I recall one striking instance. Lieutenant Gardner, already mentioned, had received six or eight hundred dollars in Confederate currency as the price of a gold watch. But like the prodigal in Scripture he was now in a far country, and had wasted his substance in what he called "righteous" living. And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that corner of the lower room, and he began to be in want. And he would fain have filled his belly with corn-cob-meal bread, or spoiled black beans, or the little potatoes which the swine didn't eat. And no man gave him enough. And he determined to go to hospital. He gave out that he was desperately sick. I at this time had "quarters" on the floor above. Word was brought to me that my friend was mortally ill, and would thank me to come down and take his last message to his relatives. Alarmed, I instantly went down. I found him with two or three splitting a small log of wood!
"Gardner, I hear you are a little 'under the weather.'"
"What appears to be your disease?"
"Flag-o'-truce-on-the-brain!"
"Ah, you've got the exchange fever?"
"Yes; bad."
"Pulse run high?"
"Three hundred a minute."
"Anything I can do for you?"