re glad to assist any and all
soldiers for small rewards and even for personal thanks. They were
great foragers, for their masters first, and next for their own and
their master's friends. The officers at this time where Capt. Chas. L.
Lumsden and Second Lt. A. C. Hargrove, Lt. H. H. Cribbs was at home
sick and soon afterwards resigned. The weather was stormy, rains came
in deluges and bridges between camp and Chickamauga station were washed
away, cutting off our supplies. Forage getting short, Capt. Lumsden
detailed perhaps 20 men to go on horses over into Wills Valley to the
west of Lookout mountain. The road to be traveled was the dirt road
skirting the base of the cliff about half way up the mountain, above
the Tennessee river opposite the Moccasin bend. The Federals had a
battery entrenched on Moccasin Point, just across the river. The detail
left before day and passed the danger point before it was light enough
to be seen. By mid-day sufficient forage of corn and fodder had been
obtained. Each horse and mule resembled a perambulating haystack, for
it was loaded with two big sacks filled with corn on each side and as
many bundles of fodder as could be tied on with ropes.

Sergeant John Little had charge of the squad, containing among others
Alex Dearing, Ed King, Rufe Prince, Dave Jones and other names not
remembered. It was a sort of picnic. The men bought chicken, butter and
butter milk and got the farmers women to cook for them. Dave Jones
bought a bee gum of honey and had a time getting out the honey, with
all the crowd assisting. Then again it was good for sore eyes to loaf
around in a farmer's front yard and his door steps and see his wife and
daughters flitting about, and every now and then get to talk to them a
little. Calico dresses and sun bonnets perhaps, but they were a treat
to the soldiers, who were tired of seeing nothing but men for so long.
The detail put off having to pass the front of that battery so long as
they could and had their frolic out. But they had to pass that point in
daylight, in order to have time to get over the balance of that
mountain road, with each animal loaded in the manner it was. There was
no way of dodging it. There were rocks and woods and cuts in the road,
that would protect on each side, but sight in front of the battery for
perhaps forty yards or more on the road was cut out of the precipice,
and for that distance it was a "run of the gauntlet." Arriving at the
place, t