Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 2.djvu/233

 as a messmate, I looked about for another connection. I received several offers to join other messes, but finally decided to accept the invitation of Brigadier-General Willich to share his tent and table. Of his antecedents as a Prussian artillery officer I have spoken in describing the campaign under Buell. He was forty-eight years old, and was probably the most thoroughly trained officer in the army. He possessed great general intelligence and knowledge, and conversed well on almost any subject. He had, however, pronounced socialistic views, which had led to his participation in the revolutionary rising of 1849 in Germany and to his exile, and with these I did not at all sympathize. We had many disputes over them, but they left no irritation. He provided me with a camp bedstead, and I partook regularly of such fare as he had. His one servant, a private soldier, was a very smart man and of general utility in cooking, washing, waiting at the table, cleaning our clothes, blacking our boots, and taking care of the general's horse. In apologizing for the meagre meals he served, General Willich asserted that Fritz was a most successful purveyor and had nearly always managed to keep him in plenty, but that as there was now no chance to forage and his cooking was confined to the treatment of the reduced rations, he could not well do himself justice. Although the commissary department then distributed only hard bread, bacon, and coffee, Fritz showed real genius in evolving sufficient repasts out of this scant material and some canned vegetables and fruit he had managed to save from better days. I enjoyed Willich's hospitality as long as I remained in those parts, and I had nothing to complain of but the dampness. We could keep up a log fire only in front, not inside of, the tent, and when it rained, it was impossible to feel either dry or warm. To counteract this, our faithful attendant treated us at proper intervals to hot punch, for which he had kept some bottles of cognac in close reserve.

I became the guest of General Willich before I knew that