me for any service that in the nature of
things I was liable to be called upon to perform. I kicked some at being
detailed to drive a six-mule team, but the colonel said I might see the
time when I could save the government a million dol-lars by being able
to jump on to a wheel mule and drive a wagon loaded with ammunition,
or paymaster's cash, out of danger of being captured by the enemy. So I
went to work and learned to gee-haw a six-mule team of the stubbornest
mules in the world, hauling bacon, but there was no romance in taking
care of six mules that would kick so you had to put the harness on them
with a pitchfork, for fear of having your head kicked off. If I ever
get a pension it will be for my loss of character and temper in driving
those mules. I have been in some dangerous places, but I was never in
so dangerous a place, in battle, as I was one day while driving those
mules. One of the lead mules got his forward foot over the bridle some
way, and I went to fix it, and the team started and "straddled" me. As
soon as I saw that I was between the two lead mules, and that the team
had started, I knew my only-safety was in laying down and taking the
chances of the three pairs of mules and wagon going straight over me.
To attempt to get out would mix them all up, so I fell right down in
the mud, which was about a foot deep, and just like soft mortar. As the
mules passed on each side of me, every last one of them kicked at me,
and I was under the impression that each wheel of the wagon kicked at
me, but I escaped everything except the mud, and when I got up on my
feet behind the wagon, the quartermaster, who was ahead on horseback,
had stopped the team. He called a colored man to drive, and told me I
could go back to the regiment. I tried to sneak in the back way, and not
see anybody, but when I passed the chaplain's tent a lot of officers,
who had been sampling his sanitary stores, come out, and one of them
recognized me, and they insisted on my stopping and talking something
with them. Honestly, there was not an inch of my clothing but was
covered with, red mud, that every soldier remembers who has been through
Alabama. They had fun with me for half an hour and then let me go. I
have never been able to look at a mule since, without a desire to kill
it.

I had said so much about my marksmanship with a rifle, that one day I
was sent for by the colonel. He said he had heard I was a crack shot
with the rifle, and I ad