Page:The woman in battle .djvu/208

182 as I had no fancy for going on duty as a private soldier any longer than was absolutely necessary, although the regiment of which I was a member was as gallant a one as ever went into battle, and my comrades were, most of them, pleasant, agreeable fellows, my next thought was to resume my independent footing at the earliest moment. I therefore went privately to General Yillipigue, and, showing my commission, told a plausible story to account for my enlistment, and asked him to give me employment as an officer. The officers and men of the regiment, of course, knew nothing of my being in possession of this document, or of my previous history. General Villipigue was not able to do anything for me, as there were no vacancies, and I therefore applied for a transfer to the army of East Tennessee, and was very cheerfully granted it.

This was the first time I had ever been regularly mustered into the service, and the step was taken, not from choice, but for the purpose of escaping from the surveillance of Mayor Monroe and the Provost Marshal, two individuals whom, after a very brief acquaintance, I did not particularly care to know more intimately. I had many regrets in parting from the officers and men of the twenty -first regiment, whom I had learned to like very much in the short time I had been with them, but I felt that my interests demanded a removal to another locality. Consequently, so soon as I received my papers, I said adieu to my new friends, and was off with all possible speed.

I was not in a very happy frame of mind, and my physical condition was scarcely better than my mental. The occurrences of the weeks that had just passed had not been of the most pleasurable character, and my personal difficulties in New Orleans, coming as they did when I had not recovered from the mental and bodily suffering caused by the contest at Fort Donelson, did not have the effect of making me view life from its bright side. After the episode of a ten days' sojourn in prison, however, it was a great relief for me to feel that I had my destiny in my own hands once more ; and at the prospect of again entering upon a life of adventure that would afford me opportunities for winning distinction, my spirit rose, and I was disposed to dismiss the past, with all its unpleasantnesses, and to make a fresh start with all the energy I could command.