CV: V1N10: Vivid Account of a Pest in Camp

Editor’s Note: Base transcription is from the CD-ROM version of The Confederate Veteran at Eastern Digital.  Minor corrections were made by Brett Schulte.

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VIVID ACCOUNT OF A PEST IN CAMP.¹— G[eorge]. G. Buchanan,. now of Belcher, Texas, who was of Company A, Palmetto Sharpshooters, sends to the VETERAN special inquiry for his comrade and friend, Bob Greer. He relates some thrilling experiences they had together, and especially a time when they were in the trenches by Petersburg. He tells an interesting story of how he and Bob went down to a running creek for a bath one July morning in 1864, and how the yankee gunner cut his fuse for their great discomfort. They were between the lines of battle, and had gone to the creek through great peril, but they were in need of a change from some “jayhawkers” that “could climb a fellow’s leg the straightest, stick the closest, and scratch the

hardest of any crawling thing on the earth.” He says: Bob and I were having a good time O yes, we were down under the hill, as we thought, out of sight, but mind you, blind things can travel in dark places. We had taken off our old shirts and began to splash them down in the water, thinking we would, by concussion, kill or shake off a few of those critters, and that some few of them might run across the lines to see how a good fat yankee would taste. But let me tell you, if that water business had been the only way to get rid of those things I am sure we would have to have been half soled before this time. When we got in a good way with our washing a doleful sound came at us saying, ” Where is you? where is you?” And they kept coming, and getting closer and closer. Bob took up his linen and struck off in a long trot, saying, “Come on, Buck, this aint no good place.” But neither of us were hurt, and here I am, August 25, 1893.

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