William F. Lee, a private in the Gist Guards, Company D of the Hampton Legion, wrote long after the war about one of the experineces of members of his company while stationed North of the James during the winter of 1864-65:

"..... It was after Christmas, in 1865; our Company was put on picket duty at Mechanicsville, some six miles north of Richmond. A Mr. Dayhart kept a sort of "blind tiger" bar room there, and some of the boys concluded to swap him some water for whiskey one night. I think it was Tick Boggs (we always called him Tick, his name was Thos. Kinney), Ben Boggs, Allen Glaze, and little Ben Crymes, and I think John Eaton was in it too. They went in and had Mr. Dayhart fill the canteen full of whiskey, pretending to buy it. After the canteen was filled it was passed unnoticed by the bar keeper to another man, and another canteen like it, full of water, was substituted for it. They then commenced to parley with him about the price. He said that it was worth $20 [each] for the three pints -- the price being $80 per quart. One said that he had $20 and another $10, and so on, but altogether they could only raise about fifty or sixty dollars, and they told him they were very sorry to put him to so much trouble, but they said, "You will have to take the liquor back as we can't pay for it," and handing him the canteen, he poured some of it in a decanter. Tick Boggs was afraid that he would see it was too clear for his whiskey, it being red; he picked up a candle and pretended to be "greasing his lips," for, said he, "my lips are chapped" to keep the bar keeper from seeing the deception.

Next morning Captain [William H.] Austin went down to get his morning dram. When he came back he said that old Dayhart had watered his whiskey "till it wasn't fit to drink." You see, he got his drink out of the decanter that Dayhart had poured the water in the night before. So the boys drawed out their canteen of whiskey and treated the Captain, telling him of the joke at the same time."

Source: William F. Lee, "Some Reminiscences of the War, and the Pranks Played by Some of the "Boys" of Company D, Hampton Legion," Anderson [S.C.] Intelligencer, 21 Nov 1894, p. 1, c. 6. Lee wrote this article under the name de plume "Squire Fewell." He wrote a number of articles and was an uncommonly accurate postwar reporter. A blind tiger was a name for an unlicensed bar room.