ow
morning.' "'Heavens,' gasped the Adjutant-General; 'he is{260} by far
the best man I ever had. I can't get along without him.'

"'You must get along without him,' said old Bragg. 'I'm astonished at
you having such a man around. Where in the world did you pick him up?
But it's just like you. How in God's name Jeff Davis expects me to
command an army with such makeshifts of staff officers as he sends me,
I don't know. He keeps the best for old Lee unt sends me what nobody
else'll have, unt then expects me to win battles against a better army
than the Army of the Potomac. I never got a staff officer that had
brains once.'

"A Sergeant of the Provost Guard, who was a natural beast, unt was kept
by old Bragg because he was glad to carry out orders to murder men,
caught hold of me by my shoulder unt run me down to the bull-pen,
leaving the Adjutant-General with forty expressions on his angry face.

"My goodness, my heart sunk worse than ever before when I heard the door
shut behind me. There were 30 or 40 others in the bull-pen. They were
all lying around--dull, stupid, sullen, silent, unt hopeless. They
hardly paid any attention to me. I sat down on a log, unt my heart
seemed to sink clear out of me. For the first time in my life I couldn't
see the slightest ray of hope. Through the cracks in the bull-pen I
could see the fresh graves of the men who had already been shot, unt
while I looked I saw a squad of niggers come out unt begin digging
the graves of those who were to be shot to-morrow. I could see rebel
soldiers unt officers passing by, stop unt look a moment at the graves,
shrug their{261} shoulders, unt go on. It froze my blood to think that
tomorrow they would be looking at my grave that way. After a while a
man came in unt gave each one of us a piece of cornbread unt meat. The
others ate theirs greedily, but I could not touch it. Night came on, unt
still I sat there. Suddenly the door opened, unt the Adjutant-General
came in with a man about my size and dressed something like me. As he
passed he caught hold of my arm in a sort of way that made me understand
to get up unt follow behind him, I did so at once without saying a word.
I walked behind him around the bull-pen until we came back to the door,
when the guard presented arms, unt he walked out, with me still behind
him, leaving the other man inside. After we had gone a little way he
stopped unt whispered to me:

"'The General had to go off in a hurry towa