The writer has himself seen the hollow
half-eagle which bore to Burnside's beleaguered force the welcome
tidings that in thirty hours Sherman would relieve Knoxville.
The perils which even the "native" scout encountered can be estimated
only by those familiar with the vigilance that surrounds an army. The
casual meeting with an acquaintance, the slightest act inconsistent with
his assumed character, or the smallest incongruity between his speech
and that of the district to which he professed to belong, has sent many
a good man to the gallows. One of the best of Rosecrans's scouts--a
native of East Kentucky--lost his life because he would "bounce" (mount)
his nag, "pack" (carry) his gun, eat his bread "dry so," (without
butter,) and "guzzle his peck o' whiskey," in the midst of Bragg's camp,
when no such things were done there, nor in the mountains of Alabama,
whence he professed to come. Acquainted only with a narrow region, the
poor fellow did not know that every Southern district has its own
dialect, and that the travelled ear of a close observer can detect the
slightest deviation from its customary phrases.
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