"Well, you had better go to your quarters."
"Oh, yes, I'll go to my quarters! I'd like to see General McPherson first, though; he told me to come here. Haven't you got some whisky, that you can give me two or three hundred swallows before I go?"
"Yes, I'll give you some whisky if you'll leave and go to your quarters."
"Oh, yes, I'll go to my quarters if you'll give me some whisky!"
He turned me out enough for three drinks, to spite me, I suppose, for my impudence in asking him for it, and I deliberately drank it all down. "Thank you!" said I, and went out. Before I had got out of hearing, General McPherson entered, and I heard some one tell him that there was a man just in to see him, and that he had stepped out. The General came out and called me back.
"Well, Bunker," said he, "I haven't got those cartridges yet; but you go over to General Grant's head-quarters, and tell his Chief-of-Staff that I sent you over to get some cartridges for your rifle. He has got a rifle of that kind, and I presume that he has got some cartridges."
"Well, I'll go and see. But it's a pretty warm morning, General, and I hate to come all the way up here for nothing. I think your Adjutant-General has got some pretty good whisky in there; can't you induce him to give me a drink before I go back?"
"Yes! Adjutant, give Bunker two or three hundred swallows of whisky!"
The Adjutant-General looked at me and then at General McPherson, as if about to say that I had just had some, and then, as if recollecting that it was military to obey orders without questioning them, turned me out a large tumblerful, which I drank, and then went out.
By the time I had reached my quarters, my physical nature was so much under the influence of the "spiritual," that I deferred my visit to General Grant's head-quarters until the next morning.