This
was no place for town boys. So at last it was with something very like
joy that we received news that the enemy were on our track again. With a
new birth of the old warrior spirit, we sprang to our places in line of
battle and fell back on Camp Ralls.
Captain Lyman had taken a hint from Mason's talk, and he now gave ordered
that our camp should be guarded against surprise by the posting of
pickets. I was ordered to place a picket at the forks of the road in
Hyde's prairie. Night shut down black and threatening. I told Sergeant
Bowers to go out to that place and stay till midnight; and, just as I was
expecting, he said he wouldn't do it. I tried to get others to go, but
all refused. Some excused themselves on account of the weather; but the
rest were frank enough to say they wouldn't go in any kind of weather.
This kind of thing sounds odd now, and impossible, but it seemed a
perfectly natural thing to do. There were scores of little camps
scattered over Missouri where the same thing was happening.
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