I went fishing one day out on Lake Pontchartrain, and caught a
large string of fine fish. When I got back to the hotel, I sent
an invitation to some of my city friends to drive out that evening
and join me in a fish supper. They accepted the invitation, and
were all on hand at the appointed time. We were seated around a
table enjoying ourselves drinking wine and telling stories, while
waiting for supper, when we heard quite a noise down stairs in the
direction of the bar-room. I told my friends to remain seated and
have some more wine, while I went down and inquired into the cause
of the racket. They did so, and I ran down to the bar-room.
Looking in, I saw ten or twelve steamboat cooks, who were on a big
drunk. They were breaking glasses, fussing with the barkeeper,
and raising old Ned generally.
I knew some of them, but as they were all pretty drunk, I concluded
I could do no good, and was just turning away to go back to my
friends, when four or five Union officers and a man by the name of
Dave Curtis came up and started into the bar-room. They saw and
recognized me, and insisted on me joining them. We all went in
and were taking a drink, when the cooks began their racket again.
One fellow was just spoiling for a fight. He was a bully, and had
whipped some of his associates, so no one seemed to want anything
to do with him. Like most drunken men, he wanted everybody to know
what a great man he was, so he began on us. We requested him to
go away and join his friends, but he would not do it, so finally
I said:
"That fellow must have a fight, or he will get sick."
Then I told him I would let him try his hand on me, if he was sure
he could lick any man in the room. He came at me, made a feint
with his left and then let drive with his right. I dropped down,
ran under, and had him on his back before he knew what I was doing.
Then I gave him just one with "that old head of mine," and I broke
every bone in his nose. He yelled like an Indian, then I let him
up. His friends or companions did not offer to interfere in his
behalf, so I expect they were very glad to see him get licked so
easy and so very quick--for it was all over in much less time than
it takes me to tell the story.
I took another drink with the Union officers and then hurried up
stairs to my friends whom I had left waiting for their fish supper.
They asked me what was the cause of the noise down stairs, and I
told them it was a lot of drunken cooks. I said nothing about
having had a fight, and they did not know anything about it until
we all went down stairs, when some one spoke to me about the fellow's
nose being all broken, etc. Then they asked me when I had a fight.
I told them while we were waiting for supper. They thought it was
pretty quick work to raise a fuss and whip a good cook while another
cook was frying some fish.