That's right, old man; this ain't no place for you, nor for me neither, if I could only git my colonel to think so!“Say, mister, won't your buggy carry double?” “Haven't you got a place for me?” “Oh, please, sir, take me with you! I ain't feeling so mighty well this morning. I'm powerful weak, right now.” Father always followed the Scripture rule of “answering a fool according to his folly,” and so he jeered back at them, telling them “good-by,” but saying he'd be back in a minute --as he actually was, riding, bareback and blind bridle, and passing right ahead with the troops. I have heard of following a fox hunt in one of these sulkies, but I venture to say this is the very first time a man ever entered battle in one. It will at once occur to the reader as remarkable that father was not arrested. He was, a few days later, at Malvern Hill, by order of Gen. Rans. Wright, of Georgia, and a staff officer, as I recollect, of General Armistead, told me that he was directed to arrest him on one of the earlier battle-fields of the Seven Days, and made the attempt; that up to that
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kept his saddle at our battery and his habit was, when we were not actually fighting or on the move, to return to Richmond at night, coming down in the morning with a big market basket strapped under his sulky full of bread and good things.
His approach was generally heralded by the shouts of the soldiers who followed; when, looking up the road, we would see him, often standing on the shafts, scattering biscuit and reading aloud the latest telegrams.
Hundreds of men would sometimes follow him to our camp, and then he would have prayers with them and make a brief religious address.
Coming in this way one morning he did not find us; the battle was on and we had gone to the front.
As he could not get his saddle, he kept right on in his sulky, hoping to overtake us. In some way he managed to pass through and get ahead of the second line and went on, actually between the first and second lines of battle, until his further progress was obstructed by a line of works which had been captured by the first line, when he was forced to turn back, amidst a storm of ridicule from the second line:
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