vered that Jeff was an important acquisition to the company. He
was good natured and just as willing to do things for the other boys as
for the cook. Jeff Davis was a runaway slave, middle-aged, medium sized,
wore top boots with his trousers tucked in, his shirt front was never
buttoned either at the throat or lower down. His hat of black felt looked
as if it had been thrown at him and he had caught it on one corner of his
head. He had an easy going, rollicking gait and laugh, and was as full of
fun as an egg is full of meat. Still, Jeff was full of business, too, and
when, later on, he became company cook, the cooking was never better done,
or the interests of the company more carefully guarded than by him, and it
was as cook of Company K we realized his supreme usefulness and worth.
Acting as a sort of company treasurer, when the company was paid off, he
would pass around the hat and nearly every fellow would throw in a half a
dollar or a dollar. Nothing would be seen of that money until we got into
a hard place for food, then Jeff would manage to get us something to eat.
Jeff was the best kind of a forager; he knew how to buy and he knew
instinctively where to find things.

During the Knoxville campaign, had it not been for Jeff we should have
suffered much more than we did, although much of the time we received only
half rations from the Commissary Department and at times we received only
two ears of corn for a day's ration, but every once in a while Jeff would
get hold of something and give us a good meal. On the march over the
mountains he picked up a little Mississippi mule and the amount of food
that man hunted up and brought into camp during the siege of Knoxville was
prodigious. If a foraging party went out from headquarters after forage
for the horses and mules, Jeff was pretty sure to go along and he seldom
came back to camp empty handed. Had any one asked Jeff how he got those
things, he would have been shot on the spot--but no such foolish questions
were asked.

The things he got from people of his own race he doubtless bought and paid
for, but it is very doubtful if the white planters ever saw much of Jeff's
money. To be sure, he had some interesting experiences. One time he came
near being captured by some of Longstreet's cavalry, but he succeeded in
evading them and reached camp in safety. Jeff remained with the company
until the end of the war, came home with us to Massachusetts, settled in
one of the