s. I wanted to say that to
you, too, before you go away--maybe forever, Teunis!"

She touched on so many things--sore things and sacred things--in this
speech, that I only looked at her with tears in my eyes; and she saw
them. It was the only answer I could make, and before she could say any
more, the elder and his wife came and took her home. I had got half-way
to Cairo, Illinois, before I worked it out that by "the people back in
our grove," she must have meant me; for the only others there had been
that gang of horse-thieves: and if so she must have meant me when she
spoke of "people who don't care for me any more"--but it was too late to
do anything in the way of correcting this mistake then. All I could
pride myself on was having a good memory as to what she said. I guess
this proves my relationship to that other Dutchman who took so long to
build the church. Remember, though, that he finally built it.

5

The Civil War is no part of the history of Vandemark Township; and I had
small part in the Civil War. But one thing that took place on the field
of Shiloh does belong in this history. Most of the members of my company
enlisted in October, 1861, but we did not get to the front until the
very day of the Battle of Shiloh. I was in one of the two regiments
whose part in the battle has caused so much controversy. I gave Senator
Cummins an affidavit about it only the other day to settle something
about a monument on the field.

We came up the Tennessee River the night of the day before the battle,
and landed at Pittsburgh Landing at daybreak of the first day's fight.
We had not had our guns issued to us yet. Some have thought it a little
hard on us to be shoved into a great battle without ever having loaded
or fired our muskets. When we were landed the guns were issued to my
company, and we were given about half an hour's instruction in the way
they were worked. Of course most of us had done shooting, and were a
little better than green hands; but Will Lockwood during the fight
loaded his gun until it was full of unfired loads, and forgot to put a
cap on. Then he discovered his mistake, and put on a cap, and would have
blown off his own head by firing all the stuff out at once, when Captain
Gowdy saw what he was doing and snatched the gun away from him calling
him a damned fool, and broke the stock off the musket on the ground.
There were plenty of guns for Will to select from by that time which
were not in use