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your Headquarters here?”
“Why not?”
says Ricketts.
“Because, when the volleys begin, nothing can live here.”
To which Ricketts replied, “Ah?”
as if someone had remarked it was a charming evening, or the like.
I felt very like addressing similar arguments to General Wright, but pride stood in the way, and I would have let a good many volleys come before I would have given my valuable advice.
A column of attack was now formed by us, during which the enemy pushed in their skirmishers and the bullets began to slash among the trees most spitefully; for they were close to; whereat Wright (sensible man!) vouchsafed to move on one side some seventy yards, where we only got accidental shots.
And what do you think?
It was too dark now for us to attack, and the Rebs did not--and so, domino, after all my tremendous description!
Worse than a newspaper isn't it?
I was quite enraged to be so scared for no grand result.1
June 24, 1864
It is praise not to be pitched into by the Great Peppery: and he is very kind to me. To be sure, I watch him, as one would a big trout on a small hook, and those who don't, catch volleys at all hours!
Poor Biddle, for instance, an excellent, bettyish sort of man, with no fragment of tact, when the General is full of anxiety for something that is not going right, is sure to come in, in his stuttering way, with “Ah, aw, hem, aw, General, they are going to pitch camp in a very sandy, bad place, sir; you will not be at all comfortable, and there is a nice grassy--” “Major Biddle!!!”
