is station, who can bake beans as well as the remains
could bake them, is entitled to a warm place in the heart of every
soldier, and if he goes to the land that is fairer than this,-and who
can say that he will not,--he is liable to be welcomed with 'well done,
good and faithful servant,' and he will be received where horse doctors
can never enter with their condition powders, and where there will never
be war any more. To his family, or several families, as the case may be,
I would say----"

At this point I had noticed an uneasiness on the part of my mourners and
bearers, as well as the officers. Nine of the negroes fell down on the
ground and groaned as if in pain, and the general and his stall looked
off to a piece of woods where a few shots had been fired, and rode away
hurriedly, the colonel telling me I had better hurry up that funeral or
it was liable to be interrupted. The horse-doctor went to the negroes
who were sick, and after examining them he said they had been poisoned
by eating melons that had been doctored, and he advised them to get to
town as quick as possible. They scrambled on their horses the best way
they could, and just then there was a yell, and out of the woods came
half a dozen Union soldiers followed by fifteen or twenty Confederates,
and all was confusion. The niggers scattered towards town, the driver of
the cart taking the lead, trying to catch the general and his start, who
were hurrying away, leaving the horse-doctor, myself and the deceased.
The horse-doctor seized the shovel and threw a little dirt on the
coffin, then mounted his horse, I mounted my mule, and away we went
towards town, with the rebels gaining on us every jump. The horse-doctor
soon left me, and with a picket I had pulled off the fence of the
cemetery, I worked my passage on that mule. I mauled the mule, and the
more I pounded the slower it went. There was never a more deliberate
mule in the world. I forgot all the solemn thoughts that possessed me
at the grave, and tried to talk to the mule like a mule-driver, but
the animal just fooled along, as though there was no especial hurry.
Occasionally I could hear bullets 'zipping' along by me, and the rebels
were yelling for all that was out. O, how I did wish I had my old race
horse that the chaplain had beat me out of. In my first engagement my
horse was too fast, and there was danger that I would catch my friend,
the rebel, and I complained of the horse. Now I had a mule t