Co. Aytch Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment or, A Side Show of the Big Show

Excerpt: ...is of no value to me; I cannot get any article that I wish; I would much rather have the hog. Says I, Madam, that is an impossibility; your hog is dead and eat up, and I have come to pay you for it. The old lady's eyes filled with tears. She said that she was perfectly willing to give the soldiers everything she had, and if she thought it had done us any good, she would not charge anything for it. Well, says I, Madam, here is a hundred dollar, new issue, Confederate bill. Will this pay you for your hog? Well, sir, she says, drawing herself up to her full height, her cheeks flushed and her eyes flashing, I do not want your money. I would feel that it was blood money. I saw that there was no further use to offer it to her. I sat down by the fire and the conversation turned upon other subjects. I helped the old lady catch a chicken (an old hen-about the last she had) for dinner, went with her in the garden and pulled a bunch of eschalots, brought two buckets of water, and cut and brought enough wood to last several days. After awhile, she invited me to dinner, and after dinner I sat down by her side, took her old hand in mine, and told her the whole affair of the hog, from beginning to end; how sorry I was, and how I did not eat any of that hog; and asked her as a special act of kindness and favor to me, to take the hundred dollars; that I felt bad about it, and if she would take it, it would ease my conscience. I laid the money on the table and left. I have never in my life made a raid upon anybody else. TARGET SHOOTING By some hook, or crook, or blockade running, or smuggling, or Mason and Slidell, or Raphael Semmes, or something of the sort, the Confederate States government had come in possession of a small number of Whitworth guns, the finest long range guns in the world, and a monopoly by the English government. They were to be given to the best shots in the army. One day Captain Joe P. Lee and Company H went out to shoot at a target...