FOR a time we “fared sumptuously every day,” but there came a time when,
owing to burned bridges and blockades, communication was entirely cut
off with Cairo, Ill., which was our base of supplies, and the fare
became very scant. For several days we had no coffee, but in some manner
the landlord managed to secure 50 pounds, for which he paid $50.00.
On Christmas Day, 1862, our breakfast consisted of tea, bread, and
pickled pigs’ feet; dinner the same with the addition of dried apple
pie. In the afternoon we went, by invitation of Major Winn, to Bolivar,
twenty-eight miles south of Jackson. I shall never forget the pleasure
of that little war-time excursion. We stayed two hours and watched the
boys in camp getting supper. One little fellow was making hash in a camp
kettle near the railroad track where our train stood. He stirred it with
a bayonet; it was very thin, and he said he didn’t know whether to call
it hash or soup, but that he could thicken it with cotton, which was
stacked up in great walls all about him. I can hear his merry, ringing
laugh yet. My father’s regiment was in camp here, and we met his
Colonel. That Colonel is now Brigadier General Wager Swayne, of New York
city, and I often wonder if Gen. Swayne remembers that Christmas
afternoon of 1862 as well as I do.
If the ride down to Bolivar was memorable, the return trip was even more
so. There was supposed to be some danger of our train being fired into,
and no lights were allowed. Part of the way lay through the woods, and
our phantom train glided along in darkness and silence, for neither
whistle was blown nor bell rung as we made the perilous little run
through the enemy’s country. With a child’s confidence I knew and felt
no fear. We arrived safely at the hotel at 8 p. m. and went immediately
to the dining room, where we had some more pigs’ feet and dried apple
pie. We didn’t hang up our stockings that Christmas Eve. There was
nothing to put in them, unless it were minnie balls, and they were
needed far worse in the muskets at that time.