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| No joke. |
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officer of our company, at least, sat down to one of the feasts, blissfully ignorant, of course, as to the source from which the special ration was drawn.
Bee-hives were among the most popular products of foraging.
The soldiers tramped many a mile by night in quest of these depositories of sweets.
I recall an incident occurring in the Tenth Vermont Regiment--once brigaded with my companywhen some of the foragers, who had been out on a tramp, brought a hive of bees into camp, after the men had wrapped themselves in their blankets, and, by way of a joke, set
it down stealthily on the stomach of the captain of one of the companies, making business quite lively in that neighborhood shortly afterwards.
Foragers took other risks than that of punishment for absence from camp or the column without leave.
They were not infrequently murdered on these expeditions.
On the 7th of December, 1864, Warren's Fifth Corps was started southward from Petersburg, to destroy the Weldon Railroad still further.
On their return, they found some of their men, who had straggled and foraged, lying by the roadside murdered, their bodies stark naked and shockingly mutilated.
One of Sherman's men recently related how in the Carolinas one of his comrades was found hanged on a tree, bearing this inscription, “Death to all foragers.”
A large number of men were made prisoners while away from their commands after the usual fruits of foragingjust how many, no one will ever know; and many of those not killed on the spot by their captors ended their lives in the prison-pens.
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