, seven dollars. I produced my little
memorandum book, and requested him to write the name and address of his
firm therein, which he did, in pen and ink, and it is there yet, in
that same little old book, now lying open before me, and reads as
follows:

"H. C. Cole & Co.,
Chester, Ill."

Well, he sent us the flour, and D and G had soft bread the balance of
the time we were at Chester.

I will now anticipate a few months, in order to finish the account of
this incident. The spring of 1865 found the regiment at Franklin,
Tennessee, and while there the paymaster made us a welcome visit. I
then went to Press Rice, and suggested to him that the time had now
come for us to pay the Chester miller for his flour, and he said he
thought so too. We sat down at the foot of a tree and made out a list
of all the boys of our respective companies who, at Chester, helped eat
the bread made from the flour, and who were yet with us, and then
assessed each one with the proper sum he should contribute, in order to
raise the entire amount required. Of course the boys paid it
cheerfully. Press turned over to me the proportionate sum of his
company, and requested me to attend to the rest of the business, which
I did. I wrote a letter to the firm of H. C. Cole & Co., calling their
attention to the fact of our purchase from them of two barrels of flour
in October of the previous year, and then went on to say that several
of the boys who had taken part in eating the bread made from this flour
had since then been killed in battle, or died of diseases incident to a
soldier's life, but there were yet enough of us left to pay them for
their flour, and that I here inclosed the proper sum. (I have forgotten
in just what manner or form it was sent, but think it was by express.)
In due course of time I received an answer, acknowledging receipt of
the money, written in a very kind and complimentary vein. After
heartily thanking us for the payment, the letter went on to state that
in all the business dealings of H. C. Cole & Co. with Union soldiers
the firm had been treated with fairness and remarkable honesty, and
they sincerely appreciated it.

Many years later out in Kansas I met a man who had lived in Chester
during the war, and told him the foregoing little story. He said he
knew the milling firm of Cole & Co. quite well, and that during the war
they were most intense and bitter Copperheads, and had no use whatever
for "Lincoln hirelings