The Russellville Democrat., 1893-10-05

They had taken me into one of the negro shanties. We had been fighting on a sugar cane plantation, and there was a lot of these mis- erable huts scattered about, and they had turned them into hospitals for the wounded. Our surgeon came around and took look at my leg, then went out and had pow WOW with another doctor. When he came back he said
 [" Joe, l will have to cut your leg of. I reused up iR minute and said:
 "'I'n be cashiered if you will l am too young to go through life on one leg, and l am going 10 keep it.
 Well, he said, there is no time to talk 1 will do my best with it and fix it up for you. But we will have to leave you here. We have the worst of it, and we've to get out tonight, and there is ID way to take you
 "Of course, l vigorously objected to being left behind. 1 began to re- member those articles in the New Orleans papers. We all had a ter rife opinion of Butler. We had heard that blood was his daily drink, and all sorts of stories had come to us of his cruelties in New Or leans. had no doatt that if be ever got hold of me and found out that 1 was the man who sunk that gunboat, and the hero of all those blood-curdling articles, he would string me up in minute. made up my mind to two things right there. They were not going to cut my leg off, and they were not going to leave me behind for Butler to prac- tice on.
 PREFERRED MISERY TO BUTLER.
 ''I told the doctor that he had got to get one of those sugar cane carts, a nigger and a mule, and after that would take care of myself. There were a lot of these rough, two wheeled carts around, and after some time we found 8 nigger and a mule who were willing to make the trip. They hitched ap and l was loaded in. It was dark then and raining, and as the doctor left me he gave me bottle of morphine and showed me how to take it. That night, and the next day, and the next night, l lived on morphine. When at last got to Shreveport my ankle was about as large around as any part of my body. However, 1 got well. l went back to Texas, and after staying awhile l found 1 could stand 1t to sit in a saddle, and 1 started out again. When l got back to my battery 1 got orders about the same time which took me off with the campaign into New Mexico. We left Texas with $500 men, and to show you what that campaign meant, what without knowing the country and being without water and food great deal of the time; what between fighting Gen. Canby any time he could find us, or we him, at the end of nine months we came back into Texas with less than 900 men.
 "Onee 1 remember we intercepted dispatch from Canby sent from Fort Craig in to Fort Union. We were about midway between these places. We captured the courier and recall one sentence in Canby's dispatch which was, after referring to our movement:
 !" We will dig the potatoes when they are ripe.
 "Then lid not clearly realize that we were the potatoes. Yes, Canby's men were great fighters. 1 remember one fight in Colorado which we had with them, and 1t seems to me now as 1 look back at the work they did that he must have NIGtll III AlE4As
 NEVER WOUNDED A YANKEE.
 "No, I have no knowledge that 1 ever personally even wounded a Yankee, let alone killing him out right. Of course, ordered my bat teries to fire and death must have certainly resulted, but personally 1 do not recall an instance when 1 ever left my mark on man. The only opportunity recall was an occasion when 1 was carrying a dis patch from one part of the field to another. When the Yankees went into the battle they threw off their knapsacks, and they still lay 1 there in a long windrow which | reached for a quarter of a mile. 1 The fight had swept away 1 from this line of knapsacks and | blankets, and while carrying the | dispatch found myself cantering along this row of war bric-a-brac. As was riding along big Yankee i suddenly sprang to his feet. He | had been lying among the knap- 1 sacks. As he jumped up he snapped | his gun at me. do not suppose it had a cap on it. At any event it did not 20 off, and at that he threw down the gun and started to run. l was On a good horse and so easily | rode mp to him as he fled. 1 had | my six shooter in my hand and could have shot him fifty times. called 10 him to halt. He only ran the faster. I suppose :or a dozen times as 1 cantered along-I was