he
gifts of their lordships to the supper which Grangousier
spread to welcome Gargantua were nothing to those which our
good people at home send to their friends in the field; and
no doubt every soldier, if his dinner does not set him
thinking too intently of that home, will prove himself a
valiant trencherman."

Across the vast encampment before Petersburg a biting wind blew that
Thanksgiving day. It came through every cranny of our hut; it bellied
the canvas on one side and tightened it on the other; it pressed flat
down the smoke from a hundred thousand mud chimneys, and swept away so
quickly the little coals which fell on the canvas that they had not
time to burn through.

When I went out towards noon, for perhaps the twentieth time that day,
to learn whether our commissary wagons had returned from City Point
with the turkeys, the muddy parade ground was dotted with groups of
shivering men, all looking anxiously for the feast's arrival. Officers
frequently came out, to exchange a few cheery words with their men,
from the tall, close hedge of withering pines stuck on end that
enclosed the officers' quarters on the opposite side of the parade
ground.

No turkeys at twelve o'clock! None at one! Two, three, four, five
o'clock passed by, and still nothing had been heard of our absent
wagons. Charley was too weak to get out that day, but he cheerfully
scouted the idea that a turkey for each man would not arrive sooner or
later.

The rest of us dined and supped on "commissary." It was not good
commissary either, for Brownie, the "greasy cook," had gone on leave
to visit a "doughboy" cousin of the Sixth Corps.

"You'll have turkey for dinner, boys," he had said, on serving out
breakfast. "If you're wanting coffee, Tom can make it." Thus we had to
dine and sup on the amateur productions of the cook's mate.

A multitude of woful rumors concerning the absent turkeys flew round
that evening. The "Johnnies," we heard, had raided round the army, and
captured the fowls! Butler's colored troops had got all the turkeys,
and had been feeding on fowl for two days! The officers had "gobbled"
the whole consignment for their own use! The whole story of the
Thanksgiving dinner was a newspaper hoax! Nothing was too incredible
for men so bitterly disappointed.

Brownie returned before "lights out" sounded, and reported facetiously
that the "doughboys" he had visited were feeding full of turkey and
al