In July, 1861, General J. D. Cox’s division was chasing General Henry A. Wise’s Confederate forces up the Kanawha River, in West Virginia, and to impede the rapid advance of the Union troops the bridge across Pocotaligo Creek was destroyed. The stream was only a couple of rods wide, but its banks were steep and the bed of the creek was too much of a slough to allow fording by the wagon trains and artillery. The regular army engineers wanted a few weeks’ time to prepare plans, and considered it necessary to send to Cincinnati for tools and material to construct a bridge. The General, being informed that the Eleventh Ohio Infantry Regiment, then encamped at “Poco,” had a company composed entirely of mechanics, sent for the captain, and, after a short conference with that officer, directed him to put his men at work. Commencing at nine o’clock in the morning, in seventeen hours a substantial “bridge” was built across the creek, and which was used by army wagons, cannons and soldiers for a long time, probably until the war closed. A raft of logs, timbers from a deserted house, and poles cut in the woods near by, were the materials used for the bridge, the tools being a few axes and augers. These practical bridge-builders were members of Company K, principally machinists, molders, etc., from the shops of Lane & Bodley, of Cincinnati, the captain being their late employer, P. P. Lane, afterward colonel of the regiment. THE COLONEL’S FORAGED BREAKFAST. Colonel Johnson, commanding the 108th Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, during the late war, up to the time he fairly earned and secured his “single star,” was a strict disciplinarian. Straggling and foraging were especially tabooed by him; certain and severe was the punishment of the culprit who was caught away from his command without authority, and if any foraged provisions were found on the scoundrel they were at once confiscated. As it was not practicable to return the provisions to the lawful owner, the colonel would have them served up at his own mess table, “to keep them from going to waste.” As a consequence, the colonel was cordially hated by many of his men, and many were the plans laid down by them “to get even” and circumvent him, but, owing to his astuteness, they generally came to grief. One day a soldier of the regiment, who had the reputation of being “a first-class, single-handed forager,” but who had nevertheless been repeatedly compelled to disgorge his irregularly procured supply of fresh meat, and as repeatedly to pass an interval of his valuable time in the regimental bull-pen, slipped away from camp and, after an absence of several hours, returned with a loaded haversack and tried to get to his tent without attracting any attention. He was noticed, however, and promptly arrested and escorted to regimental headquarters. “Omar, you infernal scoundrel, you have been foraging again,” said the colonel. “No, I haven’t.”