occurred:

"Mein fadter, mein modter, mein sister, mein frau,
Und zwi glass of beer for meinself.
Dey called mein frau one blacksmit-schopt;
Und such dings I never did see in my life."

When, at Shelbyville and Huntsville, this melody mingled with the
moonlight of summer evenings, people generally were deluded into the
supposition that an ethereal songster was on the wing, enrapturing them
with harmonies of other spheres. But sutlers, it is well known, are men
of little or no refinement, with ears for money rather than music. To
their unappreciative and perverted senses the warble seemed simply a
dolorous appeal for more whisky; and while delivering up their last
bottle to get rid of the warbler and his friends, in order that they
might get sleep themselves, they have been known to express the hope
that both song and singers might, without unnecessary delay, go to that
region which we are told is paved with good intentions.

The voice of a colored person in the rear breaks in upon my
recollections of the warbler. The most interesting and ugliest negro now
in camp, is known as Simon Bolivar Buckner. He is an animal that has
been worth in his day eighteen hundred dollars, an estray from the
estate of General S. B. Buckner. He manages, by blacking boots and
baking leather pies, to make money. He deluded me into buying a second
pie from him one day, by assuring me, "on honah, sah, dat de las pie was
better'n de fus', case he hab strawberries in him." True, the pie had
"strawberries in him," but not enough to pay one for chewing the
whit-leather crust.

30. Read Judge Holt's review of the proceedings and findings in the case
of Fitzjohn Porter. If the review presents the facts fairly, Porter
should have been not only dismissed, but hung. An officer who, with
thirteen thousand men, will remain idle when within sight of the dust
and in hearing of the shouts of the enemy and the noise of battle,
knowing that his friends are contending against superior numbers, and
having good reason to believe that they are likely to be overwhelmed,
deserves no mercy.

It is dull. I have hardly enough to do to keep me awake. The members of
the staff each have their separate duties to perform, which keep them
more or less engaged. The quartermaster issues clothing to the troops;
the commissary of subsistence issues food; the inspector looks into the
condition of each regiment as to clothing, arms,