L. P. Brockett, The camp, the battlefield, and the hospital: or, lights and shadows of the great rebellion

“ I don't know, sir,” said Spaddon, still gloomily.

“What? Don't know! What do you mean by that, sir?”

“ I mean just what I say, doctor. I was crushed. I just walked on and on, hearing nothing, seeing nothing, answering nothing, if any one spoke to me, which I don't know if they did or not. I just walked on and on, till I found myself in the country, in the fields just outside of the city. Then I woke up and looked around me, and saw some negroes, and called one, and asked him the way to our army. He thought I meant his master's forces, of course, but that didn't matter. He told me I was' clean done gona round de udder side ob de city, ‘ and that I ‘mus’ folly dis yer road till I come to the woods ober yander, when I'd see a paff’ --in short, sir, he put me in the way; and making a painful march and a wide detour, and creeping through the swamps that night, I got back to our own camps alive, but used up both in body and mind, doctor, perfectly used up!”

Spaddon had been out long enough, and I ordered him back to the ward. As we went along, I pondered over his story, looking at him the while.

“Spaddon,” said I, “you say you were first a horse-jockey, then a marine, then a dragoon, and a wife-hunter?”

“Yes, sir,” answered Spaddon.

“Well, Spaddon, I've no doubt about the first three phases of your life, but as to that tale of getting into and out of Richmond-”

“ It's true, every word of it, doctor,” said Spaddon, earnestly.

“It may be,” I replied; “but it sounds marvellously like a story for the horse marines.”