ll, after a while, he was said to be done.
I got a piece of cold corn dodger, laid my piece of the rat on it,
eat a little piece of bread, and raised the piece of rat to my mouth,
when I happened to think of how that rat's tail did slip. I had lost my
appetite for dead rat. I did not eat any rat. It was my first and last
effort to eat dead rats.

SWIMMING THE TENNESSEE WITH ROASTINGEARS

The Tennessee river is about a quarter of a mile wide at Chattanooga.
Right across the river was an immense corn-field. The green corn was
waving with every little breeze that passed; the tassels were bowing and
nodding their heads; the pollen was flying across the river like little
snowdrops, and everything seemed to say, "Come hither, Johnny Reb;
come hither, Johnny; come hither." The river was wide, but we were
hungry. The roastingears looked tempting. We pulled off our clothes
and launched into the turbid stream, and were soon on the other bank.
Here was the field, and here were the roastingears; but where was the
raft or canoe?

We thought of old Abraham and Isaac and the sacrifice: "My son, gather
the roastingears, there will be a way provided."

We gathered the roastingears; we went back and gathered more roastingears,
time and again. The bank was lined with green roastingears. Well,
what was to be done? We began to shuck the corn. We would pull up a few
shucks on one ear, and tie it to the shucks of another--first one and
then another--until we had at least a hundred tied together. We put the
train of corn into the river, and as it began to float off we jumped in,
and taking the foremost ear in our mouth, struck out for the other bank.
Well, we made the landing all correct.

I merely mention the above incident to show to what extremity soldiers
would resort. Thousands of such occurrences were performed by the
private soldiers of the Rebel army.

AM DETAILED TO GO FORAGING

One day I was detailed to go with a wagon train way down in Georgia on
a foraging expedition. It was the first time since I had enlisted as
a private that I had struck a good thing. No roll call, no drilling,
no fatigue duties, building fortifications, standing picket, dress parade,
reviews, or retreats, had to be answered to--the same old monotonous roll
call that had been answered five thousand times in these three years.
I felt like a free man. The shackles of discipline had for a time been
unfettered. This was bliss, this was f