out here on the railroad track, and tear it up, and pile up the crossties,
and then pile the iron on top of them, and we'll set the thing a-fire,
and when the Yankees come back they will say, 'What a bully fight _them
nagers_ did make.'" (A Yankee always says "nager"). Reader, you should
have seen how that old railroad did flop over, and how the darkies did
sweat, and how the perfume did fill the atmosphere.

But there were some Yankee soldiers in a block-house at Ringgold Gap,
who thought they would act big. They said that Sherman had told them not
to come out of that block-house, any how. But General William B. Bate
begun to persuade the gentlemen, by sending a few four-pound parrot
"feelers." Ah! those _feelers_!

They persuaded eloquently. They persuaded effectually--those feelers
did. The Yanks soon surrendered. The old place looked natural like,
only it seemed to have a sort of graveyard loneliness about it.

A MAN IN THE WELL

On leaving Dalton, after a day's march, we had stopped for the night.
Our guns were stacked, and I started off with a comrade to get some wood
to cook supper with. We were walking along, he a little in the rear,
when he suddenly disappeared. I could not imagine what had become of
him. I looked everywhere. The earth seemed to have opened and swallowed
him. I called, and called, but could get no answer. Presently I heard
a groan that seemed to come out of the bowels of the earth; but, as yet,
I could not make out where he was. Going back to camp, I procured a
light, and after whooping and hallooing for a long time, I heard another
groan, this time much louder than before. The voice appeared to be
overhead. There was no tree or house to be seen; and then again the
voice seemed to answer from under the ground, in a hollow, sepulchral
tone, but I could not tell where he was. But I was determined to find
him, so I kept on hallooing and he answering. I went to the place where
the voice appeared to come out of the earth. I was walking along rather
thoughtlessly and carelessly, when one inch more and I would have
disappeared also. Right before me I saw the long dry grass all bending
toward a common center, and I knew that it was an old well, and that
my comrade had fallen in it. But how to get him out was the unsolved
problem. I ran back to camp to get assistance, and everybody had a great
curiosity to see "the man in the well." They would get chunks of fire
and shake