him agonize. A spy; O, yes, they had hung one of our regiment at
Pulaski--Sam Davis. Yes, I would see the hanging. After a while I saw a
guard approach, and saw two little boys in their midst, but did not see
the Yankees that I had been looking for. The two little boys were rushed
upon the platform. I saw that they were handcuffed. "Are they spies?"
I was appalled; I was horrified; nay, more, I was sick at heart. One was
about fourteen and the other about sixteen years old, I should judge.
The ropes were promptly adjusted around their necks by the provost
marshal. The youngest one began to beg and cry and plead most piteously.
It was horrid. The older one kicked him, and told him to stand up and
show the Rebels how a Union man could die for his country. Be a man!
The charges and specifications were then read. The props were knocked
out and the two boys were dangling in the air. I turned off sick at
heart.

EATING RATS

While stationed at this place, Chattanooga, rations were very scarce and
hard to get, and it was, perhaps, economy on the part of our generals and
commissaries to issue rather scant rations.

About this time we learned that Pemberton's army, stationed at Vicksburg,
were subsisting entirely on rats. Instead of the idea being horrid,
we were glad to know that "necessity is the mother of invention," and
that the idea had originated in the mind of genius. We at once acted
upon the information, and started out rat hunting; but we couldn't find
any rats. Presently we came to an old outhouse that seemed to be a
natural harbor for this kind of vermin. The house was quickly torn down
and out jumped an old residenter, who was old and gray. I suppose that
he had been chased before. But we had jumped him and were determined to
catch him, or "burst a boiler." After chasing him backwards and forwards,
the rat finally got tired of this foolishness and started for his hole.
But a rat's tail is the last that goes in the hole, and as he went in we
made a grab for his tail. Well, tail hold broke, and we held the skin of
his tail in our hands. But we were determined to have that rat. After
hard work we caught him. We skinned him, washed and salted him, buttered
and peppered him, and fried him. He actually looked nice. The delicate
aroma of the frying rat came to our hungry nostrils. We were keen to eat
a piece of rat; our teeth were on edge; yea, even our mouth watered to
eat a piece of rat. We