o their understandin'. See?"

And Shorty was so delighted with his little joke that he laughed over
it all the way to the Quarter master's wagon, and then rehearsed it for
that officer's entertainment.

Fortunately, the Quartermaster had a box of shoes that he could get at
without much trouble, and he was in sufficiently good humor to grant
Si's request.

They added a warm pair of socks to each pair of shoes, and so wrought up
the A. Q. M.'s sympathies that he threw in some damaged overcoats, and
other articles, which he said he could report "lost in action."

They came back loaded with stuff, which they dumped down on the ground
before the prisoners, with the brief remark:

"Them's, all yours. Put 'em on."

The prisoners were overwhelmed by this generosity on the part of their
foes and captors.

"I alluz thought," said the Sergeant, "that you Yankees wuz not half
so bad ez I believed that yo'uns wuz. Yo'uns is white men, if yo'uns do
want to take away our niggers."

"Gosh," said the man who had uttered the opinion that it was a rich
man's war and a poor man's fight,{55} "I'd give all my interest in every
nigger in Tennessee for that ere one pa'r o' shoes. They're beauties, I
tell you. I never had so good a pa'r afore in all my life."

{57}

CHAPTER V. LINING UP FOR BATTLE

THE 200TH IND. GUARDS THE WAGON TRAIN, AND DEFEATS AN ATTACK.

"RAIN agin to-day," said Shorty, disgustedly, as, on the morning of Dec.
30, 1862, he crawled out of the shelter which he and Si had constructed
by laying a pole in the crotches of two young cedars, and stretching
their ponchos and pup-tents over it. "Doggoned if I don't believe
Tennessee was left out in the flood, and they've been tryin' to make up
for it ever since. I'd rather have the flood at once, and be done with
it, for then I'd join the navy instead of paddlin' 'round in this dirty
glue that they call mud." "Never saw such a grumbler, Shorty," said Si
cheerily, as he punched the soaked embers together to start a blaze to
boil their coffee by. "Last Summer the dust and dry weather didn't suit
you. Do you want to do your soldierin' in heaven?"

"Hurry up with your grub, boys," said the Orderly-Sergeant, who
came spattering through the muck of leaves and mud into which the
camping-ground had been trampled. "The regiment's to move in 15 minutes.
The 200th Ind. guards wagon-trains to-day. Yesterday Wheeler's cavalry
got in among our wagons and raised thunder--burnt