A “PRESSED” TEXAN.–

5. November 2008 by admin.

A soldier belonging to the army of Gen. Dick Taylor, who was captured after the battle at Pleasant Hill, La., on being carried into the national camp, stated that he was born in Indiana.

“How did you come to be in a Texas regiment?”

“Pressed in.”

“Why didn’t you run away before you were conscripted?”

“Tried to, but they caught me. They hunted me with dogs, sir. When I was put into the ranks, I told them I would do my common duty, and that I would never kill a Union soldier. Before I was taken to-day, I was sent out to skirmish on the left, and I know where every ball I fired struck–in the trees, sir–and all the while the Sixteenth Indiana boys, born in my own State, were firing at me like ____. Three of their bullets came so near me, that I thought each time I was to be a dead man. But now, I thank the Lord, I’m all right. You couldn’t give me a little coffee, could you?”

Mrs Browning has immortalized a similar incident in verse; but her young Italian, forced into the Austrian service, was no more of a hero that the homely Hoosier who played his part so well at “Crump’s Corner.”

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