and from his remarks to me, and from
these court-martial proceedings, I was satisfied the chaplain did not
like the horse." The officers laughed then, and I suppose they were
thinking of something that happened to the chaplain on review. The
colonel asked me if I wanted anybody to defend me, and I told him I
had a printing office once next door to a lawyer's office, and I knew a
little about law, and would defend myself. The chaplain came soon, and
began to tell his story, but I insisted, that he be sworn, and then he
proceeded to tell his tale. He said that he was a God-fearing man, and
meant to do right, and was willing to take his chances in the lottery of
war, but when a man got him to ride a circus trick-horse, and bring
upon his sacred calling the ribald laughter of the wicked, he felt that
civilization was a failure. He said he traded for the spotted horse in
good faith, and that he was particular to ask me if the horse had any
tricks, and I said he had none, and he traded on that understanding,
that he rode the afore--said horse to the review, and as soon as the
aforesaid horse heard the band play, he waltzed out into the middle
of the street, whirled around more than fifty times, waltzed into
an infantry regiment, breaking the ranks of the soldiers just as the
reviewing officer come along, causing the reviewing officer to say, "get
out of the ranks, you d-d fool, and take that horse back to the circus,"
thus causing him, the chaplain, to be scandalized. He said he would have
stood that, but the horse carried him to a battery of artillery which
was in position, and began to jump over the guns, and that a gunner
took a swab with which he had been cleaning a gun, and punched him, the
chaplain, in the face, covering his face with burnt powder which smelled
badly.

Then the horse carried him out on the field in front of the reviewing
officers, got up on its hind feet and walked for half a block, making
the chaplain appear as though climbing up the horse's neck, and when
some of the general's staff came out to arrest him, the horse whirled
around and kicked, in every direction at once, and broke the saber of
one of the staff-officers. That the horse seemed to be possessed of the
devil. That he finally got the horse to go back to the regiment where he
belonged, but on the way he had to pass brigade headquarters, when the
horse stopped in front of the commanding officer and sat down like
a dog, on his hind parts, and