I'm beat, but hang me if I didn't outrun the whole Yankee army coming out
of Kentucky; got away from Lieutenant Lansdown and the whole detail at
Chattanooga with half a hog, a fifty pound sack of flour, a jug of
Meneesee commissary whisky, and a camp-kettle full of brown sugar.
I'm beat. Billy Martin, hand over the stakes. Bully for Bragg; he's
hell on a retreat." Tennessee was trying bluff. He couldn't run worth a
cent; but there was no braver or truer man ever drew a ramrod or tore a
cartridge than Tennessee.
EATING MUSSELS
Reader, did you ever eat a mussel? Well, we did, at Shelbyville.
We were camped right upon the bank of Duck river, and one day Fred Dornin,
Ed Voss, Andy Wilson and I went in the river mussel hunting. Every one
of us had a meal sack. We would feel down with our feet until we felt a
mussel and then dive for it. We soon filled our sacks with mussels in
their shells. When we got to camp we cracked the shells and took out the
mussels. We tried frying them, but the longer they fried the tougher
they got. They were a little too large to swallow whole. Then we stewed
them, and after a while we boiled them, and then we baked them, but every
flank movement we would make on those mussels the more invulnerable they
would get.
Pages:
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112