PART SIXTH. ANECDOTES OF THE REBELLION-COMMISSARY AND RATIONS, FINANCE AND CURRENCY, THE PRESS, THE TELE GRAPH, POST-OFFICE, ETC. UNCLE SAM'S SUPPLIES; SUBSISTENCE UNDER DIFFICULTIES; "HARD TACK" AND MULEBEEF LEGENDS; FORAGING RAIDS; DISLOYAL FOWLS AND CONTRABAND DAINTIES; IMPROMTU CONFISCATIONS IN A SMALL WAY; DIALOGUES WITH THE QUARTERMASTER; SHAMEFUL IMPOSITIONS; SCRIP AND CURRENCY VARIETIES; UNIQUE BANKING OPERATIONS, COLLECTION EXCURSIONS AT THE SOUTH; CHIVALRIC REPUDIATION, TRICKS, ARTIFICES AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF EDITORS, REPORTERS AND CORRESPONDENTS; TELEGRAPHIC ODDS AND ENDS; MISCELLANIES OF POST-OFFICE EXPERIENCE; &c., &c. "Weave no more silks, ye Lyons looms, I must decline furnishing both armies any more. Let me know which army is to be supplied, and the Department will be able to meet the requisition.-Ironical reply of GENERAL RIPLEY, It was a perfect reproduction of the scene and all its incidents; and it is a marvel to me how you writers can perform such tasks.-GENERAL HOOKER on the reports of the Battle of Antietam. I would sooner face all the cannon of the enemy than taste that glass of wine.-One of the heroes of Ball's Bluff. Be gorra! I thought yez was gintlemin, and paid for what yez wanted. Divil a bit of money have I seen for a year, and Confederate" scrip has brought me wife and childers to starvation almost.-Irish peddler at the South, to Union soldiers who jocosely offered him Confederate" currency. I will teach them, if they need the lesson, that the men who have periled their lives to open the Mississippi River, for their benefit, cannot be imposed upon with impunity.-GEN. GRANT on river captains' exactions. One of the Best. was a sort of Island. kept them in a cool, refreshing twilight. They called him "Doctor," and the Major with the flag of truce was directed to leave political prisoner, on him at some "landing" above Jamestown his way to some point where, with The "Doctor" had contrived to procure others of his plum-somehow, and had somehow brought on age, he might be out board the steamer, a quantity of sugar of harm's-doing. As and coffee, contrary to regulation and withhe was being thus out authority. The dinner-hour arrived taken, his imagina- and passed. Every hungry rebel had tion wandered away done ample justice to the occasion, and among the horrors of Swamp Angels,' had eaten as an Esquimaux eats when he his limbs became tremulous, his voice sees before his bodily eyes one huge meal husky, his eyes were fountains of involun- of walrus or whale blubber, and before tary tears, and his hat-rim overhung them his mind's eye a week or month of probalike a weeping-willow, whose broad shadow ble starvation or "short commons." The boat was nearing the "Doctor's" landing, Confederates, for carrying on trade under and the Major was looking in vain for any pretext of being a flag-of-truce boat. It appearance of village, or house even, was very wrong, very; and if I had which could give rise to the name of "Ma- known it before leaving the Rip-Raps, I cox's Landing "-his point of destination should have seized your coffee and sugar, -or induce any boat to stop in such a and left you in prison until further orders. wilderness, when the steward approached But, in consideration of our mistake, and with a scared look, saying,as most of the contraband articles have been consumed, and as we are within a quarter of a mile of your landing-place, I will not be too severe upon you. You can keep what remains, enough now to last your family some weeks, and I will let' you take them ashore." "I beg pardon, Major, but we're in a - of a scrape about that coffee and sugar." "Indeed," said the Major, "what is the matter? Were they bad? Wasn't there enough of them for all hands?" "Oh, yes, Sir, there was enough; but we've eaten them pretty nearly all up; and, Major, they didn't belong to us at all, Swamp Angel they wa'n't Government property, Sir; they all belonged to the "Doctor," and he's found it out, and is swearing like the like a pirate about it." "Is that all, Steward?" said the Major, after a hearty laugh at such a panic. "All! Major; yes, Major, that's all. But what shall I do about it?" He's awfully mad, and threatens all sorts of -" "Ask the Doctor' to come up on the hurricane deck, and speak to me, Steward. I think I can pacify him." He went, and presently returned with the angry "Doctor," who did not, however, exhibit any signs of passion in this stage of the adventure. "Ah, Doctor," said the Major, "I am sorry to learn that you have forgotten what He was extremely grateful, and the steward danced with delight. The "Doctor" shook the Major's hand very heartily as he left the boat, and the Steward came up with the broadest of grins, rubbing his hands, and saying, "By Jim! Major, you got out of that snarl completely-slick!" How are you," Doctor?" is due to a flag of truce, and have exposed wrapped; and opening it, held up a scrap yourself to the risk of further imprison- of a leaf from a memorandum book. It ment, and us to the danger of being treat- had bloody finger-prints on it, and a few ed as culprits, and possibly shot by the words hastily written with a pencil. The writer was the soldier's partner, he said. not shared by any of his associates, reIn the charge on Kenesaw, he found him marked to the landlord that it was "a pity" staggering back from the line, the blood to consume so much of his property withstreaming from his mouth, and covering out any compensation, and that if no one his hands and clothes. A Minie ball had else would extend justice to him, he would cut off his tongue at the root. He tried--at the same time throwing on the barto speak, but could not. Finally, by mo- counter a bill of the denomination of twentions, he made his partner understand his ty dollars. want-paper