of the ninety, about thirty would do the work, and the rest would stand around and make suggestions. Among so many who should be equally interested, it was astonishing how many bosses there would be, who could tell how it ought to be done, but seemed indisposed to do it. Nothing was done to suit these Superintendents, but when their grumblings became too loud and boisterous, some one who was tugging away at the big end of one of these fifty feet pine poles, would rest it on his knees long enough to shout “Louder, old pudden head.” This was a favorite epithet, used to quiet any one in camp who got too excited or eloquent on any subject, and I remember one Tennessee officer, Captain Hayes, who so objected to it that he was ready to fight any one who called him “old pudden head”—and I have seen him furiously searching for the man who had yelled this, while he was loudly proclaiming his sentiments on some subject, but it only caused him to be annoyed the more, for when it was seen how sensitive he was on this point, there were plenty to be found to thus pester him, while they dexterously avoided the blows, aimed at their heads with a stick he hurled after them. He was a large, powerful man, with a voice that could be heard from one end of the camp to the other, very excitable when talking, and could never understand a joke, but took everything in earnest, and nothing afforded the boys more pleasure than to get him boiling mad.
