ficers and men joked
him unmercifully. At noon the chaplain was released from arrest, as we
were to move at four p. m., and he begged so to be allowed to accompany
the regiment. The colonel told him he could be tried when we got back,
and he was happy. There was a great commotion as the regiment broke up
its camp and got ready to move. There was the usual crowd of negresses
who had been doing washing for the soldiers, to be paid on pay day, and
we were going away, no one knew where, and no one knew when we would
meet pay day. There were saloon-keepers with bills against officers, and
standing-off creditors was just about as hard in the army as at home.
I couldn't see much difference. But finally everything was ready, the
ammunition wagons, wagon train of stores, and a battery of little guns,
about three pounders, had been added. I didn't like the battery. It
seemed to me hard enough to kill our fellow citizens with revolver
balls, without shooting them with cannon. At 4 p.m. the bugle sounded
"forward," and with the clanking of sabers, rattling of hoofs and
wagons, we marched outside the picket line, past the cemetery where
my deceased friends were buried, and were going towards the enemy. The
chaplain and myself were riding behind the colonel, when the colonel
asked the good man to ride up to a log that was beside the road, and
make his horse put his forefeet upon it, as he did on the bar in the
saloon. I felt sorry for the chaplain, and I rode up to the log, and had
Jeff put his feet up on it. Then I rode back and saluted the colonel
and told him it was I who had done the wicked things the chaplain was
accused of, and I told him how the chaplain was using my coat, so I put
on his, with the shoulder straps on, and all about it. He laughed at
first and then said, "Then you are under arrest. You may dismount and
walk and lead your horse until further orders." I dismounted, like a
little man, and for five miles I walked, keeping up with the regiment.
Finally the colonel sung out, "gallop, march," and I got on my horse.
I reasoned that the order to gallop was "further orders," and that as he
knew I couldn't very well gallop on foot he must have meant for me to
get on. We galloped for about ten miles, and were ordered to halt, when
I dismounted and led my horse up to the colonel, and saluted him. "Well,
you must have had a hard time keeping up with us on foot," said he. I
told him it rested me to go on foot. We were just goin