g in my proper place
in the ranks of the company, stepping to the same step as the soldier
in front of me did. Sometimes, when weary, broken down and worn out,
some member of the regiment would start a tune, and every man would join
in. John Branch was usually the leader of the choir. He would commence
a beautiful tune. The words, as I remember them now, were "Dear Paul,
Just Twenty Years Ago." After singing this piece he would commence on a
lively, spirit-stirring air to the tune of "Old Uncle Ned." Now, reader,
it has been twenty years ago since I heard it, but I can remember a part
of it now. Here it is:

"There was an ancient individual whose cognomen was Uncle Edward.
He departed this life long since, long since.
He had no capillary substance on the top of his cranium,
The place where the capillary substance ought to vegetate.

His digits were as long as the bamboo piscatorial implement of the
Southern Mississippi.
He had no oculars to observe the beauties of nature.
He had no ossified formation to masticate his daily rations,
So he had to let his daily rations pass by with impunity."

Walker Coleman raises the tune of "I'se a gwine to jine the rebel band,
a fightin' for my home."

Now, reader, the above is all I can now remember of that very beautiful
and soul-stirring air. But the boys would wake up and step quicker and
livelier for some time, and Arthur Fulghum would holloa out, "All right;
go ahead!" and then would toot! toot! as if the cars were starting--
puff! puff! puff and then he would say, "Tickets, gentlemen; tickets,
gentlemen." like he was conductor on a train of cars. This little
episode would be over, and then would commence the same tramp, tramp,
tramp, all night long. Step by step, step by step, we continued to plod
and nod and stagger and march, tramp, tramp, tramp. After a while we
would see the morning star rise in the east, and then after a while the
dim gray twilight, and finally we could discover the outlines of our file
leader, and after a while could make out the outlines of trees and other
objects. And as it would get lighter and lighter, and day would be about
to break, cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo, would come from Tom Tuck's rooster.
[Tom carried a game rooster, that he called "Fed" for Confederacy,
all through the war in a haversack.] And then the sun would begin to
shoot his slender rays athwart the eastern sky, and the boys would wake
up and b