“Been foraging, hey?” said the Major.  “Don’t you know it’s against orders?”

“Chickens” stammered out a denial, when the Major, making a sudden grab at the front of his blouse, tore it open, and out fell two plump pullets.

“Stealing hens, hey?” said the Major.  “You’ll go to the clink for this.”

“Ah didn’t dun steal ’em, Majah,” said “Chickens,” with brazen effrontery.  “Ah ’clar to goodness Ah didn’t know dem pullets was dar.  Mus’ have crawled into mah blous t’ keep wahm, Majah.”

The reply tickled the veteran so much that he let “Chickens” pass, and the next morning there was one officer at the post who had stewed pullet for breakfast.

One of the most famous regiments of infantry at Tampa was the Thirteenth.  It has the well-earned reputation of being a good fighting body.  Some of the most distinguished officers of the army have been on its rolls in time past, among them Sherman and Sheridan.  The history of the Thirteenth goes back to May 14, 1861, when President Lincoln directed its organization.  The first colonel was William T. Sherman, who re-entered the army after a number of years engaged in banking and the practice of law.  C. C. Augur was one of the majors, and Philip H. Sheridan was a captain.  Sheridan joined the regiment in November, 1861, but was soon appointed chief commissary and quartermaster to the Army of Southwest Missouri, which practically severed his connection with the regiment.

In 1862 the first battalion of the regiment entered on active service in the Mississippi valley.  It engaged in the Yazoo expedition under Sherman, who was by that time a major-general of volunteers, and took part later in Grant’s operations around Vicksburg.  The battalion won for its colors the proud inscription, “First Honor at Vicksburg,” and lost 43.3 per cent of its force in the attack on the Confederates.  Among the dead was its then commander, who died on the parapet.  Sherman’s nine-year-old son, Willie, who was with his father at Vicksburg, was playfully christened a “sergeant” of the Thirteenth battalion, and his death of fever in October, 1863, called forth a sorrowful letter from General Sherman to the commander of the Thirteenth.  “Please convey to the battalion my heartfelt thanks,” he wrote, “and assure each and all that if in after years they call on me or mine, and mention that they were of the Thirteenth regulars when Willie was a sergeant, they will have a key to the affections of my family that will open all it has; that we will share with them our last blanket, our last crust!”

After the war the regiment was transferred to the West.  It was employed in Kansas, Montana, Dakota, Utah, Wyoming and elsewhere until 1874, for a large part of the time serving almost continuously against hostile Indians.  In 1874 it was moved to New Orleans, and was engaged on duty in the Department of the South for six years.  During the labor riots of 1877 all but two companies were on duty at Pittsburg, Scranton, Wilkesbarre and other points in Pennsylvania.  Then back to the West it went again, and, with some slight vacations, remained on the frontier until October, 1894, when it was transferred to various posts in New York State.