men would like some coffee for some to- | Banking Operations of General Schoepf in Kentucky.

his command

“Go back, you rascal, or I'll take you a prisoner. I tell you we have nothing to exchange, and we don't want anything to do with you Yankees."

“Well, then,” said the sergeant ruefully, "if ye hain't got nothin', why, here's the paper anyway, and if you get one from Richmond this afternoon, you can send it over. You'll find my name there on that."

bacco. I'm dredful anxious for a trade." An excellent operation in banking is The astonished officer could only repeat that related of General Schoepf, in Kentucky. When the General arrived in the neighborhood of London after the Wildcat fight, he found that Zollicoffer had been levying on Union men for provisions, forage, transportation, etc., and had paid them in Confederate bonds. Imitating an example which the secessionists thought so unexceptionable, unexceptionable, General Schoepf commenced levying on the secessionists for similar supplies. In the meantime, he assembled the Union men, and, opening an exchange office for their benefit, set at defiance all banking rules, by taking Confederate bonds at par, and supplying the Union men with good Ohio and Indiana money instead. Then when the secessionists presented their bills, he paid them off with the utmost politeness in their own currency. They didn't know enough to be thankful for the arrangement, but that wasn't his fault.

The man's impudence or the officer's eagerness for news made the latter accept. He took the paper and asked the sergeant what was the news from Petersburg.

"Oh! our folks say we can go in there just when we want to, but we are waiting to gobble all you fellows first," was the reply.

"Well, I don't know but what you can do it!" said the Lieutenant, turning on his heel and re-entering his rifle-pit; "but meanwhile, my man, you had better go back."

This time the sergeant obeyed the oftrepeated order, and, on telling his adventure, was the hero of the morning among his comrades.

Helping a Poor Soldier. When Parson Brownlow was in the town of a good many people grumbled about the high price of admission to his lecture. A very rich, but stingy man, who had been all the time very profuse with expressions of his patriotism, exclaimed, in a crowd.

"Give Parson Brownlow half a dollar? No, Sir-ree! I'd a good deal sooner give it to a poor soldier!"

Good Luck for an Iowan Soldier. When the Federal troops made one of their raids into the State of Mississippi, in pursuit of Chalmers' forces, one of the privates of the Seventh Iowa Infantry, while excavating the ruins of an old house, for the purpose of fixing a bed for the night, suddenly struck upon a bottle, which on being brought to light and examined, was found to exhibit the refreshing spectacle of seventy dollars in silver coin. Amazed at his un-dreamed-of good luck, he determined to follow the "lead,” which soon changed from silver into gold-for, upon further digging, he turned up the glorious sum of seven hundred and eighty dollars in massive gold. A large and precious haul indeed for a 'hard-up' soldier It had probably

"Oh!" said a bystander, "then give in an enemy's land. your half dollar to Captain H- (an been deposited there for safe keeping by officer dismissed from the army for some of the natives,' who ludicrously exardice); they say he's a mighty poor sol- pected it could thus escape a 'Yankee's' dier!"

COW

scent.

How to Spike a Gun.

That Dinner at General Holt's. A characteristic incident is related of A Senator from the Western States Captain George T. Hebard, formerly a was invited one day in the midst of war private in Company A., of the Chicago times, by the Judge Advocate-General, Light Infantry, and subsequently com- Mr. Holt, to dine at the latter's house in mander of the First Vermont Battery, Washington, and accepted the invitation which participated in the hard contested in due form. Having been up late at a battle near Grand Encore. During the whist party, he was reminded next mornprogress of the bloody engagement, Major ing by a friend that he was to dine that General Banks rode up and said, energet- day with Mr. Holt, in company with other ically: "Captain Hebard, your battery will civilians and military characters. He arprobably be taken; spike your guns!" ranged his toilet accordingly, was shaved As the General rode off, the Captain ad- by one of the barbers at the Capitol, and dressed the men, saying: "Not by a proceeded at the proper hour, after the sight! This battery isn't to be taken nor Senate adjourned, to General Holt's resispiked. Give them double canister, dence, there to partake of the General's boys!" The battery was charged upon viands, and to discuss, with kindred digterribly three times after that; the last nitaries, "the situation." He rang the time, they thought they would wait until bell, was shown into a parlor with no fire, the enemy had approached quite near, and was soon joined by General Holt. when they let fly a storm of deadly grape After conversing some time, General Holt and canister, literally killing every man suggested that they would be more comwithin range of the guns. The battery fortable in an adjoining apartment, where brought off every gun and caisson, showing that to be the best way of "spiking" -unless the General himself knew of a better one.

a fire was burning in the grate. Here they sat, one upon each side of the fireplace, and talked, and talked, and talked!

