the boat yours?" to which I
was forced to answer in the negative. She protested that she would not
go back and get a permit or pass from anyone on earth; that the boat
was not mine, and she had as much right to its use as anyone, and that
no one should prevent her from getting bread for her family, and
that "you have no business here at best," arguments that were hard to
controvert in the face of a firey young "diamond in the rough." So to
compromise matters and allow chivalry to take, for the time being, the
place of duty, I agreed to ferry her over myself. She placed her corn
in the middle of the little boat, planting herself erect in the prow;
I took the stern. The weather was freezing cold, the wind strong, and
the waves rolled high, the little boat rocking to and fro, while I
battled with the strong current of the river. Once or twice she cast
disdainful glances at my feeble and emaciated form, but at last, in
a melting tone, she said: "If you can't put the boat over, get up and
give me the oar." This taunt made me strong, and the buxom mountain
girl was soon at the mill. While awaiting the coming of the old
miller, I concluded to take a stroll over the hill in search of
further adventure. There I found, at a nice old-fashioned farm house,
a bevy of the prettiest young ladies it had been my pleasure to meet
in a long while--buoyant, vivacious, cultured, and loyal to the core.
They did not wait very long to tell me that they were "Rebels to the
bone." They invited me and any of my friends that I chose to come over
the next day and take dinner with them, an invitation I was not loath
nor slow to accept. My mountain acquaintance was rowed back over the
Holston in due season, without any of the parting scenes that fiction
delight in, and the next day, armed with passports, my friends and
myself were at the old farm house early. My companions were Colonel
Rutherford, Dr. James Evans, Lieutenant Hugh Farley, Captains Nance,
Cary, and Watts, with Adjutant Pope as our chaperone. Words fail me
here in giving a description of the dinner, as well as of the handsome
young ladies that our young hostess had invited from the surrounding
country to help us celebrate.

Now will any reader of this question the fact that Longstreet's men
suffered any great hardships, isolated as they were from the outside
world? This is but a sample of our sufferings. We had night parties
at the houses of the high and the low, dinners in season and