hard service -- perhaps, to some extent, of hard
drink, for, bless my soul! we did shed the blood
of the grape and the grain abundantly during the
war. I remember thinking General Grant, who
could not have been above forty-five, a pretty
well preserved old chap, considering his habits.
As to men of middle age -- say from fifty to sixty
-- why, they all looked fit to personate the Last
of the Hittites, or the Madagascarene Methuselah,
in a museum. Depend upon it, my friends, men
of that time were greatly younger than men are
to-day, but looked much older. The change is
quite remarkable.

I said that practical joking had not then gone
out of fashion. It had not, at least, in the
army; though possibly in the more serious life of
the civilian it had no place except in the form of
tarring and feathering an occasional obnoxious
"copperhead." You all know, I suppose, what a
"copperhead" was, so I will go directly at my
story without introductory remark, as is my way.

It was a few days before the battle of Nash-
ville. The enemy had driven us up out of north-
ern Georgia and Alabama. At Nashville we had
turned at bay and fortified, while old Pap
Thomas, our commander, hurried down reinforce-
ments and supplies from Louisville. Meantime
Hood, the Confederate commander, had partly
invested us and lay close enough to have tossed
shells into the heart of the town. As a rule he

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