The opinion seems to
be growing that the rebels do not intend to attack us. They have put it off too
long.
A scouting party
will start out in the morning, under the guidance of "old Leather
Breeches," a primitive West Virginian, who has spent his life in the
mountains. His right name is Bennett. He wears an antiquated pair of buckskin
pantaloons, and has a cabin-home on the mountain, twelve miles away.
A tambourine is
being played near by, and Fox, with a heart much lighter than his complexion,
is indulging in a double shuffle.
There are many
snakes in the mountains: rattlesnakes, copperheads, blacksnakes, and almost
every other variety of the snake kind; in short, the boys have snake on the
brain. To-day one of the choppers made a sudden grab for his trouser leg; a
snake was crawling up. He held the loathsome reptile tightly by the head and
body, and was fearfully agitated. A comrade slit down the leg of the pantaloon
with a knife, when lo! an innocent little roll of red flannel was discovered.
The boys are very
liberal in the bestowal of titles. Colonel Hogseye is indebted to them for his
commission. The Colonel commands an ax just now. Ordinarily he carries a
musket, sleeps and dines with his subordinates, and is not above traveling on
foot.
Fox's real name, I
ascertained lately, is William Washington. His brother, now in the service of
the surgeon, is called Handsome, and Colonel Marrow's servant is known by the
boys as the Bay Nigger.
SOURCE: John
Beatty, The Citizen-soldier: Or, Memoirs of a Volunteer, p. 55-6
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