I for one
will never forget the hospitality received in Tennessee. We
recrossed the Tennessee on the 26th of December. Christmas day was
quite an event to us. We were then out of Tennessee, in a poor
country, and could get very little to eat. All day myself and mess
were without food; late in the evening we saw a butcher-pen and
made for it; all we could get was oxtails and a little tallow
procured by a good deal of industry from certain portions of the
beef. One of the boys procured a lot of bran and unbolted flour and
at twelve o'clock at night we sat down at our Christmas dinner
(oxtail soup and biscuit), and if I ever enjoyed a meal I enjoyed
that one. The army is retiring to Okolona and the artillery to
Columbus, Mississippi. The barefooted men were left here to go by
rail. When we get away I cannot say. We had to leave two of our
pieces stuck in the mud, the other side of Columbus; the third
piece was thrown in the river; the fourth piece, the one I am
interested in, was saved and represents the battery."
And here is the _last_, written from Demopolis, Alabama, April 15,
1865:
"DEAR MOTHER,--You have heard ere this of the evacuation of Mobile,
which happened on the day of the eleventh.
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