M. H. Cantrell.

I inclose you the original document. I suppose the aforesaid lovyer
did "onward go," and, no doubt, is still going, if he has not already
reached the town of Jonesboro, and met his gal upon "the porch" as she
returned from church.

Snake-hunting has given way to trout-fishing. As a matter of course,
the noise of camp has driven all trout four miles from our present
abode; but scarcely a day passes but our men return with a nice string
of these delicious denizens of the brooks hereabouts.

I have often, heretofore, thought I would like much to be a cavalry
soldier, but I'll swear I wouldn't like to be a cavalry horse; for, of
all the hay-forsaken, fleshless-looking animals eyes ever gazed upon,
the horses out here take the premium. Well, 'pon my word, I took
Captain Bracken's horse (the roan I once rode) a quart of oats, sent
from Beverly; well, the horse wouldn't eat them; he didn't know what
they were! and I had to break or smash some of them so that he might
smell the "aroma," to facilitate his knowledge, and he was too weak to
inhale air enough to inflate his nostrils, so that he could smell the
dainty meal I had in my kindness brought him. Captain Bracken promised
to have them parched and made into a tea for the animal.

_September 30._--What a jump of time! Well, I'll tell you the cause.
The morning I intended to post this letter the entire regiment was
ordered to make an advance upon Mingo Flats, a Secession hole fifteen
miles from this place. They were accompanied by Howe's battery and an
Indiana regiment. The boys were not more than fairly started when a
terrific rain-storm set in. O! what a pitiless, deluging rain! The
very thought of that _sprinkle_ of twenty hours of unceasing torrent
makes me, even now, feel as if I should forever have an antipathy
against drinking water. Onward the boys trudged, seemingly not caring
a cuss if school kept or not. The Elkwater soon assumed a rather
formidable appearance; night came on, and with it an increase of the
flood. We stood up against trees to rest; some crawled in
fence-corners; a few, more lucky, found an old log stable and a
smoke-house; these were quickly filled from "pit to dome," as Fred
Hunt would say, for some slept on rafters, cross-beams, etc. Still it
poured down; still the fountains of heaven gushed _forth_, fifth,
tenth, or twentieth; anyhow, it continued to rain, and at daybreak it
rained yet, and th