Whether the price was fixed by the woman, or whether I offered all the money I had, is not now clear to me. Probably it was the latter. At any rate, the price agreed upon was a quarter of a dollar, enough, I have since surmised, to buy, at that time, a whole bushel of corn. By favor of an overruling Providence, and against all probability, I had that quarter. It was the extent of my financial assets, and I was on the verge of liquidation. But what of that? The choice between starvation and bankruptcy is soon made. In fact it made itself. The quarter was, of course, of the shinplaster kind, sole currency in those days. It was depreciated in value, as we knew to our sorrow, and hoe cake had appreciated. But I paid over that quarter, the most important property I ever possessed. I justify this statement to incredulous comrades. What might have happened in lack of it? It probably saved me from the crime of highway robbery, of burglary, or even murder, depending upon the obstinacy and resistance on the part of the newly emancipated, refusing to surrender the cake without compensation. But I acquired it honorably, by fair bargain, and at the seller’s price, although possibly, as it now occurs to me, she may have been overawed by the presence of superior armed force. But she did not look it, and I dismiss the unworthy surmise. She had a monopoly and exercised it with moderation, a shining though humble example, which, I hope, will make John D., J. P. Morgan, and the Armours ashamed of themselves when they read this history; and I am proud on my own part to record this transaction as a refutation of the groundless charges that soldiers, on both sides, during the Civil War, stole chickens and other edible things. I fancy that I hear some inquisitive comrade or even a common civilian, after all this fuss which I have made about a hoe cake, inquiring how large it was. That question cannot be answered so easily. Dimensions are relative, and it will not be expected that I measured it accurately. If I inserted that detail it would, to an unfriendly critic (and there are such among the common civilians above mentioned and sometimes among old soldiers), it would, I say, give an air of improbability to the whole story. This I desire to avoid, for I have in mind the incredulous reception of another story, told by some comrade, in which he represents himself as lying, on a winter’s night, on a blood-soaked field of battle (apparently the sole survivor), and protecting himself from the cold, by dead bodies, one on each side and another at his head; and I do not propose, in this history, to give comrades or others occasion to quote to me the insinuating remark, “Tell that to the marines.”