I reached home sometime in the afternoon, relieved Bill of his equipments, put him in the stable, and fed him. No one was stirring about outside, and I walked into the house unannounced. My mother was seated in an old rocking-chair, engaged in sewing. She looked up, saw me in the uniform of a soldier, and she knew what that meant. Her work dropped in her lap, she covered her face with her hands, and the tears gushed through her fingers and she trembled in her chair with the intensity of her emotions. There was no sobbing, or other vocal manifestation of feeling, but her silence made her grief seem all the more impressive. I was distressed, and didn't know what to say, so I said nothing, and walked out into the kitchen, thence back to the barn. There I met father, who had come in from some out-door work. He looked at me gravely, but with an impassive countenance, and merely remarked, "Well, I reckon you've done right."
Next morning everybody seemed more cheerful, and I had much to say at breakfast about things at Camp Carrollton.
On the expiration of my furlough I promptly reported at the camp and entered on my duties as a soldier. The absorbing duty was the drill, and that was persistent, and consumed the most of the time. I knew nothing about it when I enlisted, and had never seen any except on the previous Monday afternoon. The system we then had was Hardee's Infantry Tactics. It was simple, and easily learned. The main things required were promptness, care, and close attention. All day long, somewhere in the camp, could be heard the voice of some officer, calling, "Left! left! left, right, left!" to his squad or company, to guide them in the cadence of the step. We were drilled at Carrollton in the "school of the soldier," "school of the company," and skirmish drill, with dress parade at sunset. We had no muskets, and did not receive them until we went to Benton Barracks, at St. Louis. I do not remember of our having any battalion drill at Camp Carrollton. The big trees in the fair grounds were probably too thick and numerous to permit that. Our fare consisted of light bread, coffee, fresh meat at some meals, and salt meat at others, Yankee beans, rice, onions, and Irish and sweet potatoes, with stewed dried apples occasionally for supper. The salt meat, as a rule, was pickled pork and fat side meat, which latter "table comfort" the boys called "sow-belly." We got well acquainted with that before the war was over. On the grub question I will say now that the great "stand-bys" of the Union soldiers during the war, at least those of the western armies, were coffee, sow-belly, Yankee beans, and hardtack. It took us, of course, some time to learn how to cook things properly, especially the beans, but after we had learned how, we never went back on the above named old friends. But the death of many a poor boy, especially during our first two or three months in the field, is chargeable to the bad cooking of his food.
At Carrollton the jolliest time of the day was from the close of dress parade until taps sounded "Lights out." There was then a good deal of what you might call "prairie dogging," that is, the boys would run around and visit at the quarters of other companies. And Oh, how they would sing! All sorts of patriotic songs were in vogue then, and what was lacking in tone we made up in volume. The battle of Mill Springs, in Kentucky, was fought on January 19, 1862, resulting in a Union victory. A Confederate general, Felix K. Zollicoffer, was killed in the action. He had been a member of Congress from Tennessee, and was a man of prominence in the South. A song soon appeared in commemoration of this battle. It was called "The Happy Land of Canaan," and I now remember only one stanza, which is as follows:
"Old Zolly's gone,
And Secesh will have to mourn,
For they thought he would do to depend on;
But he made his last stand
On the rolling Cumberland,
And was sent to the happy land of Canaan."