"'General,' said I, at length, 'in justice to myself, I would like'——
"'Justice to yourself!' shouted the General, looking at me as if he believed me mean enough to murder my grandmother. 'Who the h—l ever heard of a sutler being entitled to any justice?——you, sir, I'll teach you justice. Get out of my tent, sir.'
"I thought it best not to wait for another opportunity to get away, and as I sloped I heard the General swearing at me until I had passed the Surgeon's tent. You see what makes the matter worse with the General is, that he has been told several times that the horse was unsound, but would not admit that as much of a horseman as he professed to be, had been taken in by the 'Buckeye Officer.'"
The recital of the story appeared to have lightened the load upon the breast of the sutler, and he wound up somewhat humorously, by telling the crowd that there was another on the list to be court-martialed,
and that they must give him all possible aid and comfort.
"Be easy, sutler! there are too many ahead of you on that list," observed an officer. "Your case can't be reached for some time yet. It is admitted on all sides that our material, officers and men, are as good as any in the army; and, for all that, although one of the smallest divisions, we have more courts-martial than any other division. Why, just look at it. A day or two before the battle of Fredericksburg, twenty-three officers were released from arrest. Thirteen of them, Lieutenants under charges for lying, as old Pigey termed it, when, in fact, it was nothing more than a simple misunderstanding of one of his night orders, such as any men might make. Poor fellows! over one-half of them are out of his power now; but I wouldn't wonder if the General would be presumptuous and malignant enough to respectfully refer their cases to the Chancery of Heaven, with endorsements to suit himself!"
"Well, that brave Lieutenant," said the Captain, "who asked permission of the Colonel to charge with our regiment when himself and squad had become separated from his own, has been reinstated. You know that at the time old Pigey gave permission to the Colonels to send Volunteer Officers before the board for examination, the Lieutenant-Colonel of his regiment, instead of sending him a written order, as was customary, sought him out when engaged in conversation with some non-commissioned officers of his command, and in an insulting manner gave him a verbal order to report. They had some hot talk about it, and in the course of it the Lieutenant said that 'he'd be d——d if he came into the army to study tactics; he came to fight,' and on the strength
of that, the General had him tried and dismissed. Our Colonel and Lieutenant-Colonel sent up a statement to 'Burney,' giving a glowing account of his gallant conduct in the fight; and the General seeing how dead in earnest he was when he said he came to fight, restored him to his position."
"I am very much afraid," said the Lieutenant, slowly, interrupted by frequent whiffs at a well-colored meerschaum, "that the Colonel and Lieutenant-Colonel will have difficulty to save themselves."
"Save themselves!" echoed several, from different parts of the tent, their faces hardly visible through the increasing smoke. "Why, what's in the wind now?"