I don't think I was ever more scared in my
life. My hair stood on end like the quills of the fretful porcupine;
I could not imagine what on earth it was. I took it to be some hellish
machination of a Yankee trick. I did not know whether to run or stand,
until I heard Tom laugh and say, "Well, well, that's a jack o'lantern."
COLONEL FIELD
Before proceeding further with these memoirs, I desire to give short
sketches of two personages with whom we were identified and closely
associated until the winding up of the ball. The first is Colonel
Hume R. Field. Colonel Field was born a soldier. I have read many
descriptions of Stonewall Jackson. Colonel Field was his exact
counterpart. They looked somewhat alike, spoke alike, and alike were
trained military soldiers. The War Department at Richmond made a
grand mistake in not making him a "commander of armies." He was not
a brilliant man; could not talk at all. He was a soldier. His
conversation was yea and nay. But when you could get "yes, sir," and "no,
sir," out of him his voice was as soft and gentle as a maid's when she
says "yes" to her lover. Fancy, if you please, a man about thirty years
old, a dark skin, made swarthy by exposure to sun and rain, very black
eyes that seemed to blaze with a gentle luster.
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