John
T. Tucker was called "Sneak," A. S. Horsley was called "Don Von One
Horsley," W. A. Hughes was called "Apple Jack," Green Rieves was called
"Devil Horse," the surgeon of our regiment was called "Old Snake,"
Bob Brank was called "Count," the colonel of the Fourth was called "Guide
Post," E. L. Lansdown was called "Left Tenant," some were called by
the name of "Greasy," some "Buzzard," others "Hog," and "Brutus," and
"Cassius," and "Caesar," "Left Center," and "Bolderdust," and "Old
Hannah;" in fact, the nick-names were singular and peculiar, and when a
man got a nick-name it stuck to him like the Old Man of the Sea did to
the shoulders of Sinbad, the sailor.
On our retreat the soldiers got very thirsty for tobacco (they always
used the word thirsty), and they would sometimes come across an old field
off which the tobacco had been cut and the suckers had re-sprouted from
the old stalk, and would cut off these suckers and dry them by the fire
and chew them. "Sneak" had somehow or other got hold of a plug or two,
and knowing that he would be begged for a chew, had cut it up in little
bits of pieces about one-fourth of a chew. Some fellow would say, "Sneak,
please give me a chew of tobacco." Sneak would say, "I don't believe
I have a piece left," and then he would begin to feel in his pockets.
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