76 CHICKAMAUGA. 



Federal bullets," lie said ; and on my asking 

 how he could tell that, he placed a Confed- 

 erate ball beside them, and pointed out a 

 difference in shape. He was a cheery, com- 

 municative body, good-humored but not 

 jocose, excellent company in such an hour, 

 though he had small fancy for the lightning, 

 it seemed to me. Perhaps he had been 

 under fire so often as to have lost all relish 

 for excitement of that kind. He was not at 

 the battle of Chickamauga, he said, but at 

 Vicksburg ; and he gave me a vivid descrip- 

 tion of his work in the trenches, as well as 

 of the surrender, and the happiness of the 

 half -starved defenders of the city, who were 

 at once fed by their captors. 



All his talk showed a lively sense of the 

 horrors of war. He had seen enough of 

 fighting, he confessed ; but he could n't keep 

 away from a battlefield, if he came anywhere 

 near one. He had been to the national 

 cemetery in Chattanooga, and agreed with 

 me that it was a beautiful place ; but he had 

 heard that Southern soldiers were lying in 

 unmarked graves just outside the wall (a 

 piece of misinformation, I have no doubt), 

 and he did n't think it right or decent for 



