ke as my son if he were legitimate--for as
neighbor to neighbor, I'm practically bu'sted. All I'm doing is hanging
on for land to rise. Now this isn't much to do, and you won't have to
act unless you want to. Will you have the papers opened, and act for the
dead scoundrel if it seems the proper thing to do? You see, there's
hardly anybody else who is satisfactory to me, and at the same time a
friend to the other parties."

"I'll have the papers opened," said I; "but remember, this don't take
back what I said a few minutes ago. I think you ought to be killed."

"Thank you," said he. "Private Vandemark! You may go!"

Now I have told this story over and over again in court, to
commissioners taking testimony, to lawyers in their offices, to lawyers
out at my farm. It has been printed in court records, including the
Reports of the Supreme Court of Iowa. Judges of the Supreme Court of
Iowa have been nominated or refused nomination because of their views,
or their lack of views, or their refusal to state in advance off in
some hole and corner, what their views would be on the legal effect of
this conversation between me and Buckner Gowdy in the cabin of the
transport on the morning of the first day's battle of Shiloh--so N.V.
says--but this is the first time I have had a chance to tell it as it
was, without some squirt of a lawyer pointing his finger at me and
trying to make me change the story; or some other limb of the law
interrupting me with objections that it was incompetent, irrelevant and
immaterial, not the best evidence, hearsay, a privileged communication,
and a lot of other balderdash. This is what took place, just as I have
stated it; and this is all the Vandemark Township, Monterey County, or
Iowa history there was in the battle so far as I know--except that Iowa
had more men in that fight than any other state in proportion to her
population.

Just to show you that I didn't run away, I must tell you that we had
ammunition issued to us after a while, and were told how to use it. We
got forty rounds of cartridges at first and ten rounds right afterward.
Then we formed and marched, part of the time at the double, out into a
cotton-field. In front of us a few hundred yards off, was a line of
forest trees, and under the trees were tents, that I guess some of our
other men were driven out of that morning. Here we were at once under a
hot fire and lost a lot of men. We went into action about half-past nine
or ten o'c