s much to the sergeant. He thought it looked
reasonable, too, and he ordered us to fall back slowly toward the
regiment. We didn't go so confounded slow, and of course I was ahead
with my three horses. The sergeant heard the captain yell to him to hold
on, and he got the most of the "fours" to stop, and let the boys get on,
but the little Irishman and myself couldn't hold our extra horses, and
they dragged us along over logs and through brush, the regiment drew
sabers to "shoo" the horses back, waived their hats, my horse run his
fore feet into a hole, fell down, and let me off over his head, the
other horses seemed to walk on me, I became insensible, and the next
thing I knew I was in an ambulance, behind the regiment, which was on
the march, as though nothing had happened. I felt of myself to see if
anything was broke, and finding I was all right I told the driver of the
ambulance I guessed I would get out and mount my horse, but he said he
guessed I wouldn t, because the colonel had told him if I died to bury
me beside the road, but if I lived to bring me to headquarters for
punishment. The driver said the boys whose horses I had stampeded,
wanted to kill me, but the colonel had said death was too good for me.
Well, nobody was hurt in the skirmish, and about noon we arrived at
a camping place for the night, and the ambulance drove up, and I was
placed under guard.

It seems the sergeant had laid the whole thing to me. He had admitted
to the colonel that he didn't know one bugle call from another, and he
supposed I did, and when he asked me what it was, and I said it was to
retreat, he supposed I knew, and retreated. The colonel asked me what I
had to say, and I told him I didn't know any bugle call except get your
quinine, get your quinine. That when I enlisted there was nothing said
about my ability to read notes in music, and I had never learned, and
couldn't learn, as I had no more ear for music than a mule. I told
him if he would furnish a music teacher, I would study hard to try and
master the difference between "forward and back," but that it didn't
seem to me as though I ought to be held responsible for an expression of
opinion, however erroneous, when asked for it by a superior officer.

I told him that when the bugle sounded, and I saw the boys coming back
on a hop, skip and jump, it seemed to me the most natural thing in
the world that the bugle had sounded a retreat. That seemed the only
direction we coul