
We changed position twice during the day, but did little fighting in
either. The fighting was done in the beginning by the cavalry and later by
the artillery, we falling back from ridge to r