found no conveniences,
and it soon dawned on me that war was no picnic, as that lying
recruiting officers had told me it was. I found that I had got to throw
away my trunk and knapsack, and all the articles that I couldn't strap
on a saddle, and when I asked for a mattress the men laughed at me. I
had always slept on a mattress, or a feather bed, and when I was told
that I would have to sleep on the ground, under that little tent, I felt
hurt. I had known the colonel when he used to teach school at home, and
I went to him and told him what kind of a way they were treating me,
but he only laughed. He had two nice cots in his tent, and I told him
I thought I ought to have a cot, too. He laughed some more. Finally I
asked him who slept in his extra cot, and intimated that I had rather
sleep in his tent than mine, but he sent me away, and said he would see
what could be done. I laid on the ground that night, but I didn't sleep.
If I ever get a pension it will be for rheumatism caught by sleeping on
the ground. The rheumatism has not got hold of me yet, though twenty-two
years have passed, but it may be lurking about my system, for all I
know.

I had never rode a horse, before enlisting. The only thing I had ever
got straddle of was a stool in a country printing office, and when I
was first ordered to saddle up my horse, I could not tell which way the
saddle and bridle went, and I got a colored man to help me, for which I
paid him some of the remains of my bounty. I hired him permanently, to
take care of my horse, but I soon learned that each soldier had to take
care of his own horse. That seemed pretty hard. I had been raised a pet,
and had edited a newspaper, which had been one of the most outspoken
advocates of crushing the rebellion, and it seemed to me, as much as I
had done for the government, in urging enlistments, I was entitled to
more consideration then to become my own hostler. However, I curbed my
proud spirit, and after the nigger cook had saddled my horse, I led the
animal up to a fence to climb on. From the remarks of the soldiers, and
the general laugh all around, it was easy to see that mounting a cavalry
horse from off the top of a rail fence was not according to tactics,
but it was the only way I could see to get on, in the absence of
step-ladders. They let me ride into the ranks, after mounting, and then
they laughed. It was hard for me to be obliged to throw away all the
articles I had brought with me, s