"Well, sergeant, we were about to send a company out to look for you, as we began to think that the rebs had got you."
CHAPTER VII.
The 21st of June, just the day before we got back to camp with the horses, one of our scouts reported a rebel gunboat to come up the river, so Col. Brackett gave me orders to take ten men and go five miles below Jacksonport and watch for the boat. In the meantime the camp moved to the piece of land that divides the Black from the White river. We went below Jacksonport to the place stated and settled near a bend in the river where we had a good view of the river four or five miles. We had not been there long before we saw the black smoke rolling up away down the river. We waited until she rounded the bend, then fired off our carbines as we had orders and started back to camp. The inhabitants of Jacksonport had professed to be Union people, but as soon as they heard that a rebel gunboat was coming up they altered their tune and called us all the mean names they could think of. Our officers had even put guards over their wells so as to keep the soldiers away. One woman in particular had given our officers a great deal of trouble. She was a good Union woman at that, and a widow. She wanted a guard to keep the soldiers off her premises, and our officers were just fools enough to do it.
Well, we were the last soldiers to go through the town, and, let me tell you, the gunboat was coming faster than we had any idea of. Just before we reached the town she sent a shell over our heads. We soon got in shelter of the town, and the citizens commenced to yell at us. Some said one thing and some another. Finally we came up in front of where the widow lived. She was out on the porch dressed in all her finery. As we were passing she called out:
"Is that what you Yankees call skedaddling?" One of our men turned in his saddle and said something that made her skip in the house in a hurry.
We rode on until we got to the ferry, which was nothing but an old scow of a boat. We were soon on the boat, and in the meantime the gunboat had swung around and commenced throwing shells at us. The first shell went over us; the next struck the water a hundred yards from us, and the third struck close and threw the water all over us. Our horses became unmanageable. One jumped overboard and the rest came near upsetting the boat. The one that jumped overboard swam to shore all right. We landed our horses and one man went back in a small boat and got it and cut the rope.
We had two large twelve-pound brass guns, and never fired a shot at the boat. I never did understand why they did not. But I know this much about it, we were ordered to mount and get out of there. We went back about eight or ten miles and met troops coming to reinforce us. The next morning we went back to Jacksonport, but found the gunboat gone.
There was a large quantity of sugar stored at this place, and the Johnnies rolled out the hogsheads and spilt the sugar in the middle of the road. Our horses waded knee deep in sugar for two hundred yards. The farmers came in droves and shoveled the sugar into their wagons like sand.