Have not had a change of clothing since we crossed the Great Barren river.
6. Regiment on picket.
When returning from the front I met a soldier of the Thirty-seventh Indiana, trudging along with his gun on his shoulder. I asked him where he was going; he replied that his father lived four miles beyond, and he had just heard that his brother was home from the Southern army on sick leave, and he was going out to take him prisoner.
8. This afternoon the camp was greatly excited over a daring feat of a body of cavalry under John Morgan. It succeeded in getting almost inside the camps, and was five miles inside of our outposts. It came into the main road between where Kennett's cavalry regiment is encamped and Nashville; captured a wagon train, took the drivers, Captain Braden, of Indiana, who was in charge of the train, and eighty-three horses, and started on a by-road back for Murfreesboro. General Mitchell immediately dispatched Kennett in pursuit. About fifteen miles out the rebels were overtaken and our men and horses recaptured. Two rebels were killed and two taken; Kennett is still in hot pursuit. Captain Braden says, as the rebels were riding away they were exceedingly jubilant over the success of their adventure, and promised to introduce him to General Hardee in the evening. Without asking the Captain's permission they gave him a very poor horse in exchange for a very good one, put him at the head of the column and guarded him vigilantly; but when Kennett appeared and the running fight occurred he dodged off at full speed, lay down on his horse, and although fired at many times escaped unhurt.
Morgan's men know the country so well that all the by-roads and cow-paths are familiar to them; the citizens keep them informed also as to the location of our camps and picket posts, and if need be are ready to serve them either as guides or spies, hence the success which attended the earlier part of their enterprise does not indicate so great a want of vigilance on the part of our troops, as might at first thought be supposed.
9. The enemy made a descent on one of our outposts, killed one man and wounded another.
16. Went to Nashville this morning to buy a few necessaries. While awaiting dinner at the St. Cloud I took a seat outside the door. Quite a number of Union officers were seated or standing in front of the hotel, when two well, extremely well, dressed women, followed by a negro lady, approached, and while passing us held their noses. What disagreeable thing the atmosphere in our immediate vicinity contained that made it necessary for these lovely women to so pinch their nasal protuberances, I could not discover; certainly the officers looked cleanly, many of them were young men of the "double-bullioned" kind, who had spared no expense in decorating their persons with shoulder straps, golden bugles, and other shining trappings which appertain somehow to glorious war.
After dinner I dropped into a drug store to buy a cake of soap. The druggist gave me, in the way of change, several miserably executed shinplasters. I asked:
"Do you call this money?"
"I do."