, sah."

Myself--"Well, if you fellows intended stopping him, why didn't you do it
up about Atlanta? What did you let him come clear through the State,
burning and stealing, as you say? It was money in your pockets to head
him off as soon as possible."

Old Man--"Oh, we didn't set nothing afore him up thar except Joe Brown's
Pets, these sorry little Reserves; they're powerful little account; no
stand-up to'em at all; they'd break their necks runnin' away ef ye so
much as bust a cap near to 'em."

Our guards, who belonged to these Reserves, instantly felt that the
conversation had progressed farther than was profitable and one of them
spoke up roughly:

"See heah, old man, you must go off; I can't hev ye talkin' to these
prisoners; hits agin my awdahs. Go 'way now!"

The old fellow moved off, but as he did he flung this Parthian arrow:

"When Sherman gits down deep, he'll find somethin' different from the
little snots of Reserves he ran over up about Milledgeville; he'll find
he's got to fight real soldiers."

We could not help enjoying the rage of the guards, over the low estimate
placed upon the fighting ability of themselves and comrades, and as they
raved, around about what they would do if they were only given an
opportunity to go into a line of battle against Sherman, we added fuel to
the flames of their anger by confiding to each other that we always "knew
that little Brats whose highest ambition was to murder a defenseless
prisoner, could be nothing else than cowards end skulkers in the field."

"Yaas--sonnies," said Charlie Burroughs, of the Third Michigan, in that
nasal Yankee drawl, that he always assumed, when he wanted to say
anything very cutting; "you--trundle--bed--soldiers--who've never--seen
--a--real--wild--Yankee--don't--know--how--different--they--are--from
--the kind--that--are--starved--down--to tameness. They're--jest--as
--different--as--a--lion in--a--menagerie--is--from--his--brother--in
--the woods--who--has--a--nigger--every day--for-dinner. You--fellows
--will--go--into--a--circus--tent--and--throw--tobacco--quids in--the
--face--of--the--lion--in--the--cage--when--you--haven't--spunk enough
--to--look--a woodchuck--in--the--eye--if--you--met--him--alone. It's
--lots--o'--fun--to you--to--shoot--down--a--sick--and--starving-man
--in--the--Stockade, but--when--you--see--a--Yank with--a--gun--in--his
--hand--your--livers get--so--white--that--chalk--would--make--a--black
--mark-