This was in the first months of the war, of
course. The camps in our part of Missouri were under Brigadier-General
Thomas H. Harris. He was a townsman of ours, a first-rate fellow, and
well liked; but we had all familiarly known him as the sole and
modest-salaried operator in our telegraph office, where he had to send
about one dispatch a week in ordinary times, and two when there was a
rush of business; consequently, when he appeared in our midst one day, on
the wing, and delivered a military command of some sort, in a large
military fashion, nobody was surprised at the response which he got from
the assembled soldiery:
'Oh, now, what'll you take to don't, Tom Harris!'
It was quite the natural thing. One might justly imagine that we were
hopeless material for war. And so we seemed, in our ignorant state; but
there were those among us who afterward learned the grim trade; learned
to obey like machines; became valuable soldiers; fought all through the
war, and came out at the end with excellent records.
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