t least those of the western
armies, were coffee, sow-belly, Yankee beans, and hardtack. It took us,
of course, some time to learn how to cook things properly, especially
the beans, but after we had learned how, we never went back on the above
named old friends. But the death of many a poor boy, especially during
our first two or three months in the field, is chargeable to the bad
cooking of his food.

At Carrollton the jolliest time of the day was from the close of dress
parade until taps sounded "Lights out." There was then a good deal of
what you might call "prairie dogging," that is, the boys would run
around and visit at the quarters of other companies. And Oh, how they
would sing! All sorts of patriotic songs were in vogue then, and what
was lacking in tone we made up in volume. The battle of Mill Springs, in
Kentucky, was fought on January 19, 1862, resulting in a Union victory.
A Confederate general, Felix K. Zollicoffer, was killed in the action.
He had been a member of Congress from Tennessee, and was a man of
prominence in the South. A song soon appeared in commemoration of this
battle. It was called "The Happy Land of Canaan," and I now remember
only one stanza, which is as follows:

"Old Zolly's gone,
And Secesh will have to mourn,
For they thought he would do to depend on;
But he made his last stand
On the rolling Cumberland,
And was sent to the happy land of Canaan."

There was a ringing, rolling chorus to each verse, of course, and which
was not at all germane to the text, and, moreover, as the newspapers
sometimes say, is "not adapted for publication,"--so it will be
omitted. Well, I can now shut my eyes and lean back in my chair and let
my memory revert to that far away time, and it just seems to me that I
can see and hear Nelse Hegans, of Co. C, singing that song at night in
our quarters at old Camp Carrollton. He was a big, strong six-footer,
about twenty-one years of age, with a deep bass voice that sounded when
singing like the roll of distant thunder. And he was an all-around good
fellow. Poor Nelse! He was mortally wounded by a musket ball in the
neck early in the morning of the first day at Shiloh, and died a few
days thereafter.

The health of the boys while at Camp Carrollton was fine. There were a
few cases of measles, but as I remember, none were fatal. Once I caught
a bad cold, but I treated it myself with a backwoods remedy and never
thought o