Granger had been ailing for a day or two and had not been with the troops. He was lying on a bed in the room where we met, and the rest of us sat about the fireplace, a tallow candle being on a rude table in the middle of the floor. Sturgis came in later than the others, having had a longer ride. He was a handsome fellow, with full, round features, sharp black eyes, and curly black hair and mustache. He had been seated but a few minutes when he noticed a bottle of whiskey on the table and a glass which had been placed there as camp hospitality for any one that wanted it, but had apparently been neglected. Glancing that way, Sturgis said, "If I had a little bit of sugar, I believe I'd take a toddy." A colored boy produced a sugar-bowl and the toddy was taken. The conversation ran on a few moments, when, as if it were a wholly new suggestion, the same voice repeated, "If I had a little bit of sugar, I believe I'd take a toddy;" and again the attendant did the honors. Our orders were received and we were about ready to go to our commands, when again, with polite intonation and a most amusing unconsciousness of any repetition, came the words, "If I had a little bit of sugar, I believe I'd take a toddy." The incident was certainly a funny one in itself, but I should not have cared to repeat it had not the official records of Sturgis's defeat by Forrest in the Tishimingo affair later in the year emphasized the mischief of lax habits as to temperance. The judgment of his superiors and of those who knew him well was made severer by the knowledge of his weakness in this respect. Railway officers insist upon absolute sobriety in locomotive engineers; but if there be one employment in which such coolness of head is more absolutely essential than in another, I believe it is in commanding troops in the field. [Footnote: See Marbot's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 242, for results of Wittgenstein's reliance on an intemperate officer, Kulnieff, in the Russian campaign of 1812.] Sturgis's military downfall was a severe lesson, but he gave every evidence afterward of having learned it, and "lived cleanly" through many years of service after the Civil War was over.