“Yes, I think I can,” she answered, and hastened away to try to find some onions.
Fortunately, a lot of supplies had just come in, and a sack of onions was among the goods received.
She hastened back with an onion in her hand and a cup of salt. He seized the onion eagerly, and began eating it as one would eat an apple or a peach, dipping it in the salt cup each time as he ate greedily.
The onion and salt was the balm of life to him; and from that time he began to amend, and was soon able to be about the ward and eat everything the surgeons would allow him to.
“Oh, that onion did the business for me! If I ever get home I will raise a big lot of them,” he said.
Shortly afterwards he was shipped North, and as the war soon afterwards closed, no doubt he reached his home safely.
MEN WHO COMMANDED THEMSELVES AND DID NOT SWEAR.
THE Mississippi River was very much swollen in the spring of 1863, and a bayou near Helena offered a possible channel in the direction of Vicksburg. It was broad and deep enough to admit the passage of steamers and gunboats, but too narrow for a boat to turn around.
A fleet of steamers, bearing a well-chosen force, and accompanied by gunboats, was sent down this bayou. The fleet of boats had not gone far till the way was found blockaded. Large trees had been cut down, so that in falling they bridged the narrow stream from shore to shore. But determined men can overcome almost any obstacle.