inner layer, the corn was done, and it made
most delicious eating. We had no butter to spread on it, but it was
good enough without. And then the blackberries! I have never seen them
so numerous and so large as they were there on those ridges in the rear
of Vicksburg. I liked them best raw, taken right from the vine, but
sometimes, for a change, would stew them in my coffee can, adding a
little sugar, and prepared in this manner they were fine. But, like the
darkey's rabbit,--they were good any way. The only serious drawback
that we had on our part of the line was the unusual amount of fatal
sickness that prevailed among the men. The principal types of disease
were camp diarrhea and malarial fevers, resulting, in all probability,
largely from the impure water we drank. At first we procured water from
shallow and improvised wells that we dug in the hollows and ravines.
Wild cane grew luxuriantly in this locality, attaining a height of
fifteen or twenty feet, and all other wild vegetation was rank in
proportion. The annual growth of all this plant life had been dying and
rotting on the ground for ages, and the water would filter through this
decomposing mass, and become well-nigh poisonous. An order was soon
issued that we should get all water for drinking and cooking purposes
from the Yazoo river, and boil it before using, but it was impossible
to compel complete obedience to such an order. When men got thirsty,
they would drink whatever was handy,--orders to the contrary
notwithstanding. And the water of the river was about as bad as the
swamp water. I have read somewhere that "Yazoo" is an Indian word,
signifying "The River of Death," and if so, it surely was correctly
named. It is just my opinion, as a common soldier, that the epidemic of
camp diarrhea could have been substantially prevented if all the men
had eaten freely of blackberries. I didn't have a touch of that
disorder during all the time we were in that locality, and I attribute
my immunity to the fact that I ate liberally of blackberries about
every day. But camp diarrhea is something that gets in its work quick,
and after the men got down with it, they possibly had no chance to get
the berries. And all the time we were at Snyder, nearly every hour of
the day, could be heard the doleful, mournful notes of the "Dead
March," played by the military bands, as some poor fellow was being
taken to his long home. It seemed to me at the time, and seems so yet,
that t