r you to the history
of that period.

A private soldier is but an automaton, a machine that works by the
command of a good, bad, or indifferent engineer, and is presumed to know
nothing of all these great events. His business is to load and shoot,
stand picket, videt, etc., while the officers sleep, or perhaps die on
the field of battle and glory, and his obituary and epitaph but "one"
remembered among the slain, but to what company, regiment, brigade or
corps he belongs, there is no account; he is soon forgotten.

A long line of box cars was drawn up at Camp Cheatham one morning in July,
the bugle sounded to strike tents and to place everything on board the
cars. We old comrades have gotten together and laughed a hundred times
at the plunder and property that we had accumulated, compared with our
subsequent scanty wardrobe. Every soldier had enough blankets, shirts,
pants and old boots to last a year, and the empty bottles and jugs would
have set up a first-class drug store. In addition, every one of us had
his gun, cartridge-box, knapsack and three days' rations, a pistol on
each side and a long Bowie knife, that had been presented to us by
William Wood, of Columbia, Tenn. We got in and on top of the box cars,
the whistle sounded, and amid the waving of hats, handkerchiefs and flags,
we bid a long farewell and forever to old Camp Cheatham.

Arriving at Nashville, the citizens turned out _en masse_ to receive us,
and here again we were reminded of the good old times and the "gal we
left behind us." Ah, it is worth soldiering to receive such welcomes as
this.

The Rev. Mr. Elliott invited us to his college grove, where had been
prepared enough of the good things of earth to gratify the tastes of the
most fastidious epicure. And what was most novel, we were waited on by
the most beautiful young ladies (pupils of his school). It was charming,
I tell you. Rev. C. D. Elliott was our Brigade Chaplain all through the
war, and Dr. C. T. Quintard the Chaplain of the First Tennessee Regiment--
two of the best men who ever lived. (Quintard is the present Bishop of
Tennessee).

ON THE ROAD

Leaving Nashville, we went bowling along twenty or thirty miles an hour,
as fast as steam could carry us. At every town and station citizens and
ladies were waving their handkerchiefs and hurrahing for Jeff Davis and
the Southern Confederacy. Magnificent banquets were prepared for us all
along the entire route. It was one