" That was all he had. He was living like
ourselves--on parched corn.
We continued to fortify and build breastworks at Chattanooga. It was
the same drudge, drudge day by day. Occasionally a Sunday would come;
but when it did come, there came inspection of arms, knapsacks and
cartridge-boxes. Every soldier had to have his gun rubbed up as bright
as a new silver dollar. W. A. Hughes had the brightest gun in the army,
and always called it "Florence Fleming." The private soldier had to
have on clean clothes, and if he had lost any cartridges he was charged
twenty-five cents each, and had to stand extra duty for every cartridge
lost. We always dreaded Sunday. The roll was called more frequently on
this than any other day. Sometimes we would have preaching. I remember
one text that I thought the bottom had been knocked out long before:
"And Peter's wife's mother lay sick of fever." That text always did make
a deep impression on me. I always thought of a young divine who preached
it when first entering the ministry, and in about twenty years came back,
and happening to preach from the same text again, an old fellow in
the congregation said, "Mr. Preacher, ain't that old woman dead yet?"
Well, that was the text that was preached to us soldiers one Sunday at
Chattanooga.
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