should cause to be made. I was so pleased
with the butter-milk, on the eve of battle, that I ordered the second
Division to fill my canteen with it, which he did. Then I rode back to
my headquarters, where I started from, having ridden clear around
the beleaguered plantation. Presently the reserve returned to me and
reported that he had been relieved by the Iron Brigade at the mule-shed,
whose shirt had become dry, and who had given the reserve a leg of
fried chicken, and a corn dodger. I took the leg of chicken away from my
reserve, eat it with great relish, and prepared for the onslaught, the
reserve picking some persimmons off a tree and eating them for lunch.
I was about to order the different divisions and brigades of my army to
advance from their different positions, and close in on the enemy, when
a colored man came out of the house and moved toward me, signalling
that he would fain converse with me. I struck a dignified attitude, by
throwing my right leg over the pommel of the saddle, like a hired girl
riding a plow-horse to town after a doctor, and waited. When he came up
to me, he said, "Massa wants to know what all dis darn foolishness is
about. He says if you all don't go away from here he will shoot de liver
outen you all." I told the negro to be calm, and not cause me to resort
to extreme measures, and I asked him if his master was at home. He said
he was, and he was a bad man wid a gun. He had killed plenty of men
before the war, and since the war he had killed more Yankees than enough
to build a rail-fence around the plantation. I did not exactly like the
reports in regard to the enemy. I told the colored man to take a flag of
truce to his master, and tell him I would like an interview. The colored
man went to the house, and I sent for the Iron Brigade to report to
me at once, in light marching order, and the Irishman came riding up
without any shirt on. I caused the Brigade to put on his shirt, when I
sent him to the house, to follow the nag of truce and feel of the enemy.
He went to the house, and was evidently invited in, for he disappeared.
I waited half an hour for him, and as he did not show up, I called the
Second Division, and sent the Dutchman to the house. The Second Division
went in, and did not come out. I ordered the whole right wing of my army
to deploy to my support, and the fellow at the hen-house gate came, and
I sent him in after the Irishman and the Dutchman. He didn't come back,
and I s