"Ehic! 'nuther vict'ry fur United States arms," said Boozy Dick, who was intoxicated to a stupefying degree.

"Well, Mr. Huntley, will you not give us the race now?" said the Society for the Preservation of Unpublished History, when Boozy Dick again essayed to exhort:

"Yes, let 'em go, Mose! I'll bet on the-on the-hic!”

"The Sergeant-at-arms will please assist the sick veteran to retire," ordered the commander, and accordingly Dick was taken to the guard-house.

Mose Huntley then proceeded:

"Well, as I said at starting out, it was between our regiment (the 52d Illinois) and the 2d Iowa, but Kessler stopped

"I beg your pardon, Comrade Huntley," said Mr. Kessler. "My pardon is beggable," replied Mose, and continued: "It was about two weeks before the battle of Corinth. We were out on a forage, and came to an old out-of-the-way house, about which weeds and bushes had grown. We heard a noise in the house and found six Rebs with one Yankee prisoner, whom they were trying to convert.

"Humph!' said the Yankee, I'll never join your crowd as long as the United States has a flag and an army. You darned nigger-keepin' traitors ought to be ashamed to fight against such a flag as mine. If I was loose, I'd hang the whole lot of you!' The prisoner had looked through a crack and seen our boys coming, and it made him sort o' brave. If I wanted to I could call twelve legions to my help.'

"Ha! ha! ha!' laughed the rebs. 'Why don't you do it? Do it-call 'em.'

"Well, I will call a few of 'em-come on, boys,' said the Yank, and just then our boys broke through the door and took the whole six prisoners.

"We tore everything up, and finally found a barrel of whiskey and one of black-strap."

["Black-strap" is a kind of syrup unskilfully made from frost-bitten sugar-cane. It resembles a mixture of coal-tar, glucose and stale soda water. Sometimes it was mixed with whiskey, and swallowed with much relish by soldiers whose stomachs must have been lined with something like cast-iron. This chemical analysis has been obtained at great expense by the S. P. U. H., and is known to be correct.]

"Near by was an old mill," continued Mr. Huntley, "and strange to say, several bushels of wheat in a bin. We took some o' the wheat and put it in the hopper, and some of the boys would grind while the others watched. We ground about a bushel before the wheels got hot, and then they began to screech. We had nothing but cotton-seed oil, and that gummed so that it was no use to put it on. We ground about six bushels, when the old rattle-trap stopped short, never to go again! Squee-squawk, squee-squawk-you could hear it for twenty-five miles!"

"Aw! come down a peg," said one of the boys.

"Well, you could hear it for five miles-I'll swear it," said Mose.

"Then we took the bran, whiskey, and black-strap, and started for camp. We did not open either of the barrels, as we thought we would save it all and have a good time with the whole regiment that night. But alas! General Oglesby confiscated our entire stock. He told the teamster to drive the ambulance up to his tent and sleep on those barrels that night. The general was all right in this, because he had just chased the Rebel general, Rowdy, off fifty miles that day, and expected him back that night. He ordered the brigade to lie on their arms in line, for an emergency.

"We wrapped ourselves in our blankets and lay downbut not to sleep. The news of the whiskey had been circulated among the boys, and made 'em restless. They rolled up in their blankets and began to spoon!'"

"What is spooning"?" asked the Society for the Preservation of Unpublished History.

"Spoonin,' my dear children," explained a veteran in the art, "is when soldiers wrap up in their blankets and roll back'ards and for'ards over one 'nother for fun. It is done when they have too much budge' aboard. But this time they were only anticipatin', and sort o' goin' through the motions like. They hadn't had anythin' to drink, an' so it was purty dry spoonin'.

"It was 10 o'clock and the Rebel general, Rowdy. hadn't come yet. The boys didn't like the idea o' being cheated out of their regular,' and so they 'pointed a commission to look after them barrels of General Oglesby's. The commission crawled up quietly to the wagon, and enough of the boys formed a line on their knees to pass the canteens back from the wagon to the bivouac, so that no noise would be made. It was not long before the commission got an auger an' commenced to bore through the bottom of the wagon up into the barrels. The first barrel they bored into was the black-strap, but they plugged that up, and it did not take long to get the whiskey out of the other one. The canteens were passed back, and the boys had a good old 'spoon,' never waking the driver, who slept on the barrels.

"In the morning the officers thought they would sample the whiskey, and sent to the wagon for some. But of course the boys had emptied the barrel, and when it was reported to General Oglesby, he came out, called the boys together, and asked:

"Who in (Hades) stole that whiskey?'

"The 2d and 7th Iowa!' said our boys.

"No, sir! the 52d Illinois,' said the Iowa boys.

"Just then General Sweeney (then our Colonel) came out, and he looked awfully dry and disappointed. Who stole that whiskey?' he inquired.

"The 2d and 7th Iowa!' we answered, and the Iowa boys again said we did it.

"By the powers! I'll arrest every one of you,' said Sweeney.

"But he didn't. When it comes to arrestin' two or three regiments o' soldiers, it's not easily done. Then we were suddenly ordered to Corinth on double-quick, to resist an attack by the Johnnies. The sun was hot, and the air sultry. The march was heavy, and we double-quicked it every step. As we proceeded, some of the boys became so worn-out that they dropped out, and lay down on the roadside. Some were sunstruck, and many were disabled for life, who are drawing pensions now for that very march. Before we got to Corinth, it was told among the boys that General Weaver (then Colonel of the 2d Iowa) had bet General Sweeney $500 that the 2d Iowa could beat the 52d Illinois to Corinth. This nerved the boys up, and the ranks kept thinning out. I think there were some deaths reported from fatigue. When we got to Corinth in the evening there were only sixteen of our company to report the rest had dropped on the way. Our company was the first to get in, but I never wanted any more races in mine.

"There were no rebels there, nor any signs of any. The boys said the race was on account of the bet, but I thought it was to punish us for stealing the whiskey."

"All that might have been avoided," said Capt. J. M. Shields, of Company F, 77th Illinois, "but let me remind you of something that could not have been avoided—a curious result which was the experience of almost every soldier in the war, and shows how various are the effects of excitement under fire, upon different temperaments.

"We were ordered to the extreme right in the battle of Chickasaw Bluffs, which placed us on the bank of the Mississippi. It was necessary to skirmish our way along, and