The Senator kept up the fire of conversation briskly for an hour or so, and his host responded as briskly. But at last Specimen of Ninth Corps Discipline. the talk began to flag. General Holt While Brigadier-General Robert Pot- was evidently tired of the task of enter, commanding the Ninth Corps, in East tertaining the Senator, and the latter Tennessee, was once riding along with his began to be very hungry. The conversaorderly, he saw a man running with some- tion became rather fragmentary, then mothing in his hand, followed by a woman nosyllabic, and finally died out altogether, crying out after him. Stopping him, he the Senator meanwhile wondering what in found he had stolen some article, and asked the deuce was the matter with General him his corps. "Ninth Corps." "Very Holt's cook. The General looked at his well," said the General; and he instructed watch once or twice, and asking to be exhis orderly to tie him up to a tree, and cused a moment while he delivered an orgive him a smart strapping with a stirrup- der, left the room. "High time you hurstrap. Amid his howls it came out that ried up your kitchen forces!" thought he belonged to the Fourth Corps. "Very the Senator, who having eaten a light well," said the General; "I am com- breakfast, and no lunch, had long before mander of the Ninth Corps; if you belong to it, all right-if not, you'll know how we treat fellows that steal in the Ninth Corps."

"Begun to feel, as well he might,
The keen demands of appetite."

General Holt re-entered, and made an attempt to renew the conversation, with

but partial success. At last a carriage quaintance, at Willard's, and asked him if arrived at the door and the General took Grant meant to move direct upon Richout his watch and remarked, apologetical- mond, or would he take the Peninsula ly, that he had a business call to make, route, as some of the papers asserted. and begging therefore to be excused, adding" I shall have the honor of seeing you at dinner to-morrow, of course?"

"Yes, I think so," confidently answered Halleck. Mr. Politician pricked up his ears for an instant, but soon said

"Ah' did you say he was going straight down, or by the Peninsula!"

"Oh!" said General Halleck, "I don't know."

A light flashed instantaneously upon the mind of the Senator; he was a day before "the fair!" He declined the courteously proffered seat in General Holt's carriage, and, as soon as out of the house, His next effort was at the President, on he rushed for the nearest restaurant in a the occasion of a levee at the White famished state. It was ten o'clock! House. Standing familiarly at his right Next day he attended the dinner, and in the blue room, he pleasantly remarked: some of the party having got an inkling "I suppose, Mr. Lincoln, you expect of his unhappy blunder, he was induced stirring times over here on the Rapidan, to tell the story at table, which he did in a week or two?" with such effect that the "table was set in a roar" with "inextinguishable laughter," which was repeated more than once after

"Possibly," answered the President. "Possibly!" echoed the New Yorker. "I don't know much about it," replied ward,-wherever the Senator related, in the President, "but I heard to-day that his inimitable way, the funny circum- General Grant meant to take Richmond stances of his dining out. The war 'situation,' unfortuately, was not discussed with that gravity and profit to the nation which would otherwise have been the case, on account of this senatorial faux pas.

Unsuccessful Search for Information at
Head-quarters.

A good story is told of a curious fellow enjoying considerable popularity in a certain town in New York, and upon the basis of such popularity, he conceived it eminently proper that he should be informed of the plans for the spring campaign in the conduct of the various military operations. So he called on the Secretary of War, and, in his largest style of assurance, asked, in the blandest manner, what Grant was going to do. For final answer he got:

"I don't know; and if I did, it wouldn't be my business to tell you."

from the Charleston side."

The fellow withdrew. There was, however, yet one source more. Representative Washburne ought to know all about it-dead sure. He, therefore, caught Washburne in the House, early in the morning, before it was called to order, and said to him

"Can you tell me if I will be likely to find General Grant over on the Rapidan, say early week after next, if I go over there with my Congressman?"

"Can't tell you, Sir," answered Washburne, "General Grant didn't tell me what he was going to do, or where he was going to be, at any given time."

The New Yorker concluded that things were in a very, very bad way, because no one knew what Grant was about nor what he was going to do.

Misfortunes of a Cotton Speculator. Surely, thought the politician, these No sympathy was felt for the cotton officials are very short and snappish. A speculators in New Orleans, who swarmed day or two afterward he met General there during the rebellion, and when one Halleck, with whom he had a slight ac- of them was fleeced it seemed to be a mat

"That was rough. Is that all they done to you?"

ter of rejoicing among both parties-Fed--my money was all greenbacks. 'What erals as well as rebs. Something of this are you doing in the Confederacy with sort happened to a citizen of that city- Federal money?' they asked. And they one of those neutral individuals who were took mine too!" always on the fence, ready to jump on either side which policy might dictate to be for their interest for the time being. "All! No, sir; they stripped me of He-Brown-left New Orleans, on one everything, and one strapping big fellow occasion, bound for the Confederate lines, gave me such a spirited kick, while my with the intention of investing what back was turned, as to take me off my money he had in cotton. Just before feet, accompanied with the remark all starting, he met a friend in the street, with round that if they ever caught me in the whom, after exchanging the usual com- Confederacy again with so little money, mon place remarks, he entered into the they'd hang me,— -if they wouldn't!” following conversation:

"What are you up to now, Brown?"

