In the Field with General Joe and the Major

===

Lou had been working for farrier Sergeant, Charles F. Maddox for three days from before dawn to well after sunset. Maddox had eased up on her only because of darkness. Lou was dog-tired but she didn't let up. The farriers had been covered up doctoring and shoeing beaten up, tired out, and near broke down stock. They'd been bent over shoeing horse after horse. Every other mount needed cuts tended and some even needed stitches. Lou knew how to sew up cuts and she reeked of the foul salve they used on them. It was a blessing for these poor animals that North Alabama's corn and hay crop had been good that summer. Folks brought in wagonload after wagonload of animal and human provisions. The stock was beginning to look like they might just do for the next spell with the Yankees. The men looked like human beings, mostly. The expansive Jones plantation, Caladonia, near Courtland, Alabama had full food larders and the troops had shared in some real tasty food cooked up by accomplished black slave cooks. Sweet potatoes were Lou's favorite. Alex ate his weight in warm buttered corn bread. J. N. was fond of the rich thick spring chilled buttermilk.

===

Lou's deception had worked. Her look, manner, and toughness had not betrayed her gender. She didn't have to act. She just had to be herself and not be noticeable or talkative. Her moon time had not come yet and she was a little anxious about it but in the last two years that monthly event had not been much of a bother. Besides, Mama Bear knew her medicine. The pouch of herbs her grandmother had prepared was hung around her flat stomach, centered above her butt under her drawers.