I VISIT MONTGOMERY
Our wounded were being sent back to Montgomery. My name was put on the wounded list. We were placed in a box-car, and whirling down to West Point, where we changed cars for Montgomery. The cars drew up at the depot at Montgomery, and we were directed to go to the hospital. When we got off the cars, little huckster stands were everywhere—apples, oranges, peaches, watermelons, everything. I know that I never saw a greater display of eatables in my whole life. I was particularly attracted toward an old lady's stand; she had bread, fish, and hard boiled eggs. The eggs were what I was hungry for. Says I:
"Madam, how do you sell your eggs?"
"Two for a dollar," she said.
"How much is your fish worth?"
"A piece of bread and a piece of fish for a dollar."
"Well, madam, put out your fish and eggs." The fish were hot and done to a crisp—actually frying in my mouth, crackling and singing as I bit off a bite. It was good, I tell you. The eggs were a little over half done. I soon demolished both, and it was only an appetizer. I invested a couple of dollars more, and thought that maybe I could make out till supper time. As I turned around, a smiling, one-legged man asked me if I wouldn't like to have a drink. Now, if there was anything that I wanted at that time, it was a drink.
"How do you sell it?" says I.
"A dollar a drink," said he.
"Pour me out a drink."
It was a tin cap-box. I thought that I knew the old fellow, and he kept looking at me as if he knew me. Finally, he said to me:
"It seems that I ought to know you."
I told him that I reckon he did, as I had been there.
"Ain't your name Sam?" said he.
"That is what my mother called me."
Well, after shaking hands, it suddenly flashed upon me who the old fellow was. I knew him well. He told me that he belonged to Captain Ed. O'Neil's company, Second Tennessee Regiment, General William B. Bate's corps, and that his leg had been shot off at the first battle of Manassas, and at that time he was selling cheap whisky and tobacco for a living at Montgomery, Alabama. I tossed off a cap-box full and paid him a dollar. It staggered me, and I said:
"That is raw whisky."
"Yes," said he, "all my cooked whisky is out."
"If this is not quite cooked, it is as hot as fire anyhow, and burns like red-hot lava, and the whole dose seems to have got lodged in my windpipe."
I might have tasted it, but don't think that I did. All I can remember now, is a dim recollection of a nasty, greasy, burning something going down my throat and chest, and smelling, as I remember at this day, like a decoction of red-pepper tea, flavored with coal oil, turpentine and tobacco juice.