Chapter 70 - Page 2

years in scientific and
medical circles. I have been sorry that our Florence comrade if he still
lives--did not contribute the results of his experience.

The pinching cold cured me of my repugnance to wearing dead men's
clothes, or rather it made my nakedness so painful that I was glad to
cover it as best I could, and I began foraging among the corpses for
garments. For awhile my efforts to set myself up in the mortuary
second-hand clothing business were not all successful. I found that
dying men with good clothes were as carefully watched over by sets of
fellows who constituted themselves their residuary legatees as if they
were men of fortune dying in the midst of a circle of expectant nephews
and nieces. Before one was fairly cold his clothes would be appropriated
and divided, and I have seen many sharp fights between contesting
claimants.

I soon perceived that my best chance was to get up very early in the
morning, and do my hunting. The nights were so cold that many could not
sleep, and they would walk up and down the streets, trying to keep warm
by exercise. Towards morning, becoming exhausted, they would lie down on
the ground almost anywhere, and die. I have frequently seen so many as
fifty of these. My first "find" of any importance was a young
Pennsylvania Zouave, who was lying dead near the bridge that crossed the
Creek. His clothes were all badly worn, except his baggy, dark trousers,
which were nearly new. I removed these, scraped out from each of the
dozens of great folds in the legs about a half pint of lice, and drew the
garments over my own half-frozen limbs, the first real covering those
members had had for four or five months. The pantaloons only came down
about half-way between my knees and feet, but still they were wonderfully
comfortable to what I had been--or rather not been--wearing. I had
picked up a pair of boot bottoms, which answered me for shoes, and now I
began a hunt for socks. This took several morning expeditions, but on
one of them I was rewarded with finding a corpse with a good brown one
--army make--and a few days later I got another, a good, thick genuine one,
knit at home, of blue yarn, by some patient, careful housewife. Almost
the next morning I had the good fortune to find a dead man with a warm,
whole, infantry dress-coat, a most serviceable garment. As I still had
for a shirt the blouse Andrews had given me at Millen, I now considered
my wardrobe complete, and left the rest of the clothes to those who were
more needy than I.

Those who used tobacco seemed to suffer more from a deprivation of the
weed than from lack of food. There were no sacrifices they would not
make to obtain it, and it was no uncommon thing for boys to trade off
half