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the mud about the gun jeering and jibing at him, as he mounted and walked upon a big pine log which projected out to the slough of despond in which the gun was stuck, till, getting about squarely over it, he stopped and begged once more; but the boys shouted derisively, and the lieutenant called out, “Get down to it, sir; nobody's going to shove a pound until you get in and shove with the rest!”
Poor Jim!
He lifted his foot and stamped it down in vexation on the wet bark, which parted and slipped from the smooth, slick bole of the tree, and down came Jim, with a great splash like the mules, hide and hair and
Crenshaw gray, all into and under the mud. I don't think I ever heard such a shout as greeted this “knight of the sorrowful figure” as he emerged, from his thighs up, the liquid mud dripping from every part of the upper half of his person.
But it cured him and his suit as well, the beautiful
Crenshaw gray thenceforward exhibiting a sickly, jaundiced, butter-nut hue, like the clothes some backwoods cracker regiments wore when they first came to
Virginia.
Only one other feature of our march up the
Peninsula merits notice, and that was our almost actual starvation on the way. The cause of. this was separation from our brigade, which was probably ten miles from
Williamsburg before we were ordered to follow.
In the condition of the roads already described, catching up with any particular body of troops was of course out of the question.
We really had nothing to eat for two days and nights, except, that, as we were compelled to impress corn for the horses — of course old, hard corn-we roasted a little of it for ourselves.
On the third day we overhauled a commissary train, in a by-road we were traveling to escape the jam and the mud, and
Captain McCarthy, making known the extreme need of his men, begged rations enough to give them just one meal; but the officer in charge answered:
I cannot issue you anything, Captain, except upon the order of General Griffith, your brigadier, or my commanding officer.
To which our captain replied:
General Griffith is somewhere between here and Richmond, I don't know where your commanding officer is; but
