the services and camp incidents of the command are written entirely from memory by the author. Dates verified as far as possible from official records. On being transferred to this command, I had with me a negro body servant named Jim Bobbett, taken from my father's plantation, whence he left a wife, but no children. He was allowed to come at his own request, and had been with me from the time I entered service as drill master of the 34th Alabama. There were perhaps a dozen or more servants connected with the Battery, some belonging to commissioned officers, others to privates, all subject to their master's orders, but of course subject to control by the officers of the company also. Without any legislation or orders of army commanders, such servants were part and parcel of the commands to which their owners belonged, and cheerfully did their part in connection with the commissaries of their commands, being utilized largely as company cooks. For such service they were welcomed by the commisary department and got their share of the rations, but I do not think they were ever enrolled, as a matter of record. Their masters wanted them, and the hardships of a soldier's life were very much ameliorated by them. As a rule they were liked by all, and were glad to assist any and all soldiers for small rewards and even for personal thanks. They were great foragers, for their masters first, and next for their own and their master's friends. The officers at this time where Capt. Chas. L. Lumsden and Second Lt. A. C. Hargrove, Lt. H. H. Cribbs was at home sick and soon afterwards resigned. The weather was stormy, rains came in deluges and bridges between camp and Chickamauga station were washed away, cutting off our supplies. Forage getting short, Capt. Lumsden detailed perhaps 20 men to go on horses over into Wills Valley to the west of Lookout mountain. The road to be traveled was the dirt road skirting the base of the cliff about half way up the mountain, above the Tennessee river opposite the Moccasin bend. The Federals had a battery entrenched on Moccasin Point, just across the river. The detail left before day and passed the danger point before it was light enough to be seen. By mid-day sufficient forage of corn and fodder had been obtained. Each horse and mule resembled a perambulating haystack, for it was loaded with two big sacks filled with corn on each side and as many bundles of fodder as could be tied on with ropes.

Sergeant John Little had charge of the squad, containing among others Alex Dearing, Ed King, Rufe Prince, Dave Jones and other names not remembered. It was a sort of picnic. The men bought chicken, butter and butter milk and got the farmers women to cook for them. Dave Jones bought a bee gum of honey and had a time getting out the honey, with all the crowd assisting. Then again it was good for sore eyes to loaf around in a farmer's front yard and his door steps and see his wife and daughters flitting about, and every now and then get to talk to them a little. Calico dresses and sun bonnets perhaps, but they were a treat to the soldiers, who were tired of seeing nothing but men for so long. The detail put off having to pass the front of that battery so long as they could and had their frolic out. But they had to pass that point in daylight, in order to have time to get over the balance of that mountain road, with each animal loaded in the manner it was. There was no way of dodging it. There were rocks and woods and cuts in the road, that would protect on each side, but sight in front of the battery for perhaps forty yards or more on the road was cut out of the precipice, and for that distance it was a "run of the gauntlet." Arriving at the place, the men crowded the cut on the west side of each man on his animal made ready and as his name was called, at perhaps 30 yards interval, he made his rush as fast as he could persuade his animal to go.

The enemy could only take pot shots at one animal and not at a crowd. Those Yankees surely had sport, but they did not get to fire each of their four guns many times before all were past the bald place without the loss of man or animal. They yelled and we yelled back that they could not shoot worth "shucks." They shelled the woods along the route, but our men were out of sight and did not tarry till each reached some cover, when he halted for them to ease up, which they soon did not being able to see anything to shoot at. They had their fun target shooting. Our boys had the fun of dodging. As there were no casualties, it could always be looked back upon, with a sportsman point of view, as one of our funny episodes. A few days thereafter camp was moved over beyond the top of Missionary Ridge, about Oct. 23rd into a woodland location, with plenty of spring and creek water nearby. To soldiers in camp a living spring was a blessing, as it was the only security against contamination and consequent disease.

Supposing the camp might turn out to be winter quarters, a long shelter was built to cover about 100 horses, with troughs made from hollow logs and racks for long forage. The men began to arrange themselves in congenial "messes" and to build pole cabins with fire places of sticks and mud plaster, and "bunks."

At the camp a lot of boxes of provisions and clothing arrived in charge of Mrs. Jane Durrett from Tuscaloosa for different Tuscaloosa boys. This good patriotic lady would leave her home and husband on a Tuscaloosa County farm and take charge of batches of supplies, provisions, clothing, etc., for officers or men. She saw to it, that every box was delivered to the soldier to whom it was sent. No man could have done this work as she did it. Neither the pompous little Lieutenant in charge of a provost guard, nor train guard, nor commanders of posts, nor the General in command of an army had any terrors for her. They were all means to be lent to the service that she was on. In the car, where her boxes went, she went, when she got with them, as far as railroad could carry her goods, her quick Irish wit and flattering tongue would soon get an order from some competent artillery for wagons and drivers and an ambulance for herself, to take her goods to their destination, and she delivered them in person to whomsoever they had been sent, officers or privates. She served one equally as heartily as the other. Of course she had to rough it, and see much hardship and exposure, but she gloried in so serving her country. She had several sons in the army doing their duty also, as became men from such stock. Jim Bobbett, my body servant, Rube, Alex Dearing's man and some of the other company darkies had also been south on the railroad looking out for supplies. Our messenger got a big fat gobbler, we cooked him in a big three legged cast iron wash pot. Mr. Menander Rosser reminds me that Dr. James T. Searcy, (now Superintendent of the Alabama Bryce Hospital for the Insane) was boss of that job, he put in good time for some days previous to the feast in stuffing corn meal dough down that turkey's throat, to make sure of his being good and fat at the proper time. Can you see the picture, Searcy on a log, gobbler between his knees, left forefinger and thumb prying open the gobbler's mouth, while the balance of his left hand kept the neck straight up; right hand rolling up enormous bread pills and forcing them into the gobbler's mouth, and manipulating them down to the craw. Henry Donoho holding the bread pan assisting in rolling the pills. Several others of the mess, much interested in the operation, scattered around. We first parboiled him till nearly tender, with an oven lid covering the pot. Then we filled him with biscuit and hard-tack crumbs and pieces of fat bacon, and cut onions and sage and the chopped gizzard and liver, all mixed; boiling down the water meanwhile to a rich gravy. Then we put the stuffed turkey in again, put on the cast oven lid heaping red hot oak and hickory coals on top and under the pot. If the reader knows something about cooking, it is plain that this gobbler was cooked to a delightful brown, brown all over, with the juice oozing out of his skin.