we arrived at a post where rations were plenty, and where
it was announced we should remain for a week or two, so we drew tents
and made ourselves as comfortable as possible. It did seem good to again
be where we did not have to depend on our own resources, of stealing,
for what we wanted to eat. To be able to draw from the commissary
regular rations of meat, tea, coffee, sugar, baker's bread, and beans,
was joy indeed, after what we had gone through, and we almost made hogs
of ourselves. There was one thing--those few days of starvation taught
us a lesson, and that was, when ordered on a trip with two days'
rations, to take at least enough for six days, especially of coffee and
salt pork or bacon. With coffee and a piece of old smoked bacon, a man
can exist a long time. I remember after that trip, wherever I went,
there was a chunk of bacon in one of my saddle-bags that nobody knew
anything about, and many a time, on long marches, when hunger would have
been experienced almost as severe as the time written about last week,
I would take out my chunk of bacon, cut off a piece and spread it on
a hard-tack, and eat a meal that was more strengthening than any meal
Delmonico ever spread. It was at this post that the boys in the regiment
played a trick that caused much fun throughout all the army. There
were a few men in each company who had the chills and fever, or ague,
and the surgeon gave them each morning, a dose of whisky and quinine. It
was interesting to see a dozen soldiers go to surgeon's call, take
their "bitters," and return to their quarters. The boys would go to the
surgeon's tent sort of languid, and drag along, and after swallowing a
good swig of whisky and quinine they would walk back to their quarters
swinging their arms like Pat Rooney on the stage, and act as though they
could whip their weight in wild cats. I got acquainted with the hospital
steward, and he said if the boys were not careful they would all be down
with the ague, and that an ounce of prevention was worth more than a
pound of cure. I thought I would take advantage of his advice, so I fell
in with the sick fellows the next morning, and when the doctor asked,
"What's the matter?" I said "chills," and he said, "Take a swallow out
of the red bottle." I took a swallow, and it _was_ bitter, but it had
whisky in it, more than quinine, and the idea of beating the government
out of a drink of whisky was pleasure enough to overcome the bitter
taste. I t