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Show I ARMY PESTS AS I SEEN BY AN I OGDENITE Editor Standard During the war the Army of the Cumberland had nmn things to contend with besides fighting the rebels In July, 1863. after af-ter General Mint) had driven the rebel reb-el army out of middle Tennessee, the division marched to Salem, going Into camp at that place. havlr.R marched over 800 miles. In the campaign just closed and nuring its progress the entire array had to contend with an almost ever-pressing series of attacks from a host of foes strlctlj Indigenous Indigen-ous to the southern country Th march led through dense forests, filled with fallen, decaying logs and trunks Of trees and over large tracts of coun- ! try covered with rrers. creepers and tangled undergrowth. ! tit . 1 retreats of the rebe.l I army gave repeated opportunity for occupying their camps which were about the onh cleared and eligible camping grounds. They were at first seized with alacrity, but after a day or two it was discovered that the voracious, vo-racious, the terrible ally to the rebel army, the pendlculus vestimentl. had forced Its way Inside our lines, and was waging, after its fashion, a general gen-eral guerilla warfare against our arm. Just how it escaped the vigilance vigi-lance of the pickets Is not known, but as in keeping with the other atrocities of the rebels it Is most probable th.it on leaving their old camps they had turned loos' a number of these tern ble allies They had in these. If in nothing else, a plentiful r-r im leasing leas-ing supply and. planting them In ambush, am-bush, succeeded In thus invading our lines attacking In detail the whole army from the general in command to the honest mule driver. The pendiciilus made its deadly assaults as-saults with determination, while the soldiers were on the march In the full tide of battle, around the camp fire or in the deep sleep of exhaustion. exhaus-tion. It was rightly named by the voire of th whole army, "gray back." It did not always kill at first assault, but. by persistent attacks, generally "pot there," and all through the cam paign If a man or an officer as mys terlotislj missing it was currently re IHjrted and generally the fact that the "graybacks ' had got him Another horde of bloodthirsty adjuncts ad-juncts of rebeldom was likewise the assailant of the army during this ad ance They were the fleas which no man of any Bense pursues They were left In great numbers in all the houses, sheds, stables and tenements, in all the country abandoned by the rebels They were so irrepressible in their assaults thnt whole companies and even regiments were driven from the buildings as quickly and in f.u greater disorder than the would hac been by the explosion of shell crashing through their ranks from a i pack of rebel artillery Now. while the pendlculus was raging rag-ing his warfare In the inmost recesses recess-es of the army and the flens driving the army from all the buildings, in the deep gloom of the forept was prepared pre-pared an ambush of most portentuous dimensions and grave sequences. It was the ambush ol the woodilck. lying in wait for the Boldier, i h- mettlesome cavalry horse or the patient, lon suffering and reliable army mule Th' woodtick "stlcketh closer than a brother" and while not planted in Buoh frightful numbers as had been i I his kindred allies and more easily detected de-tected when once he had made his I presence felt, yet he had an ugly hah- I i It of allowing his body to be separated from his head, if the victim sought to j nib or pull him off. ?.nd that head as a very animated entity, continued jits burrowing protrt S3 until the man or animal succumbed to his attacks I The wounds !: iiiilx ied were grlev- I ous and his destruction in the army great. A few years aco I went on a flshin? nip and When I returned home found several woodth ks on inc found one I big fat fellow on the hack of my neck. I Well, used liiir Woodtick quite a liil .is ;i collar button, but finally J had to gel rid ol it I can still se" the scar on my neck when the tic', buried its head under the skin A still more dn adod ambush was laid in the b-irrs and the thick uh-dergro'wth uh-dergro'wth of the more open country into which the unsuspecting "Vauk" if avoiding, in wise though saddened experience, the deserted camp, the de ceitful shelter and the forest, sought safety in the tkngled brjs'i or grassy hll'side; for iberc, in millions, lurked the invisible chfgger the smallest hut I not the least of all the aids to tho rebellion. The chigger was an original ii cesslonlat, bitier. determined and I unrelenting in bis attacks upon the ! Union army. He must certainly hay belonged to the secessionists' service J brpnc h of Hie Confederacy. King in I wait In unsuspected places. With fiendish fi-endish malignit, he sought more to torture than to hill his enemy His favorite mode of warfare was to get ItpOn his enemy " hen unable to resist and burrow under the epidermis; raise the skin in great flakes from the llesh, thus flaying his victim alive lie delighted de-lighted more in skinning a Yankee than ever did the slaveholder in "wal- loping n nigKcr" (Signed.) COL P.. P, BAIR. |