Shiloh, for during the second day I was twice wounded, yet saved from
falling into the enemy's hands.

My recovery was due to youth and a splendid constitution. Within six
weeks I was invalided home, and inside a few months I was assigned to
the commissary department with the army in Virginia. It was while in
the latter service that I made the acquaintance of many Texans, from
whom I learned a great deal about the resources of their State,--its
immense herds of cattle, the cheapness of its lands, and its perpetual
summer. During the last year of the war, on account of their ability
to handle cattle, a number of Texans were detailed to care for the
army's beef supply. From these men I received much information and a
pressing invitation to accompany them home, and after the parole at
Appomattox I took their address, promising to join them in the near
future. On my return to the old homestead I found the place desolate,
with burnt barns and fields laid waste. The Shenandoah Valley had
experienced war in its dread reality, for on every hand were the
charred remains of once splendid homes. I had little hope that the
country would ever recover, but my father, stout-hearted as ever, had
already begun anew, and after helping him that summer and fall I again
drifted west to my brother's farm.

The war had developed a restless, vagabond spirit in me. I had little
heart to work, was unsettled as to my future, and, to add to my other
troubles, after reaching Missouri one of my wounds reopened. In the
mean time my brother had married, and had a fine farm opened up. He
offered me every encouragement and assistance to settle down to
the life of a farmer; but I was impatient, worthless, undergoing a
formative period of early manhood, even spurning the advice of father,
mother, and dearest friends. If to-day, across the lapse of years, the