Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 21.djvu/363

 The E)i<lu/ ,,t Appomattox Courthouse. 355

sisted, in part, at least, of Hood's old Texas brigade. It was called the Texas brigade, although it was at times composed in part of regiments from other States. Sometimes there was a Mississippi regiment, sometimes an Arkansas regiment and sometimes a Georgia regiment mingled with the Texans, but all the strangers called them- selves Texans, and all fought like Texans.

A TEXAS WAR RHYME.

" On this occasion I recognized these troops as they passed along the road in the dead of night by hearing one of them repeat the Texan version of a passage of Scripture with which I was familiar I mean with the Texan version. You will readily recall the original text when I repeat the Texan rendition of it that fell upon my ear as I lay in the woods by the roadside that dark night. That version was as follows :

" ' The race is not to them that's got

The longest legs to run, Nor the battle to that people That shoots the biggest gun.'

USEFULNESS OF A TIN CAN.

"Soon after the Texans passed we were all astir and our bivouac was at an end. We made our simple toilets, consisting mainly of putting on our hats and saddling our horses. We then proceeded to look for something to satisfy our now ravenous appetites.

"Somebody had a little corn meal, and somebody else had a tin can, such as is used to hold hot water for shaving. A fire was kindled, and each man in his turn, according to rank and seniority, made a can of corn- meal gruel, and was allowed to keep the can until the gruel became cool enough to drink. General Lee, who re- posed as we had done, not far from us, did not, as I remember, have even such a refreshment as I have described.

" This was our last meal in the Confederacy. Our next was taken in the United States, and consisted mainly of a generous portion of that noble American animal whose strained relations with the great chancellor of the German empire made it necessary at last for the President of the United States to send an Ohio man to the court of Berlin.