ree miles an hour, which
seems so tardy, but which, persisted in day after day, traverses so
great a distance. Every hour there is ten or fifteen minutes' halt,
enabling the rear to close up, and the men to relieve themselves
temporarily of their guns and knapsacks. Soon the heat commences to grow
oppressive, the dust rises in suffocating clouds, knapsacks weigh like
lead, and the artillery horses pant as they drag the heavy guns. But the
steady tramp must be continued till about eleven o'clock, when a general
halt under the shelter of some cool woods, by the side of a stream, is
ordered. Two or three hours of welcome rest are here employed in dinner
and finishing the broken morning's nap. After the intenser heat of the
day is past, the tramp recommences, and continues till six or seven
o'clock, when the place appointed for encamping is reached. Soon white
tents cover every hill and plain and valley, the weary animals are
unharnessed, trees and fence rails disappear rapidly to feed the
consuming camp fires, there is a universal buzz formed from the laugh,
the song, the shout, and the talking of twenty thousand voices: it
gradually subsides, the fires grow dim, and silence and darkness fall
upon the scene.

Such marching, with its twenty, twenty-five, or thirty miles a day, is
light compared with the harassing fatigues of a retreat, before the
pursuit of a triumphant enemy. To accomplish this movement, so as to
save the organization and the material of an army, without too great a
loss of life, tests in the highest degree the skill of a commander and
the fortitude of the men. In a retreat, the usual order of marching is
reversed--the trains are sent in the advance, and the troops must remain
behind for their protection. Often it happens that they are obliged to
remain in line all day, to check by fighting the advance of the enemy,
and then continue their march by night. The dead and wounded must, to a
great extent, be left on the field; supplies are perhaps exhausted, with
no opportunity for replenishment; the merciless cannon of the enemy are
constantly thundering in the rear, his cavalry constantly making inroads
upon the flanks. Weary, hungry, exhausted, perhaps wounded, the soldier
must struggle along for days and nights, if he would avoid massacre or
consignment to the cruelties of a prison. The rout of a great army--the
disorganization and confusion of a retreat, even when well
conducted--the toil and suffering and