ose events, in adopting the phraseology of the old chaplain, and had
expressed myself several times in language like this: "And we smote
them, hip and thigh, even as Joash smote Boheel!" But it was now
necessary to amend my boastful statement, so as I approached Capt.
Keeley, and before anything else had been spoken, I made to him this
announcement: "And they smote us, hip and thigh, even as Joash smote
Boheel!" Keeley laughed, but it was a rather dry laugh, and he
answered: "Well, I'm glad they didn't smite you boys, anyhow--but,
great God! go wash your faces, and clean up generally. You both look
like the very devil himself." We passed on, complied with the Captain's
directions, and then I curled up in my dog tent and slept without a
break until next morning.

[Illustration: Lorenzo J. Miner
1st Lieutenant Co. B, 61st Illinois Infantry.
Died December 19, 1864, of a wound received in a
fight on the railroad, near Murfreesboro, Tenn.,
December 15, 1864.]

In concluding my account of this affair it will be stated that the most
of our boys who were captured in the fight, and (I think) all the line
officers who had the same bad luck, made their escape, singly, or in
little parties, not long thereafter. Their Confederate captors, on or
about the day after our encounter, had hurriedly joined the army of
Gen. Hood, taking their prisoners with them. In their retreat from
Tennessee on this occasion, the Confederates had a hard and perilous
time. The guards of the captured Yankees were probably well-nigh worn
out, and it is likely that, on account of their crushing defeat at
Nashville, they had also become discouraged and careless. Anyhow, the
most of our fellows got away while Hood was yet on the north side of
the Tennessee river. He crossed that stream with the wreck of his army
on the 26th and 27th of December, and fell back into Mississippi.

CHAPTER XXIII.

MURFREESBORO. WINTER OF 1864-1865. FRANKLIN. SPRING AND SUMMER OF 1865.

After the retreat of Hood from Nashville, matters became very quiet and
uneventful with us at Murfreesboro. The regiment shifted its camp from
the inside of Fortress Rosecrans out into open ground on the outskirts
of the town, and proceeded to build winter quarters. These consisted of
log cabins, like those we built at Little Rock the previous winter,
only now the logs were cedar instead of pine. There were extensive
cedar for