went into camp?" "I slept in
that barn across the road." "Well, we had to send a detail with horses
back to the pontoon train, and I wanted to send you in charge of it,
but no one could find you anywhere. You have been straggling ever since
we left Nashville, and not attending to your duties." "Lieutenant, I've
not been straggling, as you think I have. Look at my feet, I could not
walk and keep up. I had boils so that I could not ride my horse. The
only way I could keep up was to steal rides in a wagon during the day,
and that's what I have been doing." "Well, you have not been excused by
the surgeon." "No, Sir, I did not want to be sent away from the
command." When the Lieut. walked off, the Capt. said: "I'll tell you
what's the matter with you. You've got out of heart. You've lost all
hope of our winning this fight. It does look black. But the thing for
you and me and all the balance of us to do, is to just stand it out to
the end. It can't last much longer. That is true. But when it is done,
we all of us want to be conscious that we have done our duty from start
to finish." "Captain, I've always done all I was able to do, and expect
to, until the end comes." "That is true and, we'll hold out to the
end."

That was Lumsden's way of controlling his men. He made them feel as if
he knew that it was their determination to do their full duty, and the
whole tone of the battery was kept up to the standard by the idea. The
high standard of its personale was the result not of fear or
compulsion, but of individual personal patriotism.

On this retreat it was difficult to find food for the army, and first
one command, then another, ran mighty short. Passing through a
mountainous thinly settled country during Christmas week, our Captain
gave a few permits to different individuals to forage off the line of
march. One forager heard of some mills along a creek some miles off the
line of retreat, and struck out for them horseback. On his arrival at
the first, he found it crowded with infantry men, each guarding his
sack of wheat, and awaiting his turn to run it through the mill. The
miller was there, and was asked if he could sell a sack of wheat. He
replied: "these soldiers say they are bound to have all there is, and I
help them grind it, to save injury to my mill. The wheat belongs to the
neighborhood." "Where is there another mill?" "About three miles down
the creek." Off our forager rode. He saw that money nor begging would
pr