Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 22.djvu/160

 148 Southern Historical Society Papers.

say held them, not as the infantry did, but patrolled them all the way down to Stony creek, and sometimes beyond. We were too few to man the lines, so we rode them one night here, and to- morrow somewhere else on the line, repelling from time to time by the hardest kind of fighting the repeated attacks made upon the lines of communication z. <?. , the Weldon railroad and the Boydton plank-road. The preservation of these meant the life of the army and of the country.

A QUESTION OF BREAD AND MEAT.

And this brings us to a question of bread and meat, and I tell you it was at that time a very serious matter. My comrades know how we were put to it for something to eat. Sometimes we had bread (such as it was), sometimes meat, sometimes neither. Men resorted to all sorts of devices to get a square meal. If perchance they met a farmer they at once cultivated him as a long-lost brother, and made all sorts of excuses to call; took the girls to ride, etc., and never left without eating some meal, either dinner or supper. Our orderly sergeant, a Frenchman of many accomplishments, is said to have called on the widow Hancock, in Dinwiddie county, and, on taking his leave, also took her gray cat, and his mess ate her in a stew, smothered in garlic, the next day. "They say so"; I don't know. A Frenchman has the reputation of eating anything.

GENERAL HAMPTON PROPOSES A RAID.

Be that as it may, on the 8th of September General Hampton addressed a note to General Lee, informing him that his scouts re- ported to him a large herd of cattle grazing in the rear of Grant's army, in the neighborhood of Coggin's Point, on James river, and asking permission to take a force of cavalry and go down and drive out the cattle. The General was, perhaps, hungry himself. On the 9th General Lee replied that the only difficulty of importance he saw was in getting back with the cattle. General Lee said he was not sufficiently acquainted with the country to say how that could be effected, if embarrassed with wagons and cattle, and advised Gene- ral Hampton to take such a circuit as would allow ample space for his flank pickets to notify him of danger. He said that the Federal General (Gregg) was near the Weldon road, and that he would move two brigades of infantry down the plank road behind General Bearing, who was on that road with his brigade of cavalry.