It was horrid. The older one kicked him, and told him to stand up and
show the Rebels how a Union man could die for his country. Be a man!
The charges and specifications were then read. The props were knocked
out and the two boys were dangling in the air. I turned off sick at
heart.
EATING RATS
While stationed at this place, Chattanooga, rations were very scarce and
hard to get, and it was, perhaps, economy on the part of our generals and
commissaries to issue rather scant rations.
About this time we learned that Pemberton's army, stationed at Vicksburg,
were subsisting entirely on rats. Instead of the idea being horrid,
we were glad to know that "necessity is the mother of invention," and
that the idea had originated in the mind of genius. We at once acted
upon the information, and started out rat hunting; but we couldn't find
any rats. Presently we came to an old outhouse that seemed to be a
natural harbor for this kind of vermin. The house was quickly torn down
and out jumped an old residenter, who was old and gray. I suppose that
he had been chased before. But we had jumped him and were determined to
catch him, or "burst a boiler." After chasing him backwards and forwards,
the rat finally got tired of this foolishness and started for his hole.
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