All whom we met were eager to discuss with us the causes, phases and progress of the war, and whenever opportunity offered or could be made, those of us who were inclined to talk were speedily involved in an argument with crowds of soldiers and citizens. But, owing to the polemic poverty of our opponents, the argument was more in name than in fact. Like all people of slender or untrained intellectual powers they labored under the hallucination that asserting was reasoning, and the emphatic reiteration of bald statements, logic. The narrow round which all from highest to lowest—traveled was sometimes comical, and sometimes irritating, according to one's mood! The dispute invariably began by their asking:
“Well, what are you 'uns down here a-fightin' we 'uns for?”
As this was replied to the newt one followed:
“Why are you'uns takin' our niggers away from we 'uns for?”
Then came:
“What do you 'uns put our niggers to fightin' we'uns for?” The windup always was: “Well, let me tell you, sir, you can never whip people that are fighting for liberty, sir.”
Even General Giltner, who had achieved considerable military reputation as commander of a division of Kentucky cavalry, seemed to be as slenderly furnished with logical ammunition as the balance, for as he halted by us he opened the conversation with the well-worn formula:
“Well: what are you 'uns down here a-fighting we'uns for?”
The question had become raspingly monotonous to me, whom he addressed, and I replied with marked acerbity:
“Because we are the Northern mudsills whom you affect to despise, and we came down here to lick you into respecting us.”