October 4, 1863.
Have been over to Worthington's again to-day. Sam got out
his hounds and started a deer for us. We stationed ourselves in the runway, but
although the deer came near us two or three times in his circling, the dogs
didn't push him hard enough to make him break for distant cover. The major
killed a very large snake and some of the boys got a shot at an alligator. We
then left the bayou and went out to old River Lake, where we got some splendid
shooting. I killed a water turkey at 500 yards, shooting into a flock. Our
guns, the Henry rifle, threw bullets full a mile and one-half. I found that I
could do tolerably close shooting, something I never suspicioned before. A
neighbor told me that old Worthington sold the mother of his children, and with
her five other picaninnies.
SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an
Illinois Soldier, p. 196
