We invited the colonel and some of his officers to spend the night with us. I confess they behaved with dignity. They made no complaints, and submitted with quiet resignation to their changed circumstances; but they were Tennesseans, and though they made no professions in words, convinced us that they had been Union men at heart and wished the Union back again. One of us remarked, that if those who had been released heretofore had not abused it, and violated their pledges and oaths, the prisoners at Fort Donelson would probably be released in the same way. The lieutenant-colonel said he wished it could be so; he was confident none of his men would be thus guilty. "But," he added, "I don't blame the Government for sending us North; I acknowledge that I am a rebel taken in arms, and it is fully justified in treating me accordingly."
It was a novelty indeed, thus spending the evening with our late opponents. We made no allusions that could, hurt their feelings, but talked over the events of the siege until a late hour. They told us the surrender was a thunder-clap to all. The men, and most of the officers, had not seen how completely they were surrounded, and had been made to believe that they were successful. The evening before they were told this, and in the morning it was announced that their generals had run away, and they were prisoners of war.
I now began to look about me and feel a little of the confusion that follows a battle. My trunk had been left on the steamer, and the steamer had moved; my blankets had been left in a hospital tent, and the hospital tent had disappeared; my regiment was fourteen miles off, at Fort Henry; the biscuit and coffee on which we had lived were gone, and provisions had not followed us into the fort. I procured a captured horse, and the next morning started at daylight for Fort Henry. As I passed a regiment in the woods, the commissary was dealing out a biscuit and a handful of sugar to each man for breakfast. He good naturedly said he would give me my share. After a long ride, I found my men camped in some woods, all well and bitterly disappointed at not having been at Fort Donelson.
IV. FORAGING.
In this military life, I find there is much quiet time, when the hours pass slowly and the men yawn and wish for something to do. With every change of camp, reading matter is lost or left behind; orders, too, have been given that the quantity of baggage be reduced; and here, in Tennessee, newspapers and letters hardly ever come. It is pleasant, then, to sit as I do now, under a tree in the warm sun, and talk with pencil and paper to your distant friends.
My previous letters have had so much in them gloomy or painful, that this time I will choose a more pleasant subject, and give you an account of my First Foraging.
Gipsy is the prettiest of horses. I should fail to describe my excursion, if I failed to describe Gipsy. Gipsy is one of those happy beings that everybody likes. No one ever quarrels with her. She has never been struck with a whip or touched by the spur, and knows not what either means. The soldiers all know Gipsy, and the Germans, who are always sociably inclined, generally say as they pass her, "Good morning, Shipsy;" at which Shipsy looks as pleased as anybody could. Gipsy is a small specimen of the Black Hawk race, jet black in color, and almost as delicate and agile in form as a greyhound, with the mischievous, restless eyes of a bright terrier.
Gipsy has several feminine traits of character—a good deal of vanity with a little affectation, and is withal something of a flirt. Put on a common soldier's bridle, and she goes very quietly; but change it for a handsome brass-mounted one, and Gipsy tosses her head as though the bridle were a new bonnet. If you say, "Come here, Gipsy," Gipsy walks off the other way; if you call her very loudly, Gipsy pricks up her ears, and seems completely absorbed in some object half a mile off; but walk away, and Gipsy puts up a piteous whinny, for you to come back and make it up. When I am riding alone, Gipsy generally does pretty much as she pleases—now trotting, now cantering, now dashing up hill on a gallop, her ears always pricked up, and her bright eyes examining every object on the road. When we come suddenly out of the woods upon a fine prospect, Gipsy stops and looks it over, with as much interest as though she were a landscape painter. If we come to a narrow stream, Gipsy (who greatly dislikes to wet her feet) stops again, looks deliberately up and down, selects the narrowest place, and then, without asking anybody's leave, proceeds there and bounds over. When thus riding without a companion, I find it very interesting to watch the beautiful intelligence of my little mare.