We said, "Now, boys, we don't
want the Yankees to get mad at you, and to blame you; so, just let's get
out here on the railroad track, and tear it up, and pile up the crossties,
and then pile the iron on top of them, and we'll set the thing a-fire,
and when the Yankees come back they will say, 'What a bully fight _them
nagers_ did make.'" (A Yankee always says "nager"). Reader, you should
have seen how that old railroad did flop over, and how the darkies did
sweat, and how the perfume did fill the atmosphere.
But there were some Yankee soldiers in a block-house at Ringgold Gap,
who thought they would act big. They said that Sherman had told them not
to come out of that block-house, any how. But General William B. Bate
begun to persuade the gentlemen, by sending a few four-pound parrot
"feelers." Ah! those _feelers_!
They persuaded eloquently. They persuaded effectually--those feelers
did. The Yanks soon surrendered. The old place looked natural like,
only it seemed to have a sort of graveyard loneliness about it.
A MAN IN THE WELL
On leaving Dalton, after a day's march, we had stopped for the night.
Our guns were stacked, and I started off with a comrade to get some wood
to cook supper with.
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