earth sufficient to keep them from freezing. We soon learned what
those little earth mounds signified, and, as a matter of course,
confiscated the apples instanter. And the country was full of potatoes,
cabbages, and turnips, on which we foraged with great liberality. If
any apology for this line of conduct should be thought proper, it may
be said that many of the farms were at this time abandoned, the owners
having fled to the garrisoned towns to escape the Confederate raiders;
further, if we hadn't taken this stuff our adversaries would, if by
chance they happened again to infest that locality. Anyhow, a hungry
soldier is not troubled, in such matters, by nice ethical distinctions.
We remained at Allen on the 28th, and until the evening of the
following day, when we left there on the cars for St. Louis. But
sometime near midnight the train stopped at Montgomery City, about
midway between Allen and St. Louis, we were roused up, and ordered to
get off and form in line, which we did. Our officers then proceeded to
give us careful instructions, to the effect that a band of Confederate
cavalry was believed to be at Danville, out in the country a few miles
south, and that we were going there to surprise and capture this party,
if possible. We were strictly enjoined to refrain from talking and
singing, and to remain absolutely silent in ranks. We then fell into
column and marched for Danville, where we arrived an hour or so before
dawn. But our birds (if there when we started from Montgomery) had
flown--there were no Confederates there. A party of guerrillas had been
in the town about two weeks before, who had murdered five or six
unarmed citizens, (including one little boy about eight or ten years
old,) and it was believed when we started to march out here that this
gang, or some of them, had returned. The party that had previously
raided Danville were under the command of one Bill Anderson, a
blood-thirsty desperado, with no more humanity about him than an Apache
Indian. He was finally killed in battle with some Union troops about
the last of October, 1864. When killed there was found on his person a
commission as Colonel in the Confederate army, signed by Jefferson
Davis, and the brow-band of his horse's bridle was decorated with two
human scalps. (See "The Civil War on the Border," by Wiley Britton,
Vol. 2, p. 546.) He was of that class of men of which Quantrell and the
James and the Younger boys were fitting types, and w