John D. Billings, Hardtack and Coffee: The Unwritten Story of Army Life

[245] causing every preparation to be made to resist the supposed attack. The foragers, meanwhile, skulked back to camp by the shortest route, bringing with them two sheep that had been run down by some of the fleeter of the party. But no one save an interested few, inside or outside of the company, ever knew, until the story was told at a reunion of the company in ‘79 or ‘80, the cause of all the tumult in camp that dark winter's night.

On another occasion a party of five or six men stole out of camp at midnight, in quest of poultry. They knew of a farm-house where poultry was kept, but to ascertain its exact whereabouts at night was no easy task. On looking around the premises they found that there was no isolated outbuild-ing, whereupon they at once decided that the ell to the main house must be the place which contained the “biddies” ; but to enter that might rouse the farmer and his family, which they did not care to do. However, a council of war decided to take the risk, and storm the place. Investigation showed the door to be padlocked, but a piece of iron which lay conveniently near, on a window-sill, served to pull out the staple, and the door was open. Meanwhile, guards had been posted at the corners of the house, with drawn revolvers (which they would not have dared to fire), and the captures began. One man entered the ell, and, lighting a match, discovered that he had called at the right house, and that the feathered family were at home. Among them he caught a glimpse of two turkeys, and these, with four fowls taken one at a time by the neck, to control their noise, were passed to another man standing at the door with a pen-knife, who, having performed a successful surgical operation on each, gave them to a third party to put in a bag.

Back of our camp stood the house of a secessionist,--at least, “Black Mary,” his colored servant, said he was one,and in his kitchen and cook-stove, for the sum of twentyfive cents in scrip, having previously dressed and stuffed them, Mary cooked the turkeys most royally, and one commissioned