as not worthy of the girl, and I was amazed
that she had taken him for a husband. I remember well some of my
thoughts as I sat with bitterness in my heart, alone among those gloomy
cypresses. I wanted a great big battle to come off at once, with the
61st Illinois right in front, that we might run out of cartridges, and
the order would be given to fix bayonets and charge! Like Major Simon
Suggs, in depicting the horrors of an apprehended Indian war, I wanted
to see blood flow in a "great gulgin' torrent, like the Tallapoosa
river." Well, it was simply a case of pure, intensely ardent boy-love,
and I was hit, hard,--but survived. And I now heartily congratulate
myself on the fact that this youthful shipwreck ultimately resulted in
my obtaining for a wife the very best woman (excepting only my mother)
that I ever knew in my life.

I never again met my youthful flame, to speak to her, and saw her only
once, and then at a distance, some years after the close of the war
when I was back in Illinois on a visit to my parents. Several years ago
her husband died, and in course of time she married again, this time a
man I never knew, and the last I heard of or concerning her, she and
her second husband were living somewhere in one of the Rocky Mountain
States.

For a short time after the evacuation of Corinth, Pittsburg Landing
continued to be our base of supplies, and commissary stores were
wagoned from there to the various places where our troops were
stationed. And it happened, while the regiment was at Bethel, that I
was one of a party of about a hundred men detailed to serve as guards
for a wagon train destined for the Landing, and, return to Bethel with
army rations. There was at the Landing at this time, serving as guards
for the government stores, a regiment of infantry. There were only a
few of them visible, and they looked pale and emaciated, and much like
"dead men on their feet." I asked one of them what regiment was
stationed there, and he told me it was the 14th Wisconsin Infantry.
This was the one I had seen at Benton Barracks and admired so much on
account of the splendid appearance of the men. I mentioned this to the
soldier, and expressed to him my surprise to now see them in such bad
shape. He went on to tell me that the men had suffered fearfully from
the change of climate, the water, and their altered conditions in
general; that they had nearly all been prostrated by camp diarrhea, and
at that time there were