After a while we
would see the morning star rise in the east, and then after a while the
dim gray twilight, and finally we could discover the outlines of our file
leader, and after a while could make out the outlines of trees and other
objects. And as it would get lighter and lighter, and day would be about
to break, cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo, would come from Tom Tuck's rooster.
[Tom carried a game rooster, that he called "Fed" for Confederacy,
all through the war in a haversack.] And then the sun would begin to
shoot his slender rays athwart the eastern sky, and the boys would wake
up and begin laughing and talking as if they had just risen from a good
feather bed, and were perfectly refreshed and happy. We would usually
stop at some branch or other about breakfast time, and all wash our hands
and faces and eat breakfast, if we had any, and then commence our weary
march again. If we were halted for one minute, every soldier would drop
down, and resting on his knapsack, would go to sleep. Sometimes the
sleeping soldiers were made to get up to let some general and his staff
pass by. But whenever that was the case, the general always got a worse
cursing than when Noah cursed his son Ham black and blue. I heard Jessee
Ely do this once.
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