This night I succeeded in getting a "bang up" supper—a cooked meal—at a reb farm-house. It consisted of pork-steak, potatoes, and hot coffee with bread and butter. It was a great treat. I had now been without a square meal for nearly ten days. The old gentleman, a small farmer, talked freely about the war, not concealing his rebel sympathies. He extolled Stonewall Jackson and his men, who, he said, had passed through there only a day ahead of us. He firmly believed we would be whipped. He evidently had an eye for the "main chance," for he was quite willing to cook for us at twenty-five cents a meal, as long as he had stuff to cook and his good wife had strength to do the work. She seemed to be a nice old lady, and, hungry as I was, I felt almost unwilling to eat her supper, she looked so tired. I told her it was too bad. She smiled and said she was tired, but she couldn't bear to turn away these hungry boys. She said she had a son in the rebel army, and she knew we must be hungry and wet, for it was still raining hard.

The officers at this time experienced difficulty in getting food to eat. The men were supplied with rations and forced to carry them, but rations were not issued to officers—though they might purchase of the commissary such as the men had, when there was a supply. The latter were supposed to provide their own mess, for which purpose their mess-kits were transported in a wagon supplied to each regiment. The field and staff usually made one mess, and the line or company officers another. Sometimes the latter messed with their own men, carrying their rations along on the march the same as the men. This was discouraged by the government, but it proved the only way to be sure of food when needed, and was later on generally adopted. We had plenty of food with our mess-kit and cook, but on the march, and especially in the presence of the enemy, our wagons could never get within reach of us. Indeed, when we bivouacked, they were generally from eight to ten miles away. The result was we often went hungry, unless we were able to pick up a meal at a farm-house—which seldom occurred, for the reason that most of these farmers were rebel sympathizers and would not feed us "Yanks," or they would be either sold out, or stolen out, of food. The tale generally told was, "You 'uns has stolen all we 'uns had." This accounts for the entry in my diary that the next morning I marched without breakfast, but got a good bath in the Monocacy—near which we encamped—in place of it. I got a "hardtack" and bit of raw pork about 10 A.M.

On the 13th of September, we passed through the city of Frederick, Md. It is a quaint old town, having then probably three thousand or more inhabitants and a decided business air. The rebels, they claimed, had cleaned them out of eatables and clothing, paying for them in Confederate scrip, and one man told me they would not take the same scrip in change, but required Union money; that this was demanded everywhere. General McClellan passed through the streets while we were halted, as did General Burnside shortly after. A funny incident occurred with the latter. General Burnside, as usual, was accompanied by a single orderly, and had stopped a moment to speak to some officers, when a handsome, middle-aged lady stepped out of her house and approached. She put out her hand and, as the general clasped it, she raised herself up on her toes in an unmistakable motion to greet him with a kiss.

The general so understood her, and, doffing his hat, bent down to meet her pouting lips, but, alas, he was too high up; bend as low as he might and stretch up as high as she could, their lips did not meet, and the kiss hung in mid-air. The boys caught the situation in a moment, and began to laugh and clap their hands, but the general solved the problem by dismounting and taking his kiss in the most gallant fashion, on which he was roundly cheered by the men. The lady was evidently of one of the best families. She said she was a stanch Union woman, and was so glad to see our troops that she felt she must greet our general. There was "method in her madness," however, for she confined her favors to a general, and picked out the handsomest one of the lot. It is worthy of note, that during this incident, which excited uproarious laughter, not a disrespectful remark was made by any of the hundreds of our "boys" who witnessed it. General Burnside chatted with her for a few moments, then remounted and rode away.

Approaching Frederick City, the country is exceptionally beautiful and the land seemed to be under a good state of cultivation. In front of us loomed up almost against the sky the long ridge called the South Mountain. It was evidently a spur of the Blue Ridge. Another incident occurred soon after reaching bivouac, just beyond the city. We had arranged for our night's "lodging" and were preparing supper, when one of the native farmers came into camp and asked to see the colonel. Colonel Oakford and Lieutenant-Colonel Wilcox were temporarily absent, and he was turned over to Major Albright, to whom he complained that "you 'uns" had stolen his last pig and he wanted pay for it. The major, who was a lawyer, began to cross-question him as to how he knew it was our men who had stolen it; there were at least fifty other regiments besides ours on the ground. But he would not be denied.

COLONEL CHARLES ALBRIGHT
[(see image enlarged)]

He said they told him they was "a hundred and thirty-two uns," and he also saw those figures on their caps. The major asked how long ago they took it. He replied that they got it only a little while ago, and offered to go and find it if the major would allow him. But the latter was confident he was mistaken in his men—that some of the old "vets" had got his pig. His chief argument was that our men were greenhorns and knew nothing about marauding; that some of the "vets" had doubtless made away with his pig and had laid it on our men. So persuasive was the major that the man finally went off satisfied that he had made a mistake in his men. The man was only well out of camp when one of our men appeared at the major's quarters with a piece of fresh pork for his supper, with the compliments of Company——. Now, the orders against marauding were very severe, and to have been caught would have involved heavy punishment. But the chief point of the incident, and which made it a huge joke on the major, lay in the fact that the latter who was a thoroughly conscientious man, had successfully fought off a charge against his men, whom he really believed to be innocent, only to find that during the very time he was persuading his man of their innocence, the scamps were almost within sound of his voice, actually butchering and dressing the pig. How they managed to capture and kill that pig, without a single squeal escaping, is one of the marvels of the service. Certainly vets could have done no better. The man was gone, the mischief was done, the meat was spoiling, and we were very hungry. With rather cheerful sadness, it must be confessed, we became particeps criminis, and made a supper on the pork.