ds. It sounded just real good, like
old times, with an effect, somehow, like a powerful tonic. But the
affair didn't last long. Shelby had no stomach for fighting infantry,
well supplied with artillery, and he soon fell back, and rapidly
retreated in a northerly direction, leaving two pieces of his artillery
in our possession. When the Confederates retired, we followed promptly
and vigorously, but of course the infantry couldn't overhaul them, and
neither could our cavalry bring them to a determined stand. Our route
was largely through a low, swampy country, over a "corduroy" road. In
many places there were large gaps in the corduroy, where the logs had
rotted and disappeared, and the road was covered with green and slimy
water about knee-deep. On encountering the first of these breaks, we
took off our shoes and socks, tied them to the ends of the barrels of
our muskets, rolled up our trousers, and waded in. As such places were
numerous, it was not worth while to resume our foot-gear, so we just
trudged on bare-footed. But the weather was warm, and it made no
difference, and the boys would splash through the mud and water in
great good humor, laughing and joking as they went. We followed hard
after Shelby until the evening of the 27th, and it being impossible to
catch up with him, we started back to Clarendon on the morning of the
28th. In the matter of rations I reckon "someone had blundered," when
we started in pursuit of Shelby. We had left Clarendon with only a
meager supply in our haversacks, and no provision train was with the
command. So at the time we took the back track we were out of anything
to eat. The country bordering on our route was wild, and thinly
settled, and what people lived there were manifestly quite poor, hence
there was very little in the shape of anything to eat that we could
forage. On the first day of our return march our commissary sergeant,
Bonfoy, did manage to capture and kill a gaunt, lean old Arkansas
steer, and it was divided up among the men with almost as much nicety
and exactness as if it was a wedding cake with a prize diamond ring in
it; and we hadn't any salt to go with it, but in lieu of that used
gun-powder, which was a sort of substitute. With that exception, (and a
piece of hardtack, to be presently mentioned,) my bill of fare on the
return march until we reached Clarendon consisted, in the main, of a
green, knotty apple,--and some sassafras buds. About the middle of the
after