While the discussion was going on Si had been studying the appearance of the prisoners. In spite of their being enemies his heart was touched by their comfortless condition. Not one of them had an overcoat or blanket. The Sergeant and a couple of others had over their shoulders pieces of the State House carpet, which had been cut up into lengths and sewed together for blankets. Another had what had once been a gaudy calico counterpane, with the pat tern "Rose of Sharon" wrought out in flaming colors. It was now a sadly-bedraggled substitute for a blanket. The others had webs of jeans sewed to gether. The buttons were gone from their garments in many essential places, and replaced by strings, nails, skewers and thorns. Worst of all, almost every one of them was nearly shoeless. A sudden impulse seized Si. "Shorty," said he, "these men are going up where the weather is very cold. I wish I was able to{54} give each of them a warm suit of clothes and a blanket. I ain't though. But I tell you what I will do; I'll go down to the Quartermaster and see if he'll issue me a pair of shoes for each of 'em, and charge it to my clothin' account." "Bully idee," ejaculated Shorty. "I'll go you halves. Mebbe if they git their understandin' into Yankee leather it'll help git some Yankee idees into their understandin'. See?" And Shorty was so delighted with his little joke that he laughed over it all the way to the Quarter master's wagon, and then rehearsed it for that officer's entertainment. Fortunately, the Quartermaster had a box of shoes that he could get at without much trouble, and he was in sufficiently good humor to grant Si's request. They added a warm pair of socks to each pair of shoes, and so wrought up the A. Q. M.'s sympathies that he threw in some damaged overcoats, and other articles, which he said he could report "lost in action." They came back loaded with stuff, which they dumped down on the ground before the prisoners, with the brief remark: "Them's, all yours. Put 'em on." The prisoners were overwhelmed by this generosity on the part of their foes and captors. "I alluz thought," said the Sergeant, "that you Yankees wuz not half so bad ez I believed that yo'uns wuz. Yo'uns is white men, if yo'uns do want to take away our niggers." "Gosh," said the man who had uttered the opinion that it was a rich man's war and a poor man's fight,{55} "I'd give all my interest in every nigger in Tennessee for that ere one pa'r o' shoes. They're beauties, I tell you. I never had so good a pa'r afore in all my life." {57} CHAPTER V. LINING UP FOR BATTLE THE 200TH IND. GUARDS THE WAGON TRAIN, AND DEFEATS AN ATTACK.