Another one of our men was found wanting, but through no fault of his own, as he was faithful as far as able. This was William Hood. Hood was an Englishman, quite small, considerably advanced in years, destitute of physical endurance and totally unfit for the hardships of a soldier’s life. He was an old-womanish kind of a man, good for cooking, washing dishes, scouring tin plates, and keeping everything nice around the mess headquarters, but was unsuited for any other part of a soldier’s duty. Hood strayed off from us somehow during the day, and for some part of the day was a prisoner, losing his horse, but managed to get back to camp afoot at night, very much depressed in spirits. The next morning he was very proud to discover his horse grazing out in the field two or three hundred yards from the camp. He almost flew to him, but found he was wounded. He came back to Captain Taylor with a very sad countenance, and said: “Captain Taylor, me little ’orse is wounded right were the ’air girth goes on ’im.” The wound was only slight and as soon as the little ’orse was in proper traveling condition little Hood was discharged and allowed to return home.
As already stated, we returned late in the evening to the camp we had left in the morning to rest and sleep for the night, for after the excitement of the day was over bodily fatigue was very much in evidence. Our train came up about nightfall, but as I was very tired, and our only chance for lights was in building up little brush fires, the opening of my letters was postponed until the bright Sunday morning, August 11, especially as my mail packet was quite bulky. One large envelope from Huntsville, Ala., contained a letter and an exquisite little Confederate flag some ten or twelve inches long. This was from a valued young lady friend who, in the letter, gave me much good advice, among other things warning me against being shot in the back. And I never was. During the day the command marched into Springfield, to find that the Federal Army had pushed forward Saturday night. They had retreated to Rolla, the terminus of the railroad, and thence returned to St. Louis, leaving us for a long time in undisputed possession of southwest Missouri, where we had but little to do for three months but gather forage and care for our horses and teams and perform the routine duties incident to a permanent camp.