Chapter 27:
- “Stuttering Dave.” -- his tramp through the rebel lines. -- an ammunition train. -- “Dave's” plan Succeeds in its destruction. -- a man who stuttered and “had Fits.”
One morning, while the army was on the advance up the Peninsula, I was strolling about the camp, when I encountered a group of soldiers gathered around one of their number, who appeared to be entertaining them immensely with his droll anecdotes and dry witticisms. Approaching closer, I became one of the crowd that surrounded the narrator, and listened to an amusing incident admirably told, which had happened to him a day or two before while out with a scouting party. He was a man about thirty years of age, of medium height, strongly and compactly built, and with a good, firm, intelligent face, over which he had the most perfect control. So perfect was his command over his facial expression that he could make his hearers roar with laughter, while he, to use a homely phrase, would “never crack a smile.” I noticed on joining the little crowd that had gathered around him, that the fellow stuttered amazingly, which fact, together with his imperturbable gravity,