“No,” said I.

“I don’t understand you,” said he.

“Neither do I,” said I.

“What is your regiment?” he asked.

“Why do you ask such a question?”

“It is my duty.  I have to make a report of your case.  Give me an answer,” said he.

“I have no regiment,” I said.

“Try to remember.  Do you know that you have been unconscious?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you are better now; and you will soon be well, and I shall have to send you back to your regiment.”

“What do you mean by a regiment?” I asked.

At this he looked serious, and went away, but soon returned and gave me a bitter draught.

I went into a doze.  My mind wandered over many trifles.  I was neither asleep nor awake.  My nose and face itched.  But the pain in my head was less violent.

After a while I was fully awake.  The pain had returned.  The doctor was standing by me.

“Where do you live when you are at home?” he asked.

The question came with something like a shock.  I did not know how to reply.  And it seemed no less strange to know that thus far I had not thought of home, than to find that I did not know a home,

“Where is your home?” he repeated.

“I do not remember,” I said.

“Where were you yesterday?”

“I was at the hotel on the hill,” I said.

He laughed in a peculiar way.  Then he said, “You think you are in South
Carolina?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“Are you not one of Gregg’s men?”

“Mo,” said I.

“You don’t belong to Gregg’s regiment?”

“No,” said I.

“Nor to Gregg’s brigade?”

“Soldiers, you mean?”

“Yes,” he replied.

“Are there soldiers camped here?” I asked.

“Yes,” he replied.

“I am not one of them,” I said.

“Try to remember,” he said, and went away.

The more I tried to remember, the more confused I was, and the more did I suffer pain.  I could see now that what I had taken for a wagoners’ camp was a soldiers’ camp.  But why there should be soldiers here was too hard for me.  This doctor with gilt stripes must be a surgeon.

The doctor came again.

“How are you now, Jones?” he asked.

“Better, I trust,” said I.

“You will be fit for duty in less than a week,” he said.

“Fit for duty?”

“Yes.”

“What duty?”

“Do you mean to insist that you are not a soldier?”

“I am not a soldier,” I said.

“Then why do you wear a uniform?”

“I have never been a soldier; I have never worn uniform; you are taking me for another man.”

“You have on the uniform now,” said he.

He brought a coat and showed me the brass buttons on it.

“Your buttons are like mine—­palmetto buttons.”

“Palmetto buttons?” I repeated, wondering.