he was
never known to swear but once.

"I heard an officer tell the Adjutant a day or two ago, that what was
considered the prettiest sentence in the English language, had been
written by a smutty preacher. I don't recollect the words as he repeated
it, but it was about an old officer, who nursed a young one, and some
one told him the young one would die. The old officer excited, said, 'By
G--d, he sha'nt die.' It goes on to say then that an Angel flew up to
heaven, to enter it in the great Book of Accounts, and that the Angel
who made the charge cried over it and blotted it out. That is the
substance anyhow. Well, sir, if the Third Virginny's Chaplain's oath was
ever recorded it is in the same fix."

"Well, tell us about it, how it happened," exclaimed several.

"Why you see, Rosy sent over one day for a Major who had lately come
into the Division, and told him that 300 rebels were about six miles to
our left, in the bushes along a creek, and that he should take 300 men,
and kill, capture, or drive them off. The Major was about to make a
statement. 'That's all, Major,' with a wave of his hand for him to
leave, 'I expect a good account.'

"That was Rosy's style: he told an officer what he wanted, and he
supposed the officer had gumption enough to do it, without bothering
him, as some of our red-tape or pigeon-hole Generals, as the boys call
them, do with long written statements that a memory like a tarred stick
couldn't remember--telling where these ten men must be posted, those
twenty-five, and another thirty, etc. I wonder what such office Generals
think--that the Rebels will be fools enough to attack us when we want
them to, or take ground that we would like to have them make a stand
on."

"Captain, we talk enough ourselves about that; on with the story."

"Well, four companies, seventy-five strong each, were detailed to go
with him, and mine among the number, from our regiment. The chaplain got
wind of it, and go he would. By the time the detail was ready, he had
his bullets run, his powder-horn and fixin's on, and long Tom, as he
called his Kentucky rifle, slung across his shoulder."

"His canteen?" inquired an officer disposed to be a little troublesome.

"Don't recollect about that," said the Captain, somewhat curtly.

"On the march he mixed with the men, talked with them about all kinds of
useful matters, and gave them a world of information.

"We had got about a mile from where we supposed the Rebel