“With the French crowd and part of the Mexicans to help him, the Emperor Maximilian was tryin' to hang onto his onsteady and topplin' throne, whilst the Republikins or Liberals, as they called themselves, were tryin' with might and main to shove him off of it. Ef a feller jest natchelly honed fur an opportunity to indulge a fancy fur active hostilities, Mexico seemed to offer a very promisin' field of endeavour. “It didn't take us long to make up our minds whut course we'd follow. Billy Priest put the motion. 'Gentlemen,' he says, 'it would seem the Southern Confederacy is bent and determined on gittin' clear out frum under the shad-der of the Yankee government. It has been moved and seconded that we foller after her no matter where she goes. All in favour of that motion will respond by sayin' Aye--contrary-wise, No. The Ayes seem to have it and the Ayes do have it and it is so ordered, unanimously. By fours! Forward, march!' “That happened in the town of Corsicana in the early summer-time of the year. So we went along acrost the old Lone Star State, headin' mighty nigh due West, passin' through Waco and Austin and San Antonio, and bein' treated mighty kindly by the people wheresoever we passed. And ez we went, one of the boys that had poetic leanin's, he made up a new verse to our song. Let's see, son, ef I kin remember it now after all these years.” The Sergeant thought a bit and then lifting his voice in a quavery cadence favoured me with the following gem: I won't be reconstructed; I'm better now than them; And fur a carpet-bagger I don't give a dam; So I'm off fur the frontier, fast ez I kin go, I'll purpare me a weepon and head fur Mexico. “It was the middle of July and warm enough to satisfy the demands of the most exactin' when we reached the Rio Grande, to find out Shelby's force had done crossed over after buryin' their battle-flag in the middle of the river, wrapped up in a rock to hold it down. On one side was cactus and greasewood and a waste of sandy land, that was already back in the Union or mighty soon would be. On the other side was more cactus and more grease-wood and more sandy loam, but in a different country. So, after spendin' a few pleasant hours at the town of Eagle Pass, we turn't our backs to one country and cros't over to the other, alookin' fur the Confederacy wherever she might be. I figgered it out I was tellin' the United States of America good-by furever. I seem to remember that quite a number of us kept peerin' back over our shoulders toward the Texas shore. They tell me the feller that wrote 'Home Sweet Home' didn't have any home to go to but he writ the song jest the same. Nobody didn't say nothin', though, about weakenin' or turnin' back.