Robert Stiles, Four years under Marse Robert

[185] the engineer company he cared to have. Flood was a New Orleans stevedore, a rough but very efficient man, who, among his many admirable qualifications, possessed this highly acceptable one, that he had no sort of objection to Old Jube's airing his choice vocabulary of profane rhetoric about him, or his work, or his men whenever he might happen to need relief in that direction.

I said further to the general that I thought the pioneer corps might perhaps be regarded as the nucleus of the future company of engineer troops, and while I had no idea of meddling with Flood's work, which he was vastly better qualified to manage than I was, yet I could help him about his requisitions, reports, etc.; but that as we were evidently going into an active and aggressive campaign I thought I would, in action, fight in some battery of Col. Hilary Jones' Battalion, if he thought he could make use of me-standing ready, however, at all times to report back to Division Headquarters for staff duty or for anything I could at any time do for the general.

This arrangement seemed to be entirely satisfactory to General Early, as it was also to Colonel Jones, in one or other of whose batteries-usually with the Charlottesville Artillery, a corps that reminded me somewhat of our old battery — I fought, whenever they were engaged, throughout the campaign, notably at Winchester and Gettysburg; sometimes in charge of one or more pieces, and again fighting as a private soldier at a gun, or in any position where they were weakest and most needed help. I said the arrangement seemed to be entirely satisfactory to General Early, and yet in connection with it there occurred a series of awkward and amusing incidents which admirably illustrate some of the general's strongly-marked traits.

Soon after Gettysburg my brother and I passed and missed each other, I riding over to the First Corps to learn what had befallen my friends of the old battery, while he came over to Early's division of the Second to inquire for me. His description of the old general was so characteristic and vivid that to this day I am prone to imagine that I saw and heard instead of my brother. He said the sun was shining