are considered most reliable and able
soldiers."

I shall now relate a couple of anecdotes from the siege of Vicksburg,
which I did not mention in the letter to _Hemlandet_.

[Illustration: GRANT'S HEADQUARTERS.]

Outside Gen. Logan's tent stood a big magnolia tree. While laughing at
Logan's joke Gen. Stevenson picked up a little stick of wood and
whittled on it with his penknife, in genuine Yankee fashion. Accidently
he dropped his knife, and, while stooping down to pick it up, a fragment
of a shell from the rebel batteries came and went two inches deep into
the tree right where his head had been when he was whittling. He coolly
remarked, "That piece of iron was not made for me."

One day as I, in company with Lieut. Col. (afterward Gen.) C. C.
Andrews, was visiting Gen. Grant outside of Vicksburg, a wagon drawn
by six mules passed close by his headquarters. The driver, an old,
rough-looking soldier, stopped, and asked the way to a certain regiment.
Gen. Grant's tent stood on a little elevation, at the foot of which were
several fresh wagon tracks. A number of officers, including myself, were
standing and sitting around the general outside the tent. Gen. Grant,
who was dressed in a fatigue suit and slouched hat, without other marks
of distinction than three small silver stars, which could scarcely be
distinguished on his dusty blouse, went toward the driver and, with the
most minute particulars, gave him directions how to drive. While he was
talking, we observed that the driver showed signs of deep emotion, and
finally he alighted from the mule, which he was riding, stretched out
his arms, and, with tears in his eyes, exclaimed: "My God! I believe it
is Gen. Grant! General, do you remember Tommy Donald? I was a soldier in
your company during the Mexican war!" With touching kindness the great
commander-in-chief now took both hands of the ragged soldier in his,
and, like old friends who had not met for a long time, they rejoiced in
remembering the companionship of fifteen years before.

[Illustration: ARMY WAGON.]

When Gen. Grant returned to the tent the conversation turned to the
newspaper clamor and general discontent because Vicksburg was not yet
taken, upon which the general expressed himself in the following words:
"I could make another assault and hasten the capture a few days, but
will not do it because I _know_ positively that within ten days the
garrison must surrender anyhow, for I have got them, and w