ones. The cold November winds coming off the mountains of the northwest were blowing right in our faces, and nearly cutting us in two.
We were inured to privations and hardships; had been upon every march, in every battle, in every skirmish, in every advance, in every retreat, in every victory, in every defeat. We had laid under the burning heat of a tropical sun; had made the cold, frozen earth our bed, with no covering save the blue canopy of heaven; had braved dangers, had breasted floods; had seen our comrades slain upon our right and our left hand; had heard guns that carried death in their missiles; had heard the shouts of the charge; had seen the enemy in full retreat and flying in every direction; had heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded and dying; had seen the blood of our countrymen dyeing the earth and enriching the soil; had been hungry when there was nothing to eat; had been in rags and tatters. We had marked the frozen earth with bloody and unshod feet; had been elated with victory and crushed by defeat; had seen and felt the pleasure of the life of a soldier, and had drank the cup to its dregs. Yes, we had seen it all, and had shared in its hopes and its fears; its love and its hate; its good and its bad; its virtue and its vice; its glories and its shame. We had followed the successes and reverses of the flag of the Lost Cause through all these years of blood and strife.
I was simply one of hundreds of thousands in the same fix. The tale is the same that every soldier would tell, except Jim Whitler. Jim had dodged about, and had escaped being conscripted until "Hood's raid," he called it. Hood's army was taking up every able-bodied man and conscripting him into the army. Jim Whitler had got a position as overseer on a large plantation, and had about a hundred negroes under his surveillance. The army had been passing a given point, and Jim was sitting quietly on the fence looking at the soldiers. The conscripting squad nabbed him. Jim tried to beg off, but all entreaty was in vain. He wanted to go by home and tell his wife and children good-bye, and to get his
