"Why don't somebody put a pistol to Basil Duke's head, and blow John
Morgan's brains out!" [Basil Duke was John Morgan's right hand man.]




CHAPTER XII.

REMARKS AS TO NOMENCLATURE--VACCINATION AND ITS EFFECTS--"N'YAARKER'S"
--THEIR CHARACTERISTICS AND THEIR METHODS OF OPERATING.

Before going any further in this narrative it may be well to state that
the nomenclature employed is not used in any odious or disparaging sense.
It is simply the adoption of the usual terms employed by the soldiers of
both sides in speaking to or of each other. We habitually spoke of them
and to them, as "Rebels," and "Johnnies ;" they of and to us, as "Yanks,"
and "Yankees." To have said "Confederates," "Southerners,"
"Secessionists," or "Federalists," "Unionists," "Northerners" or
"Nationalists," would have seemed useless euphemism. The plainer terms
suited better, and it was a day when things were more important than
names.

For some inscrutable reason the Rebels decided to vaccinate us all.
Why they did this has been one of the unsolved problems of my life.
It is true that there was small pox in the City, and among the prisoners
at Danville; but that any consideration for our safety should have led
them to order general inoculation is not among the reasonable inferences.
But, be that as it may, vaccination was ordered, and performed. By great
good luck I was absent from the building with the squad drawing rations,