HIS HARDEST CHRISTMAS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 21, 20 February 1891, Page 7

HIS HARDEST CHRISTMAS.

" About as tough a Christmas as J ever passed," said the Hon. Amoi J. Cummings, " was in the army of the Potomac. It was near the banks of the Rapahannock in 1862. There was a very cold snnp and several pickets were frozen to death. I had expected to receive a box from home filled with killikinick, plum-pudding, t.oy, and other delicacies. It did not come. Ctiristmas day was cold and gloomy. Even tbe fresh beef rations bad given out, and nothing was left but salt pork and hard tack. We had good coffee, taken from a blocade runner, but no sugar. " Afier d*rk a Sergeant proposed that we should creep under a building near brigade headquarters, where quartermaster's supplies were stored. The Sergeant had found an augur in a Confederate cellar ; if we could cieep under the shanty without being discovered, we proposed to bore through the flooring in search of a barrel of whiskey. I think I crept upon my stomach for forty yards before I g* t under tbe bmlJing. It wis quite a dark night, butthft snow had mellei away, and the ground was very wt. I could hear the sentries at brigade headquarters coughing and spitting and cursing the cold weather. " The Sergeant joined me half an hour later, and drew the augur out from his pocket. Our wet clothes frozj stiff. Our hands were numb, and we had great difficulty in working the augur. The first barrel we struck was not a success. A stream of brine poured i'own our backs, and I was glad to move along. The next barrel seemed to be a barrel of molasses. This, mixed with the brine, produced a sticky effect. We bored into tea or twelve banels, and finally struck what we had first thought was the good old stuff. It turned out to be, however, a keg of yeast. Concluding that this was the best we could do, we filled our canteens with yeast and spent an hour sneaking from cover. It was half-past twelve when I crawled into my tent. I started a fire in the little mud chimney, and we had a royal old time with the yeast. "Not long afterwards my brother crept into the tent. He had been on guard at Division headquarters, His eyes were glowing with excitement. " ' What have you got, Charley ?' I asked. " ' Sugar,' he replied. " ' It was just what we wanted for your coffee.' "' Where is it?' the Sergeant asked. " I got up and felt of his pockets, but there was nothing there. We pulled off his cap, fancying that it might be tucked away over hie head. But we could not find it. " A quiet but confident air remained upon his features. After we had blessed him, soldier fashion, for lying, he turned his musket upside down and poured a pound or more of sugar our of its barrel. ' It was the only way 1 could get away with it,' he said, 'for they searched us when we came off guard.' " On tbe next morning there was a great commotion at Brigade Headquarters, The brine had been drained tiom three pork barrels, A banel of molasses had run out upon the ground below the shanty, and two negroes were scraping; it up, with visions of molassea candy befoie their eyes. But this was not the worst. Two holes had been bored into a rude coffin, containing the remains of the son of a prominent official, who nad been killed in a previous engagement. " Tha coipse had been wrapped in a blanket and buried nearby, and his tathei had come down to get the body before waim weather set in. I f< It badly, hut my sorrow was tempered when I remembered that the Sergeant ha-i done the boring m th.it part of tne shanty where the cuffin rested." — Exchange.