342 SKETCHES IN PROSE. 



parallel with the Run and sent our skirmishers to the front, 

 where continuous firing was kept up, with shot and shell 

 whistling and bursting around the main line. At this time, 

 about 11 A.M., I saw an object approaching from the rear, and 

 I think the oddest looking person I saw during the war. He 

 wore a bell-crown hat, a swallow-tail coat, with rolling collar 

 and brass buttons, and a buff vest. He had on his shoulder 

 an old rifle with which he came to a ' present arms/ and then 

 said: 



" ' Colonel, is this your regiment? ' 



" ' Yes,' I said. 



" Then he brought his rifle to an order and said : 



" ' Can I fight in your regiment ?' 



" I answered, ' Old man, you had better go to the rear or 

 you'll get hurt.' 



" And he replied, just as a shell burst near him : 



" * Tut ! tut ! tut ! I've heard this sort of thing before.' 



" These words were spoken in a tremulous voice. I again 

 ordered him to the rear, when he replied, ' No, sir. If you 

 won't let me fight in j^'our regiment I will fight alone.' I 

 asked him where his cartridge box was. He patted his 

 trousers' pocket, and said, ' Here's my bullets,' and, taking 

 an old-fashioned powder-horn from his pocket, ' Here's my 

 powder, and I know how to use them. There are three hun- 

 dred cowards back in that town who ought to come out of' 

 their cellars and fight, and I will show you that there is one 

 man in Gettysburg who is not afraid.' Just then some of the 

 boys began to joke him about his hat and to insist that he 

 should have a chance to fight. Sergeant George Eustis added, 

 ' Fix him up, boys. He'll soon get tired of it and go home.' 

 I at last yielded, and with the sergeant's help fixed him up 

 with a rifle we had just captured from Archer's sharpshooters, 

 and leaned his old squirrel rifle up against a tree. He was 

 given a cartridge box and belt, but declined to use them, and 



