g into camp for
the night, and the colonel said, "Well, as you are rested so much from
your walk, you may go out with the foraging party and get some feed for
your horse and the chaplain's." I was willing to do anything for a quiet
life, so I fell in with a party of about forty, under a lieutenant, and
we rode off into the country to steal forage from a plantation, keeping
a sharp lookout for Confederates who might object. I guess we rode away
from camp two or three miles, when we came to a magnificent plantation
house, and outhouses, negro quarters, etc. The house was on a hill, in a
grove of live oaks, and had immense white pillars, or columns in
front. As we rode up to the plantation the boys scattered all over the
premises. This was the first foraging expedition I had ever been with,
and I thought all we went for was to get forage for our horses, so I
went to a shock of corn fodder and took all that I could strap on my
saddle, and was ready to go, when I passed a smoke house and found some
of the boys taking smoked hams and sides of bacon. I asked one of the
boys if they had permission to take hams and things, and he laughed and
said, "everything goes," and he handed me a ham which I hung on to my
saddle. Then the lieutenant told me to go up in front of the house and
stand guard, and prevent any soldier from entering the house. I rode up
to the house, where there was an old lady and a young married woman
with a little girl by her side. They were evidently much annoyed and
frightened, though too proud to show it, and I told them they need have
no fear, as the men were only after a little forage for their horses.
The old lady looked at the ham on my saddle and asked me if the horses
eat meat, and I said, "No, but sometimes the men eat horses." I thought
that was funny. The young woman was beautiful, and the child was
perfectly enchanting. They were on the opposite side of the railing from
me, and my horse kept working up towards them, rubbing his nose on the
pickets, and finally his nose touched the clasped hands of the mother
and child. The little girl laughed and patted the horse on the nose,
while the mother drew back. It was almost dark and the horse was almost
covered with corn fodder, but the little girl screamed and said:

"Mamma, that is Jeff, papa's horse!"

The mamma looked at me with a wild, hunted look, then at the horse,
rushed down the steps and threw her arms around the neck of the horse
and sobbed in