Stockton Herald, South Durham and Cleveland Advertiser. — 1889-11-02 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

VENI LI.  ..-....._.....  "Toughest time, right straight on end, ever I had in my life, boys, VIM not during, b. [ter the war." "How was that, Major." " Well, you see," said the old major, seating himself for a yarn spin; "it was in '66, when Phil Sheridan, then in command of the Department of the Gulf, ordered old Doodlejack, chief at our post—you know who and where I mean—to send a force up on the other side of the river to clean out a lot of bushwhacking thieves and murderers, the scans and dregs left there after the disbandment of the Rob armies, with a lot of villainous deserters from our side. "There were about 200 of them, all mounted on the best stook that was to be had for the stealing of it, and all armed to the teeth. Life and property were at their mercy, and very little mercy they showed to either. Citizens up there complained continually, but when an official went among them they were afraid to give information or aid for fear of after-consequences. So Little Phil ordered them to be taken, dead or alive, the former preferred. " What, then, does old Blunderhead do but detail me, as usual, with 75 men, to do the job. Great Scott I Think of it l Seventyfive infantry to run down and kill 200 mounted armed desperadoes in that sort of country, bayous, and forests, and underbush, and they knowing every trail and ford better than their A B It was just like old Jinglebrains, and just my luck or his spite, that sent me, and away I went with my 75, foot and two subs, and with never a sawbone, hospital steward, or ounce of doctor stuff. " We chucked our camp and garrison, ammunition and commissaries on the first boat up, and started. Now, there was a °ask of brown sugar on the lower deck of that boat that had gotten wet, and the head had been taken out when it was up-ended, so that the stuff could dry, and my men filled themselves and their haversacks with that brown sugar, and drank the muddy, warm Mississippi water no the top of it during all the trip. " We got to out station about four o'clock in , the afternoon, climbed over the wharf boat , with our impedimenta, and the men stood in ' line while I prospected a little for a campingground. There were two or three stores, a Igrocery, and about a dozen houses near the landing. I was approached by a citizen who, with many apologies, told me he had been sent by Mr Mat lung, the leader of the outlaws (who with his men were just outside, hidden by the cane and brushes), to notify me that I must take myself and men back to where I came from by the next boat going down. If Iso did he would not hurt me, but if I refused he would drive us all into the river. "My reply was that Mr Mat King and his men might go to some place a good deal hotter than China, and not near so celestial. I was younger then, and added that I had come for King's scalp, and that it was to be a fight to the death. I likewise informed the ambassador that any man who came to insult me with a like message or order I would hang by the neck until he was dead, dead, dead. "Then I placed a strong guard and went into camp on the river side of the levee, so as to have that fine earthwork between us. " The officers' tents were up and I was sitting before mine watching the men in the company street, when I saw a crowd 'gather near the lower end. Presently a sergeant came up to me, I was a captain then. Captain,' he said, there is something wrong with Markley ; will you please come look at him ?" "I went down. Markley was dead. There was the wrinkled finger skin, and several signs I knew only too well from old Florida experience. "Cholera I" " 'What had this man been eating other then his rations ?' I demanded. . . . .  butt  I after