llow hair of his
countrymen. His nature was all sunshine, geniality, and many a joke
he practiced upon his comrades, taking all in good humor those passed
upon him. One day, as a comrade had been "indulging" too freely,
another accosted him with--

"Turn away your head, your breath is awful. What is the matter with
you?"

Zobel, in his broad German brogue, answered for his companion. "Led
'em alone, dare been nodden to madder mid Mattis, only somding crawled
in him and died."

He lost his leg at Knoxville and fell in the enemy's hands after
Longstreet withdrew, and was sent North with the other wounded. While
in the loathsome prison pen, enduring all the sufferings, hardships,
and horrors of the Federal "Bastile," he was visited by the German
Consul, and on learning that he had not been naturalized, the Consul
offered him his liberty if he would take the oath of allegiance to the
North.

Zobel flashed up as with a powder burst, and spoke like the true
soldier that he was. "What! Desert my comrades; betray the country I
have sworn to defend; leave the flag under whose folds I have lost
all but life? No, no! Let me die a thousand deaths in this hell hole
first!"

He is living to-day in Columbia, an expert mechanic in the service of
the Southern Railroad, earning an honest living by the sweat of his
brow, with a clear conscience, a faithful heart, and surrounded by a
devoted family.

That the campaign against Knoxville was a failure, cannot be wondered
at under the circumstances. In the first place Longstreet's forces
were too weak--the two thousand reinforcements to come from Virginia
dwindled down to a few regiments of cavalry and a battery or two. The
men were badly furnished and equipped--a great number being barefoot
and thinly clad. Hundreds would gather at the slaughter pens daily
and cut from the warm beef hides strips large enough to make into
moccasins, and thus shod, marched miles upon miles in the blinding
snow and sleet. All overcoats and heavy clothing had been left in
Virginia, and it is a fact too well known to be denied among the
soldiers of the South that baggage once left or sent to the rear never
came to the front again.

Longstreet did not have the support he had the right to expect from
his superiors and those in authority at Richmond. He had barely
sufficient transportation to convey the actual necessaries of camp
equippage, and this had to be used daily in gathering supplies
from the sur