hat was
too slow. What I wanted was a 'middling' horse, one that was not too
confounded fast when after the enemy, and one not so all-fired slow when
being pursued. The Johnnies were coming closer, but we were only half
a mile from town. Would they chase us clear into town? At that critical
moment the blasted mule stopped short, never to go again, and began to
kick. What on earth possessed that fool mule to take a notion to stop
right there and kick, is more than I shall ever know, but it simply
kicked, and I felt that my time had come. The Union soldiers that were
being chased by the Confederates passed me, and told me I better light
out or I would be captured, but I couldn't get the mule to budge an
inch. It just kicked. The good Lord only knows, what that mule was
kicking at, or why it should have been scheduled to stop and kick at
that particular time, when every minute was precious. I saw the rebels
very near me, and as it was impossible to get the mule to go a step
farther, I raised the large, flat, white-washed picket which I had torn
on the cemetery fence to maul the mule with, in token of surrender, and
the Confederate boys surrounded me, though they kept a safe distance,
after my mule had kicked in the ribs of one of their horses. The rebs
had gone about as far towards the town as it was safe to go, and and
they knew the whole garrison would be out after them pretty soon, so
they laughed at me for being armed with a whitewashed picket, and asked
me if I expected to put down the rebellion by stabbing the enemy with
such things. I told them I had been burying a nigger. One of my captors
run the point of his saber into my mule, to stop its kicking, and then
he said to his comrades, "Boys, we came out here with the glorious
prospect of capturing a Yankee general and his staff, and instead of
getting him, we have broken up a nigger funeral and captured the gospel
sharp, armed with a picket fence, and a kicking mule. Shall we hang
him for engaging in uncivilized, warfare, by stabbing us with pickets
poisoned with whitewash, or shall we take the red-headed slim-jim back
with us as a curiosity." The boys all said not to hang me, but to take
me along. I saw that it was all day with me this time. I felt that I
was helping put down the rebellion rapidly, as I had been a soldier four
weeks, been captured twice, and not a drop of blood had been spilled.
The rebels started back, with me and my mule ahead of them, and they
ke