and pencil. A scrap was torn from the diary, and on it the boy, held up by his comrade, with fingers dripping with blood, and trembling in death, wrote "Father, meet me in heaven." "There," said the magnanimous rebel chieftain, "my good fellow, take that as my share of our indebtedness.” "Vot kind of monish is dat?" inquired the landlord,-one of the class of Pennsylvanian Germans so proverbial alike for He tried to write his name, but it was sagacity and integrity. too late. Life had fled. "That, Sir, is a greyback; in other words, a note of the Confederate States of America.". Dutch Landlord's Use of Greyback Twenties. During General Lee's summer invasion "O, stranger," said the hotel keeper, of Pennsylvania, a detachment of the rebel" if you hash not got no petter monish dan army had possession for a few days of the dat, you'll better keeps it. I don't vont thriving town of Hanover, in the county none of it; it is good for nix; no petter of York, lying some twenty or more miles dan plank paper!" west of Gettysburg. Apprised of their coming, the merchants and business men of the town mostly placed their movable goods safely out of the reach of the pilferers. They secured but little booty. What they did lay their hands on, however, they did not fail to bag. Among the heaviest losers was one of the landlords of the town, the proprietor of a well-stocked and well-conducted country tavern. At his house the hungry rebels made themselves well "at home." Without leave or license, they devoured his stock of bacon, beef and poultry; consumed all his flour, which they forced the landlady to bake into bread and pies; used his forage, occupied his beds, and, of course, used up every drop of his stock of liquors. Of this latter, before they came, he had ten or a dozen barrels-when they left, not so many pints; for, what they could not guzzle on the spot, they contrived to take along. "Sir!" rejoined the somewhat indignant epauletted Georgian, "I advise you to take it and be glad for the opportunity. You will soon find that it is the best money in the world. Keep it, Sir, keep it, by all means." 66 Nein, nein," retorted mynheer of the swinging sign; "dat monish will never be wort anything here nor anywhere. I would not give von silver thaler for a bread basket full. I von't be seen mit it in my hand; and if you don't take it along, I rolls it up, holds it at the candle, un lites my pipe mit it." He was about suiting the action to the word, when the Georgian took the note up from the counter and returned it to his wallet. Uncle Sam's Mule Cleaners. One of General Nelson's teamsters-a green hand-gloried in the charge of six large, shaggy mules. John was also the As they were about taking their depar- proprietor of two bottles of 'Old Bourbon' ture for Gettysburg, a Georgia Colonel, a contraband article in camp-which a exhibiting a degree of conscientiousness wag discovered, and resolved to possess. Being well aware that the driver's presence was a very natural impediment to such a theft, he hit upon the following plan to get rid of him: Approaching the driver, who was just then busy currying his mules, he accosted him with a square off; "you are the fellow hired by Uncle Sam to clean mules, and I won't have any foolishness. Clean them mules, and I'll give you a drink of busthead." "You infernal villain!" exclaimed the General, now perfectly furious, "I am "I say, old fellow, what are you doing General Nelson, commander of this Divis ion!" there?" "Can't you see?" replied John, gruffly. John here placed the thumb of his right "Certainly," responded wag, "but that hand against his nose, and extending his is not your business. It is after tattoo, and four digits, waved and twirled them slowthere is a fellow hired here, by the Generally, in a manner supposed by some to be who curries all the mules and horses brought equivalent to the expression, “How are in after tattoo." you old fellow?" The General's sword leaped from its scabbard, and John sprang from the tent just in time to save his The mule-driver bit at once, and desired to know where the hair-dresser kept him self. Whereupon he was directed to Gen-head. eral Nelson's tent, with the assurance that there was where the fellow "hung out." "You can't mistake the man," said wag, "he is a large fellow, and puts on a thundering sight of airs for a man in his busi ness. He will probably refuse to do it, and tell you to go to the ; but don't mind that, he has been drinking to-day. Make him come out, sure." It would be needless to add that the boys drank the "big mule driver's health" in Old Bourbon, and quite as needless to state the source whence said Bourbon was derived. Wicked Joke upon a Regimental Postmaster. There was a joke-though possibly a wicked one- perpetrated on a certain Chaplain in the army, which ought not to John posted off, and entering the tent where our Napoleon of the Fourth Division be lost to the clerical portion of the world. sat in deep reverie, probably considering It was the Chaplain's business to look after the most expeditious method of expelling the rebel Buckner from his native State, slapped him on the back with a force sufficient to annihilate a man of ordinary size. Springing to his feet, the General, powerful and spirited, accosted his uninvited guest with "Well, Sir, who are you, and what the want?" do you "Old hoss, I've got a job for you nowsix mules to be curried, and right off, too," said the Captain of the mules, nothing daunted at the flashing eye of the General which was turned at him and pierced him through. "Do you know whom you are addressing, Sir?" asked the indignant command er. Joke on a Chaplain. "Yes," said John, elevating his voice to the regimental mail. This Chaplain, howa pitch which rendered the words audible ever, had been annoyed exceedingly by the |