SPOILED THE SOUP.
BY W. D. CRAIG, CHESTERFIELD, S. C., COMMANDING FIRST SOUTH CAROLINA BRIGADE, U. C. V.
Reading in the Veteran some time ago about the old churches of that grand old city of Charleston brought to mind a review of my service in the 21st Regiment, South Carolina Volunteers. I was in sight of the lights and hearing of the bells of the old churches for the first four months of 1864. The greater part of the time I was in that historic old Fort Sumter while it was being knocked to pieces from Fort Wagner on Morris Island. I have a scar on my right arm made by a brick knocked from the walls by a shell. It was a great inspiration to the lone sentinel, on post on that lonely pile of brick, to see the lights of the city and to hear the stroke of the old clock. It spurred him to do his best to defend the noble people of the city from the encroachments of a cruel foe. Every man felt a personal interest in the city, especially did the women. If every soldier could have had the patriotism of the women of the city, in fact, of the whole South, I believe the result would have been different.
The ladies of the city were always trying to help us out. In April, 1864, they sent us a cargo of vegetables, knowing that every one longs for a taste of green in the spring and that we could not get out to appropriate vegetables for ourselves. We had no way of cooking, so we ate all we could raw, then began to search for some way to cook the remainder. We had an immense kettle to boil our clothes in; so after much washing and scouring, we decided to use this kettle. We put in all our vegetables, all our meat, and all our hard-tack and boiled it together. It smelled so good, and every man was standing ready to dip his cup in the kettle when a shell from the enemy's gun came over, singing ''Tu-wicker, Tu-wicker,'' and fell in that pot of vegetables! Instead of getting that soup inside of us, it was all scattered on the outside. We can laugh over it now, but it was a tragic moment then.