ith cheerfulness and alacrity. But
the orders forbidding the sale of intoxicating liquors to soldiers were
all right, and an imperative military necessity. If the men had been
allowed unlimited access to whisky, and the like, that would, in my
opinion, simply have been ruinous to the good order, discipline, and
efficiency of the army. That statement is based on events I saw myself
while in the service, and which occurred when, in spite of the orders,
the men managed to obtain liquor without let or hindrance. The scenes
that would then ensue are too unpleasant to talk about, so they will be
passed over in silence. It is only fair, however, to say that the same
men who, when furiously drunk, were a disgrace to themselves and the
organization to which they belonged, were, as a general rule, faithful
and brave soldiers when sober.

At 4 o'clock on the morning of the 28th we broke camp at Springfield,
and started back to Little Rock, marching in a south-easterly
direction. We marched all that day, the 29th, 30th, and 31st, and
arrived at our old camp at Huntersville at 9 o'clock in the evening of
the last mentioned day. According to the official report the entire
distance marched on the expedition, going and coming, was 190 miles,
and we didn't see an armed Confederate on the whole trip. Our return
route was through the wilderness, most of it primeval forest, and we
didn't pass through a single town. But now there is a railroad that
runs practically over all the course we followed during the last three
days we were on this march. I haven't been in that region since we
passed through there in May, 1864, but at that time it certainly was a
very wild, rough, and broken country. We here had our first experience
with scorpions and tarantulas, and soon learned that it was prudent,
when bivouacking on the ground, to carefully turn over all loose rocks
and logs in order to find and get rid of those ugly customers. The
scorpions were about four or five inches long, the fore part of the
body something like a crawfish, with a sharp stinger on the end of the
tail. When excited or disturbed, they would curl their tails over their
backs, and get over the ground quite rapidly. The tarantulas were just
big hairy spiders, of a blackish-gray color, about as big as toads, and
mighty ugly-looking things. The sting of the tarantula, and the bite of
a spider, were very painful, but when that happened to any of us (which
was seldom), our remedy wa