I SECURE A HORSE.
As the army was pressing the Confederates towards Port Gibson all that day, I followed in the rear, but without overtaking General Grant. While trailing along after the forces, I came across Fred Grant, then a lad of thirteen, who had been left asleep by his father on a steamer at Bruinsburg, but had started out on foot, like myself, as soon as he awakened and found the army had marched. We tramped and foraged together until the next morning, when some officers who had captured two old white carriage horses gave us each one. We got the best bridles and saddles we could, and thus equipped made our way into Port Gibson, which the enemy had deserted and where General Grant now had his headquarters. I rode that old horse for four or five days; then by a chance I got a good one. A captured Confederate officer had been brought before General Grant for examination. This man had a very good horse, and after Grant had finished his questions the officer said:
"General, this horse and saddle are my private property; they do not belong to the Confederate army; they belong to me as a citizen, and I trust yow will let me have them. Of course, while I am a prisoner I do not expect to be allowed to ride the horse, but I hope you will regard him as my property and finally restore him to me."
"Well," said Grant, "I have got four or five first-rate horses wandering somewhere about the Southern Confederacy. They have been captured from me in battle or by spies. I will authorize you, whenever you find one of them, to take possession of him. I cheerfully give him to you; but as for this horse, I think he is just about the horse Mr. Dana needs."
I rode my new acquisition afterwards through that whole campaign, and when I came away I turned him over to the quartermaster. Whenever I went out with General Grant anywhere, he always asked some funny question about that horse.
MARCHING INTO THE ENEMY'S COUNTRY.
It was the 2d day of May, 1863, when I rode into Port Gibson, Mississippi, and inquired for Grant's headquarters. I found the General in a little house of the village, busily directing the advance of the army. By the next morning he was ready to start after the troops. On the 4th I joined him at his headquarters at Hankinson's Ferry, on the Big Black, and now began my first experience with an army marching into an enemy's territory. A glimpse of my life at this time is given in this letter to a child, written the day after I rejoined Grant:
Hankinson's Ferry, May 5.
All of a sudden it is very cold here. Two days ago it was hot like summer, but now I sit in my tent in my overcoat, writing and thinking if I only were at home instead of being almost two thousand miles away.
Away yonder, in the edge of the woods, I hear the drum beat that calls the soldiers to their supper. It is only a little after five o'clock, but they begin the day very early and end it early. Pretty soon after dark they are all asleep, lying in their blankets under the trees, for in a quick march they leave their tents behind. Their guns are all ready at their sides, so that if they are suddenly called at night they can start in a moment. It is strange in the morning, before daylight, to hear the bugles and drums sound the reveille, which calls the army to awake up. It will begin perhaps at a distance and then run along the whole line, bugle after bugle, and drum after drum taking it up, and then it goes from front to rear, farther and farther away, the sweet sounds throbbing and rolling while you lie on the grass with your saddle for a pillow, half awake or opening your eyes to see that the stars are still bright in the sky, or that there is only a faint flush in the east where the day is soon to break.
Living in camp is queer business. I get my meals in General Grant's mess, and pay my share of the expenses. The table is a chest with a double cover, which unfolds on the right and the left; the dishes, knives and forks, and caster are inside. Sometimes we get good things, but generally we don't. The cook is an old negro, black and grimy. The cooking is not as clean as it might be, but in war you can't be particular about such things.
The plums and peaches here are pretty nearly ripe. The strawberries have been ripe these few days, but the soldiers eat them up before we get a sight of them. The figs are as big as the end of your thumb, and the green pears are big enough to eat. But you don't know what beautiful flower gardens there are here. I never saw such roses, and the other day I found a lily as big as a tiger lily, only it was a magnificent red.
OUR COMMUNICATIONS ARE CUT.
It was a week after we reached Hankinson's Ferry before word came to headquarters that the army and supplies were all across the Mississippi. As soon as Grant learned this he gave orders that the bridges in our rear be burned, guards abandoned, and communications cut. He intended to depend thereafter upon the country for meat and even for bread. So complete was our isolation that it was ten days after this order was given, on May 11th, before I was able to send another despatch to Mr. Stanton.
