his mouth full of grass, looked astonished at being
addressed by a stranger without an introduction, and turned a pair of
eyes as beautiful and soft as a woman's upon me, and then began to chew
slowly, as though thinking. I rubbed his sleek coat with, my bare hands,
and did not say much, desiring to have Jeff make the first advances. He
looked me over, and finally put his nose on my sleeve, and rubbed me,
and looked in my face, and acted as though he would say, "Well, of
course this red-headed fellow is no comparison to my dead master, but
evidently he's no slouch, and if I have got to be bossed around by a
Yankee, as he is the only one that has spoken a kind word to me since I
was captured, and he seems to know my name, I guess I will tie to him,"
and the intelligent animal rubbed his nose all over me, and licked my
hand. I rubbed the horse all over, petted him, took up his feet and
looked at them, and spoke his name, and pretty soon we were the best of
friends. I mounted him and rode around and it was just like a rocking
chair. That poor, dead Confederate had probably rode Jeff since he was
a kid and Jeff was a colt, and had broken him well, and I was awfully
sorry that the original owner was not alive, riding his horse home safe
and sound, to be greeted by his family with loving embraces. But he was
dead and buried, and his horse belonged to me, by all the laws of war.
And yet I had not become a hardened warrior to such an extent that I
could forget the hearts that would ache at his home, and I made up
mind that horse would be treated as tenderly as though he was one of my
family. I rode Jeff around for an hour or two, found that he was trained
to jump fences, stand on his hind feet, trot, pace, rack, and that he
could run like a scared wolf, and everything the horse did he would sort
of look around at me with one eye as much as to say, "Boss, you will
find I have got all the modern improvements, and you needn't be afraid
that I will disgrace you in any society." I was fairly in love with my
new horse, and, except for a feeling that I was an interloper with the
horse, and sorry for the poor boy that had been shot off him, I should
have been perfectly happy.

The chaplain had got in the habit of wearing a nice, blue broadcloth
blouse which I had brought from home, which had two rows of brass
buttons on it. I had paid about twenty dollars of my bounty for the
blouse, and had found that the private soldiers did not wear