on. --
Result of Smash Up. -- Bowling Green. -- Size of Army. --
Sickness. -- Personal. -- Kindness of Nashville People. --
Moral and Religious Efforts for the Rebel Army. -- Vices
prevalent. -- Seminaries and Schools disbanded.

On the 14th of November, I was breveted second lieutenant for the
time, that I might take charge of a shipment of ammunition to Camp
Beauregard, near Feliciana, a small town in Graves county, Kentucky,
near the New Orleans and Ohio railroad, about seventeen miles from
Columbus. This place was held by a brigade of about four thousand
men, under Brigadier-general John S. Bowen, as a key to the
interior, to prevent the Federal forces from attacking Columbus in
the rear.

Having now spent six months in the infantry, and mastered the
details of a soldier's common duties, I was heartily sick of the
life. I sought a transfer to the ordnance department and obtained
it, with the rank and pay of ordnance sergeant. Acting on the
ever-present purpose, to keep my eyes and ears open and my mouth
generally shut, to see and hear all and say little, I knew the
ordnance department would open a new field for observation, which
might perchance be of use in the future,--a future that was very
uncertain to me then, for I could see no daylight as to escape. I
may as well admit here, that whenever I reflected on the violation
of an oath,--the oath to bear true allegiance to the Confederate
Government,--I had some hesitation. An older and wiser head would
perhaps have soon settled it, that an oath taken under constraint,
and to a rebel and usurped power, was not binding. But I shrunk from
the voluntary breaking of even an involuntary bond, in which I had
invoked the judgment of God upon me if I should not keep it. To
this should be added the consideration, which perhaps had too much
weight with me, that as I was trusted by the authorities with a
position of some importance, my honor was at stake in fulfilling all
my obligations. The idea that I should betray those who were
reposing confidence in me at the time and become a deserter, with
its odium forever following me, was more than I could contemplate
with pleasure. I state this as the exact truth in the case, not as
an apology for my conduct. Under this general feeling, I confess I
strove more to acquire knowledge where I was, than to escape from
the Rebel service.

During the six weeks I was attached to the ordnance department, I
learned