People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 January 1897 — HE ATE AT HEADQUARTERS [ARTICLE]

HE ATE AT HEADQUARTERS

A Hungry Newspaper Reporter Who Invited Hbnself to Grant’s Table. ■ After the officers at beadquarters had obtained what sleep they could get, they arose about daylight, feeling that in all probability they would witness before' night either a fight or a foot race— a fight if the armies encountered each other, a foot race to secure good positions if the armies remained apart. -Jg General Meade had started south at dawn, moving along the Germanna road. General Grant intended to remain in his present camp till Burnside arrived; in Tirder to give him some directions in person regarding his movements. The general sat down to the breakfast table after nearly all the staff officers had finished their morning meal. While be was slowly sipping his coffee a young newspaper reporter, whose appetite, combined with his spirit of enterprise, had gained a substantial victory over his modesty, slipped up to the table, took a seat at the farther end and remarked, “Well, I wouldn’t mind taking a cup of something warm myself if there’s no objection.” Thereupon seising a coffee-, pot he poured out a full ration of that soothing army beverage, and, after helping himself, to some of the other dishes, proceeded to eat breakfast with an appetite which had evidently been stimulated by long hours of fasting. The general paid no more attention to this occurrence than he would have paid to the flight of a bird across his path. He scarcely looked at the intruder, did not utter a word, at the time and made no mention of it afterward. It-, was a..fair sample cf the imperturbability of..| his nature as to trivial matters taking place about him—General Horace ter in Century.