good
deal faster than they came. They left some prisoners and about 300 dead
and wounded--for us to remember them by.

The battle ceased, the picket line was restored along the river bank,
and all was quiet again. Bob McIntosh was more put out by all this
business than anybody else--it had interrupted his hair cut. When we
first got the guns into action, everybody was too busy to notice Bob's
head. After we got settled down to work, I caught sight of that
half-shaved head and it was the funniest object you ever saw. Bob was
No. 1 at his gun, which was next to mine, and had to swab and ram the
gun. This necessitated his constantly turning from side to side,
displaying first this, and then the other side of his head. One side was
perfectly white and bare; the other side covered by a mop of kinky, jet
black hair; but when you caught sight of his front elevation, the effect
was indescribable. While Bob was unconsciously making this absurd
exhibition, it was too much to stand, even in a fight. I said to the
boys around my gun, "Look at Bob." They looked and they could hardly
work the gun for laughing.

Of course, when the fight was over McCreery lost that pair of scissors,
or _said_ he did. There was not another pair in camp, so Bob had to go
about with his head in that condition for about a week--and he wearied
of life. One day in his desperation, he said he wanted to get some of
that hair off his head so much that he would resort to any means. He had
tried to cut some off with his knife. One of the boys, Hunter Dupuy, was
standing by chopping on the level top of a stump with a hatchet. Hunter
said, "All right, Bob, put your head on this stump and I'll chop off
some of your hair." The blade was dull, and it only forced a quantity of
the hair down into the wood, where it stuck, and held Bob's hair fast to
the stump, besides pulling out a lot by the roots, and hurting Bob very
much. He tried to pull loose and couldn't. Then he began to call Hunter
all the names he could think of, and threatened what he was going to do
to him when he got loose. Hunter, much hurt by such ungracious return
for what he had done at Bob's request, said, "Why, Bob, you couldn't
expect me to cut your hair with a hatchet without hurting some"--which
seemed reasonable. We made Bob promise to keep the peace, on pain of
leaving him tied to the stump--then we cut him loose with our knives.

After some days, when we had had our fun, Van found the scissor