Page:Historical and biographical sketches.djvu/393

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389
SIX WEEKS IN UNIFORM.

ropes. I aroused him, procured the medicine, and started back in so much of a hurry that I lost my way completely and was brought up suddenly by a “halt” from one of the guards at the officers' tent of Company B. He seemed at first unwilling to permit me to pass, but when I stated the case to him, he felt the letters on my cap and the tin cup in my hand, and said it was contrary to orders, but he guessed it would be all right. Knowing then which way to turn I soon found the tent, and on swallowing the preparation Nyce became easier.

(Thursday, July 23d.) A young fellow from our company, named Nat. Hobart, who had been left at Gettysburg, and had seen the battle with all the military transactions there, came into camp. He presented to me some caps that he had taken from the boxes of some of the dead rebels. Several “emergency” regiments passed us on their way to Harrisburg to be mustered out, also, a large squad of rebels prisoners went by under guard. We all ran out to see them, and as we stood along the edge of the road, one of them said to another, “there's that Twenty-sixth that we drove from Gettysburg.”

After dinner I, with a number of others, was detailed under Sergeant Scheetz to dig a couple of privies, and had a chance of handling the spade and shovel for a couple of hours. They are made about fifteen feet long, two wide, and three deep. Then a fork cut from a tree and made the proper length is fixed firmly at each end of the trench and a sapling laid across so as to be supported by the forks.

There was consideral dissatisfaction manifested by the men toward our Quartermaster, whom they accused of not supplying the usual quantity of meat and other rations. They said that in order to make money he sold what was due to them, and their dislike was expressed by