Books: The Bridegroom Got Drunk

THE TOM-WALKER (372 pp.)—Man Sandoz—Dial ($3).

People called Milt a tom-walker† because he lost a leg marching through Georgia with Sherman, and thereafter wore a peg strapped to the stump. One day in 1866, when he was barely 17, Milt swung himself off the steam cars at Cincinnati and hobbled off to see his family again and his best girl. Lucinda took one look at his peg leg and wept. But they were married anyhow, and after the ceremony the bridegroom got drunk, punched his best man in the teeth, and sang bawdy songs for the guests. "Oh, the vulgar, degrading army,"...

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