We had marked the frozen earth with bloody and unshod feet; had been
elated with victory and crushed by defeat; had seen and felt the pleasure
of the life of a soldier, and had drank the cup to its dregs. Yes,
we had seen it all, and had shared in its hopes and its fears; its love
and its hate; its good and its bad; its virtue and its vice; its glories
and its shame. We had followed the successes and reverses of the flag of
the Lost Cause through all these years of blood and strife.
I was simply one of hundreds of thousands in the same fix. The tale is
the same that every soldier would tell, except Jim Whitler. Jim had
dodged about, and had escaped being conscripted until "Hood's raid,"
he called it. Hood's army was taking up every able-bodied man and
conscripting him into the army. Jim Whitler had got a position as
over-seer on a large plantation, and had about a hundred negroes under
his surveillance. The army had been passing a given point, and Jim was
sitting quietly on the fence looking at the soldiers. The conscripting
squad nabbed him. Jim tried to beg off, but all entreaty was in vain.
He wanted to go by home and tell his wife and children good-bye, and to
get his clothes. It was no go. But, after awhile, Jim says, "Gentlemen,
ay, Ganny, the law!" You see, Jim "knowed" the law.
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