"Oh, I've just made a good thing; been into the Confederacy and bought out thirty bales of Cotton. Bound up again to-morrow, and if nothing happens I'll bring back four times that quantity."

"Be careful, Brown, or you'll get gobbled up. They'll have you in the rebel army."

"Oh, no fear of that. They all know me to be a good Confederate. Besides, I've got British papers."

A month later the two friends met, Brown looking decidedly downcast and seedy. Wallace accosted him with

"Well, Brown, how about that cotton?"

Lost

Woman's Trials and Triumphs. The wife of an officer in the army, living in Williamson county, Illinois, received from her husband a package containing seven hundred dollars, a portion of which belonged to the families of soldiers living in that vicinity. A few days after the reception of the money there came a sick soldier to the house of the officer's wife, and asked permission to remain over night. The woman refused, but the soldier insisting, she finally consented. During the night the family was aroused by the violent knocking of parties outside, who demanded the door to be opened, and if not opened they would break it down,-that the officer's wife had a lot of money and they were bound to have it. The woman was terrified, and giving the money to the "Well, you see, I got up to Bayou Sara soldier inside, secreted herself and her the same night the rebels made their raid children, when the soldier exclaimed in a into the place. I had plenty of time to voice loud enough to be heard by the vil escape, same as a good many others did, lains outside, "I am unarmed, but if I had -but I thought I was all right, and so with a pistol I would fix the villains." The a friend sat down to a game of poker, door was then bursted open, and the men, just to show that we didn't feel at all disguised as negroes, entered the house. alarmed. Presently in came some rebs, Five shots were instantly fired at them, and began to search us. On my partner killing three of the party and wounding they found a lot of Confederate money, another; the remainder fled. The blackand they wanted to know what right he ing having been removed from the faces had in the Federal lines with Confederate of the dead, they were discovered to be money? So they just took it. Of course the woman's nearest neighbors-one of I was convinced now that I was all right them her brother-in-law.

"Don't talk to me about cotton. everything."

"How's that?

An Honor to her Sex.

much despised Federal Government. Of A lady appeared before a Federal Pro- course the whole throng had first to apply vost-Marshal in Tennessee, as an applicant to the Provost-Marshal, and when the for pecuniary assistance. She was evi- proper hour had arrived they were ushdently a lady to the manor born,' with a ered into his tent, one by one, to relate chirography that would have done credit

to any one, and her language was entirely free from that peculiarity of dialect so characteristic of the region from which she hailed. The case stood as follows:

Provost Marshal-You are an applicant for relief?

Lady-Yes, sir.

Provost-Where is your

Lady-He is dead, sir.

husband?

Provost-When did he die?

Lady-In 1859.

Provost-Have you a plantation? Lady-Yes, sir, four hundred acres. Provost-Where are your slaves? Lady-We had but four; one of them is a decrepit, old woman, and is now with The remainder were carried off by Bragg's army, to keep them from falling into the hands of the Union troops. Provost-Were they carried away by plies at regular intervals, without the inyour consent?

me.

Lady-They were not.

their sufferings and the causes which had brought them to distress. They were all new applicants, the old ones getting sup

tervention of the Provost-Marshal. The first whose fortune it was to be called, on

Provost-Have you any objection to this occasion, was a Mrs. Ricard. The Marshal asked hertaking the oath of allegiance.

Lady-I have not; I have always consistently opposed secession. I did so in the presence of Bragg's army, even more loudly than I oppose it now.

This case shows that the chaff in that section was not unmixed with wheat.

"Are you a widow?"
"No, sir."

"Where is your husband?"

"With Bragg, in the Third Tennessee cavalry."

"Your husband is in the rebel army; when did he join it?"

"Two years since." "Did he volunteer?" "Yes, to keep from being conscripted." "But the rebel conscription law was not then in force."

"But they told him that it would soon be, and he had better volunteer."

Affecting Appeal to a Union Commissary. The distress produced in some portions of Kentucky and Tennessee by the secession heresy almost exceeded description. At Bridgeport might frequently have been seen a crowd of females around the United States Commissary, applicants for relief. They were in many instances wretched creatures. Of forty-seven females present on one occasion, only three possessed any money to make purchases; the remainder were all pensioners upon the bounty of the slaves."

"Was he not a strong secessionist from the start?"

"Yes; he thought you wanted to deprive us of our rights, and take all our