tried to shake hands with the colonel
commanding, who was offended, and told the chaplain he was an ass, and
to go away with his museum, or he would have the chaplain put in the
guard house. That a colored man near the review ground had a ginger
bread stand, with a sheet tacked up to keep the sun off, and the spotted
horse attempted to jump through the sheet, evidently thinking it was a
paper hoop in a circus. And in conclusion, after making the chaplain so
mortified and ashamed that he wished he might die, the horse laid down
in the road and rolled over the aforsaid chaplain, leaving him in the
road covered with dirt, while the horse run across the street and walked
up a pair of stairs, outside a store, went into the rooms occupied by
some milliners and scared the women so they put their heads out of
the windows and yelled fire, and said a regiment of Yankee cavalry had
raided their homes. That the review was made a farce, the chaplain a
laughing stock, and that it took ten men to get the horse down stairs,
and half the regiment to console the milliners, and convince them that
no harm was intended. He said he demanded that I be sentenced to be
shot.

The colonel asked me if I had anything to say, and I asked permission
to cross-examine the witness. Permission being granted, I asked the
chaplain what his business was. He said he was a minister. I asked him
if he didn't consider trading horses one of the noblest professions
extant. He said he didn't know about that. Then I asked him if he didn't
take advantage of me when I came to the regiment, as a raw recruit,
and trade me a kicking mule, that made my life a burden. He said he
remembered that he traded me a mule. I asked him if he didn't know
the mule was balky, vicious, and spavined, that it would kick its best
friend, bite anybody, that it was so ugly that he had to put the saddle
on with a long pole, that he warranted the mule sound when he knew it
had all the diseases that were going.

He said he objected to being asked such questions, but the
judge-advocate said I had a right to bring out any previous transactions
in the horse-trade line, as it would have some effect in this case. Then
I asked him if he didn't know the horse he beat me out of was sound,
a splendid rider, and that the mule was the worst one in the army. He
admitted that he knew the animal was not a desirable animal, but he
thought a recruit could get along with a kicking mule better than a
chapla