"I was one, sir, very much of one; that's why I am limping around now. I was in the Confederate Army, up to the fall of sixty-three, and then I was taken prisoner."
"So you have had a taste of Union prisons, eh?" asked Senator Baker, who spoke feelingly—his "Recollections of Johnson's Island" had just made its appearance.
"Just a leetle might of a taste, Senator; nothing like your experience, though. You see, it was this way with me. I was captured by a pretty good sort of a fellow—a big, husky, soft-hearted chap who wouldn't hurt a flea. That's him over there," pointing to Senator Bull, "and he has held me prisoner ever since. He ran up against me at Chickamauga."
"Well?" said Senator Baker expectantly.
"Tell them the whole story, Sammy," said Senator Bull, as several of the party drew their chairs up closer to the private secretary; "tell them the whole story; it will kill time, anyway."
"Yes," continued Mr. Ridley, "I was taken prisoner, and it all came of my foolishness and scorn for the enemy. We boys of the —th Arkansas thought any Johnny Reb could whip five Yanks, and it made us kind of careless-like, I reckon. I was a raw country lad when the war broke out, as tough a specimen as ever Jefferson County turned loose on the unsuspecting public, but I wasn't much worse than the rest of the boys who loafed around Todd's livery stable swapping lies, chawing tobacco, and setting the nation to rights. We were all full of fight when the Sumter news came, and anxious to get in it; and I saw a heap of it, too, before I made the acquaintance of Nathan Bull.
"There was some lively skirmishing on the morning of September twentieth, sixty-three, before the armies got together in earnest. It was real comical to see the boys tearing up their love-letters and playing-cards just before going into battle. The roads and fields were speckled with the scraps just like a snowfall on the stage, as I reckon all of you have seen in plays like 'Alone in London,' and the 'Banker's Daughter.' It was in one of those preliminary set-tos that somehow my company strayed away, and left me up in the woods with a bullet in my leg. I was looking around for some place where I could lie down and nurse myself a bit, and at the same time keep clear of the shells and other things flying around. The air was full of them—making a noise like 'Whar-izz-yer?' 'Whar-izz-yer?' Haven't you often heard that sound, Senator? Some poor devil hears it once too often, every now and then, doesn't he?
"It was very hot and dusty, and I was plumb crazy for water. Somehow I managed to work my way out to a big clear space on the side of the hill. The brush and weeds were up to your neck. At the foot of the hill was a piece of marshy land where there had once been a spring. It had long since dried up, but there were patches of greenish water here and there. I threw myself on the ground, and my, how good that nasty-looking water tasted! Then I bathed my face and hands in it. I heard a man over to my right shout out that General Hood had been killed; and in a minute or so two of our officers dashed out of the timber, coming my way, riding for dear life, and nearly trampling me. Meanwhile, the battle seemed to be raging all around me. Most of the heavy fighting that day was done in the woods, and the losses were big on both sides. Well, I dragged myself to a little clump of sassafras, not caring much whether I lived or died, I was that played out, and my leg burning and stinging just as though it was being touched up with a red-hot poker. I had been there about fifteen minutes when a blue-coat rose up in front of me—right out of the ground it seemed—and says, very fierce, 'You're my prisoner!' He was a young fellow, about my age, and didn't look at all dangerous. I just wished that leg of mine had been all right, I would have given him his money's worth, I tell you! But it wasn't any use. I couldn't stir for the misery.
"'You're my prisoner,' he says again, louder'n before.
"'All right,' says I, 'I'm willing,' seeing there wasn't anything else to say, and putting a free and easy face on it.