" An
innocent-looking soldier would stop suddenly before one of the
new-comers neatly dressed, peer closely at his shirt-front, renewing
the scrutiny again and again with increasing earnestness, then,
striking an attitude, would cry out, "_Biled_, by Jove!" One, with a
stiff, thick, new overcoat, was met with the anxious inquiry, "Have
you got plenty of _stuffing_ in that coat, about _here_" (with a hand
spread over stomach and heart), "because the Yankee bullets is mighty
penetrating." Each new joke was hailed with shouts of laughter and
ear-piercing rebel yells, but at last the "melish" was marched off and
the frolic ended.
I received two invitations for the following day, one to dine with the
officers of Fenner's Louisiana Battery, and one, which I accepted,
from the soldiers of my husband's mess. About twelve o'clock the next
morning an ambulance stood before the door of the hotel. From it
descended a spruce-looking colored driver, who remarked, as he threw
the reins over the mule's back, "Don't nobody go foolin' wid dat da
mule ontwill I comes back. I jes gwine to step ober to de store yander
'bout some biziness fur de cap'n.
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