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[58]

But this winter of our discontent was by no means devoid of enlivening scenes. Sometimes, when the beef known as ‘salt horse,’ served out to us for dinner, was extremely unsavory, straightway a bier was improvised from a hard-tack box, the remains of the poor horse laid thereon in state, and a worn-out currycomb or a dilapidated bridle placed beside it as appropriate insignia of rank. The whole was then borne off in solemn procession to the mournful music of a jews-harp and two cracked bugles. The cortege in its passage through the camp received numerous accessions from those anxious to do honor to the fallen hero, and the remains, having been carried to the sink, were consigned to their last resting-place and a volley of pistols fired over the grave.

Then there were other scenes enacted under the cover of darkness which the impartial historian must not fail to notice. The inhabitants of this neighborhood had done their part to bring on the war, and now it was simply just that they should help feed the soldiers who must carry it on. So reasoned the men who took the trouble to reason at all, and the following specimen extracts from a private diary show that the premises of many a farmer were laid under contribution for the benefit of the soldiers of the Union:

‘Friday night, Jan. 9, a sheep came into camp.’

‘On the night of Jan. 26, the army was reinforced by a carcass of veal.’

‘Night of Feb. 3. a hen-house contributes five fowls and two rousing turkeys to our happinesss’

On one of these midnight forays, which a reckless sergeant of the guard led in person, he having communicated the general countersign to his entire party, quite a commotion was excited. One of his select body was the Guidon, whose tendency to em-

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