ut of a canteen. I had read of councils
of war, but I had never seen one, and so I walked over to the crowd
of officers and asked the colonel if there was anything particular the
matter. I never saw a crowd of men who seemed so astonished as those
officers were, and suddenly I felt myself going away from where they
were consulting, with somebody's strong hand on my collar, and an
unmistakable cavalry boot, with a man in it, in the vicinity of my
pantaloons. I do not know to this day, which officer it was that kicked
me, but I went away and sat under a tree in the dark, so hungry that I
was near dead, and I wished I _was_ dead. I guess the officers wished
that I was, too. The soldiers tried to console me by telling me I was
too fresh, but I couldn't see why a private soldier, right from home,
who knew all about the public sentiment at the north in regard to the
way the war was conducted, should not have a voice in the consultations
of officers. I had written many editorials before I left home,
criticising the manner in which many generals had handled their
commands, and pointed out to my readers how defeat could have been
turned into victory, if the generals had done as I would have done in
their places. It seemed to me the officers of my regiment were taking a
suicidal course in barring me out of their consultations. A soldier had
told me that we were lost in the woods, and as I had studied geography
when at school, and was well posted about Alabama, it seemed as though a
little advice from me would be worth a good deal. But I concluded to let
them stay lost forever before I would volunteer any information. It was
crawling along towards midnight, of my first day in the army, and I
had eaten nothing since morning. As I sat there under the tree I fell
asleep, and was dreaming of home, and warm biscuit, with honey, and a
feather bed, when I was rudely awakened by a corporal who told me to
mount. I asked him what for, and told him that I didn t want to ride any
more that night. What I wanted was to be let alone, to sleep. He said to
get on the horse too quick, and I found there was no use arguing with a
common corporal, so the boys hoisted me on to the horse, and about nine
of us started off through the woods in the moonlight, looking for a main
road. The corporal was kind enough to say that as soon as we found a
road we would put out a picket, and send a courier back to the regiment
to inform the colonel that we had got out