DRAWING RATIONS.
One evening after we had arrived in camp, while we were in Kentucky, orders were given us to go for rations. Each company had its commissary sergeant, whose duty it was to attend to this branch of the business. He would call on boys enough for his purpose, and proceed to the brigade commissary with their pots and pans, anything in fact that would hold the supplies, and receive from him the amount of food coming to the company, when on carrying it to the company quarters, each man would receive the amount due him. On the evening to which we have reference, we were called on by the sergeant to go with him for rations. Of course we complied. Arriving at the brigade commissary's headquarters, we found a crowd waiting there, who had come on the same errand as ourselves. Standing close by was a large barrel filled with shoulders. It attracted our eye immediately, for the shoulders and hams were kept for the officers use, as it was not supposed, perhaps, that a private soldier could eat such food. That barrel of shoulders had a mighty attraction for us. We approached nearer to it, and finally were reclining against it. In some way our arm and hand got inside of it, and our fingers, those wicked fingers, quickly closed around the shank of a shoulder with a vice-like grip, simultaneously it was drawn out, and then with a conviction that we had better go to our quarters, we "lit out." We got there with our shoulder safely, and crawling into our tent, were proceeding to hide our treasure under a blanket, when a hand was laid upon us, and a voice said, "Go halves, Bob." We nearly jumped through the tent with surprise. We thought that we had done a very clever piece of foraging, but our departure with the shoulder from the commissary's had been noticed by our commissary sergeant, John Lockhart, and as John had a tooth for such food, he had followed us up to get a share. We divided and then returned for our rations. The next day, as we marched along, we had a good dinner with what was left, and hoped that an opportunity would soon offer to replenish our haversack in the same way.