PEDICULUS CORPORIS.
On the evening of June 26, Will Daniel said to me, "Furnish 47 men for picket duty tonight. Lieutenants Blanchard and McLaughlin will go with them. As this is a detail, you will remain with the remnant of the company in the trenches." As Gen. Sherman had not favored us with his confidence, neither of us knew how much, exemption from that service meant for both of us on the morrow. In detailing non-commissioned officers for this detachment, Corp. L. A. R. Reab asked to be excused upon the ground that he had received that day an outfit of outer and under clothing—that by changing the old garments for the new after a thorough ablution he had succeeded in ridding himself of a camp affliction technically known as "pediculus corporis," but usually characterized by a less euphonious title—that picket service in the pits would certainly bring on a renewal of the attack, from which he desired most earnestly to have at least a few days immunity. While he had my sympathy, I was unable to consider his excuse a valid one, and referred him to his commanding officer, who also declined to relieve him. It was possibly fortunate that he failed as he was captured next day and was kept a prisoner until the close of the war, securing in this way exemption from further risk in battle and perhaps a longer lease of life.
In this connection it may not be amiss to say that the Oglethorpes were, perhaps, as cleanly as any company in the service and yet during the last year of the war I do not think a single member was free of this affliction for a single day. It was simply a physical impossibility to get rid of it. Discussing this matter with my friend, W. J. Steed some time since, I made the statement that during our trip to Nashville in the winter of '64, when we had no opportunity to change our underclothing for a month or more, it was our custom before retiring at night, to take our flannel or hickory shirts, close the neck and wrist, suspend them over a blazing fire and hold them there until the air was filled with the odor of frying meat. Steed's reply was, "I think a good deal of you, old fellow, but I advise you never to make that statement to any one who has not unlimited confidence in your veracity." And yet I make it here with as full conviction of its absolute truthfulness as any statement I have ever made in any presence.
And now, bidding the "pediculus corporis" adieu with a great deal of pleasure, I ask the reader's attention to another theme.