me ever since. We had formed in line of battle, but the command had
been given, "In place, rest!" (which we were allowed to give a liberal
construction), and we were scattered around, standing or sitting down,
near the line. About this time two young assistant surgeons came from
the rear, riding up the road on which the left of the regiment rested.
They belonged to some infantry regiment of the division, but personally
I didn't know them. They were both fool drunk. On reaching our line of
battle they stopped, but kept in their saddles, pulling their horses
about, playing "smarty," and grinning and chattering like a brace of
young monkeys. I looked at these drunk young fools, and thought that
maybe, in less than an hour, one of them might be standing over me,
probing a bullet wound in one of my legs, and then and there promptly
deciding the question whether the leg should be sawed off, or whether
it could be saved. And what kind of intelligent judgment on this
matter, on which my life or death might depend, could this
whisky-crazed young gosling be capable of exercising? I felt so
indignant at the condition and conduct of these men, right on the eve
of what we supposed might be a severe battle and in which their care
for the wounded would be required, that it almost seemed to me it would
be doing the government good service to shoot both the galoots right on
the spot. And there were other boys who felt the same way, who began
making ominous remarks. The drunken young wretches seemed to have sense
enough to catch the drift of something that was said, they put spurs to
their horses and galloped off to the rear, and we saw them no more.

On the morning of the 20th some regiments of our division moved forward
and occupied the town of Iuka, but Gen. Price had in the meantime
skipped out, so there was no fighting. Our regiment, with some others,
remained in the original position, so that I never got to see the old
town of Iuka until several years after the war. Sometime during the
afternoon of the 20th I went to Capt. Reddish and said to him that I
had become so tired of just standing around, and asked him if I could
take a short stroll in the woods. The old man gave his consent (as I
felt satisfied he would) but cautioned me not to go too far away. The
main thing in view, when I made the request, was the hope of finding
some wild muscadine grapes. They were plentiful in this section of the
country, and were now ripe, and I wan