HOOD'S STRATEGY.
This incident has no reference to Gen. John B. Hood, whose strategy in this campaign was apparently conspicuous only by its absence. It refers only to Private Hood of the Oglethorpes, who joined our ranks in '63 or '64, probably at Thunderbolt. As I recall his personality, he was an undergrown youth of sallow complexion and uncertain age. On our march to Nashville he grew sick or tired, and stopped at the home of a citizen to recuperate. Some days later a squad of Yankee soldiers stopped at the house, and Hood, deeming prudence the better part of valor, dropped his grey uniform and donning a suit belonging to the son of his host, passed himself off as a member of the family. While chatting with the visitors one of them said to him, "Well, Bud, haven't they got you in the army yet?" "No, sir," said Hood, "and they ain't agoing to either." "That's right, my boy," and with Hood's assurance that he had no idea of "jining," they bade him good-bye and went their way. Some weeks later he rejoined us, congratulating himself on the success of his strategy.
A LUCKY FIND.
While ferrying the army train across the Tennessee river, the flat in charge of Sergeant S. C. Foreman of the Oglethorpes, brought in a box or case containing three hundred pounds of nice dry salted bacon. It was reported to me that they had found it floating down the river and supposed it had been thrown in by the Federal garrison at Florence to prevent its capture by Hood's army. I swallowed the story and some of the meat and had no occasion to question the correctness of the information until Sam Woods told me in '98 that he found it lying in shallow water near the river bank, and George McLaughlin afterwards intimated that it was stolen from the wagon train. Whatever may have been the method by which it came into our possession I remember that it was divided among the members of the company as extra rations. I recall the further fact that my mess secured that afternoon a large wash pot and a supply of corn and boiled up a peck or two of "lye hominy." On the next day we began our march to rejoin the army and for 17 miles, in addition to my gun, bayonet, cartridge box and forty rounds of cartridges, heavy blanket, tent fly and haversack with two day's rations, I carried 6 or 8 pounds of this bacon and a bucket of the hominy. The aggregate weight must have been 50 or 60 pounds, a pretty fair load for a "light weight."
"WHO ATE THE DOG."
This inquiry, while not invested with the same degree of mystery, nor enjoying as large a measure of notoriety as "Who struck Billy Patterson?" nevertheless echoed on many a hillside and enlivened many a camp fire on our trip to Nashville. The incident which gave rise to it occurred soon after we left the Tennessee river on this ill-fated tramp. To prevent depredations upon the property of citizens along the route of our march, a provost guard had been formed, in command of which was placed an officer now living not a thousand miles from Augusta, but who shall be nameless here, partly out of respect to his feelings and partly out of regard for my own. He has warned me that a different course would be followed by an aggravated case of assault and battery and I do not care to put the courts to unnecessary expense.
Stringent orders were issued by Gen. Smith to arrest any man found in possession of fresh meat, for which he could give no satisfactory account. Several arrests had been made and the captured meat had been confiscated and appropriated by the provost guard to their own use, benefit and behoof. To the men engaged in these depredations, justified in their eyes by the shortness of their rations, these captures became a little monotonous and they determined to find some means of retaliation. One day a soldier was seen tramping through the woods with a suspicious looking sack swinging from his shoulder and one of the guard ordered him to halt. Instead of obeying the command he gave leg bail and the guard started in pursuit.
The forager encumbered with the weight of his plunder finally dropped it and made his escape. The sack was found to contain, apparently, a leg of mutton nicely dressed, which was turned over to the officer in command.
In view of this tempting addition to the bill of fare, a brother officer, who has since turned his sword into a spatula and is as well versed now in drugs as he was then in tactics, was an invited guest at the midday meal that day. Ample justice was done to the menu by all concerned and all went merry as a marriage bell until the command had halted for the night and the men, wearied by the day's march, were resting around their camp fires. And then a change came o'er the spirit of their dream. From one end of the camp, up through the stillness of the evening air, there rose a cry, that like of noise of many waters, rang and reverberated to its farthest bounds, "Who ate the dog?" And as its echoes died away, from another camp fire in the same stentorian tones there came the answer, "Lieut ——," naming the officer of the provost guard. And on through the entire evening, at brief intervals and without the stimulus of an encore the program was repeated. And now as there flitted across the mental vision of the officer aforesaid the memory of the mutton chops that had seemed so savory and toothsome, there came to him a dim suspicion that he had been the victim of misplaced confidence. Was it mutton or was it dog? As he debated the question pro and con, he was forced to admit with Shakespeare that "all that glitters is not gold," and with Longfellow, that "things are not what they seem," and with Whittier that—
"Of all sad thoughts of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these, it might have been"—a dog.