' I says,
'General, I think I can, if you'll give me a canteen full of your
French brandy for the boys.' He laughed at that, and I says, 'General,
I have been with you three years, and if in that time you have ever
seen me out of the way, I hope you will tell me so.' 'No, Ashe,' says
he, 'I have not, and you shall have the brandy.' And his black fellow
went into the closet and drew me a canteen full; for you see, colonel,
old General Robert always keeps a demijohn full, and carries it about
in his old black spring wagon, to give to the wounded soldiers--he
don't drink himself. Well, I got the brandy, and set the boys to work,
building a road with pine saplings, and got the wagons out! From that
time to this, I have been going with them, colonel, and sometimes some
very curious things have happened."
I assumed that inquiring expression of countenance dear to
story-tellers. Ashe saw it, and smiled.
"Last fall, colonel," he said, "I was down on the Blackwater, foraging
with my wagons, for old General Robert, when a squadron of Yankees
crossed in the ferryboat, and caught me. I did not try to get off, and
the colonel says, says he, 'Who are _you?_' I told him I was only
foraging with General Lee's head-quarters teams, to get something for
the old general to eat, as nothing could be bought in Petersburg; and,
says I, 'I have long been looking to be captured, and now the time has
come.
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