Colonel Hayes referred him to me as the proper person to
account for the disposition of the troops, and quietly said he
thought the quartermaster's department could settle for the straw if
the owner was loyal. A few minutes later the general came to my own
position, but was now quite over his irritation. I, of course, knew
nothing of his interview with Hayes, and when he said that it was
the policy in Maryland to make the troops bivouac in compact mass,
so as to do as little damage to property as possible, I cordially
assented, but urged that such a rule would not apply to the
advance-guard when supposed to be in presence of the enemy; we
needed to have the men already in line if an alarm should be given
in the night. To this he agreed, and a pleasant conversation
followed. Nothing was said to me about the straw taken for bedding,
and when I heard of the little passage-at-arms with Colonel Hayes, I
saw that it was a momentary disturbance which had no real
significance. Camp gossip, however, is as bad as village gossip, and
in a fine volume of the "History of the Twenty-first Massachusetts
Regiment," I find it stated that the Kanawha division coming fresh
from the West was disposed to plunder and pillage, giving an
exaggerated version of the foregoing story as evidence of it.
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