“An’ it’s a pretty command I have, to be sure. What would Gineral Lee think if I told him one of my ‘brigade’ put his cartridges in his gun upside down? An’ thin the sarious consequinces that might ensue. Faith, an’ it might cost the Confideracy its independence.” “I don’t think you have much the advantage of me, Mr. Atkins, for you did nothing but run after loose horses,” retorted Shellman. “Did you ever hear the like o’ that? To spake in that way to his commander. An’ thin he called me _Misther Atkins_, too; bad luck to yez.” I put an end to the controversy by announcing the contents of the dead soldier’s haversack. “Fourteen crackers, a pound of salt horse, a well-filled bag of coffee, and several little articles that I will examine to-morrow.” A fire was soon kindled, and we proceeded to boil the coffee. As I untied the string around the little bag, I could not but think of the hand, now cold and stiff in death, that had so carefully tied it that morning; and during the repast, at every mouthful, “My wife, my child,” was ringing in my ears. Considerably refreshed, I wrapped my blanket around me and lay down to rest, and was soon in a sound sleep, from which I was awakened in the morning by Atkins soliloquizing: “An’ it was a sin an’ a shame to trate the poor dumb baste so, an’ so it was. Laving out that bullet hole in the nose, an’ the one in the left fore leg, an’ the one in the hind quarther, an’ the divil knows how many more, for I havn’t been on the other side of him, he’s as beautiful a crather as I ever saw. Be me soul he’s the very picture of an Irish hunter, he is.” Rising from my blanket I approached the disconsolate Atkins, who was engaged in taking a survey of his capture of the previous evening, and upon inquiring the reason for his lamentations, he pointed to a dreadful wound in the horse’s left fore leg, but which had escaped our notice in the darkness of the evening, and said: “Look what those hathens of Hood’s have done to this poor dumb baste, the very picture of a staple-chaser. An’ there, too, an’ there, an’ there,” pointing to as many wounds, “be me soul, if the rider got as many he’s as dead as Paddy’s pig.” “What disposition are you going to make of him?” I ventured to inquire. “Take him along wid us, to be sure. Can’t he carry our traps. I’m astonished that you should ax such a question. If you had been wid Whate and meself in Italy—” Not caring to be bored for an hour with this his favorite subject, I interrupted him by inquiring the name he intended to give his steed? Scratching his head for a moment, he replied, “Pegassus; an’ what do you think of that for a name?” “A devil of a Pegassus,” remarked Shellman, who had joined us. “An’ who axed you for your say, misther six-shooter, who can’t appraciate an Irishman’s joke?” “And why Pegassus?” inquired Shellman. “Why don’t you see the crather has been _winged_, but divil the bit do I belave there’s much _fly_ in him.”